/report

Open chat channels ( all/trade) are becoming cesspools! It's a rarity to not be subjected to a string of vulgarities any time a person is in a town. Whether it's sexually explicit, profane, or obscenities .. it's all getting to be the norm instead of the exception. The violations can be reported. The consequences are fair with temporary suspension of access laddered per offense. The process of reporting someone is what I'd like to address.

Currently a person wanting to report a violation of conduct would have to open their browser and go to guildwars support section, fill out a form, describe the offense, and post a screen shot. This is all well and good except, 1.) it's time consuming, 2.) you have to stop playing for quite a while in order to fill out a report, and 3.) the entire process could be stream lined.

What I suggest is simply adding a /report command with /report <name of offender >. This would flagged the last several lines that <name> has typed so that the reviewers could quickly and effeciently determine if a violation had in fact occurred and they could handle it immediately.

I think this is an excellent idea. While it is true that there is a word filter, there are always the "cool" kids who think it's fun to leave out a letter to curse, even though they have a word filter!

In addition, if someone REFUSES to use the trade channel to trade, when asked politely, that should be a reportable offense. I don't want to live with it, and the majority of players should not be forced to, because a few individuals can't use common sense.

I love the idea too!

I don't turn on any chat channels other than Team and Guild, because of the garbage that is on Local and Trade. I know there are lots of majorly offensive things being said, usually with 0s or 1s or !s and so on to bypass the chat filter so you can't avoid it, and rather than take all that time to report things I just don't turn the channel on.

If it didn't take 10-15 minutes to fill out a violation report, I'm sure more people would be reporting things, thus getting rid of jerks more efficiently. It sounds like it would be more efficient for ANet too, if they automatically get the last few lines of text and search for offensive material instead of having to read a screenshot.

/signed

LMAO! If you think minimizing your GW screen, opening the browser, and filling out a report is too time consuming... Then i'd bet you wouldn't even pull over for a cop that caught you speeding because you'd figure he's going to take too much time writing out the ticket. Well, until day comes when we live in the age of "Star Trek" and you travel some where faster than you can say "Beam me up Scotty!" then will I agree that this is worth their time to put it in.

i don't its just sort of a thing i dont like to do. reporting is sort'a like tattle tailing in school its just not cool dudes...

For you, maybe not, but what about the people who can barely manage to run GW? For example, me: if I ever minimize GW, it crashes. If I try and run it in a window, it crashes. Trying to run both the game and my browser would probably give my computer a stroke.

All in all, it depends on ANet's stance towards that kind of thing. Strict = we have a chance of getting it, lax = no chance in hell.

Before I upgraded my memory I was running 256, and having anything but gw open was hell, so yes, good idea.

No.




bullshit idea, it does not sound bad, but if its implemented guess what will happen?

8.365 billion /reports a day sent

The solution for the people that can barely run GW is a PC upgrade or maybe even a virus/spyware/adware scan. As a hobbyist I built mine about 4 years ago. I run 1gig ram (cuz I use photo shop) 1533.Mhz Athlon processor, video card is a Radeon 8500LE (128 vid ram) Nothing super fancy compared to today stuff, but still runs great. (Also 64 bit processors are coming around more now) You can a cheap OEM computer with twice the speed for around $500.00. (Don't know prices in other countries)

I don't think it can be assumed that everyone has $50-100 lying around to be spent on memory upgrades. Considering the younger player base within the game, money like that would be better suited to other things with more pertinent necessity (like gasoline these days ) .

I don't think it would be too hard to set up a system that limits reports to a certain number in a certain time period. Have them type up a one-line description as the problem, and check in on it. Ban people who abuse the system. That's a good way to discourage abuse

when Everquest implemented the /report command there was an almost immediate decline incidents of people shouting vulgarities. You wouldn't walk into a family restaurant and shout F*&@ U, when someone told you to knock it off you wouldn't shout STFU .. and if you did it wouldn't be longer than a couple minutes before the manager asked you to leave.... or just flat called the police.

Guildwars.com/legal contains the rules.

Guild Wars - Rules of Conduct

The following rules govern basic interaction within the Guild Wars game and the Guild Wars websites. Please be aware that failure to comply with these rules of conduct may result in the termination of your Guild Wars game account according to the Guild Wars User Agreement.

In addition to these rules of conduct, explicit rules affecting your account may be found in the Guild Wars User Agreement.

