[Suggestion] We need a report feature that tackles harassment

[Cyprien.4208]

Bullyhunters harassment not a game! All Jokes aside....

I'm sorry but no one person or group owns the right to any map. I sympathize with your situation however I don't believe the method of taking actions against people who choose not to do the same thing you're doing or for playing the game how they like is the correct action. I dislike people who spam musical instruments but who am I or anyone else to say they can't do that.

In the past when doing the triple trouble worm it's not our right or the guild right to say if you're not doing the event to please leave the map because the other people playing on the map has every right to the map as we did. As well everyone has the right to pop their own commander tags etc if they choose too and we would simple have to work around it when there wasn't any options to filter out which commands you seen.

If you enter a map like world vs world you need to have the expectations that you might die while playing a map which is created for server vs server combat. I fully understand some people may want to be "friendly" to simple collect the map however the problem is they like others might see you as simply just an enemy.

While I might could understand more if something was directed at you personally there are still problems.

[Wolfheart.7483]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"DarcShriek.5829" said:If they're not breaking any rules, then why should they be punished?

What a constructive point of view. Not. The thumbs-ups are even scarier than your contribution to this topic.

It's like the way it was with stalking in RL: "The person hasn't broken any laws, so we can't help you." So, causing other people distress (depression, fear and other unwanted psychological states) is "okay" in your book?

Everyone's limit of what would cause them distress is different. There is no way to define that universally. It's a slippery slope. There are plenty of people who get distressed over nonsensical things that are not done with any malicious intent from another person. Some people feeling distressed or being fearful is due to their own personal issues. Should those other people's actions be limited because of someone else being needlessly fragile? If you get stressed out if another player kills enemies faster than you, should the other player's DPS be capped to cater to your fragility?

If people are interfering in your RPing then I would simply suggest you block them, report them if they are being verbally abusive, and take your group into an instance and do your RP there. While I understand someone interfering in your RP is annoying, you are also doing it in an open world map which is not owned by any player or group. You can just as easily RP in an instance or a guild hall.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Wolfheart.7483 said:Everyone's limit of what would cause them distress is different.

True, that. However:

There is no way to define that universally. It's a slippery slope. There are plenty of people who get distressed over nonsensical things that are not done with any malicious intent from another person.

There is a chat log. You can see if someone was actually harassing the player(s) or not. It's pretty obvious when someone is being passive-aggressive to get a certain reaction out of someone, or interfering with their RP'ing just for the fun of being a jerk. It's as obvious as my RL example, stalking, and people should have means of protection (which I believe they already have in GW2 through the report function).

[Wolfheart.7483]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Wolfheart.7483 said:Everyone's limit of what would cause them distress is different.

True, that. However:

There is no way to define that universally. It's a slippery slope. There are plenty of people who get distressed over nonsensical things that are not done with any malicious intent from another person.

There is a chat log. You can see if someone was actually harassing the player(s) or not. It's pretty obvious when someone is being passive-aggressive to get a certain reaction out of someone, or interfering with their RP'ing just for the fun of being a jerk. It's as obvious as my RL example, stalking, and people should have means of protection (which I believe they already have in GW2 through the report function).

I understand what you're saying but there is still a lot of gray area. My point is simply that people being blatantly abusive should be punished. People just being annoying (like dancing in the middle of an RP session in the open world or something similar) should not be.

[Random Object.1298]

I've been using OBS to record troll's harassing behaviour, and warn them that the footage will reach GM hands unless they leave my friends and I alone. It's remarkably effective. The GMs know what trolling is, and they do deal with it.

[Dantert.1803]

We need RP servers with moderators, that is the only way to enjoy it..I would love to have the option to game master in Gw2 close to what was possible in Ultima...but let's be serious, they will never implement something like that, it is just not what the devs are interested in...

[Yamazuki.6073]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Vanive.3804 said:It's an online game, with other people. Unless they make a strict roleplay server, or add a feature to remove all players outside your group you will just have to deal it or find something else to play.

