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 community's attention, senior game masters, and game devs (if not legal dept.) as this problem has exploded overnight.
The PF has been a means for us to advertise our venues to the general player base for YEARS in the game. 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:
RP 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:
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~
Continue reading...
The PF has been a means for us to advertise our venues to the general player base for YEARS in the game. 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:
RP 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:
- Advertising by multiple venues can create spam which IS prohibited by policy and would not be advisable as a valid alternative to PF marketing.
- 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.
- 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 nothing 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~
Continue reading...