please remove harassing posts from PVP forums

[protokon]

I think the reason so many PvP threads get attention from people who don't like PvP is because alot of them start with something like "X spell is too good in PvP" and people are scared that someone is going to change said spell to suit PvP and break it in the rest of the game.

I agree with the point you are trying to make, but the main problem is making any change to the game, no matter how small or minute, will almost guarantee new bugs or break something else; it's an on-going process that cannot be avoided, and is part of every update to fix as many as possible.

most threads started seem to make an effort to state they intend the changes be made strictly in the pit and not affect PVE balancing in any way.

[bendover]

Umm why? That's like posting a build on the build forums asking for critism and then getting all bent out of shape when someone provides feedback that hurts your feelings.

These forums are already heavily moderated as is, and everyone has an extent of freedom of speech here.

[Dandonk]

I agree with the point you are trying to make, but the main problem is making any change to the game, no matter how small or minute, will almost guarantee new bugs or break something else; it's an on-going process that cannot be avoided, and is part of every update to fix as many as possible.

Yes...

most threads started seem to make an effort to state they intend the changes be made strictly in the pit and not affect PVE balancing in any way.

... but the first part is part of why I don't want PvP-based changes: First, you use dev time on something I personally find irrelevant. Then you change something that is more or less bound to bug something else - likely in PvE.

So yes, I'm very sceptical of PvP based changes, given Turbine's record of bug-"fixing".

[phum]

/signed

[stoerm]

I don't do PvP, but I think a lot of the negative posts in PvP threads are rude and juvenile. It's OK to post your opinion but it looks to me like every utterance of "pvp" gets a storm of hate. Imagine if every mention of sorcs would result in an avalanche of posts saying Turbine should not spend time on sorcs.

If you think Turbine doesn't know what's a good investment of time I don't think you give Turbine enough credit. I'm sure they know how to prioritize developer time.

Likewise, Turbine's best interests are served by looking at the community as a whole, and determining what the majority of paying customers want to see happen. Note: Paying Customers =/= Forumites. These numbers are independent of one another.

...

Free Players, and I mean *purely* Free Players, never a dime spent on the game, should not count. Why? Because they aren't the financial backing for this game being what it is. That's like a restaurant tailoring it's food tastes based upon the Bums who live in the alley behind the restaurant.

I agree (partially), but please note people who have never paid a dime on the game cannot post in the pvp forum, so paying customers and forumites are not completely independent of each other. Note also that f2p players help seed the game worlds with players and contribute with forum discussion fodder. Without noobs there would be less drama and you wouldn't feel as good about your uber builds. :P

I personally think the loud anti-PvP crowd is a small minority of forum-dwelling intensive players and the vast majority of players (paying or otherwise) have a live-and-let-live attitude.

[Chai]

I dont seer any proof there. What I do see is a very one sided insinuation that the "harassing posts" are all coming from people who dont like PVP, when in fact, all posts from those threads that need to be removed are where one person tells another person they are clueless and dont know what they are talking about, and hinges their entire arguement on an assumption that the other side lacks knowledge of the subject. Do your homework on this and trust me, you will not see such a one sided story.

Be careful what you wish for. Harassment is a hugely interpretable thing and not set in stone. If I ask someone to stop doing something and they continue, its harassment. I count quite a few the number of times this has happened in PVP threads over the past few days, and its not nearly as one sided as insinuated here. Favoring censorship by asking for posts which do not agree with your stance to be removed is going to turn you all into a bunch of forum cops, with every little rules lawyer-esque technicality reported, and every thread monitored simply because a bunch of grown ups with internet anonymity cant figure out how to communicate without having to insult eachother repeatedly, simply because they disagree.

I do not support this censorship, because it will make this community less fun to be a part of.

[Eistander]

I dont seer any proof there. What I do see is a very one sided insinuation that the "harassing posts" are all coming from people who dont like PVP, when in fact, all posts from those threads that need to be removed are where one person tells another person they are clueless and dont know what they are talking about, and hinges their entire arguement on an assumption that the other side lacks knowledge of the subject. Do your homework on this and trust me, you will not see such a one sided story.

