Harassment...Follow

I have seen some harassment going on much earlier in the game.... Tesee got harassed by a few people but they had no idea she was female so it wasn't because of that, they were just aholes.

I have also seen what the boredom brings, CT used to be a cesspool for a long time and then it got better... ST is getting that way again.. In the last few weeks ST has shot up with trolls.. One run we had someone who kept putting markers in the wrong places intentionally to **** people up and putting markers on everyone's head.. It was a group of them too.. A few runs latter we had a alliance that refused to go into a fight in st.. We ended up getting to either the second last boss or the last one without one alliance.. But still it was hard. This is boredom causing this, people having to do things over and over again. this stuff isnt exactly harassment it more annoying but it is based on the same thing.

Part of the issue is, this game has allot more kids playing because of the PS4 lately... If you have ever played console games in party chat like WOW this stuff happens all the time.. The swearing, calling peoples mother names etc..... It is crazy and I think with the ps4 has brought allot of that along. These kids dont get any social skills other than smack talking. They think its cool, this little nerd can get on a game and think he is safe.. Console players dont usually hang around long with a game, they seem to move on more to other games..


I have seen it a few times in FFXI where women get harassed. I use to play with this one girl and this dude went off on her for something and made her cry.. She wanted to quit the game saying she didnt play the game to deal with that and she played to have fun.

Another very young girl in FFXI I knew., She switched servers because this guy was harassing her so bad. She ended coming back but eventually quit the game.

In FFXI it was easier to follow someone because you could search for them and find them where ever they were making it not too hard to find them. I dont think there is a search feature on this game.


In FFXI I knew a lot of women but I dont know of many in this game. I met Tes in FFXI. I would think this game would attack more women.. I think Tes wishes sometime there were more females to game with in FFXIV... In FFXI our LS was over 1/3 women.. What amazed me is how good they all were too... Some of the best players I have seen are women.





Edited, Sep 23rd 2014 3:25pm by Nashred

I've yet to be seriously harassed in XIV. Happened quite a bit back in XI, partly because I was kind of a celebrity on our server (the joke is that I STILL know everybody on Bismarck) and because I was heavily involved in endgame.

I also brought some of it on myself thanks to Player of the Month here on ZAM. (Those who remember that know what I'm talking about.) Even when I was level 40 in XI I had to report another Tarutaru for making suggestive actions at me in Crawler's Nest. That guy eventually got banned, so karma bit his bum.

The only incident I've had in XIV so far was two guys on Lamia (Professor Farnsworth and Doctor Zoidburg, clearly old friends) who started making suggestive gestures to me while I was crafting at the Observatorium. I calmly stopped crafting, said "I'm fat and middle aged in real life, you know" and warped away. And blacklisted them. And they have remained there ever since.

Internet harassment is really one of those things where laws and policies have yet to really catch up with the times. Sure, we know anonymity is empowering. Pair that with virtually zero consequences to being a jerkwad to another and it's not surprising to not only see and experience it, but "norms" to be established like public channels in MMOs being nothing but trolls' nests. Ignoring it obviously isn't fixing the problem. And sure, we can try to urge a given game staff to try and care about it more, but the end results usually aren't satisfactory for those hoping for a safer and more welcoming gaming experience as, overall, this tends to be a subset of cyberbullying and all of its respective risks.

I've had my share of arguments here and elsewhere on the general topic, where most of the time those fond of negatively instigating like to claim things like it builds community or helps to educate people on how to better handle themselves on the net. More often it's really just victim shaming with comments like needing to grow a thicker skin or fallbacks like you simply can't get along with everyone. No, I hardly dictate that everyone needs to be friends, just actually decent human beings to strangers because we have zero idea how good or bad their life might be going on the other end of the screen. And whether or not the investment one puts in healthy, gaming is most definitely a form of escapism alongside the fun.

Overall, I think many can agree that there a lot of behaviors we see online that people would never dare do in reality due to what would happen. That lacking sense of consequence is pretty much why we're here no matter how many some might cling to the fallacious sense of the internet being free speech. Heck, just look to recent censorship changes here to prove it isn't. We're all at the whims of a given host, but that on its own isn't a bad thing. We just need to find the terms of our hosts agreeable while both sides adhere to them. That is something games and RL legislation are ultimately lacking in for the moment, and on the more extreme end, I do believe people should be banned from internet providers if they prove a consistent nuisance, fined if repetitive offenders, and even jailed in more drastic cases like death threats, stalking, and swatting. I can already hear the trolls recoiling at that notion and probably even prepping to tell me I'm wrong and/or red arrow, but let's not pretend stuff like gamergate or the fappening have happened because people are upstanding citizens. Things like suicides and unjustified defamation are also well documented throughout media as a result of more unsavory internet behaviors.

Sadly, we're individually pretty powerless to this, especially if money is involved in things like subs and paying for people to actually police our games. We'll see little sections in a ToS devoted to this kind of stuff and maybe even really big incidents pan out as they should, but the internet really is a case of the inmates running the asylum. Maybe when more tech-savvy people get into government we'll see steps beyond what I'd infer as infancy in legislation, but I'd also argue America's internet infrastructure needs to improve significantly, perhaps even veer away from being commercial-based. Make no mistake, the net is a powerful tool capable of a lot of good, but when see the bad? Certainly rancid.

