Balmung is NOT a lewd server

Balmung is a legacy server where roleplayers gathered before 2.0. For this reason, it became the unofficial RP server for the north america region. Some RP involves adult themes. Many people who have NOTHING AT ALL to do with roleplaying leapt on this and turned Uldah on blamung into a cesspool of filth and hatred.

I literally cannot even tell people to "stop shouting obscenities in chat, that's bannable" without getting mercilessly harassed, insulted, and attacked by multiple people with anyone else present either just cheering them on, ignoring it while they keep talking about other things, or being completely unaware of anything going on because the chat is so bad most people turn it off entirely when they show up.

None of this is OK. I've never asked any of you to do more than follow the rules you agreed to follow when you installed the game. I'm not even asking you to follow most of them. Whatever you do in private chats is between you and everyone else in that chat. But shout chat in a starter city? Seriously? Basic civility in a starter zone is too much to ask?

If your answer is yes, congratulations, you suck, get out. Not even my decision. Once again, that was something you agreed to do when you installed the game.

If that request sounds reasonable, join me in reporting every last person who refuses to follow even this most basic rule. It's time to kick reddit out of ffxiv and back onto reddit. This was never their game, and they do not belong here. The fact that they are refusing to follow the rules they agreed to, harassing anyone who asks them to, and still pretending they are somehow in the right, proves that point.

Counterarguments: Just blacklist them
Can't blacklist full. Been full a while. I've already been tossing gilsellers off my list to make room but people are only getting worse and more numerous.
Also, no, it's your responisbility to be a decent person, not mine to remove you from my game.

Counterargument: Just turn off shout chat
Then I miss out on every shouted hunt, fate, or private event that is being declared. Shout chat has a purpose, and sh!tposting isn't it.
Also, again, No. Once again, this is NOT my responsibility. I shouldn't have to bend over backwards to make it easier for you to be a crappy person.

So, any actual valid counterarguments? Anyone with a reason why we should let a handful of obnoxious people keep ruining the community here?

Karen Alert!!!

Just leave it alone, people wanna enjoy themselves I'm their own way and just because you take something as offensive dosnt mean others do. There's obviously a reason why people cheer on the ones who fire back at you when you shout out about XYZ being wrong or filth.. just ignore it an move on anything more and your just causing trouble for yourself.

A major complaint with this game people have is that it's so quiet and no one talks.. well it's posts like this with someone complaining about something that's shouldn't even be an issue.

Why are you in Uldah at lv80 btw? Shouldn't you be doing EW stuff? I barely spend any time in a starter town unless I'm tossing out GC items and then I'm gone again.

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Originally Posted by Baxcel

Karen Alert!!! (personal attack, not the best way to start a counterpoint.)

Just leave it alone, people wanna enjoy themselves I'm their own way and just because you take something as offensive dosnt mean others do.(doesn't mean no one else does either or that it isn't against the rules). There's obviously a reason why people cheer on the ones who fire back at you when you shout out about XYZ being wrong or filth.. just ignore it an move on anything more and your just causing trouble for yourself. (Your unwillingness to stand up for what is right because you find that personally convenient doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make me wrong for doing so.)

A major complaint with this game people have is that it's so quiet and no one talks.. well it's posts like this with someone complaining about something that's shouldn't even be an issue. (You're right, people shouting messages that are 50% obscenity shouldn't be an issue, but you don't seem to understand why.)

Why are you in Uldah at lv80 btw? Shouldn't you be doing EW stuff? I barely spend any time in a starter town unless I'm tossing out GC items and then I'm gone again.(that thing doesn't update often, I'm not on the forums often. I'm generally all classes capped by x.1, and was this time too.)

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I asked for valid arguments, thank you o.o

If you think reddit has anything to do with Balmung's reputation, I'll remind you said reputation precedes r/ffxiv's existence. The two have nothing to do with one another. A good majority of players you'll find in the Quicksand aren't ever going to post on reddit. It should also be noted, most of the roleplayers on Balmung aren't strictly into ERP. In fact, the largest Roleplay Discord server completely bans NSFW content entirely.

With all that being said, I doubt you're the first going on mass report waves in the same way people vehemently against parsers have continuously tried to mass report "barse" parties. It won't accomplish anything but a colossal waste of your time. My advice? Don't loiter around the Quicksand. It's had its reputation for nearly a decade now. You aren't going to change it.