1. While playing Guild Wars, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.

2. You may not post or communicate any player’s real world information (name, address, account name, etc.) through the Guild Wars game or on the official Guild Wars website.

3. You may not use sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language.

4. You may not post or link to any sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive imagery or content.

etc

So, rule number 1 ... how often is it you see PlayerX says " Hey, Playerz .. yer a @(#&"

and rule number 3 .. There's too many examples of this one to bother posting an example.

If these 2 areas weren't important things for A-Net to control they wouldn't have made them rule 1 and 3.

It takes far more effort to track down bots and ban them than it does to implement a /report command .... but it didn't take too long for their to be an announcement saying that A-Net had banned numerous bot accounts.

A report command would be far easier, not only for players to report a violation .. but also for A-net. A-net now sends out two e-mails if you report a violation. with the /report command the report is sent immediately .. the GW staff could view the report immediately, and if an account suspension is warranted that too could be done immediately .. no muss, no fuss, and no auto sending out e-mails.

And as for reporting being "tattle telling" ... there's not a parent in the world who would object to someone "tattle telling" if it were their kid were the target of a bunch of guys who get their kicks simulating gang rape in piken square.

It's a great game .. wonderful artwork, low poly models yet great looking, fun to play, and great business model from a players point of view. However, player conduct is absolutely appalling .. the /report command would help curb that.

What's your problem? If you don't like what you read, turn on the censor or ignore!

Why must someone else babysit us?

I say leave it alone. If a child is offended, that is the fault of the parent for not monitoring what the child is exposed to.

If an adult is offended, grow up! Stop whining, sheesh!

(btw, minimize GW causes my game to slow down or bleed...so never do this. 99.99% of the time, I'll have to terminate game and relaunch after I minimize GW)

Just go to your options and swap the filter to Super High or whatever if you don't want to hear it. It's really that simple.

This is a terrible idea... Just look at world of warcraft. The GM there have to deal with 5 billion reports a day just because people have an easy way to report stuff. People report for the dumbest things such as having a fight with somebody. It just waste the company's money.

Oh, I wish I could. I don't get allowance, no steady job, I go to school, my parents won't upgrade the computer until it dies. I run on 256 megs of ram, 1.8 Ghz Pent 4, and a GeForce MX 420, which is horrible. It all sucks. It was old when I got it. Upgrading for me isn't an option. And I run my virus/spyware scans weekly.

Yes. That is exactly what I would have in mind, with possibly an addition for scamming, although that one would be questionable.

Euphamisms, metaphors, etc. The censor can't block everything.

Babysitting implies constant moderation. This isn't babysitting, it's policing.

In a case of a game such as Grand Theft Auto, this arguement would have weight. That game, and others like it, carry a M (17+) rating. Guild Wars carries a T (13+) rating. Anyways, there is no excuse for not being civil in a game. As sangsue said, you wouldn't walk into a family resturant shouting profanities, or engaging in sexually explicit conversation.

Not every report would be dealt with. Hell, ANet could put up a clear definition of what is reportable and what is not. Ignore reports of fights, follow up on reports of racism.

All in all, I think this should only be applicable to racist, sexist, sexually explicit, or homophobic comments. Calling a user an ass wouldn't be reportable. Calling a user a "black faggot" would be.

/report command eh?...
I smell mass abuse

Lol, with stats like that you should have no problems running GW. Especially having an GeForce MX 420...that's better than the card I have! One stick of Kingston 256MB PC2700 DDR will cost under $35.00, that's less than the game its self!

How about investing in a hammer or maybe just something heavy

one day when your parents are out, open the case take aim and give it a good whacking. Or if u want be less conspicuous the just take out the processor and have a good prod at all the electrical dohickies

Heh, it doesn't help that the 420 isn't made for gaming. It's great when I want to run Photoshop, though. The 420 runs worse than a GeForce 2 card
And the trouble with me is compatability. My motherboard can't take more than 1 Gig, and I believe PC2100 RAM is the only compatable. And plus this is in Canukleda dollars. About $50-60 for 512 megs

Mentalmdc...if only I could. My parents may be hardline, but they're not idiots. If it spontaneously breaks, they'll take it to a tech shop...and that would be bad for me

Dude you got no idea what you're talking about...at least when it comes to computers.

