Silenced Again!

biffsmackwell · July 2012

So, I got silenced again today.

The best part? I've been at work since 10am, and just got home around 9:30pm. Yep, I was silenced when I wasn't even playing.

Anyway, if anyone wanted to talk to me in-game, I'll get back to you in 20 hours, 40 minutes, and 39 seconds!

drainbamaged1 · July 2012

Did someone say something?....

Seriously, that sucks man. Damn abuse of an unnecessary feature...

haleakala · July 2012

So, you survived the Forumpocalypse, but not the Chatbanpocalypse.

jonsills · July 2012

I'm sorry, whoever silenced Smacky again, but Wolverine does suck as a character. He's the biggest Mary Sue this side of Wesley Crusher, with a "quirky" oft-ignored accent to boot. And his powers aren't that special either.

Or did they decide to silence you over something else this time?

biffsmackwell · July 2012

jonsills wrote: »

I'm sorry, whoever silenced Smacky again, but Wolverine does suck as a character. He's the biggest Mary Sue this side of Wesley Crusher, with a "quirky" oft-ignored accent to boot. And his powers aren't that special either.

Or did they decide to silence you over something else this time?

No clue. The ban happened around 7pm, and though I do frequent a chat channel through Pidgin, I hadn't said anything in there since around 5pm. So I got ignored or reported for spam while I was nowhere near the game.

But yeah, Wolverine sucks!

ashensnow · July 2012

biffsmackwell wrote: »

But yeah, Wolverine sucks!

I am outraged.

You are completely mistaken. I cannot believe you would make such a ridiculous claim.

Everyone knows that Wolverine blows.

ukatoenasni · July 2012

The poor Smacky.

This is really something that Cryptic needs to get on the ball about.

secksegai · July 2012

biffsmackwell wrote: »

So, I got silenced again today.

The best part? I've been at work since 10am, and just got home around 9:30pm. Yep, I was silenced when I wasn't even playing.

Anyway, if anyone wanted to talk to me in-game, I'll get back to you in 20 hours, 40 minutes, and 39 seconds!

Yeah, that report spam feature really works.... on people who typically don't deserve it. Now if I could only see it work on people that do....

meredyredleaf · July 2012

That'll teach you, you Kid Moderator!
I bet you tried to sell Globals for real money!
Hell, I bet you're one of those nasty Russian hackers!
Ban hiiiim, ban hiiiim!!!

Seriously PWE-tic... think you can remove that damn ban-power from players hands already?
*sigh* Like placing a loaded gun in a child's hands...

cybersoldier1981 · July 2012

Hello!

Thank you for contacting us. Our servers are outfitted with a functionality that temporarily suspends chat privileges from players who have been flagged in violation of chat policies or for spamming. If you have received a server silence you will need to wait for it to expire before you will be able to chat again.

Policies are available online:
Champions Online: http://support.crypticstudios.com/champions_online#answers.382
Star Trek Online: http://support.crypticstudios.com/startrekonline#answers.348

Thank you for your patience and understanding with this.

That is what I got. Seriously? NO CRAP YOU HAVE THIS FEATURE. SAID FEATURE IS A PROBLEM. WAKE UP PLEASE.

towershield · July 2012

cybersoldier1981 wrote: »

Hello!

Thank you for contacting us. Our servers are outfitted with a functionality that temporarily suspends chat privileges from players who have been flagged in violation of chat policies or for spamming. If you have received a server silence you will need to wait for it to expire before you will be able to chat again.

Policies are available online:
Champions Online: http://support.crypticstudios.com/champions_online#answers.382
Star Trek Online: http://support.crypticstudios.com/startrekonline#answers.348

Thank you for your patience and understanding with this.

That is what I got. Seriously? NO CRAP YOU HAVE THIS FEATURE. SAID FEATURE IS A PROBLEM. WAKE UP PLEASE.

