Guild Wars 2

Since “harassment” is not one of the options when making a report against someone I would like it to be added.

Thanks

Completely in agreement with this.

I’ve had a few occasions where I was harassed by very belligerent players, and didn’t report them because this option wasn’t available. (I was afraid of getting banned for posting a false report.)

Outside of constantly training mobs on you, how would someone harrass you that a block wouldn’t take care of?

Awesome.6120:

Outside of constantly training mobs on you, how would someone harrass you that a block wouldn’t take care of?

But a block only takes care of it one time. If the player in question is repeatingly harassing players, being able to report them for harassment could possibly help other players not be harassed by them in the future. If such a player is a repeat offender, they should not be allowed to continue playing.

The fact that we are able to block someone should not be viewed by someone else as a license to harass as many people as possible.

EDIT: What I am trying to say (and doing a bad job of it!) is that there should still be consequences for someone who decides to harass other players.

per the rules of conduct of this game:

1. While playing Guild Wars 2, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the Game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players. This includes posting insulting, offensive, or abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, reporting players maliciously, attacking a player based on race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated.

@ Awesome: There are many ways like stalking for example

Krosslite.1950:

@ Awesome: There are many ways like stalking for example

How would someone stalk you in guild wars? I can already add you to my friend list and see what you’re doing at any time.

guy above: that’s a fair point.

This is needed, not being braggadocious, but I have a legendary and you get so, so much hate thrown at you.

I would like this added as well. While we are on the subject, when I block someone, it should prevent me from seeing their /em actions as well! Otherwise, they can still harass me!

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Sounds reasonable. Like stated, you can still see the /em of people you have on block, which makes no sense at all. Also, for example, if a griefer is spamming powers (or in generally being disruptive to those attempting to role play), this would be filed under Harassment (can ArenaNet give folks an “okay” to file under Verbal Abuse in the meantime?). Yes, if people are in a tavern attempting to enjoy their choice of game play, you do not have the right to stealth spam them, drop rocket launchers on the bar etc, especially after they’ve asked you to stop. Does anybody know if ArenaNet actively enforces the EULA* when it comes to griefers harassing role players?

*[1 – While playing Guild Wars 2, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the Game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.]
*[21 – You may use the Guild Wars 2 reporting system within the Game to alert the company to in-game issues such as inappropriate behavior…]

I would also love to see a harassment choice to the reporting system, along with a box to add a comment about what the harassing behaviour was. The way the system is now (based on chat logs only) doesn’t allow for reporting behaviours that may not show in a chat log. I would also like it to remove your name from someone’s friends list if you block them, and keep them from adding you again as long as they are blocked. This will keep them from still being able to keep track of you.

Silver Bride.4685:

I would also love to see a harassment choice to the reporting system, along with a box to add a comment about what the harassing behaviour was. The way the system is now (based on chat logs only) doesn’t allow for reporting behaviours that may not show in a chat log. I would also like it to remove your name from someone’s friends list if you block them, and keep them from adding you again as long as they are blocked. This will keep them from still being able to keep track of you.

make sure you use the PrtScr button so you can get screen shots

they are stored in My Documents/Guild Wars 2/Screens

Awesome.6120:

Outside of constantly training mobs on you, how would someone harrass you that a block wouldn’t take care of?

Oh I’d say that three players at the end of one of the jump puzzles who have built turrets there killing players trying to complete their map is harrassment, and that’s right off the bat that comes to mind.

The other thing is running thru tapping an enemy just long enough to get cred and then running off especially the karka since it takes forever to kill em and then coming back a few moments later to loot.

Or starting an event and running off entirely. Had that happen.

People killing you in a jumping puzzle in a wvw zone is not harassment. I don’t care why you’re there, you are in a pvp zone and you should expect to be attacked. Siege doesn’t change anything.

Tapping an enemy for loot/DE credit then leaving is not harassment. There is no rule that says if you attack a mob you have to stay and finish it.

Starting an event then leaving is not harassment. There is no rule that says you have to finish an event that you start.

