I was issued a warning no info given. Thought our party finder issues were resolved?

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Originally Posted by iVolke

You're comparing a government entity to a private corporation?

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Every private company I have worked for tells employees and customers why they are being issued a warning or punishment. Every single one. Why? It is the only way to correct the behavior that caused the issue.

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Originally Posted by RavenEbonclaw

GM Azilenmity, in short basically said: You messed up, not telling you why, get rekt.

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Prevents witch-hunting, sometimes the closest people to you are the ones to report.

Why don’t RP people just use fellowships? Can post stuff there about venues and 18+ and all that. Why does it have to be in PF?

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Originally Posted by technole

Prevents witch-hunting, sometimes the closest people to you are the ones to report.

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They can tell you want caused the infringement without telling you who. particularly when it comes to something like a PF listing.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Every private company I have worked for tells employees and customers why they are being issued a warning or punishment. Every single one. Why? It is the only way to correct the behavior that caused the issue.

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In addition, Square Enix shall be entitled to terminate any FFXIV Service Account (immediately and without notice) of any User who (1) was previously suspended or terminated by Square Enix and who Square Enix believes (in its sole discretion) re-registered using different registration information in order to circumvent or bypass such suspension or termination, or (2) Square Enix believes (in its sole discretion, based upon any information available, including registration and account information) that such User is enabling or assisting another User to conduct any Prohibited Activities of any kind.

They don't have to when they can just out right ban you if they want to. This is basically in every ToS for every MMO or online game TBH.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

They can tell you want caused the infringement without telling you who. particularly when it comes to something like a PF listing.

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they don't, they just say you did something in a vague manner. Like Twitch streamers like Xeno that got banned they don't even tell them which VOD it was, they just say they did something on-stream and to clean up their act. So the only way for a streamer to correct it is to delete all their VODs relating to FFXIV unless they go through each one for their behavior.

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

In addition, Square Enix shall be entitled to terminate any FFXIV Service Account (immediately and without notice) of any User who (1) was previously suspended or terminated by Square Enix and who Square Enix believes (in its sole discretion) re-registered using different registration information in order to circumvent or bypass such suspension or termination, or (2) Square Enix believes (in its sole discretion, based upon any information available, including registration and account information) that such User is enabling or assisting another User to conduct any Prohibited Activities of any kind.

They don't have to when they can just out right ban you if they want to. This is basically in every ToS for every MMO or online game TBH.

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And I know. ALmost every single ToS has that for anything. It almost never is used as companies tend to not want to just boot customers, thus point specific things that cause infractions to try and correct issues.

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Originally Posted by technole

they don't, they just say you did something in a vague manner. Like Twitch streamers like Xeno that got banned they don't even tell them which VOD it was, they just say they did something on-stream and to clean up their act. So the only way for a streamer to correct it is to delete all their VODs relating to FFXIV unless they go through each one for their behavior.

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I know they don't and that is the issue.

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

In addition, Square Enix shall be entitled to terminate any FFXIV Service Account (immediately and without notice) of any User who (1) was previously suspended or terminated by Square Enix and who Square Enix believes (in its sole discretion) re-registered using different registration information in order to circumvent or bypass such suspension or termination, or (2) Square Enix believes (in its sole discretion, based upon any information available, including registration and account information) that such User is enabling or assisting another User to conduct any Prohibited Activities of any kind.

They don't have to when they can just out right ban you if they want to. This is basically in every ToS for every MMO or online game TBH.

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It's CYA boilerplate. Sure they can but when they go to extremes like this it tends to chase off customers which is not healthy for one's bottom line.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

It's CYA boilerplate. Sure they can but when they go to extremes like this it tends to chase off customers which is not healthy for one's bottom line.

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They most likely wont chase customers away with keeping a more strict approach to what is not allowed.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

They most likely won't chase customers away with keeping a more strict approach to what is not allowed.