Actually no, it's a form of harassment, harassment doesn't only come verbally and not only is ArenaNet going to have to understand this sooner or later but so will all games companies. It's an online game, online harassment has been deemed punishable irl, it should be punishable in game as well. It's not that hard to take a screenshot, write a ticket with a detailed description and send it to support...then it's up to them to do their job.

So your saying if I want to harass your RP parades by /dance around you for a time for kicks I can be punished in RL... seems harsh, and laughable.

I think your mistaking harassment for something much, much less sinister in an online gaming environment.By your same standard then should we be calling in the police when RP players begin chucking out the, I wanna play with your kitty and other such vulgarities aimed at people around them, purely because they are in the same screen view... or do you prefer one rule for you, other rules for everyone else.

Look I don't think its cool someone purposely larking around when your playing RP stuff out, but I would imagine RL harassment runs a heck of a lot deeper than what your describing here .

By definition harassment is as simple as disturbing/annoying actions, and mostly repetitive. If you walk up to someone with the sole intention to annoy them, then yes, that is harassment. Also, yes, you can face charges for online behavior, there's been laws in place since the 90s in the US and Europe, and there have been people who were punished for their behavior while playing games, as well as social sites/forums. These situations simply don't make any headlines and are a matter of whether you mess with the wrong person or not, as well as various other factors.

I'm not even sure why you're defending deliberately annoying others.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@Yamazuki.6073 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Vanive.3804 said:It's an online game, with other people. Unless they make a strict roleplay server, or add a feature to remove all players outside your group you will just have to deal it or find something else to play.

Actually no, it's a form of harassment, harassment doesn't only come verbally and not only is ArenaNet going to have to understand this sooner or later but so will all games companies. It's an online game, online harassment has been deemed punishable irl, it should be punishable in game as well. It's not that hard to take a screenshot, write a ticket with a detailed description and send it to support...then it's up to them to do their job.

So your saying if I want to harass your RP parades by /dance around you for a time for kicks I can be punished in RL... seems harsh, and laughable.

I think your mistaking harassment for something much, much less sinister in an online gaming environment.By your same standard then should we be calling in the police when RP players begin chucking out the, I wanna play with your kitty and other such vulgarities aimed at people around them, purely because they are in the same screen view... or do you prefer one rule for you, other rules for everyone else.

Look I don't think its cool someone purposely larking around when your playing RP stuff out, but I would imagine RL harassment runs a heck of a lot deeper than what your describing here .

By definition harassment is as simple as disturbing/annoying actions, and mostly repetitive. If you walk up to someone with the sole intention to annoy them, then yes, that is harassment. Also, yes, you can face charges for online behavior, there's been laws in place since the 90s in the US and Europe, and there have been people who were punished for their behavior while playing games, as well as social sites/forums. These situations simply don't make any headlines and are a matter of whether you mess with the wrong person or not, as well as various other factors.

Harassment is a pattern of such actions, not a one-off. If I blast through the middle of your RP group on my raptor one time, that's unfortunate. If I do it every time I see you, that's harassment. If I go out of my way to do it, that's definitely harassment.

[seinka.4823]

@Yamazuki.6073 said:If you walk up to someone with the sole intention to annoy them, then yes, that is harassment.

I think you have pointed out the problem. How does ANet recognise person's intention?

[Theros.1390]

@DarcShriek.5829 said:If they're not breaking any rules, then why should they be punished?

Actually they do. Chris Cleary already said that harassment (any form) is NOT ok.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

Its stated as against the rules, so a specific report function could be useful. On the other hand a support ticket is equally valid.

I would ignore any of the other statements here who are discussing how valid such a complaint is. Support and report is there for these specific cases, any advice not to use those channels is completely illogical. If you feel its warranted, just do it.

Ofcourse it doesnt mean anything will immediately be done.

