Feyshtey said:I dont argue for a second that there are legitimate cases of people who have been truly wronged who have a right to speak their mind and ask others to be considerate. So that's not what we're talking about here. And we're not talking about how your words can really hurt someone close to you. That's a completely different topic because emtional connection to others changes every dynamic. I have unintentionally hurt my wife's feelings in a way that any other person on the planet would have taken it as a compliment.
Feyshtey said:
If invulnerability to words is aquired (it's a learned response) and that ability provides a strength and emotional protections from jerks who want to see you hurt, then how do you serve people by eliminating that learning process?
Conversely, if you learn that you can bully and silence people you don't agree with by claiming emotional trauma by their words, have you learned a positive reaction?
Syntro said:Right, if you read my last sentence in the first response I agree that there should be little minimal restraint in chat, "some basic optional filters with a robust and responsive reporting system which has appropriately scaling timeout punishements should be sufficient". For the sake of discussion though, it is an interesting point. Notice how you took the perspective of the victim, the one who is being verbally assaulted, in both of your statements. What about the abuser? An equivalent statement holds that 'if a bully can verbally abuse someone and there are no negative reprecussions, have they learned that bullying is bad?' I'm not defending either position, I just wanted to point out the other perspective. Just like everything in life, the correct response probably lies somewhere in the middle. Yes, we need to allow for emotional growth of the abusee and yes, we also need to appropriately punish the abuser to let them also mature. The healthy discussion from both perspectives will help VR find the appropriate middle ground.
Entirely valid argument :) You're correct that a bully that is never confronted will never modify the bad behavior. Likewise, a person who might be restrained somewhat in their bully mentality will be encouraged if they see bullies get away with doing so. But ultimately the only benefit a bully has in that activity in-game is in the reaction that it achieves from the bullied. While a person can choose to act like a jerk in chat, it will get dull and they will stop when they get no reaction at all. Or better yet when they dont get the reaction and then they realize the behavior as severed them from the community that they must rely on for success.
I can't view things from the side of the bully. Bullies piss me off moreso than most anything else, and because of that I see it in all the forms it manifests in. Unfortunately every day to a greater degree I see it utilized by those that proclaim to be harmed to bully those who should have a right to voice an opinion, no matter how stupid, cruel or ignorant. You can't find common ground, you can't learn, and you can't challenge your own perceptions if you can't hear someone thru in their line of reasoning. We are becoming a culture that dissallows these intellectual excercises in favor of everyone being good, polite, mundane, inarticulate, watered-down, generic and boring herds dripping with honeyed vinegar.
Lghtngfan said:This must be generational because in my world, maturity is knowing (or learning that) words don't hurt, and that I can control how I react to other people. I am a woman, and if someone said something sexist (or racist, or bigoted, or something against religion, or crude, or crass, or anything of the sort), I shrug it off and pity that person for feeling the need to get a rise out of people to feel better about themselves. They're just words on a page, and those words can do nothing to me. That gives me all the power I need and nobody can take that away from me.
I don't think anyone here is contesting what maturity means. I can and will ignore the occasional troll. What I am more concerned about is saturation. If I have to block trolls every few minutes, like I have had to do while playing other games, then I'm done. There's a point at which it's no longer a matter of having a thick skin and more a matter of how foolish I am to want to stay in an environment that has become saturated with rubbish. It's one reason why I uninstalled WoW.
You're right in that maturity is an issue. But when I mentioned the possibility of younger gamers in my previous post, I also had in mind well-intentioned players who just cannot disengage from trolls. If I had to boil my concern down further: I don't want to have to turn off a chat channel, which is a legitimate feature of a game, due to trolls and bickering.
(That story was dreadful. I've been in those types of uncomfortable conversations too. Maybe that person was actually a troll pretending to be offended.)
I haven't had the time to read the other posts here, and I'll definitely get to them, but this is essentially my response to the "do nothing solution."
On the hand, I'm really hoping that Pantheon will circumnavigate this issue by making the game heavily group-oriented.
Having the game be heavily group oriented is a big start. But Im very skeptical it is enough. I hope to be wrong and would be over joyed to be so, but I just dont think reputation will matter that much to a significant number of players. Yea, we can write off the handful of players here and there. Or 1 time incidents that escalate due to a misunderstanding. But its harder to do if a large portion of the community doesnt give 2 craps what the other part thinks. We would need to have a significant majority of the player base be on board.
I suspect that, as with most MMOs, the areas containing 90% of the potential issues will be:
(i) Global channels (if they exist, which I hope NOT).
