Updates to the Prohibited Activities in FINAL FANTASY XIV and Account Penalty Policy

[Sigiria]

Free Speech doesn't come from the Constitution.

Sincerely, the Enlightenment Era.

Free speech isn't you being able to say whatever you want, wherever you want.
You're entitled to share your opinion in public, nobody's stopping you to go out in the street and strongly voice your opinion about compagnies asking you to be polite on their plateform. That's free speech.

Saying whatever you want on a privately owned plateform and going against the terms of service you explicity agreed on isn't free speech. And SE taking action to remove you from their plateform isn't silencing you since you're very much still free to speak your mind in public and there's nothing they could do against it.

[SturmChurro]

Didn't we literally have discussion like a couple months ago, that the ToS was just a suggestion or something, and some users didn't think it applied to them? These discussions are pretty funny, at the very least. I'll give it that.

[Krotoan]

As a Business Consultant. My job is to point out flaws, failures, and weak links SPECIFICALLY. As a gamer, I do this to myself daily to improve myself. In a game where it requires cooperation and a level of competitive play to achieve a mutually beneficial goal. You have an obligation to cooperate and compete at a mutually beneficial level. If you can't cooperate, and compete, and as a result you are the weak-link in that circumstance. I'm not sugarcoating it - I'm calling out the weak link.

I have no obligation to do anything. it's a video game. Concepts of responsibility coming from the "I bow to nobody" person is pretty funny though.

[Jettinson]

I dunno, so far the people I am seeing in the game act the same.
Seeing people still giving advices etc even before the update on this ToS.
Basically people acting like the usual just how I am going to as well.
Might wait some weeks after this but not having any issues at the moment

[Commander_Justitia]

Furthermore, as a person, and as a person that signed the terms of service, and the 'Prohibited Activities' document, no less. You have an obligation to act in accordance with that.

Only because something is written down in a contract or similar, doesn't mean it upholds in court. This is often a problem when companies come under EU law.
Sure they can ban you probably, but they just can't write anything in there for you to follow.

The bad thing about these or already about the previous ToS changes is, that if you play much, you probably get reported naturally more too, and it just builds up (especially if you play PvP). And then its hard to tell for a GM I assume, if the person is really a bad actor or just living on the edge and still behaving. And with those 7-10 years until your ban gets cleared... it is a bit too long. Small ban offences probably should be cleared after 2-5 years latest. Maybe keep them in a log still so they can tell if its the same offence if something new happens, to punish them harder directly.

[Fayt1203]

Didn't we literally have discussion like a couple months ago, that the ToS was just a suggestion or something, and some users didn't think it applied to them? These discussions are pretty funny, at the very least. I'll give it that.

Yep and what happen after that nothing much

they put some clarification for some people on the main site

Edit: milkieTea had already put the link i´m so slow

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6fe7354364902d

nothing, infact, has changed.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6fe7354364902d

Does this mean I can no longer give other players any advice?
We saw concerns that, based on the examples of “expressions that compel a playing style” under “Nuisance behavior,” players may not be able to say anything at all or have any means of offering advice.

Getting to the point, there is no issue with offering advice; communication is an important aspect of participating in duties with other players.

The problem lies with attitudes such as “My opinion is absolute and anyone who doesn’t listen is wrong,” or behavior accompanied by arrogant, oppressive speech and conduct. Exchanging opinions is perfectly fine, as it’s only natural that those receiving the advice will have their own ideas and opinions.

Of course, there may be cases where you don’t see eye-to-eye on opinions or principles, or cases where the person offering advice is correct and the person receiving it is in the wrong. Communication is not black-and-white, and the idea that “offering a suggestion” will be immediately equated to “compelling a playstyle” is too extreme. There may be times when you’re met with an extreme or backhanded response, and in such cases, please feel free to file a report and entrust the decision to us. Rest assured, we do not issue penalties solely based on the fact that a report was filed and will thoroughly investigate the logs for context as necessary before making a decision.

Additionally, there is the option to abandon the duty and disband should you feel the other player is unwilling to accept your differences, as well as the option for the person feeling at odds with the group (which may be yourself) to leave the party.

Using these various options at your disposal, rather than being fixated with offering advice or communicating opinions, is crucial in circumventing conflicts before they become overblown.

Is selling clears prohibited?
Another topic I’d like to address is whether the new Party Finder restrictions prohibit mercenary activities (offering assistance with clearing duties or obtaining items in exchange for gil or other compensation) in general.