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Honestly, it will. People will not stay in a place or a game where the authority refuses to state what exactly was done, this is easily done without breaking any privacy policy. Nor will people stay because that anyone can report anyone for the tiniest slight, and that person then gets a warning or worse. This very efficiently mutes the rest of the population, disrupts good people's gameplay, and drives people away because they want to have fun in a game, (appropriate ofc) not be terrified to play the game in one of the ways it was intended. People *are* scared, and good people and players will leave and have.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Every private company I have worked for tells employees and customers why they are being issued a warning or punishment. Every single one. Why? It is the only way to correct the behavior that caused the issue.

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I'm not disagreeing that players should be told why they are banned. I'm just pointing out that your example is a poor one.

Imagine justifying oppressive punishment tactics just because theyre against a group of people you dont like.

Given the screenshots with GM conversations provided within this thread. They've stated that RP, ERP, GIL FOR ERP, are all OK, if kept within private chats. The venue advert did not have "18+ on it" the carrd "rules section" however does. Is FFXIV governing non FFXIV sites and links now? If so? Let's focus that on RMT and those with party finders up selling paid content instead of a group of people that aren't really HURTING the community. This entire discussion is revolving around a fear of reprimand and not being given any way, shape, or form of further preventing it, or correcting it.

It's about wanting OFFICIAL and formal clarity, and holding people to that accountability ACROSS the board as players, AND customer service representatives in an effort to dispute false claims, trolling, prosperity and cohesion across a community.

Im genuinely surprised anyone (aside from the obvious troll) is on the side of punishing people without telling them what they did

One common situation is that player A reports player B for something, GM punishes B, but telling B what caused the punishment would let B know it was A who did the reporting, hence to protect the "privacy" of A, the GM refuses to tell B the details of the infraction.

I've heard this happen in other games as well.

It's a dilemma. You can't expect someone who wants to comply in good faith to actually change anything if you don't say what is wrong, and you can't reveal someone who made the report in good faith. So when the situation only allows one and not the other, a GM probably has to choose to side with the reporter.

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Originally Posted by Cerver

Im genuinely surprised anyone (aside from the obvious troll) is on the side of punishing people without telling them what they did

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Some people lack the ability to understand how something can be a problem if they're not directly affected by it.

Some assume that if someone else is experiencing a problem then it's due to a character flaw in that person, and not because of unfair treatment.

And for some it's the lovely combo of both.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

One common situation is that player A reports player B for something, GM punishes B, but telling B what caused the punishment would let B know it was A who did the reporting, hence to protect the "privacy" of A, the GM refuses to tell B the details of the infraction.

I've heard this happen in other games as well.

It's a dilemma. You can't expect someone who wants to comply in good faith to actually change anything if you don't say what is wrong, and you can't reveal someone who made the report in good faith. So when the situation only allows one and not the other, a GM probably has to choose to side with the reporter.

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But then what if person B does the same thing again, and its again by a single player.

"Sorry your account is suspended, we cant tell you why though, come back when your punishment is up."

Another report.

"Youre permabanned, sorry. Next time dont do that thing we never told you about, and still wont."

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Originally Posted by Zfz

One common situation is that player A reports player B for something, GM punishes B, but telling B what caused the punishment would let B know it was A who did the reporting, hence to protect the "privacy" of A, the GM refuses to tell B the details of the infraction.

I've heard this happen in other games as well.

It's a dilemma. You can't expect someone who wants to comply in good faith to actually change anything if you don't say what is wrong, and you can't reveal someone who made the report in good faith. So when the situation only allows one and not the other, a GM probably has to choose to side with the reporter.

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This is called harrassment and is also against the ToS. With the strikes never going away, getting 2 strikes instead of one can be a pretty big deal.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

One common situation is that player A reports player B for something, GM punishes B, but telling B what caused the punishment would let B know it was A who did the reporting, hence to protect the "privacy" of A, the GM refuses to tell B the details of the infraction.

I've heard this happen in other games as well.

