Regarding the Revision of the Prohibited Activities and Account Penalty Policy

[LunaProtege]

Trying to change the rules to avoid conflict is something I cannot agree with. Some would say the goal of having no conflict is desirable, and that the methods are what is wrong; and I disagree, attempting to remove conflict is abhorrent in itself.

At its worst its a symptom of a deeper problem; that some people are fundamentally incompatible with each other's company, through a combination of temperaments and worldviews. Trying to keep them from expressing this in any form just leads to passive aggression, which leads to a long period of frustration rather than going their separate ways as soon as possible; and chances are, it will still end like that, just that the lack of overt conflict has delayed it so long that its gotten in the way of fun for up to YEARS.

Conflict on a more constructive level can bring two closer together. Rivalry is the archetypal form of this, and when tapped for a united purpose, the two push each other to do harder, and become closer just by knowing that they've made each other better. There's also an odd psychological quirk (specifically in men and boys) where if they get into a fight with each other, and make up afterwards, they become closer than before. Not to mention, much of how people bond is by pushing their boundaries, finding out if you're close enough that they can do certain things they won't let others do with them; it helps both people open up. True friendships are formed this way.

We have to accept that, as people try to become closer, they will inevitably come into conflict; either by not knowing the other person well enough, or finding that they're incompatible. And in many case, they will only find these two factors because they came into conflict. People walk blindly into relationships; everyone is different, so anything you assumed would work for one person is likely to make another person hate you with a passion. I'm not sure that putting bear traps in a dark room to punish people for a misstep is really going to be all that productive; there's way too many socially awkward people who have no idea what they're doing who are far too likely to get stung by this.

Both the block button, and possibility of just agreeing to go their separate ways were fit for purpose for preventing the kind of behaviour SE hopes to curb with the new policy. Booting people who the people they have offended have already stopped listening to them is saying that because they have caused a negative experience, they have no place to even ATTEMPT to make amends; not because they've been ostracised, but because they've been executed.

I reject the premise that people should be banned for bad SOCIAL behaviour that many of the people defending the new policy hold. Social behaviour needs to be dealt with by the community, not the "state" or the game masters. What game masters need to be concerned about is if people are cheating, that the game is broken for someone, and other things of a primarily mechanical nature.

[Kaedan]

I reject the premise that people should be banned for bad SOCIAL behaviour that many of the people defending the new policy hold. Social behaviour needs to be dealt with by the community, not the "state" or the game masters. What game masters need to be concerned about is if people are cheating, that the game is broken for someone, and other things of a primarily mechanical nature.

That is possible in RL because there are consequences for bad social behavior.

It's not possible for the community to deal with bad social behavior in an online environment, because there are no consequences and nothing can be enforced by the community. Thus the only option in an online environment is for the controllers of that environment to step in and take action if there are bad social behavior issues.

[LunaProtege]

That is possible in RL because there are consequences for bad social behavior.

It's not possible for the community to deal with bad social behavior in an online environment, because there are no consequences and nothing can be enforced by the community. Thus the only option in an online environment is for the controllers of that environment to step in and take action if there are bad social behavior issues.

There is a way for the community to police itself in the online environment; for one, the block button, that's a tool placed into the hands of the players, with that you effectively remove that player's influence from your play. Things may be different in a game like Rust where its full loot PvP; but that can be policed just by joining together to fight in PvP against them. And that kind of play is the appeal of such games.

They can also spread the reputation of certain players, so that anybody that doesn't want to associate with that behaviour can give them a wide berth, and those that do can take a beeline to them. Even the worst case scenario of people clearing out the company chests, can be made impossible without active interference from GMs just by denying them access to the chest; either never give them permission, or if they aren't in the FC after, spread their reputation so that nobody will ever let them have access to their company chest. The company chest isn't even a social behaviour issue so much as a theft issue, and yet you can still police it yourself.

Social ostracization is the ONLY appropriate punishment for bad social behaviour; and social ostracization is something you can do in ANY social environment, and its actually EASIER to do in an online environment than in real life.

What other punishment are you going to suggest? Forced blacklisting? That people aren't allowed to decide for themselves if they want to associate with someone or not?

[Tiraelina]

http://support.na.square-enix.com/ru...2&tag=users_en
Show me the point in which it says a player could be banned or warned for the stuff i have wrote above, because im probably blind.
There is a profanity thing, and the Disruption point, and about harassing which are not the same things.

