- Delete your character
- Recover your character
This has been like this since..well forever. It's not really an exploit since there's no reason for it not to work (why log a character that doesn't exist?).
However, it doesn't quite work how you described. When you add a character to your friend/ignore list, you aren't saving a 'character ID.' You literally save a String of their character name which is then indexed as if you /who'd them and then displayed in your Social pane. There is no ID associated with this. The reason this trick works is that when the game tries to look up the String (happens at login), they will see that the character doesn't exist and thus remove them. Here's some pictures to demonstrate:
If you were to try adding a character to your friends list, the game prompts you for their name, and if it detects a String which does not contain a # or @ symbol (as it recognizes these as BattleTags and RealID, respectively) it will index the character database for the character you added ("Character") on your server in the syntax Character-Server-Faction (in this case Nowexists-Darkspear-H).
If that character isn't found anywhere in the database, it will return an error message.
You'll notice though that if you create a new character (or if your character had just been restored) that they won't be shown as being in any particular zone. This is because the in-game data for that character hasn't actually been created yet.
However at this point the character does exist in the database and you can successfully add them to your friends list.
You'll notice when they first login that their level will be shown as 0 (including if the character had just faction transferred or done anything else that forced a 'refresh' of their character).
The game takes a short amount of time then successfully reads in their data and displays it on your friends list.
This is typically that point at which you would be with anyone that you have added as a friend. However, if they were to delete their character, you would still see their character name on your friends list.
This is because while you are actively playing, your social pane does not check whether or not your friend exists, only if they are online at the time. If you were to logout and log back in, you would receive the system message Friend removed because character no longer exists because on login the game reads in your friends list data all over again (which is why with high latency your friends list may appear blank for a prolonged period of time. This actually creates three different timelines:
1) You delete your character
2) Friend/ignorer logs into their character
3) You restore your character
You will no longer be on their friend/ignore list.
1) Friend/ignorer logs into their character
2) You delete your character (while they are still online)
3) You restore your character (while they are still online)
You will no longer be on their friend/ignore list.
1) You delete your character
2) You restore your character
3) Friend/ignorer logs into their character
You will still be on their friend/ignore list.
Hope this helped clarified things for you.
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