Don't think I've ever witnessed anything like this. The only time I can recall being harassed was once when I was on my taru mule in FFXI. Out of nowhere a female taru runs in front of me, turns around and starts spamming what I think was the /disgusted emote. I obliged with a few well timed /welcome emotes, we had a giggle and went on with our business. I think the only other form of harassment I've seen was people who were broadcasting on twitch who had people stalking them with in-game characters for attention and fame.

This is the first time I've heard of someone just being mean and disrespectful before without any provocation at all. I'm sorry this happened to your friend and I hope this doesn't start to become a trend.

I find there is a misunderstanding between harassment and abuse. Most of the time when someone is accused of harassment it is because they do not know that said action or talk is offensive to that particular person. When someone blatantly cusses out someone to the point they cry that is abuse. While some might say the two are the one and the same, most people who are guilty of harassment tend to stop once they recognize a person is uncomfortable in a situation.

From someone who has a history of being a line crosser online and in real life. I personally never intend to cause emotional harm to anyone, I can abrasive, I can be a **** and I do push buttons, but I will stop when someone asks, and I am capable of recognizing discomfort I can also be the polar opposite of all those things. I don't hide the fact that I am a potential line crosser online ot in life, for some reason I lack the filter in my brain that stops me from saying or doing stupid things, and I am sure many other people are the same.

Abuse and Harassment are not the same thing, I can have one conversation with one person and another person could take that convo completely differently. Harassment threshold changes from individual to individual. If I call someone a **** **** repeatedly, or do >whatever> repeatedly to instigate a reaction well that can only be taken one way.

Thats my 2 cents anyway.








Edited, Sep 23rd 2014 11:22pm by rdmcandie

That is true and there was allot more in the beginning of the game too.. I said st was a cesspool in the beginning... But allot of console gamers move on and it got better, there has been a influx of it again since the ps4.. Not necessarily harassment but Trolling and stuff like it..
Its not all console users, I am playing on a ps4 even though I do PC also... Keyboards are cheap.. I have had one for most of my consoles over the last few years.. I think there are allot more younger kids in this game too.. People say things they would never say in real life because they would get their butts kicked. People think their anonymous sitting behind a KB.

I think PC gamers are more hard core about one particular game and buy a PC speced to play that one game they really enjoy. Console gamers play more games like one month COD and then a few months later Halo and etc. I also think young people and kids play more console games.
I am not saying all are but in general more console player play a variety of games and there are also allot of good kids out there..
When you play one game mainly you care more about your reputation in that game and not so much if you are jumping to another game anyway... You dont care so much if you get booted either.

I have done both and jump back and forth.... I used to compete in console games and was part of one of the largest clans and most successful for its time.. I was a big console gamer. I got tired of it and that is how I found FFXI. A few of were tired of competing and practicing everyday and wanted to play something different.





Edited, Sep 24th 2014 9:45am by Nashred

While you are generally right (if I pay $1200 for something I better stick with it) there are exception gamers like myself who specifically bought the PS4 because:

#1 hate mouse and arrow keys
#2 the cost for a new high end console is the same as a **** pc with no video card
#3 less random crashes because I don't know didly squat about no confangled computers
#4 couch or recliner > computer desk chair
#5 My wife never needs to use the PS4 for anything, but often needs the computer
#6 I prefer mmos on console (don't know why, just personal preference)

Edited, Sep 24th 2014 10:21am by Valkayree

I did say there is a exception...
I played FFXI on the 360 and I am now playing FFXIV on the PS4 but I still use the laptop..
For me PC gaming and always having to have the latest and greatest to keep up and squeeze that last little performance out was just getting way to expensive. Man it was bad when you upgraded one graphics cards and now they use multiple...
But Tes and I still play our PS4 at a computer desks.. We have side by side computer desks and use computer lcd monitors to play FFXIV. This way we dont have to be in separate rooms. Just makes life easier.




Edited, Sep 24th 2014 12:12pm by Nashred

Well, telling anybody to "F--- off" is usually poor form. Sometimes, we get angry and lose our tempers, but usually a "could you please stop doing that?" is usually the first thing one should do.

And they really should change the mechanics of boss room lockouts; they should have a draw-in that automatically cancels cutscenes and teleports the player into the room so that they can't wait outside of it or something like that.

It's also a way some people try to avoid being kicked. You can't vote-dismiss someone while loot is up for lotting, and you can't while a battle is engaged. So some trollish types leave loot up till it times out and pull early to keep from being kicked.

Yeah, but most of the time (I'm thinking of pick-up raids, here) people just jump right in and fight even with a bad pull (especially if your starting positions are in the middle of the field already) which is what the troll is counting on. Sometimes people get fed up enough that they hold everyone up long enough to end the troll as you suggest, but I've been through whole CTs where trolls danced their way to the end pulling stunts like this despite all their attempts to get people killed and/or trash talk the whole time.

FTFY

Maybe you need to actually get a little sensitivity, mmm?

Women are a lot more susceptible to emotional attacks than men are. If you're a guy and you're playing, and someone randomly hip thrusts in your direction, you shrug it off, or you roll your eyes.

A woman is more likely to get a little distressed by it, especially if it keeps happening over and over again. That's why it is worse when it is done to a girl. They have to put up with enough of that crap IRL, they don't need it in a game.

And how do you know that he hasn't heard of, or witnessed other instances of harassment going on, that he simply left out in his OP? Did you expect him to list every single instance of this that went on and/or every single time he's heard someone else talk about it?

And just what is the purpose of your post, anyways?