Be careful what you wish for. Harassment is a hugely interpretable thing and not set in stone. If I ask someone to stop doing something and they continue, its harassment. I count quite a few the number of times this has happened in PVP threads over the past few days, and its not nearly as one sided as insinuated here. Favoring censorship by asking for posts which do not agree with your stance to be removed is going to turn you all into a bunch of forum cops, with every little rules lawyer-esque technicality reported, and every thread monitored simply because a bunch of grown ups with internet anonymity cant figure out how to communicate without having to insult eachother repeatedly, simply because they disagree.

I do not support this censorship, because it will make this community less fun to be a part of.

Finally chiming in here, as this is hitting the nail on the head; the post by Cordovan seems to have been taken out of context (real surprise there) to such an extent that it seems, that proponents of PvP want their voices heard and anyone who remotely disagrees to be silenced, as it will supposedly become inevitable that whoever is participating in the discussion will make mention about either how PvP is a waste of time (an opinion, I might add) or that developer time is better spent elsewhere (again, an opinion), the person who disagrees with the poster either "Cannot win in PvP and cries about it" (note; an attack) or even "Is utterly clueless about the subject because they don't engage in the activity" (can be opinion, albeit a harsh one at best).

Since I have seen the inception of PvP into DDO, I will admit I tried it a couple times, didn't care for it so I have never dropped down since (talking about the Brawling Pits). Now I don't care what happens there, seeing as how I also understand the game mechanics well enough to know that nothing is really balanced when it comes to PvP. I get that. Others, not so much (note: This is strictly opinion, and very much on topic). The devs have shown that there is a measure of balancing possible when spells are used against players, which should aid the whole need for balance in that brawling pit. But to the extent that balancing would need to occur, if you think about it, you might end up playing a different game altogether once it would be all said and done, even then there will still be complaints about the balance not being right (granted that this was done in an innocuous way, where there was no strain on PvE development, it didn't impact the main game, blah blah blah).

TL;DR: I'm just going to leave this where it is now, seeing as how I will prolly end up reported for fleshing out a (mostly) unbiased viewpoint on the stand of PvP, which doesn't agree with total censorship of any remotely derogatory opinion that does not support the OPs viewpoint. This, in turn is wrong to push on a discussion board, whereas it is also wrong to spew the same lines against as well; make them think a little.. flesh it out beyond "/not signed, waste of time" and THEN copy/past that bad boy wherever its needed/wanted. A little forethought can go a long way, especially in both "anti" and "pro" PvP.

[Hendrik]

I dont seer any proof there. What I do see is a very one sided insinuation that the "harassing posts" are all coming from people who dont like PVP, when in fact, all posts from those threads that need to be removed are where one person tells another person they are clueless and dont know what they are talking about, and hinges their entire arguement on an assumption that the other side lacks knowledge of the subject. Do your homework on this and trust me, you will not see such a one sided story.

Be careful what you wish for. Harassment is a hugely interpretable thing and not set in stone. If I ask someone to stop doing something and they continue, its harassment. I count quite a few the number of times this has happened in PVP threads over the past few days, and its not nearly as one sided as insinuated here. Favoring censorship by asking for posts which do not agree with your stance to be removed is going to turn you all into a bunch of forum cops, with every little rules lawyer-esque technicality reported, and every thread monitored simply because a bunch of grown ups with internet anonymity cant figure out how to communicate without having to insult eachother repeatedly, simply because they disagree.

I do not support this censorship, because it will make this community less fun to be a part of.

Thank you Chai for making that point.

Using a blanket 'harassment' against those that disagree with you is sad, weak, and discredits any attempts to make a point.

[TrinityTurtle]

If you think Turbine doesn't know what's a good investment of time I don't think you give Turbine enough credit. I'm sure they know how to prioritize developer time.

Well, in a very real way, without checking the pulse of the players in a forum like this, they actually don't. Companies can't read customers mind, it's a guessing game that you THINK product/service A will sell well and hope that you are right. You're not always right.

I think having a forum setup like this in MMO's isn't just about giving us a place to communicate, but an easy and relatively inexpensive way to get us to 'think out loud' for them so they can monitor what we're thinking about, complaining about, and what we want for our future game and to keep giving them money. So everyone SHOULD post their opinions, on both sides of the issues. Just because Turbine doesn't post in every thread does not mean they are not reading them.