It's a dilemma. You can't expect someone who wants to comply in good faith to actually change anything if you don't say what is wrong, and you can't reveal someone who made the report in good faith. So when the situation only allows one and not the other, a GM probably has to choose to side with the reporter.

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Then if person B decides to harass person A over it, they can receive extremely heavy punishment in return. Heck, double down on it, skips steps if they actually do that, as it's clear they don't care at that point.

My first official warning (I have 2 hits, after 6 years of playing), I was told that I had broke "a rule" at some point. What rule? Who knew, I never got an email, and support desk wouldn't even display any details about the warning, just that I "had one." I remember I spent an entire month trying to ask gm's for any form of clarity, because if I know literally nothing of what I did wrong, how am I meant to correct it? And yes, I said a month, it took a month of tickets to actually get any information.

And what was my grave sin that they wouldn't give any details about because I might go after person A?

... I emoted too many times in Idylshire. A public space, with probably 20+ players easily in range of my /huh's. How, in the twelve, am I going to figure out who reported me there? And even if I could, what am I gonna do? Follow it up with being mean and get suspended, or even perma banned?

I feel the several posts who replied to me didn't read my comment in its entirety. I know and have expressed the exact same situations you people reply:

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You can't expect someone who wants to comply in good faith to actually change anything if you don't say what is wrong

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So erm, yeah? I said exactly that? I'm not defending the GMs. I'm just offering a possible reason why the GMs in question (or GMs in MMOs in general) may end up behaving like tyrranical power-hungry jerks. It could be that they are having a power trip, but it's not necessarily always that. And I know your frustrations. I'm agreeing. Not disagreeing.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

This is called harrassment and is also against the ToS. With the strikes never going away, getting 2 strikes instead of one can be a pretty big deal.

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The thing is, in this day of discord & social media, many people can easily harass players without ever doing it in-game and incite witch-hunts outside of the jurisdiction Square Enix controls (I've even seen cases of witch-hunts happen in discords against players for various reasons). It was the crux of a huge drama that happened to Arthars where his actions out of game caused targeted harassment & witch-hunting against a single player on the JP datacenter because all his fans knew who reported him, to the point Square made an exception to their 'no outside sources as evidence' clause just to temp ban him to quell the drama storm that occurred.

Zfz is correct in that its effectively impossible for the GMs to give information about why the report was brought forth outside of the ToS clause it violated and leave the person to speculate. Square quite clearly aims to promote people reporting bad behavior through giving reporters anonymity protection, so the system won't ever be changing, whether we like it or not.

Hence why some players simply don't speak outside of cliques/closeknit groups, or go speak in discord instead.

I just love how every time something RP related like this happens, there's always the "epic anti-ERP crusader xDDD" larping as a force of authority in the threads, yet they get BTFO every single time.
I think they are just gluttons for punishment or enjoy making a fool of themselves in front of people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

It's funny that people are pushing the cropped version of that chat log now as gospel. Pretty sure back when the whole thing was posted some time ago people were extremely skeptical of it. Especially given how easy it would apparently be to fabricate.

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It's funny that GMs only listen to the accusing side like it's gospel. Especially when the best evidence they're given is probably just as fabricated. They don't us the benefit of the doubt, so why should we give it to them?

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

It's funny that GMs only listen to the accusing side like it's gospel. Especially when the best evidence they're given is probably just as fabricated. They don't us the benefit of the doubt, so why should we give it to them?

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Controversial, smoking hot take, but I can see where you're going with this.

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Originally Posted by rance-sama

Controversial, smoking hot take, but I can see where you're going with this.

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I abhor double standards and the like with a fiery passion of several thousand suns. I've enjoyed playing the "mirror game" as I call it. Many people would know it as the golden rule from everyone's favorite( /sarcasm) book.

If the GMs wanna mistreat loyal veteran players and their supervisors don't wanna address it, then we're really the only ones who can address it.

