RP Party finders being reported AGAIN without so much as a reason.

[LianaThorne]

Your answer at best? It's anecdotal evidence. You haven't yet given any substantial proof that this in general is the reason why ERP players post their recruitment methods on PF. Just because some people said it, doesn't mean it's true for everyone. I don't think gil is their prime motivator. Why? Because you have an equal amount saying they do so to define the category and what they're looking for specifically.

"A need to come at me over it" You're imagining things. I just don't agree with you, that's all. But don't take it personally, okay? xoxo

Sorry I think I lost a couple brain cells on that last sentence.

Also if you visited any 18+ venues or really any venue in general (outside of Crystal because apparently they're still free to RP for the most part, someone from Crystal can correct me) in Primal or Aether you'd see the proof you need. If it wasn't about gil then free RP would be a thing here just like it is in Crystal and venues wouldn't expect you to pay for anything. I have played FF for almost a year and have never seen a free venue in either Primal or Aether in that entire time. I posted this somewhere already but I had a friend tell me that they were opening a venue (with ERP services involved) strictly for the purpose of making gil since their FC was too lazy to do anything legit for it. They know it's easy money.

Another person actually posted a thread on here that you can probably dig for that advertised their venue and it was extremely obvious they were targeting rich players in FF. They were charging 300k+ for raffle entries and 10k+ for food items that cost 90% less on the MB. And they do it because they know people will PAY those prices for it. They also literally said that they took their prices from other established RP venues in their DC and that's why they're charging well over normal market value for the items.

Ask around. Educate yourself. It's not hard. People who are doing it for the love of RP aren't trying to squeeze obnoxious amounts of gil out of players.

[Shin96]

Sorry I think I lost a couple brain cells on that last sentence.

Also if you visited any 18+ venues or really any venue in general (outside of Crystal because apparently they're still free to RP for the most part, someone from Crystal can correct me) in Primal or Aether you'd see the proof you need. If it wasn't about gil then free RP would be a thing here just like it is in Crystal and venues wouldn't expect you to pay for anything. I posted this somewhere already but I had a friend tell me that they were opening a venue (with ERP services involved) strictly for the purpose of making gil since their FC was too lazy to do anything legit for it. They know it's easy money.

Ask around. Educate yourself. It's not hard.

First of all I do not participate in ERP. Second of all, money is not an argument. Yes it's a fact they can profit, but that hardly is a reason to keep ERP in PF. Among other reasons, of which I tire repeating.

Yes, I will conduct a study for the sole purpose of understanding the psychological phenomenom behind ERP and its effect on the human psyche. Stop kidding yeself. All of this is rather personal and lastly, requires me to sympathize ultimately, because what I believe or you doesn't matter as Square Enix will continue to take action against ERP players. The only thing I'm willing to say is it's fine as long as you keep it between the parties involved.

My brain mass has liquified from reading all the mental gymnastics on this thread. What I think is irrelevant, go bargain with SE if the loss of public ERP advertisments is such a detriment to its own community.

[Awha]

People will enjoy what they want, and we cannot do anything regard that. SE may be trying to keep it out of sight and the people that are getting caught are the ones too stubborn to adapt to the standards put by SE. They legit have given the standard by SE and could easily bypass it by just using discord. They could still advertise in PF but they could put the more "mature" details in the discord. May have a slight impact on profits and turn out but it should still overall be a comparable experience.

[Kaurhz]

People will enjoy what they want, and we cannot do anything regard that. SE may be trying to keep it out of sight and the people that are getting caught are the ones too stubborn to adapt to the standards put by SE. They legit have given the standard by SE and could easily bypass it by just using discord. They could still advertise in PF but they could put the more "mature" details in the discord. May have a slight impact on profits and turn out but it should still overall be a comparable experience.

People will very quickly start to realize the trend as more and more warnings are dished out, and especially if those warnings, suspensions, and bans cannot be disputed. This will stop people from advertising, but in exchange, they will look for ambiguous terms with which to advertise. Then they will cry wolf when they realize ambiguity won't stop them from getting banned. Smells familiar ngl.

I think it's fine if people use other avenues like Discord in order to advertise their venues, as that largely keeps advertisements out of the eyes of people who aren't seeking it, so nobody will really be at risk, nor will they see it so long as they don't seek it. Which is nice.

