Hi all

URU live is a game/chat room. People go there to have fun, enjoy a few laughs, talk to old friends and meet new ones. That normal interaction by intelligent, normal people is what keeps them coming back time after time. But unfortunately we live in a world where there are a small number of lowlife degenerates who have a mental deficiency that does not allow them to function mentally in a normal way. The gaming community has named them “griefers”. I personally think this is the wrong term, and will in my posts refer to them using the more accurate description “degenerates”. The Dictionary description: "a person who has sunk below the normal moral standard <a degenerate who is uninterested in anything but his own gratification>". I don’t think anyone will argue the fact that this is a more accurate term.

I believe the problem of degenerates has reached a critical point, so I will make these statements at the risk of being reprimanded or the post being deleted.

The girls in game are being attacked in the foulest of ways by a small number of degenerates, and we all know who they are. We have young girls ages 13 through 17 that come into our Hood who are being attacked by the degenerates in the city on a daily basis. The mildest of the things that are said by these lowlifes I can't even repeat here to adults. The words would be banned from this forum if I did, yet the girls and women in this game must put up with these comments on a daily basis. Placing degenerates on ignore stops them from saying or typing these things but only until they come back with a new avatar and say something foul again before they are again placed on ignore, and this goes on and on, month after month.

There is a consequence for allowing this kind of behavior to continue. People are quitting the game because they are fed up with being attacked in the city when they go there. These degenerates will, and have, driven new players from the game, some of them haven’t even been on long enough to understand that these degenerates are a small minority.

We as adults all bear some responsibility for not letting Cyan know just how bad the problem is and begging them to do something about it. If there was nothing that could be done to stop these degenerates I would understand, but there are things that can be done. Without any great effort the degenerates can be stopped. Things like an initial $5.00 or $10.00 start up fee per email address to enter the game. If your email address and username is banned you pay another $5.00 or $10.00 to get in with a new email address and username. This would not impose a great financial burden on anyone other than the degenerates. I know I would only need to pay this fee one time, and so would the vast majority of the URU players. And yes, I know Cyan doesn’t want to charge people to play this game, but this isn’t a perfect world. And the charge isn’t for playing the game, it’s to make the game secure for all of us. Along with this fee we would need the ability to ban degenerates from the game. I can't think of one long time player that I wouldn't trust to be on a committee that requests bans directly to Cyan. They could be voted in by the other players of the game or selected by Cyan. Again, I know I don't need to worry about being banned nor will the vast majority of URU players. A degenerate may come back one, two or three times but that will be the end of him if he is dealt with promptly.

The other thing that can be done is to add invisibility into the ignore function. Those of us who have been in the game for some time would find this to be a fast and convenient way to deal with the degenerates, but it would not protect the newcomers from the degenerates initially. This method has the same problem as the ignore function without invisibility, the degenerates can just keep on making new avatars over and over again. The main problem with this invisibility idea is, we need to do something about degenerates now! Not a year from now. And we all know how slow the wheels of 'update changes to the game' turn.

As it stands now, I wouldn’t let any children of my family play URU Live, and that’s a sad commentary on the game and those of us involved in it.

If you have any other ideas on how we can really stop these degenerates please post them. Sorry shooting them is not an option, though I wish it was.

rocketdog

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I agree, something needs to be done. I think your idea of charging a one-time fee is good, Rocketdog. I think it would work.

Sounds good to me.

Rocketdog wrote:

And the charge isn’t for playing the game, it’s to make the game secure for all of us.

Paying $5 or $10 for an account will not keep greifers out of a game, and selecting "oldtimers" to put together a committee to send Cyan the names of troublemakers is just asking for trouble. I wouldn't want the job, and I can think of some good long time names that would have no problem abuse sending messages to Cyan regarding who they want removed from the game... I won't name them, but you know who you are and I know what you've tried to do.

As someone who has had to deal with griefers in games directly... it'll take more than just charging a fee to stop them. In other games, greifers will sometimes buy multiples of the same game. Get banned on one account? It's cheap enough to buy another and start all over again doing the same stuff. You could force people with an expensive one time fee. But then that would lower the population of the MOULa server from about twelve people to one diehard.

Also in the world of gaming and greifing there is another thing people do, and it works fairly well. If one server has greifers ruining it for other people, go to one that has better moderating.

If Cyan had time you could supply them with chatlogs of what the greifers have said and they could either ban by IP or by account. But some IP addresses change, and people can easily get another account or purchase one if the price is cheap enough.

Fact of the matter is Cyan doesn't have much time for MOULa anymore, so this is going to keep happening over and over again until either by some miracle Uru can become successful enough for Cyan to pay attention to it again, or it shuts down completely leaving nothing but places like Gehn Shard or Open Uru.

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Tomala is correct.

The reality here is that we're facing a behavioral problem. There is only one solution to such problems - eliminate the reward to the behavior. Until that is done, the behavior will continue.

I despise the idea of blaming the victim - having been in the position myself - but one thing we must consider is, "Is someone's behavior enabling the troublemakers?" That's part of analyzing the reward problem. I'll jump to an analogy, then return to the issue of trolls.

