Common Courtesy

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Final Fantasy XI Online has a lot of little courteous things that many people take for granted. These are all minor things that everyone should follow to keep everyone around them happy. Without common courtesy, we might as well all be playing World of Warcraft right now.

Courtesy in Parties

• First and foremost, it's always good to have your subjob at an appropriate level. Having an underleveled subjob tells the party that you are inexperienced or lazy and unwilling to play your best.
• Unless the whole party is doing so, keep language appropriate. No one wants to hear the F-word ten times in every sentence you type.
• Gear is obviously not as important as skill, but it's also courteous to your party to come with at least moderately good equipment. Go with what feels right for you. This includes appropriate foods and medicines, such as echo drops when fighting mobs that silence.
• What you may think is the best equipment for a job, or level, is your opinion. There is never ONE piece that someone MUST have before they can level. Each person playing the game is paying the dues and learns by experience, so let them play how they deem appropriate. Your opinion on another player could be as simple as telling a WAR they can't level to 59 without a Haubergeon. That is an opinion and as such, should not be given unless asked for.
• For Mages, focus on having up-to-date spells for your level. Some spells are less important, but try to keep up-to-date as best as you can. "I'm too poor" isn't a really good excuse.
• Know what you're doing. Playing White Mage and being power leveled all the way to Lv60, then not knowing how to Cure is a surefire way to get your party killed.
• This one may seem obvious, but it happens a lot. Don't go away without informing your party.
• If you're tired, tell the party. Either disband and find a replacement, or warn them of how tired you are so they can keep close watch over you.
• Concerning replacements: Don't leave a party without at least a few minutes' warning and at least an attempt at finding a replacement. A good rule of thumb is to give 20-30 minutes notice prior to leaving. If you absolutely need to leave immediately, tell them so, rather than faking a disconnect; it causes a long delay wondering if a DC is coming back or not. Most importantly, however, make sure that your party will actually want to continue when it's time for you to leave. Nothing is more rude to your replacement than having them arrive to replace you and then your party shortly disbanding thereafter.
• Try as hard as possible to make sure your party is going to stick together if you do manage to find a replacement. It's very annoying taking a ten minute run, only to find out you need to Warp back anyway.
• Always ask someone in /tell and wait for a positive response before you send them an invite. These "blind invites" are very rude and aren't usually tolerated outside of Valkurm Dunes. Not only that, but in that tell, include some information! Like the level the party will sync to, the goal of the party (i.e. experience), and the area of the camp. It is not rude when the invited player asks such questions either, as it is basic enough information.
• Set your Home Point accordingly. Don't have your Home Point in Whitegate when you're partying in Valkurm unless you have means to get back to your camp that would not inconvenience the rest of your party in the event of a K.O. This especially goes out to the tanks and healers - the most likely to die.
• Try and resist using an exp band when you're not the lowest level in the party. (WITH THE NEW LEVEL SYNC FEATURE, THIS IS NO LONGER AN ISSUE)
• <Call> commands are incredibly irritating in a party, particularly Calls 1-3. Use softer calls like <call14> and <call20> to alert the party of statuses like {No more MP!}. It is a bit more acceptable to use the louder calls for situations like alerting an AFK member or in slight situations where the player is asleep.
• Similarly, often players turn off sound to avoid either the BGM or said calls. As is often said in this guide, don't spam. If <Call> was not responded to the first time, it probably won't be responded to the 3rd or 4th times within 5 seconds either.
• If you are the "syncee" (the person being synced to) in a level sync party, do your party a favor and let them know when you are about to level. Because of the way level sync works, when the syncee levels, it basically unsyncs and resyncs the entire party to your new level. In simpler terms, most buffs and all TP will evaporate the moment you ding, so make sure your party is aware of that fact so they can plan accordingly (i.e., not wasting MP on buffs, not hoarding TP for skillchains, etc). (As of the 12/08 update, this no longer is an issue. You keep buffs and TP in case of the syncee leveling up.)
• Don't camp on top of another party. If the area you are exping in supports multiple parties, great, but there are many places in most zones that can be used as an effective campsite. From a healers perspective, especially in parties where there are multiple members "tanking", it's hard enough keeping an eye on who has hate, and thus who to pay extra close attention to, let alone when you've got another party sitting on top of you fighting the exact same mobs.
• If you are pulling, write 2 macros to do so, the announcement macro to the party, and the actual ranged attack macro seperately. This allows you to hit the party announcement before you attempt to shoot, thus avoiding it to be repeated in the chat log when the mob is "out of range", or " you cannot see the <t>, or "You move and interrupt your aim", etc. Watching "{Fishing}<t>{Everyone Ready!}<call10>" go by 12 times as you inch up on the mob is obnoxious, when one announcement would have easily sufficed. On another note, not ALL job abilities need to be announced, "Boost" being a perfect example.
• If the tank or mages ask you to not use certain spells or job abilities, because the party can not effectively handle enmity spikes, please respect their request. Using spells like Ancient magic may cause a party wipe if you don't have the proper party to handle that amount of enmity.
• Party members are likely to make mistakes. There is no reason to yell and curse at someone when they do something wrong. Remember that it is just a game and that everyone is learning. Yelling will cause most members to leave the party and/or /blist-ing you.

