Can you hold my hand and guide me, slowly, through traffic, while explaining to me in thoroughly meticulous detail why I'm a good little sprout pwease?
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Internet is rife with porn surrounding characters from franchises that are aimed at children. This isn't a new thing and FFXIV isn't a unique example, and that's without delving into porn commissions which were a thing way before any type of custom mod. I'm not saying people shouldn't be responsible, because they should, and whether or not it involves a child but especially so, (mmorpgs, ffxiv specifically, have an overwhelming adult playerbase, fortunately) you should not be exposing people to unsolicited NSFW materials, period. Unfortunately, this often falls flat, because the vast majority of FFXIV affiliated Discords are either 18/21+, and usually have at least one NSFW channel. Safeguarding, particularly where minors are concerned, has to be a constant, rigorous process and a combination of player responsibility, parental supervision and proper moderation enforcement.
Beyond players being banned in-game for freely hosting or advertising such content, I don't imagine things will escalate beyond that. And if Square Enix moderation actually cracked down more frequently on Third Party Mods, then it would follow that players would be more discreet concerning Third Party Mods. If anything, the ambivalent attitude towards 99% of Mods or how they're shared (still extremely possible btw) reinforces the idea that they can't feasibly moderate them effectively.
Syncshells we're a great idea in theory, but pretty poor in practice when you consider that people cannot and will not keep their mouths shut. The convenience, and ease of access, while great in execution, bred a very lackadaisical mentality surrounding not just this particular Mod, but Mods in general.
Personally, I don't care about people circumventing a cash shop that I highly dislike. And I value the achievement of doing something versus getting a shiny participation sticker for it. If you want more subs, make the game better. If you adopt a complacent attitude towards development, players are going to adopt a complacent attitude about opening their wallets.
And one of the largest ironies, is that the fans of the playground variant of the mod is still, allegedly, available and being used to this day. Hmm...
You mean the Loporrit-Sync Server? It was mentioned in the Interview with the Mare creator and that it is not adviced to use it.
You can also easily find information about this online. But I assume they don't (yet) have an official address to which they could send a cease-and-desist order? I'm not sure.
It could also simply be that they've chosen Mare because of its widespread popularity and are now observing the reactions. We'll see.
Well, given how Mare had 270k users, I'd be more surprised if all of the users would have managed to stay silent.
At those numbers, even 1% acting like rulers of the universe would be large enough number to cause noticeable disruption in the Aether.
I know I certainly came to regret buying anything out of the mogstation when I realized the Warden's Set cut off my tail.
"Should have read the fine print" doesn't change the fact that glamour has gotten so bad that it routinely removes my racial features, and any items that do this are not worth obtaining in-game or buying.
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It's worse than that, if Sqaure-Enix is caving to censorship so readily, it won't be long before their own in-game content becomes subject of outrage. If people were to start spamming the 2B pants and Beeknees all over social media instead of modded stuff, how long until the nannies come back complaining about that too?Quote:
Lastly the censorship getting stricter would make sense if this changed anything at all... like no this will not prevent that sort of stuff.
Square-Enix didn't get the prudes off their back, they flung the door wide open for them to come after something else.
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https://glamours.eorzeacollection.co...1668496855.png
https://glamours.eorzeacollection.co...1668496855.png
https://i.imgur.com/mOsPFa3.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/x35gPHn.jpeg
You're right, absolutely no child should be playing this smutty game filled with half-naked catgirls ...these are all in-game and not-modded items by the way. So if we're really going to play puritan police here, the game ITS SELF is going to draw unwanted attention over censorship without even needing Mare to do any damage.
I don't think people here are understanding that Square-Enix has now set a precedent, and a lot more stuff, both mods and in-game, will need to be purged to abide by this new standard of "child friendly".
If I would be a dev for the game, e.g. design armor sets, for difficult content or $ - then patch day and everybody wears it next day, makes me feel like... am I really the dev? or somebody outside the company making the decisions over my work? It is a lot of power such a popular mod can have, deciding what players are effectively doing with their time. Is it a MMORPG or a second life simulator disco umbrella game?
Like be happy, we don't have kernel anti cheat spyware. They already let you do what you want. Compare that to WoW
I don't think its just UK btw, it is multiple countries. AI is killing the internet as we know it, and there is an urge to getting control over it right now with more identification and surveillance systems etc. to counter it. All in the name of protecting children, while leading IT security professionals are telling you that it is a pile of ineffective bs, restricting your privacy and security rights. You can probably look up "chat control" yourself in EU, as its being debated this year. A backdoor to everything you say online. Can't wait till some ffxiv player gets police visit for his lalafell nsfw pictures that got automatically flagged by AI, as false positive...What will this say about SE?
