Racist Filter!

Racism is wrong. Even those who support it know it. But the thing is, it is very very hard to stop in this situation.

And another thing to anyone who has any kind of opinion on this at all: I've only read the first two or so pages of replies, but has anyone thought of this? The poster said the Korean players could read English fine, as it is a pretty well-known and easily learned language. So then...

Why not let the Koreans do something about it? Until you visit a Korean forum and hear them complaining about "those racist Americans," then I don't see why you're getting so worked up. Especially since a problem like racism is very hard to solve. So, if it doesn't bother the Koreans, what's the problem? It's not like the offenders are fire-bombing all the Korean houses in their neighborhood. I think affirmative action will be taken when the Korean players start voicing their complaints.

Actually, that highlights exactly what is glaringly absent from GW: a /report function, which automatically reports the last x lines of text from the chat box to a GM/Dev/Moderator/whatever they use.

I don't expect racism to be eliminated either from the game or real life. I completely accept that there's no way to adequately police the entire game and abolish it entirely. But that doesn't mean it should just be accepted and allowed to run rampant.

GW has a small problem at the moment, which is that its playerbase hosts a vast proportion of rude, impatient, foul-mouthed brats (in comparison to most other MMOs) -- most probably attributable to the fact that it requires no monthly fee (ergo no credit card, ergo no age check and much easier for mum and dad to buy the game for little Bobby and not need to worry about it again).

If ArenaNet don't take some steps towards enforcing their rules about harrassment, it's only going to put off the more mature audience from playing and buying their expansions. I've only been playing a few weeks and already the number of rude, short-tempered, d00d-speaking teammates I've had to put up with is wearing my patience very thin, and I already know a couple of people who quit because, although they enjoyed the game mechanics and content, they couldn't stick the general attitude in chat. No game wants to get a reputation for being a haven for brats. Sure, you can ignore people, either just don't rise to the bait or actually put them on your ignore list. But when such a high proportion of the playerbase is like that, you begin to wonder why you're playing a team-oriented game -- if 75% of your team is either grating on your nerves or being ignored, where's the enjoyment?

I don't expect ArenaNet/NCSoft to police every word uttered by every player, but I do expect them to put adequate systems in place to report violations of the rules and license agreement -- that is, unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot. And by adequate systems, I mean ones where doctoring the content of reported material is not possible -- the current reporting process is terrible, for exactly that reason; it's completely open to abuse. It's not just for some smug sense of satisfaction that I'd want to report rude, abusive, racist players, but if it's destroying the potentially fun and friendly atmosphere of the game then something needs to be done about it. Just like I'd report bugs or exploiters. I don't want to log into a glitchy, buggy game; I don't want to log into a PvP game where I'm getting endlessly ganked by exploiters who are warping around the map and nuking me from places I can't target; and I don't want to log into a full-on, multi-national racist bitch-fest. Can you blame me for wanting to at least do something constructive to help improve the game experience?

Now here's an idea that I really enjoy, I've only seen this sort of system used once, and that was in a beta I participated in for a sort of FPS-RPG, it was also used to send images/coding dealing with bugs that needed to be reported.

I suppose the reason I'm so skeptical about a system that tries to overcome such things is because the last MMORPG I played for a while was the RYL betas, for 8 months of my life I tested that game out, hoping desperately it would get better. It only got worse, with GMs always trying to moderate everything and then bitching about it when people kept asking them questions, it didn't work in any sense. Racists/ego-builds were rampant and I couldn't stand the community as a whole, there was so much effort put into making it a decent community that they went and screwed it all up with so many filters and rules and the forums were LITTERED with people trying to report people for bad things they'd gone and done in-game. The problem was that many many people's accounts were royally screwed because of how complicated things got, and after this I'm a little, iffy when it comes to such means of controlling what one does in-game.

Part of why I'm more for the idea of the sort of report system quoted above is because, well in previous posts, I'd not had a reason to vouch for things like that when I'd not seen a lot of racist remarks in-game. Well I just got back from one of the worst PvP-sessions I've ever had in my life because 5 people, that's right, 5 seemed to have banded together for the soul purpose of waiting in spawn as the match went on as various forms of certain racial slurs which I'll not repeat here were spammed through my team chat. Now what did this remind me of? RYL. Ignoring them worked, sure, but it ruined my party and the amount of people I added to my ignore list in a short time was bothering.

Either way, while I'm not all that concerned about some comments, there are certain things that I've got a disliking for, and when I start to see things come about in the community that weren't there before it irritates me. Then again, this was bound to happen, as with any and all games online. I'm all for an efficient and indisputable report system, by all means.