Again to the forum mods: forward this post to the community reps. More higher up internal staff need to know and investigate many mishandlings by the GM team.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Square quite clearly aims to promote people reporting bad behavior through giving reporters anonymity protection, so the system won't ever be changing, whether we like it or not.

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The problem is that the issue that caused the report is also anonymous. If the behaviour doesn't stop because the player doesn't know what they did wrong, then that's not protecting anyone. It can even mean the person who reported it has to deal with the same issue again. It is beyond worrying and ludicrous that professionals in community management in SE cannot understand this.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Hence why some players simply don't speak outside of cliques/closeknit groups, or go speak in discord instead.

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I have to admit the more I find out about this, the more I'm glad that I tend to be the sort of person who just sticks with their buddies. I don't have to change anything about how I play to keep myself safe from an easily offended player landing me in a situation in which a GM is telling me off for some mystery crime, and somehow expects me to improve while keeping me in the dark.

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

It's funny that GMs only listen to the accusing side like it's gospel. Especially when the best evidence they're given is probably just as fabricated. They don't us the benefit of the doubt, so why should we give it to them?

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I was under the impression that before issuing a strike, a GM would verify the accusation using their access to the internal database chat logs (which are stored for at least a couple of days before being overwritten, since text is cheap to store.) This includes private conversations in tells, not just public chat channels.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

I was under the impression that before issuing a strike, a GM would verify the accusation using their access to the internal database chat logs (which are stored for at least a couple of days before being overwritten, since text is cheap to store.) This includes private conversations in tells, not just public chat channels.

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They're probably supposed to but how would we know if they do or don't? They say they can't even give any details about an offense being held against you after all.

With how hush and secretive they are I doubt they even do anything before pulling the accused aside. They see a report worth looking into and just steal the player from whatever they're doing to berate them.

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Originally Posted by Merrnryn

Honestly, it will. People will not stay in a place or a game where the authority refuses to state what exactly was done, this is easily done without breaking any privacy policy. Nor will people stay because that anyone can report anyone for the tiniest slight, and that person then gets a warning or worse. This very efficiently mutes the rest of the population, disrupts good people's gameplay, and drives people away because they want to have fun in a game, (appropriate ofc) not be terrified to play the game in one of the ways it was intended. People *are* scared, and good people and players will leave and have.

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It say clearly PARTYFINDER on it, and it clearly indicates it is a place to find groups at for content within the game, or recruitment for content, eg. static groups, what more do they need to tell the crowd?!? Someone made a complaint... yes it was a long run, but now the GM's and people behind the scene is viewing this, and as it is, if it is not relevant to the content the game provide, then it can easely be viewed as spam and flooding, both in one and both things is against the ToS and against the use of using Partyfinder as technically, it is causing some kind of obstruction to those that use partyfinder to what it is intended for.

People will keep playing, if not being able to use that feature is an issue, then I feel and think more like that it is more a problem with the player, playing the game vs the game itself.

There is fellowships as an option and I wonder why no one really engaged themself into the use of these instead, they are quite valueable and you can easy enough get a message out to those people who is a member of whatever fellowship, as long as you do not cross anything that would conflict with the ToS.

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Originally Posted by Merrnryn

Honestly, it will. People will not stay in a place or a game where the authority refuses to state what exactly was done, this is easily done without breaking any privacy policy. Nor will people stay because that anyone can report anyone for the tiniest slight, and that person then gets a warning or worse. This very efficiently mutes the rest of the population, disrupts good people's gameplay, and drives people away because they want to have fun in a game, (appropriate ofc) not be terrified to play the game in one of the ways it was intended. People *are* scared, and good people and players will leave and have.

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Here is the problem the people that this vague guideline impact happen to be in the minority at least in the minds of the general playerbase.Vast majority of players probably will never go above one strike.

People will leave but oddly enough the people that will leave most likely the general player base will be okay with leaving.

I'd say most people don't even actually get any strikes, but many have, and they didn't leave the game because of it. Game is actually growing at a steady rate. I just find it odd that I haven't seen this much fervor over ToS enforcement until RP started getting hit. People have gone on about it for years, and always would get shut down.