(ii) Newbie zone Channels (OOC and any zone-wide ones)
It seems very likely to me that as you progress through the game, the amount of garbage you will see will reduce. There will, as with all new MMOs, be a lot more at the start of the game than at any other point. Having a subscription rather than 'free to play' will reduce this significantly. Within 2 months, I would imagine the only chat issues you will likely come across will be occasional profanity, joking or in-joke repeated ad-nauseum (or possible trader spam!). You might get the odd spate after somebody gets trained (accidently or otherwise), but these are likely to be much less common than you see in 'free to play' games, particularly those with a global chat system.
As I say above - using 'ignore' followed by a very simple, robust reporting system : leading to a warning and, if not heeded, a ban for people committing egregious bad behaviour is all that is needed.
PS :
PTF_plat_4U.C-O-M S3LL plat only 5 DOLLA 4 100 PLaT.
PTF_plat_4U.C-O-M PL s3rv1ce DELIVER 1 HOUR!!!111!1! RUV U Rong TIME
There is no excuse what so ever for lack of empathy shown by trolls. The excuse "Its the internet, what do you expect.", just shows the total lack of intelligence shown by such people. Its not the internet, it is people's fingers consciously pressing keys and being as obnoxious as they can be, because they get some kind of buzz from hurting people.
What I expect is that people should be able to control themselves to such an extent that causing hurt to someone on purpose should never happen. A little personal restraint and showing a little bit of respect (I know old fashioned things) is all that’s needed. Of course, people are going to disagree and may even become heated, but there is a point where the abuse just becomes insane. Its disgusting, its childish and its just plain wrong.
Kalgore: It hasnt hurt EVE EQ or EQ2 and it wont hurt Pantheon
Na! There is a difference between being mean and rude and being aggressive and throwing a torrent of abuse and threats. Just because some games puts up with it doesn’t mean it should be put up with by all games. Mean and rude I can put up with easily. Threats and hounding and obscenities don’t belong in any multi player game and I would expect the company running the game to do something about such people.
I think that the community should "police" it as much as is practical. It has been pointed out that /ignore should always be the first point of call. /report should be the second option for those rare occasions that an /ignore isnt enough, but there has to be a point where an official warning and/or ban is implemented as a final option. I am not talking about stupid remarks like calling someone a useless ranger. I am talking about someone who's life revolves around inflicting misery on anyone and everyone.
Kalgore: ...That means you need to take the good with the bad just like in real life your gaming experaince will have Mean rude bullies...
Life doesnt put up with this at all. For instance, if I was coming out of work and had a work ID badge on and I just decided to make someone’s life a misery and have a go at someone, my company would either officially warn me or sack me on the spot for bringing down their reputation. It should be exactly for the online game life too. Freedom of speech is fine. Freedom to verbally assault people is not fine.
Just becuse freedom of speech is in the US Constitution, doesn't mean it carries over to an internationally accessed video game. Just something that gets under my skin when I see guys being jerks saying they have a right to do it in a video game. Unfortunately there isn't a law against being a jerk.
There seems to be a misunderstanding about the first amendment.. it reads..
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The first amedment protects us against the government "MAKING A LAW" restricting free speach... it does not say "Visionary Realms shall make no rule" it has absolutely no jurisdiction here.
Zorkon said:There seems to be a misunderstanding about the first amendment.. it reads..
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The first amedment protects us against the government "MAKING A LAW" restricting free speach... it does not say "Visionary Realms shall make no rule" it has absolutely no jurisdiction here.
Don't get me started on how often this is misused in general. As pertaining to VR, they can make the rules for their game play so yeah, it's their ball so their rules.
chenzeme said:...The excuse "Its the internet, what do you expect.", just shows the total lack of intelligence shown by such people...
I want to preface this by saying that I agree with pretty much all of what you have said. I think we need a healthy balance of community intervention and moderation by VR. If you are intentionally offensive in private then that's your business, but if you do it in a public space then there should be consequences. However, people using "the internet" as a reason for bad behavior are not necessarily wrong. If you hear the stories from the internet trolls themselves it then you can see that it does actually have an impact. It is common to hear about dehumanizing your enemies and detractors and that can occur in exactly the issues we're talking about here.
Imagine a teenager cussing/trolling to the zone in a crowded mmo starter area and compare it to what would happen if they went and did the same in a mall. The social cues are all missing in a video game and it's something that we as a society will have to adapt to. We send glaring looks and steer clear of jerks/crazies in real life to send a message that we are not comfortable with what they are doing. This type of thing just doesn't happen in a game. Maybe we'll collectively find a solution like bystanders actively speaking up (in lieu of traditional social cues) about bullying whenever they see it, but I don't think we're there yet. I'm not trying to give an excuse, but rather an explanation.
