Exactly how harsh are the chat rules?

[Vav2021]

as you stated previously... so I am unsure as to why you are so worked up over it. COULD it happen? sure could, people are people. and many of those people are jerks... but its the same as someone harassing you everywhere else even in real life. you can either sit petrified in your house that something MIGHT happen, or you can actually live life.

The primary reason is over RP dialogue. I like to give my characters a little life by doing light RP (No heavy or ERP, just giving my character a little personality). And although it's not really my style of roleplay, folks could roleplay as someone edgy, broody, or even critical of other in-game races like that fellow in the Archers guild, Silvairre. In addition to that, some guild themes like a little conflict to advance a goal or something like that (RP wise). My concern is that certain tones of RP could actually get someone in trouble, or be used to get one in trouble. The broody guy that imitates the personality of Squall gets banned/muted for a short while because he's "toxic", the lalafel that's critical of those "knife eared bastards" is banned for hate speech, and because Vavil had at outburst that someone in his group lost the Mcguffen (more toxic/aggressive behavior).

it seems extremely frightening that the broody character saying "I hope you all die, slowly" could land him a ban. It'd be boring to meet people with a personality like Vavs all the time.

[Kes13a]

The broody guy that imitates the personality of Squall gets banned/muted for a short while because he's "toxic", the lalafel that's critical of those "knife eared bastards" is banned for hate speech, and because Vavil had at outburst that someone in his group lost the Mcguffen (more toxic/aggressive behavior).

it seems extremely frightening that the broody character saying "I hope you all die, slowly" could land him a ban. It'd be boring to meet people with a personality like Vavs all the time.

RP has a time and place. unless the entire group in an instance is your RP group, dont do it in duties or roulettes.

downtown Limsa I doubt many would care...

[Vav2021]

RP has a time and place. unless the entire group in an instance is your RP group, dont do it in duties or roulettes.

downtown Limsa I doubt many would care...

any self-respecting RPer would not bring RP into duties, roulettes, or dungeons because it would be a distraction and would inadvertently force non-RPers into an awkward situation.

[Kes13a]

any self-respecting RPer would not bring RP into duties, roulettes, or dungeons because it would be a distraction and would inadvertently force non-RPers into an awkward situation.

then there are a number of RP'ers out there not much into self respect.

not saying you, but have seen it in quite a number of places I would not expect it, up to and including a group that was doing it in a raid so... it happens. not just awkward, but easily misinterpreted depending on the personality. yelling "yer a bunch of millet brained slugs on the arse of a goblin" may be mildly amusing, I am sure someone amongst the other 23 people may be offended after a wipe...

[Absimiliard]

It's less about the TOS being too harsh and more about the sheer number of players that can and will report you for just about anything. And unfortunately, as a result of current TOS, many of those reports bear fruit.

It seems like the GMs do try to examine the surrounding context of whatever prompted them to receive a report, but this doesn't mean they're always successful. With only so many GMs to go around and such an insane number of reports, there will always be people that get the shaft when they probably didn't need to. Likewise, there will be people that escape the shaft when they very much deserved it.