Yet another thread about explicit pf's

[Xeronia]

The game comes with a warning about content and how player interactions are outside of the ratings review. It's up to parents to decide if their child should view such content and be part of player interactions. Try getting outraged at the parents who allow it if you're offended.

I want to ask how you think parents magically know these warnings they see on many other games somehow take on a completely different meaning when it comes to 14 and how strict or observant you are expect parents to be of a 13-17 year old. I of course hope parents did teach their kids to be weary of anything online but just looking over the ratings I wouldn't fault a parent for not knowing a 14 has a massive issue with 18+ content, especially if they never played the game.

Let's take a look at the SE store listing shall we?



Hmm nothing about questionable online content but it is sold out so let's check the list of other recommended vendors they themselves linked.

Amazon: Rating pending on listing (Picture shows T with no descriptors of why)
Best Buy: Rating Pending on listing
Gamestop: Actually has the T rating, No mention of Online interaction or Users Interact
Greenman Gaming: Rating Pending on listing
Humble Bundle: Another T rating without online warnings!
Newegg: Only show T rating on picture on the box
Mogstation: Can't verify as I have every expansion

Not linked too but other versions of the game:
PS4 & PS5: Actually has Users Interact
Steam: Has Users Interact listed

Please explain to me how a parent is supposed to know based off of this at all? I suppose a good parent could watch their child play the game but unless you started in Limsa or made a character on Balmung I imagine after a few hours a parent would deem it fine and leave their kid be, especially if the kid is an older teenager.

[AlexiaD]

I want to ask how you think parents magically know these warnings they see on many other games somehow take on a completely different meaning when it comes to 14 and how strict or observant you are expect parents to be of a 13-17 year old. I of course hope parents did teach their kids to be weary of anything online but just looking over the ratings I wouldn't fault a parent for not knowing a 14 has a massive issue with 18+ content, especially if they never played the game.

Let's take a look at the SE store listing shall we?



Hmm nothing about questionable online content but it is sold out so let's check the list of other recommended vendors they themselves linked.

Amazon: Rating pending on listing (Picture shows T with no descriptors of why)
Best Buy: Rating Pending on listing
Gamestop: Actually has the T rating, No mention of Online interaction or Users Interact
Greenman Gaming: Rating Pending on listing
Humble Bundle: Another T rating without online warnings!
Newegg: Only show T rating on picture on the box
Mogstation: Can't verify as I have every expansion

Not linked too but other versions of the game:
PS4 & PS5: Actually has Users Interact
Steam: Has Users Interact listed

Please explain to me how a parent is supposed to know based off of this at all? I suppose a good parent could watch their child play the game but unless you started in Limsa or made a character on Balmung I imagine after a few hours a parent would deem it fine and leave their kid be, especially if the kid is an older teenager.

dis you ?



Lmao, the drama just because of some PF's my god lol, get over yourself already and stop acting as if children dont see that stuff everywhere on TV, on their Ipads, on their phone etc.

[Jojoya]

I want to ask how you think parents magically know these warnings they see on many other games somehow take on a completely different meaning when it comes to 14 and how strict or observant you are expect parents to be of a 13-17 year old. I of course hope parents did teach their kids to be weary of anything online but just looking over the ratings I wouldn't fault a parent for not knowing a 14 has a massive issue with 18+ content, especially if they never played the game.

Let's take a look at the SE store listing shall we?



Hmm nothing about questionable online content but it is sold out so let's check the list of other recommended vendors they themselves linked.

Amazon: Rating pending on listing (Picture shows T with no descriptors of why)
Best Buy: Rating Pending on listing
Gamestop: Actually has the T rating, No mention of Online interaction or Users Interact
Greenman Gaming: Rating Pending on listing
Humble Bundle: Another T rating without online warnings!
Newegg: Only show T rating on picture on the box
Mogstation: Can't verify as I have every expansion

Not linked too but other versions of the game:
PS4 & PS5: Actually has Users Interact
Steam: Has Users Interact listed

Please explain to me how a parent is supposed to know based off of this at all? I suppose a good parent could watch their child play the game but unless you started in Limsa or made a character on Balmung I imagine after a few hours a parent would deem it fine and leave their kid be, especially if the kid is an older teenager.

If they're trying to purchase Endwalker for their child, they already know that Final Fantasy XIV: Online is an online massively multiplayer game since they'll need to have that first and how conveniently you excluded that information from your cutout even though it was just a little lower down the webpage). It's an idiot that buys an expansion that can't be played because they don't already own the base game.

