Tips September 11, 2026 6 min read

Blocking a Player: What It Does, and What It Doesn't

The settings article earlier today said blocking deserved its own piece and would get one. This is it, and the timing is not an accident: blocking was finished this afternoon. Until then it was a control the server half-understood and the game did not show you at all. Now it has a button in three places and a rule the server applies in both directions, so it can be described honestly.

Where the Control Is

Three places, and they all do the same thing.

The friends sidebarHover a friend and a small block icon appears next to the chat bubble. It asks you to confirm before anything happens

A player's profileA Block button next to Add Friend and Message. On someone you have already blocked it reads Unblock

An open conversationA block icon in the header of any direct message. The same icon unblocks

The listDashboard settings has a Blocked Players section with an Unblock button beside every name

The list is worth knowing about because it is the one place a block is visible after the fact. The sidebar drops the person from your friends the moment you block them, and if you later forget you did it, settings is where the answer lives.

What a Block Stops

Everything below is refused by the server, not merely hidden by the page, and it is refused in both directions. Blocking someone cuts them off from you and you off from them equally. That symmetry is deliberate; a block is a decision to end contact, not a one-way mute.

Direct messagesNew messages in any conversation, whether it already existed or not. Reactions to messages in that conversation too, and the typing indicator

Friend requestsNeither of you can send one. Any friendship or pending request between you is removed when the block is placed

Game challengesChess and Toe-Tac-Tic challenges are refused before they are recorded

Guild invitationsNobody can invite a player they have a block with, in either direction

New group chatsA group cannot be created with a blocked player in it, so a group is not a way around a block

One consequence follows from the friendship being removed rather than from the block itself: presence is friends-only, so a player you have blocked can no longer see whether you are online, and you cannot see them either.

What It Deliberately Does Not Do

It does not delete or hide the conversation. A thread that existed before the block stays exactly where it was, readable by both of you. Nothing new can be added to it, and the message box is replaced by a notice saying why, but the history is intact. If you would rather not see it, archive or delete it yourself with the controls that were already there; the block does not decide that for you. Keeping the thread also means a report against something said in it still has the thing it refers to.

It does not touch the market. Trade offers on your lots, bids and buyouts at the auction house, and purchases from a player's shop all continue regardless of blocks. Those are open-market actions, not messages, and refusing them would have punished the wrong thing: a fair sale is a fair sale whoever the buyer is. Blocking is a social control, and it stays one.

It does not reach into rooms you are both already in. A guild chat or a group you were both members of before the block carries on as before. A block is about direct contact, which is why creating a new group around a blocked player is refused while an existing shared room is left alone. Forums are public boards and are unaffected.

The blocked player is told

There is no silent failure here. A player who tries to message someone who has blocked them sees "This player has blocked you." A player who tries to message someone they blocked themselves sees "You blocked this player." The same is true for a friend request, a challenge or an invitation. An error that says "please try again" for something that will never work is a small lie, and the game does not need it: you have every right to know where you stand, and so do they.

Blocking Back, and Unblocking

Two players can block each other at the same time, and each block belongs to the person who placed it. That sounds obvious, but it took a fix: until today, blocking a player who had already blocked you quietly deleted their block, so a determined person could block you, unblock you, and be free to message again. Now your block is yours alone. Nothing the other player does removes it.

Unblocking removes the block and restores nothing. You are not friends again, no pending request comes back, and if the other player also blocked you, their block is still there. Unblocking returns you to being strangers, and re-adding someone is a deliberate act you take on purpose, not a side effect of changing your mind about a block.

The Short Version

Block fromFriends sidebar, a profile, or a conversation header

Unblock fromDashboard settings, the profile, or the conversation

Stops, both waysMessages, reactions, friend requests, Chess and Toe-Tac-Tic challenges, guild invitations, new group chats

Leaves aloneThe existing thread, trades, auctions, shops, forums, rooms you already share

The other playerIs told they are blocked, and told when they are the one who blocked

Why every line above says "the server"

The rule from the settings article applies here twice over. Nothing on this page is described as private or as stopping anyone unless the refusal was followed into the server and found there. Each entry in the two tables above is backed by a test that sets up the block, makes the attempt, and checks that nothing was written. A control that only the page enforces is not a control, and blocking is the one setting where that distinction matters most.

If someone is bothering you, block them, and report anything that needs reporting from the message itself. The reasoning behind why both of those work the way they do is in why messages here are not encrypted.