Mod users in FFXIV are getting out of control

[Tsunenori]

snip

I think a lot of the pushback you see is coming at the idea that they're seeing you nude. Like, I've known people who don't want to wear the swimwear in the game because they don't want someone to see that much of them, and they aren't RPing when they say that. It comes across as a little weird.

I realize someone will ask "But the people modding for nudity aren't weird?"

To which I'd say no, not really. People are horny, and people express that in different ways. Mod scenes both SFW and NSFW have existed since the dawn of gaming and virtually every game you've played has a mod scene out there somewhere. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned The Sims which has an incredibly healthy NSFW mod scene that gets mainstream attention and from which some mod makers earn enough to live off of. Rule34 has also been mentioned in this thread, and if you talk to many artists and illustrators you'd be surprised at how many actively work in the NSFW scene because they make a ton of money doing it.

The point I'm getting at is that there's always going to be an appetite for this kind of content, and it's almost entirely self-fulfilling. Nobody is commissioning art or modding their game because they care about what you, the OP, myself, or anyone else looks like. The portion of those players who would then want to jeopardize not only the mods they enjoy but also their accounts by then harassing other users with those mods I'd imagine is insignificant enough for a thread like this to come across as pearl clutching. I guarantee this thread is not the first time Square-Enix has heard about a mod scene for FFXIV, and it's better business to let those players exist in peace than to crusade against them, provided they aren't rocking the boat much.

The better option is for players who DO feel harassed to either try to deal with Square-Enix directly to stop the person harassing them, or in the case of content hosted on third-party sites, to deal with the support staff of those sites if the person hosting the content using your character's likeness doesn't remove it at your request.

Late Edit: Personal opinion, but I'd almost be offended to hear they went after mod makers before they did anything to really clamp down on botting. The amount of gathering and PvP bots that keep on hanging out is a much bigger detriment than aesthetic modding.

[DreadRabbit]

Why would they waste their time and bother to find a way to patch this type of stuff out potentially ruining dozens of other perfectly fine mods that improve the game visuals a little or whatever because some people can't get over the fact that it's just pixels?

You kind of contradicted yourself here. If it's just pixels and they don't matter, then why would it matter to you if mods improving visuals get affected? After all, the visuals of this game are just pixels. Therefore they shouldn't matter or be worth defending. But we all know that's not the case.

I do agree that it would be a shame to blanket ban all mods, and I would rather that not happen. However if they did/do, then going after people like OP is just plain wrong. In that event you blame the people that abused the mod.

Sims and NSFW industry

Agreed completely. There's nothing wrong with wanting NSFW content or creating it, and I don't think that people using the mod in general should be condemned or anything like that.

Nobody is commissioning art or modding their game because they care about what you, the OP, myself, or anyone else looks like.

Then the mod(s) in question needs to be restricted to the player's own avatar and people on their friends list. If that were the case then I'd agree: no reason whatsoever to complain about what consenting people are doing on their own time with their own game.

[RiyahArp]

I think a lot of the pushback you see is coming at the idea that they're seeing you nude...

Um...why is this weird? The player has control over whether they want to wear a swimsuit or not, and who to wear it for. You don't have control over someone seeing you, apart from hoping the mod only works with specific pieces of clothing. As for the people modding...um no bloody offense, but if you ever have been part of or know any erp scene, you know its a very mixed bag of people who do it for various reasons and are of VERY varying mental stability. People thinking its all kittens and rainbows really surprise me. I'm not talking mods in general, just this specific one. And yes, some people use it because they want to see people's characters like that. Some do it respectfully, but it wouldn't surprise me otherwise.

I mean, you lost me at the commission thing because if you draw, yeah some people try and get work done nonconsensually with other people's characters. Not many, but enough where you better make sure both people are ok with the drawing. It's not everyone, but you're not pearl clutching if you require people to be on the up and up either.

I don't think it's a widespread or solvable problem, but it doesn't take everyone to really screw someone up, just a handful of people. I don't think people should really pooh pooh this, but its a very thorny issue that has no real answers to it.

If the OP isn’t actually being targeted by this harassment via mods, why are they raising hub-bub about it? Their first few posts in this thread was talking about being targeted for harassment via nude screenshots posted on social media and the like, but there is no proof that this actually happened to them, nor anyone they know. So why be concerned about it? Why start telling people to “be careful” and start spreading this fear that all modders are perverts that want to look at your character naked? This is aside from the fact that they are conflating the idea that they and their character are the same—that it’s even remotely comparable to talk about someone posting screens/seeing your avatar naked like you would talk about someone doing that to your person. Contrary to what the OP seems to think, modders don’t mod to see your character naked. The vast majority could not care less about other people’s characters.

I don't know about proof, but I'm not sure how you know she has none. Keep in mind there are a lot of sites for that kind of content.

As for modders in general, no they don't. I thought this was specifically about one type of mod, but it seems you are thinking it is a false flag to get all mods out?