I understand all of that. I've been around the quicksands for years. That's why I'm pointing out this is NOT what it used to be. People are worse. There's got to be a line. When they opened up server hopping, people jumped on what they thought was a bandwagon and just started acting obnoxious, rude, and stupid in shout chat at most times. Now that it's data center wide, it's no longer a manageable number of people for the community itself to deal with.
People have given up, clearly. Even worse, the trolls start to feel all homey once they find each other, they feed each other, and they transfer there so the pile gets bigger. If you really don't know how bad it is, both maps of uldah are now highly populated, because the roleplayers had to leave. They are now on the other map. Much of what remains on the steps of nald are trolls and tourists. That is not a good look for the server, or for the game, at all.

So yeah, we just ignore that? Who else is supposed to leave? How bad does it have to get before anyone is willing to /stop/ looking the other way? Clearly homophobia, transphobia, casual rape threats, and outright erp in public don't cross the line, that's just every day here anymore, so where is the line?

System -> Support Desk -> Report

That was the point I was making, yes. o.o;

As a follow up, I've also managed to add almost 30 people to my blacklist in a week and yet still more transphobes and the like keep popping up like mushrooms. It's kinda hard to keep up really. One day you log in and trans people aren't people, the next women aren't valid at all, trans or otherwise, and all the while you still have the same core group of people doing nothing but being rude to every last person they can see. I'm just surprised that a community that tends to talk so much about mental health has no concern for what this is doing to theirs.

Since, evidently, no one else cares or just thinks it's cool...I guess just keep being...cool?

I've been to balmung out of curiosity...It lasted all of 5 minutes before I went back to my server. To say its not a lewd server is to lie to yourself.

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Originally Posted by Yimiko

this is NOT my responsibility.

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Take your own words to heart, you are not these people's mother, so it is not your responsibility to babysit what they say in shout chat. You are honestly, wasting your time and mental health harping about this on the forums. You probably aren't the only one reporting people for what they say in shout chat. They just aren't taking it to the forums to try and rally a crusade, which also can be considered harassment in of itself.

However, YOU as a player, have no control over what others do. If someone breaks the ToS that is on them, and not you. And if they get banned so be it. The process is to submit a report with enough evidence that the GMs can investigate it. You aren't going to be able to control hundreds of other people and what they do. If they wanna sh*tpost, they will, whether you like it or not. Cause to them, you don't matter. You are just a name in chat. And that is the reality when you are playing a game with hundreds of thousands of players.

You are letting those people ruin the community for you. This is a you issue, there will always be bad apples in any social sphere, whether it is Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, or whatever. It doesn't make it okay, but that is what the report function is for. The GMs are the ones who decide whether or not a person has truly broken ToS and whether or not they should be punished. Your job is to report them and blacklist, if your blacklist is filled with gilsellers, then maybe you need to prioritize what bothers you more.

Pretty clear that GMs either have little power, or don't care to correct the situation. If it's not an issue to them there's not much to be done. Better to just move on. I've watched people no clipping around the world for weeks after reports and not have anything done. The GMs are the least responsive/helpful of any MMO I've played so it's not really a surprise that the community reflects that.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

I've been to balmung out of curiosity...It lasted all of 5 minutes before I went back to my server. To say its not a lewd server is to lie to yourself.

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Some of the creepiest comments I've seen being said openly in public chat channels on Balmung is coming from visitors from *other* servers, who have apparently decided that Balmung's unofficial status as an RP server makes it the perfect dumping ground for their freaky behavior.

In other words, a lot of that "lewdness" is coming over from your own communities. If you would not do this stuff on your own servers, then don't bring it to Balmung.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Some of the creepiest comments I've seen being said openly in public chat channels on Balmung is coming from visitors from *other* servers, who have apparently decided that Balmung's unofficial status as an RP server makes it the perfect dumping ground for their freaky behavior.

In other words, a lot of that "lewdness" is coming over from your own communities. If you would not do this stuff on your own servers, then don't bring it to Balmung.

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I don't believe that for a second lol.

Im a former wow player from an american server called moonguard that had much the same reputation thanks to an Inn near the alliance capital Stormwind called the lions pride. It had the same sort of problem im seeing around quick sands here on balmung. But were all the players lewd andinto Adult role play? Hell no. It had a very strong roleplaying community there and a lot of decent players on it. Ive seen the same ehre on Balmung. Its a good server with tastes for all kind of roleplay. Just as long as you keep the adult roleplay pm and behind closed doors lol

Gonna chime in with my own two gil here. I started this game in 2.0's beta. I joined this server at the launch of FFXIV. Ul'dah used to be a great place to find some starter RP. Sure it had a somewhat high number of people in it, but nothing on the levels it is now. Ever since SE activated world visits, everyone and their brother in our datacenter decided Balmung's Ul'dah was going to be their Moon Guard's Goldshire (This is a world of warcraft reference where the moon guard server was the server folks dedicated to ERP). And the situation has only gotten worse with cross datacenter visits. If SE turned off world visits for 1 day and sent everyone visiting Balmung back to their home server, Ul'dah would be a bloody ghost town. Even just walking through the crowds of people I can count on 1 hand, the amount of Balmung players amongst the lewd crowd.