Is that a ticket reply? I'm awestruck if that's the case.

khoraxgator · July 2012

So what they're saying is that you purposefully violated policies while you weren't even logged in. Hmm.. Sounds like slander and libel. You'd think that they would try to ensure they research these claims, and not leave it up to automated and cut-paste replies. It's clear that they are severely understaffed for actually trying to run a real MMORPG.

cybersoldier1981 · July 2012

shieldtower wrote: »

Is that a ticket reply? I'm awestruck if that's the case.

Yes it is. About.. a week after it happened, too. What slaps me in the face is how it's not even addressed.

If someone is spamming, put them on ignore.

If someone is using naughty words, put them on ignore or use the profanity filter.

If someone is harassing you, send a ticket.

When someone does neither- the staff should not be simply saying 'Hey yeah lol we made this thing that does that but in 24 hours you can talk again, so don't spam like a douche or whatever'.

leatherhead0 · July 2012

So I see your forum name had to be changed too.

Oh nuts, I don't get to be a devslayer anymore.

And how did you all get custom avatars?

itsbrou · July 2012

Wolverine SUCKS!

klitty · July 2012

Oh, this sucks :C

Obviously these guys are working together and clearly exploiting this "feature".

I hope this get fixed soon.

Also, I'm a wolverine and I find this offensive!

neuraldamage · July 2012

meredyredleaf wrote: »

Seriously PWE-tic... think you can remove that damn ban-power from players hands already?
*sigh* Like placing a loaded gun in a child's hands...

I don't know, I mean I hate to be the Devil's Advocate or Voice of Reason or whatever.

But...

Every time some moron starts trolling Zone Chat with stories about how gay they are, in extremely graphic detail, I'm happy that feature exists and encourage everyone to use it.

That crap does not belong in a game where kids are playing and maybe a little timeout will get that point across. :eek:

Sorry you got caught in it, but maybe you should make yourself less of a target?

jonsills · July 2012

Cyber, if enough people put you on Ignore, that'll mute you too. It's just that usually, you have to be in chat, doing something annoying, for either of those conditions to apply, and apparently Smacky was logged into the reality sidegame at that time.

itsbrou · July 2012

neuraldamage wrote: »

I don't know, I mean I hate to be the Devil's Advocate or Voice of Reason or whatever.

But...

Every time some moron starts trolling Zone Chat with stories about how gay they are, in extremely graphic detail, I'm happy that feature exists and encourage everyone to use it.

That crap does not belong in a game where kids are playing and maybe a little timeout will get that point across. :eek:

Sorry you got caught in it, but maybe you should make yourself less of a target?

Hey. It happens to be very important how many times they chew their morning cheerios.

cybersoldier1981 · July 2012

jonsills wrote: »

Cyber, if enough people put you on Ignore, that'll mute you too. It's just that usually, you have to be in chat, doing something annoying, for either of those conditions to apply, and apparently Smacky was logged into the reality sidegame at that time.

The thing is, it was exactly NOT that. When this went down, I was talking with some friends. A random toon in the Holo Hex armor flies in as soon as a I post something in character, and that's when it hit.

And 'doing something annoying'? No, I wasn't. Sorry. Having a discussion with my friends in a corner isn't what I consider 'doing something annoying'.

To educate you on how this usually works, someone finds a roleplayer posting in character and blasts them. It's trolls. Notice how many people it happens to and tell me it isn't so.

And I don't care how many people someone annoys. An ignore feature is an ignore feature. It is not a tally mark toward silencing someone. If a player is 'being annoying', then send a ticket. If they are in violation of the TOS, then something will be done. If not, then the player is being ignored by the people he annoyed, and it's done.

You would also be surprised at what constitutes 'annoying' someone- some gamers and roleplayers can be quite petulant. (For one good example, making a statement- then when someone disagrees with it, the player is slapped with ignore for 'being stupid'.)

This is an abused feature, and the mindset that 'you were doing something annoying to deserve it' makes no progress whatsoever in getting this fixed, it only justifies the laziness.

If you like, I can have the four witnesses to the even post. Or I could dig up the logs somewhere. But don't assume that because someone was chatting that they got silenced for 'being annoying'.

zahinder · July 2012

Report Spam SHOULD send a message to GMs to review chat logs or something and take appropriate action.