As for "you are not your character," I don't think it's that easy. If someone creeps on you online, it doesn't always make it better that it's just pixels. It also depends on the person, I mean, some people may honestly have dealt with harassment both sexual or not in their lives, and loss of control can be very bad. You're kind of handwaving it away some, in order to defend modding as a whole from being curtailed. I don't think it should be, but this specific issue is unique and can be dealt without judging all modders

[HyoMinPark]

you know its a very mixed bag of people who do it for various reasons and are of VERY varying mental stability.

What? Are you for real saying that people who write erotic fiction or erotic roleplays are mentally unstable? Actually mentally unstable?

[RiyahArp]

What? Are you for real saying that people who write erotic fiction or erotic roleplays are mentally unstable? Actually mentally unstable?

Hyo...um I've known people like this. Not all of them, but there are people with serious mental issues as well as well adjusted people in the scenes. There are people who often are suffering fairly severe depression, or bipolar, or borderline, as well as healthy people too. I'm surprised this shocks you, if you are in one of those scenes you quickly find out who these people are if just to avoid them because they can ruin your life.

The weird, for me, is that nobody is seeing *you* but rather your character. The attachment to the concept of it being you is what's strange.

Idk...i mean, if someone yells at you in game, they only see your character too, it still hurts. If someone is perving on me, it's not just the character, its the player who animates them to a point. Othewise they'd just perv on npcs I think.

[HyoMinPark]

Hyo...um I've known people like this. Not all of them, but there are people with serious mental issues as well as well adjusted people in the scenes. There are people who often are suffering fairly severe depression, or bipolar, or borderline, as well as healthy people too. I'm surprised this shocks you, if you are in one of those scenes you quickly find out who these people are if just to avoid them because they can ruin your life.

I am sure that there are people like that that suffer from a variety of mental illnesses...but plenty of people in a variety of other scenes suffer from them just as much. There are people that do not write erotic fiction that may very well be as “mentally unstable” as those whom you claim do are. Your insinuation comes off to me as a blanket generalization that everyone or the majority who write erotic fiction or erotic roleplays are mentally unstable.

What shocked me was your blanket generalization. Because to me it sounded like you were saying that mental instability was directly correlated with writing erotic fiction and/or erotic roleplays. That’s what baffled me, because it sounded so incredibly prejudiced and ignorant.

I don't know about proof, but I'm not sure how you know she has none. Keep in mind there are a lot of sites for that kind of content.

I am probably not the only one in this thread that asked OP if they have ever had this specifically happen to them. Outside of the one /tell they posted (that actually occurred after this thread was created, so it was very obviously just a troll trying to bait them after reading this), they have provided no proof that this has directly affected them, that they have been directly targeted, or that it’s this widespread problem like they are attempting to make it sound like.

As for modders in general, no they don't. I thought this was specifically about one type of mod, but it seems you are thinking it is a false flag to get all mods out?

The opening post itself posts to caution players to “be careful” about the types of outfits they wear, as some of them have been modified to be more skimpy or lewd. It is not just about the nude mod, which is also not some brand new thing.

As for "you are not your character," I don't think it's that easy. If someone creeps on you online, it doesn't always make it better that it's just pixels. It also depends on the person, I mean, some people may honestly have dealt with harassment both sexual or not in their lives, and loss of control can be very bad. You're kind of handwaving it away some, in order to defend modding as a whole from being curtailed. I don't think it should be, but this specific issue is unique and can be dealt without judging all modders

I am not handwaving actual harassment; if you had read any of my previous posts in this thread, you would have seen that I advocate for them to deal with it as appropriate: report the individual, blacklist the individual, and then move on. The GMs are very good about dealing with harassment in the game, even if they cannot do anything about things like botting. What I said not to do, is paint all modders with the same brush just because one or two are being twats or acting like five-year-olds.

[Tsunenori]

Idk...i mean, if someone yells at you in game, they only see your character too, it still hurts. If someone is perving on me, it's not just the character, its the player who animates them to a point. Othewise they'd just perv on npcs I think.

I see where you're coming from here, but I think this part is just a difference of opinion or personality. A lot of players shrug getting yelled at off too since whoever it is doesn't matter to them and isn't a part of their lives, but your angle here is a fair one to take.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending taking pictures of people without their permission and posting them around and harassing them or anything like that. Even if we're going all the way down the well, and talking about NSFW content being misused in an ERP scenario, consent is still critical and the person doing something harmful to someone else is in the wrong. I just don't think targeting the mods is the issue here over targeting the people. I honestly can't imagine the people misusing this stuff are a majority within that group of players.

[JohnnyDevo]

Idk...i mean, if someone yells at you in game, they only see your character too, it still hurts.

I think the important distinction here is that the yelling is directed at the person behind the screen and not the character. The perving, however, can only ever be done to the character. No matter how many layers they peel off of your avatar, they will never ever see you naked.

