In a few of the recent threads on the other forum, there has been a lot of talk about submitting petitions against bad actors, and I am not talking about Charlie Sheen.
At what point do YOU feels it’s appropriate to submit a petition about someone’s behavior?
Chat - I would rarely petition about someone. I could simply ignore them. However, when it’s gets brutal, I might /report the person, mostly around racist or sexist comments towards others.
Kill-stealing/Camp-breaking - I would probably not petition, unless it was intentional and on-going to the point of griefing, such as purposefully following me from place to place and serving no purpose other than causing me agony. However, I have seen other posters act like they would petition every time someone “stole” their kill.
Names - I really can’t think of a time that I would report a name. It’s just not important to me. But, I know of others that feel the need to police this idea.
Cheating/botting - I think I would have to be very sure before I reported this. Sometimes, people just play a certain way. I know there have been times when I play with my wife and 5 kids and people tried to claim we were botting. Mostly, because the kids would play ranged classes and just have me on /follow. But, they would otherwise be controlling the toons.
Gold-selling/farming - I look at these two as separate items. I would report a gold seller in a heartbeat. But, a gold farmer, that’s just another way to play the game. Of course, when the gold farmer starts selling gold, that’s a difference story.
Thoughts? Any other circumstances?
Chat: LIfe threatning comments such as suicide, or (RL) harm to others.
Kill-stealing: Not worth the time, it's gonna happen.
Camp-breaking: Repeated (deliberate) training of mobs, or otherwise being a general ****** with the intention of destroying others enjoyment of the game.
Names: Sexual inuendos that are especialy vulgar.
Cheating: Will report every time.
Botting: If they are running an entire group and are being a disruptive bunch.
Gold-selling/farming: Will report every time.
Chat - Only when it involves realistic threats or the most extreme griefing. I couldn't care less if you are racist, so long as you aren't making important decisions based off of that racism (most people in chat probably aren't making important decisions).
Kill-stealing/Camp-breaking - I can't assume that when I see it done to another it wasn't planned by both parties, so most of the time I can only really report it when it is done to me. That said, I will probably be the guy who reports it every time it is done. We all choose our fights, and as a loving soloer/duoer who prefers to camp something when it is around my level, the fight against kill steals/camp breaks performed by high levels, trolls, and/or groups is my fight. A soloer in a casual guild usually can't get the community on his side enough for any of that "self policing community" stuff to really work, but if the offender is in a big guild I might report him to his officers instead.
Names - Probably won't bother unless I'm rping on an rp server, and the guy makes an unimmersive arse of himself. Reporting for sexuality in a game based around justified murder seems slightly ridiculous imo.
Cheating/botting - I view this kind of thing as something that needs lots of attention from devs, simply because we the players will rarely have the resources to confirm it. Hence, I will report it even if I only suspect it vaguely. Best to get it out of the way before it potentially gets out of hand.
Gold-selling/farming - Farming is a darn swell part of the game usually, but I do look askance at a high level who farms something when low levels who want to farm it are around. Where most people say you should get to a really high level before farming something, I think it's more fun to try farming it when you are leveled with it, and I don't like it when players make that fun unrealistic. I don't think I'd report the high level farmer of low level items, though, simply because I doubt the game will have rules against him.
While I can't claim to understand everyone's RL circumstances, gold selling is pretty dubious, and I will report related spam because that is obvious. In most situations I probably won't even suspect that it is happening, though. Between twinks and a good in game market place players shouldn't have too much trouble getting lots of gold if they really want it, so there won't be many obvious tells that a gold selling transaction took place.
Chat - it has to be really bad - I am sadly used to toxic chat channels dominated by trolls and 10-year olds and just disregard most of what is said.
Kill stealing or camp stealing. Cannot say without knowing the official rules. If someone is rude but doesn't violate the official code of conduct, just a waste of my time and, more importantly, VR's time to report them.
Names. I will report names that are offensive and violate the official naming policy. I may report names that aren't offensive and violate the official naming policy. I will be a lot more likely to go out of my way to report names on a roleplaying server but offensive names should be reported anywhere if they actually violate the rules.
Cheating I probably wouldn't even notice - botting I would be more likely to and will first try to talk to the suspected bot. Keep in mind that it will probably be perfectly acceptable under the rules to multibox as long as all characters are under manual not automated control. And being on autofollow counts as manual control. So you cannot tell by looking that 4 characters obviously run by a single player are an example of botting.
Farming is part of the game. A level 50 farming mobs in a level 5 area and making life miserable for the lower levels is annoying but probably won't violate any rules, so nothing to report. Goldspammers will be instantly reported by so many people it hardly matters but I certainly will report them if I don't think it is redundant.
Beefcake said: ... Thoughts? Any other circumstances?
I wouldn't /report or /petition anything because I've never seen a report or peition DO anything. For me and mine, it's a waste of time both for us and the company involved.
One particular case in point; A wizard in our guild found the Broken Golem up in Fear, after another guild had cleared some of the base pick of the zone many hours previously. Awesome, here's his chance to get his epic piece, so our guild assembles, and we zone in.