And as far as the original post, it seems like there is a disconnect between the term harrasment and disagreement these days, especially as he specified anti-pvp comments and not anti-poster. Harassing posts are those attacking the poster, not the content. In any conversation and debate, the topic being attacked is NOT harrasment, it's the natural course of it. Not everyone agrees with everyone else. But if the POSTER is attacked, that is what strays into harrasment and should be shut down immediately. The forum is not 'just a game' despite being about a game, it's a group of real world of people talking and agreeing and disagreeing on topics, and in the real world no one ever finds everyone who will only always agree with them or not discuss a topic at all.

[fluffybunnywilson]

One last thought - will the people who despise all of those "turn off PvP" comments also be reporting people for posts that claim someone's disagreement with a proposal can't be valid because "if you really played PvP, then you would agree with me"?

Telling people that they aren't qualified to participate in a discussion of PvP is directly attacking "the rights of others to participate in the community" and I see it happen very frequently in PvP discussions.

If saying that you believe PvP should be discarded is harassment, then telling people that they aren't qualified to have an opinion *CERTAINLY* is.

[MartinusWyllt]

I do not hate PvP.

I choose not to do it because:

There is no point to it.
There is no reward for it.
This game is not designed for it.

How can PvP hurt?

Griefing...leading to reporting leading to more tickets, I'm guessing, obviously don't have access to the ticket queue to say this for a fact...judging by how, sorry, stupid people get in general chat about PvP-related happenings I'm guessing the /tells are faster and more furious.

If I see someone trying to drive their new Prius through a field where they get stuck and then listen to them complain that the Prius sucks as an off-road vehicle I might suggest to them that they get a different car, one that is designed to off-road.

It doesn't matter that the Prius was free. If you attempt to operate it in a manner that is not in accordance with its design then you will not have a good driving experience.

There are other fantasy games designed around PvP and they're quite good. Yes you'll have to subscribe to them and level in them, but if you spend a lot of your DDO game time in a pit and find questing an inconvenience then I respectfully recommend you reconsider your choice of games.

PvP for the heck of it when you don't feel like doing anything else, or want to test something out, whatever, activities that represent a fraction of your total experience then play on, of course. This is what I think the implementation of PvP in this game was meant for...a sideshow, not the main attraction.

[Chai]

One last thought - will the people who despise all of those "turn off PvP" comments also be reporting people for posts that claim someone's disagreement with a proposal can't be valid because "if you really played PvP, then you would agree with me"?

Telling people that they aren't qualified to participate in a discussion of PvP is directly attacking "the rights of others to participate in the community" and I see it happen very frequently in PvP discussions.

If saying that you believe PvP should be discarded is harassment, then telling people that they aren't qualified to have an opinion *CERTAINLY* is.

^^This^^

I agree.

I think we will find that strutting around quoting the rules is all fun and games, until those rules no longer back our side of the debate, and there are an equal number of "harassing posts" removed or moderated that we were in favor of keeping around. At this point we will then clearly see how much less fun it is to participate in a community where we cant really say what we feel and have to euphamize it down to the point where its vanilla enough to not fit the description of "harassment®" - which is very interpretable to say the least. Do we really want to become a bunch of rules lawyers weeding through eachothers post looking for things that can be interpreted as harassment, or do we just want to be able to state our opinions, without having to argue that the opposition doesnt know what they are talking about, argue about what is and what is not on topic, etc.

As I said before, be careful what we wish for. Censorship will not help the company gain insight on how their customers feel about any topic they speak about. It will also make it much less fun to participate in the community for those posters whose posts are deleted for not fitting the vanilla description of what is acceptable. Its all fun and games until its your post being deleted because something you posted is somehow interpretable as "offensive" by someone who has an opposing opinion. We may think we want this, until we see that it is not the one sided animal we deemed it to be.

[protokon]

Finally chiming in here, as this is hitting the nail on the head; the post by Cordovan seems to have been taken out of context (real surprise there) to such an extent that it seems, that proponents of PvP want their voices heard and anyone who remotely disagrees to be silenced, as it will supposedly become inevitable that whoever is participating in the discussion will make mention about either how PvP is a waste of time (an opinion, I might add) or that developer time is better spent elsewhere (again, an opinion), the person who disagrees with the poster either "Cannot win in PvP and cries about it" (note; an attack) or even "Is utterly clueless about the subject because they don't engage in the activity" (can be opinion, albeit a harsh one at best).

how is it taken out of context? he said, very straightforward and clear, posts that say nothing more than basically "i dont like pvp" are not welcome in posts discussing changes.

there is a nice thread opened discussing the removal of PVP. if it is so important to voice your opinion of how pvp hurts your gaming experience so badly, anyone is welcome to go /sign that thread.

flooding every thread trying to discuss any kind of balancing with personal opinions of how PVP does not belong in the game serves no purpose other than to flame, troll and ultimately harass anyone who wants to talk about it.

you can't blame people for defending themselves when others take uninformed shots at them.

