ERP in Final Fantasy XIV: Do What You Want, But Consensually and In Private

Problems at Blizzard caused an exodus of World of Warcraft players to rival MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. Square Enix, the company responsible for the latter game, has to cope with growing number of users - the game's director Naoki Yoshida recently boasted about 24 million registered accounts. And it's a well-known fact that players are creative; some of them are fond of imitating sexual intercourse by using character gestures (such as bending, crouching or lying down) and various emotes. Does this bother somebody? Absolutely. Can you get banned for it? Yes - but not always. Square Enix, apparently unwilling to answer dozens of questions like these, has updated its FAQ section on prohibited actions.

It states that this type of behavior - known as erotic role-playing (ERP) - is legal, to a certain extent. However, you can't just nag random players - people who are going to take part in this "game" have to agree to it. Furthermore, it cannot take place in public spaces so that bystanders are not forced to witness the act. Not following these rules will result in a bad - the likelihood of getting one increases significantly if someone reports our inappropriate behavior.

ERP is not the only issue that was updated in the FAQ. New guidelines have also been added regarding stalking. Stalking can take the form of constant teleportation to the victim's location (despite requests not to), spamming with unsolicited messages or friend requests, or attempting to establish contact through the game with a person with whom we are prohibited to do so by law. For all of these activities you can also get banned.

No wonder Square Enix cares about such issues - on November 23 the company plans to release Endwalker, the fourth expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, and it's supposed to close many story threads, some of which were already started in the 2014's base game. Many people may treat it as an excuse to start the adventure with the game.

Meanwhile, in this MMORPG it's quite easy to get into trouble - for example, deleting someone from the friends list is not synonymous with our nickname no longer appearing among his or her contacts. This means that the person with whom we don't want to maintain further relations in the game still knows where we are in the virtual world. If, for some reason, we've gotten married to that person, they'll have a special ring that enables them to teleport back to us (even if we're divorced and have blacklisted the stalker).

It's hard to say whether the measures taken by Square Enix are enough for Final Fantasy XIV to be a safe haven for all players. Let's recall that the game has been given an age category of 16 by PEGI.

• Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - official website
• The Best MMORPGs for Single Player in 2020 - Games for Lone Wolves