Pardon me?

[Deadslug]

I AM ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

As I begin this thread, I feel inclined to give my short DDO resume. I have been playing DDO beta since Dec 05. I have been a member of the Umber Hulks since Mar 8th 2006. I became the Guild Leader of the Umber Hulks in May 08. I have had many characters of every race, class combination. I am best known for my Warforged characters. My son plays DDO with me. I have publicly praised Turbine and DDO. I love the game, and I love the new Mod. I am very friendly with the Role-playing crowd. They are great people, and thoroughly enjoy most nights spent playing with my friends there. The Umber Hulks are very friendly with ACME Fighting Co. and Knights of the Silver Dragon. I have thoroughly enjoyed every night spent playing with my friends there. In DDO i have made a lot of friends. I try to be patient. I try to be friendly. I try to helpful to anyone that I can give help to. During DDO unlimited beta, I tried to help people with all or any questions I could help them with. Other people enjoying this game as much as I do is one of my goals. I like to think that I have made a decent reputation for myself here. Not for the quality of my play because quite frankly that's mediocre at best, but because of my charisma, good humor, and willingness / ability to learn and be led by better players than myself.

That said......

Since headstart has began, I troll the general chat looking for people asking questions, needing help and trying to find their way in our wonderful game, and god forbid maybe recruit some people into our guild. Over the last 3 days, the general chat has been really bad. A lot of open cursing, crudeness, harassment, and uglyness to other players. One of the best things about Thelanis specifically has been the mutual respect generally shown between players. Even when the "haters" from Xoriat merged into Thelanis, there was still an air of open friendliness and respect for your fellow gamers. Other servers I have visited had generally the same kind of thing. This new rottenness to each other I have experienced on the server is undesirable. Today I finally reminded folk in general chat that children play this game, and please keep the foul language to a minimum in general chat. From there, I was publicly harrassed for the next hour on the general chat, by not 1 person, but 5-12 different names jumped in to make sure that "thin-skinned" people need to shut up, and **explative, curse, ?#@!!!"". I am not thin-skinned. I have been a sailor for 20 years. I want to make sure that people realize that there is a such a thing as TOS. It would be sad to see people get banned from a game they are enjoying. As sad as it is, I cannot, and did not, let loose with the strain of curse words that I could summon immediately to express my anger at them.

I am proud of this game, and proud of this server. I want quality people to continue to enjoy this quality game. I will politely remind people that there are rules for playing this game. If people take me reminding of them personally and decide to personally attack me...... I will report them everytime. I think that's how it should be handled.

I am not bringing this up here to flame spray anyone or attack anyone. I think this is quickly becoming a server wide problem, and am hoping to have the help of my long time friends on this server keeping the integrity of our server. Thank you.

Penny for your thoughts... Am I making too much out of this issue? Let me have it.

I am 19037, and that's what I think.

[Memnir]

It's going to get worse in six days, and the flood of F2P players come in...

I tend to ignore the Gen Chat as much as possible, but color-coded the Advice channel to a more eye catching color. I try to help out as much as I can to those who ask in /a.

[Guder]

Without any reservations, and without any bias towards anyone...this is impossible to change...and any chat channel request to modify such language will always be an open season on the requestor...and the reason I say this is because the largest percentage of the culprits are the very age group you think you are protecting.
I have witnessed - not guessed or surmised but physically watched a teenager on DDO, who otherwise has very respectful manners and values, literally put a '20yr sailor vet' to shame in chat.
Why? Because it's annonymous...because of its shock value...because it's against the rules...because they are teenagers and they know it offends adults.
You can't change those basic teenage hormones.
That's my opinion based on my observations.

OBTW, will the Cube eat 16yr olds? I may have a deal for one, if it's interested....

[Impaqt]

I dont normally pay any attention at all to general Chat.. Pretty saure I have it turned off even on some of my characters.

That being said, I doubt any of these offensive people come anywhere near the DDO Forums let alone the Thelanis board.....

