GM Responses, Roleplay Advertising, and Party Finder - Megathread

[Saidosha]

I think the issue lies with the cherry picking. If both are against the TOS, then both should be dealt with. The thing about the content selling PFs, though, is that they don’t directly mention that the content is being sold in exchange for real money. That is only mentioned off-site (usually via Discord DMs). And the moderation team have a history of not accepting third-party screenshots as evidence since they can be altered. They’ve broken the “no third-party evidence” before, but it’s not that common of a practice.

ERP involving minors is most definitely worse than RMT. Not saying it isn’t.

From the context of how it impacts the game, however, RMT activities are significantly more destructive. Therein lies the rub. We have some people wanting to go scorched earth over a completely voluntary player-generated activity while failing to express that same zeal toward actors the encourage botting, hacking, account/item theft, and large scale market manipulations predicated on pushing players toward said services because legit play winds up taking too long. There's also that element of short circuiting progression where you can just swipe a credit card and go from A to Z, invalidating intended dev pathing and work outside the norm of content cycles. Merc'ing, as the legitimate cousin, otherwise becomes a problem in MMOs when players only participate in content if a hefty profit is involved, instead of the content standing on its own for tempting mid/long-term participation.

Again, though, people getting hot and heavy in private settings affects none of that. SE also objectively profits by allowing players to generate their own entertainment outside of the combat mechanics of the game. Anyone that actually respects RP should know you don't do the naughty stuff in public, and that doing so justifies any and all punishment that follows. But there's also a whole lot of whataboutism going on where it's just assumed RPers are all child predators, thus end all the RP. Never gonna happen.

18+ doesn't just mean sexy times. I'm in the later half of the 30s and very rarely find conversations with people under 25 to be engaging. Part of it is life experience, other parts is different priority. With how some people are acting, me trying to herd individuals in my age bracket should be considered an offense because I'm not including teens. And why stop there? Let's forbid girl gamer groups. LGBTQ? Keep that off their lawn. In the end, it feels more like these people won't be happy until the PF is destroyed, which runs 100% counter to why it was even implemented to begin with: To help people safely connect in ways outside of randomized, time-sensitive queuing. The best and fairest outcome they can hope for is a tab dedicated exclusive to RP, options to disable specific tabs from the All category, and for GMs to subsequently monitor, sort, and punish repeated mislabelings (which would also help immensely with the RMT ads). Creating scenarios involving fictional child victims or dismissing the responsibilities of parents letting their kids mess around on the net is otherwise getting us nowhere. When/if SE is ever presented with actionable legal queries by law enforcement, and not just nosy laypersons, you can also imagine they take it seriously and will fork over logs related to cited incidents. Logs also mean our in-game privacy is never guaranteed, but SE betraying player trust is something they should strive to avoid outside of the most extreme circumstances. Because that would be as disastrous, if not more so, than kicking RPers to the curb. Whatever in-game vigilantes we have need to chill. Report something if it seems off, but leave it at that. Something not going away just because they don't like it doesn't mean its bad or that any laws or ToS has been broken, however minimally legally binding the latter tends to be.

GMs not specifying actionable offenses, however, is BS. That's not how people learn from mistakes. Retaliatory behaviors can also be handled severely, but this tends to reflect the reality that game companies understaff their GMs and don't give them the means to act as they truly should for community benefit.

[Awha]

I know this might be crazy but maybe SE does not feel it is necessarily their job do teach people to learn from their mistakes.

[Ammokkx]

I know this might be crazy but maybe SE does not feel it is necessarily their job do teach people to learn from their mistakes.

Teach them? No, and they shouldn't either.

But people need to know what mistakes are being made, and being vague about it won't help them in that regard.

This concept isn't hard to grasp.

[Arillyn]

Honestly SE should just have an RP tab in the party finder. You don't want to do RP? Don't go to that tab. GMs can monitor that tab like any other in PF (which btw from what I've seen over the years - they don't).

On a personal note, I'm seriously over people who equate RP with somehow being ERP or leading to it. They aren't the same thing at all. I don't RP on this character. I have a couple characters on Balmung that I do RP with and I've never been involved in ERP there. I found it funny, and a bit sad, when world visits opened up and people from other worlds started visiting Balmung only because most of them in the first week or so were trolls who thought it was funny to go over there and start saying some crazy things in shouts or were expecting their stereotype to be true and find ERP on every street corner. That's never been my experience on Balmung at all.

I've also never gone to a venue on Balmung that charged gil for an RP event. I mean, maybe it exists there? I've just never heard of it until the the few threads lately saying that's the norm on Aether and Primal. My first impression of those threads was "Huh, I guess people decided this was going to be their money-maker. I'd never pay for that, but whatevs."

