Mabinogi's age rating has been PG13 since it began in North America.
However the playerbase to which the vast majority of it's 2'000 or so players are all in their late 20's to early 40's. This is a suggestion in wake of people getting banned more often lately for bugles, names, or just existing with mature themes for their character. To put it simply, Mabinogi is wearing its age rating like an adult would wear their grandma's knitted sweater as if it were made for them when they were a child.
The playerbase is older now, people change, and people start to talk about different things. However this has become detrimental to the playerbase as it is right now. There are increasing sporadic bans being handed out for talking in chat, people being themselves, and are being handed 3+ day bans that are very shallow in nature. People are getting banned for their usernames that they've had for a decade, people are getting banned because they said an unfiltered curse word that no 2nd grader dare say in front of their teacher on a playground. These bans are not reversible, and tarnish the image of the players.
The age rating currently is incompatible for future Mabinogi, and going into Eternity.
The age rating is also holding back content, dialogue and other additions to the game. I am not saying mabinogi has to be an r18+ game like Vindictus, but there is only so much "little boy shorts", "school" outfits, and candy colored pastel fashion wears that can be introduced into gachapons before it becomes totally boring like maplestory. Mature-content, and mature looks can be cute too, mature isn't limited to sexual or offensive content. In Mabinogi Mobile, it allows for better designs of clothing, better aethetics, and better dialogue options to appeal to the audience.
AN AUDIENCE CONSISTING VASTLY OF ADULTS LIKE MABINOGI'S. Using cutesy candy colored schoolwears that are copy/pasted into new gachapons isn't satisfactory anymore. We're going into Mabinogi eternity, where the devs can be more creative with the game, not just hide it in the corner once the work is done.
There has also within the last 5 years been the occasional censorship of outfit names that have originated from Japan such as the Zettai Ryoukai club outfits.
The quests for the game have become insufferable because of the age rating. Often themes are patched over, or subjects are beaten around the bush,
or like g27 where the dialogue was so horrible that it broke the spacebars of a few players.
The age rating has been ruining the game's dialogue since its inception, and it needs to be raised.
Unlike the aging system in game, mabinogi's players get older, and older, and they change. There is no "Modern" audience for mmos, and reaching a younger audience isn't going to work when younger generations are playing games meant to appeal to unstable growing minds that are already flooded with stimulation from modern brainrot.
Raise the age rating, stop the petty banning of people for being themselves, stop hampering content with an outdated ideal of what this game should be, ESPECIALLY when the mobile version of the game is vastly more successful.
Raise the Age Rating to 17+, or stop mistaking the age rating of it being 13+ as a "EC" game. Mabinogi is the only game in its franchise that is perpetually stuck in an era where it thinks only kids play MMO's, that time has long since been over. Every installation of Mabinogi; Vindictus, Mabinogi DUEL, Mabinogi Arena, Mabinogi Mobile, and the original intended state of Mabinogi under Director Naak (Mabinogi's franchise Author) has had been mature themed. The current Age rating is holding this game back, it's pretending to be something it never was supposed to be.
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Comments
All the recent player base growth and improvements would mean nothing if the age rating were raised after all this time, after being legal and internationally compliant. Just because over 30 % or 50% on any given day are over 20 does not mean the game needs to be 18+, this game has made it's stance on that long ago and strongly so, it would also greatly impact the player base. The game has needed the recent growth it has gained and games like this needs to bring in more players from a " general " group, others how did any of us get into this game.
As for anything said with bugles, bans for that are in all game 18+ and even above, using words and terms the game company does not allow will always be that way, unless you want to pitch private servers like others have and tried. Just as we can't be police or security guards when it would be convenient (IRL) on a personal level we can't force entire server to instantly bow down to what anyone person wants. That's why there's report functions in game and on the main site, it's why the age rating is there at the 13 rating, look up the history of game ratings.
I started paying in 2004, i even have seen how some parts have been cut short or had alternate options made for them ( i even left for over 10 years), this game would have to not only pay for an excessive overtime( which i heavily doubt they would get), just to get the info to justify an attempt for new concept art, that's why for 18+ mabi there is Vindictus etc. or do you think maplestory should also be 18+?
Just to point out mabinogi's competition was only,Ragnarok Online 2002,Seal Online 2003, MapleStory 2003, TalesWeaver 2003,Flyff (Fly For Fun) 2004, Scions of Fate 2004, PangYa 2004. and after 2005 it was finally getting other similar games like Lunia: Record of Lunia War in 2006 and they where all rated for Teen.
Just be glad the quality of life improvements over the last 10 years have been so good or do you want 2008-2016 back ? you want 18-39% less people to try to take you into a run of something ? i have only been back just over a year and 8 months and 2 guilds later i still can't get a group for raids ( only ever got to do glenn with a group twice).
And now i'm seeing someone saying that at best " build it they will come",nexon tried that and failed enough they made every other mmo in their roster, but at worst your saying to the effect of " we should nuke the player base further" just because of off hand comments that any online game for pc( Apple II in 1977) and console (Magnavox Odyssey in 1972) has ever had, or do you pay out of your own pocket to cover up graffiti in public spaces ? it happens no matter the places age rating is. or just give Black Desert Online ( from 2014) a try, it took over 10 years for decent alternatives to show up during mabinogi's worst years. It's why i'm back on mabi before the unreal 5 gives it the facelift and Better controls to the dev team.
- The playerbase hasn't gotten bigger. It has shrunk considerably so after New Rise, and will again after the New Life update. Even the Korean servers have lost nearly half of their server to the recent update. Changing the age rating will do nothing bad to the player counts.
