The scary paradigm shift of Balmung.

[ForteNightshade]

You are so right, despite being a pg-13 game, BALMUNG is NOT safe for children under any circumstances. This was a really good call from you, you're a good parent.

If only square enix would WARN parents about the interactions their CHILDREN could be exposed to.

People always seem to ignore practically every online game explicably says, "Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB." It's even flashed on screen when you first log in.

Simply put, they do warn you. Several times, in fact.

Balmung was always an RP hub. Almost every single FC was named ??-RP. And it was mostly genuine RP and you'd see people RP out in the world and cities RPing, absolutely everywhere. I mean RP as adventurers, mercenaries, travelers, inns, "free companies", etc. Having detailed character biographies was common.

But when World Visit released, everyone traveled the Balmung immediately, for one reason only: they came to Ul'dah to see if the rumors were true. I waited there and said hello to people as they came to "see" if the Quicksand meme was true. Of course, they were disappointed to learn it was not true and that the Quicksand was just people discussing life in RP. "How are you doing today?" "Pretty beat up from some bandits I fought off earlier" etc.

Due to the World Visit system, people finally left Balmung and spread across Crystal turning it into the "RP data center" in general.

However, as Balmung's Quicksand meme persisted for years after, I expect it has continually attracted people interested in poor forms of RP of an intimate nature, interfering with the genuine RP. I don't know if that's the case because I left Balmung several years ago, but it was my expectation that this would happen after seeing the sheer amount of people travel to Balmung looking for "intimate" RP.

It's true that, prior to the implementation of World Visit, people did paid transfers to Mateus and treated it as an "overflow" server, but at the time we knew Mateus as the server people were doing... intimate RP on.

Uhh, I don't know when you went to the Quicksand, but it absolutely lived up to the meme. All you have to do is check people's search info and "people watch" for a few minutes and you'll see every kink imaginable. People just know to keep their ERP private because doing so publicly will get you in trouble. Something else to keep in mind is with "Moon Magic" these days, those two catgirls sitting on the bench together are seeing something very different on their screen than you are on yours.