Spammers - much like trolls - exhibit a behavior because they are seeking a reward. In the spammer's case, the reward isn't "jollies" but has a financial incentive. As long as there is some fool who'll click on a spammer's links (generating advertising click-through revenue), or worse yet, someone who'll actually purchase the snake oil products that the spammer peddles, then the spammer is rewarded. A few enabling "victims" among the spammer's targets ensure that the spammer continues his or her behavior.

Back to trolls: As long as there is someone who makes a big deal about a troll, then the troll is rewarded because attention is his or her food. Complaining that /ignore doesn't work is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Every one of the victims of the troll must religiously use the ignore option, and must not acknowledge the troll in any way. If no matter how many avatars he or she creates, everyone pretends that the troll doesn't exist, then the troll WIILL give up and go away. The troll is looking for the emotional outburst to feed upon.

So if the trolls aren't going away... then the answer is, there are people who're feeding them. And they may be victims, but they are not without blame.

I know you won't like this answer. I don't like it myself. It's an unfortunate, and hard, truth.

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Marten is completely correct. Just put them on ignore immediately, do not pay them any mind. Do not empower your enemy.

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Marten is correct. Anything else than Adam described rewards them, and they will come, and continue to come until such a situation ends. They revel in joy of griefing people. Victims stop rewarding them, and they will grief elsewhere. You do not fix them. They may one day fix themselves.
And I suggest not taking it personally. They all but literally hate everyone, and anything that does not satisfy their minds. They are liberal in what they accept from themselves, and very conservative in what they accept from others. The opposite is ideal.
My two fireflies.

I've advised the same time and time again. I wish these threads would stop for this very reason. It's not ideal but a better alternative does not exist at the moment. Demanding or suggesting alternatives is, unfortunately, unhelpful and counterproductive. Every one of these threads only encourages trolling and harassing behavior.

It was time long ago to put these same old discussions to bed. Let's put this one away sooner rather than later.

Why not make your hood private, only accessible to those members. You'll have an entire city instance at your disposal too.

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ô¿ô......All URU need is love!......ô¿ô

We all on URU do not enjoy when the "griefers" are among us.
These type of people are everywhere, even in real life.
Nothing much can be done to get rid of them, but to ignore them.
Charging a fee or fine for a person to be allowed to play on the game is ludicrous.
Report the problem to the support team and let them take charge of the situation.
We don't need a "leader" to walk amongst us to make rules of charging money or any other laws to
try to keep these types of people out of our beloved game.
Let our support team take care of the problems. They do the best job they can do.
What can we do to not see or hear of the griefers?
Start a chat log, report it. Then, put them on ignore. Then go to another area in game or to your Bevin/Hood.
This entire problem has been discussed for so long. The rules are on the log in page.
About the fee of $5.00 or whatever the amount.....If I go out with a friend into the everyday world and someone is
being a jerk by cursing, etc., you want to charge me a one time fee or charge for another person's ignorance? I don't think so.
Now, let's move on and enjoy what we have and thank our support team for what they do. They can't fix everything, but they do a wonderful job in the things that they can do.

I wish we could hand out thick skins to newcomers. Griefers don't bother me because they're just a miniscule fleck in my Uru universe which spans three versions, a community in SL, several forums, PMs and e-mails with friends. I don't get to the public city in MOULA much because I have so much else to do regarding Uru. Maybe that's part of the problem - not enough old-timers hanging around to set an example for the newcomers on how to deal with griefers.

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I agree with Tomala and Nicoleleigh on this .
@Marten : To state that trolls find reward in attention is no more than an assumption , it could be wrong . Please do not blame the victim , ever .

You know, given the OP's description of the degenerate griefers, I wonder if this could be solved to some degree with software solutions, especially now that we've experienced progress in the open source world.

The OP states that the griefers use foul language. Okay, so how about we ask if some coders want to add a naughty words filter to the chat system? Depending on the severity of the words used, the system could either issue a warning, or outright kick a player if need be.

Or how about a check for if an avatar has been ignored X number of times in the past Y timeframe? Then the game could automatically file a ticket with Cyan support to have the miscreant banned. You might even go so far as to set the griefer to ignored for everyone else after the above conditions are met, so that he is silenced even before banning.

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tommyap wrote:

I agree with Tomala and Nicoleleigh on this .
@Marten : To state that trolls find reward in attention is no more than an assumption , it could be wrong . Please do not blame the victim , ever .

Wikipedia wrote:

A griefer is a player who does things in a game to deliberately cause annoyance ("grief" in the sense of "giving someone grief") for the griefer's own enjoyment. Such a player is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities, since griefers often cannot be deterred by penalties related to in-game goals.[2]

... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

Malfhok wrote:

Okay, so how about we ask if some coders want to add a naughty words filter to the chat system? Depending on the severity of the words used, the system could either issue a warning, or outright kick a player if need be.

There already is a filter system; however, most of the coders I know are more in favor of making it optional (or outright removing it). I would cringe at the idea of an automated system monitoring my language with the potential to kick me out of the game. Then we start getting kicked out for saying stuff like "cockpit," "manuscript," or "verge*." I'm sure few would be amused by that

* Verge, once a synonym for "penis," is censored in Guild Wars.

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