EU has a Pegi16 age rating. I think in USA and elsewhere its 13+. I think it should be 16+, I saw too much questionable predatory stuff in partyfinder. Idk if FFXIV likes to get into the news as Roblox did recently. They need to avert damage now proactively, or they face damage to their reputation as company in the future.
Most people throwing spite or Schadenfreude at the Mare shutdown do not seem to understand or conveniently ignore how the RP community works.It's about characters, mostly everyday peiople of all walks of life, living their life on this star. Of course there are people who like to engage in light RP, or just try to hook up, but most of the time they adhere to the etiquette..
In my entire time in the community people mostly use mods to tweak their characters. Certain body mods are needed to give your character tatoos or piercings or give them more defined muscles, though the latter can be done without.
Plus to see all of that you had to be be SYNCED. You had to WILLINGLY subjact yourself to see this.
Also sex is normal part of life and usually part of the character arc.
Never have I encountered a character that is younger than 18, and most seem to understand the implications and deal with dark content respectfully. Most of that content is also confined to party chat and within the RP community.
Alos IC =/= OOC.
Yoshi-P's explanation is so patient, tolerant and clear. At this stage, whoever's still complaining just wants something to complain about.
Let's not mention how ARR expansion has so many NFSW stuff that is divided into quests, NPC text speech, funny dialogs, golden sauce,etc.
I don't mind it. I think this is great but some people will find this "horrible". I also wonder where is that guy that said that mare is bad for children but ARR quests with porn references isn't?
I mean I don't care all too much about that I think these new laws are dumb themselves, my point was that taking down that tool doesn't really change anything surrounding that sort of thing from happening (I think the example was like images on social media? frankly your still going to see that).
I can understand why they'd not want those sort of things being accessible due to stricter regulations around the world but this doesn't do a lot to even prevent that in the first place was my main issue (not the morality of it nor my personal beliefs).
Someone posted porn right above the blog post:
https://files.catbox.moe/54n75h.jpeg
I'm sorry, but you're being deliberately obtuse here. 18+ conent and outfits showing skin aren't the same thing. The laws referred to in the statement are explicitly going for the former and not the latter. As I've stated before, unless you want Square to start restricting access to FF14 in certain states, countries, etc they have to crack down if it's becoming "known" that their game is being used to distribute 18+ material without age checks being implemented, even if it's exclusively on the side of modders.
The game is rated 12+ in my country. And we still distinguish between bikinis, sexually explicit references, and nudity.
And while I've seen some questionable examples (like the dungeon with the pirates), those dialogues have long since been changed in my version of the game or weren't there to begin with.
Also, the outfits posted previously are skimpy, but the context of their use is important. While I think some people might consider this a step too far and call for censorship, it's still extremely harmless compared to what many modders use.
And being in Mare/Syncshells is definitely much more harmful and explicit, and has also led to more mod use and abuse. Even the Mare creator said that public syncshells were a mistake and that he's lost some faith in humanity after all the things he's seen.
Also... regarding "I've never met a character under 18."
You mean you've never met a minor in the game?
Or that all RP players simply state that their character is 18, even if they use the appearance of a Miqote kitten in combination with sexual acts?
And yes, that's a thing. And when it comes to allowing all mods or no mods, it's crystal clear what the right choice is.
But as always... S.E. is taking careful steps... for better or worse.
Tbh the internet should not censor itself because the EU decided what we could and could not see online maybe they should go the china route and wall their citizens off from the rest of the net so they don't have to worry about their kids (that are being abducted by groomer gangs) seeing boobas online.
People have made pron of mine craft so if you search for that you would also be put off from minecraft, street fighter, pokemon anything if it is on the internet there is unsavory content of it.
the internet is not and never has been a safe place for children, parents should be keenly aware of what their kids are looking at and be ready to protect them at all times the gov should have no place in that because it often does not work. xD
here in america the ESRB raiting for XIV is T for teen IIrc and like all ESRB ratings online interactions are not monitored square is not responsible for the content online best they could do is ban the people actively advertising and airing out bad behavior in he game's public areas. the common sense route.
you would make a good parent if you see pron in the game; easy don't let them play the game, doubly so if you do not plan to monitor them while they play.
Have your children play single player games or games without a means of communication try bopl battle that is a good game for children. :3
So I am not the only one who thought that sounded questionable xD
When you are in that way of thinking that certain roleplayers have, that they do not consider the real age important, but the age of the 'character'...yes, red flag.
Pushed forward as some kind of excuse as if it is suddenly okay to do because you have mod 'consent', boy - you are walking on thin ice. Borderline gaslighting fantasy with reality.
