Roleplay/Partyfinder Discrepancies & Policy Enforcement by GM's

[Nakarumi]

Many of you are already aware of this issue and have even fallen victim to this as it stands, but we must bring this to the gaming community's, senior game masters', and game devs' (if not legal dept.) attention as this problem has exploded overnight.

The Party Finder has been a means for roleplayers to advertise their venues to the general player base for YEARS in the game. This is nothing new and has been the standard norm for quite some time. However, there now seems to be a discrepancy in regards to this.

Below, I'm listing the active help directory for THE PARTY FINDER as it is described in-game:









As you can see, it only describes the use of the PF as a means to find and/or create your own party. It does not state for what intent or purpose that you're allowed to form a party for, but only towards the point of finding people to join a party.
This translates into a tool intended to help find people for "whatever purpose you deem necessary".

However, there have been SEVERAL reports of GMs pulling people into player jail for the purpose of saying that their PFs are not allowed for "social purposes". Most of these have been just warnings but proof has been submitted showing that this has also resulted in acct suspension as well.

All the players shown in the screenshots below have given explicit permission to share these screenshots for the purpose of this post, as this has proven to be a massive blow and disruption to the community that makes up a good portion of what people play FFXIV for:






Roleplay venue owners find this unacceptable. There is no clear policy that states this is against the TOS or any rules or guidelines posted within the game. There is no clear violation of any rules or services as there is no indication that this is not allowed.

Additionally, we've been advised that we can advertise or market in shouts, fellowships, and/or linkshells but herein lies the issue with that:

1. Advertising by multiple venues can create spam which IS prohibited by policy and would not be advisable as a valid alternative to PF marketing.
2. Fellowships are only useful when the general populace knows what to look for or how to search for a specific Fellowship. This is not feasible without additional means of advertising. Additionally, a single player can only join but so many Fellowships before they can join another. This is not an effective alternative.
3. Linkshells are only accessible to added participants and have a limited number of people that can join. This is not a plausible means of advertising when it's not something easily accessible to the general populace.

Obviously, we are currently at an impasse and we're not sure if this is a misunderstanding by the one GM displayed in the above screenshots or if we need to have a conversation with the policy writers to find a more feasible means of clarifying policy or if another tab/category/feature can be added to accommodate for the massive RP community that exists within the realm of FFXIV.

Please comment and share your own experiences with this example/situation. Constructive suggestions welcome~

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EDIT/UPDATE:

There seem to be some tangents that are developing in the thread talking about the context of RP versus ERP versus SFW versus NSFW content here... I want to make it clear that the above-stated issue and circumstances listed above are not exclusively any specific type of context. The situations that arose were not just "ERP" or "brothels" or posts of any kind of sexual connotation but were everything from completely innocent SFW to inferred NSFW posts.
There was no discrepancy between any of them as these warnings and suspensions took place. The only common theme between them all was specifically anything of a roleplaying variety.

The plain and simple fact is that there is no written rule or policy that states that RP is forbidden from Party Finder in any form or fashion. There is no vague statement in or out of the game in either the HELP sections or the TOS that prohibits this. Therefore, the listed actions by the above shown GM were unwarranted and seemingly unsanctioned but the resulting effects have left the community divided and upset.

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New Update:

Another GM replied to a follow-up ticket leftover from the original GM that started the initial response and we are currently looking at a potential supervisor review of the situation as this player tried to describe the concerning issue that we're all discussing. The player DID provide permission to post the following images:



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Lastest Update from Support:



Wow... that image is small. Here's the copy and paste of the above text:

Hello and thank you for your GM call.

We sincerely appreciate your desire to share your concerns regarding a Game Master's conduct, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Based on the provided information, we will be reviewing the behavior of the Game Master in question, and we will be taking the necessary actions to correct and resolve any mistakes that were made on their behalf, in addition to taking the necessary steps to prevent any future mistakes from happening.

In regards to your inquiry about the Party Finder function policy, comments are allowed to be posted as long as they do not contain or promote any material that is in violation of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement. For further details regarding the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement, as well as a list of Prohibited Activities, we recommend consulting the SQUARE ENIX Support Site at:

https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382

We take these concerns very seriously, so we appreciate you contacting us about this matter. Should you have any further concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be glad to assist.