Again, I say let the community handle it. I think that Pantheon's group based dynamics will weed out the troublemakers pretty quickly. No one will play the game "solely" to grief, or if they do they won't do it long. Those type of people will be unable to get groups and unable to join a guild, as any reputable player will shun them. Finding themselves unable to progress, they will eventually get bored and leave.
Sure, you might have to put up with some of this at release until the who's who becomes known to the community, but that's what the /ignore feature is for.
Ah, a ressurection of my previous post (Griefing: does Pantheon have a plan?). You'll always have those who heckle/insult/grief, and those who support them by saying "stop being sensitive" or "stop sharing your personal information" or some other such. I, for one, find this morally and ethically confounding, bordering on abhorrent. Bigots and hate mongerers are what they are, regardless of their current VR shield.
Panda said:Again, I say let the community handle it. I think that Pantheon's group based dynamics will weed out the troublemakers pretty quickly. No one will play the game "solely" to grief, or if they do they won't do it long. Those type of people will be unable to get groups and unable to join a guild, as any reputable player will shun them. Finding themselves unable to progress, they will eventually get bored and leave.
Sure, you might have to put up with some of this at release until the who's who becomes known to the community, but that's what the /ignore feature is for.
I agree just let the players handle all but the most serious. After all it breaks immersion to have some GM zone in and boot someone :D
If Pantheon is going to harken back to "the good old days" of gaming, then I expect in-game moderation to be handled like it was in the good old days too: Chat filter first, /ignore second, /report third and GM intervention as a last resort. And I expect the player base to act the same way they did back then: Stand up to or ignore immaturity and go on your merry way. We didn't need the GM police to monitor every word that was uttered into a chat window because we were able to deal with it by either calling that person out or not giving that kind of talk the time of day. Because no matter what you do, you'll never be able to legislate maturity. You can't *make* people behave the way you want them to. No matter how much you design a game for an older, more mature audience, there will always be button-pushers who will try to get a rise out of people. And the best way to handle that is to take away their power and not take their bait.
Personally I would love to see some sort of player vs player faction system, where players that earn bad faction in the community (crowed sourced faction) then become less effective at spreading their brand of garbage over time.
Conversly players that have earned good faction with the community (crowed sourced again), should gain some benefit for this.
I've posted at length about this in the past but it never seemed to get any traction, thats ok, but I would still like to see a way for the community to manage itself and to make your reputation actually matter in more way than just a simple /ignore option.
azaya said:Personally I would love to see some sort of player vs player faction system, where players that earn bad faction in the community (crowed sourced faction) then become less effective at spreading their brand of garbage over time.
Conversly players that have earned good faction with the community (crowed sourced again), should gain some benefit for this.
I've posted at length about this in the past but it never seemed to get any traction, thats ok, but I would still like to see a way for the community to manage itself and to make your reputation actually matter in more way than just a simple /ignore option.
I've thought about something like this before too, but I would not want it set up where people can just "Like" or "Dislike" someone to change that faction.
A player based faction system should be designed around your PK style. If you PK someone you gain negative faction. If you are considered "kill on site" to players, they can kill you without lowering their own faction. Slowly over time player’s factions will return to non-kos. A system like this would encourage players to only PK when absolutely necessary and to not grief. If you do grief, you will be targeted by players (high level heroes) and destroyed with no-repercussions to them. PKers would always be on the run like a criminal.
bigdogchris said:azaya said:Personally I would love to see some sort of player vs player faction system, where players that earn bad faction in the community (crowed sourced faction) then become less effective at spreading their brand of garbage over time.
Conversly players that have earned good faction with the community (crowed sourced again), should gain some benefit for this.
I've posted at length about this in the past but it never seemed to get any traction, thats ok, but I would still like to see a way for the community to manage itself and to make your reputation actually matter in more way than just a simple /ignore option.
I've thought about something like this before too, but I would not want it set up where people can just "Like" or "Dislike" someone to change that faction.
A player based faction system should be designed around your PK style. If you PK someone you gain negative faction. If you are considered "kill on site" to players, they can kill you without lowering their own faction. Slowly over time player’s factions will return to non-kos. A system like this would encourage players to only PK when absolutely necessary and to not grief. If you do grief, you will be targeted by players (high level heroes) and destroyed with no-repercussions to them. PKers would always be on the run like a criminal.
I see what your saying and perhaps actual PVP would be a component of this.
I was thinking more along the lines of players earning/lossing a reputation, this could work on red or blue servers.
Such that its based more on trends and less on levels.
