Using /check In-game (A Morality Topic)

Had someone else warp out of Omen today after using /check on them. The person was a Japanese player. They got too angry saying 気分が悪い (bad feeling).

Question is, am I bad for using /check on someone? Why do people get so angry in this day and age? Why don't the people just turn the /check filter on in their logs if they don't like it?

do not concern yourself with the opinions of thin skinned babies

This isn't usually an issue in 2025, but it was commonplace in the early days of FFXI for japanese to feel offense at check. The english text, 'Player examines you.' is relatively benign. However, my understanding is that the japanese text is more along the lines of 'Player peers intently at you.' So, it is seen by those who lean into the roleplaying element as personally invasive.

I do not think that it is morally wrong to use check, and I don't think that this outlook is common any more even among Japanese.

So should they change the string text then for JP players or reexamine it (pun intended)? I think they do need to keep the ability to /check other people in the game for various seasonal events and such though?

I was thinking some people take it too seriously. I said I made a mistake too but oh well.

The story is that I knew to not /check the person but I did so accidentally again since I forgot. I only checked once though. Wasn't spamming.

You can filter it off. It’s their own damn fault if they see it.

Interesting throwback for sure. Back at launch, it was very common for JP players to be offended by /check. New NA players coming in kind of lacked the social delicateness, if you will, with the rampant /check of higher level players, begging for gil etc. Was kind of funny to see worlds collide.

I think part of it is how it is phrased, but also the intrusiveness of it. Not also limited to just JP, as even some NA players were offended.

Nowadays, things have changed, and while I would say fewer people would be offended than before, there are still some out there, and moreso in the JP community. I personally would not check a JP player just in case, but I also don't /check NA players either. Part of the offense could also be if you join a PUG and they are checking you out to see if you are "good enough".

Ultimately, you did nothing wrong, and don't feel bad, but just good to be aware of how some people can perceive it.

Legends say if you stand behind Mireu and /check him, he'll warp you out.

People need to get over it lol

had to make sure that this was created in 2025. sucks to be the guy who took offense, but I wouldn't think twice about checking someone these days.

I feel about little weird if I have to examine someone more than once
I think these days it's funnier to examine all 6 characters in the train, then they might get some kind of way lol.

It's really strange this would exist today, but then again you could do a whole case study on the differences between the JP and NA players going way back. We need a little history page on the wiki, they would do some very strange things

I still remember Elmer The Pointy's survey as a major milestone in trying to get both communities to understand each other better.

I have turned my check notifications off from several years ago. I also very rarely check people at all anymore. The exception is if they have a bazaar or if their battle performance is questionable (i.e. they die, i want to see what gear they have on, their damage or acc is low, or they are taking a lot of damage, I want to see what they are wearing). In most English-speaking groups, checking people is fine, but to JP, it can be considered rude or even hostile to do it at inappropriate times (hard to say what's inappropriate, but they get miffed about it) without first asking. Used to be a big thing back in the day. It's somewhat of a rude thing to them, but is meaningless to English players. I actually don't really know what advantage you get from checking people anymore now, with gearswap and idle sets/lockstyle. You almost never will get their true gear for a set unless you ask them to put it on.

I will say, that when someone dies face down *** up in an event, and I check their gear, it's absolutely a hostile act that implies "dude what the hell were you wearing, how did you die?"

Checking is the best. I love looking at ppls swag. I wish ppl did it more.

Are you nuts? Who created this rule?

I not only /check, I /slap <t> right after, and make fun of their idle set if t's a bad one.

/em examines you.

Dbox them a Pile of Dung, that's always fun.

No, you're good. To each his own with checking and personally just like real life, I don't bother to check people out because attention is just another currency and rather just ignore everyone around me and live a quiet peaceful nonsocial life.

Thanks for the responses.

Someone (another person) in one of my JP LSes made the analogy of /check as looking up someones' skirt, which I find to be a bit extreme. I don't think it is that serious, but of course I don't want to make anyone mad.

I had this convo with someone before lol. (I check a lot.)

Check is a social interaction with someone. They see you do this action on them, and you know they see you do it and so you're choosing to do something you know will get that persons attention. So ultimately if it's good or bad will boil down to why you're doing it, people use check for all kinds of silly reasons.

For instance it does have a very well known passive aggressive element to it. Part of that is people know it's something that is somewhat rude and so if someone annoys you, the first thing you'll often do is check them and maybe do it multiple times. If someone is performing poorly or dies, the first thing some people often do is check them as an judgemental statement that they suck (and often it's subconscious action you'll perform without putting too much thought into it).

It was rampant during the Abyssea days, if you outpopped someone you're getting the fu checks. If someone was at a HNM camp and didn't have the thing you did, the lolscrub check was often used.

From how you stated it, I'm gonna guess the person had bad gear and they were conscious of it and saw your check as a judgement on their performance, and this upset them so they left.

I’ve been on both sides.

I check people to figure out what’s happening if something goes wrong. Other times, I do it so that I can improve myself.

I don’t really find it offensive when party leaders ask if I have certain gear. I get that they are vetting to see if content can be won or not.

Only posting because it hasn't been said yet

During a campaign long ago there was an exceptionally geared pld
I was reading webpages to learn FFXI Japanese

And I asked the pld in Japanese if I could check him
He was very nice and almost seemed happy I asked

The entire event lasted about 3 minutes

Woah cool pld I'm learning Japanese I'm going to ask
Ask in Japanese
Get a response saying to go ahead please do
Check
Say it's very good
Get a thank you

That's my experience

My experience with JP group was the same. I was in a JP LS and they wanted to check my gear so they asked if they could check before doing it.

Japanese culture has an lot of social etiquette that doesn't exist in other cultures, even in rl. Ask for permission before checking is probably one of them.

If you want to keep a good relationship with JP community then you have to follow those social etiquette, this applies to rl interaction in Japan too. Or you can play with non-JP if you find those social etiquette unacceptable. Your choice.