Already this luring sh!t with "come get free 1million gil as prize to our 18+ event" or pfs like "are you alone and need to talk to someone?? what is your favorite color? lets chat" during summer vacation, early hours, when parents are working obviously - just ban and report this... those guys know exactly what they are doing. Let a GM check their dm.
Sorry for the people who are honest and genuine with it, but obviously this is being used by persons who want to have plausible deniability when attracting minors.
Wonder why no RP category in the partyfinder exists, would force people to use that instead of posting it in shout (sometimes paid by RMT gil) or under "Other".
Would also be cool to have a big global chat channel next to novice chat, to also include people that are not mentor or sprout. I thought fellowships were intended for that. Like why were they left like this and not upgraded with a chat? Everyone wants a fellowship chat...and not just a board/blog.
Hyped, released, abandoned. A reoccurring pattern.
yeah no point fighting them they did it with over watch, they did it with tellie tubbies, yugioh, pokemon and hell these people have done it to inanimate objects even truck-kun isn't safe!!! btw that's prolly an sfm animation so it is not even in the game from the preview's look of it :V
It keeps coming up again and again how modders didn't understand that Mare was using the same type of ID tracking that the maligned stalker plug-ins were using.
Just because you consent to openly sharing your IDs doesn't make it magically safe. It's still a cyber security nightmare whether it was Mare or the the actual freaks that made the stalker mod using it.
And players made it abundantly clear that a mod that tracks player IDs was an absolute no. SE agreed! Now they're cracking down on mods, plug-ins, and other tools that track account and player IDs.
I do not live in the US and every single RPer I know is at least in their 20s. And I never said anything about ERP with them.
None of them have dubious characters.
You're trying to paint me as dubious.
Things run differently in the EU servers.
It doesn't matter anyway, because even if one of the characters I interacted with in casual RP in some venue was a minor, my previous character was married to another character for the past 2 years (3 in December, but we started '22), and we were very active. Plus for the longest time most RP was within the FC I was part of. We retired our characters just recently and dissolved the bond.
Except those laws WON'T stop at the former and WILL go after the latter in due time, just like how they weren't content to go after only specific types of fictional porn but instead kept widening the net on which fetishes were acceptable targets. It went from loli/shota bans to furry/monster girl within weeks on some websites.
Do you really think the nannies are only going to take an inch and not a mile after you gave them as many inches as they asked for? You're even playing right into their own rulebook by using the old "oh won't somebody please think of the children" card. And it's not that I WANT censorship, but rather censorship is inevitable if the only criteria to get something removed is that some pearl-clutching prude thought it was icky (and trust me, they think a LOT of things are icky).
Hell, the Reddit post showing off those first two pictures? It's BLOCKED for some UK posters, so in some places the law HAS ALREADY started coming for the latter, because in their eyes, these glamour pieces are equally bad as actual porn because prudence does not make exceptions with regards to indecency. One of you even admitted that their version of the game is censored already, and you can bet the Chinese client will be getting scrubbed too of certain items and text, or even locations. (It wasn't long ago that I finally reached Eulmore with an area set aside for literal stripper poles and dancers)
By all accounts if Mare is bad, then the things I'm walking around in right now will be deemed so as well, or should be banned already if Square-Enix upheld any sense of consistency with their ToS or their compliance with laws in other countries, or how they've got a MUCH longer list of mods to C&D if they're trying to stop people from making themselves look or do NSFW things in-game.
My problem will always be the self-righteous hypocrisy of it all, that I can sensually dance around half-naked anywhere but that's somehow "totally appropriate for 12 year olds" to not only see BUT DO THEMSELVES using the same things, but this one mod, which doesn't even include any actual NSFW content but simply allowed people to share those mods was somehow "too far". I bloody refuse to act like "rules for thee not for me" by pretending like what I'm doing is perfectly fine relative to what they did based on the reasons given for Mare's banning, and by all accounts I'm equally guilty of inappropriateness and "forcing" others to see it without needing to resort to mods at all.
The law in Japan is pretty clear about it my duder.
It is illegal to modify (mod) a video game and present it publicly, as it advertises a product that does not exist.
Yoshida has said multiple times. "Do not mention Fight Club and we won't notice it happening." If you need this to be any more simple, you need professional help and I am not paid to provide this so it will not be from me.
Greetings, everyone!
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback and experiences. As this topic appears to have been fully discussed, we will be closing this thread at this time.
If you would like to view more about our approach to mod usage, you may do so here:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5eb456d2183251
Thank you for your understanding and I wish you all the best in your adventures!
aLGM Mouriveha