And in the end? It simply means you can be as affected by it as you allow yourself to be. Just like with some stranger on the internet yelling at you. There's an identical amount of harm. There's an identical amount of ability to police it. So in the end, the only thing you can really do is choose not to let yourself be bothered, and to report those who harass you.

[RiyahArp]

I think the important distinction here is that the yelling is directed at the person behind the screen and not the character. The perving, however, can only ever be done to the character. No matter how many layers they peel off of your avatar, they will never ever see you naked..

This is true, but that doesn't mean a character that you spend years playing with, maybe building up a backstory with, or making a lot of in game memories is just this blank thing that has nothing to do with the player and cannot be violated in any form or manner. If someone instead did a mod which relied on gore and not nudity, it's still the same too, we aren't really meeting a violent death.

IDk, i guess it's just two different mindsets. I just wish people wont beat too hard on the OP for fear of their mods.

I don't have a huge opinion on either side, but I do want to ask a question as I do see this alot. What would you guys do if someone came - ingame- and stood behind or infront of your character in a pose that looks like it's humping you? Would you stand there or run off or wouldn't care? Yes it's just pixels but alot of people move cause it's abit off putting to see that. I would move myself and I don't think of the character as me either. But I'm just asking what would you do. I'm not defending op btw, just a question I thought up. As I do see alot of that ingame, hell I've seen people get as mad as to yell at the person coming up close to them.

Heh, yeah the "in my country we do not have this thing called personal space" people. Bonus points if you see them spin on their axis while they use first person view or spam emotes. I move quickly, sometimes even porting zones if its in limsa.
Oh, I move.

I know that there are skeevy and awful people out there; I also speak from experience. Here’s what I do: I just don’t let it bother me; I don’t concern myself with what people see on their screen. I also am well aware of the fact that my character is not me in real life; there is a difference in lewd tells/screens directed at my character, and lewd comments/photographs of myself in real life. If someone were to contact me with lewd /tells or sent me lewd screenshots of my character, I would just ignore them, report them if I felt like it, and blacklist them. I don’t start a crusade about it; I also don’t just assume that everyone is like that person. I’m well aware not everyone has innocent intentions, but letting a harasser have power over you—or know that they have power over you—is what lets them win. So I shrug it off.

It..well, it can be more complicated than that.

I remember times when a harasser would try to get people to actually tell the person harassed to avoid the blacklist, dragging more people into it and constantly raising the stakes and the amount of power you need to use. And a lot of people in the scene can be incredibly charming or charismatic, and then it happens and everything goes south. I think the worst experience i ever had was someone with borderline personality disorder literally turning the entire guild i was in against me and wearing people down by sheer madness. It depends on the person, but yeah, you generally are not so rational after a major issue; you simply can't be, because you know how high the stakes are sometimes. I wonder if OP has suffered anything to have this reaction. Like sometimes it can be overreaction, but sometimes sheer safety reflex.

I'm just not sure it's worth dedicating time and development resources that already seem to be spread pretty thin to a war on modding that probably won't be won anyway. You can look at other MMOs and see the fruits of that labor. I'm normally in favor of a grander cultural change around these things than targeting the tools people use, which is why I mentioned consent being key here. That takes time though. I don't know, Square-Enix will do whatever they feel is best and if the fervor around the mods is enough that they feel inclined to step in and change things then that's what'll happen.

Kind of a problem with technology I guess, it seems to amplify chaos a lot more than order. I don't think they could even address modding like that; they had a decade to do so in ffxi.

[HyoMinPark]

It..well, it can be more complicated than that.

I remember times when a harasser would try to get people to actually tell the person harassed to avoid the blacklist, dragging more people into it and constantly raising the stakes and the amount of power you need to use. And a lot of people in the scene can be incredibly charming or charismatic, and then it happens and everything goes south. I think the worst experience i ever had was someone with borderline personality disorder literally turning the entire guild i was in against me and wearing people down by sheer madness. It depends on the person, but yeah, you generally are not so rational after a major issue; you simply can't be, because you know how high the stakes are sometimes. I wonder if OP has suffered anything to have this reaction. Like sometimes it can be overreaction, but sometimes sheer safety reflex.

Immediately after a traumatic experience, no, you are usually not that rational. I speak from experience. But you gain rationality over time; you gain the ability to discern when things truly are “going south”. You cannot live in a constant fear that “[event] happened to me before; it will surely happen to me again, so I must always be on my guard” or “I met bad people before; I will surely meet them again, so I should protect myself/I should assume everyone is like that/I should trust no one”. Because, again, my main issue with the OP is that they are generalizing, and spreading fear where there is no need to spread it. The same for the individuals that got all up in arms about this on Tumblr.

I’m not saying that people should not be cautious; I am saying that they should stop letting things control them—their reactions, their behavior, the way they live. I’ve had terrible things happen to me in real-life—not in this game. I don’t let them control me because it is far too exhausting to live that way.