About 5 minutes after we appear in the zone, a much larger and less reputable guild shows up, and they all come and stand next to the Broken Golem. We ask them what's up, no response. Ok, we engage, and get the Broken Golem down to about 75%. At this point, the other guild starts attacking, pulls the mob away, kills it, and then destroys all the loot it has, including the epic quest piece. Their super-friendly bards then gather all the other respawns/mobs in the zone and train us all repeatedly so we all die, and once more after we're doing CR. Doesn't seem very nice, but ok.
Our entire guild /petitions, /reports and opens web tickets. Many submitted screenshots and videos. Absolutely nothing was done. The response? No rules were broken. No-one cheated. No-one hacked. No-one broke the TOS or EULA.
Okay then. :) I don't see how Pantheons TOS or EULA would be any different under those circumstances, so, no /petition from me.
Chat: There would have to be some form of persistent bullying or griefing for me to report someone in a chat. For the most part, people playing an MMO need to be adult enough that they can sort out the majority of this stuff on their own. A blacklist, block, or mute option will undoubtedly exist. Use it. The major exception to this would be if I had visual or audio proof of someone placing another player's life in danger, but in 20 years of online gaming I have never witnessed something like this. (Thank goodness.)
Kill-stealing: This is entirely subject to the rules of the game. Even then, it's a question of whether a person or group is maliciously invading an area that another player or group is already using. This is another thing that I have never really seen become a big problem. At launch I'm sure certain key enemies will be a pain to kill, but since we're not running off a "!" system there won't be as much need for every single player to bring back The Ogre King's Head or something of that nature. There will be ideal spots to set up camps and grind for XP, and there will be times when those are busy. But as long as we have options on where to level and don't see an over-population of specific areas, especially at lower levels when traveling is more dangerous, I think we'll be all right.
Names: While I place a lot of individual value on good names, I'm not likely to be the one who reports people for them. I'll send something in if a name is explicitly inappropriate or racist since that reflects badly on the game and the community, but unless you're on an RP server--in which case you should know better!--I'm not going to be upset by characters like Bagel Man or a duo that has named themselves Cookies and Cream that constantly run around together. (Bagelman was actually my bf's original LOTRO character, but he ended up switching to Arogrim when he rerolled as a different class. Did I tease him? Yes. Report him? No. But the name was ridiculous and he still hasn't lived it down. :p ) I suppose that not noticing every single character name instantly is one of the pluses of having vision issues.
Cheating: This would have to be something I knew someone was doing beyond the shadow of a doubt and be able to prove. It would also have to be something that I felt was actually having a specific impact on the community at large. Cheating is a serious allegation within a gaming community and should not be thrown around lightly.
Botting: As with many of my answers, it would depend on the rules of the game and how the 'bots' were impacting my experience. The likelyhood of me, personally, reporting this is pretty small because I normally don't notice this kind of stuf. Sometimes my bf will point out what he 'thinks' might be a bot in a game, but it's the sort of thing wyhere I have to wonder 'Can you ever be sure?', which makes catching those actually doing something wrong much more difficult.
Gold-selling: If you spam my screen with gold selling ads or dare to whisper me trying to get me to buy gold, I can guarantee you will get reported. If I wanted gold--which I generally don't as it is normally against most games' TOS--I would contact a seller. I do not like being harrassed. I have absolutely no problem with obtaining gold or items if it is legal within a game. With regard to Pantheon, I'm 99.9% sure this is something we, as a community, do NOT want. That's why I feel so strongly about this here. Allowing players to get 'gold on demand' lessens the value of a game's currency, causes inflation in a game's economy, and ultiumately makes it much more difficult for any player(s) that start the game in question down the road.
Farming: This is generally not something that requires reporting. It is moreso something the community can / should police or that should receive some form of control from the design of the game itself. There are many ways someone can 'farm' in an MMO and in and of itself farming is not necessarily bad. What becomes a problem is when high level players block lower level players from accessing parts of the economy that were designed for their use. Even this is complicated: at lower levels and while a game is active, this kind of 'swooping in and picking an area bare' can be maddening. But later in a game's lifespan, when less new people are coming through, there can be materials or drops that are still needed by the playerbase as a whole. It makes defining a solution to the problem very complicated.
Chat - Insults of harassment, of me or anyone else. I tend to think multiple petitions of the same case are taken more seriously.
Kill-stealing/Camp-breaking - Repetitive behaviour or evident maneuver, while I can stand some accident or a dull situation where the ownership of a mob/drop isn't clear, someone doing it on purpose should have actions taken against him.
Names - Only insult or stupid sexual innuendo. I don't care about jokey names (like Stabby McStabb), except on roleplay servers.
Cheating/botting - Every case of botting, simply because it breaks the game, whether in difficulty, patience, or resilience. Rewards are here to compensate a hard track of some sort, withouth the track shall come no reward.
Gold-selling/farming - Every case, it breaks the game mid to long term, making the economy inflate faster than it should and in a year or so, money is just 90% obtained from botting and going from hand to hand, while nothing remain with a decent price.