SQUARE ENIX MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE FFXIV SERVICE ACCOUNTS, CHARACTERS, VIRTUAL GOODS, OR THE SERVICE ALTOGETHER, AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY TO YOU.

You will find this language in almost every online service. They don't get abused for good reason.

GMs will run how Square Enix told them to. And we don't know how harsh Square Enix wants to be in order to impose a "friendly environment".

What you refer to are legal terms.
An active enforced policy -the thing this thread is about- is not that.

Terms that are referenced by name in what everyone is losing their mind over. These rules are not for disagreements and criticism that isn't coated in profanity and abuse.

[Fyce]

-Snip-

While I do agree on the principle, there are bigger repercussions to take into account here. It doesn't just affect two individuals having a dispute. It impacts the community as a whole. And if able to run free, it will deteriorate. Simply because of anonymity and the lack of actual consequences. Negative behaviors tends to win under the circumstances that allow them to grow.

In your last paragraph, you suggest some kind of anarchy where Square Enix shouldn't control anything regarding social interactions. Unfortunatly, in a lot of instances where no social control is present, especially in video games where anonymity is provided, it very often lead to what some people would call a "toxic wasteland". Even when appropriate tools are provided for the community to deal with it (without being able to abuse these tools). This kind of anarchy is objectively not desirable as it negatively impacts a majority of people who do not want to see or experience this rampant toxicity. (It's also not desirable for Square Enix themselves on a business side.)
You know what would happen without any social control: pure chaos where the best course of action is actually to turn off all kind of communication. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to play without being insulted or trolled all the time. And even if you were able to endure it, most people wouldn't and it would escalates to the point where playing with random people would be the worst experience ever.

In short, letting negative behaviors run free of consequences is generaly a very bad idea in this context. And no, the "blocking" feature would definitly not be enough. What you'd need is a whitelist, not a blacklist. And a whitelist that filters absolutly everything without exception.

You will find this language in almost every online service. They don't get abused for good reason.

Terms that are referenced by name in what everyone is losing their mind over. These rules are not for disagreements and criticism that isn't coated in profanity and abuse.

I already made a post about that, but I will repeat myself for the sake of it.

What you quoted are legal terms. They are different from an actively enforced policy. Everyone knows that.
Of course Square Enix doesn't tell their GM "you can ban whoever you want whenever you want for no reason, it's in our ToS". But that doesn't prevent them from enforcing a strict active policy. Which is why a lot of people in this thread aere asking Square Enix to clarify how strict their policy actually is in order to know exactly what's off-limits and what's not so we can compel to it.

In short, saying "they don't abuse their ToS to ban everyone on a whim, so they won't enforce their new policy" cannot be more wrong. They can do both: not abuse their ToS, but have a strict policy.


Edit: as I won't make another post just for that:

It looks like you have a lot of opinions, and I'm not about to debate about every single one of them. Just think about this: Why on earth would you ever want to turn a video game into something resembling reality?

You probably misunderstood me, because I never said nor implied that a video game should be turned into something resembling reality.

[Freyt]

In your last paragraph, you suggest some kind of anarchy where Square Enix shouldn't control anything regarding social interactions. Unfortunatly, in a lot of instances where no social control is present, especially in video games where anonymity is provided, it very often lead to what some people would call a "toxic wasteland".

It looks like you have a lot of opinions, and I'm not about to debate about every single one of them. Just think about this: Why on earth would you ever want to turn a video game into something resembling reality?

[LunaProtege]

-snip-

I want to point out, what we have in games like FFXIV isn't true anonymity; its Psudonymity, you have an alias, but the reputation of that alias is still a very important thing to manage in the game. If you've ruined that alias's reputation, it becomes costly to undertake any possible action of clearing it; a literal cost in some cases, as changing name and switching to another server can run you up $40. Starting a new character from scratch can take months.

I'm not sure exactly how people are dismissing social ostracization as not being a consequence. Being unable to join raids because nobody will give you the time of day is a consequence. People kicking you from dungeons the moment they see your name is a consequence. Not being able to play the game outside of solo content because everyone on the server has blacklisted you is a consequence.

I will admit that the "Toxic Wasteland" scenario happens more often than it really should. But let's be honest, how often has this been the result of all the people who avoid such behaviours leaving the game rather than foster the better side of the community? How often is it that people who know about the toxicity just block all the people doing it and get on with playing the game? The community gets the reputation of being toxic, not so much because the majority is toxic, but because players end up thinking that the first impression is everything, when the reality is that the toxicity they see when the join is only the quarantine zone; and rather than taking up the challenge of cleaning out the swamp of messages before them and making it to dry land, they just surrender to making someone else do it for them.

