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Final Fantasy 14 Players Are Blocking Access To Notorious Role-Play Server With A Character Barricade

Players attempting to visit Balmung will be blocked by server inhabitants barring the entrance.

16 Comments

A “human” wall of players in Final Fantasy XIV is blocking players off from visiting the controversial server Balmung.

Following the long-awaited release of patch 6.18--which enables data center travel and allows players to visit other worlds--a growing number of players have been visiting other servers to check out their unique player culture. As reported by GamesRadar, players wishing to visit Balmung are out of luck, for as soon as you arrive you will find a large amount of Balmung players blocking the way to the wider world. Balmung is well-known in the FFXIV community for erotic role-playing. This new travel feature made Balmung something of a tourist destination, but clearly community members are not interested in hosting.

The server has recently been the source of community controversy, as some players in the Balmung servers made real life billboards advertising an in-game party. These billboards featured copyrighted material, as well as obvious signs that terms of service breaking modding tools were used for the characters on display. Once community members pointed this out, the billboards were taken down. The player-planned, in-game event they were advertising, however, is still on the way.

This is a fascinating example of something that has been observed many times in both popular and academic settings: virtual communities, like those in MMOs, take on characteristics of real world groups and social dynamics. Game mechanics, especially in a setting as vast and complex as a game with millions of players, can also have unintended consequences or means of expression. Building a wall of players to keep visitors out of a server with a particular and unique culture is a strange and vivid example of those dynamics.

In other Final Fantasy XIV news, the game's August patch will add Sanctuary Islands, letting players farm their own space and create handicrafts. More than a thousand fans participated in massive musical tribute to the game, singing "Close in the Distance."

Grace Benfell on Google+

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gaeandilth

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This a game or a Liberal college?

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Jaxith

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I don't really understand these kind of exclusionary tactics. Why block people from something like that?

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JoeJoe1639

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I don't really participate in the role playing stuff myself, but I have no idea why people get so worked up about other people doing it. If they want to have silly little in-game parties let them. Creating a "wall of players" (which won't work and is stupid) to stop the party is just creepy and obsessive; if you don't like RP parties then don't participate.

I understand SE wanting the billboards taken down, though, since SE doesn't want people using their copyrighted materials to advertise events that aren't SE sanctioned events. As for the actual party, though, who cares?

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Rolento25

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And they say Walls don't work :)

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Slash_out

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Lol whut?

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Thanatos2k

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Players can't block other players in Final Fantasy 14. What is more likely is that they're filling up the zones with players preventing others from zoning in. Since you can only server transfer from the large aetherytes in the main cities, having critical mass of players in all three zones would prevent players from transferring to the server because the zones wouldn't have room.

Of course, you'd need enough players to constantly be online in those zones, which won't last long.

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jenovaschilld

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Edited By jenovaschilld

Cool that is my old server, gonna have log back into my old character, Beatrice Cumberbatch, to see what is new.

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Vodoo

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Jeez, Twitter nut jobs have rolled over into the games. Is there not enough representation in the red light district?

I don't get the actual point of doing something like this. People have lost their damn minds.

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Alphazonex

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@Vodoo: That's why I liked Silk Road Online.

If players tried this, you could just PK(Player Kill) them lol. SRO was some wild shit, but eventually it got overrun by bots eventually. Shame, that and Dungeon Fighter Online the only MMOs I really respect

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NoFear87

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Blocking access? I call bs, check your sources Grace.

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Neurogia

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Player characters cannot block other players in the game. You can just walk right through them.

But now I know what all those people on my friends list were doing on Balmung.

They're going to have to take a good, long bath in the hot springs outside my home before I allow them inside...

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deactivated-64efdf49333c4

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These people need to get a life.

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StrangeDr

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Edited By StrangeDr

Certainly not disputing that a group is doing this but- they DO know that all someone has to do is Teleport right? Every player in the game can do that- depending on how long they've been playing they can teleport to anywhere in the game. I don't understand the purpose of this, since its rendered effectively pointless unless they can wall off every single Aether Crystal (the teleport hubs) in the game.

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Xylymphydyte

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Edited By Xylymphydyte

@strangedr: Or that player models don't have collision...

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