Game Cops In our Future?

Recently I read an article in Computer Gaming World regarding Game Masters.

Game Masters are essentially "game cops". They are responsible for patrolling and addressing issues that arise within the game that are against the game rules, for example, inappropriate character names, vulgar language ect.

A few days ago at Lion's arch I instanced into a local chat war on profanity.

Besides the characters name resembling the well known F word spelled with PH, the text being shot across Local was out of control. F this and F that and F your mom and on and on. The entire time this moron was hiding behind the infamous "freedom of speech" and "you have chat filters" argument.

At some point in time both of these things can be abused. First, freedom of speech is fine, but Lion's Arch in GW isn't exactly the place to spew your incoherent profanity. Second, the chat filter doesn't always filter things that are written in phonetics.

There are a lot of you, many in this very forum, who will stand up to people like this. I suppose those of us capable of typing and conveying through coherent and intelligent debates seem to have the maturity to differentiate between tactful self expression, and flat out abuse. Anet must have such an over whelming list of "people being reported" that I am certain they are inundated beyond their capacity to deal with it all. So the question arises.........do we have GM's for GW in our future? And if so, how many of you would be willing to do such a task?

Athis

If cursing is your biggest concern, i think you need to get your priorities straight.. :/

There will always be immature folks.. You're not going to stop people from cursing and being verbally abusive with a few in-game GM presences. (Which are already there..)

People like the individual in question can be reported to ANet and removed from play (atleast temporarily) that way. ANet also has employees who go through the game and occasionaly wield the mighty kick/ban stick. As for the Freedom of Speech arguement, allow me to present you with a real world situation.

Joe Dumbass is at your party, being rude and offensive to you and everyone around you. You politely ask Joe to leave and he refuses because freedom of speech says he can say wtf he wants. Is he right (a), or can you get together 5 burly friends and escort him out to the street (b)?

The answer is (b), it's your place and you are well within your rights to set basic rules of conduct. The same goes for ANet, the servers belong to them and NCSoft and as such, it's their right to say so dude but you broke our rules, we even have this wonderful little EULA that you agreed to that said you wouldn't break the rules and you then broke them, so we can remove you from our property.

they do have gm's.. least they used to- it was kinda sad back when gw first came out though.. remember I made a monk named- I Like Boner.. got him to la ran to droks- full armor and get to lions arch and WTS got hit with the ban stick.. did'nt even get a message just logged me off (this was before you could change your name) so had to delete that char.. but recently I went to test and made The Buttraper and stood yelling on newbie island in factions and did'nt get banned.. I don't think they even have gm's anymore

I have no concerns. I have my priorities straight. This is a game. I take it for what it's worth. I'm simply asking a question, and your opinion based on that question. Don't worry about how I may feel on the subject of profanity, or where I stand on this, thats not what the thread is about.

Proof? As far as I know, they don't exist. And no, Gaile chatting in LA doesn't count.

Freedom of speech does not apply for several reasons, one being that GW is not localized in one country or nationality, the other is that GW is not public but a privately held domain.

Basically, you have whatever freedom Anet decides to give you, you have the freedom not to participate however.

Please don't even go there concerning F words and cursing.

I love how people try to hide behind the 1st ammendment when they want to annoy the heck out of people.

Report them and move on with your life. Report the name, too.

on an earlier thread an abusive person was warned to stop in nonchat text color.

he turned his wrath on that person and was removed (hopefully more than a week) on the spot to cheers from the crowd.

they dont have enough but they do seem to exist.

Theres GMs in the game. Try not to curse if you see someone with a [NERF] Tag...

Freedom of Speech means nothing in a game with rules. Its like trying to say you shouldn't be banned on a Counterstrike server for saying things against the servers rules.

Out of interest, what the hell ARE the chat filters for? The OP whining about how its a 'lame' arguement, if you don't like the frigging language put a chat filter on!

Perhaps if people stop been little babies and reporting people for using the infamouse f word then Anet could actually get round to banning people who actually need to be banned!?

Player harrassment is against the rules. I think people who ruin the enjoyment of other players in the game dont deserve to play it.

You hit the nail on the head. Here lies the problem. Anet knows they could do better things with their time than deal with these issues. We all know there are other game related issues, i.e game bugs, that we would love to see dealt with. But people will NEVER stop being "babies" as you put it. So this is the core of the question. If we all agree that those of us that feel Anet could use the relief, would you volunteer as a GM? I've also read that some of you say there are GM's already in the game. Are they hired by Anet, are they volunteers? Are there enough of them? How does that work?

Curse whatever you want. It's on the internet, taking cursing personal is more stupid then cursing.

Sorry, but putting a guy on fixing bugs 24/7 is way more important then having people banning people for cursing 24/7.

The chat filter is nice and all, but the point still is that it IS aginst the RoC (Rules of Conduct) which lists stuff just as bannable as the EULA regulations =). I can understand some Cursing, heck even I curse occasionally, but when it becomes excessive as you said f this, f that, f you , etc is when it goes beyond the acceptable limit for it at least IMHO. Next, time you see people use the freedom of speech thing and the filter tell them gw isn't a democracy or american freedom of speech (which it really isnt either since its the internet) and tell them to go read the RoC and im sure that will shut their faces up as well =). Sure they wont be perm banned, but it will sure scare the crap out of them when they see the banned message when they try to log in.

MAX:
They have a completely team in the support section, rather than the devs who fix he bugs.

Can you say use the Ignore Function that the Great Devs Placed in the Friends List.... 12yr olds dont bother me, I just like to chase the Chinese Farmers around Naked w/ my Grenth Horns on in LA. And keep trying to open trade with them When they spam in local Chat. They generally give up and move to Droks or Ascalon...

GM's would be nice if they could pop in an instance w/ you after you have just about cleared the zone and spent over 45 mins looking for your one skill cap and then when you die and your 1 and only henchie is stuck on a Canthan Pesant on the Stairwell 20 mins behind and Is running back and forth!!! WTF -> FTW!!!

And I definitly disagree with that as well.

Ok i guess ill give an extreme example:

pick one:

A Buggy Game
Game Where everyone scams/curses/insults/griefs?

Both would not be enjoyable. Both would be frustrating. But only one type of game can actually be personally directed to cause you misery.

Another thread that turns into the same basic premise as all of the rest. I can sum up how it'll go if left unclosed:

Group 1: There is a form of player generated content (generally text chat, sometimes, character names) that I find offensive.

Group 2: Suck it up, that kind of thing will never go away, and it surrounds you everywhere in real life.

Group 3: STFU. FREE SPEECH

Group 4: Quit complaining. Also, quit complaining about people with valid complaints. And quit complaining about the complainers who're making complaints about complainers.


The problem is that there is a pretty large ideological gap between group 1 and group 2, and it has a tendency to get personal. The patronising attitudes that pop up from multiple groups doesn't help keep things impersonal.


From the very early days of Guild Wars, during the BWE's, when guilds and characters were being banned for offensive names, to the recent future, when mainly just guilds are banned, since characters can be renamed after a temporary suspension, every topic about this has had to be closed, pretty much, because of the fundamental differences in opinion between people.

In the end, it works out best if they're closed beforehand, and general advice is given-

If you have a problem with speech used, or character names, take screenshots and submit reports to Arenanet. In the end, they are the final arbitrator in this issue, as they are the ones who will choose to act, or not to.

If you don't, then don't.


That's pretty much all that can be done.

I apologize for closing this, but unless someone can provide a compelling argument that differs from any we've had in the past, then there's no need to relive them again.