Courtesy for Everyday Things

• Avoid spamming anything; whether it's in /say, /shout, /tell, /em, or /random, it's all very annoying.
• Avoid spamming an advertisement for teleporting when there are other mages in the area performing similar tele-taxi services. It is rude and uncalled for. In high-traffic areas, many mages may also wish to tele-taxi. Your spamming will often cause them to start advertising free tele's just to get you to stop. The trick to preventing such spam is to wait in a high-traffic area and respond to another player requesting a tele-taxi service before your competing mages get a chance to make the same response. This can be done entirely in /tell and will not bother other players.
• Don't put tons of words in your macros. Just get the point across.
• If you have Cure or anything of the sort, solo players often appreciate a buff or a little Cure.

• Same thing goes for Raise. If you're not in a hurry, don't just run past a KO'd player if you have time to stop and give a quick Raise.
• Likewise, even if you cant raise, if you have a moment, give a little shout such as "(Raise)<pos><t>(Can I have it?)(Thank you)".
• 'Please' and 'Thank you' are nice words to use if someone just helped you.

• If you're selling things in your Bazaar, please don't block the Auction House windows or the entrances to Mog Houses or other high traffic areas (This includes the entrance to Rolanberry Fields or Batallia Downs). Remember, other people need to get to these areas, too.
• Likewise, if you're crafting items, it's a good idea to move over to one side of the shop so that others can purchase their components too. One good idea is to move up against a wall or even go outside and find an out-of-the-way spot near the shop, but not blocking the entrance, so that others can enter and exit without tripping over your character. Once you've made your purchases, it's only polite to make room so that other players can also make purchases.
• If someone is already harvesting from a harvest point that has multiple items available, don't start harvesting from the same one. If they are standing there facing it just pass it by and wait for the next to spawn.
• When farming, try to select areas that do not interfere with EXP parties. Don't be greedy and chain all the mobs, when you know there are other people farming in the same area.
• When fighting a mob for exp, be courteous if you clearly see another player is already preparing to take a specific mob, and go pull the next one. Stealing a player's claim ruins the whole experience for that player.
• Do not annoy people who are fishing. There are a lot of things to watch and the last thing they need to do is tell you they aren't a fishbot.
• When putting together an event, if you have not had experience with the event, make sure you do your homework before inviting other people to join. This means having the right items/key items/jobs/skills and making sure all other quest/mission/event prerequisites are met. It is really annoying to get to an event and the person who scheduled the event doesn't have a required item.
• Likewise, when joining an event, bring silent oils and prism powders when needed, rather than relying on the mages to sneak/invis everyone. Relying on the mages slows down the event, and may cause problems such as magic aggro. Also, remember that when a time is given to gather together, it's always best to be early than late. If you are going to be late or not able to attend, please let the appropriate people know as far in advance as possible so that other accommodations can be made. Many times events have to be canceled because people fail to show. So make sure that if you say you are going to be there, you make all attempts to do so.
• A good rule to follow when performing any action that involves more than just yourself is pay attention to your party log. Chatting away in /tells or /linkshell then throwing a fit when things go bad is not only extremely rude, it will get you added to many people's blist. If you're doing dynamis, an exp party, garrison, or anything outside of solo play, pay attention to what others are saying, asking and doing. Simply saying, "I'm not entirely sure, explain the rationale?" can help a party alot more than nothing but silence when someone suggests an alternate method.

There is a lot of courtesy in Final Fantasy XI Online, and that's what separates us from most other MMORPG's. There are probably a lot more measures of courtesy out there that aren't listed in these general guidelines. Don't hesitate to add anything you see missing.