I think it's disgusting that so many people associate RP with ERP. Worse yet, there's been a number of times when someone forgot to keep their chat in whispers, and some really graphical text got displayed to everyone nearby. Worse of all, I could be passing through and people will whisper me if I have mare. I am one of the few players, that respects Yoshi P and the developers of this game, and when they asked the community to not use mods, I agreed with their request. The only thing I use for graphical improvement to my game, is Nvidia's GeForce Experience filters, which is supported by SE. I do wish SE would do something to help clean up Ul'dah so that it is at least, child friendly. Not to mention they can easily bust a few mod users who like to hack the server to make their chars sit in places that do not have chair settings. Like the railings and a few times, I seen people behind the innkeeper's desk where they do not belong. And then you got all the RMT Bots patrolling the floor of the quicksand, advertising their illegal RMT stuff.

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Originally Posted by Yimiko

I literally cannot even tell people to "stop shouting obscenities in chat, that's bannable" without getting mercilessly harassed, insulted, and attacked by multiple people with anyone else present either just cheering them on

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With respect, this is a part of your problem. Telling strangers on the internet that something they're doing upsets you (especially while implying threats) does the opposite of solving the situation; it throws gasoline on the fire and makes you a target. And even people who otherwise support your cause will probably find it funny that you naively made a situation you already didn't like even worse. As they say, "don't feed the trolls". In short, you'll have a better time if you don't do this.

If you really want things to change, all you can do is report people.

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Originally Posted by Yimiko

Shout chat has a purpose, and sh!tposting isn't it.

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Again with respect, but this is just your opinion. There are no special rules as to what can or can't be in shout chat, so players are free to use it in whatever way they want. Obviously it's not great if folks are violating the ToS in chat, but sh!tposting is one of the main things people use shout for, and I personally think that's really great.

If all you're interested in is Hunts, Fates, and Events, I don't think you need shout chat for that. Just join one or two Hunt Linkshells, which will have the added benefit of making sure you get those alerts even when you aren't in a crowded city. And for private events, just check the Other tab in Party Finder, where you'll see far more events than you ever would in shout.

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Originally Posted by Yimiko

Also, again, No. Once again, this is NOT my responsibility. I shouldn't have to bend over backwards to make it easier for you to be a crappy person.

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I mean, you're right. You shouldn't have to change just because other people are being jerks. But it's also kind of your only option. If you choose to, you can continue to endure; that's not an invalid solution. But it's possible that you might be happier if you made some sort of change that filtered this problematic behavior out of your life; that might be worth some kind of sacrifice. Only you can decide for sure, but keep in mind that even though it's less than ideal, it's one of the only tangible solutions available to you.

Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking♪
When you fall, everyone stands♪
Another day, and you've had your fill of sinking♪
With the life held in your♪
Hands are shaking cold♪
These hands are meant to hold♪
Speak to me♪
When all you got to keep is strong♪
Move along, move along like I know you do♪
And even when your hope is gone♪
Move along, move along just to make it through♪
Move along♪
Move along♪
So a day when you've lost yourself completely♪
Could be a night when your life ends♪
Such a heart that will lead you to deceiving♪
All the pain held in your♪
Hands are shaking cold♪
Your hands are mine to hold♪
Speak to me♪
When all you got to keep is strong♪
Move along, move along like I know you do♪
And even when your hope is gone♪
Move along, move along just to make it through♪
Move along♪
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)♪
When everything is wrong, we move along♪
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)♪
When everything is wrong, we move along♪
Along, along, along♪
When all you got to keep is strong♪
Move along, move along like I know you do♪
And even when your hope is gone♪
Move along, move along just to make it through♪
When all you got to keep is strong♪
Move along, move along like I know you do♪
And even when your hope is gone♪
Move along, move along just to make it through♪
When all you got to keep is strong♪
Move along, move along like I know you do (Know you do)♪
And even when your hope is gone♪
Move along, move along just to make it through♪
Right back what is wrong♪
We move along♪
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)♪
Right back what is wrong♪
We move along♪
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)♪
Right back what is wrong♪
We move along♪
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)♪
Right back what is wrong♪
We move along♪