Then we look at the Ratings icon. Looking at that we see the game includes:

Blood
Language
Partial Nudity
Sexual Themes
Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
Violence.

Just what are you objecting to that happens in game, whether in the game content itself or in player interaction, that does not fall under one of those categories?

You're acting like every parent out there is an illiterate idiot. Guess what? They aren't. Guess what else? We can't help it if a few of them are. We are not responsible for them.

[ZavosEsperian]

Just what are you objecting to that happens in game, whether in the game content itself or in player interaction, that does not fall under one of those categories?

You do understand you cannot compare what is portrayed in the game to the actions of other players in the game, right?

Before the ESRB clarified the meaning to 'Users interact', the old language was 'Online interactions not rated by ESRB' which was meant to be interpreted as that the ESRB has no control over what other users of the game will do, since this is not something they can control for when rating a game. The only people who are allowed to control what users are able to do online are the companies that run said games and who maintain the servers. As such, they are allowed to be more strict than what the ratings suggest should they want.

In addition, when you do interact with players in the game, 'Sexual Themes' would be insufficient to describe how the community behaves. Were I someone who was tasked with rating how the community of FFXIV conducts itself in relation to the ESRB rating system, the correct terminology most likely would line up with 'Sexual Content' or 'Strong Sexual Content'.

By the ESRB's own definition, sexual themes are "References to sex or sexuality". Unless things are considerably different in terms of reading standards from when I was in school, you could find things that would classify as such as early as 7th to 8th grade where I am from in the US, and seeing sexuality is in the mix, it could be even lower now based on the curriculum in my area. This indicator should not raise any concerns unless the parent in question is trying to avoid these sorts of topics all together.

The other two content descriptors, 'sexual content' and 'strong sexual content', are a more fitting description of what you will find inside the community. These two are described as "Non-explicit depictions of sexual behavior" in the case of sexual content and "Explicit and/or frequent depictions of sexual behavior" for strong sexual content. The more details that are given, the higher the rating as it becomes more explicit.

From my schooling, I do remember books that would fall into the 'Sexual Content' range that I would've had to read when I was in 10th - 12th grade. Books containing something like this would be few and far between, and when they did contain something like this, it was rather tame compared to what you would expect from the community as nothing can be explicitly said at all. As for strong sexual content, while I cannot speak to current schooling standards, books like this were not a part of the curriculum while I was in school. An example of a book containing something like this would be 50 Shade of Grey, which meets the criteria due to the contents of the book.

As such, your argument is faulty since it assumes what the players do is within the bounds of the ESRB rating, which is false. It is possible to encounter behaviors that escalate above the rating indicated on the box from the players.

We are not responsible for them.

While you are not responsible for the failings of parents, you are directly responsible for conducting yourself in a way that is suitable for individuals who can be, at minimum, age 13 as per the user agreement you signed when you started playing this game:

3.3 Profanity and Offensive Language. You may not use profanity or any language that a reasonable person would find offensive. The Game is for players aged 13 and older. You agree to behave accordingly.

Rules and Policies - Final Fantasy XIV User Agreement section 3.3

Whether or not the GMs want to crack down on the behavior is a topic for another day.

The only question I have for you is why are you so adamant when it comes to this particular discussion? If I am to take you for your word, which I am willing to do, it is clear you do not like the behavior of a fair chunk of members inside of the community. However, you seem opposed to having guardrails regarding the community's behavior as well. As such, what is your main concern when it comes to resolving this issue if you are concerned with resolving it in the first place?

[Astrus]

That Community Influence clause is interesting and makes me wonder how a lot of games manage to keep their rating below M once they're popular enough to get picked up by certain - what's the word here, influencers, personalities? and their followers and/or certain communities while keeping really lax moderation standards.
If that's a valid criteria for ratings I certainly wonder how XIV keeps a T.

I still fail to see how the PF listing in the OP is in any way explicit on its own but the things a noticeable (as in visible/present, not neccessarily size) part of the community gets up to in the game could warrant an M rating as SE is quietly tolerating it by not doing anything to dissuade people. Is covering it with the ToS enough to protect the rating if the relevant parts of the ToS don't seem to get enforced?

I don't really follow ESRB ratings as it's not the system my country uses, have there been cases in the past where a game's rating (or maybe the rating for a new expansion for that game) was bumped up because of the game's community interactions?

[Asari5]

i've seen more of these topics than 'explicit pf's'

and no thats not an exaggeration.

[Ritsuka-55]

Ah yes, party finder for FFXIV, more like Tinder, Tik Tok, than a bloody game to play.

Such a sad state.