[Saefinn]

First of all I do not participate in ERP. Second of all, money is not an argument. Yes it's a fact they can profit, but that hardly is a reason to keep ERP in PF. Among other reasons, of which I tire repeating.

Yes, I will conduct a study for the sole purpose of understanding the psychological phenomenom behind ERP and its effect on the human psyche. Stop kidding yeself. All of this is rather personal and lastly, requires me to sympathize ultimately, because what I believe or you doesn't matter as Square Enix will continue to take action against ERP players. The only thing I'm willing to say is it's fine as long as you keep it between the parties involved.

My brain mass has liquified from reading all the mental gymnastics on this thread. What I think is irrelevant, go bargain with SE if the loss of public ERP advertisments is such a detriment to its own community.

I think the point is not whether it is okay for them to do it, but you're not going to stop them from doing it when they have that incentive.

For comparison, I run 2 RP venues. A tavern and a traveller's stop, one is a Limsan themed one that sells food and drink and the other is a steppes themed one based mainly around storytelling. I have no monetary incentive. I might advertise on PF but I mainly advertise through Discord and promote through open public events by volunteering and contributing and so on. But I've not needed to advertise on PF in ages because I get enough activity I am happy with (but it is useful) and heck if I get maybe 3 people show up, it's enough to have fun and engaging RP and just call it a quiet night. no big deal. In fact I'm probably more lax about promoting than I should be. Any costs? I foot myself or my FC foots it through donation. We sometimes raise money through things like map parties, which can be fun in themselves.

If I had a monetary incentive, where I was in it for the money and the RP is secondary to it. Then I'm going to want to make sure I have as many people show up as is reasonable to make as much money as I can. If I had 3 people turn up, that'd not be so good, particularly if I were one of these venues that pays for staff instead of having volunteers, then it'd be a loss. We know ERP sells, so that's a money maker. The guy who runs the FFXIV RP calendar has already stated in this thread that they don't accept any venues who sell ERP.

So the main off-game avenues for advertisement is off-limits straight away and it's the one that notifies several RP Discords out there and posts to different forms of social media for maximum visibility. So it'd be a case of finding other off-game avenues they can use, but I expect the most visibility they get is in the Party Finder, hence we see so many of them. If they're off limits then yes, they're going to probably lose out on good advertisement space.

So they'll continue doing it and regardless of any moral argument you can make, if the people doing it don't care about that or are oblivious to it or disagree, they'll keep doing it.


Should we therefore accommodate them? I don't think it's a statement on whether they should be accommodated and my previous conversations in Liana's aforementioned thread, I think Liana probably isn't trying to say we should sympathise with them, but more "this is how it is".

I mean personally, whilst I'll happily defend ERP as a form of RP, I'm not one to defend selling it as an in game service. The concept of selling any RP to me is alien, but I can understand to a certain degree where there's immersion in the exchange of gil, where they might pay people gil to serve as an incentive for them to help out with their venue and covering in game costs (though we cover out own), but from what I understand there's also people out there who see it all as a good money maker.

And when people can make good enough bank, you're gonna struggle to stop them advertising in the places that give them the most visibility, regardless of whether it's banned or not.

People will very quickly start to realize the trend as more and more warnings are dished out, and especially if those warnings, suspensions, and bans cannot be disputed. This will stop people from advertising, but in exchange, they will look for ambiguous terms with which to advertise. Then they will cry wolf when they realize ambiguity won't stop them from getting banned. Smells familiar ngl.

I think it's fine if people use other avenues like Discord in order to advertise their venues, as that largely keeps advertisements out of the eyes of people who aren't seeking it, so nobody will really be at risk, nor will they see it so long as they don't seek it. Which is nice.

I would of course much prefer if they're not ambiguous, because I think that can be damaging to those who're genuine. I would prefer yes, if ERP venues are not allowed to advertise on PF that they keep it to other means of advertisements. But as per my above, I feel those who are out there to make bank off of it will aim for as much visibility as possible regardless of whether they're allowed to or not. A throwaway account might be inconsequential to them like with RMT and some of our forum trolls.

[Shin96]

Text

I said I don't have an issue with people doing it in their own privacy, not that I was on a moral crusade to prohibit players from doing it.