As for anything said with bugles, bans for that are in all game 18+ and even above, using words and terms the game company does not allow will always be that way, unless you want to pitch private servers like others have and tried. Just as we can't be police or security guards when it would be convenient (IRL) on a personal level we can't force entire server to instantly bow down to what anyone person wants. That's why there's report functions in game and on the main site, it's why the age rating is there at the 13 rating, look up the history of game ratings.
I started paying in 2004, i even have seen how some parts have been cut short or had alternate options made for them ( i even left for over 10 years), this game would have to not only pay for an excessive overtime( which i heavily doubt they would get), just to get the info to justify an attempt for new concept art, that's why for 18+ mabi there is Vindictus etc. or do you think maplestory should also be 18+?
- I never said mabi should be 18+, Mature rating is 17+ and is more lenient towards the creative process of games. The recent bans in bugles have been done presumably by new chat moderators who have been actively banning people for microaggressions and petty name calling that are not even filtered in chat. It feels like a huge overreach, and it feels like anyone can be banned for anything said in game these days.
Just to point out mabinogi's competition was only,Ragnarok Online 2002,Seal Online 2003, MapleStory 2003, TalesWeaver 2003,Flyff (Fly For Fun) 2004, Scions of Fate 2004, PangYa 2004. and after 2005 it was finally getting other similar games like Lunia: Record of Lunia War in 2006 and they where all rated for Teen.
Just be glad the quality of life improvements over the last 10 years have been so good or do you want 2008-2016 back ? you want 18-39% less people to try to take you into a run of something ? i have only been back just over a year and 8 months and 2 guilds later i still can't get a group for raids ( only ever got to do glenn with a group twice).
-Quality of life updates fall outside the actual content of the game, and stabilize the operation of the game itself. It does not however draw in more players, it doesn't keep them around, and it doesn't add anything new to the already stagnant player retention. Most of those examples, except for maplestory are all dead games, have either ended their service or have less than 1000 players, or are breeding grounds for Real-World Trade.
And now i'm seeing someone saying that at best " build it they will come",nexon tried that and failed enough they made every other mmo in their roster, but at worst your saying to the effect of " we should nuke the player base further" just because of off hand comments that any online game for pc( Apple II in 1977) and console (Magnavox Odyssey in 1972) has ever had, or do you pay out of your own pocket to cover up graffiti in public spaces ? it happens no matter the places age rating is. or just give Black Desert Online ( from 2014) a try, it took over 10 years for decent alternatives to show up during mabinogi's worst years. It's why i'm back on mabi before the unreal 5 gives it the facelift and Better controls to the dev team.
-The unreal engine won't change anything for the devteam. The sad truth is that localization even will be overhauled, and people will lose their jobs to automatically translated content, or Ai-functions, to which unreal 5 has. The devs have also shown snippets of the Unreal engine, especially with the Glas-boss fight, and it looks extremely sub-par to current mabinogi. They have also shared zero plans post upgrade, and they're advertising something that looks inferior to the Mobile Mabinogi that was produced by the original director Dong-gun Kim (Naak). Continuing to censor the game by cutting out players will further damage the already dwindling playerbase, in addition to the two failed major updates new life/new rise, the game is suffering the most right now since hwang seon-yeong directed during the Saga generations.
Do you have any idea how many school outfits KR mabi has released within the last year? Their players are calling mabinogi a boring "Homework game" now. The game has become a relentless chore of schoolaged paraphernalia, chores, and a lack of creativity, and fashion gachapons full of schoolwears, skintight boyshorts, and bad memories for people who want an RPG, not a homework app for 12 year olds.
And you're very much wrong about the playerbase growing up and "everyone is definitely an adult now". This playerbase needs to understand already, you're not always talking to thirty year olds and up. I've seen young teenagers and older teenagers during my years of playing, so lets just stop assuming everyone's age right there and stop saying things in chat that's getting you banned. There's newer players joining all the time, sometimes it is younger audiences getting drawn in, and you wouldn't know.
They should update their chat filter, I can agree with that because I saw someone say something in chat once that should have been censored but wasn't, though I'm guessing their terms of service also would have a list of what you shouldn't say.
Other than that, I don't think simple swear words like the F- or Sh- words should be filtered. I don't know if there's some kind of legality around certain swears not being auto-censored.
It is noticeable that the maturity level of the game has gone down significantly since G12. Not that the game was serious all the time but now we keep getting oversized cutesy mounts like the corgi, cat, or bunny, or "pretty" mounts like cwn annwn, the fairy dragons, or Tuan. Older enemies were more grotesque like the cyclops or chon-chon but now we get Mutant Talek, Balor, or Girgashiy which have cartoonish gorilla proportions. First noticed it when the gathering flavor text went from "You failed to harvest wheat" to "You picked a fight with a wheat stalk and lost! xD" A lot of the newer translated skills feel like they're trying to do flowery names. Spin Spurt -> Meridian Sweep~ , Scythe Slash -> Astral Reave~, especially when the original skills were very straightforward like Smash. Blaze. Support Shot.
I think the maturity level is due to the game catering more towards a female audience these days. Male gacha outfits usually aren't cool from a male perspective. There are less attractive female characters like Nao, Kusina, or Rua. There's no average guy representative in the Arcana NPCs yet. (a little boy, 2 feminine guys, and an old guy). No cool pets without jewelry on them. No cool anime collabs. No cool rival characters like Ruairi. More of a focus on farming gameplay like Moonlight Island than combat. Beauty coupons are nothing but effeminate eyes and hairs. You end up with things being cuter, less aggressive, less violent, more Hello Kitty-ish. I honestly doubt the game will ever cater to male players again outside of appealing to nostalgia like Glas or Claimh Solas but I would love it if they threw us a bone from time to time.