[Obtena.7952]

@Morsheira.6102 said:Blocking is only effective on the speech portion. It doesn't stop them from standing on top of you with their mounts. It doesn't stop them from spamming weapon skills (Which has audio effect too.) It doesn't stop them from doing every visibly distracting and immersion breaking thing they can think of. Yes ignoring them works to an extent, but there really should be consequences for peoples actions. The reason why trolling of RPers is such a problem (in this game and others) is because very few companies will ever do anything against people harassing RPers. If there were actually consequences, the amount of trolling would most certainly drop.

And to the person saying just RP in Party? Why should I have to 'hide' and keep my gameplay (because it is a form of gameplay) to a private channel and everyone else can spam everywhere else out however they want? RPers have just as much a place in MMO's as anyone else. Also, the Trolls will specifically go to places like the cities etc to disrupt larger scale events. So why should entire communities be forced to 'hide' because people cannot show basic respect?Bottom line is, there needs to be more people can do to report those who are harassing RPers. And GM's need to start taking it more seriously.

My first question is ... how did they identify the RP'ers in the first place to harrass them with these actions? I'm not saying RP don't have a place in the game, but somehow, these people targeted them specifically for these things ... no one has ever done this to me, or any group I'm with. For the most part, I think that unless people are in a heavily populated area, it's fairly easy to avoid having people break their space ...so either this was a random isolated incident or ... they brought attention to themselves?

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Yamazuki.6073 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@"Vanive.3804" said:It's an online game, with other people. Unless they make a strict roleplay server, or add a feature to remove all players outside your group you will just have to deal it or find something else to play.

Actually no, it's a form of harassment, harassment doesn't only come verbally and not only is ArenaNet going to have to understand this sooner or later but so will all games companies. It's an online game, online harassment has been deemed punishable irl, it should be punishable in game as well. It's not that hard to take a screenshot, write a ticket with a detailed description and send it to support...then it's up to them to do their job.

So your saying if I want to harass your RP parades by /dance around you for a time for kicks I can be punished in RL... seems harsh, and laughable.

I think your mistaking harassment for something much, much less sinister in an online gaming environment.By your same standard then should we be calling in the police when RP players begin chucking out the, I wanna play with your kitty and other such vulgarities aimed at people around them, purely because they are in the same screen view... or do you prefer one rule for you, other rules for everyone else.

Look I don't think its cool someone purposely larking around when your playing RP stuff out, but I would imagine RL harassment runs a heck of a lot deeper than what your describing here .

By definition harassment is as simple as disturbing/annoying actions, and mostly repetitive. If you walk up to someone with the sole intention to annoy them, then yes, that is harassment. Also, yes, you can face charges for online behavior, there's been laws in place since the 90s in the US and Europe, and there have been people who were punished for their behavior while playing games, as well as social sites/forums. These situations simply don't make any headlines and are a matter of whether you mess with the wrong person or not, as well as various other factors.

I'm not even sure why you're defending deliberately annoying others.

You miss the point by a country mile.. its about putting the comments the OP made into perspective.. you really think any lawyer in the land will take on a case of some random dude danced around my RP dress up parade on purpose.. cmon get some perspective on the situation.. the complaint made here by the OP is nothing short of "grow a thicker skin", when you consider the real issues and impacts of harassment... I am not sure why your defending the OP on this one.. I see far worse things going on in the game in DR or LA on almost a daily basis.. should we call in the feds???

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Morsheira.6102 said:Blocking is only effective on the speech portion. It doesn't stop them from standing on top of you with their mounts. It doesn't stop them from spamming weapon skills (Which has audio effect too.) It doesn't stop them from doing every visibly distracting and immersion breaking thing they can think of. Yes ignoring them works to an extent, but there really should be consequences for peoples actions. The reason why trolling of RPers is such a problem (in this game and others) is because very few companies will ever do anything against people harassing RPers. If there were actually consequences, the amount of trolling would most certainly drop.

