Do you punish verbal abuse in your game?

Hey, Anet. I today used your shiny report button, because a player started insulting people in wvw. He used the whole vocabulary from racism, all standard insults about mothers, used nazi slang, you name it.The same guy did this some days ago and was reported for it.

Still this guy runs around on the same account as before, using the same insults and it doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Your own Code of Conduct is pretty clear about this.

1 While playing Guild Wars 2, 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, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players. This includes posting insulting, offensive, or abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, reporting players maliciously, attacking a player based on race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated.

6 You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws or regulations.

For some of the things he said he clearly violated German laws (based on his language knowledge he is German himself)

What really interests me is:

1) Do you even read those reports? Do your GameMasters understand that words like "Untermensch" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch) are not only a bannable offense in your game but may have legal consequences in certain countries?2) What has someone to do to lose his account for this kind of behaviour? It's in no way acceptable that this guy is running around on a regular basis spamming the global chats with that stuff without being punished severly.

Maybe he had a temp ban or got a warning during those "some days". Not all offenses result in a permanent ban after the first offense.

Unless you reported him in the past it could also be a case of people think someone else will report him because it's an obvious case. The bystander affect. "Someone else surely reported it and I don't want to report the same thing."

You can read Dev (and other) responses about reporting players in the General Discussion sub-forum.

Good luck.

Based on the fact that he is online and playing pvp, I guess those "report player buttons" don't do stuff.

It can take weeks for them to get around to reports, and the ban can range from a few hours as a warning, up to a few days. The more they're banned, the longer it gets. Languages other than English are probably also slower and easier to fall through.

That's unacceptable. I understand that checking such stuff can take time, but weeks to check a chat log? Even if there a 200 reports, a normal person reads them in less than an hour. It's not rocket science to see if "hey #@!" is an insult or not. They even have a filter for insults.

@"shagwell.1349" said:That's unacceptable. I understand that checking such stuff can take time, but weeks to check a chat log? Even if there a 200 reports, a normal person reads them in less than an hour. It's not rocket science to see if "hey #@!" is an insult or not. They even have a filter for insults.

We can only speculate about how things are happened. But based on what I know,There is much more to it. They are taking action against an account. This person bought the game and payed for it. Locking him out means he doesn’t get what he payed for. So arenanet needs to document and take measures with care. In short. It takes more the mouse click.

To speculate more. I imagine the game file of an account helps (second offenders might be reviewed quicker). People with more reports might be handled quicker. (Side note, getting others to report as well is harassment and against the ToS as well).

So let’s turn it around. When the person never before misbehaved, and you are the only one who took offense. Why not take two weeks? I don’t want to diminish your negative experience. But if this person does it all the time, he would rank higher. If he was punished before as well (again, this is speculating on how it works)

@"shagwell.1349" said:Hey, Anet. I today used your shiny report button, because a player started insulting people in wvw. He used the whole vocabulary from racism, all standard insults about mothers, used kitten slang, you name it.The same guy did this some days ago and was reported for it.

Still this guy runs around on the same account as before, using the same insults and it doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Your own Code of Conduct is pretty clear about this.

1 While playing Guild Wars 2, 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, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players. This includes posting insulting, offensive, or abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, reporting players maliciously, attacking a player based on race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated.

6 You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws or regulations.

For some of the things he said he clearly violated German laws (based on his language knowledge he is German himself)

What really interests me is:

1) Do you even read those reports? Do your GameMasters understand that words like "Untermensch" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch) are not only a bannable offense in your game but may have legal consequences in certain countries?2) What has someone to do to lose his account for this kind of behaviour? It's in no way acceptable that this guy is running around on a regular basis spamming the global chats with that stuff without being punished severly.

Gaile just described a bit more, how the report system works in this thread

@"shagwell.1349" said:That's unacceptable. I understand that checking such stuff can take time, but weeks to check a chat log? Even if there a 200 reports, a normal person reads them in less than an hour. It's not rocket science to see if "hey #@!" is an insult or not. They even have a filter for insults.

@"shagwell.1349" said:That's unacceptable. I understand that checking such stuff can take time, but weeks to check a chat log? Even if there a 200 reports, a normal person reads them in less than an hour. It's not rocket science to see if "hey #@!" is an insult or not. They even have a filter for insults.

It's not weeks to check a chat log. What's more important, banning that guy, or helping someone who can't access their account actually play the game? That's the issue. There's not just a queue of people looking to see if a player is misbehaving. There's no one separate staff for that. It's part of a customer service thing that takes time because there are lots and lots of tickets for all sorts of stuff. Tickets directed to Anet probably get priority. In game reporting more likely gets put on a list that gets worked down slowly as time permits.

They're not going to drop everything to ban an offensive player immediately. They'll get to it when they get to it. Not sure how that's unacceptable.

Edit: It's not like people can't simply click on his name and block him.

Please feel free to review this thread on the same subject, and if you have questions, add them into the existing thread.