Playable kids in FFXIV

[Kalise]

Honestly... All this talk about "How old are the Twins"

When technically, the biggest notable thing for the whole "People will sexualize teenagers!" thing would be the fact that you can glamour Zhloe Aliapoh.

Given the amount of risqué glamour available in the game, it is entirely possible to put this gal into some rather concerning attire. While she's 21 years old, she looks younger than your average Miqo'te especially as she's also quite short.

It seems that Miqo'te are very adept at looking younger than they are... I only just found out that Khloe is 13 years old...

I honestly would have pegged Zhloe at age 15-16 and Khloe at age 7-9... (I also thought that T'kebbe was about 6 years old rather than the 12 years she actually is)

I guess Miqo'te develop more slowly than Humans?

But anyway... All this stuff aside, whether Alphinaud is still 16 or has aged and is now 17, 18, or 2000 years old, it matters not. The fact is, he starts adventuring with you at aged 16. Meanwhile Alisaie does her own adventuring also at aged 16 (She goes hunting for Bahamut and takes you through the Coils of all places...). We've had Alphinaud in combat alongside us MANY times and most recently got to play AS him during a battle.

This means that 16 year olds don't cause ethical issues with combat. Leading to the only other possible objection for playable characters at ~15-18 years old physically would be sexualization, with the likes of glamour and emotes.

Though how impactful that would be is hard to say. If they can still be considered "Adults" then it would be fine I guess? If they're still considered a "Child" that stage then it would cause issues. I suppose with this uncertainty, a outright "No" would be the best case.

This aside, I do want to point out that I think people are overreacting about the whole "It only takes 1 person to make a nude mod/take sexualized pictures and the game would be forever tainted!!!" because, this being the internet, I'm fairly sure such a thing already exists. Including that of younger characters. Since people are messed up >.>

[Bright-Flower]

I didn't realize this was even a thing that got asked for. I don't recall ever seeing htis asked for, is this asked for more by the JP community?

Even if the...concerns Yoshi P brought up with child characters weren't a thing, that would still be additional character models that bring the same issues that all new race models bring with adding to the workload of emotes and gear fitting. So I wouldn't expect it to ever happen outside of occasionally seeing npc kids.

[Melichoir]

I didn't realize this was even a thing that got asked for. I don't recall ever seeing htis asked for, is this asked for more by the JP community?

Even if the...concerns Yoshi P brought up with child characters weren't a thing, that would still be additional character models that bring the same issues that all new race models bring with adding to the workload of emotes and gear fitting. So I wouldn't expect it to ever happen outside of occasionally seeing npc kids.

I think its more of a misunderstanding regarding people's wishes. I think people are misunderstanding the desire for a more dimorphic race among Viera where Males are more youthful/cute looking compared to the female viera as people saying they want to play as a kid. While I am sure that there are players who would want to play as children for nefarious reasons, they are in no means a majority but an extreme minority. The trouble is some people I think are conflating the two.

snips

I think this actually brings up a pretty valid point with Zhloe, as well as inconsistencies present. I would also agree. I never felt Zhloe was as old as is being listed (she struck me as someone being like 17ish). The game makes it canon that shes 21 though, so is it a scandalous thing to have her dressed up in more revealing gear? Afterall, the argument could very well easily be that in the real world, there are women who appear drastically younger than they actually are, and she is of age canonically. The conundrum this point brings up is this: Is the concern simply a matter of presentation, where age is irrelevant? Or is the listed canon age most important, regardless of appearance?

The game seems to argue the latter, not the former, considering Zhloe, as well as lalafells if you consider them children by appearance alone. If this is the case, that shoots YoshiPs argument in the foot. As long as it's established all PCs are by MSQ standards 18+, appearance doesnt matter, where YoshiP's stance seems to be based on the appearance of something being most meaningful.

[Gihwezi]

Already happened.

Bruh after reading the title of this thread I was sitting here about to be like



...until I realized this was a joke ( I hope?? ) so now I'm like

[wereotter]

anyone under 18 is a kid to me tbh

Though... this is a bit of a cultural thing. In the States, 18 is the age you're considered an adult. In some parts of this country, for certain aspects of life, you're considered an adult at 16. Same with some countries considering you an adult at 16. Also, as was mentioned, the fact you get to have one fight as Alphinaud is not at all the same thing as some of the things you could do with an actual child model in the game ranging from is stated concerns of violence against children to pedophilia. No game wants to risk that kind of press, not just because it would be bad publicity, but countries like Australia would pull the game entirely, no one would be able to play it.

