BEFORE YOU PLAY A PSERVER GUIDE (FOR WOMEN/MINORS)

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BEFORE YOU PLAY A PSERVER GUIDE (FOR WOMEN/MINORS)
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 Shiva.Thorny
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By Shiva.Thorny 2025-01-31 05:45:09
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OP has a chip on her shoulder and she's posting this stuff solely because her experience on Horizon had such a negative impact on her. It's absolutely biased, but I don't think you can say it's biased in the same way the Horizon stans bash retail. Retail has done nothing to harm them, while it sounds like she's suffered tangible and substantial distress due to the behavior of Horizon staff.

For this reason, I think the claims that do not directly pertain to the harassment she experienced should be taken with a grain of salt. She wants to hurt Horizon, because Horizon hurt her. I'm not saying that's inherently wrong of her, but it does skew her viewpoints and comments. They are not solely 'informative'.

I'm not a male feminist or "ally" of any sort. I think that issues like sexual harassment can generally be solved by toughening up or using a blacklist. The sort of harassment reported on Horizon extends past what that can solve, and for this reason, it needs to be taken seriously.

The few female players who enjoy 75-cap FFXI have reported the same harassment on effectively every private server. It's almost like the stunted male players think that because it's 75s XI, we're all teenagers again. Adults don't want to cyber with you, and you're too old to ethically chase any actual teenagers that show up.
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By Homsar 2025-01-31 06:07:06
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Sylvebits said: »
And under the guise of trying to be informative or unbiased. It's really strange behavior.

The best part is that almost nothing that OP listed is specifically applicable to private FFXI servers. 95% of this list could apply to any online gaming community, including retail FFXI.
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 Carbuncle.Maletaru
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By Carbuncle.Maletaru 2025-01-31 06:33:35
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Except the power and control are totally different, which provides a very different dynamic to relationships.

If you piss off an LS leader on retail they can't ban you from the game, delete your character, ban you from the server discord. They're not friends with the administrators or GMs.

The rewards are different too. A player in retail can't query TODs (not that they matter anymore), can't use console commands to spawn items or NMs, can't send a DM to the GM on discord and ask him for a favor...

If you give out your discord, Instagram, or whatever to someone on retail, you have only one point of exposure. It's not going to be sniped by the SE staff.

It's a totally different experience with loads of new and exciting ways to get *** over and have no recourse against the buddies of the staff.

Also with *** content like HNMs where there are like 3 competitors, congrats you just blacklisted 1/3 of them, and they're gonna ***talk you to the other 2.
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By Felgarr 2025-01-31 06:36:37
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Shiva.Thorny said: »
For this reason, I think the claims that do not directly pertain to the harassment she experienced should be taken with a grain of salt. She wants to hurt Horizon, because Horizon hurt her. I'm not saying that's inherently wrong of her, but it does skew her viewpoints and comments. They are not solely 'informative'.

Truthfully, I don't detect any single-server specific slant or malcontent. I think if you read OPs post at face value, it is informative (or at least, I don't detect anything else). I do think this is important information for parents and guardians trying to protect kids from online experiences they may or may not be familiar with. (This isn't your dad's internet, FFXI...etc etc).

In the same line of thinking, online interactions has morphed into something very differently over the past 20 years. Internet users are encouraged to share more and more personally identifiable information and it can leave the most impressionable users vulnerable to exploitation.

Some nefarious actors might actually use the lack of oversight on a private server as a cloak for their predatory or ill-conceived behavior.

Totally agree and insist that it should be taken seriously. I don't see any particular malignant slant towards a single private server. (It is early, and I do need coffee).
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By RadialArcana 2025-01-31 06:38:55
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The difference is that on a retail server there is a wall of protection, someone annoying you can't take it beyond what it is in the game world. On a private server, very often either the person doing the abuse is working on it and has GM powers, or are friends with them. Very often the GM has secret accounts they play on too, and if you annoy them enough you're gonna be gone pretty soon.