Thank you for your patience, and best wishes to you.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Game Master Team

_______________________________________________


Newest corrospondence:

[Aslae]

This happened to me too, and I received an email stating I violated ToS 3.3, which the dev never mentioned anything about. There is something going on here that doesn't seem right.

[Siena_Thombi]

Happened to my friend and owner of an rp venue, just wanted to show my support and ask for this to be resolved.

[Kaurhz]

GM would be doing God's work if he extended this exact approach to those advertising for content sales on PF.

[van_arn]

GM would be doing God's work if he extended this exact approach to those advertising for content sales on PF.

Absolutely, but the difference is the brothels would stay off PF. The content sellers would just hijack another account.

[DrWho2010]

Some one or some group of people are taking it upon themselves most likely to get something started in "cleaning up" PF listings.

The GM isn't technically wrong. PF is there for creating parties. Not for advertising.

The correct method as was mentioned I believe is moving those things to the Fellowship function. The RP crowd should take it upon themselves to collectively move their stuff over there so PF can stay what it was meant to be.

[ShukiSakura]

Hey everyone! I pre-wrote a letter to send to the SE support regarding this issue. Please follow the instructions below!

First, go to this link: https://support.na.square-enix.com/c...382&la=1&fty=1
Click "Get Support"
Under "Contact Category", select "In-Game", then under Contact Sub-category, click "Other".
For "Summary of your inquiry", type "GM Abuse within Primal Data Center", then click next.
On the next page, also click next. Next page, please click "Proceed to Email Support"
If at any point it asks you to login to your account, please do so.
Finally, on the "Contact Details" page, please fill out your information and copy/paste the letter provided here within the "Detailed Condition" block. Be sure to replace your name on the bottom of the letter!!!
Click next, then submit on the final page.

I'll post the letter in the next reply.

[ShukiSakura]

Dear Square Enix Support,

As you know, over a million players have played and have continued to play Final Fantasy XIV. From all walks of life, every Warrior of Light that logs in does so for a different reason. Some may be for glory in raiding, some to play with their friends across the world, others to make their outfits of their dreams. However, many also join to live out a fantasy life in the form of "Roleplaying" that frankly cannot be replicated anywhere else.

The reason I am writing this letter is to bring to attention a "GM Wyndallus" within the Primal Data Center that is currently banning players for advertising their "RP Venues" within the Party Finder system. These venues are absolutely vital to the health and well-being of the roleplaying community, as it gives them a place to gather and share in the beauty that is the FFXIV lore and lifestyle in the most intimate way possible. However, as there is no other way to make wide reaching contact to people across the data center currently available to the players within the FFXIV system, advertising on the Party Finder has been a commonplace way to advertise and is greatly appreciated by all within the very large and active roleplaying community. With said bans occuring from the GM, the roleplaying community is having their established form of communicating quickly dissolved, creating immense confusion and panic.

Concurrently, there are still, at this moment, advertisements of RMT by bots on the Party Finder that have not been taken down. With this juxtaposed stance on what belongs on the party finder and what doesn't, a lot of players are starting to worry of an unfair and stifiling stance on the roleplaying community.

I have attached various documents of said bans and some sentiment into what the FFXIV Roleplaying Community is currently feeling. I strongly request that this matter be looked into and either clarify rules regarding what does and does not belong on the Party Finder, or help the community in this issue by providing some leniency in the matter until an alternate way to advertise role-playing communities across servers is established.

I greatly appreciate your time and effort looking into this and hope to hear from you soon.

Very Respectfully,

(Name)

Note: Link of chat logs posted here: https://imgur.com/gallery/Gx3oqR9

[linayar]

If PF is intended for the formation of parties to attempt content, then that must mean all those PF advertising sales for runs/clears are fine unless it can be proven that RMT or other TOS violations are involved.

With that said, false advertisement should be taken into consideration. Using level 50/60/70 roulette PF to advertise for an Ultimate is bad regardless if everything else about it is truly legit.

[Clover_Blake]

This is very strange. What is "OTHER" used for? How does creating a party for any sort of activity (like RP) under the tag "OTHER" disrupts anyone? I've never used PF myself and don't know what tends to be going on there, but I feel sorry for those who were banned for this reason. It's quite uncomfortable, especially considering that -as OP stated- the ingame PF description doesn't warn about this.