But that would take work.

mohrgothkhan · July 2012

This has been brought up so many times... This is the worst exploit in the game. Cryptic never will fix this. They have stated before when called out on it (even about the bot posts they copy and paste in GM replys), that it works as intended.

The only way for this to be resolved is for PWE to decide that it needs to be changed. If PWE does not know, it wont get looked at.

Probably the best way around it.... Is to have a Ventrilo Server set up for people who want to avoid 'in game' chat altogether. That way people can communicate even if a chat ban goes down...

Just my 2 globals.

klitty · July 2012

This is weird, I'm trying to quote neuraldamage, but all I get is "Wolverine sucks!".

Anyways, this is why we need in-game gms/admins/moderators. To swiftly step in when someone is spoiling other people's fun. We don't need this exploitable, messy and automated muting stuff. We need real people looking at the tickets!! >:C

zerojad · July 2012

Yes, i think they should remove the report button as can usually mistaking for the ignore button as at first sight looks like they do the same thing.

silveragefogey · July 2012

zahinder wrote: »

Report Spam SHOULD send a message to GMs to review chat logs or something and take appropriate action.

But that would take work.

What is this "GMs" you refer to? Like ghosts, unicorns, and the back of rainbows? Conceived but imaginary?

There is no need for this "GMs" because players can moderate their own damned game and quit bothering me, I'm counting money!

biffsmackwell · July 2012

neuraldamage wrote: »

Sorry you got caught in it, but maybe you should make yourself less of a target?

Me?! Never!!!

I accept that I'm not always socially appropriate, and I'll take the punishment for that gladly. To me, a 24 hour chat ban is a mild annoyance. So I couldn't form a group for SMASH alerts last night. Big deal.

The reason for this post was really just for adding more kindling to the fire that is chat banning, and also to point out how ridiculous it is to be chat banned when you're not even anywhere near a computer.

cybersoldier1981 wrote: »

The thing is, it was exactly NOT that. When this went down, I was talking with some friends. A random toon in the Holo Hex armor flies in as soon as a I post something in character, and that's when it hit.

And 'doing something annoying'? No, I wasn't. Sorry. Having a discussion with my friends in a corner isn't what I consider 'doing something annoying'.

To educate you on how this usually works, someone finds a roleplayer posting in character and blasts them. It's trolls. Notice how many people it happens to and tell me it isn't so.

And I don't care how many people someone annoys. An ignore feature is an ignore feature. It is not a tally mark toward silencing someone. If a player is 'being annoying', then send a ticket. If they are in violation of the TOS, then something will be done. If not, then the player is being ignored by the people he annoyed, and it's done.

You would also be surprised at what constitutes 'annoying' someone- some gamers and roleplayers can be quite petulant. (For one good example, making a statement- then when someone disagrees with it, the player is slapped with ignore for 'being stupid'.)

This is an abused feature, and the mindset that 'you were doing something annoying to deserve it' makes no progress whatsoever in getting this fixed, it only justifies the laziness.

If you like, I can have the four witnesses to the even post. Or I could dig up the logs somewhere. But don't assume that because someone was chatting that they got silenced for 'being annoying'.

I have to agree here. People that don't like RPers can put them on ignore. It doesn't even have to be a malicious thing; if someone doesn't want to hear RP (and I've heard some very awkward and embarrassing (for them) RP), it's their prerogative to put the RPers on ignore. Same as a vegetarian who doesn't want to hear people talk about how freaking delicious a rare steak is because they're jealous that nothing in the vegetarian world tastes anywhere as delicious as a fat, bloody rare steak, they can put them on ignore. Those points add up, and suddenly out of nowhere, you can't talk for 24 hours.

Yes, the system is abused, but sometimes, it's unknowingly.

Hell, before we were told that "Report Spam" was for gold sellers, I'd use it to report people that were spamming zone chat with the same message over and over. That's abusing the tool, and I didn't even know it.