Horizon is good at covering stuff up, and in most cases you never hear about these things cause they get banned and silenced on the discord very quickly, and any tickets they submit get deleted by the person who did the bad things. Only people with very outgoing personalities are going to make sure it gets out, and even then due to the nature of a private server there are very few places they can talk about it that are relevant. The community will also quickly turn on anyone that they see as being a danger to the server (you can see it in this thread even), you think you're part of the community and friendly with people but the moment you are seen as an enemy everyone there will treat you as one and even make stuff up about you.
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By Moonlightagb 2025-01-31 07:12:24
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Props to you as you went above and beyond taking the time to write this up with the intention to help others when you don't have to. Even if most of this should be common sense these days, maybe the right person ends up reading something here that will help them or raise their awareness. Well spoken and organized.

To me FFXI is my fun place/retreat but I can see how others could find themselves in some funky situations deterring that especially after investing so much time in their game or community without realizing what's happening. Let's just have fun kathwacking mobs down together!
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 Bahamut.Suph
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By Bahamut.Suph 2025-01-31 07:17:03
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Power tripping mod is always a problem. People that would want to "volunteer" their time to moderate a game or a forum for "free" more than likely do it because they enjoy the sense of power that it give them. And since no one is paying them there's really no boss to hold them accountable when they abuse their power, no consequences.

Many of them probably enjoy some sort of gratification, sexual or otherwise, from abusing people with their power. Make them feel powerful and cool.

Except Vyre of course, that guy's great!
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By Dodik 2025-01-31 07:32:20
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By Setsuko 2025-01-31 07:43:53
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Not going to get sucked into arguing or anything here. Just going to add: When I stepped into a private server, I knew absolutely nothing about the people involved or the community. All I knew was that a RL homey was playing, and I installed it as a joke. (Joke's on me now ugh) If I saw a thread like this warning of this kind of harassment happening repeatedly, I absolutely would not install/support that server. I would have kept playing 14 or whatever it was I was sucked into at that time. It's good to have one thread summarizing it at the top of this section so it's more visible to potential new players. I never would have thought to dig through forums to research this stuff because I have never seen this level of malicious harassment that bled into RL from any game I've ever played before. Taking my experience out of the equation, the scene is still bad enough that I wouldn't have wanted any part of it.

That's just my take on it, and anyone getting pissy that Tannifae made this thread, which is in the PS section anyway, are just picking on someone who was harassed and hurt for no reason--behavior that her harassers are doing as well. Maybe it makes them feel like a big person to put a woman down for spreading caution about an especially negative and hurtful experience. You can very much *not* click the thread and move on, though.

tldr: It's good to have a summarization of all the bs to warn players who might be looking into the community and considering playing, even if it's helpful to only a couple of people. It's still worth it. Pissy nerds need to sit down and stop getting mad that someone who was harassed is trying to actually speak up.

(Edited to remove poor wording that took away from my point apparently)
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By Rooks 2025-01-31 07:49:51
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Bahamut.Suph said: »
Except Vyre of course, that guy's great!

/unfurls single black leather wing
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 Asura.Mavira
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By Asura.Mavira 2025-01-31 07:51:05
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The fact someone popped in this thread to just post literally the exact nickname she repeatedly asked to stop being called in that ls which then escalated into the harassment is really gross and shows the exact experience people suffer with horizons community.
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 Shiva.Thorny
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By Shiva.Thorny 2025-01-31 07:52:05
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Setsuko said: »
Pissy dudes need to sit down and stop getting mad that a woman is trying to actually speak up.

It doesn't actually make your argument any more convincing to mention that you're a woman or women are effected a dozen times. It's a shallow manipulation tactic, and most of us can see through it.

There's no gender component to the thread's response. People who are obsessed with 75 XI are rabidly defending it, people who see it as a harm to retail are jumping on a chance to attack it, and I don't see a single post that incorporates any sort of gendered motivation besides yours.
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By tannifae 2025-01-31 07:58:26
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Exactly.

The power dynamic was completely unfair to me and others.

The HNMLS leader is a head GM and best friends with the perpetrator. (Conflict of Interest).

The subleaders, whom as far as I know were not GMs, gave the impression of sympathy towards me but also communicated a type of "powerless" in the situation. I got the impression the GM leader had the final say. (Again, unfair power dynamic).

This created confusion for me.

And what started initially is I was getting harassed and without consent. I along other females in a GM concentrated LS. Some of them were harassed on their social media. Some of us female members were described in very degrading, objectifying, and sexualized ways.

And it was concentrated and coming from this one GM filled HNMLS. There was only one other female that would be targeted that was outside of it but otherwise it was just within mine by the majority.