Honestly this is probably the main reason they don’t have a harassment report option. Players will drown them in whiny, needless reports that they need to pay people to sift through.

/ignore PlayerX doesn’t work. The only other option is turn off chat entirely, cutting yourself completely off from the community.

A harassment option is definitely needed.

An ‘afk’ one would help in Wv3 too. I’m constantly seeing folks in Wv3 using /dance to keep their toon moving but that never do anything else… nothing. Just taking up space.

1. While playing Guild Wars 2, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the Game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass , threaten, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players. This includes posting insulting, offensive, or abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, reporting players maliciously, attacking a player based on race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated.

harass – keep bothering or attacking somebody: to persistently annoy, attack, or bother somebody
threaten – express hostile intention toward somebody
embarrass – make or become self-conscious
cause distress – mental suffering: mental suffering, e.g. that caused by grief, anxiety, or unhappiness
unwanted attention (Stalking) – the crime of harassing somebody with persistent, inappropriate, and unwanted attention

I hope this answers your questions Awesome. [Edit] Also notice I got this from the rule of conduct for this game and it is paragraph one

[Edit]

[Edited by CC: Provocation]

I agree to this because I am tired of trolls flame baiting me or anyone else for that matter! It removes the ability to get your post infracted under the normal circumstances and really helps put a stop to those negative pioneers!

Doesn’t the Verbal Abuse report cover this? Or is that only if they use bad words?

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Doesn’t the Verbal Abuse report cover this? Or is that only if they use bad words?

only for verbally abusing someone ie. yea bad words

First they should make sure blocking works properly.

When someone is ignoring someone else, they should not be able to see each other character’s and each other’s chat lines at all. Even PvP matching should try to avoid putting those together if possible.
I’ve seen people griefing others by grabbing aggro and using skills in disruptive manners and stuff like that.
Blocking someone should make them unable to see you at all because of that.

Then, even when the block features are properly reworked, there’s people who will still harass through other means, like convincing others to help them, making new accounts to go on with the harassment, or even things like real life threats.
If blocking is not enough against those, and such behaviors are frequent, harassment should be among the options to report.

Meanwhile, I think that reports to support through mail or the site with screenshots should be enough.

CC Meinke.2749:

Hello everyone,

please stay on topic; this is a discussion about why a harassment reporting function should or shouldn’t be added, not a discussion about the definition of harassment.

Greetings

Harassment should be added into the game, want a good idea of what angst happens in a game where they don’t have the ability to report Harassment look no further than warcrafts thread on CRZ. Warcraft players are really up in arms about NOT being able to report Harassers in game. Warcraft had it, their new feature broke it.

I went to one of the servers they said was having issues, thought I walked into 2 notorious Hate speech groups doing a meeting. Bad, yes it was. Some stuff would make military and seamen duck and cover.

You don’t want that here put this feature in, call it Harassment/Threatening and be thankful you did.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Doesn’t the Verbal Abuse report cover this? Or is that only if they use bad words?

Nope it’s to vague in my opinion. Doesn’t cover if someone is following you doing it. Making alts on other accounts to continue the barrage. They need it defined as harassment/threatening and put some teeth into by reporting said harassers to law enforcement. Internet threatening is still threatening, no different than you standing 2 feet from the person.

The problem is with including this function/feature, is people abusing or misusing this, yes I think it should be included, no I think it should definitely not be included due to reason said above.

Using report player for “Verbal abusement” is alot clearer to the Dev or Team, investigating the cause because they are looking for words that are being abused in subliminal messaging , slang words, or hidden messages that is common, uncommon, or old time words; used in todays’ chat windows.

I understand you might meet a creep or two that might use offensive sexual suggestions or intent towards you, racist words, or perhaps insulting your well being, however there is the report “Verbal Abuse” offered.

You are advise to BLOCK “<Name>” and that’s all that should be done.

- Failure to do that, is fault on your part.
- Purposely setting up of person by leading them into a bann by getting them to say the words you want them to say and then report them, is also bad on your part and makes you no better than them. For that kind of situation, in my opinion, you should both be banned.