Yeah the RP community just has to adapt. I mean I could be wrong but highly doubt RP is going to be the thing that causes SE to change their policy.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

It say clearly PARTYFINDER on it, and it clearly indicates it is a place to find groups at for content within the game, or recruitment for content, eg. static groups, what more do they need to tell the crowd?!? Someone made a complaint... yes it was a long run, but now the GM's and people behind the scene is viewing this, and as it is, if it is not relevant to the content the game provide, then it can easely be viewed as spam and flooding, both in one and both things is against the ToS and against the use of using Partyfinder as technically, it is causing some kind of obstruction to those that use partyfinder to what it is intended for.

People will keep playing, if not being able to use that feature is an issue, then I feel and think more like that it is more a problem with the player, playing the game vs the game itself.

There is fellowships as an option and I wonder why no one really engaged themself into the use of these instead, they are quite valueable and you can easy enough get a message out to those people who is a member of whatever fellowship, as long as you do not cross anything that would conflict with the ToS.

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As long as people don't break the ToS doing so, they can use the PF for anything they want, this is the clarification the community reps gave. Granted spam would count as breaking the ToS.

But from a roleplay perspective looking at the tools in game for looking for RP or for people to join RP, I see it as thus:

Fellowship Finder - a set of tools (which need improving) that can be used to form communities around certain themes or find groups of people who maybe interested in getting involved in RP. Just as it can be a useful tool for people to find statics, groups that focus on certain types of content or communities with certain demographics in mind and so on.
Party Finder - useful if you're running an RP right now or about to start running one. It's useful to bring more people in something public you're running or you might be somebody opening it up to see what open RP's could be going down. This wouldn't be spam because you're gathering people to join for a type of content.

For people who're spamming Party Finder with adds, like "Come to our Bar Thursdays at Mist Ward X Plot Y at 9pm EST" that they keep putting up even when it isn't starting or started, then yeah, I think that's ill use of the Party Finder.

Perhaps we do need some clarification or policy changes in regards to RP. That said, I think Fellowship Finder, Shout channel, Reddit and/or Discord-based advertising of the "venue", is more than enough. I do feel PARTY FINDER is not the best place for it and muddles up the party finder with excessive amounts of unnecessary advertising that aren't actually helping people find parties for IN-GAME content. Which kind of goes against its intended purpose.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

For people who're spamming Party Finder with adds, like "Come to our Bar Thursdays at Mist Ward X Plot Y at 9pm EST" that they keep putting up even when it isn't starting or started, then yeah, I think that's ill use of the Party Finder.

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Just to back up your point on ill use, on the main page of my Party Finder right now, there are 4 ads up for events with start times ranging from tonight to Friday.

An easy solution to unwanted advertisements would be to change the requirements for joining.
Right now you can set a minimum ilvl of 999. Just make it the max of whatever is currently available. That way the power is in the players to be able to join and leave an existing PF to shut it down.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

An easy solution to unwanted advertisements would be to change the requirements for joining.
Right now you can set a minimum ilvl of 999. Just make it the max of whatever is currently available. That way the power is in the players to be able to join and leave an existing PF to shut it down.

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That would open the window for potential griefing/trolling though, deserved and undeserved. So basically, trading one can of worms for another can of worms.

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Originally Posted by RavenEbonclaw

Saturday night, I had a RP venue listing up in PF. Zero profanity was worded within it. I get pulled into GM jail and am issued a warning. The GM blatantly refuses to tell me WHY i am pulled into GM jail due to "privacy policy", I've submitted a petition to the warning given and not been given any correspondence. No profanity was said to any characters around me, or by me prior that night. I'm at an absolute loss as to why this happened other than the fact that it's related to our party finder issue.

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And people bullied me on here, insisting that I must have said something that actually broke the rules. Kettle wanted it's pot back I guess.