Abuse of the TOS. Loophole regarding griefing/trolling. Needs a solution.

[GothicDolly]

Quick question: are you RPing in say? Or are you doing whispers or party chat? I'm asking because some people find RP in public channels to be uncomfortable which might be whats leading to your issue.

No worries, I am okay with answering! I said absolutely nothing in say chat while I was roleplaying, I didn't even emote. The only thing that made me a target was the fact I had my RP icon active. For people who don't like RPers, that is more than enough.

I feel like everyone in this thread needs to read this, please:


I believe, if a gang of trolls are stacking on top of you to the point you have difficulty even targeting your actual friend? They are affecting my gameplay. If the trolls are being so obnoxious that my friend abruptly logs -off- and I am left without my rp buddy, it's not fair. I was left without being able to do what makes -me- happy when playing the game, and that was writing with a friend. The trolls knew that. It's what they wanted. I went that entire day feeling crappy because my hobby was ridiculed. Attacked to the point I couldn't even engage in it with who I wanted. Could I have moved to an entirely different location on the world map? Yes. Could I have taken my roleplay private (housing)? Yes. But why should I, the person literally doing nothing but having my RP icon on, roleplaying in a whisper channel, be the one to move? It's just not right. I wanted to roleplay in the Quicksand environment. My story literally took place there. Do I just hide away in my apartment with friends and pretend like it's the Quicksand? That's just an insane thought to me.


For those of you with the "It's just a game. Get over it. It's not that serious" mentality, it's simply the principle of the situation. A decent human being does not purposely spite people like this.
I mean, of course my friend left. It's embarrassing to deal with these things as a writer. Slightly unrelated example but-->Do you know how bizarre it is to "ignore" a random person dancing on the table you're sitting at just because they -know- you're trying to write there? Wearing a frog outfit? While you're trying your hardest to be serious and in character? It's a public space sure, but no matter what you say--it's wrong on a empathetic level. Wrong. That's the blunt truth, just wrong.

Yes, the trolls broke the TOS, they disrupted how another player (me) chose to enjoy the game. That's the blunt truth. No amount of "it's just a game" will change the fact that these people were in the wrong and affected how I wanted to indulge in said game. And the situation I was in could have still been successfully orchestrated without the trolls having to say a -word-. Nothing to report them for. No emotes, no insults to point a gm towards, just the trolls knowing their presence is more than enough. Arguably hard to prove malicious intent even if malicious intent was clear. That's what you call a loophole in the rules.

[Mikhaill]

As someone who actually works in law enforcement - I can tell you that you will be laughed out of whichever police station you decide to visit with your "evidence". No one is going to take you seriously when you claim that someone on a video game is "stalking" you unless they have actually made threats to you. It doesn't matter what your state law says - those laws are primarily to make it easier to prosecute cases of ACTUAL stalking. Please don't waste our time with this rubbish unless you want to get laughed at.

Semi OT: I personally have been in a situation of being stalked online. Not to go into deep details and all...but he hacked into stuff.
But while we all knew the person in question in real life the police did absolutely nothing, of course. It only stopped because we had to contact
the guys commander since he was in the military. Stalking online is a thing. I guess we need real life cyber police since the real ones shrug their shoulders and walk.
(This is besides this main topic I know. I just wanted to share my a tiny bit of experience with actual real stalking online.)

"He hacked into stuff" = /// = "he followed me all around the Mist map, until I finally decided to go to my (closed) house/ logout".
They're not even in the same ballpark.

Read my edit. This was also towards the fact the quoted person said don't bother sending them game stuff
when I had a real stalking situation and the police did nothing lol.

[Seryne]

I feel you, OP. I have a dude that lives next door to me in game that follows me around everywhere being generally annoying, even recruiting people from his FC to do so alongside him because he's that mature of an individual. This started last year and I reported him for it multiple times but am hit with the "Just blacklist him." from the GMs even though I have. Would be cool if blacklisting people made them invisible for you so I don't have to see him anymore but I doubt they'll ever do something like this.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Semi OT: I personally have been in a situation of being stalked online. Not to go into deep details and all...but he hacked into stuff.
But while we all knew the person in question in real life the police did absolutely nothing, of course. It only stopped because we had to contact
the guys commander since he was in the military. Stalking online is a thing. I guess we need real life cyber police since the real ones shrug their shoulders and walk.

"He hacked into stuff" = /// = "he followed me all around the Mist map, until I finally decided to go to my (closed) house/ logout".

They're not even in the same ballpark. While annoying, stalking ingame doesn't give the stalker any data for them to be able to hack the victims account. It's annoying, maybe even reportable but it isn't a crime and doesn't mean it will become one. There's being safe and there's being paranoid, jumping at every shadow.

[GothicDolly]

I feel you, OP. I have a dude that lives next door to me in game that follows me around everywhere being generally annoying, even recruiting people from his FC to do so alongside him because he's that mature of an individual. This started last year and I reported him for it multiple times but am hit with the "Just blacklist him." from the GMs even though I have. Would be cool if blacklisting people made them invisible for you so I don't have to see him anymore but I doubt they'll ever do something like this.

Agreed. I personally feel like revamping the blacklist feature to this degree would solve so many problems. Not even just for me but the entire FFXIV community. You know that saying "out of sight out of mind"? In my opinion, that saying holds a lot of merit. It's not an unheard of feature, Second Life comes to mind--where you can make players you blacklist invisible. Both sides would be happy with such a feature implemented on FFXIV. The trolls don't get reported, and the roleplayers don't have to see the trolls. Heck, the trolls could continue to be right in my character's face--I wouldn't care. Because I wouldn't be able to see them. Then my writing buddy(s) could do the same and we can continue undisturbed.