I initially planned to quit and delete silently and only told some 4-5 closest friends. One decided to take it to the community manager(I only have good things to say about him because he has always watched out for me even outside the game if he noticed any harm).

The community manager. (So this is where I don't understand what happened).

Did he post in a Staff Chat?

Because the next that happened was the HNMLS Leader/Head GM/Best Friend with Perpetuator dm me on Discord right away.

This is when I was given false impression of thinking I'd be taken care of by superiors and was completely mishandled instead. It put me in such a vulnerable position when I initially evaluated everything and planned to leave but instead I gave it a shot and explained everything.

I immediately got gaslighted within a few minutes. Downplayed. There was no investigation. (And again there are ALL these Conflict of Interest at Play).

If it was reported in a Staff chat. Why didn't someone involve themselves who was aware of the Conflict of Interest?

And if was I suppose to address the head GM as my LS leader? Like the power dynamic was a blur.

They immediately defended the Perpetrator because "knew him well". As that was the final and strong point of argument.

But apparently not enough to know he has history of being banned for reasons such as death threats towards other individuals etc. according to others.

And the Perpetrator never recognized his wrongs, he only tried to further guilt trip me when he was the one that initiated the harassment.

Also there is another thing that caught me off guard: while I was speaking with the head GM in the Discord GMs, I received a dm from the Perpetrator all threatened and accusing me of spreading rumors and guilt tripping me. Within the same hour.

But WHO COMMUNICATED THAT? And in what manner? And why in that matter that he would feel so threatened? Why wasn't he communicated to apologize and own up to his actions?

My report was ONLY among friends who clearly KNEW I was distressed and took it to the authorities, and as far as I know, the staff chat.

On top of that it escalated I'd get even more harassed by the whole HNMLS afterwards. They went on my stream to harass me. Why was that enabled?

And then after my stream they did a misinformation campaign and messaged some of my friends and others that I had a mental illness when I have never had an official diagnosis. I have always been clear. (Defamatory).

That is different than saying if I was bad at playing RDM or something.

So as you can see. And even now I know I am taking risks putting this into the light. I could potentially put myself in more danger and distress just for talking about it.

Also people in lower levels recommended I sent a ticket. But it didn't make sense as from what I understood, it was already communicated in the Staff chat.

I was even recommended to message directly another staff who allegedly already had sexually harassed females before.

My only thoughts were this, "Are these my only options? Then I have no hope." All lights went out and as a young woman I'm left to comfort and defend myself.

I don't understand why any other individual outside the Conflict of Interest didn't take action.

On top of all that I had so many people from other private servers, other HNMLS, still in the server, even people still close to staff on some level, gossip to me "yea it's nothing new it's happened before with staff."

What do they expect out of me? To be quiet about it? What a joke.

As you can clearly see. This is isolated to a Private Server and the Unfairness/Power Dynamic would not even taken place on Retail.

It was wrong on so many levels. And everyone is too scared because they don't want to get banned if they were to speak up.
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By Setsuko 2025-01-31 08:02:05
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Shiva.Thorny said: »
Setsuko said: »
Pissy dudes need to sit down and stop getting mad that a woman is trying to actually speak up.

It doesn't actually make your argument any more convincing to mention that you're a woman or women are effected a dozen times. It's a shallow manipulation tactic, and most of us can see through it.

There's no gender component to the thread's response. People who are obsessed with 75 XI are rabidly defending it, people who see it as a harm to retail are jumping on a chance to attack it, and I don't see a single post that incorporates any sort of gendered motivation besides yours.

I'm probably more pointed towards the sexual harassment aspects, which in Horizon's case has been very heavily directed at women so far. Looking at the controversies as a whole, yes the whole point is that pissing off the wrong people in the PS community will get you harassed in some way, potentially even leading to RL harassment, not just in game.

