I remember a time when it was well known that among MMORPGs, FFXI had the greatest, most mature playerbase. (In comparison to say, WoW or F2P MMOs.) It was one of the reasons people enjoyed playing.
I used to be anxious speaking to people I didn't know because I was afraid they would not know any English, and anti-English sentiment was really the worst I had to worry about then. These days there seem to be plenty of English-speaking players though... the thing is, from many of them I can see first hand why many JP players keep to themselves.
Now before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I am not referring to "who has what gear" or "who is the best at x job." This thread is not about that. This about an incredible influx in anti-social and otherwise deviant behavior displayed by (mostly) newer players. The worst part is, nothing is done about it, and no one cares if it does not directly effect them.
What they don't realize is, it effects everyone.
When you invite a new member to your Dynamis linkshell, and he invites his mule inside to lot everything that drops, the overall trust of people outside of one's existing circle of friends is diminished. When no one within your existing circle of friends wants to do a 3-man BCNM, the natural solution is to shout in WG for a quick fix, then get screwed despite having both party leader AND quartermaster status. Then watch as it happens again and again to different people while GMs do absolutely nothing about it-- whereas all you can do is warn people and hope not to be too late.
Not only do these things DESTROY any trust people have for anyone they don't know, but it begets even more bad behavior from people when they try to retaliate. It also encourages people who might otherwise be good players to do it themselves, because apparently it is perfectly acceptable and SE allows it.
As a whole, we (the English speaking community) are crippled by the fear an anxiety of other players we do not already know. Despite server merges and masses of returning/new players, individual linkshell sizes remain small, making them feel empty-- and because we tend to only do things with familiar people (for the reasons stated above) we are incredibly limited on the things we can do-- (the leading factor in the "omg FFXI is dying and the servers are empty" argument.)
Lately there has been a lot of talk of MMO companies like Blizzard attempting to improve the social aspect of their MMO by reducing anonymity and making it more like "Facebook." An almost unanimous response from the public indicated this to be a very bad idea. (In SE's case, they could greatly improve the situation if they'd just enforce their own rules.)
What we really need is a way for the playerbase, not just SE, to help enforce the rules. The natural response to this would be:
Predictable Reply from at least a dozen people wrote:
That would never work because it would be abused and innocent people would fall victim, etc. etc.
That is possible, but not if it is done correctly. A system of checks and balances would reduce that risk. Not only that, but anything is better than, "We'll look into it... (not)."
There could be a panel of volunteer player-elected judges on each server, (each presiding over servers that are not their own), and other person's that could call upon the accused through a system similar to that which GMs use. Under certain circumstances, chat logs could be reviewed while the process is taking place.
They have already passed off weddings to the players, this is naturally the next step.
Edit: Title changed
Edited, Jul 13th 2010 8:57pm by Kuwoobie