Now, to go find another arena without so many..."potty mouths".

There are rude bad mouthed brats in every game. But in this game you have no obligation to hang around them, listen to them, or serve them.

This game is easy enough for any person to gain an upper hand, so unlike other MMOs, there isn't a massive gathering of greedy jerks at the top who impose crappy Auction House prices, or monopolize all the nice items, or talk down to you. They are just a bunch of morons spitting in the wind, they insult themselves more then anyone else by displaying thier immaturity.

I would say that while Anet has an obligation to consider more control devices, they are not charging a monthly fee, which means they do not have the excess budget to pay monitors to baby sit every district. Moreover, these people are no different then the ones you have to deal with in real life, the digital barrier just makes them even more inconsiderate of consiquence. As a mature adult, which I know not everyone playing is, you should learn to overcome the improper behavior around you, your not god, it is not your place to police everyone playing.

I think advanced/friendly players should start collecting all thier friends on remote districts to isolate themselves from other players, basicly creating your own community of well behaved citizens who arn't interested in hearing all the badmouthing. Likewise, Anet can restrict convicted players (ones who have been caught badmouthing) to certain districts, isolating the poor characters. Just like Georgia or Australia, they will end up getting along and make thier own community, and eventually they may learn to clean up thier act.

P.S. I'm Korean.

"WTB Sigil 65k"
"---- noob 65k"
"I'll sell Sigil for 100k"

I think they need to make the sigils a little more frequent at the trader. The last thing I really want to do is save up all of that gold to have to buy it off somebody. I do not even consider there to be a price for the sigil anymore, basically it is whatever some guy wants to set it as.

Wow are you seroius? This is a MMO not Nazi Germany...Set your chat filter higher. Maybe you guys should bring up this discovery of rasicm on GuildWars to the UN or supreme court, I'm sure they will end it post haste...because they can...right?

now here is the flaw in your logic you say native americans are "breeds not races" well here is were you are wrong i am native american and im cherokee we are a tribe not a breed we have laws in are tribes we have the cherokee nation. so your logic is flawed because you refered to a people as a breed not a race when we are a tribe differant tribes at that there are sue cherokee black foot to name a few but get racisim is not right and i hate rasists but people should see everyone as this we are one race... the human race and we have alot of differant ethnicities like black asian native american and so on so thus we are one race the human race and later in the future when we do finally meet a differant race we would have got are heads out are butts (notice i didnt use a nother word that means the same thing) long enought so have some intelligence until then everyone who is a rasist just needs to shut up because all you do is show your intelligence when you open your mouth so its just simple to not say anything at all.

These threads always turn into Anti-american bashing. I wish you Aholes would go crawl back under your rocks and do something to correct your countries so you are no longer jealous of ours...

Cherokee Wolf.. I think what twotimes was trying to point out is that we are a singulr human race.. Any distinctions between us is actually quite superficial, although in a visual sense it can be dramatic.. It is like comparing two breeds of any other species. We are all Home sapiens sapiens.. One species..One RACE.

I always get a hoot when they start distinguishing people by origin anyhow. If you really wanted to trace your roots back oh say about 120,000 years give or take.. We are all of African decent... at least according to the best research of modern science. We are all related somehwere in our family trees if one could reasonably go back far enough.

It just makes "racism" that much more retarded. Look around you folks. Everyone you see is a long lost cousin distantly removed on both sides of your family.. Get over yourselves. No one group of us is any better than the other.

It is an unfortunate fact that one of the most insidious human failures is our tendancy towards ethnocentrism. Its always an Us and THEM thing. That is the nature of competition. But the racism part is just plain childish.

Wow....just...wow. People like you are what makes us Americans look so bad.

Well at least I gave it a shot. Go figure.

I agree with Xenogyst (post #12). Homophobia is FAR more prevalent in GW than Racism. I'm up to the Crystal Desert and I haven't seen a single solitary racist epithet or slur, but I seem homophobic statements used all over the place. One would think that more effort should be put on stopping those since overt racism is strongly discouraged by modern society (for the most part) whereas over homophobia is not so strongly discouraged.

A) Citing a source does not make that source correct. Just pointing something out.
B) Illiterate =! Idiotic. Illiterate = Ignorant. I know you corrected yourself right after, but you easily could have gotten it right the first time.
C) In order to play Guild Wars, one must be literate. There's really no way of getting around it. Therefore, this statistic has nothing to do with the matter at hand.

