Regarding the Revision of the Prohibited Activities and Account Penalty Policy

[Lium]

There needs to be clear rules, clear boundaries of behavior and conduct.

These new rules are pretty darn clear to me (with the exception of the "intentionally leaving" part, but another poster clarified that). And I think this is 46 pages of cultural freakout. Americans don't like ANYTHING that can be seen as restricting freedom of speech, even if no real restriction exists. We just like to over react because that's what Americans do.

For example. If I was running a PUG dungeon and I noticed the SMN wasn't using any DOTs, and I said to them "Hey summoner, use your dots lol" and the SMN responded with "Don't tell me how to play my job! Reported!" (This actually happened once, but it was the tank who told the SMN to use their dots.), I could guarantee you nothing would happen to me. Because the GM would look at the chat logs and see I wasn't being snarky or antagonistic. If I had said something along the lines of what you would see in WoW or LoL, then yes, I'd get in trouble. And rightfully so.

There is a clear distinction here.

[Fliss]

These new rules are pretty darn clear to me (with the exception of the "intentionally leaving" part, but another poster clarified that). And I think this is 46 pages of cultural freakout. Americans don't like ANYTHING that can be seen as restricting freedom of speech, even if no real restriction exists. We just like to over react because that's what Americans do.

You do realize that not all of us are American, right? Canadians and people from Europe play this game too.

[Stereomix]

Rules should be clear and concise enough that you know exactly when you commit an offence. Murphy's law is the reasoning. "If something can go wrong, it will."

[zztoluca]

These new rules are pretty darn clear to me (with the exception of the "intentionally leaving" part, but another poster clarified that). And I think this is 46 pages of cultural freakout. Americans don't like ANYTHING that can be seen as restricting freedom of speech, even if no real restriction exists. We just like to over react because that's what Americans do.

For example. If I was running a PUG dungeon and I noticed the SMN wasn't using any DOTs, and I said to them "Hey summoner, use your dots lol" and the SMN responded with "Don't tell me how to play my job! Reported!" (This actually happened once, but it was the tank who told the SMN to use their dots.), I could guarantee you nothing would happen to me. Because the GM would look at the chat logs and see I wasn't being snarky or antagonistic. If I had said something along the lines of what you would see in WoW or LoL, then yes, I'd get in trouble. And rightfully so.

There is a clear distinction here.

You realise NA includes all of North and South America, Caribbeans and many OCE and EU players that play. This isnt an "American" thing.

Your post is quite offensive to exclude others according to the new revisions to policy.

[Lium]

You realise NA includes all of North and South America, Caribbeans and many OCE and EU players that play. This isnt an "American" thing.

Your post is quite offensive to exclude others according to the new revisions to policy.

And players from Europe, the Caribbean, etc. are - in general - not nearly as boorish as we are. (We being Americans.) As another poster pointed out, these rules seem mostly aimed directly at players in the United States.

[frostmagemari]

These new rules are pretty darn clear to me (with the exception of the "intentionally leaving" part, but another poster clarified that). And I think this is 46 pages of cultural freakout. Americans don't like ANYTHING that can be seen as restricting freedom of speech, even if no real restriction exists. We just like to over react because that's what Americans do.

For example. If I was running a PUG dungeon and I noticed the SMN wasn't using any DOTs, and I said to them "Hey summoner, use your dots lol" and the SMN responded with "Don't tell me how to play my job! Reported!" (This actually happened once, but it was the tank who told the SMN to use their dots.), I could guarantee you nothing would happen to me. Because the GM would look at the chat logs and see I wasn't being snarky or antagonistic. If I had said something along the lines of what you would see in WoW or LoL, then yes, I'd get in trouble. And rightfully so.

There is a clear distinction here.

There isn't a clear distinction, because as i said.. it is all up the discretion of the GM dealing with the case because the rule are so open ended, and you're lobbing softball situations to aid your argument, just like some are going overboard to aid theirs.

I can guarantee one thing will come out of this; ticket overload. GMs will be over taxed by the increase in tickets, which will mean SQE has to do one of two things; The first will be spending more money to hire more GMs (which.. c'mon now.. c'mon..) or two, they will insist that GMs deal with cases quicker (which is the more likely option). As seen with other companies(both game and non game), when it's demanded that you resolve situations quickly, it is much more common to not take the time needed to give an impartial ruling or take all the facts of a situation into account.

You will get snap rulings, you will get unneeded or undeserved punishments or situations where punishments should be put out won't be; and if you don't think we will, that's naive.

[Freyt]

SE has forgotten an extremely basic principle. Rules need to be trusted by both those who enforce the rules, and those who are to follow the rules (which rule enforcers should also be following). There is a very grave error within these rules. It relies on GM's to be good people, and for "rule breakers" to be bad people. Neither of which does the community believe in at large.

・Discriminatory expressions based on race/nationality/thinking/gender/sexual orientation/gender identity

For example, what qualifies? Most expressions when they started were acceptable at the time they were brought to popularity. The "ok" hand sign for example is now associated with white supremacy, even though 4-chan memed that into reality, could it still qualify as a discriminatory expression?There are no examples listed, and so that means that any rule enforcer at any time can judge anything to be discriminatory if they ever heard at any point that it was.