And even if many people wouldn't do that with their avatar, the fact that someone COULD do it, would be enough for some groups to petition to have the game pulled, not to mention what would happen even here if someone was found to be doing ERP with a child character in game.

[Vidu]

This aside, I do want to point out that I think people are overreacting about the whole "It only takes 1 person to make a nude mod/take sexualized pictures and the game would be forever tainted!!!" because, this being the internet, I'm fairly sure such a thing already exists. Including that of younger characters. Since people are messed up >.>

I think whats important to note here is that even if people created mods or fanart that shows child-like-PCs nude or in sexualized pictures its quite different from SE basically "offering" you the option ingame through their ingame content to achieve something like that. If someone is putting a child into a... questionable situation (wether thats combat or sex) right now thats totally on them. They need to use tools that arent developed by SE to make that happen, so SE wouldnt be liable (at least not as much as they would be if they provided the child-model as a playable character).

And if you read the post made by Yoshi-P carefully you'll notice that it isnt only about sexualizing kids, but also about violence used against them. During the game its unavoiable that violence is used against your character. So even if no one goes out of their way to create a nude-child-mod, they're facing the issue of violence against children - something thats most likely jump the rating up in some countries or at least they'd risked that - I'm not sure how "bad" it is in germany in that regards right now but I recall that Fallout 1 or 2 had the children "removed" to prevent the game from being pulled from the market since you could kill them and violence against kids is a big no-no (since they apparently only made the kids invisble and untouchable and didnt remove them properly that apparently lead to situation where kids could pickpocket you and you couldnt do anything about it, since you could see them...)

[Kalise]

I think whats important to note here is that even if people created mods or fanart that shows child-like-PCs nude or in sexualized pictures its quite different from SE basically "offering" you the option ingame through their ingame content to achieve something like that.

I still think that the existence of something shouldn't be considered "Offering" it for any purpose.

Especially if that purpose happens to be something that a player has to go out of their way to do.

Or is the game currently "Offering" the ability to make inappropriate content because child models exist in the game files and thus someone can use third party tools to utilize them and make them nude - Even without them being playable?

Is the game "Offering" the ability to hack it and use teleport cheats like bots do?

If someone is putting a child into a... questionable situation (wether thats combat or sex) right now thats totally on them. They need to use tools that arent developed by SE to make that happen, so SE wouldnt be liable (at least not as much as they would be if they provided the child-model as a playable character).

See, this is the problem. In order to do sexualization of a child model if one was made playable, it too would require tools that aren't developed by SE to make that happen.

That is, unless SE also create a bunch of sexualized emotes and gear for them. But surely that would be the problem with creating those emotes and gear, not the inclusion of the playable child models.

And if you read the post made by Yoshi-P carefully you'll notice that it isnt only about sexualizing kids, but also about violence used against them. During the game its unavoiable that violence is used against your character.

I think this still comes with the oddity that is defining "Kids"

Like, what age range are we all actually talking about here?

Since, Yoshida mentions only "characters that resembled young boys and girls"

But how young are we talking, specifically?

Since, I'm only aware of people asking for younger characters, so more like Alphinaud/Alisaie age. Which is apparently fine for violence.

While "Young boys and girls" suggests more like pre-teen. In which case the violence would be a big no-no (But also wouldn't be supported by lore either)

I'm not sure if Japan has been asking for actual pre-teens, but from what I've seen from EU/US it's been more stuff like the Twins/Padjal type teenage characters as opposed to Khloe/Rielle type characters.

Interestingly enough, Rielle is involved in combat - You have to protect her and she also will heal you during the DRK job quests.

Also Sylphie (Whom is canonically 14 years old) gets involved in combat during the CNJ/WHM job quests (Along with Gatty whom not only gets involved but also gets assaulted by voidsent)

[TheMightyMollusk]

So hey, as long as we're nitpicking MMO compression, how is Gridania supposed to be a gigantic, bustling city-state when it has about the same floor area as a large shopping mall?

[hynaku]

Be nice if they added age slider and expand the height slider. Then could play as a kid. Hope cities in 5.0 same size as 1.0 cities.

[Sanctify]

Why are people trying to justify playing as a child? With all the glam options in this game, it reeks of pedo. Disgusting lol.