[protokon]

This is the attitude that makes many long term's and even those who came into this game due to a lack of pvp focus not want it.

They could put in a full bells and whistles system that has its own separate server but the moment people start pulling in the smack talk or coming to the forums to whine about such and such its gonna be a nightmare.

I pvp in other games just fine they were made for such things. PVP in ddo was added as an afterthought now to make it viable it would take a lot of work. Unlike some of the others I just dont see a place in the game for it but as long as it did not interrupt core game play pve I wouldn't balk at changes that brought in more money for the game.

But players like you that attitude and assumptions make it very easy to attack pvp, statements like this come off as ignorance and its sad this is what represents the pro pvp argument and makes it very easy for the anti pvp people to keep strong.

please keep the personal attacks out of this thread, if you feel someone violates the guidelines there is a nice little report button - I would like to keep this discussion open.

[Kalari]

No its fine I get it honestly if he read my post he see that I would not be against non invasive ways to boost pvp and revenue but its alright its because I said that person's post represents the pro pvp people and sadly it does. For every one person they have that has a legitimate argument for pvp they have a handful of those.

If he wants to combat the pvp issues I feel he really needs to start in his own camp but its okay think im going to leave this thread alone stick to my own. Less hatred there.

[Kominalito]

/not signed.

leave the personal attacks out, and there is no reason people cant voice their opinion on the game that they allot time for.

[protokon]

No its fine I get it honestly if he read my post he see that I would not be against non invasive ways to boost pvp and revenue but its alright its because I said that person's post represents the pro pvp people and sadly it does. For every one person they have that has a legitimate argument for pvp they have a handful of those.

If he wants to combat the pvp issues I feel he really needs to start in his own camp but its okay think im going to leave this thread alone stick to my own. Less hatred there.

You had a good point to make, just no need to point the finger at someone while making it. that was all I was trying to say. I don't disagree at all that the comment was immature, unhelpful and irrelevant to our discussion - but that is going off-topic to call someone else out.

people seem determined to beat me over the head with the 'clueless' comments from another thread. what I was asking for was the removal of all harassing posts, not anti-pvp posts only.

this is not a conspiracy post to 'snuff out anti-pvp conformists' or whatever you want to call them. its been stated several times that the harassment posts go both ways.

[Chai]

You had a good point to make, just no need to point the finger at someone while making it. that was all I was trying to say. I don't disagree at all that the comment was immature, unhelpful and irrelevant to our discussion - but that is going off-topic to call someone else out.

people seem determined to beat me over the head with the 'clueless' comments from another thread. what I was asking for was the removal of all harassing posts, not anti-pvp posts only.

this is not a conspiracy post to 'snuff out anti-pvp conformists' or whatever you want to call them. its been stated several times that the harassment posts go both ways.

Its good that you are clarifying that now, because that is not how the OP reads.

or make a sticky that says any anti-pvp comments in a legitimate post discussing it is considered trolling, since closing a few threads wasn't clear enough.

Yeap.

I think pointing out the 'clueless' comments is necessary, because it is rock solid evidence that this is definately a two way street.

I still do not support censorship for reasons stated above, and I hope in the future PVP feedback threads dont boil down to people who disagree being told they are not qualified to state their opinion due to being clueless and not understand that which they are not supporting. 29 incidence in a few threads over a few days - yes its necessary to bring up, to define whats happening so it can be made sure it doesnt continue to happen. That way requests to have posts removed will be denied, due to the posts in question not violating forum guidelines in the first place. Those conversations and disagreements can definately be had in such a non personal manner.

/not signed.

leave the personal attacks out, and there is no reason people cant voice their opinion on the game that they allot time for.

Yeap, exactly.

[protokon]

Its good that you are clarifying that now, because that is not how the OP reads.

The discussion has taken a slight change of topics for the better, and updating the OP is a good idea chai.