The issue of toxicity should not be swept under the rug. It absolutely should continue to be a priority for the devs
THANK YOU. Someone finally said it. The present community is a lot different than from what I remember as a kid playing POTCO. I was blissfully unaware of just how cruel people can be on this game up until a few months ago.
You gave those whining bout afkers on their "public" open ship the power to kick them off...I don't see any reasonable reason why we cant have a permanent block/ignore feature.
Just as stated above, looters complained and got a higher skull drop rate. Ship captains complained and were given the option to kick afkers. So, why not a permanent blocking feature? It's not much different... just more essential and should have been added a long time ago.
Rather than focus on the availability of such an option, is it impractical for pirates to just play at a different time than when they normally play (or play in a ‘different server’ when it is noticed a unliked player is currently active and playing)? *How readily are bad behavior pirates now? If just a few, cannot decisions be made by the player in-game to just avoid certain places where unruly pirates frequent?
That is an
incredibly arrogant, blinded statement that I can not even begin to fathom what system of logical thinking told you that was okay. To even let that cross your mind, let alone post it as a response, indicates you are looking at this community with rose-colored glasses.
People have work, school, real life situations that often prevent them from having an overly flexible gaming availability. I can't play at 3, 4, 5am for the sake of avoiding trolls if I have work, school, or whatever in the morning.
Playing on another server all the time to avoid the trolls does more harm than good in the long run. You isolate yourself. You have to explain to friends and guild mates why you can't go to the upper servers or port at Tortuga on a mat run. Because God forbid someone sees you and before you know it you're surrounded, having insults hurled at you like an out of control pitching machine. Sure, you can "ignore" or "report" them, but having to do that on a daily basis gets old real fast, and the things said before you're able to go down the entire list and hit "ignore" HURT.
An atmosphere where players have no opportunity to resolve further their personal differences
Your argument of
avoiding certain places conflicts with this. If you want people to resolve their conflicts, shouldn't they all play on the same server? With that said, when people are coming up to me asking things like
"how much for an hour?" or go out of their way to meme, trash and berate me for being in a relationship they know nothing about, I don't think they are looking for an opportunity to
resolve personal differences. No, they aren't looking to
resolve anything.
Here, this is just a little taste of what I have to deal with on a daily basis.
.you’re quite lucky to see a certain level of conflict around given TLOPO shouldn’t really even be here!
How is experiencing
conflict like this
lucky?
With conflict that is extreme however, why not just report the player and trust the in-game moderation system
Based off my personal experience, I don't feel like much of anything gets done when I report someone,
especially when the context of the slurs are in regards to a certain person. Also, that's why:
I want to revisit a few points Beggar made.
"The idea that we’re somehow sowing division by choosing not to interact with pirates whose only intentions are to harass and insult is really silly. Blocking a troll in an online video game is not tantamount to someone being erased from society..."
"It’s a bit patronizing to suggest that encountering trolls in an mmorpg is a chance to learn conflict resolution and tolerance. It’s not my job to “tolerate” a rude and obnoxious player who is repeatedly whispering insults in all caps at me. These trolls aren’t interested in finding common ground, they just want to annoy other players, and they get to do so at least once per game session since (unlike every other game and social media platform that I can think of), inexplicably, this game doesn’t allow me to block them."
An
article published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated the following:
While gaming can have positive benefits like making new friends, socializing, and learning how to strategize and problem solve, it is also another place where cyberbullying occurs. Anonymity of players and the use of avatars allow users to create alter-egos or fictional versions of themselves, which is part of the fun of gaming. But it also allows users to harass, bully, and sometimes gang up on other players, sending or posting negative or hurtful messages and using the game as a tool of harassment.
In another article I found, the subject being interviewed shares a bit of his experience when it comes to being harassed in online games. No, it's not TLOPO,
but statistics reported state that
"one in five gamers has quit a game because of abusive chat." You can read the article and watch the short video
here.
, so-to-speak, to gain a fairly good interpretation of what things occur online for people, good and bad.