Wern't you the one who made such a big deal about GW not being real life? I think there's a case to be made on both sides of the fence (ie "GW can be a metaphor for RL" and "GW cannot be a metaphor for RL"), but please try to stick to one side or the other.

See the bolded sentence? That's something only a racist-who-thinks-he's-not-a-racist would say. "No, I'm not racist. I have a black friend or two."

Of course, you didn't even say that. You said "associated." The KKK "associates" with non-white races from time to time, and that hardly makes them tolerant.

Nosce te ipsum: know thyself.

No, they seek to limit it further. You do not, for example, have the right to shoot a store clerk and take his money.

Or, rather, they seek to enforce a preexisting limitation, since racism is already against the rules of conduct in GW.

That's the problem. It's hard to enjoy the game when bigotted statements get tossed around. It detracts from the experience.



PS: Whether the thread-starter is racist or not (ie "idiot Americans") is irrelevant to the issue. A hypocrit can still be right.

BlaineTog...that was a damn good post. Concise and to the point.

Indeed, human beings are more similar to each other than almost all other species. We hit an evolutionary bottleneck at some point (I forget when) that accounts for this. Interestingly this is also true between men and women. Human beings have less sexual dimorphism than most, but not all, other mammals onthe planet.


Pop

I was replying to his real world scenario. Try and comprehend what you are reading, it helps.

Do I know you? I didn't think so. You don't who I live, work, and play with. Stick with what you know, you'll sound like less of a fool. I don't understand why I would live in one of most diverse citys on the planet if I hated other races. I can't begin to imagine why I'm in a relationship with someone who (gasp!) isn't the same race as me. (gasp!)

I'm still waiting for someone to show me one racist thing I've said.

That is stunning insight.

My position is very simple. People can say anything they want. You can say anything you want to them if you disagree. Sometimes, you'll just have to ignore some people because you can't see eye to eye.

You'll never convince me someone should be forcibly silenced for having an unpopular opinion.

Now you may commence calling me a racist liar. Since you know so much about me and all.

wow, absolutly correct. the idea is to enjoy the game. and i do aggre with you full heartedly

Man you don't get it. You keep going on and on about how your freedom of speech is being trampled on but all freedoms have limits. You can say whatever you want BUT there are limits to it. For example, you can not yell fire in a crowded movie threatre. Or yell "I have a bomb" in an airport. Try to use your freedom of speech crap spiel on the judge.

Bottomline is that it is against the TOS in GW to use racial remarks. If you don't like it then tough. Don't play the game. That's also your right to not play a game with those rules.

Again, is it so hard to abide by the rules and NOT use racial language in the game?

Just wanted to note: yes, I am serious. Every other MMO I've played has a /report function that does exactly what I described, for exactly the purpose we're discussing (helping the MMO company track down or keep tabs on people who are violating the game rules). That's why I said it's glaringly absent from GW.

The long and short of it is this: in real life, that's fine, you can say anything you want because it's not against the rules (law) to do so. In-game, though, ArenaNet sets the rules and their rules say that, if you wish to play the game on their servers, you may not say anything you want. You must keep your language civil or deal with the consequences.

Yeah I'll be siding with Gnome and Xelig on this one. Rusty, we're not against it because it's "unpopular" we're against it because it's wrong, it offends several people, and as a whole, it makes the game less fun to play.

If this goes against whatever "freedom of speech" you care to dream about then I don't really know what to tell you, this isn't the country we're talking about, we're not trying to change your state laws or anything. We're trying to point out that the racist (and I'll even go for homophobic) comments seen in-game take away from the enjoyable experience.

If you don't think removing something to make the community better is a good thing...well, this isn't just America buddy, it's a game, and the game makers make the rules. So...tough? Yeah, tough.

Cheers.

I'll echo BlainTog's remarks concerning anti-gay comments I've seen, repeatedly, throughout GW in open chat and during team-chat.

It's rampant, much more so than racist comments.

In my opinion, picking on any minority requires a lack of self respect or self worth. But picking on a minority that has the least support of the public strikes me as particularly cowardly.

Gays aren't quite the least supported, but they're darned close (transgendered people are the least supported group... and you'd be very surprised at how many transgendered people play games like this). Fortunately, I don't see a lot of anti-transgendered chatting, but I think it probably speaks more to a lack of imagination than any altruism on the part of the community at large.

I've participated in a lot of teams with members who have repeatedly written anti-gay epiteths. I've never commented to the team members about it, as in my opinion, it says more about the individual saying such things than it does about gays. But I never support such people in their words.