Finally if you believe the situation is out of hand, meaning that the person you report continues to harass you by the following:

- By passing the Block system by logging on or creating, alts to continue to talk to you.
- Used Racist words against you.
- Used Sexual harassment categories towards you.
- Threaten you in any way with the use of “Real Life”.
- Black Mailing you.

You are to Screenshot and send it by email or support ticket to Arenanet for emergency extreme cases.

You are then still responsible to “Block” said person from receiving new messages from said player, otherwise continuing to build up a case against the said player, again will likely make the investigators on your part become suspicious of the situation.

Note: Does not count if the player is bypassing the Block, if said player, is speaking threw alts.

I have had 2 people from another server, who I have never met, add me to their friends list at the urging of one of their friends for the sole purpose of trying to irritate me. The reason they did this was because I had switched servers and messaged my followers from the old server as a courtesy to let them know I had moved. For some reason this guy decided he would keep me on his friends list to “irritate me” (his words), but didn’t stop there and got his 2 of his friends to add me too. I would like to report these guys but there is no way for me to do this in game with the way things are currently set up. If there was a harassment choice I could get this taken care of, but since the current system goes on chat logs only I am in risk of being suspended myself trying to report the real perpetrators.

@ Silver Bride.4685

For this kind of situation, its a form of being a jerk, but this is a program design issue, the best thing to fix this is by offering a feature that if you block those two, you can no longer be viewed as a friend by those two people.

You can also suggest that they include a feature that hides your location and server location, while online.

That or to request a feature that allows you to block those two from seeing your account ID.

Other than that, there is nothing Arenanet could do, and a harassment report would not work for you in this situation.

I had some moron player try to make a drunken booty call on my char. When I told him to kitten off and blocked him, he proceeded to emote actions that should have been perceived as sexual assault, but since he did it as an owl, all of the other morons in the Flagon said ‘Oh, it is just a harmless owl’. I reported the behavior, but since I can still see the char in the game and he is still on my block list, I know that AN did nothing about it.

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@ robinsiebler.3801

Again this situation would not help you, this is again another flaw design issue with the “Block” feature.

I’ve already reported issues with the “Block” system, 5-7 weeks ago.

The issues with “Block” is that:

- It doesn’t block emotes.
- Emotes cannot be reported. (/em “bleep” “bleep” and “bleep”) in example.
- The player you blocked, can still join your group.
- The player can be invited by someone else in group.
- The player can talk to you still in group chat, even if he/she is blocked.

So again, this can not be a harassment issue, until block is more up to par.

You are wrong, Shadowlancer. His original behavior, the drunken boot call, was harassment. I reported it as verbal abuse, but it wasn’t really verbal abuse.

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@ robinsiebler.3801

You specifically said and I quote: "I had some moron player try to make a drunken booty call on my char. … … blocked him, he proceeded to emote actions … "

You can sit there and argue about this all you want but this is not a harassment situation, unless “Block” feature has been updated, had “Block” feature been working as it should, you would have never seen the emote messages.

There is nothing Arenanet can do if he/she is graphically using an in-game emote that causes the character to move in a certain way to perceive an ill and inappropriate way.

For that, you use the Report “Spamming” function. However since you cannot report spams for abuse use of /emotes or personal emotes like /em, this again cannot be used in a report “Harassment” situation.

I am sorry that happen to you but again, this is the main reason why report feature “Harassment” would be mis-used, and am against why this feature would be implemented.

What if ANet updated the drop-down list to:

• Selling Gold
• Botting or hacking
• Scamming or Cheating
• Inappropriate Behavior
• Objectionable Character Name

Inappropriate Behavior covers anything that is believed to be damaging to the community and openness of chat, and would include spamming, over-the-top cussing, name calling, and harassment.

Regardless of who or how we report, ANet investigates the circumstances and decides whether action is appropriate or not. If you want to add more details to the complaint (as in the case described above), you can open a ticket with support, instead of relying on the in-game system.