The point I wanted to make: It's fine for Tanni to post a thread like this. It could be helpful to someone, and the people jumping on her case about publicizing this stuff are doing exactly what her harassers did to her-- trying to make her feel bad for speaking up. Apologies for wording my other post in a way that seems like I'm saying all harassment is directed at only women, which we know hasn't been the case.
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 Shiva.Thorny
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By Shiva.Thorny 2025-01-31 08:15:00
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Setsuko said: »
It could be helpful to someone, and the people jumping on her case about publicizing this stuff are doing exactly what her harassers did to her-- trying to make her feel bad for speaking up.
Yes, I agree. But, there's no indication anyone telling her to shut up is doing so from a gendered perspective. It's pretty clear that Horizon stans are defending Horizon. I don't see any "Pissy dudes getting mad that a woman is trying to speak up". The underlying issue has gendered context but the replies in this thread don't; you make your own point weaker by throwing it into the mix.
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By Setsuko 2025-01-31 08:21:31
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Shiva.Thorny said: »
Setsuko said: »
It could be helpful to someone, and the people jumping on her case about publicizing this stuff are doing exactly what her harassers did to her-- trying to make her feel bad for speaking up.
Yes, I agree. But, there's no indication anyone telling her to shut up is doing so from a gendered perspective. It's pretty clear that Horizon stans are defending Horizon. I don't see any "Pissy dudes getting mad that a woman is trying to speak up". The underlying issue has gendered context but the replies in this thread don't; you make your own point weaker by throwing it into the mix.

You really don't understand how much women are told by men to shut up and just deal with it when we are sexually harassed. It is almost always a man telling a woman to be quiet, and you're kinda just illustrating my point lmao. I am absolutely going to read anyone criticizing her for speaking up as being male. Not apologizing for that part.
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By Kaffy 2025-01-31 08:22:58
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Shiva.Thorny said: »
Setsuko said: »
It could be helpful to someone, and the people jumping on her case about publicizing this stuff are doing exactly what her harassers did to her-- trying to make her feel bad for speaking up.
Yes, I agree. But, there's no indication anyone telling her to shut up is doing so from a gendered perspective. It's pretty clear that Horizon stans are defending Horizon. I don't see any "Pissy dudes getting mad that a woman is trying to speak up". The underlying issue has gendered context but the replies in this thread don't; you make your own point weaker by throwing it into the mix.

Agree mostly, except for that the "Horizon stans" are by far the loudest (only?) ones exhibiting that kind of attitude toward OP. Someone definitely put something in the kool-aid over there.
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 Shiva.Thorny
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By Shiva.Thorny 2025-01-31 08:24:02
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You don't have to apologize, but you still sound like an idiot. If you read through this thread and get the vibe "all these men are mad that a woman is speaking" then you are unable to read context.

It is quite clear that the majority of posts here are motivated by feelings for or against private servers, not gender. They might still be wrong for criticizing her, but they'd be doing the same thing if it was Draylo.

Again, I am commenting exclusively on the responses within the thread. Bashing people who aren't here for opinions they did not express here is pointless.
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By Ragnarok.Bennettz 2025-01-31 08:28:26
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I admire those who wanna waste time camping 24-72 hours for HNM in those early 2000s era. Retail is so much better. Less of a time sink. With power grubbing "admins" being LS leaders *** blocking drops @ the same time, private server is seriously a total waste of time. 凸(^-^)凸 HXI
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By Jetackuu 2025-01-31 08:29:04
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what the actual ***...

If it bothers you stop playing, grow up, move on. /end
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 Bahamut.Suph
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By Bahamut.Suph 2025-01-31 08:29:21
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Rooks said: »
Bahamut.Suph said: »
Except Vyre of course, that guy's great!

/unfurls single black leather wing

Curses! Me and Zac Efron are so gonna get you!
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 Fenrir.Niflheim
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By Fenrir.Niflheim 2025-01-31 08:41:26
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Setsuko said: »
You really don't understand how much women are told by men to shut up and just deal with it when we are sexually harassed. It is almost always a man telling a woman to be quiet, and you're kinda just illustrating my point lmao. I am absolutely going to read anyone criticizing her for speaking up as being male. Not apologizing for that part.

I agree with Thorny, basically saying "you're a bad person, AND A MAN" that last bit just comes off as unnecessary. If they are doing clearly "bad" things you dont need to "trump up the charges" by dragging their gender into it, that just alienates all the other men on your side of the argument.

And you wouldn't assume everyone in support of the argument is a women right? because that would be silly.

(and just cuz this type of conversation demands it, I am girl so my point of view matters everyone sit down and listen!)
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By Pantafernando 2025-01-31 08:49:56
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Rooks said: »
Bahamut.Suph said: »
Except Vyre and Rooks of course, those guy's great!

