Blarghagh

The only thing I always thought BG2 missed was a multiplayer arena. It would have taken them an hour to make it. ****ing ****. This made me laugh out loud. Thanks a lot.

As long as it's not like World of WarCraft, where ignoring, blocking or muting someone just means they will jump on the next toon to keep going.

Hence the qualifier of "verified" reports, which I'm sure is possible to do. Most messages leave some kind of trail.

Now I feel bad for killing him so many times.

Huh, I was not aware of that. Awesome.

It's a start, and I bet there are more ways. Something I've been thinking about is that ridicule seems like it would be a good weapon, anyone with enough verified complaints gets their voice chats auto-heliumized, their chat font becomes pink comic sans, I don't know. Make sure that anyone who spouts hate speech is automatically funny more than anything else. EDIT: Of course, some jokers would do it just to get those things, and other would see it as a badge of honor.

This is not about the world. This is about games, not politics and free speech, which is a much higher reaching subject that most people seem to be debating here yet is irrelevant to the subject of "pressuring devs to create measures against discrimination inside their private online environments". It's also not about nitpicking what deserves the most attention. I am aware of misandry existing and any measures devs implement would simply ALSO apply to that. It's as simple as that. It doesn't matter one iota which type of discrimination gets the most "air time", making debating it entirely pointless. The reason most of my examples have been about mysogyny is because there are more recorded incidents of this I could reference to, not because of your bull**** and insulting projections of needing to "protect weak girls". There's been plenty of references to racism, discrimination on sexual preference and ableism in this thread as well, so implying the entire thread is about "big bad men being mean to little women" is ridiculously selective and simply false, especially because anything discussed could just as easily be applied to misandry. With the acknowledgement of this issue, debating this as an issue in this topic any further in this context is a waste of everyone's time, including yours, and is just railing on about your personal pet peeve rather than participating in the actual discussion at hand. Also, your offensive manner about the subject, no matter how true, just serves to make sure nobody will take it seriously simply because of the way you are saying it. By your manner you are making the subject seem less of a big deal, effectively making it worse. Honestly, it just makes you come off like this:

There's a few loose ends, but not enough to base more games on. Plus, Word of God states that this is the last Diablo game, but they might be doing more games in it's universe.

Already adressed, Volourn, now please don't project your bull upon me.

Yeah, I like Reynolds, he doesn't have a lot of range but he's generally entertaining (he was the only thing that kept me from walking out of that third Blade flick and while the script ruined Deadpool, his early characterization of Wade Wilson was spot on for the character). That being said, he's a HORRIBLE choice for Batman.

I'd think this thread would have adressed all the "sticks and stones" and "it's just some tosser cursing at someone" ideas. There's a difference between profanity and being harrassed and attacked for who you are. I don't care about bad language, what I care about is keeping these public places free from hurtful hate speech, rampant racism and discrimination and the inexcusable behaviour towards women that is somehow prevalent among gamers. People shouldn't have to hide who they are to play a game, and they definitely shouldn't be attacked for it. With these last few posts about nosepringling this thread seems to have run its course so it might as well be closed. It only seems to have created rationalized passivity anyway.

Found out SW:TOR has free trials, so trying it out. It's... WoW with conversation. I guess it's okay. Don't think it'll hold my attention for long. Plus, I hate that they keep using music from the previous games because that just reminds me what this MMO brought to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

I think Diablo 3's always online debacle proved that despite weird or draconian measures, people will still buy the game.

From the reviews I've read critical concencus seems to be Ryan Reynolds was the only good thing about the movie and he has a decent Box Office draw by himself. The general audience seems to like him. Not trying to defend him, just sayin' the studios reasoning doesn't seem to concur with your opinion.

Is Il-Khan a title amongst orcs or half orcs, or is this guy related to old Gromnir?

I'm surprised at how often it's been implicated in this thread that gaming is for children. Do you people even know where you are posting? And when I've paid for a product to supply entertainment and escapism, then hell yes I want it to be a happy bubble rather than a place filled with abuse. Or at least a bubble where everyone is allowed to play.

I... urr... erm... what?

Misandry is also discrimination, and therefore would fall under bigotry. Harrassment often goes much further than "just one tosser saying some nasty things". That's just a marginalization of the problem. I've both seen and heard accounts of people in MMO's literally being followed around for days by groups of harrassers creating new toons simply to constantly hurl vicious insults - despite being able ignore and block users it eventually turns your experience sour because you're constantly having to deal with abuse and discrimination. A lot of women have learned not to let anyone know they're female in games because it tends to create a ****storm of discrimination from groups of people. It's created an environment where many people don't choose anonimity but are forced to hide integral parts of their identity. As for solutions, I don't have any that I know will work, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Since devs want to keep their customers, I'm thinking permanent bans are out of the question, World of WarCraft shows temporary bans even when people are still paying for subscriptions have only slightly impacted the problem. I'm going to cite James Portnow's idea of auto-muting anyone with enough verified complaints. Only people who actually want to hear the person will unmute him. I don't know how this will work out if actually put to use, but it might work at least to some extent and it seems worth trying.

