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.

[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.

[Greenage_Hudson]

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

^this. They would take down some RP lists, but not remove content sale listings on PF. I legit never seen the Duty Roulette tab ever be used to actually get people interested in dailies. It's just pure advertisement to sell clears and mounts.

[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.

[Aslae]

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.

Have you tried using the fellowship function? It's absolute trash. Until we have something better, pf is the easiest way to do it. And by the way, the GM offered the alternative to pf be shouting in cities. It's much easier to avoid a pf advertisement than all of us RP'ers shouting in city chat.

[Solarra]

...the GM offered the alternative to pf be shouting in cities.

I honestly can't see how that would be an improvement. I am fairly sure that there would be a flood of reports if every RP event was advertised through /shout.
I agree Fellowships are too limited to be of much use to anyone and Discord and Twitter, which Rindez suggested above, are out of game.

I think the most elegant solution to this issue would be to give RP it's own tab in the PF.