・Discriminatory expressions about a state/religion/occupation/organisation, etc.

This should be readily obvious. You could say "I don't think your job would be any fun", and you've just discriminated about it. How is this rule allowed? Someone could even perceive that the person they're talking to doesn't even like their own job, and try to sympathize, and get banned for it.

・Obscene/indecent expressions

There are very clear examples that could have been made here. Without any examples, literally anything could be seen as obscene. Many people in powerful positions have openly called various political factions as obscene, even when many others who did not sympathize did not think it was obscene. Having an unpopular opinion hardly constitutes a ban, and yet this rule can apply to an unpopular opinion.

Again, this is about what it "can" apply to. The question isn't "what will GM's do with it", but "what can GM's do with it". We can't assume that any GM is going to automatically be a good person.

・Actions that inflict emotional distress using content related to historical events or crimes

This is just hilarious. Just about anything qualifies. An action can qualify as a statement, or a discussion. In fact given that most of the infractions here will be because of text, that's what this rule likely will be targeting.

・Disclosing or indicating personal information such as contact details with the aim of meeting up in the real world
・Disclosing or indicating another person's real world personal information without permission

This is the most reasonable thing on the entire page. This is a very good example of a good rule. It doesn't rely on the rule breaker being a "bad" person". Anyone who breaks this rule is either going to be "bad" either in the moment or consistently. Similarly any GM who enforces this rule in just about any capacity is not relied on to be "good".

・Other actions that are generally regarded as actions that inflict deep emotional distress on another person


And immediately we go right back to terrible rules. PTSD is deep emotional stress, and can easily by triggered by anything you do. We can't all go walking around assuming responsibility for every person's emotions that we walk by, because we can't know each and every action that can hurt somebody.

■Real Money Trading (RMT)

How about you actually enforce this already? People can't believe in the rules, because the rules don't work for them. At this point just about any player feels they're worth less than botters, because they pay for more subscriptions. This could be met with "but we ban RMT users all the time", but it's clear you're using a butter knife on a boulder.

■Misuse of flaws

This is actually one I specifically support. So how about you get all those people squatting on tons of houses and bring them down to just 1 personal and 1 FC house?

[KaivaC]

/10char

[blackcitadel9]

I think all the people who aren't skeptical of these changes are not properly applying the veil of ignorance on these rules. They operate under the assumption "I won't ever fall afoul of them because (In their own opinion) I'm a nice, respectful person."
The problem is it doesn't matter who you are. It only matters who the offended party is and the person deciding if you need to be punished. The rules as they are, are too vague and too easily weaponized.
Vagueness doesn't make rules better, it just makes them more powerful.

One thing read out of proper context and you are now hit with a caution or a warning. This then makes further action taken against you easier if it's malicious in nature or even if you're just unlucky enough to meet a few people who think what you're
saying is worthy of reporting and a few GMs who agree with them, either just because lack of context, or time or energy to properly investigate. This is assuming you're innocent ofc. If you think all the GMs can apply 100% attention and energy to every report that will be made...it's just not going to happen.

I'd like to believe that the people in charge of enforcing these rules are decent people with a fair sense of right and wrong, unfortunately we don't know that.
We also don't know what actually IS an offense or an infraction because they are so subjective, doubly so, the subjective interpretation of whoever puts in the report and then the GM who has to deal with it.
I'd also like to fall back on common sense and general courtesy being enough, but honestly the way the world is today...common sense is vanishingly rare and courtesy is subjective.

[NanaWiloh]

I think all the people who aren't skeptical of these changes are not properly applying the veil of ignorance on these rules. They operate under the assumption "I won't ever fall afoul of them because (In their own opinion) I'm a nice, respectful person."
The problem is it doesn't matter who you are. It only matters who the offended party is and the person deciding if you need to be punished. The rules as they are, are too vague and too easily weaponized.
Vagueness doesn't make rules better, it just makes them more powerful.

One thing read out of proper context and you are now hit with a caution or a warning. This then makes further action taken against you easier if it's malicious in nature or even if you're just unlucky enough to meet a few people who think what you're
saying is worthy of reporting and a few GMs who agree with them, either just because lack of context, or time or energy to properly investigate. This is assuming you're innocent ofc. If you think all the GMs can apply 100% attention and energy to every report that will be made...it's just not going to happen.

I'd like to believe that the people in charge of enforcing these rules are decent people with a fair sense of right and wrong, unfortunately we don't know that.
We also don't know what actually IS an offense or an infraction because they are so subjective, doubly so, the subjective interpretation of whoever puts in the report and then the GM who has to deal with it.
I'd also like to fall back on common sense and general courtesy being enough, but honestly the way the world is today...common sense is vanishingly rare and courtesy is subjective.

Here is the line that will make it all clear why some people dont worry.
"SQUARE ENIX MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE FFXIV SERVICE ACCOUNTS, CHARACTERS, VIRTUAL GOODS, OR THE SERVICE ALTOGETHER, AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY TO YOU."