That idea of a whitelist is probably a bit far, but I do have a better idea; instead of having immediate access to hearing "general channels" and end up getting a face full of it from the opposite side of the game, they instead make the players have to unlock cross area communication slowly, so that they only hear a few people to blacklist at a time. For example, if they can only hear someone 30ft around them at first, they'll rarely find anyone to blacklist; but then they find someone with their own speech channel, and chance are, if they like the person offering, then the channel will also be filled with people with similar temperaments.

It does of course, occur to me that they've already taken the general channels out of FFXIV already it seems; so right now, all you have to deal with is "Yell" and "Shout", which are limited to only one map anyways... And currently, the maps people frequent are fairly spread out, so you're not going to be swamped with mass yell/shout unless there's a new patch, and everyone is waiting by the starting gate for a specific type of new content... Like what happened with Blue Mage, where everyone gathered in Limsa beside where the quest giver would show up.

[Tiraelina]

I already made a post about that, but I will repeat myself for the sake of it.

What you quoted are legal terms. They are different from an actively enforced policy. Everyone knows that.
Of course Square Enix doesn't tell their GM "you can ban whoever you want whenever you want for no reason, it's in our ToS". But that doesn't prevent them from enforcing a strict active policy. Which is why a lot of people in this thread aere asking Square Enix to clarify how strict their policy actually is in order to know exactly what's off-limits and what's not so we can compel to it.

In short, saying "they don't abuse their ToS to ban everyone on a whim, so they won't enforce their new policy" cannot be more wrong. They can do both: not abuse their ToS, but have a strict policy.

Although the “SQUARE ENIX ACCOUNT TERMS OF USE,” “FINAL FANTASY® XIV User Agreement,” and “FINAL FANTASY ® XIV Materials Usage License” have not been changed, we strongly encourage players to take this opportunity to review and become familiarized with them.

In Final Fantasy XIV, obstructive behaviour that has an adverse impact on other users' game play and on service operation is prohibited. Such behaviour violates the Final Fantasy XIV User Agreement and Square Enix Account Terms of Use, and may violate other Square Enix policies or terms of use, including the Final Fantasy XIV Forum Guidelines.

In the event of confirmation of prohibited behaviour (a violation) under the Final Fantasy XIV User Agreement or Square Enix Account Terms of Use, a penalty appropriate to the violation will be applied to the Final Fantasy XIV service account.

That's why they specifically point it out in the main article and the two new articles? Because it's just "passive and harmless"? Both of them are extensions of it for enforcing it, but I guess everyone knew that, right?

I didn't say they won't enforce the new policy. I said it's not going to be as abusable as everyone is drawing up ridiculous examples over, including yourself. They are not going to be the disagreement police. You will not get banned for politely (Actually polite without insulting them) asking someone to start using something in a dungeon. The idea is even more insane when we have a mentor system and channels in place.

[Arrius]

Many people like to know exactly what they are signing up for, leaving rules vague leaves room for doubt, where we would have to blindly trust that the GMs know what they are doing.
And many of us just can't put our trust in stuff like that. Not when we hear so many horror stories from other people and other games.

I have been playing this game for around 5 years, without any warnings, and the vagueness of the rules leaves me a bit uneasy. Maybe I won't get any warnings, but my friends who talk a bit more roughly might.

I do believe that SE designs those rules to be vague, so the community wouldn't split hairs about the details whenever something was withing acceptable levels or stepped outside it.
By doing so, they hope that the players decide 'not to push it' when it comes to situations that possibly comes in conflict with their new ruling.

[Iscah]

Same topic on the Japanese forum

9 replies and 9000 views compared to this thread's 1300+ replies and 87000 views

And this, as much as the actual language barrier, may be why the Japanese playerbase actually get their opinions heard.

From translations given earlier in the thread, it seems that they stated the same concerns - they just (I assume) haven't spun off into pages of hyperbole about how we'll all get banned for saying minor things and causing unintended offence (which I must repeat, yet again, does not automatically mean action is taken against you).

There might be some good points in this thread that the Japanese players haven't raised - but I pity the SE employee who has to read through the whole conversation to find them. Even if they try to read everything, actual concerns are going to get lost in the noise.


(The number of views goes hand-in-hand with the number of posts though. Repeat visits get counted each time.)