And to the person saying just RP in Party? Why should I have to 'hide' and keep my gameplay (because it is a form of gameplay) to a private channel and everyone else can spam everywhere else out however they want? RPers have just as much a place in MMO's as anyone else. Also, the Trolls will specifically go to places like the cities etc to disrupt larger scale events. So why should entire communities be forced to 'hide' because people cannot show basic respect?Bottom line is, there needs to be more people can do to report those who are harassing RPers. And GM's need to start taking it more seriously.

My first question is ... how did they identify the RP'ers in the first place to harrass them with these actions? I'm not saying RP don't have a place in the game, but somehow, these people targeted them specifically for these things ... no one has ever done this to me, or any group I'm with. For the most part, I think that unless people are in a heavily populated area, it's fairly easy to avoid having people break their space ...so either this was a random isolated incident or ... they brought attention to themselves?

Exactly.. and I asked this early on in the thread, but the OP decided it was not worthy to tell us or show us.. it often takes two .. but even so from what the OP has said this pales into insignificance when comparing to genuine harassment.. and then to start throwing in the legal stuff with it.... hmmm.

Sorry Op, as I said RP has it's place in this game and any online fantasy game for sure, but we all know there are many occasions the RP community bring attention to themselves for the wrong reasons.. so let ANET see your evidence and let the rocks fall as they may..If this was a genuine case of online harassment then I am pretty sure it would of already been dealt with as I can't believe ANET would sit on something of that kind of serious nature.. or maybe there is something else we're not being told here.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@"Bloodstealer.5978" said:we all know there are many occasions the RP community bring attention to themselves for the wrong reasons

Without getting into a debate about what those "wrong reasons" might be (mostly because it is other people's intentions, but also because I'm genuinely not interested), we might start by considering how they bring attention to themselves.

So what do they do that brings attention to themselves?

• Their behaviour in-game is distinctive. They use the RP-walk command outside of contexts like walking slowly beside the ox-of-burden that goes to Claypool. They stand around in pubs, streets, and so on, and of course I'm not talking about the people standing outside the main bank in DR.
• They fill /say with their RP lines.

The first is unavoidable. In a game where everyone runs around to do stuff, and the majority seem to be in a permanent hurry to go to the next thing they have to do, RP-walking stands out like a very obvious thing.

The second is unavoidable because GW2's chat system lacks a feature that's in e.g. SWTOR's chat system: custom channels. You create a channel, invite the people you want into it, and RP away to your heart's content. It's not party or squad chat, and it's not guild chat either. Manipulating the "which channels are shown" features of the chat panel allows you to not hear the equivalent of /map and /say, and to not fill /map and/or /say with your lines, but still be heard by your fellows. The result is that someone passing sort of near you won't hear the lines and won't know that you are in that building RPing.

Of course, in an ideal world, it wouldn't matter that the RPer wants to RP "publically", since nobody would bother him. Reality intervenes again, of course, and it very much does matter whether you RP publically or privately. It would be a useful thing for such activities if GW2 had custom chat channels.

Caveat lector: in SWTOR, there are still plenty of RP groups who RP in /say, so this isn't a guaranteed panacea.

[Obtena.7952]

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

@"Bloodstealer.5978" said:we all know there are many occasions the RP community bring attention to themselves for the wrong reasons

Without getting into a debate about what those "wrong reasons" might be (mostly because it is other people's intentions, but also because I'm genuinely not interested), we might

start

by considering

how

they bring attention to themselves.

So what do they do that brings attention to themselves?

• Their behaviour in-game is distinctive. They use the RP-walk command outside of contexts like walking slowly beside the ox-of-burden that goes to Claypool. They stand around in pubs, streets, and so on, and of course I'm not talking about the people standing outside the main bank in DR.
• They fill /say with their RP lines.

The first is unavoidable. In a game where everyone runs around to do stuff, and the majority seem to be in a permanent hurry to go to the next thing they have to do, RP-walking stands out like a very obvious thing.