I've played this game since 1.0. RP has always been a huge part of this game for many people. I know a lot don't do it, don't even get it and that's fine. I haven't always been a roleplayer myself, but it can be a lot of fun if you get the right people and write out stuff together. Even when I'm not roleplaying, when I run into rolerplayers out "in the wild" who are doing their thing it makes me smile. They are enjoying the game and it makes the world more alive. Also, I've noticed that people who roleplay tend to stay subscribed even through the content lulls.

tldr; SE needs to have an RP tab in PF. People need to stop equating RP with ERP (they aren't the same thing) and people need to stop being so judgey about RP (good grief!).

[Vahlnir]

But people need to know what mistakes are being made, and being vague about it won't help them in that regard.

This concept isn't hard to grasp.

Exactly. Regardless of one's stance on inappropriate RP or PF use, this is what it boils down to in the end. And I completely agree with this stance.

[Awha]

Teach them? No, and they shouldn't either.

But people need to know what mistakes are being made, and being vague about it won't help them in that regard.

This concept isn't hard to grasp.

It is not but it might just be a cultural thing. I have some friends that happen to each english in Japan and it seems that is the norm that explaining what you did wrong is moot because they seem to operate on the grounds that you already know what you did wrong.

Like a self reflection processes. Discipline seems to handled differently. So for us from the west it might not seem like a hard concept. As I said I agree SE should tell people what they did wrong, but clearly they do not feel the same. People have been dealing with this for years, yet nothing has come about from it so I get the yelling and being upset but moving forward rp community has to adapt or leave. Cause I doubt this will be enough to change the dynamics of how SE has worded or handled their ToS. That is not to say it also is for easier to have the rules written in a vague means just to avoid technicalities.

[LianaThorne]

I've also never gone to a venue on Balmung that charged gil for an RP event. I mean, maybe it exists there? I've just never heard of it until the the few threads lately saying that's the norm on Aether and Primal. My first impression of those threads was "Huh, I guess people decided this was going to be their money-maker. I'd never pay for that, but whatevs."

The reason why I personally have been pretty vocal on this was because I didn't know free RP was even a thing until I heard how things work on Crystal. I've been in this game for almost a year for perspective and the only venues that I have been exposed to are ones that expect real gil in exchange for things (I have only ever been in Primal and Aether for context). Knowing that it's free elsewhere makes it seem a little like people are profiting off a community/putting RP behind a paywall when RP is literally meant to be something that everyone can participate in. I'm also a seller so knowing that people are also pricing up their items by half or more rubs me the wrong way as it feels a bit like robbing people of their money because they say something is worth more than what it actually is.

At the end of the day, no one has to listen to me or anything that anyone says in this thread or anywhere else. To be honest it doesn't really bother me if people don't even care that venues charge gil for RP services. That doesn't mean I'm not going to voice my opinion on it though. Do I expect a change? No. I'm still gonna speak about it though because I'm not one to sit on my thoughts when something feels off and if something I say can bring awareness to someone else who isn't aware, that's cool too.

[Coletergeist]

The PF itself is highly customizable, The place RP venues often advertise is in the other tab, which again with unchecking the box, it disappears completely.
There is not even a need to /blacklist. Simply filter it out completely in the PF.
I am sure many of us see this often: Of the 84 parties currently recruiting, all match your search conditions. Those are what you have filtered.

You're telling people to not be lazy. This has been brought up before, and for some reason this notion just doesn't exist to some people.

[Penthea]

It is not but it might just be a cultural thing. I have some friends that happen to each english in Japan and it seems that is the norm that explaining what you did wrong is moot because they seem to operate on the grounds that you already know what you did wrong.

Any decent company knows to do research on the cultures of other markets. SE should know that the West don't have a strong culture of conforming to very strict social rules similarly to them. We are significantly less formal than they are in almost every setting. Going against the grain in the West is not unusual and is often praised, whereas in Japan it can be a direct ticket to being snubbed. Neither culture is overall better or worse than the other, both have their pros and cons, but it does mean that what we consider to be a social "no" isn't the same.

So what I'm saying is for a Japanese player what SE don't want from players is probably obvious to them because SE is Japanese so they operate by social norms they are familiar with, whereas to those in the West it's not as clear to us because we were not raised in a similar culture. The way GMs handle issues is at odds with what Western players expect from a figure of authority.

[Vahlnir]

Any decent company knows to do research on the cultures of other markets. SE should know that the West don't have a strong culture of conforming to very strict social rules similarly to them. We are significantly less formal than they are in almost every setting. Going against the grain in the West is not unusual and is often praised, whereas in Japan it can be a direct ticket to being snubbed. Neither culture is overall better or worse than the other, both have their pros and cons, but it does mean that what we consider to be a social "no" isn't the same.

So what I'm saying is for a Japanese player what SE don't want from players is probably obvious to them because SE is Japanese so they operate by social norms they are familiar with, whereas to those in the West it's not as clear to us because we were not raised in a similar culture. The way GMs handle issues is at odds with what Western players expect from a figure of authority.

Yeah, that's probably fair. I think that's part of my issue with it. Their logic with this is something my brain can't process. But that comes from living in a different culture, most likely.