You think all the other players, old and new alike, know what "Report Spam" is for, when it has zero in-game documentation, and the only online documentation you'll ever find of it is an archived post in the middle of a thread from a year ago? Probably not.

aristarchos01 · July 2012

After receiving one Chat ban once for something that wasn't bannable, I now stay out of zone chat. I'm not the only one who has taken this stance. Its a shame that this system (while good in theory) is easily abused and causes many players to stay away from interaction with others. Kinda kills a major point of playing MMOs in the first place.

agentnx5 · July 2012

The system is broken. Cryptic has acknowledged it's broken. No formal updates on step taken to fix have been forthcoming since that topic about people hosting costume contests being muted by people with nothing better to do then get their buddies together and mute the host (either out of just malicious "fun" or to exact "revenge" for not being chosen as the best dressed in a category).

All I can say is that I've never reported anybody for swearing/cussing, nor selling, nor any of the other bizarre or grotesque topics I see on Zone. People who spam really quickly, i.e.: kids in the Gravitar Alert who die repeatedly and expect to be immediately revived for their stupidity, are the players I typically report for spam. And they deserve it, 100%, if they get muted. It lags down other people, it's childish & immature, and nobody wants to listen to you anyways.

That said, I would GREATLY prefer it if this was handled automatically with a simple algorithm, which has C++ source code for it readily available online thanks to 3rd party server plugins for First-Person Shooter games. That way people who spam get slapped with a short-term chat suspension, which also goes away when the time expires, and send a prompt to Cryptic so they can keep a log of who's spamming on a regular basis.

But no... That would be to logical... :rolleyes:

forutnefire · July 2012

This is not the first time our forum moderator has been chat banned in game? This time you were not even at the computer?

Stormshade, you're a coward. Respond to this issue. It's been going on for too damn long and we're sick of your and everyone else who works at Cryptic's apathetic BS.

People have been banned from participating in your game by other players when they haven't even been playing. When they have been organizing community events. When they need help with the game. Because someone else doesn't like their handle/supergroup/costume/etc. Or because said jerkwads just want their message out there and don't give 2 sh--s about the rest of us.

This is unacceptable Cryptic. Stormshade, get answers, and get back to us!

agentnx5 · July 2012

aristarchos01 wrote: »

It's a shame that this system (while good in theory) is easily abused and causes many players to stay away from interaction with others. Kinda kills a major point of playing MMOs in the first place.

Actually the theory is flawed, but I'd strongly agree with you that the purpose of MassiveMultiplayerOnline games is to be interactive. Otherwise just play a single player FPS, RTS, RPG, or puzzle game.

agentnx5 · July 2012

forutnefire wrote: »

Stormshade, you're a coward.

That's not a very diplomatic way of asking somebody to come and talk to us. More likely to make him not want to deal with it lol I can understand your emotion though, and a development team that loves their game would be concerned by this, should be anyways.

forutnefire wrote: »

Respond to this issue. It's been going on for too damn long and we're sick of your and everyone else who works at Cryptic's apathetic BS.

Again a bit emotional there m8, but maybe that's what it's going to have to take... I don't know anymore I guess. Maybe they only respond to angry yelling customers? Seems rather counter productive to me, I like to work by negotiations through facts, consensus/compromise, and action!

forutnefire wrote: »

Stormshade, get answers, and get back to us!

Yes please... This issue hasn't gone away. I've offered a do-able solution of my own.

There are a lot of good things in this game (in fact it's possible to argue the game's power mechanics are closer to being well balanced than I can recall them ever being, even though melee roots & stuns & lunge attacks could use a little love), it's silly that this has been on of the negatives when it could rather easily be turned into a positive.

visionstorm01 · July 2012

Sorry that this happen... AGAIN... and this definitely does suck even more than Wolverine does.

mohrgothkhan wrote: »

This has been brought up so many times... This is the worst exploit in the game. Cryptic never will fix this. They have stated before when called out on it (even about the bot posts they copy and paste in GM replys), that it works as intended.

The only way for this to be resolved is for PWE to decide that it needs to be changed. If PWE does not know, it wont get looked at.

Pretty much agree with the first paragraph here. From what Ive seen so far, I doubt that this issue will EVER get resolved. As for the second paragraph, I'm sure that PWE does know, and they're letting this happen because (IMO) they don't care. I honestly believe that (as many have already stated in the past) this game is on life support and that they're willing to devote as little money as possible on anything that pertains to costumer support or anything that incurs additional costs to the company.