The question is if FFXIV as a game could make this already established feature...work in its engine? I plan to make a thread suggesting its implementation--at some point. If done right? It could only improve the game for everyone. The most difficult part would just be getting this idea to the higher ups. And again, this isn't some indie game where the devs are all huddled up in a Discord. So for all I know--my attempts will be fruitless. But I will try.

[Mikhaill]

Though judging by the OPs server, where he was located, and his description in the original post I sincerely doubt its wholesome RP. *shrugs*

I wish you people stop this Balmung meme nonsense. I have been in Balmung since 2014 and I have NEVER seen ERP in public, ever.
Not even in Ul'dah, You might, just might see a misstell once in a dalamund moon lol.
You guys are making Balmung look like a joke and obviously don't know the difference between ERP and RP.
Just sucks everytime a Balmungian posts, everyone rolls their eyes and go "Oh it's just Balmung again."
Stop already. It's rude and disrespectful.

[Enla]

I wish you people stop this Balmung meme nonsense. I have been in Balmung since 2014 and I have NEVER seen ERP in public, ever.
Not even in Ul'dah, You might, just might see a misstell once in a dalamund moon lol.
You guys are making Balmung look like a joke and obviously don't know the difference between ERP and RP.
Just sucks everytime a Balmungian posts, everyone rolls their eyes and go "Oh it's just Balmung again."
Stop already. It's rude and disrespectful.

Same. The only times I've seen ERP in public were after World Visit was enabled and people came to the server to 'see what all the fuss was about'. Ironically it's the Wanderers who have turned the stereotype into a reality, where as before if people ERP'd it definitely wasn't in public unless they wanted a heaping helping of shame and humiliation.

[Shadha]

Same. The only times I've seen ERP in public were after World Visit was enabled and people came to the server to 'see what all the fuss was about'. Ironically it's the Wanderers who have turned the stereotype into a reality, where as before if people ERP'd it definitely wasn't in public unless they wanted a heaping helping of shame and humiliation.

Exactly this. It drives me crazy. Tourists are the ones being openly sexual, everyone else is just parroting memes they've heard. Like yeah Goldshire earned its reputation - we didn't.

[Alleo]

What do you mean "force" himself? Like emoting? "Stalking"? You guys have actually got to be joking. I am actually laughing so hard right now that I can't breathe. I mean if you guys are trolling or something, it's pretty good, but comon now. This is absolutely ridiculous. You realize this is a video game right?

What kind of RP are you guys actually getting into that this is even a thing?

I dont RP but great to have a discussion while using gifs, surely makes a point.

There is something called Cyberbullying or even Cyberstalking but of course its funny right? (And no the case was not about emotes..)

Its funny when you have someone in your FC that you first trust and that turns out to be the worst. Talking bad about you or others, trying to create constant drama in FC chat. Following us when he was kicked out. Trying to split our group with lies. (Thankfully we came prepared) Stalking you over the maps to emote to you, going into your houses to stand next to you and more. He managed to make one person stop playing the game, made one person change server because of his acts and created drama in countless of FCs. And then when it was not enough to do it on his main character, he created alts and tried the same again. It was quite nice to be informed that he had changed DC even though it would have just been better if he was perma banned..and then at the end of stormblood you suddenly get a whisper from a new character that ask you if you know who he is...and then finding out that its him again..thankfully him being that "nice" to tell that information was enough to at least kick him out of the FC which he was once already kicked from.

Stalking was one part of his actions. So please dont tell others that this is just an online game and thus nothing bad could happen..people can do a lot especially in the safety of hiding behind fake names. And not everyone has the nerves of pure steel to handle such a person. Predators exits everywhere and the OP has mentioned that this group has followed them more than once. This was not a joke..these are people that are doing this on purpose.

All of this could be changed for the better if blacklist would function differently:

- Blacklisting one character should automatically blacklist the whole account: I have a reason to blacklist the person so I dont want to deal with alts.
- It should not be possible at all to land in parties with blacklisted people. Those should also not be able to get into a group that has a person in it that blacklisted you.
- Blacklists should make it impossible to track someone ingame, be it through search or by showing the name.
- Be able to turn your house permission to: everyone but those on blacklist

And with a perfect system it would be nice to be invisible to that person and also dont see them in return. Thus no matter how much they travel and try to find one you cant be seen by them.

[RoyalBeef]

Its funny when you have someone in your FC that you first trust and that turns out to be the worst. Talking bad about you or others, trying to create constant drama in FC chat. Following us when he was kicked out. Trying to split our group with lies. (Thankfully we came prepared) Stalking you over the maps to emote to you, going into your houses to stand next to you and more. He managed to make one person stop playing the game, made one person change server because of his acts and created drama in countless of FCs.

How tho? I mean, I have people I get along with in game, but frankly I couldnt care less what somewhat says or thinks about me. This is some serious soap opera shit. I'm not there to make friends for life, I have those outside of the game. If everyone on my friendslist decided to ignore me it'd be fine, I'll find other folks to play with.

Making yourself vulnerable for random bs of strangers on the web is a stupid thing to do. it's the internet. Don't get invested in people too much, don't trust people too much, don#t let people too close and don't disclose any personal information. Pretty simple.