Civility and morality in the game

First, hello everyone. I am a long time reader of these forums and have been playing Guild Wars for a long time now. For those of you wondering about my misspelling of the avatar, I am a long time real time strategy/turn based strategy player.

That said, I have noticed the community of Guild Wars is rather immoral in play compared to RTS and other games I have played online. Now, I am not a die hard online mmo player so I have little to compare this game's community, but the language, put downs, and other uncivil behavior is very prevalent. I understand it is a game full of children and teenagers; however, the behavior is quit intolerable for something that is meant to be fun.

My Pvp experience has been even more sour than pve; something about competition brings out dishonorable behavior beyond the normal trash talk.

So what experiences have you had with the community? Have any of you had an overall uncivil experience as I have or have I just been unlucky?

Apologies for not searching for a thread about this- the search function does not work in any of my browsers (I run Internet Explorer 6.0-7, Firefox 2.0, and Opera. I still cant figure out why this forum and others do not search etc for me with scripting turned on in each browser).

Welcome to the Internets.

I just see it as trash talk and don't take it seriously. Sure, there is a lot of it, But there always is a handy Filter When F11 is pressed. Also the local Chats can be turned off.

The trash talk seems to happen Only in the Major Areas, places which are more Advanced, Such as the Tombs of the Primevil Kings and untill recently, the Realm of Torment sees little of this, Seeing as the people form which the useless banter comes out off probably does not have the attention span and / or patience to do anything to difficult and would Rage quite (and open a thread here) When Missions become too difficult.

i've been playing this game since july of 05, and i've noticed a decrease of morality in Gw, but that doesnt mean that everybody is bad. I've had good experiences and bad ones, just dont let the bad people ruin your game. in pvp ive even had to tell off a few teammates because they were behaving very inappropriatly toward their teammates and the other team. and most of my bad experiences have been in pvp as well.

on a side note, one thing i cant stand is when people barely beat u in pvp then pm you after the battle and go "lol, nub! i pwned joo! you (insert bad word here) suck!"

You mean video games haven't completely desensitized you to aggression of all kinds?

The biggest fights I've ever seen have actually been in Lion's Arch and the Monastery (American Districts). I've seen more than a couple Canadians v. Americans arguments. I mean... I don't know, I think people say mean things sometimes, but you shouldn't let it get you down. Some people are very hateful toward others and they get really carried away.

And it doesn't help that when one person starts insulting others, everyone else jumps in. Mais... C'est la vie.

I hate to think how I've contributed to this as well. Helping out complete noobs to the game that didn't know their head from their ass, helping them develop their character up to and beyond ascension, hunting Elites, showing them how and where to farm to make the most gold, only to see them now as some of the biggest Elitists around, whining about every little change in the game from armor to AI to whatever. I just have to keep reminding myself that kids will be kids and move on.

I rarely have chat on anymore because of all the bickering in the towns. Its just tiresome when such things get in the way of completing a goal. Hench and heroes only go so far considering it is an online social game.

I too have had such pms, RPGmaniac. Usually its when I experiment with a class I do not play often at all in RA.

I have to admit that despite being tiresome it is very satisfying to set a young foul mouthed in their place by not rising to their bait.

Are there any differences between American vs European players? I do know people tend to be people no matter to locale.

I guess overall, people tend to act in games as they do in reality. Its pretty sad when kind souls who just like to help others and have fun are a rarity in reality and in gaming.

Haha its a pity Anet can't make a title for those rare players somehow.

because if they did, it will still be farmed and bought with gold or abused and defeats the purpose of its intent.

Anyways threads like this complaining about the lack of morals/bad behaviour of others on the internet or in online games is nothing new and moot really.

Jay and silent Bob had a very effective approach to this problem

Comparing the attitude of GW community (no monthly fee) with other MMORPG communities with monthly fee will shock you, Since they put alot of effort on their charc. and payed alot (monthly fee) to reach this level of uniqueness in armor,weapons,rank...etc. will make them think twice before they start trash talking in local channel and got banned for this childish attitude.
Also GW is the most competitive game i have ever seen, it always make its players tense and nervous especially in PvP.

^_^

How many people wanna kick some ass?

The problem is that they are kids. Individually they're not bad, but put them in areas with their age peers and they start bragging and acting tough. There is hope for them; they will age and hopefully mature.

As for the bigots, if they're kids, they are repeating what they have heard from family; if adults, they are just idiots. I suppose that's bigotry also.

I've spent a long time telling myself to consider the source before getting overly annoyed. But even in these forums, people show their ignorance by picking on a poster's grammar/spelling without questioning their nationality. I've always wondered how many languages the complainer can write well.