So if you have a bad repuation (level) then there are issues you may have to contend with as everyone should be able to see another players repuation.
If however your reputation is trending downward, IE: Players are activaly /ignoring you, then perhaps the system could just put you on auto ignore for everyone, until your trend goes back to zero or positive.
The steeper the trend the more sever of measures the system could take. Anything from auto ignore to you lose abilities that make it possible to grief to your toon is on timeout for a time. Or as mentioned here you end up being KOS to other players.
If however that trend is mostly possitive, then maybe thats a requirment to atually be a guild leader and/or hold on to that leadership position for example. Those with good repuation likely are leaders anyway.
I'll avoid creating the wall of text about this I've put up in the past but thats the jist of it.
Lol if you want to read my wall of text its about half way down page 4 of this thread.
- Az
We need to be careful of any system that allows people to vote for others. Especially if it is possible for someone to vote multiple times. This type of system can be used by the bully just as much as by the victim.
Just take a look at reddit. Only the true stars will get many, many votes. Most people will get some, or a few. If a bully wishes, they will be able to mess with anyone.
As an example: If a party is camping a spot and another party wants it, what is to stop the 2nd party from all ignoring and downvoting the 1st party?
Anything that tracks reputation should be personal imo. Give me a way to track people. Through ignore, my own notes, or a friends list. That will help me know who I can play well with. Anything else can be twisted around on anyone.
EDIT: I have an idea. They need to make a note pad in game for each player. The notepad could be broken up into sections: Other players, Quests, Locations, Items, Goals, Guild, ect... We should be able to keep track of things on our note pad. Make it look like a scroll or something. Make the text print out in old English font or something. This would be very, very, very, very... ok you get the idea... helpful! Call it a journal, but allow the player to write in it.
azaya said:bigdogchris said:azaya said:Personally I would love to see some sort of player vs player faction system, where players that earn bad faction in the community (crowed sourced faction) then become less effective at spreading their brand of garbage over time.
Conversly players that have earned good faction with the community (crowed sourced again), should gain some benefit for this.
I've posted at length about this in the past but it never seemed to get any traction, thats ok, but I would still like to see a way for the community to manage itself and to make your reputation actually matter in more way than just a simple /ignore option.
I've thought about something like this before too, but I would not want it set up where people can just "Like" or "Dislike" someone to change that faction.
A player based faction system should be designed around your PK style. If you PK someone you gain negative faction. If you are considered "kill on site" to players, they can kill you without lowering their own faction. Slowly over time player’s factions will return to non-kos. A system like this would encourage players to only PK when absolutely necessary and to not grief. If you do grief, you will be targeted by players (high level heroes) and destroyed with no-repercussions to them. PKers would always be on the run like a criminal.
I see what your saying and perhaps actual PVP would be a component of this.
I was thinking more along the lines of players earning/lossing a reputation, this could work on red or blue servers.
Such that its based more on trends and less on levels.
So if you have a bad repuation (level) then there are issues you may have to contend with as everyone should be able to see another players repuation.
If however your reputation is trending downward, IE: Players are activaly /ignoring you, then perhaps the system could just put you on auto ignore for everyone, until your trend goes back to zero or positive.
The steeper the trend the more sever of measures the system could take. Anything from auto ignore to you lose abilities that make it possible to grief to your toon is on timeout for a time. Or as mentioned here you end up being KOS to other players.
If however that trend is mostly possitive, then maybe thats a requirment to atually be a guild leader and/or hold on to that leadership position for example. Those with good repuation likely are leaders anyway.
I'll avoid creating the wall of text about this I've put up in the past but thats the jist of it.
Lol if you want to read my wall of text its about half way down page 4 of this thread.
- Az
I've read your post before Az, and I think your on to something. but I think as JDNight points out there would be trouble if it's simply players casting votes. I think it would be a great idea for a PVP server, Not one that promotes PvP but one that it is an avalable option (for trolls, and us to police ourselves).
Based on your idea.. a faction system where everybody starts out at "Player Faction=0" With caps of say + - 500
Killing a Neutral or Positive player gives you -1 to to your PF
Killing a Negitive PF player gives you +1 to your PF
Being killed does nothing to to your faction.
MY thoughts are, player killers would be hunted. White Knight Bounty Hunter types would have the avalable extra positive points to "deal" with any trolls or trouble makers and settle disputes. If somebody did go negitive, and was hunted, they would be able to redeem themselves, what that consisted of would be entirely dependant on how soon they decided to change there ways.
I would definitely play on a server like this.
Yes I can see how giving only players the vote buttons would be a problem.