lol my specs are a 1.8gigaherts pm4 with 256 ram and geforce 2... it runs like shit but runs but now it has slowed down to a crawl after the update. My parent's are hardline. They get computers but never ever consult me. I mean I know more than them! They get what they need and when i say i need to upgrade they ignore me. I mean im running on 56k on my good comp and dsl on the specs i mentioned above.
But nevertheless a teen rating its 13+ right so btw do you know what 13 know and don't know if your a parent kids know a lot more than you think and probably aren't that offended by the stuff people say. Just turn off local and trade AND start ignoring. If you can't do that well then too bad, GOD! GTAIII might as well have been 13+ rating anyway. People think teens don't know s***! Its a free game with the exception of 50$ take it or leave it.
If you are offended by curses well you can't be helped

Name a single major MMORPG that doesn't include in it's rules of conduct that " thou shall not cuss, harrass, use sexually explicit behavior .." etc .. name just one. Now .. name a major successful massively online game that doesn't enforce these types of rules. The /report command would increase A-Net's ability to enforce this rule .. and it would make economic sense for them to .. after all there are a LOT of 30 somethings out there with kids .. a lot of those 30 somethings wouldn't let their kids play online due to the crass behavior of the players .. I let my 15 year old play .. but I won't let my 12 year old play .. if there were better controls and more enforcement of the conduct rules .. i'd buy another account for my 12 year old.

Not to mention .. that there is NO reason to not implement more enforcabilty. Is there any reason that someone should be allowed to spew profanities with no consequences?

when I first got this game and during the betas I ran it on a pIII 667mhz with an even worse graphics card, I think 16mb or 32mb if I was lucky...I win!

Now I have a much better computer...so don't cry for me

Arenanet doesn't need immediate reports. If you have trouble minimizing, then just take a screenshot when you see something offensive and leave it until you're done playing.
When you head to your Screens folder after the game, you can check the timestamps to see exactly what time it was when the offensive message was sent. Just be sure to include the exact time and your timezone when you post the message. The Arenanet staff will check their logs for that time and verify your report, then they'll take action.
Easy as pie if you have the time, and it really helps the community.

the issue isn't minimizing .. the issue is the abundance of vulgarians currently having free reign over chat channels in game. with istant /reports there would be more reporting .. hence in the end far less violations. chat filters are not a license to be obscene. imagine .. step 1.) player A shouts @)(#*# ( insert obscenity here ) step 2.) player B types /report <name of player a > .. step 3.) report is generated of the last 10 lines typed by player a and logged, step 4.) GW admin looks at log .. sees that player a did indeed violate rule 1 and 2 .. step 5.) GW admin disconnects player a and notifies player a that their account has been suspended for .. how ever long it is they suspend accounts for 1st offense and also admin informs player a to read the rules of conduct and abide by them. no muss .. no fuss .. would take all of a couple minutes total.

If you're referring to the comment about 4 being worse than 2, I was exaggarating a bit. But in all seriousness, a GeForce 4 MX is basically a GeForce 2 MX with a better memory controller.

The problem is that some people don't have the time, or just are too lazy to go through the whole process. A /report command would really streamline the process, and probably decrease vulgarity as a whole.

Agreed.
...and this thread should have probably stopped there... whats the point of a chat filter people?..
you can't stop people using offending lanugage.. some people from different places find different levels acceptable.. Anet can't change that, and if you don't like that, thats why the chat filters are here.
I'll bet you have at least once typed a *naughty* word in chat.. just use the freakin chat filters.

Have you read the rules? .. purely and simply .... chat filters ARE NOT license to cuss etc .. A-Net CAN change that .. mass suspensions would put a screeching halt to it. /report command would make it possible for them to quickly resolve violation reports. I'm willing to bet that the only people who've posted against this idea are those people who feel they should have the right to swear and use sexually explicit chat etc. the fact of the matter is .. everyone else has the right NOT to be subjected to it. IRL you'd be fined for disorderly conduct .. in GW you'd have your account suspended up to banned.

Instead of just /Report <username> make it something like.

/report <username> <violation type>

Where <violation type> is a code, i.e.
LANG: Player is using vulgar language
SCAM: Player is attempting to scam
etc.

Also, weight the /report. If you're in a district where you're the only one offended by someone's comments... tough luck. But if you get 5-6 people reporting the same person in the same district at roughly the same time, and it records what was said by not only that user, but also the reporters, then it might make it more efficient.

Zehly, that just gave me an idea. Only make reports visible to ANet staff if there's 2-3 reports on the same username over, say, 5-10 minutes? That way it can't be abused in a one-on-one arguement.