So, to me, it's just that the game is an extension of real life, with all types gathered in the same areas. I shake my head and go elsewhere or report the most offensive episodes. I refuse to let them ruin the game for me.

I dont do any PVP

I played GW since May 05 and seen no difference with the PVE crowd
(its always been a mixed bag)

You are not alone, I have and still do avoid certian towns like the plaque due to the immoral attitude that is shown there. A lot of the time I will turn the local chat off t not hear the jerks and immature players out there (not all are teenagers and children). If it gets realy out of hand I will turn the offenders in but most of it I can ignore. I believe there is a certian line that shouldn't be crossed, and if that line is crossed then I will turn someone in to NC-Soft. Granted my tolerance for the bad language and trash talk may be higher than most players, so when I turn in someone that person has crosssed the line into just vulgar and nasty. Names dont bother me much seeing as how I look for the most extreme ones and let my team know of them then we have a good laugh. We have actualy made it into a small contest to see who can find the stupidous or even most crazy name out there. I am not condoning certian names, we just have a god laugh over them. A-Net and NC-Soft can only police certian areas at any one time,so we as a group of players need to help out and report those that cross the line.

Have fun Play Fair
Mega Mouse

Morality has nothing to do with bad attitudes. I could be waaaaaay wrong here but I'm almost positive that the game comes with a language filter for chat. There are always jerks in the world. Unfortunately that's life and has nothing to do with said jerk's moral standpoint. There are people who are very moral but are complete jerks. I don't like this "run-go-tell-Anet" attitude I see here in this thread. Yes Anet will take care of things like this but as mature players we have the option to simply ignore puerile behavior no matter how bad it gets. If you feel so morally outraged by foul language that you would go so far as to report a person to a governing body, regardless of the scale, you should probably reach around the back of your computer and jerk your ethernet cable now because that's the internet and you're likely going to be offended at every turn. I personally feel Anet's time is better spent handling scammers, botters, and ebayers as opposed to Johnny Foulmouth and other player's delicate sensibilities.

Honestly, I just can't stand the elitist PvPers. I've heard more "QQ nub" than "thanks" in my year plus of playing. It'd be nice if there was a "leet" filter.

People seem pretty nice if you are nice to them. I have never downright insulted before. I did get scammed earlier today on a Droknar run. Thats the worst thats happened so far.

If I catch my kids being vulgar in town (or mission) like I've heard in some towns, I'll personally whallop them! Don't care if they are 23 and 19 .

I remember a couple months ago popping into Shing Jea and there was someone with a real potty-mouth. It was just uncalled for, so I mentioned something about the 12 year-olds needing to be taught manners. (I usually don't bother commenting unless they're trying to swindle a new player). The kid promptly whispered and informed me that he was NOT a 12 year old, thank you very much! He was all of -- 13! Oh, well, that makes all the difference. *rolls eyes*

yea, The Internet is truely the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The chat filter may catch the foul words, but ignores most anti-race/religion or hate topics that some people spew.

@tomcruisejr who's that on your avatar? Looks familiar- just curious. -Thx

The anonymity of the Internet brings out the worst in people. The game is not radically different than chat rooms and online forums.

these days it's the same problem with most, if not all multiplayer games
huge difference between today and 5-10 years ago when broadband internet was getting available for everybody

Then they start throwing the N & G words around to make themselves feel superior... When they are just playing a blame game for their own inadequates and homophobia...

And not the N word many are thinking of, I mean the Provoking N word that is N00b. That every one of us was at one point or another, and throwing it anyones face acting all superior just shows what jerks people are. If you can't act civilly in a game, well.. Take a look at the world today. and You see what you get. A bunch of self centered egotistical bigoting fools that have nothing better to do then sit around insulting others online, cause no one can stand them or would give them the time of day in real life.

Is it any wonder people are reluctant to play with PUGs at all anymore? Why would anyone want to be playing with such people that will just as likely shove a knife in your back as look at you. Just because they want to cause someone trouble. anyone, they don't care who, cause everyone else has abandoned them to this the 20th circle of hell that is PUGreifers.

I'd like to add some words to this 'discussion'.

I've played most of the weekend (not green farming, just had some spare time).
During early morning and late evening (Europe), I had no problems at all.
But between 11:00 and 21:00, I hardly PuG-ed and the ones I did where not all enjoyable.
Lots of rushing and some name calling.

I've seen this before and the only reason I can think of is that those are the times the kids are online.
After 21:00, most of the PuG's I join don't cause any problems and I don't see many harsh words in the outposts.

It's also true that people tend to behave more rude online as in real life, but that is not the general GW problem in my opinion.