The second is unavoidable because GW2's chat system lacks a feature that's in e.g. SWTOR's chat system: custom channels. You create a channel, invite the people you want into it, and RP away to your heart's content. It's not party or squad chat, and it's not guild chat either. Manipulating the "which channels are shown" features of the chat panel allows you to not hear the equivalent of /map and /say, and to not fill /map and/or /say with your lines, but still be heard by your fellows. The result is that someone passing sort of near you won't hear the lines and won't know that you are in that building RPing.

Of course, in an ideal world, it wouldn't matter that the RPer wants to RP "publically", since nobody would bother him. Reality intervenes again, of course, and it very much does matter whether you RP publically or privately. It would be a useful thing for such activities if GW2 had custom chat channels.

Caveat lector: in SWTOR, there are still plenty of RP groups who RP in /say, so this isn't a guaranteed panacea.

I'm not convinced ... as I said, UNLESS they are in heavily populated areas, someone would have to go out of their way to find these players and harass them; that's a pretty hard thing to do .. imagine running around a zone looking for people doing /say and trying to sell each other soap or whatever they RP about. They don't use the chat system (or shouldn't be while they are in character). They are actually pretty inconspicuous so unless they are telling you where they are (why would they be doing that?), they are pretty hard to see and find.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

@"Bloodstealer.5978" said:we all know there are many occasions the RP community bring attention to themselves for the wrong reasons

Without getting into a debate about what those "wrong reasons" might be (mostly because it is other people's intentions, but also because I'm genuinely not interested), we might

start

by considering

how

they bring attention to themselves.

So what do they do that brings attention to themselves?

• Their behaviour in-game is distinctive. They use the RP-walk command outside of contexts like walking slowly beside the ox-of-burden that goes to Claypool. They stand around in pubs, streets, and so on, and of course I'm not talking about the people standing outside the main bank in DR.
• They fill /say with their RP lines.

The first is unavoidable. In a game where everyone runs around to do stuff, and the majority seem to be in a permanent hurry to go to the next thing they have to do, RP-walking stands out like a very obvious thing.

The second is unavoidable because GW2's chat system lacks a feature that's in e.g. SWTOR's chat system: custom channels. You create a channel, invite the people you want into it, and RP away to your heart's content. It's not party or squad chat, and it's not guild chat either. Manipulating the "which channels are shown" features of the chat panel allows you to not hear the equivalent of /map and /say, and to not fill /map and/or /say with your lines, but still be heard by your fellows. The result is that someone passing sort of near you won't hear the lines and won't know that you are in that building RPing.

Of course, in an ideal world, it wouldn't matter that the RPer wants to RP "publically", since nobody would bother him. Reality intervenes again, of course, and it very much does matter whether you RP publically or privately. It would be a useful thing for such activities if GW2 had custom chat channels.

Caveat lector: in SWTOR, there are still plenty of RP groups who RP in /say, so this isn't a guaranteed panacea.

That benign behaviour is not what draws attention predominantly.. its the more maligned stuff.. hence why I asked early on, what were they doing.If they believe they are being harassed I would of thought a screenie or video would of been a must thing to send to anet with their ticket.. but as yet not even an explanation of what they were doing.I agree, as I have also said having things like a specific RP server is gold for this situation.. but at the end of the day we know nothing of the nature of this complaint, just one side.. which is why I find it strange the OP brought IT here without some proof of the issue.. best to of dealt direct with ANET.

[Neural.1824]

Ah, the wonderful community of GW2.

A thread is posted asking Arenanet to enforce their own rules and show some support for human decency.Thread immediately flooded by literary vomit justifying a "right" to ruin the game for others.

[Despond.2174]

No because people then start lowering their requirements and interpretation of what is REALLY harassment and not just over-sensitivity. Reporting and blocking is fine. If you put in too many measures you then get a situation where the solution is worse than a problem. It's one of these things that are just human nature that you have to deal with. Anything EXTREME and BLATANT will be usually punished.

GW2 chat system is limited and makes RPing a lot harder. But the game isn't balanced around RPing, so you have to expect unwanted attention if you're /saying about. I am just trying to be realistic here, and overall RPing in GW2 is 100x better than other MMOs. Nothing is perfect, but GW2 is the closest to it without being overly strict.

