Cytuj: From Sage Sundi, Global Online Producer:
Beta service for the new "Linkshell Community" community tool will be launching soon. Detailed information can be found on the FINAL FANTASY XI official website, but I thought I'd explain some additional points which we would like our community to understand.
We believe that most community activities in FINAL FANTASY XI are based on linkshells. However, for various reasons, there's currently no way in PlayOnline or FINAL FANTASY XI for these communities to "leave footprints." The community management team feels that we're lacking a place to record these live experiences.
Generally speaking, for MMO games, there are two main methods to record live, in-game activities. The first way is to use blogs or forums outside of the service, and the second way, though currently the minority, is by using officially provided methods.
The FINAL FANTASY XI Linkshell Community doesn't favor one or the other. While its aim is to encourage communication between different linkshell communities, ideally we would like it to coexist with existing sites, such as general information sites which don't belong to any particular linkshell or world, premiere sites, and other major sites and forums.
We're aiming to build systems like the following to create synergy between our communities:
o Premier sites: Premier planning, main discussion
o Community sites: Information sites & forums
o Linkshell Community: Communication between linkshells, linking to outside blogs
There's one more important point for us in the FINAL FANTASY XI community. Linkshell Community gives moderation authority (management of information written on the site and message boards) to the linkshell owners. Thus, all text or images posted on Linkshell Community website will be moderated by the linkshell owner and up to 2 moderators which are named by the linkshell owner. Any reports about site content will also be sent to these moderators.
This is because we think it should be left to each community's moderation policy to determine what do about borderline issues that don't fall under official user agreements and policies. This will be different from an official forum moderated by the community management team. We believe that creating rules and communication for linkshells will encourage self-regulation which results in good community functions for all players.
However, in cases where moderation hasn't been done properly or the moderators cannot be contacted for a while, Game Masters may take appropriate action, such as temporarily suspending that Linkshell Community site. Also, because the Linkshell Community is strongly linked to in-game worlds, some penalties may apply to PlayOnline accounts if severe violations are detected. This should not affect communication, but in case of problems caused by non-real-time communication, each linkshell owner's moderation is needed for the Linkshell Community to run smoothly. We're hoping that lots of players and linkshells will use the Linkshell Community beta service while taking this into account.
During the beta test, some data is already linked to the in-game world, but we believe you will come up with various ideas while using the Linkshell Community. We're looking forward to seeing interesting discussions and hearing your suggestions for the service.
Finally, the beta service and future official service will be free to use and open to every player who is a linkshell member regardless of their region. Also, after the beta ends, unless any problems prevent us from doing so, we're planning to carry over all the data as-is to the official service.
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