GW has horrible community, one considerably worse than even the notorious WoW. It actually surprised me during WoW trial. I was expecting horrible behaviour, but the overall experience was by several degrees better.

In GW there is no moderation. Reporting someone takes several minutes, and actions taken are far and few in between.

There are no GMs, there is no way to do anything about people breaking the rules. In trade chat accounts get sold daily, not just for GW, but other games. Racial slurs are matter of public chat, profanities of any degree are the norm.

Add to that the overall behaviour, and the picture is clear. There is nothing whatsoever to fear in GW, since the probability of action getting taken against you is almost zero. Say the (bad) N word to someone in WoW, and you can get a GM in under a minute.

This has gotten much worse since the heroes were introduced. Now players no longer need to behave just in case they might need a group. They can do anything they want, and never require a PUG anymore. This breaks the last social interdependancy, so why bother.

Insults, discrimination, intolerance, all in the days work. "I henched the entire game, you are all just noobs, who cares what you think".

Exactly. Not to mention those who draw penises or F word on the map. And once I had a "pleasure" to be called by this F word after opening a gate to Rurik in Ruins of Surmia mission. Apparently a teenage monk wanted to do char farming, without even bothering herself (himself?) telling about it to others. Come one, this is SO extremely childish that even children don't act like this.

Tina Weymouth of The Talking Heads

Yeah, I have had similar replies when I mention something about manners to rude players scamming others.

Vulgarity is tolerable but the increase of racial slurs is not. I have even seen a few white supremacy guilds out there.

Perhaps the developers could give special sanction to a few respectable guilds to enforce some type of punishment or police system. These guilds would generate a log for the company to review to avoid power abuse and also have a special cape to designate them from other guilds. It would at least remove some of the burden of moderation.

It sounds like there is quite a few players who have some of their fun leeched away by such nonsense.

I can care less, I play heros now. Guildwars is no longer a Cooperative RPG for :P

Nice idea but it wouldn't work. Anet would have to pay someone to look at log files ... don't see that happening. It would lead to abuse no matter what guild was babysitting. Not to sound like a negative Nancy .. because I have thought the same thing over the last 18 months. They won't pay someone to run their own forum they sure as hell won't pay for someone to babysit.

Bah

Just turn off the local and trade chats unless you need to do something. And stop pugging, play with guildies or heros only.

Ya it kind of defeats the purpose of CORPG BUT without an audience the 12 er 13 year old will grow weary of his antics with time.

Dont encourage or recognize piss poor behavior in any way shape or form.

People react in game -worse- than they do in physical reality. In game they react as they think and feel rather than as they do for sake of avoiding public conflict.

All the racism, sexism, and other isms come out when the anonymity makes them feel that both:
1. They can get away with it.
2. The people they talk to are 'like them' / 'agree with them'.

On #2... online people can't see each other, so they fail to label each other as 'acting like an X' (where X is some other race, sex, political party, religion, etc). Instead they assume the other people, who are 'acting normally' (as they always do anyway), must be like them - normal...


(You can even see this in these forums, where words such as 'normal' and 'like us' are used to describe Tyria and words like 'too dark', 'look evil', 'wide nosed', 'exotic' and so on are used to describe Elona... or 'no American could feel at home' for Cantha...
... and even in game outside of speech with the overwelming presence of pale and blond characters... disproportionate to the settings...
... showing a very strong level of 'majority race' racism in the American GW community)

Back to topic... once they falsely assume the others 'must be like them', they let out their true opinions.

Your getting not just 'how the Xs talk when the Ys aren't around, but how they talk when they think the other Xs with them agree with them' - because they can't see the others and so can't falsely assume that people act a certain way because of their type. Failing that false assumption, they fall back on another false assumption: Because nobody is acting 'funny, like a Y', they must all be Xs.

And the rest of us get to watch in shock as the various kinds of bigots reveal their 'hooded-robed inner selves' that we fail to notice when we deal with them everyday in person (unless we are, as myself, racial minorities, who are targets of their hostility and so get it from them even when they conceal it with regards to the public sphere[*]).
[*] This can be worse for me because I have an unusual appearance that leads people to be unsure of my race, so at times I get people talking to me about my background failing to realize they are talking about my type, and at other times I get people talking to me negatively about what they think is my background failing to realize that I might be in common with them - in part or whole. The way people talk on GW is what I see everytime I'm in a group of people who mistake what I am...

I've not had any real bad instances in the game. I had a guy chase me around one of the towns one time and kept putting his character infront of mine to dance any time I tried to talk to somone. The text is pretty small and some guy dancing around while you're trying to read it can be distracting. I asked him to quit and he was all like 'This is a public game. I can dance the nasty if I want"

So I just changed districts. Not that bad.