[Ebuddy]

I AM ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

As I begin this thread, I feel inclined to give my short DDO resume. I have been playing DDO beta since Dec 05. I have been a member of the Umber Hulks since Mar 8th 2006. I became the Guild Leader of the Umber Hulks in May 08. I have had many characters of every race, class combination. I am best known for my Warforged characters. My son plays DDO with me. I have publicly praised Turbine and DDO. I love the game, and I love the new Mod. I am very friendly with the Role-playing crowd. They are great people, and thoroughly enjoy most nights spent playing with my friends there. The Umber Hulks are very friendly with ACME Fighting Co. and Knights of the Silver Dragon. I have thoroughly enjoyed every night spent playing with my friends there. In DDO i have made a lot of friends. I try to be patient. I try to be friendly. I try to helpful to anyone that I can give help to. During DDO unlimited beta, I tried to help people with all or any questions I could help them with. Other people enjoying this game as much as I do is one of my goals. I like to think that I have made a decent reputation for myself here. Not for the quality of my play because quite frankly that's mediocre at best, but because of my charisma, good humor, and willingness / ability to learn and be led by better players than myself.

That said......

Since headstart has began, I troll the general chat looking for people asking questions, needing help and trying to find their way in our wonderful game, and god forbid maybe recruit some people into our guild. Over the last 3 days, the general chat has been really bad. A lot of open cursing, crudeness, harassment, and uglyness to other players. One of the best things about Thelanis specifically has been the mutual respect generally shown between players. Even when the "haters" from Xoriat merged into Thelanis, there was still an air of open friendliness and respect for your fellow gamers. Other servers I have visited had generally the same kind of thing. This new rottenness to each other I have experienced on the server is undesirable. Today I finally reminded folk in general chat that children play this game, and please keep the foul language to a minimum in general chat. From there, I was publicly harrassed for the next hour on the general chat, by not 1 person, but 5-12 different names jumped in to make sure that "thin-skinned" people need to shut up, and **explative, curse, ?#@!!!"". I am not thin-skinned. I have been a sailor for 20 years. I want to make sure that people realize that there is a such a thing as TOS. It would be sad to see people get banned from a game they are enjoying. As sad as it is, I cannot, and did not, let loose with the strain of curse words that I could summon immediately to express my anger at them.

I am proud of this game, and proud of this server. I want quality people to continue to enjoy this quality game. I will politely remind people that there are rules for playing this game. If people take me reminding of them personally and decide to personally attack me...... I will report them everytime. I think that's how it should be handled.

I am not bringing this up here to flame spray anyone or attack anyone. I think this is quickly becoming a server wide problem, and am hoping to have the help of my long time friends on this server keeping the integrity of our server. Thank you.

Penny for your thoughts... Am I making too much out of this issue? Let me have it.

I am 19037, and that's what I think.

/signed x10

[Arnya]

There is a reason why hitting '[' is the first thing I do when I log a character....

[RTN]

I've always left the general channel on and it's usually pretty silent other than the odd mistell or the roleplayers. It has definitely been worse the last few days. I also find the wider channel range (i.e., inside quests) to be extremely annoying. F2P means we'll get a lot more griefers since they can just sign up a new account to harass people from.

[Arlith]

It has been a little off the hook. However, I hope once the initial shine has worn off, things will settle down. I hope. But like Mem said above, in 6 more days, the second wave will come in.

As far as the "Haters" from Xoriat are concerned - Just because we hate is no reason to be impolite. That's just rude.

And finally, a pic.....just cuz I can.

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/8/3/128938191050908335.jpg

[SniptheShadow]

Hey Deadslug!!!

How ya been?

Me. Busy.

Dang grad school and being a G.A. and classes and working on my book and this and that.

Fooey!

I'm missing out on everything...

Haven't even had time to add the new content yet. Geez.

What is the saying? I'm a sad panda.

See you in game when I can...

Snip.

P.S. Good luck with the rude crew coming through.

[adamkatt]

Well Nineteen, they should all be forced to count butterflies until the cussing ends!!

edit, I hope you reported them all.

[Bunker]

That is what the "Report" options is for. It has been around the entire game's life. You don't like fou language, you don't like harrassment. Learn it. Love it. Use it. Report it. Let Turbine clean the streets.

[Pyromaniac]

That is what the "Report" options is for. It has been around the entire game's life. You don't like fou language, you don't like harrassment. Learn it. Love it. Use it. Report it. Let Turbine clean the streets.

I'm going with bunk on this one. Frankly I suspect anyone old enough to meet the rated miminum age for DDO knows every word that was posted anyways, so I don't think anyone really is being protected.

But if it bothers you, report away. F2P will be even worse, personally I'd just turn general chat off.