He can get away with it because we let him get away with it. I bought the game same as he, the developer spent a lot of time trying to build a community around this environment, why should we let him get away with it? Uh-Schwaaa? I don't even... Okay, so I said I'm not completely sold on it, that it doesn't matter to me, and that I have no problems with. Everything is stated from my personal perspective and I didn't commit to the idea to do away with anonimity, I only said that I'm personally open to it as a possibility to solve this problem. How on earth am I speaking for anybody else? And this is applied to online video games only - I don't care about the rest of the internet. What happened to sticks and stones is that we left elementary school. Words aren't harmless, they can cause permanent emotional damage with long reaching consequences on their life. Especially children, as someone on the first page claimed is most games' target audience. Firstly, how exactly does the fact that this happens in real life make it somehow okay? Secondly, how does real life equate to a privately owned space like a video game at all? Obviously. You can't adress inequality without acknowledging it. As for freedom of speech, it's a privately owned space. For example, if someone here was to spout Nazi hate speech on this board they would get banned because it is expressly forbidden by the board rules. Is the Obsidian Board administration team surpressing Freedom of Speech? No. This guy can spout his hate speech all he wants, just not here. This is what I'm saying.

I liked Captain America, and Iron Man 2 wasn't good but it surely wasn't on the same level of failure as X-Men 3 was. Not really a movie, but I've been watching the old Gargoyles cartoon and wondering why there isn't a movie.

Yeah, I don't care if they want to congregate on their own little private island. That's their thing. Games aren't.

In combination with dumb, rebellious teenagers yes, that is about the vague idea I had in mind concerning their identity. In all honesty, it's impossible to be sure but this problem is not limited to simply kicking boundaries to see how far they go. Easy to say, for sure (Adams' is annoying to read with the snark) but I'm not a fan of enforced politeness all that much. But as Gorgon stated, you'll be trying to make a place where people are both anonymous and relatively safe from any retribution to be a civil space. Rather uphill challenge, it'll probably happen eventually though. I'm not sold on it being anonymous. I have no problems with my name being visible, or at least available in some way. RealID hasn't impacted me in the slightest. I use my real name on social media like Facebook and it doesn't matter to me. As for "forced politeness", I'm not saying everyone has to be polite, I don't care if someone calls me a **** in a game, but discrimination and harrassment are another thing entirely. Well is anonymous now, and on most online games you're just a handle (not sure how things are on the console side). The article by Adams seemed to have that aura of enforced civility where you have to 'earn' a right to speak or get fined for 'bad' (defined by who..) behaviour. Hm, yeah kind of. Some people on the internet seem to have crappy parents or weren't beaten enough as children, heh. I have to admit the whole "earn the right to speak" idea is one idea that doesn't sit well with me. It strikes me as "guilty until proven innocent", plus I'm assuming that most people who don't have an agenda to push won't bother anyway.

The assumption there being that this is all rebellious, dumb teenagers, which is simpy not true. It may be a part of the problem, but at least a large portion of the abusive gamers are NOT teenagers or children. In fact, the Cross Assault incident that sparked this debate across the internet recently was about abuse, threat of rape and then defense of said abuse towards a female gamer ("Sexism is a part of being a gamer!") by THIS GUY. (Link if image doesn't work: http://static.guim.c...nd-Aris-007.jpg)

Easy to say, for sure (Adams' is annoying to read with the snark) but I'm not a fan of enforced politeness all that much. But as Gorgon stated, you'll be trying to make a place where people are both anonymous and relatively safe from any retribution to be a civil space. Rather uphill challenge, it'll probably happen eventually though. I'm not sold on it being anonymous. I have no problems with my name being visible, or at least available in some way. RealID hasn't impacted me in the slightest. I use my real name on social media like Facebook and it doesn't matter to me. As for "forced politeness", I'm not saying everyone has to be polite, I don't care if someone calls me a **** in a game, but discrimination and harrassment are another thing entirely. If they were easy fixes for a problem like this it would be long gone by now. While multiplayer games are chiefly aimed at children there is simply no way to change things. Player demographics being what it is mean that one adult cannot force behavioral change on a whole crowd of teenagers. Especially since the latter have a lot more free time. Nobody has attempted to fix it. There are some games with a "report harrassment" button or similar, but they remain mostly unused due to indifference and acceptance of the problem and the consequences are pretty much nonexistent. Ignore buttons don't work because they'll just jump unto a different account or toon or change their name and continue harrassing you. Fair enough. I'm not as willing to accept these things as you are. I agree that gaming has matured, but that doesn't mean that gamers have. Obsidian is actually one of the very few places game-related forums where you actually see mature gamers - and this place isn't exactly a hotbed of activity. I'm trying to raise awareness for what I consider a serious problem. EDIT: And doesn't it bother anyone that the people speak out against this get attacked? Other than simple threats, Youtube videos on the subject get reported as terrorism, the website Gamers Against Bigotry has gotten hacked several times. Gamasutra runs all of Ernest Adams' Designer's Notebook columns but got cold feet on this one simply because of the violent way gamers react to this subject. The feminist gamer who announced a series about the subject became the subject of a game where the entire purpose was to beat the woman up. This is literally people being opressed.

I know a lot of freelance graphic designers and 2D animators hang out at the forums of ConceptArt.org, I think your question will get clearer answers there. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.