This issue has been going on for over a year now and the community has been VERY vocal about it. If PWE cared they would have addressed this issue already a long time ago. But they'd rather delegate the task of in-game moderation to some automated system that gets triggered by the lynch-mob waiting for us in game.

Having this system in place is totally irresponsible on Cryptic/PWE's part.

biffsmackwell · July 2012

forutnefire wrote: »

This is not the first time our forum moderator has been chat banned in game? This time you were not even at the computer?

Stormshade, you're a coward. Respond to this issue. It's been going on for too damn long and we're sick of your and everyone else who works at Cryptic's apathetic BS.

People have been banned from participating in your game by other players when they haven't even been playing. When they have been organizing community events. When they need help with the game. Because someone else doesn't like their handle/supergroup/costume/etc. Or because said jerkwads just want their message out there and don't give 2 sh--s about the rest of us.

This is unacceptable Cryptic. Stormshade, get answers, and get back to us!

That I'm a moderator has nothing to do with it. In-game, I'm just another player.

Personal attacks against Stormshade... I think your anger is misdirected there. You don't know what project he's tasked to, you don't know if he's been told not to say anything on this issue, you don't know anything about it. None of us do.

If there's anyone to be upset at, it's the people in charge. Stormshade isn't running Cryptic.

Now, this thread isn't about him. Let's all keep it that way.

silveragefogey · July 2012

biffsmackwell wrote: »

That I'm a moderator has nothing to do with it. In-game, I'm just another player.

Personal attacks against Stormshade... I think your anger is misdirected there. You don't know what project he's tasked to, you don't know if he's been told not to say anything on this issue, you don't know anything about it. None of us do.

If there's anyone to be upset at, it's the people in charge. Stormshade isn't running Cryptic.

Now, this thread isn't about him. Let's all keep it that way.

He's right. You can be angry at Stormshade for not responding. But don't blame him for something that isn't his fault.

And calling him a coward... that's just a cheap shot. Trying to provoke anyone to do something is not a very mature course of action.

I'm enraged at a lot that goes on... but you can't attack someone for something that's not their responsibility.

That being said.. a response would be nice, if possible. But this isn't the way to get one, I think...

somebob · July 2012

aristarchos01 wrote: »

After receiving one Chat ban once for something that wasn't bannable, I now stay out of zone chat. I'm not the only one who has taken this stance. Its a shame that this system (while good in theory) is easily abused and causes many players to stay away from interaction with others. Kinda kills a major point of playing MMOs in the first place.

Likewise. I absolutely REFUSE to use Zone in a game about interacting WITH OTHER PLAYERS.

Does anybody else see this as a bad thing? Cryptic? PWE? Anyone?

jonsills · July 2012

klitty wrote: »

This is weird, I'm trying to quote neuraldamage, but all I get is "Wolverine sucks!".

Simply due to the overwhelming truth of the proposition, I'm afraid.

Cyber, I think you mistake me. The problem with the system as it stands is, "annoying" is not an objective measure. Almost anything can annoy someone - there are even those who become annoyed by Grondfests, hard as that may be to believe.

And then people start to hit "Ignore", and the next thing you know somebody's got a 24-hour ban again, because Ignore works the same as Report Spam in that regard. (And it takes more than one person hitting Ignore Spam, too.)

And of course there are those who define "spam" as anything they personally don't like, and are constantly Reporting Spam on everything from repeated sales offers to pun contests to clones...

ukatoenasni · July 2012

jonsills wrote: »

And of course there are those who define "spam" as anything they personally don't like, and are constantly Reporting Spam on everything from repeated sales offers to pun contests to clones...

Which is the biggest reason that this mechanic needs to be re-evaluated and likely dumped. It's labelled in a somewhat ambiguous fashion, and regardless of the intent, it is being used in a fashion that it was clearly not intended to cover. Maliciously or accidentally.