The game engine itself would need to be the primary provider, in the form of hidden triggers.
Much like achievments in a steam game, something happens and you get +/- reputation applied automatically.
So just by playing normally, even if all you do is solo, you would gradually build a reputation, even if no one ever voted for you.
For example:
For every day you go without gaining a negative amount of reputation, you get a small positive bump by the game engine based on your current influence level.
Achieving certain things in the game may give a nice bump, say at LVL 30, 40, 50 or finishing a really hard quest.
And for those that like to group:
If you mentor often, your reputation rises.
By mentoring often you gain new friends, furthar increasing reputation due to /friend.
Conversly each time you get on /ignore you earn some negative amount.
In addition, getting taken aside by a GM might mean they decide to apply a -100 to you.
To prevent griefing, reputation should be account wide and each account should only be able to vote on any other account once a week (or some very long amount of time).
In addition, since new accounts start with 0 reputation(created to troll with), somone attempting to troll would have very little influence.
Your influcence on other accounts should scale based on your accounts reputation.
Thus the oppinion of somone with a 0 gets divided by 1000 so .001 reputation is applied +/-. Barely a blip.
If your reputation is 100 you apply reputation at a rate of .1, if 500 then by .5 each time you vote +/-.
If your reputation is -100 you apply .00001 and at -500 you apply .000002 essentially your oppinion is meaningless.
Thus the formula for influence would be:
- For positive reputation [current_rep_value] * .001
- For negative reputation .001 / Abs([current_rep_value])
In addition influence should only be available to paying subscribers with at least one toon over the free to play level. (Level 10?)
Otherwise your influence is zero, thus voting has no affect and you do not earn reputation for just for not getting into trouble.
You can only earn reputation from other players until lvl 11.
So if somone really wanted to troll the reputation system they would need to make a lot of accounts, get them to level 11 and then make their .001 influence vote.
This I'm certain would be sufficient to warrent GM intervention should anyone really want to do this.
Therefore only large gain or loss could be achieved by a large number of paying players specifically feeling the need to hit the vote buttons for any one individual within a single week.
Otherwise the game engine itself, your interaction with the world, other players (/friend) or GMs would apply reputation.
Earning a great reputation could unlock its own special rewards; those players with high or spectactular reputation would tend to group together and could be used as a mesurment tool for guild recruitment, rights to lead, how much you want this person in your group, etc.
In the end it should be an accurate indicator of you as an account owner, your contributation to the community and participation in PRF.
Reputation would change at a fairly slow rate. It may take somone several years to gain a high repuation. To get +500 would require 1000 other +500 players to vote them up in one week for example. I suppose this could happen many years into the game but still it would be rare. It might even be a good idea to set a max change per time period limit.
Right after launch it would take 500,000 possitive interactions, with a lvl 11 plus account, to get to plus 500 in one week. So yes a long time indeed to get to +500 initially.
So, essentially it would play out as we knew it in EQ except now, over the long haul, those with particularly special attitudes would find themself on the short end of the stick eventually.
And it would be a status symbole to be in the +500 club for sure.
Your reputation would actually matter in a very real way.
-Az
Sniggz said: I'll just say I'd never engage in the type of behavior described by the OP, but couldn't care less about some loser troll doing so. My skin's thick enough, and I have an actual life outside of online games to where it's virtually impossible for some internet troll to get under my skin. /ignore and continue on. Couldn't possibly care any less whether a mod steps in, in these situations or not. Definitely wouldn't impact my enjoyment of the game at even the smallest of levels.
Yes, there is always the /ignore option, but there is harassment too. Making your gaming life, miserable. Interfering intentionally with what you are trying to do. Causing problems as you play. The ignore is not enough. Harassment must stop and having a thick skin isn't always enough! It should be socially unacceptable, yes, and in the first instance, policed by the community, but there has to be a point where those types of players that keep making people's game play are banned. No if's, no but's. If anyone initially hounds someone, then you lose the right to play. I can’t see why anyone would argue with that?
Reposting my reply from the first page for those who missed it, as this discussion seems to be running around in circles with no end in sight and we have already addressed this in roundtables and in replies.
"I would like to point out that this is also highly dependent on the maturity of our community, our community is a lot less toxic than most others out there and while we will still see incidents like this occur, it is reasonable to assume that it would be uncommon and would usually result in the community /ignoring the person and taking note of their name for future reference or if it is completely disrupting the server, a GM would intervene and resolve the issue rather quickly, I wouldn't worry too much about our game, it is what the community makes it to be and from what I have seen over the last 2 years, I think with VR and the community working together, we will be fine ;)"