Can't we all just get along? (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

The big ranting post from whren makes me sigh and shake my head. This whole "Japanese players are evil, the whole game is tilted in favor of the Japanese players, etc" issue annoys me so much.

Am I the only person who believes that that we, the NA players, are in fact more like "guests" on their game? They played it for how long before it was released in English? A year? More? The game was created in Japan, yes? It was released there first, released in the Japanese language. English was secondary. It's quite clear where the priorities are.

Is that unfair? Maybe, but what in life is fair? Hollywood releases blockbuster movies in English first -- is that fair to non-English speaking countries?

It really annoys me when people make that post like the one last week. The subject line was something like "Wake up, people, /checking without asking is no longer rude! This is OUR game now!". What right do the new kids on the block have to come in and try to force change onto the older players?

I guess for me it comes down to a MUSH-like mindset: If I joined a new MUSH, I would never, ever, ever expect the game to be changed by me. Even if I joined with 100 of my closest friends, I would not expect things to change for me. Why do NA players act differently? Swarm in, want to take over and change everything? Sure, we pay membership money as well, but that gives us the right to play on the game, not take it over and change it however we want.

(I'm posting this in my LJ instead of one of the FFXI comm groups because the majority of random stranger NA players will disagree with me. I don't care about them, I'm interested in what people I know and respect think.)

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

I think both of the extreme viewpoints is wrong.

My philosophy basically goes: once I'm paying the monthly fee, I'm a player. I've paid my money. I'm not a second class citizen. Neither is anyone else. We're both citizens.

I'm not a guest, I'm a subscriber. I'm a member.

I think the behavior of some high level linkshells (regardless of if they're in US, Japan, Canada, or the United Arab Emerites) is deplorable. I think it's bad form to prevent others from getting to do certain content, just for the sake of their own selfishness. Of course this engenders negative feelings. They're being schoolyard bullies, and Squaresoft should tweak the game rules to stop it. Just move the monsters to a 12 hour spawn, and poof, problem solved.

I think the idea of check being rude is just bizarre. I didn't enjoy getting the constant check messages, so guess what? I used the _in game filter_ to turn off the messages. Problem solved.

There's still a lot of politeness that makes the game run smoothly without making up points of order solely for the sake of making things less newbie friendly. Things like respecting place in line for BCNM fights, and not stealing kills someone is clearly going after, and not camping right on top of another group, and so forth. This kind of etiquette is important.

And, IMO, forcing a monster into a particular timezone is a massive breach of etiquette. If I were President of Squaresoft, I'd issue a warning once, and then ban players for doing this.

99% of Japanese players do not do this, of course. And the ranty post is totally off base.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Interesting thoughts, thanks for the comment!

Just move the monsters to a 12 hour spawn, and poof, problem solved.

And cut the drop rate by 50%. That'd work, yeah!

I think the idea of check being rude is just bizarre.

I don't understand it, but I don't have a problem respecting something I don't understand. A few people have said Japanese people consider it rude because their checked message is worded something like "Name peers hard at you" or "looks you over closely" or something along those lines, but I don't buy that. Unless the makers of the game had intended /check not to be used by random strangers, why would they make the emit offensive? (And if they didn't want it used, then they could have added some sort of a /check-check. "Name wants to check you. Allow it: Y/N?".) It's just very odd!

99% of Japanese players do not do this, of course. And the ranty post is totally off base.

Yep. If the ranter had been upset with "X Japanese LS" instead of "Japaness players" I would have been somewhat less upset.