This seriously needs to be addressed.

ziploc332 · July 2012

When the internet collective (think borg, with troll faces) gains power, it is immediately abused. This has happened in every game I have ever played. We have only these choices: Deal with the constant troll ban, or be forced to endure what should be banned.

There is no right answer to this, obviously. It all boils down to the community.

quotable · July 2012

ziploc332 wrote: »

We have only these choices: Deal with the constant troll ban, or be forced to endure what should be banned.

Except that we seem to be stuck with both. If the chat ban system were banning the people who deserve it, then why aren't the Grond spammers banned?

nepht · July 2012

biffsmackwell wrote: »

So, I got silenced again today.

The best part? I've been at work since 10am, and just got home around 9:30pm. Yep, I was silenced when I wasn't even playing.

Anyway, if anyone wanted to talk to me in-game, I'll get back to you in 20 hours, 40 minutes, and 39 seconds!

Thats happened to me twice. Its even worse than abuse its freaking HAL 9000. Apparently the mute can sometimes fire off on its own for no reason.

Smack are you called Dave by any chance?

biffsmackwell · July 2012

Haha, that's random. Nope, I am not a Dave.

towershield · July 2012

I'm still trying to figure out how someone can be chat banned while not even logged into the game. As bad as malicious chat bans are, the ability to hit someone with one when they're not even in the game is blatant harassment and shouldn't even exist.

biffsmackwell · July 2012

shieldtower wrote: »

I'm still trying to figure out how someone can be chat banned while not even logged into the game. As bad as malicious chat bans are, the ability to hit someone with one when they're not even in the game is blatant harassment and shouldn't even exist.

I was logged into a chat channel via Pidgin, but at the time of the chatban, I was nowhere near the computer, and hadn't said anything for hours.

ofarmer · July 2012

shieldtower wrote: »

I'm still trying to figure out how someone can be chat banned while not even logged into the game. As bad as malicious chat bans are, the ability to hit someone with one when they're not even in the game is blatant harassment and shouldn't even exist.

Before the forum merge(and possibly after, but I don't think so) the forums and in-game ignore list were shared. Since ignores also put a mark in the "silence" column, a forum ignore would function the same way an in-game ignore would causing someone who isn't online to be silenced if they breached that threshold by being ignored on the forums. Though now that the systems aren't(as far as I know) connected it shouldn't count toward that tally anymore.

towershield · July 2012

biffsmackwell wrote: »

Haha, that's random. Nope, I am not a Dave.

biffsmackwell wrote: »

I was logged into a chat channel via Pidgin, but at the time of the chatban, I was nowhere near the computer, and hadn't said anything for hours.

But you weren't actually IN the game. Unless Pidgin makes your @handle active and searchable through normal means you shouldn't be reachable outside of the chat channel you're logged in to.

I'll admit I have no idea how Pidgin works so I'm probably wrong about this.

ofarmer wrote: »

Before the forum merge(and possibly after, but I don't think so) the forums and in-game ignore list were shared. Since ignores also put a mark in the "silence" column, a forum ignore would function the same way an in-game ignore would causing someone who isn't online to be silenced if they breached that threshold by being ignored on the forums. Though now that the systems aren't(as far as I know) connected it shouldn't count toward that tally anymore.

Good point, forgot about that.

ofarmer · July 2012

Ha! I'm an idiot, I just realized I sent you an IM on xmpp and you can't answer.

biffsmackwell · July 2012

ofarmer wrote: »

Ha! I'm an idiot, I just realized I sent you an IM on xmpp and you can't answer.

I hadn't even seen it.

Answer is no.

stmoth · July 2012

To clarify, if you are signed in on Pidgin, you will show up as ingame. Where your character name may be, it will show whatever info you entered on pidgin. But I only know of that working for your friend's list. I have no idea if you show up in team searches or whatever.

ofarmer · July 2012

The sad part is, I sent it after I had already read and replied to this thread... :cool:

also: check your PMs

stmoth · July 2012

has anyone considered that Smack's friends just hate him?

biffsmackwell · July 2012

stmoth wrote: »

has anyone considered that Smack's friends just hate him?

This can't be true.

I don't have friends!

Silenced Again!

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