It's funny people react like I'm a parental authority and you need my agreement on wether or not it's okay to do it. Do whatever the hell you want but leave minors out or you will reap the consequences of your own actions. There's parents with children that play this game. I've said this a million times already but it's not hard to restrict yourself to see the bigger picture here. You are killing your own interests by publically advertising these avenues. People will pick up on it. Avoid you. Is that a price you are willing to pay? Because that's how the world works. I can't stop you from doing ERP - but you can't force people to accept it. Where this line will shift entirely depends on Square Enix. Neither me or you have any say in this, we can only arbitrarily argue based on our moral compass. Fact of the matter is, people of all kinds of ages and religions/countries play this game, and you cannot shove your views down their throat. Every company will try their best to steer clear from controversy but with ERP it's effectively like a ticking time bomb. There's plenty of cases where companies have suffer from bad reputation because they turned a blind eye towards issues similiar in nature to this.

[Kaurhz]

I would of course much prefer if they're not ambiguous, because I think that can be damaging to those who're genuine. I would prefer yes, if ERP venues are not allowed to advertise on PF that they keep it to other means of advertisements. But as per my above, I feel those who are out there to make bank off of it will aim for as much visibility as possible regardless of whether they're allowed to or not. A throwaway account might be inconsequential to them like with RMT and some of our forum trolls.

It's nonsense and roundabout methods such as these highlighted why we cannot and probably will not be able to have nice things. People won't be satisfied until they've utterly gimped themselves and those around them. In light of this, and in some respects I do actually feel genuinely sorry from those that have used RP for otherwise non-nefarious or endangering means. Simply because in these circumstances with lockdown and everything it can and has been seen as a saving grace, but alas everyone is lumped in the same troupe regardless of context, myself included have done such, really. This will continue and continue until the eventuality comes where you're 'required' to use fellowship finder. I will stand by it though, I have no sympathy at all for people that get warned, suspended, or banned, regardless of the victim crusade they so eagerly take, as it has been pretty much abundantly clear what isn't welcomed.

[LianaThorne]

snip

Pretty much. If anything I would be advocating for venues to be free lmao. I'm mainly just speaking on the reality of the environment right now in the DCs I've spent time in over the past year-ish.

Do I think ERP should be open to minors? Of course not. I fully back the idea of it being between two consenting adults who know each other because it limits the risk of issues happening.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Wait, so people putting their RP venues up, under everyone elses RMT content selling garbage, not abusing tags or anything are getting reprimanded but not the content sellers who are legitimately making side money off of SE's product with out regulation or censure.

Obviously the course is clear. Time to start reporting the RMT ads. Like full stop. Put the focus where its supposed to be.

Also I guess this is going to hurt the RP brothel business. Used to see this boldly proclaimed in PF often but it looks like they are taking a stance on sexual content (and I get it, but why not make an announcement or something). I don't want FFXIV to become an online hookup game either but there are legitimate RP venues (some with amazing bard bands/full on plays etc) that put the age restriction purely to make sure that people know what type of environment they are going into. The game allows you to mark you venue as a tavern but a bar is an adult place and should be labeled as such. Seriously these 'bans' baffle me. Just come out and say what is and isn't acceptable.

[Vahlnir]

Wait, so people putting their RP venues up, under everyone elses RMT content selling garbage, not abusing tags or anything are getting reprimanded but not the content sellers who are legitimately making side money off of SE's product with out regulation or censure.

Obviously the course is clear. Time to start reporting the RMT ads. Like full stop. Put the focus where its supposed to be.

Also I guess this is going to hurt the RP brothel business. Used to see this boldly proclaimed in PF often but it looks like they are taking a stance on sexual content (and I get it, but why not make an announcement or something). I don't want FFXIV to become an online hookup game either but there are legitimate RP venues (some with amazing bard bands/full on plays etc) that put the age restriction purely to make sure that people know what type of environment they are going into. The game allows you to mark you venue as a tavern but a bar is an adult place and should be labeled as such. Seriously these 'bans' baffle me. Just come out and say what is and isn't acceptable.

The 18+ tag isn't what is getting people banned. It is the content within the venue. Not sure what people aren't getting here. I do agree that they need to tackle these RMT ads as well, but it is slightly harder to prove. Report away though, I say.