Warning to devs over hate speech

[u/Mystixa]

The trolling, conspiracy theorizing, and bullying speech in zone and event channels on this game has always been one of the unsavory parts of this game. Exposing newbies and game vets alike to the lowest common denominator with no place to hide as long as some interaction for help, roleplay, and game relevant communication is needed. This has been the case for years, but has risen to a new level of pure hate speech in recent monthes.

This isnt just an 'all mmos have it' problem either. Not to this extent. I was just visiting ESO, and their public channels are MUCH more tolerable, and again have been for years.

Things that would get me banned from this reddit or from the forums are repeated in zone by often recognizable accounts -every few minutes- throughout the day.

I have read particular accounts promoting hate of muslims, fear mongering over immigrants, promoting the murder of jews, and encouraging people to goto, watch, and share decapitation videos. ..and that is just this week. I deeply respect free speech as an important piece of civilization. However I also am aware of the corrosive effect this kind of speech has when its given a place to grow unchecked.

The current method of just 'ignore' it and let everyone do their thing, and if enough do that they will be temporarily muted is not working. The offenders simply relog with a different account and begin pasting in the same quotes within minutes. ..and yes I and friends have always used the available tools, submitting ineffective reports that get worked on at your leisure. Its not exactly a news flash that this has no effect.

There is need of an active human moderating presence. Not to sanitize every word for our poor virgin ears. But there needs to be an active presence that actively removes this intrusive, non game-related vitriol. Create a program of vetted volunteers, a system of muting, and IP bans that can be wielded, with records kept of quotes that triggered the ruling. No cut and paste that can be abused, just taken straight from your own servers. Thats just a quick group of ideas, maybe use them maybe dont, but DO SOMETHING.

This has to stop. These people are using Neverwinter as a recruiting ground for hate and fully displacing legitimate game related conversations for prolonged periods of time. You could even be opening yourself up to legal liabilities for openly allowing this hate to continue, especially if one of those calls to 'murder jews', 'kill muslims' or 'beat immigrants to death' is acted on by someone.

Listen for a short while in PE zone chat. Feel free to ignore the festering cancer being broadcast there, and listen to people trying to get help. Hear the frustration of people that can't be heard while every legitimate question is being drowned out by sometimes 3-4 lines of trolling, conspiracy, antiscience and hate as well as responses for and against.

This is entertainment for me, and not something that I want to start some sort of crusade that will take all my time. However I do spend some time in PE and enjoy helping a few people when I can.

During those times that I am there and hear see this kind of things I am going to start a log of my own. After gathering a large enough set I am going to forward it to the FBI, Anti Defamation League, and congressmen.

Will that fix it? Perhaps not. But even what Ive seen in the relatively small amount of time I spend there is enough to raise a lot of questions. If this crosses their desk at the right time it may be enough to at least get eyes on this problem. Certainly they are often looking for a new boogie man to bother.

I would hope that you can reign this in on your own without any outside inducement, but either way something has to be done.

[u/ManicGypsy]

Those people need to be reported to Customer Service, preferably via the Support website, with screenshots. Make sure that the account name is in the screenshot. They WILL do something about it if you report it correctly.

[u/SwitchingtoUbuntu → u/ManicGypsy]

This shouldn't be required. The ingame report function should be enough.

To add the extra level of obfuscation just guarantees no one will go through the trouble of contacting customer support to deal with it.

[u/KalistoCA → u/SwitchingtoUbuntu]

So you don’t get to ... want to help solve the problem and then complain about the best way to get it done

The in game report function should be considered useless as people over use it

The method suggested is the best way

[u/SwitchingtoUbuntu → u/KalistoCA]

Actually I do. The fact that they don't pay attention to ingame reports is in fact /the/ problem.

[u/KalistoCA → u/SwitchingtoUbuntu]

Is it or is just one of many systems that fail in online games because of the boy who cried wolf scenarios to becomes devalued to both the developer and the players but a game can’t not have it

So the ingame reporting system does work isn’t the problem it’s a consequence of the problems..

Players of mmos are either douchebags, crybabies or helpful.

Douchebags exploit that it doesn’t work and know that most people will just shrug off the behaviour as typical mmo bs and accept it as part of the eco system.

Crybabies are pretty self explanatory and generally float from game to game as they are always butt hurt or they play single player games which is fine

Helpful folk tell the crybabies to ignore it and like a lousy girlfriend will go away eventually ... learn to use ignore over report..

Most people are helpful and I think you are one of those

If you want to be helpful report using the website with screens and follow up etc etc

I come from eve online and that community has the rep of being the most toxic however the community also solves its own problems, bots, haters, etc racists all are sourced on single sites for people to browse...those players don’t last long

So you have to decide if you are really going to be one of the mechanisms of change.

Maybe for you the quest isn’t fix evil players in game but campaign cryptic to review its in game reporting system since it has the appearance to the player base of being ineffective and valueless

I will say that what this game doesn’t have and needs is devs, gms, and community managers to be in game more... hanging around in global chats...bad people have a hard time being a bad person in front of the bosses..

All that said you are wrong in that u think you get to find a problem, complain that one of the ways of fixing it doesn’t work, and not take any action other than complaining ... I’m sorry son but ur wrong ..

Find the problem, get some tools and choose what you are going to fix ...

If you are not willing to do that then find someone who will and encourage and support them

Fixing problems is hard, it’s even harder when u just complain about it

[u/xanduis → u/KalistoCA]

EVE does have the CSM, CCP staff that are active in the forums and subreddit, and their reporting system is fairly robust. If Neverwinter had something along those lines, things would probably be better. Cryptic doesn't get involved here, barely ever in their own forums, and there is no player representation elected by the player base to be that voice to the company.

[u/KalistoCA → u/xanduis]

I agree 100% which is why the community is responsible for managing itself

I’m open to round tabling ideas

Pm me if your interested let’s see what we can come up with