And Panta is also awesome.

/unfurls single black leather wing

FTFY
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By Kripple 2025-01-31 08:50:20
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Props to her for posting something like this because even outside of the Horizon "community" all of that is already known.

Since the servers inception it was already helping admins/creators behind the scenes with increased crafting gains (up to 500% was reported) to increased exp gains for select few people while under level sync to mask it.

The harassment and abuse has towards females has been raging through the server since day one as well and that has been well reported.

It really is a shame that the creators and admin had such a good idea to create something like this with there 1,400,000,000 years of experience (inside joke) but they very clearly let there heads get way to big for there own good.

Every few weeks it seems there's some new drama coming out about the admin/gms/creators and no one is really shocked at this point.

Clearly from some of these replies on here, people just don't care because they have there head in the sand or are a part of the problem.

I am looking forward to the day that the server is actually shut down so all this just stops.

#retailforlife
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By RadialArcana 2025-01-31 08:50:57
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The reason there are so many stans is because to be part of the server you have to be a servile little bi*ch in the first place, so it trains and enforces in the community to be that way. They even try to be overly defensive about the server in a signalling manner, like little dogs pandering to the alpha dog lmao Watching the community act like sycophants to these guys that figured out how to download a server emulator from a github is cringe tbh

They didn't even make the thing they are running.

If you're opinionated and actually be honest you'll buttblast the thin skinned losers that run the servers and they will ban you from everything anyway.
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By Setsuko 2025-01-31 08:51:42
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Fenrir.Niflheim said: »
I agree with Thorny, basically saying "you're a bad person, AND A MAN" that last bit just comes off as unnecessary. If they are doing clearly "bad" things you dont need to "trump up the charges" by dragging their gender into it, that just alienates all the other men on your side of the argument.

This is a fair way to put it and I understand your point here. I appreciate you not taking the more aggressive approach and tossing out insults. Like I said, all I wanted to get across was I think it's fine for Tanni to speak out about her experiences and try to warn people. If it helps someone, then it was worth it. I don't think it's fair to try to put her down for speaking out. Those people can just not click the thread.
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 Fenrir.Niflheim
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By Fenrir.Niflheim 2025-01-31 08:56:01
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Setsuko said: »
Those people can just not click the thread.
This point is good and i like it :D cuz it is usually pointed at the retail people bombing the PS thread, because we cant help but click links on the main page topics list.
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By tannifae 2025-01-31 09:24:41
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People always have the freedom to choose to play or not.

I'm not taking that ability away.

But I was not fully informed of the price I'd pay for an unregulated free to play server.

And people should have the freedom to access that type of information and discern for themselves if it's suitable for them or not.

Some people can look passed all this and still play while others might not be able to handle such risks.

And from the individuals I've spoken to. Some of the hurt still is with them even if it's been years.

What else am I supposed to do with that? I wasn't able to sleep a lot of nights.

Clearly something has to change.
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By Sylvebits 2025-01-31 09:30:31
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Fenrir.Velner said: »
Sylvebits said: »
I’m sorry it’s coming off as just another hit piece veiled behind otherwise good general internet safety tips. Again, to fire people up.

You played when all of what you mentioned was going on; if you were really cared you would’ve stopped when Setsuko spoke out, or when the Rinste DMs surfaced, or when allegations against the staff dropped. When did serious reoccurring problems start becoming serious?

You're kind of making her point lol. And it sounds like you're saying that she deserved it because apparently sexual harassment is just openly done by staff?? Gross. This response really speaks volumes about the environment even more than the OP tbh.


If that’s your interpretation of it then I’m sorry you’re mistaken, nor have I said anything to imply it’s open season harassment on HXI. I’m not saying nor have ever said harassment of any kind is ok. There’s absolutely a case for internet safety and awareness, but this veiled in otherwise another long sad history of HXI drama.

Someone as involved as tannifae was in endgame, in a linkshell which had admins and GMs in it. Benefitting from all this corruption, knowing but turning a blind eye to any harassment or allegations that had happened - enjoying the benefits of being in the very well known admin LS.

When did she start caring? After her spat on HXI with her linkshell when suddenly she wasn’t part of the in group anymore? When she decided to try to go scorched earth on the community? Now deciding to bring - like many of FFXI players before her - their drama to the forums.
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