Chat - I'm a big boy. If someone is abusive or whatever, I'll simply put them on ignore. If I was in a group where there was perhaps a minor involved, I might petition extreme bullying on their behalf either as corroboration or because I felt they were unable to respond appropriately. There's no room in any game for RL threats. I would instantly petition if I witnessed it. That's the sort of thing which needs to be escalated to VR.
Kill/Camp stealing - Only if involved first-hand. I normally try to work things out with the other party. Usually, an arrangement can be made to split camps, work together, random for loot, etc... If someone pulls the silent trick, won't respond to tells and just takes the spawn, I would petition.
Names - On an RP server, I'll be the first to petition Lordbigsword. On normal servers, I don't care how silly your name is, so long as it's something a minor can say out loud without getting a slap from their Dad. I would petition celebrity names when done in bad taste, such as leaving "David Bowie's Corpse" lying at the city gate.
Cheating/Exploits - I'd have to be fairly confident that it was a deliberate cheat and I'd try to talk to the player first. I don't have a lot of tolerance for cheating, so I'm likely to petition if it's repeated and deliberate.
Botting - Not a problem if they are botting. I don't really care unless VR changes their policy. It's only a problem if they are disrupting a zone, in which case I would treat them the same as any other group.
RMT Spammers - Reported instantly and every time I see it.
Farming - AKA, playing the game. I don't see an issue. It would be courteous that if a high-level person was maybe alone in a low-level zone and a level-appropriate grouped arrived to get experience or quest, that you step aside and let them do so. I don't think being a selfish donkey is petitionable.
Chat - Subjective. It gives me insight as to the character behind the character, sometimes the discussion is funny. if too dramatic I will ignore. if life threatening, then escalate.
Kill-stealing/Camp-breaking - *sigh* if they wont talk to me or acknowledge me, I will go somewhere else. I am usually passive and play the patience game.
Names - it breaks the fourth wall a bit for me, but don't be annoyed at the nickname I choose for you. if you call yourself A**munch I'll call you "munchy"
Cheating - if I know, undeniably, what it looks like, I will report.
Botting - If you can do it I dont mind. I have grouped with small botters and we had fun and talked with the "main". I prefer one character, myself, because of reputation.
Gold-selling - if blatantly RMT I hope there is form to check a box by the char so that VR team can gather data. I could be wrong but stats dont lie. (P99 team is really good at this*cheer*)
Farming - I try to act responsibly regarding TS items but I dont see what could stop a higher level from dominating a zone full of newbies for spiderling silks. Likewise I dont see that as a reportable issue. However, farming items like flaming sword of uberness over and over again, I would suspect RMT for those items because how much steak can you eat? But a guild with a raid boss on "farm status" that is different still, that is more PR to me as players may consider joining the guild because the guild has established a means of getting a flaming swopd of uberness that I might like on my char.
As many have said we wouldnt notice many of these.
Chat: If you use racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic slurs you get a report. General foul language i dont care. People go on about how /ignore will be in the game and thats great, but somethings dont belong in the public sphere and should be punished
Ksing: It happens. I play on PVP servers so generally the answer to ksing is to kill them or get someone who can.
Names: Pretty much never. I dont think i saw a single name in eq1 i would have reported for considering the filter they had kept out many of the sexual inuendo names
Cheating/botting: Like others have said i probably wouldnt be able to see the first and the second i would report. If it's one guy running around with one box probably not, but if its anything like eq 1 is now you bet your ass i will report.
Goldselling/farming: The first goes without saying. the second is a part of the game
In PVP
Corpse camping: nothing destroys a game faster than this
Faction exploiting: as i have mentioned elsewhere this is when you have high faction and exploit it to deliberatly make others lose experience.
Training: hard to tell but people do get a reputation. Once you have that reputation if you train you get reported (assuming training is against the rules which i think it is based on what they have said in streams).
I usually only bother a GM if one of two things tends to happens:
1. There's a problem in-game that I can't solve myself (vanishing inventory items, glitched out and can't move with no way of escaping, or any game breaking issues that may require divine intervention of a GM).
2. There's a legit problem with a player that becomes a repeating issue that I can do nothing about (repeated intentional training, botting (not to be confused with boxing), or dealing with harassment when /ignore fails (Not talking insults or lude emoting here as I don't offend easily). This can be the player following you around, getting in the way a group's progress, or intentionally trying to cause problems for you or your group in any number of ways. If said player should accidently fall off a cliff or die from a creative enchanter's mez and mind wipe of a mob in close proximity (accidentally, of course ;) ), bothering a GM will not be necessary.)
On the subject of RMT and gold spammers. I detest these with the burning fury of a thousand suns. So at launch what I would like to see is Pantheon already have some solid chat filters in place to detect the silliness that is RMT advertising spam as it often renders chat channels unusable and also add a right click and report as spam that also ignores that player at the same time, maybe even squelch that player if enough reports come in. Then they can have a guide or GM gradually go through the reported list and clean up those nuisances as needed.
In every MMORPG I have played there's always a lot of gold spam. However, some have managed to get a pretty good handle on it, but those little script runners are crafty as they always come back with some variant of their ad typed up in some wacky way to circumvent the filter. So adding the above can allow the team to still get to these and get them off our screen while at the same time not filling the petition box with spam reports.