All of this said, I think this happens because there are a lot of very young people in this community. They haven't met a wide variety of folks, and they have this computer between them and the world. This provides seeming bravery where none truly exists.

I've long noticed this kind of pattern, when you first start using the computer as a communication media, to blurt out some of the most outrageous stuff that you'd never say in public. Over time, though, as you develop an online community of friends and such, you find yourself changing your writing habits out of necessity. Maybe you discover that such-and-so person is really and truly a gay man, but you learned to like the person. Or that other person is a pre-op male-to-female transgendered person, but kicks ass on GW.

Or maybe, more simply, you find people tend to respect you more when your words provide insight and interest rather than condemnation and nastiness.

In any event, you can kind of get an idea how old someone is by whether they're using racial/gender slurs or not.

Maybe, but it doesnt matter how old an individual is, what their sexuality is, or what country they were born in/ethnic group they belong to, all that matters is the FILTH that comes pouring out of peoples minds onto other players screens via this game every day.

Although yes, I too believe the vast majority of this type of abuse comes from the hands of people in their teens, there are plenty people who's 'apparant' age seems to be much older, yet their words drip with as much hate, and spite, and vileness.

As players of this game, as human beings, we all suffer when we are subject to this kind of abuse, whether it was meant for us or not. When we play GW we are all sitting in front of our computers, and for a brief time we all are exaclty the same, and can easilly imagine what a hateful spiteful racial slur feels like, even if its not directed at us.

Warn them a.net, then ban them. There should be no other way of treating people that do this.

Interesting...just as I was reading the latest posts on this thread John Lennon's "Imagine" began to play in my headphones. I think we could all have learned a thing or two from that man. By the way, I must just add that you cannot just single out the teens. Although I am 19 and legallyas well as spiritually (my old church) considered an adult I am still a teenager (nine-teen). I know you are not saying it is just teens but that is not my point and right nwo I just feel like adding something out of pure boredom and sleepiness.

For those of you whom are filled with the hate...I would like to recommend a few songs for you if you do not mind::

LIVE -Lightning Crashes
Switchfoot - Meant To Live
MUDVAYNE - World So Cold
Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love?
John Lennon and Yoko Ono - IMAGINE
Weezer - Island In The Sun

And play them in that order and actually listen to the lyrics... if that does not make you somewhat normal...try listening to a soundtrack to The Animaniacs a couple hundred times, that CD is proven to make you either happier or crazy. So, we can either accept you after that or send you to an asylum.

Now I go pass out...hopefully that post made sense.

Maybe around the time when God sent the Flood to destroy everyone except Noah and his family

Strength comes from within.

As a minority in my own right, and having suffered abuses of this nature for my entire life, I can assure you that, even though one may call me terrible names, and wrongly besmirch my character, I know who I am, and that's all that matters. At worst, someone can only convince others of something that is not true, but it weakens the person doing such a thing.

My self-worth matters more to me than what someone else says of me, and more than what anyone else may think of me.

Younger people have not necessarily learned how to defend themselves with their own inner strength, because they're still growing. They don't necessarily have a lot of inner strength. So they erroneously build their own self-worth by tearing down others around them.

It's actually a rather sad state of affairs.

I realize this sounds contrary to normal reasoning, but I think it's more constructive to feel sorrow for such people than ire.

Unfortunately, some people allow this to go on far longer than their youth. But, in my experience, most people mellow over time, at least as far as expressing their particular venom openly. An older person may still hate a minority group of some kind, but it's more like a bad habit that embarrasses them to some degree than anything they'd openly spout.

I suppose a simpler way to phrase this is that, amongst the young, it seems 'cool' to bash a minority group. But as you get older, you just look like an idiot, so you start to keep it to yourself.

We suffer whenever another around us suffers. This is a kind of secret in life that a lot of people miss.

A sick man has a tendency to snap at his nurse. It isn't that he truly hates her, but because he is in pain, and has a need to release some of that pain. Unfortunately, he is redistributing it, after a fashion, to those who bear him no ill-will, but it's natural to do this. Such people could use a little understanding.

The people who spout such ugliness either do it out of ignorance, or weakness. I would rather help them grow than diminish them.

One way to help someone like that grow may be through banning them. But each case is unique.. it's hard to say.

It is a way to treat such people, but I don't know if it's either the best way, or the only way such folks should be treated.

