Roleplay/Partyfinder Discrepancies & Policy Enforcement by GM's

[Infindox]

This is blowing up over on Twitter and Reddit as well, getting to the point that they may have to say something about this.

[Aiouxdaux]

This is ridiculous. Our FC runs a tiny cafe twice a month. We're not a big FC, we don't have a lot of people. It's a nice place for people to get together and pretend to drink tea and eat cake in a cute little house with some pretty decorations. Fellowships are only useful to people who already have connections, the same with Linkshells, and they both fall well short of what they could be, they certainly aren't useful in advertising for our cafe to people who want to have a quiet cafe night.

Small venues like ours will struggle without party finder. Some nights we only have one or two people stop by even with advertising in both party finder and spamming in cities. The majority of people who show up are due to us advertising in party finder. They'll hop into party to confirm where we are, then come on over.

Roleplay is part of the content of FFXIV, without roleplay I can safely say many of our FC members wouldn't play this game as often between patches. The story is fun, the housing and decorations are fun. Costumes are end game content. We all know why we raid: to play dress up with our virtual dolls so we can hang out with our friends and show off our cool fashion sense. The most recent Eden raids added the coolest jewelry we've gotten so far so you know we all did it, but we did it because we like looking nice and wearing it to roleplay in later.

If they're so worried about clogging up the Other tab then add a roleplay tab into party finder, otherwise independent roleplayers will have a harder time finding events and small rp venues will struggle.

[Jeeqbit]

He could be a good GM but nobody is infallible it could be their own misunderstanding, by which point it'd need be corrected.

That's very true. Everyone perceives the world differently and that includes GMs' differing interpretation of the rules, but if that's the case no doubt others at SE will see this uproar and decide if they agree with this interpretation.

If the ruling has changed, it's a bit crappy to not tell people and start throwing people into gaol and putting warnings against them for something that's always been okay.

Most of the pictures say it was in response to a player report, so perhaps it just usually doesn't get reported.

[RottenAdel]

Even though I do side-eye some of the more blatantly lewd adverts, there have been hundreds of venues/events that I've explored and enjoyed that I would not known existed if it weren't for party finder blurbs. A majority of my friends list came from folks I've met at RP venues. I find the PF adverts to be far less intrusive than the shouts that the GMs seem to want to encourage. I do a fair bit of PF time finding high-level raid parties too and not once have the RP adverts been an issue. There's a tab system for a reason. What IS distracting and detrimental is all the PF listings for RMT and selling clears. I've not seen any action on those.

While having an outside network of discord and wikis like the EU players claim to have sounds useful, NA just doesn't have one that's commonly known. There have been a few discords and gdoc files that have come and gone, but the only way to know about them is word of mouth, and if you're new to the RP scene altogether, you don't have a way to hear about them. Saying "well you should make this" to replace a feature that has been used for that purpose for as long as I've played the game (5+ years) seems like an attempt to shrug the need for such a feature off on the community, and punishing them for using in-game resources.

And quite frankly, the Fellowship feature is pretty well useless. Too difficult to navigate, no proper search function, player limits, character limits, no chat feature...I see more of those set up for lewd things than I do PF listings.

It's fine if you prefer not to RP in an MMORPG; there's dozens of other options for you in the game. The fact of the matter is Role Playing is in the name and is intrinsically built into the story and world itself. You can focus on High-Level content and savage raiding and whatever other content you prefer, but the stuff you're not into shouldn't be removed simply because you aren't a fan.

It does worry me that one particular GM in general has been going about hunting down these listings and that there isn't clear literature for us to refer to on the matter. If it's truly TOS 3.3, then it needs to be elaborated upon because to say something is just "offensive" can be pretty broad.

[Untimelydoom]

They seem a really good GM from what I've seen. There's no evidence they have done anything wrong.

We should just assume this is the policy. If internally they decide it's not, they can do whatever internal processes they see fit (like investigations).

Man this idea is the most backwards way of thinking I have ever seen. You let them just do whatever they like without anyone watching over them? That has gone super well recently in the real world (sarcasm 100% intended). When it comes to people in a powerful position, they also need to be checked. As I posted before, there is no rule that states this is allowed.

Once again because you have a problem w RP in PF, SKIP OVER IT. You do not have to pay attention to it. I promise it won't hurt you to keep scrolling (even though RP is at the bottom of the list every single time).

Side note, you play on Balmung, the largest RP server, you should expect Rp to be happening all around you. If you don't like RP then jump ship to another server.

[Nayout]

That there is now this commotion when we have been complaining for almost a year about the RMTin PF is even funny because previously everyone was silent or turned a blind eye with stupid excuses.

Ideally, the rules are even for everyone, that if they are going to ban people for promoting PR things, they will also ban the rest of the people who use the FP for functions that are not. The Other tab is for something and that's where all the RMT garbage should be along with the rest of the things that have no place in the rest of the tabs.

PD: Am I seeing the same people who laughed at the complaints of the RMT in the PF or taking weight away from this problem now crying and sending emails to SE for this, poetic justice??

[Theodric]

As a role-player myself, I'm fine with the blatantly inappropriate advertisements being stamped out. It's not a good look for the game's main networking feature to be infested with advertisements for player run brothels of all things. With that said, if the intention is to clean up the party finder then the content sellers need to be dealt with as well. I'm tired of trying to find a group for something only to have to scroll through numerous listings asking people to move to Discord to discuss the purchase of content clears.

My guess is things are being cleaned up in preparation of the server visit expansion due to arrive with Endwalker.

[Jeeqbit]

Once again because you have a problem w RP in PF, SKIP OVER IT. You do not have to pay attention to it. I promise it won't hurt you to keep scrolling (even though RP is at the bottom of the list every single time).

Side note, you play on Balmung, the largest RP server, you should expect Rp to be happening all around you. If you don't like RP then jump ship to another server.

I don't really understand why you assumed I don't like RP. That's why I joined Balmung to begin with.

Just defending the GMs that's all, who without evidence to the contrary, are probably just doing their job. I agree this thread should be here (to make the frustrations known to SE generally).

[phnxrsngs]

i think the one thing that sits the most weird to me, out of everything that sits weird with this whole situation, is that it's this one GM for the most part. i dont know how the GM team internally handles who gets what reports but it's weird that's it's this one GM. has there been any other GMs handling these reports or just the one?

[Larkspen]

For the players complaining about brothels in this game ... there are prostitutes and sex worker NPCs throughout the game. The Beehive exists. There's even dialogue between sex worker NPCs and another NPC where they are soliciting services and there is mention of STIs. Sex work and mention of it is canon in this game.

Furthermore, there are individuals who were sent to GM jail over advertising non-ERP venues, so let's keep the sex shaming out of this.