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This whole discussion started when I was out of game for a little while, so I've been staying out of it. That said, I honestly don't see any real rise in harassment or "RPer griefing" in the game. Sure, I've noticed the crowds outside of the Quicksand, but they really just seem to keep to themselves, enjoying the fact that they can now do the Manderville or whatever. Actual harassment? It's pretty damn low.
I've been playing FF 14 for almost a year now, I've been RPing (on Balmung) around Ul'dah for most of that time. I remember seeing random people in the Quicksand dancing in their underwear on tables then, just as I see them now. There doesn't really seem to be more of them. At least not per capita.
And that's the interesting bit. When I first started RPing in Ul'dah, there didn't seem to be a ton of RPers there. Unlike most MMOs, where the RP scene starts out very strong and then slowly tapers off over time, the RP scene here (again, on Balmung) seems to be growing. The MRPIQ* and MTBRP** factors have gone waaaaaay up. I think that with that we're seeing more trolls, but I don't think we're seeing proportionately more trolls.
Now the last games I played seriously before Final Fantasy were Eve Online (which I still love), and Star Trek Online. Both are incredibly RP-hostile games. CCP does acknowledge roleplay in Eve, but there's a strong history of people meta-ing the system*** to penalize people for RP. Star Trek Online, on the other hand, despite what you'd imagine basically throws RPers to the sharks. And sharks there are. In one popular RP hotspot, one particularly anti-RP fleet kept a near-permanent presence of people in spacesuits carrying fire extinguishers and glitter shooters (both of which exist in the game) in order to completely obscure the screen for any roleplayers who were RPing in public. For months on end. That is what harassment and griefing looks like. The occasional overloud interrupting troll or dancing underwear jockey is a far cry from that.
So yeah. In conclusion? I tend to deal with most trolls (such as they are) in a completely in-character manner: They're obviously crazy, or had too much to drink, so C'kayah will laugh at them or ignore them at his convenience. OOCly, there's always the blacklist, though I think I can count the number of non-gold farmers on my list on one hand.
*Mean RolePlayers In Quicksand
**Mean Time Between RolePlay. Don't try to calculate these at home, kids. I'm a professional!
***During an early 0.0 war, the spokeswoman for one side was banned(!) from posting on the official forums by repeated complaints by people from the other side that her RP persona constituted harassment.
I've been playing FF 14 for almost a year now, I've been RPing (on Balmung) around Ul'dah for most of that time. I remember seeing random people in the Quicksand dancing in their underwear on tables then, just as I see them now. There doesn't really seem to be more of them. At least not per capita.
And that's the interesting bit. When I first started RPing in Ul'dah, there didn't seem to be a ton of RPers there. Unlike most MMOs, where the RP scene starts out very strong and then slowly tapers off over time, the RP scene here (again, on Balmung) seems to be growing. The MRPIQ* and MTBRP** factors have gone waaaaaay up. I think that with that we're seeing more trolls, but I don't think we're seeing proportionately more trolls.
Now the last games I played seriously before Final Fantasy were Eve Online (which I still love), and Star Trek Online. Both are incredibly RP-hostile games. CCP does acknowledge roleplay in Eve, but there's a strong history of people meta-ing the system*** to penalize people for RP. Star Trek Online, on the other hand, despite what you'd imagine basically throws RPers to the sharks. And sharks there are. In one popular RP hotspot, one particularly anti-RP fleet kept a near-permanent presence of people in spacesuits carrying fire extinguishers and glitter shooters (both of which exist in the game) in order to completely obscure the screen for any roleplayers who were RPing in public. For months on end. That is what harassment and griefing looks like. The occasional overloud interrupting troll or dancing underwear jockey is a far cry from that.
So yeah. In conclusion? I tend to deal with most trolls (such as they are) in a completely in-character manner: They're obviously crazy, or had too much to drink, so C'kayah will laugh at them or ignore them at his convenience. OOCly, there's always the blacklist, though I think I can count the number of non-gold farmers on my list on one hand.
*Mean RolePlayers In Quicksand
**Mean Time Between RolePlay. Don't try to calculate these at home, kids. I'm a professional!
***During an early 0.0 war, the spokeswoman for one side was banned(!) from posting on the official forums by repeated complaints by people from the other side that her RP persona constituted harassment.