Though the situation varied with each region, there were an enormous number of cases where RMT vendors created recruitment listings in the Party Finder under the guise of mercenary activities, which hindered normal players in their use of the Party Finder. The changes made at this time are intended as measures to rectify this situation and promptly crack down on fraudulent recruitment listings.

As a result, we’ve prohibited advertising mercenary activities in Party Finder, but recruiting for mercenaries (offering compensation in exchange for assistance) is not prohibited. Players seeking help are still allowed to create recruitment listings such as “Offering 100,000 gil per player if we clear!”

Moving forward, if you would like to engage in mercenary activities, we ask that you search for and join recruitment listings from players seeking help.

On a final note...
Based on our experience, there have been many cases where penalized players didn’t understand what they did wrong or what the issue was, so we added many examples to the prohibited activities in hopes of lowering the number of such cases.

While we’ve seen concerns that this will make it difficult to say anything at all, targeting certain expressions is not our intention. In other words, simply saying something mentioned in our examples doesn’t necessarily guarantee a penalty.

If a report is filed, the full context of the conversation is thoroughly investigated, and if we find a violation, only then will a penalty be imposed. As such, to reiterate, there is no need to worry any more than before.

Since the document only lists prohibited activities, looking at it by itself may give a dreadful impression, but aside from the two new Party Finder-related prohibitions, we’ve merely added examples, and the rules themselves have not changed since the amendments in 2019. Therefore, if you’ve been playing without incurring any violations (and of course, without receiving any penalties), then there will be no problem with playing as you usually do and remaining considerate of others.

The document can be summed up as, “Due to the nature of an online game, the people we encounter in-game are also individuals with varying personalities, so our speech and conduct should always take others into consideration.”


We ask for your understanding regarding the purpose of our various agreements and prohibited activities, and appreciate your cooperation in ensuring the healthy operations of FINAL FANTASY XIV.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I dunno, so far the people I am seeing in the game act the same.
Seeing people still giving advices etc even before the update on this ToS.
Basically people acting like the usual just how I am going to as well.
Might wait some weeks after this but not having any issues at the moment

Yeah nothing has changed. Did an alliance raid roulette last night full of the same rudeness, memes, blaming and insulting rez macros as ever.

[SturmChurro]

Yeah nothing has changed. Did an alliance raid roulette last night full of the same rudeness, memes, blaming and insulting rez macros as ever.

Well, looks like it's time to break out that report feature!

[Kaurhz]

Only because something is written down in a contract or similar, doesn't mean it upholds in court. This is often a problem when companies come under EU law.
Sure they can ban you probably, but they just can't write anything in there for you to follow.

The bad thing about these or already about the previous ToS changes is, that if you play much, you probably get reported naturally more too, and it just builds up (especially if you play PvP). And then its hard to tell for a GM I assume, if the person is really a bad actor or just living on the edge and still behaving. And with those 7-10 years until your ban gets cleared... it is a bit too long. Small ban offences probably should be cleared after 2-5 years latest. Maybe keep them in a log still so they can tell if its the same offence if something new happens, to punish them harder directly.

Well, yeah.. My point was if you do not follow their terms of service then they are well within their right to ban you, particularly if your presence does naught but cause discourse. Like I said, you signed it, you agreed to it. It's as much of an obligation for him to behave appropriately as much as the obligation it is for everyone in a group to contribute towards the best of their ability. Of course they can't write anything, but let's face it they aren't exactly being outside of reason with their requests. - Let's not have someone being selective about obligations whilst subsequently ignoring ones already established.

Wouldn't know, never had a sanction, so I find it quite ironic that people have self-proclaimed been reported and sanctioned for merely giving constructive advice. On the note of this though I think they're far too tight with their ban alleviation measures, if they want to call it that. I think they should start to go after 2 years. Gives people time to reform, and if a pattern of offences becomes apparent then just perma.

[LittleImp]

So about that update...

Turns out I was right all along.

About the thing I stated I agreed with you on, multiple times. Hence,

I agree with you that it's unlikely to actually be enforced in that way, but even having that kind of room for interpretation is a bad thing

being the central point that I had stated.

External clarification doesn't make the actual construction and examples within the ToS any less bad, which is only further underscored by the necessity to make an additional public statement that effectively boils down to "Our enforcement policies aren't actually consistent with our explicitly stated examples".

Foxclons blogpost won't be permanently pinned at the top of the ToS to keep things clarified, and future users will continue to read the ToS on its own and assume it should be taken at face value. If anything this was a significant localization challenge that they failed to meet, as it's been pointed out that the bizarre nature of many of the examples was due to the way they were translated almost directly from Japanese without care for the nuance that was lost along the way.