Hidde Glamours Locally (& other graphically immersive options)

[VirusOnline]

Is the group of people who would be offended by others' not seeing their frog costume be so large a group as those who'd really rather not go straight from a serious, emotional cutscene just to return to the open world to see a player in a frog costume emoting into (yes, into) another in a pig costume while a couple of WHMs in bikinis attempt to out-Holy-spam the other?

You don't know the numbers and I don't know the numbers. I won't pretend to know and I never suggested knowing. The original argument still stands that whether a feature is necessary stands upon it being such an issue that it's brought to the attention of the team. It being an issue implies that a majority complain about this en mass and whether the team thinks it warrants serious attention. A good team will always take in consideration the player's interests but must also find balance in their own view and goals for the game.

The world will always be the same outside of the cutscene. The cutscene, especially those with such emotion are generally isolated to the player. Should we change the shape of the world just so the player can on for the next few days in the 'book hangover'? And whether a whm is deglammed or not they will still spam holy. They can still stand on you. Come EW, you'll have hordes of people standing at the NPC. Immersion breaking ? Should we start solo instances in the world to negate this ? It becomes silly to attempt to isolate glamour as such a distressing source of broken immersion when we have mounts, crossovers, raids that have nothing to do with FFXIV, and even some would argue the existence of viera being in the overworld en masse.

If, for instance, there is only a small part of Group B whose experience would be worsened by the Group A's ability not to have their experience worsened by Group B, that is a net positive, since previously immersion and freedom of expression would have been mutually exclusive in this regard. Now, they'd be only mutually exclusive to the degree that people care that their glamour has a portion of players who, not wishing to see it if/when it would break their immersion, will not see it. That reduced conflict (from a zero-sum situation to far from it) is precisely the point of having options.

You're dismissing the benefits all while implying that the player costs would be far greater than is probable. Why?

I dismissed nothing. I know the benefits. It's why I play ESO. But while we're here, if you want to talk about freedom of expression you'll also need to talk about censorship. Expression in an mmo is outward. It's clothing. It's the mount you choose. It's how you talk. The things that make you an individual. When we see someone we see their expression be it glammed or not. If the player glamming is freedom of expression then the person removing that glam on their client is a censorship of those around them even if it's on their own client and affects no one. It's still censorship at its base idea. The same goes for illegal mods. It goes both ways.

You have a good argument and it's simply put, but there are two sides to the coin here and to deny it exists is faulty. Zero sum game or not - there is so much more nuance than that to consider and it can be summed up as politics. The team will judge whether it's something they want to involve themselves in and doing so will set a statement as the current game culture is that "glam is the true end game".

[Shurrikhan]

It being an issue implies that a majority complain about this en mass and whether the team thinks it warrants serious attention.

I think you'll find those criteria sorely lacking from the majority of fixes in this game.

You have a good argument and it's simply put, but there are two sides to the coin here and to deny it exists is faulty. Zero sum game or not - there is so much more nuance than that to consider and it can be summed up as politics.

1. I never denied that the coin, nor two conflicting sides thereupon, exist(s). Such is right there in what you've just quoted.
2. That a conflict is zero sum or capable of a greater-than-sum resolution is huge. However, finding and widening the difference between the two, such that each side can better achieve their desires without that coming at cost to the other, is exactly the goal of such game design.
3. That difference, moreover, is not merely "politics". It has far more to do with the specific means by which the given interests can be achieved.

It's still censorship at its base idea.

Does my wearing headphones repress your right to speech? Would my not looking at you deny you your freedoms in clothing yourself? My vision is poor. Have I therefore inherently dismissed or devalued your efforts in skincare?

In in-game terms, are filters now likewise, what, anti-democratic? Most iterations of glamour-hiding ideas are effectively just that: if the appearance is Z (or not A through Y), it's filtered out, per that specific player's preferences (not, mind you, some arbitrary overlying ruleset).

If you can make the case that a player blacklist, for instance -- I hear A-Y, but not Z -- amounts to a net loss in player freedoms and ultimately toxifies the environment, you might have a point here. But I doubt it.

[Krotoan]

And we're here again.

Saying that a filter on an individuals computer is "censorship".


At what point do your "freedoms" end and mine begin?
Should I not have control over what I see on my screen? Should I not be the final arbiter of what the hardware I paid for, running on the electricity I pay for, using the internet access I pay for shows me? Just because you can wiggle your mouse and make a character on my screen move, does that give you the right to display whatever you wish on my screen?

At what point does the information you're renting to access stop being yours and become my problem? Should you be allowed to broadcast whatever you wish via the medium of an MMO straight into my experience as long as it does not violate actual mechanics of the game? Why does a character you do not own (you by license do not), have any right to representation in any place? What guarantee says you're promised this?

Do we not allow anti-harassment measures currently? We have text harassment, audio harassment, even visual harassment. How far a stretch is this to be visual harassment? Where is the line drawn for your window into my experience?


One more time, me not seeing someones glamour is not even remotely related to telling someone in real life they cannot dress/be/eat/kiss/date/interact with anyone or anything. Its within the cyber world akin to me unfollowing you on a social media we share. I cannot understand it. Nobody I know understands it. I tried my hardest to find someone I associate with who can fathom why it'd be so important that every single person you interact with HAS to see the video game character you dressed up and even the thought of it distresses you. I could not. Every single real world person I interacted with about it was either mystified or laughed especially when I brought up people citing censorship and oppression as opposition.


I believe in the rights of a human being to be who they want to be in real life. To extend that protection to a video game character is detachment from reality and disrespectful to people who actually struggle with societies intolerance of their immutable being. Your character can be an escape but it's still a representation in a fake environment with entirely different rules to reality. As long as I'm not able to stop you from actually making choices for your own character or from playing, you do not need to concern yourself with what I see.