[Araminta]

It was one of the biggest turn off's from WoW - you asked a general question in chat and get abuse for being a n00b and_NO_help. I always liked DDO because of the more mature response from the players when they are asked for advice. Made me feel better, because I was in 'safe' hands

Report it; don't put up with it. And I'm quite glad that my daughter (who lvs to help with the jumping and killing the naughty kobolds, "there's a box, smash it!" she is 5 after all) can't read well enough to work out what is going on in the general chat....

[~Jules921]

I already have squelched a couple that I found offensive in general chat - hope they don't ever want to group with me ;) I think I will follow the report method from now on as well. I haven't turned off general chat as I have been able to answer a couple of questions for newbies but if reporting the offenders doesn't help I may have to.

Jules

[Quikster]

It was one of the biggest turn off's from WoW - you asked a general question in chat and get abuse for being a n00b and_NO_help. I always liked DDO because of the more mature response from the players when they are asked for advice. Made me feel better, because I was in 'safe' hands

Report it; don't put up with it. And I'm quite glad that my daughter (who lvs to help with the jumping and killing the naughty kobolds, "there's a box, smash it!" she is 5 after all) can't read well enough to work out what is going on in the general chat....

n00b!

Seriously though we havent had this problem to much on Sarlona that I have seen. But then again, im not in the lower level areas that much this week.

[Jonny_D]

Couple points:

1) Using the reason that children play the game is never a good argument, because the game is rated for teen, not general audiences. That being said, it is against the ToS to use profanity, especially where people will see it such as general chat channel and as such it should not be practiced. Personally I dont like to swear around kids, or those made uncomfortable with it (unless they are joining a raid hosted by my guild, inwhich case they are free to leave if they are offended by the language in our private party).

2) The new general chat feature that allows people to communicate with anyone in the area that hosts certain quest instances is a contributing factor. I know often in the past I personally used the general chat in dungeons to type messages that I intended as a private tell that neither the party or my guild would want to hear avoiding the embarrassment of a mistell. So now when that happens its even worse because more people will see those types of posts.
I would say if someone makes a mistake and they type sorry mt and don't do it again, give them grace. If its intentional and belligerent and repeated the offender should be reported.
There will be some hiccups as people get used to this, and more people join the game, but people will learn eventually, because if there is one thing this game is not short of its people willing to report someone else whether deserved or not.

[Deadslug]

I AM ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

First, the person who says something in general chat that is apparently meant for a private conversation. This person when a friendly post says, "Friendly reminder, this is general chat, and profanity is against TOS." Will most likely respond, "oops, my bad, that was meant for a private tell, Sorry." Right??

Accidents are understood. Tells into the wrong channel are understood. I am not going to squelch or report someone the first time or even the second time. I get it, ya know. **** happens?

Second, when I mentioned TOS, it was received as a threat? When I mention TOS, people get very defensive, and think that I'm gonna go tell the teacher on them. kinda thing. I get it. I generally don't like rats. stool pidgeons, squealers, tattle tales. What not. I hate to have to feel like one. My warning, was not a warning, "STOP OR I'LL TELL!!!!!!!1. It was a warning, Hey! You might not be aware that what you're doing could get you banned if someone made an issue of it.. When I warned them, I began to get personally attacked, cussed out, and they really wouldn't let it go, beyond griefing type of thing. Bad mouthing me ended up being the general chat discussion for a good hour. I reported for Harrassment, not really the cursing.

Third. DDO's Teen rating says its rated teen for alcohol reference, blood and violence. If that's what it takes to get a teen rating, the Bible should have a Teen rating. I'm not sure why I think that stuff is appropriate for my 10 year old, and I'd like to keep the cursing down? Sounds inconsistant, yes, I agree.

Point, the general chat has gotten rough, cursing, ugliness, and harrassing. I have liked the atmosphere among players of fun, friendly and respect. It is going to be very sad to see that atmosphere change. That ugly atmosphere is what turned me off of WoW very rapidly.

I'm 19037, and that's what I think.

[hydra_ex]

/signed

But if you want nice general chat, Amrath is nice this time of year.

[Syriania]

I've actually been enjoying general chat and the advice channel. I understand being new and stuff but some of the questions asked have made me giggle. Not because they were stupid or anything, but more of because how they were worded.

Example:

"Do robes take away Monk powers?" - Anonymous

I thought it was funny anyway! :D