I have surprised many a person in my life by getting to know them, allowing them to get to know me, and then revealing the minority group I belong to at an appropriate time. In every case, people found it to be a healing experience, as it helped them to diffuse their hatred, especially since I've never condemned anybody for treating me badly.

Sigils are funny, outrageous prices for something that will sooner or later come in a great abundance... ill wait till they're dirt cheap to get one... i can wait till everyone else has a guild hall, heh... then they wont be so "needed".

Patience is a virtue?

Originally Posted by Perishiko ReLLiK
We also need to teach these idiot americans(of course not all, im just narrowing it down to the idiots) that koreans CAN and DO speak english... i had one person reply to me "It was just a joke, cause i know they can't speak our language".

~~~~~~~~~~~~

um excuse me but us Americans need to teach you idiot koreans a lesson or two. Why dont you all stop crying. You all are being racial to us in that crossed line figure language of yours. America is number 1 and always will be, so of course we are going to think (well know) we are better than everyone else. You all are going to have to accept that. should i go on?

1. We are not #1, our allies are making us #1, if it weren't for them, we'd be at war with the world.
2. A huge percentage of americans are obese, not a good thing to be #1 at.
3. Americans have the highest rate of gun killings, another thing not to be #1 at.
4. A huge percentage of americans are racist, yet another thing, not good to be #1 at.
5. A huge percentage of americans don't know what "America" stands for, yet more things not good to be #1 at. (blame the schools)
6. Should **I** go on?


Could someone slap the living crap out of this person for me?
Moron... that's all i have to say. I'm american, you stupid dolt.
I just have a serious problem with jackasses such as yourself.
Besides the fact that it's their LANGUAGE, and they're going to speak in it... you should step back onto that train called "life".

**And i thought american's like this couldn't become any more moronic.**

Message to dev's -- Close this thread!

Your american... well not anymore. TRAITOR!

Playful Kitty.. PLEASE... Don't go on. It's bad enough that most of the world has such a dim view of our country without this kind of drivel. Having national pride is all well and good. But spewing out this kind of nonsense does nothing but strengthen people's bad opinion of the US, when quite a lot of us are perfectly reasonable individuals.

What I'd like to know is how many people talking about how great the US or whatever country you might be from is compared to other countries, have even been to a foreign land?

I've lived in Europe and I spent a year living in Korea. I can tell you that what we have here in the US isn't all that much better in a lot of cases.. and is in some instances worse than other countries. But for the most part things here are not any better or worse.. just different.

Just do us all a favor though.. and this is directed at everyone. If you can't refrain from spitting out inane garbage when posting.. please just refrain from posting at all. All it is doing is spreading hatred and misunderstanding.. which is something the world has in more than enough abundance without people adding to it over a video game.

LOL you cant be serious, if you dont like america well leave it. We are the ones fighting all of these wars and mostly noone else helping. our allies? hmm we only got like few allies we actually like. everyone is scared of america. the only reason you live here is cause how good we are. how much better we are. racism has always been around and always will be. let me guess you must be the kid who is made fun of at school and has no gfs so he hates america. well why dont you just move to korea or somewhere. o and all those things you mentioned well 90% of all statistics are made up. they just put high numbers to make it look pretty.

I'm not sure who you are referring to, but I for one never said anything about not liking America. As to us fighting all these wars and all, I agree that we are fighting a lot without a lot of worldwide support. As for being a kid.. not in many many moons. I spent time in Europe and Korea during my 14 1/2 years in the US military. I have seen first hand what other countries are like and what the people that live there are like. Other than a tendancy to a more homogenous appearance and different language.. they aren't all that different than we are.

You on the other hand seem to have gathered your opinions from CNN or perhaps MTV. I'm not saying you are completely wrong in everything you think.. Our country is a great one and has many things that other countries don't. What I am saying is that we are not the end all be all for the world..

Grow up.. move away from mommy and daddy and go out into the the great big world (meaning OTHER countries) and see it with your own two eyes and not just on television. Spend time away from the good 'ol US of A and you just might gain a greater respect and understanding for others in the process.

If you dont like us "Idiot americans" why dont you find your own "Idiot Korean" game where you can complain about americans all you want.
~have a nice day =)

Why hasn't an admin or moderator closed this thread yet? It has turned into nonsense and country-bashing.

Sorry, I was away for the weekend. Thread is closed.

Would you show your mother what you said? No? Didn't think so.
Generally, we wouldn't want to see it up here either.

Thread closed, anymore threads or posts like this and I'll bring in the admin banning machines to take care of people who think its ok to post racist material up.

Do not do it again. Ever. On these boards.