[Minali]

While reading this and that other thread I can't help but wonder how many of you people are actually parents or ever had to watch over a much younger child. Can't be many. My parents tried to control my internet hours with a specific router when I was a teen and I managed to disable it and later at least double this period quickly. Eventually my dad wrote the company and they said my parents already did what the system is able to achieve. And both of my parents worked in IT, they knew stuff. This was around 2002ish. I can't even begin to imagine how quick kids can outsmart their parents and their control systems today. If a parent tries to hover over them, they'll just do things in secret or find work arounds around tools and apps and blocks.

Do you know what the lasting effect of this was? I learned I couldn't trust my parents. When I faced disturbing stuff, I didn't tell them. Sometimes I didn't even tell my friends, the friends I found online and eventually met irl. If I would have been in the situation OP's kid was in, I wouldn't have gone to my parents and tell them about what occured. I had an okay relationship with them otherwise but things at school were really bad and I was terrified telling them about anything bad in the internet would make them pull the plug for good, cutting me off from the only people I ever met who were there for me, the only thing that kept me from running away or even harming myself very badly. (I didn't tell them that either, thought they'd blame the internet or games for this as well. Now I know they wouldn't have, but that's what it felt like at the time.)

Y'all are suggesting parents should monitor every discord server, every game, every chat the children have and consider this the bare minimum good parenting, as if this kind of helicopter parenting wouldn't cause a lot of harm (and being super unrealistic besides, considering adults are busy adulting most of the time.) I know OP of the other thread is a good badass parent because they have a daughter that tells them if something happens that feels kind of off. She trusts them she won't be the one to be punished for the online behaviour and events of other people none of the two have any control over. You absolutely can and should educate your child about not sharing their address or the one of their school online, be careful with photos and all. But a parent can hardly predict a game wouldn't be suitable for their child based on user behaviour if no official rating you can see in the store makes it obvious the rating is questionable. Only if they are gamers themselves and know these things in and out. It's on us as a community to accept the rating is what it is and we should have some basic decensy of not pushing 18+ stuff into the faces of random people who might not be of this age. It is on us to keep in mind this game is not solely made for adults only, no matter if the kids might see stuff on Tik Tok as well. This is completely irrelevant for how this is to be handled in this specific game.

[caffe_macchiato]

Can you tell us where a dog is humping a human leg in the game content? Maybe it's in content I haven't done yet because I can't seem to think of any such situation. Though I wouldn't put it past you if it was an exaggeration in an attempt to demonize a game that you voluntarily continue to pay for and play.

I was here before the degenerates from Second Life. Why should I move?

A dog humping a leg while everyone watches is the perfect analogy for FFXIV. Copes cannot erase how FFXIV has transformed into a cesspit. Square Enix has zero standards. It's not just about kids anymore, it's about our MMO turning into a Second Life clone for sex pests. This "game" is embarrassing.

[Jojoya]

The only question I have for you is why are you so adamant when it comes to this particular discussion? If I am to take you for your word, which I am willing to do, it is clear you do not like the behavior of a fair chunk of members inside of the community. However, you seem opposed to having guardrails regarding the community's behavior as well. As such, what is your main concern when it comes to resolving this issue if you are concerned with resolving it in the first place?

The guardrails are already in place. SE has done what is reasonable and customary within the online industry.

Why are you so adamant that players and parents don't have their own responsibility to fulfill in online situations?

I was here before the degenerates from Second Life. Why should I move?

A dog humping a leg while everyone watches is the perfect analogy for FFXIV. Copes cannot erase how FFXIV has transformed into a cesspit. Square Enix has zero standards. It's not just about kids anymore, it's about our MMO turning into a Second Life clone for sex pests. This "game" is embarrassing.

Yet you continue to pay and play a game that you find embarrassing to play because you choose to hang out with degenerates while the rest of us exercise our option to avoid them while enjoying the rest of the game?

You are way too sheltered if you think this is limited to FFXIV. This is the world now, both inside and outside of the gaming industry. There are no safe spaces outside of the tiny personal bubbles we create in our homes when unconnected to outside media be it television, radio, internet, cable, satellite or whatever else keeps us in touch with the outside world.

You also way too entitled if you can't put on your adult pants and find ways to deal with it on your own.

If you encounter something that is against TOS, report it and move on. It's really simple. The more you hyperfocus on it, the more it becomes your world and you begin to see it everywhere in everyone even though the majority are ordinary people engaging in ordinary activities that are in no way explicit or offensive.

As for why you should move, it's because you don't like what the neighborhood has turned into. You're not going to get your new neighbors to change for your sake and the HOA isn't responding in the way you want. Why would you stick around?