You have to moderate with the average human tolerance in mind. I think a better solution would be like someone else suggested with private chat channels with more functions etc.

[Felipe.1807]

Wow, people wasted 1~3 hours just to harrass you, damn thats some dedication man lol...anyway, dont think theres a way that you can stop this kind of behavior from players, but theres a few things you can do...like most RPs that i saw, usualy use chat commands that go like emotes...whats up with that? Why not make a party or squad or whatver and use that to communicate? This way nobody will know what you are doing, which means, no harrasment...other way to avoid this...go to instace, nobody other then the people in group will be there, i know that this isnt a ideal solution, but its something...you can also try to go to other map instance and dodge the trolls...i mean, you also gotta se the other side, i know people that legit get annoyed when they see RP on the chat...should they have the right to get offended as well and report you guys?

[Obtena.7952]

@"Neural.1824" said:Ah, the wonderful community of GW2.

A thread is posted asking Arenanet to enforce their own rules and show some support for human decency.Thread immediately flooded by literary vomit justifying a "right" to ruin the game for others.

AH, no ... I think it's important to understand the problem ... to be honest, I don 't think there are roaming bands of gangs looking to ruin the game for RPers ... so the incident is either 1) completely random or 2) coerced in some way. As I said, it's not like everywhere you go, there are RPers announcing themselves and goading people into harassing them. I understand their desire to be given space. I also understand we share the world with others.

[Morsheira.6102]

The problem is a common one across all games. And yes. There are people who specifically run around looking for RPers to Troll. I have seen forums where people literally talk about trying to run RPers off the game because they perceive RPers as being 'lame' and 'game ruining' and that they should go do their 'nerd hobby' somewhere else if not assuming that all we do is write smut, and thus are a 'disgusting plague'.There are people who just stumble across RPers and choose to stop what they're doing to mock/troll/harrass RPers. This isn't a GW2 exclusive thing. There is honest real hate against RPers there and there are people who literally go out of their way to try to Run RPers off.Rpers have no problem sharing space and the world with others, but there is a very vocal percentage of the population that resents the fact that we even exist in the same space they do.I don't know how better to explain the situation as a whole to other people past many likely do not see the problem because they are not at the receiving end of it because they themselves do not RP.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Obtena.7952 said:I'm not convinced ... as I said, UNLESS they are in heavily populated areas, someone would have to go out of their way to find these players and harass them; that's a pretty hard thing to do

I think you are significantly underestimating how easy they are to find, because the locations are commonly, well, not randomly the middle of nowhere. Add in the fact that /say has a long, long range, and it doesn't take much to stumble across RP in the game. I often do, for example, just randomly around various cities. (Consider: how many real life things happen where you meet for a party ... in the middle of nowhere, miles from anyone? How much trade negotiation happens there?)

I'm pretty confident you are also underestimating just how dedicated some people are to making others miserable.

[artemis.6781]

I don't mind RPers. But what I don't care for is the public orgies. I ran across this in LA a couple of nights ago when I was plopping my norn butt in 42 chairs. So yeah when you start that, people are going to harass you. If you want to do that, start a party or pop a tag (make it invite only).

[Obtena.7952]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:I'm not convinced ... as I said, UNLESS they are in heavily populated areas, someone would have to

go out of their way

to find these players and harass them; that's a pretty hard thing to do

I think you are significantly underestimating how easy they are to find, because the locations are commonly, well, not randomly the middle of nowhere. Add in the fact that /say has a long, long range, and it doesn't take much to stumble across RP in the game. I often do, for example, just randomly around various cities. (Consider: how many real life things happen where you meet for a party ... in the middle of nowhere, miles from anyone? How much trade negotiation happens there?)

I'm pretty confident you are also underestimating just how dedicated some people are to making others miserable.

That's nice you think that. The fact is really that there actually IS a way to report harassment ... not even sure why this thread exists.