Grizzly

I disagree with this. I'm of the opinion that it would limit gameplay to a portion of the population who may not necessarily want to focus on a combat aspect and would rather simply work on their gathering and crafting professions. As it stands now some resources are much more easily obtained in certain areas where the zone is level locked. If the player who would rather work on their professions can acquire a group summon into the area then that in itself should mean they have acknowledged any risks in doing so. More power to them and the person who group summoned them in. 

As to the OP's post in regards to the botting issue brought up, bots will always be an issue regardless of removing current group summon ability or not. Penalizing a player for taking the initiative to get into a zone that is level locked so they can gather materials they otherwise would have a much harder time obtaining without the required level because it may allow for botting is silly to me. Quarantining areas with level locks is something I find rather disheartening in the first place mainly because it limits the ability to actually play the game from a profession angle without being forced to go and level up in combat which may not be an enjoyable activity for certain types of players. Not to mention if i walk into a zone I'm not prepared for it should be my head quite literally, not the responsibility of a level lock system.

On a broader aspect of group summons, I have group summoned a few friends around with me to new content they haven't seen before merely because I wanted to hang out with them and they wanted to take a peek at something they would be doing ten levels from their current content at the time. There were pros and cons to it but nothing that would negatively impact anyones game experience in any way other than that you may not want to see a level 25 or two tagging along with me in a party while I'm running around in a level 35+ area. These are a few of my reasons as to why I think restricting group summons is a horrible idea. Feel free to refute me or bring up any flaws you may see with any of the things I have just mentioned and I will happily reply when I check the forums next.

Edit: That title typo...

 

With the introduction to multiple servers I think it would be good to add a cross-server messaging system so we can talk to friends on other servers.

 

Some suggestions for the friends list:

 

- Display a friends world

- Display online, offline or busy (player set's to busy)

- Display what area the player is in

- Display the players level

 

- Have the option to "Hide yourself" so you can appear offline

- Have the option to hide your level, area, or world.

 

- Have the option to display no statistics to players if they're not added on your friends list, including if you're online or offline. (So basically a confirmation of a friends request, but without the message spam).

A cross server messaging system is a must have feature. There is nothing worse than wanting to play with your buddies but you are on different servers meaning you have to take extra time consuming steps to get in touch with them, it is just a hassle.

And I would like to note that  I really like the idea of a confirmation so that both parties must be friended to reveal online/offline information.