I've seen some people being rude to other people, but.. sadly they seem to give as good as they get. You can't really complain that somone calls you a name when you light um up right back.

Now... off the game. Here. I've seen rather deplorable behavior. LOTS of people casting stones. It's not so much "You're a ____ " But the condesending attitude. If somone asks a question or says they have a problem with something 20 posters have to get on and be like "It was easy for me, you must not know what you're doing GAW!"
Or even worse. People that can't get though certain missions or are having problems with them are riticuled and put down. Made to feel stupid.

I'll admit. I've had a few missions where I've had problems and haven't asked for help here for just that reason. I don't need to read thouth 40 people telling me how easy the mission is and how useless I am for the 1 guy that'll pop up and give helpful advice.

Again.. it's not DIRECT insults. it's not name calling.. but it's the attitude and feeling here that gets to me sometimes. I've been online since 96 pretty much every day baring sickness, and the .... "mood" on this board is one of if not THE poorest I've ever been privy to.

And yeah. I could just leave. That's always an option. I realize that, but I DO wade though the bad to get to the good. It's to the extent now that I just tend to auto filter out the diverseive and insulting posts (( Unless directly aimed at me. lol))As simple background noise.

People will be people though. Sadly with no way to literly smack somone in the mouth. Some people will run off at the mouth.

It's not as satisfying but do realize that the sort of people that are mean and condesending and racist and sexists in videogames... are the little wussies that arn't brave enough to do so in real life. I mean... is there anything more cowardly than useing a COMPUTER GAME to sprout out hate messages? No matter whom they're aimed at?

I've not been witness to any racist stuff in game as mentioned by more than one post here. If it happens that's bad but giving creedence to it and freaking out is exactly what those small minds want. Words can't hurt you. Words from some guy sitting in his moms basement typing racal slurs really can't. Just ignore them. As soon as they stop getting the rise out of folks they'll mosy on to the next "Thing" to try there.

Yes... ignoring morons is tedious and very UNsatisfying.. but freaking out just gives them exactly what they're looking for.

As a flip side to my last post, two counter observations:

1. GW has little to no online moderation. Given that, predictions would say it should much worse than it is. Somehow, it remains mostly decent.
2. I've posted elsewhere (in Monk threads) about the 'rule of 1 in negativity' - 1 bad example makes a whole category of people look bad to outsiders. It is not that there are hordes of bad players in GW, it is that a few bad apples can make us all look bad, even to each other. -I-, as in a generic player, am less likely to want to deal with -you-, as in another generic player, after seeing some other 'them' who was so rude, racist, sexist, etc-ist.' Forming a negative bias is a lot easier than forming a positive one.
   
   I, again as a generic I and not just the actual me, will remember the one bad player who insulted me or was rude in local chat much longer than the 99 others in the district who said nothing, did nothing, who I did not meet in any way, or even who were nice to me.
   
   That is just human nature. We remember bad experiences more than lack of experience or even good experience...
   
   When thinking of the GW community, we have to struggle to keep this in mind, and try and count how many people are in a district when you find a jerk, and list them all in your mind as -not jerks- save for that one (or group) who was/were.

What gets me is when they use trick spelling to get their foul diatribe through the chat filter. Spacing between l e t t e r s or substituting "ph" for "f" so we are sure to get the message.

Considering many of us would rather chew off our own leg instead of do a pug FoW perhaps the heroes are Anets way of saying sorry parents suck at minding their children.

The Internet is truly an awesome place huh.

I use it to my advantage too, where else can a 19 yr old act like a 10 yr old and that be the norm

How utterly depressing to see the truth in this post...

Maybe the use of heroes and henchmen could explain this. The mature players are playing the game while the immature players are setting in town bickering about B.S.

Maybe if Anet would implement Karma into the game no one would bother listening to some jerk with negative 1035000 karma. This of course would be voted and decided by the populous of the game, easy +1-1 karma only one vote per person per hour. Just so people couldn't rapidly change their karma. That would quickly ostracize jerks, cons, scammers, bots, babies and quitters in game.

Our Guild has rules about inappropriate and offensive behavior. On the other hand a little ribbing doesn't hurt this is a game don't take some of this junk to serious. If the trolls would play instead of running their yelp the game would be allot better and we wouldn't have to rely on Heroes and henchmen.

I believe a game called maple story had a system like this, it was easily abused by people to get back at something by getting all their guildies/friends to defame one person forever...

I can only hope PuG people don't get their guildies/friends to constantly give -karma (or is +karma bad?) to some monk that wasn't keeping everyone at full health 24/7