I, too, am sorry that this happened to anyone. I think the circumstances described fall into a form of “verbal abuse,” and, even if it didn’t, I’m sure ANet staff would figure out the issue. (And if they can’t, then changes to the drop down list aren’t going to change things.)

@ Illconceived Was Na.9781

Yeah… this would not work.

Botting, Hacking, or Exploiting; are three completely different situations.

Scamming and Cheating; cheating is the same as hacking so its pointless and scamming and cheating are two completely different situations.

Inappropriate Behavior doesn’t cover everything such as emote abuses or personal emote abuses. It leads the idea open to be abused since people of all ages play this game; so in terms anyone of anything can say I think the situation was deemed “Inappropriate Behavior” there fore I report it for whatever reason.

Also the “Objectionable Character Name” really see no need to change “Inappropriate Name” function.

Finally to sum this up, the changes you offer, makes it harder for the team that is in charge of investigating these types of situations, into organizing this into categories.

I understand adding more report functions may lead to the disdain eye view to a person reporting but again, you cant just throw it all together in one pile.

Again I understand that we have people of all ages playing this game but if you love and enjoy playing this game, you have to have some intelligence on your part, to know how to use the report function. Failure to read and understand the rules, makes the rules pointless.

Sometimes you have to put in the extra effort to understanding the rules to have Arenanet be able to help you.

@ Shadowlancer

per what robnsiebler said and the phasing used in their wording. Would that not be covered in the statement: “embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.”

In my eyes that would constitute harassing behavior not verbal abuse. How is someone to report this?

I have had a more grievous encounter by a group of people. I used verbal abuse and took screen shots.

I also blocked them and reported them to Anet including the screenshot through official support.

I happened to go to be my block list the other day to remove a ton of gold sellers and low and behold there were all of them listed as online.

would a harassment option have been quicker and more accurate? I believe so.

I feel both these examples should have been submitted as harassment and addressed better by Anet.

This is why I started this thread so those of us that know we were harassed, per the rules of conduct, will have a way of addressing this in the correct and official manner it deserves.

@ Krosslite.1950

The problem of this, is I have alot of bad experience from “World of Warcraft” and I have a very good idea of what can be dealt with and what cannot.

The main point is that some of the ideas or problems I see posted is people being “Jerks”.

There is nothing you can do for people being jerks, however you can offer suggestions to prevent them from being jerks by take away their tools, such as emotes, abuse with block/friend list, and other tricks they come up with.

Other than that, say you do use the “Harassment” report function, and hypothetically they get banned for 3 days or more, does it solve the “Root” of the problem no, does it solve your problem, no because you may or may not, face this issue again by the same person, using the same tricks, or a new person using the same tricks as that person before, you reported.

So in the end you have to find ways to stop the “Root” of the cause and then once the player starts using new “Tricks” that has been over-looked, then you can you use the “Harassment” report function.

Until then… you can’t report a person for being a “Jerk”. It is the internet after all and really… its not like you can take them to court or something because they can argue “Freedom of Speech”.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ robinsiebler.3801

You specifically said and I quote: "I had some moron player try to make a drunken booty call on my char. … … blocked him

You failed your reading comprehension roll. I reported him when I blocked him. There is no harassment option. When I blocked him, I had to report him for verbal abuse, even though he didn’t say anything that could be considered abusive, only offensive.

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@ robinsiebler.3801

I understood you blocked him and I understood that you tried to report him under “Verbal Abuse” when he was abusing emotes.

You can not use the “Harassment” option report, for the type of report you were trying to give. Sorry but your situation was handled with care in my last post towards you in a reply on this post. Good Luck.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ Krosslite.1950

The problem of this, is I have alot of bad experience from “World of Warcraft” and I have a very good idea of what can be dealt with and what cannot.

The main point is that some of the ideas or problems I see posted is people being “Jerks”.

There is nothing you can do for people being jerks, however you can offer suggestions to prevent them from being jerks by take away their tools, such as emotes, abuse with block/friend list, and other tricks they come up with.

Other than that, say you do use the “Harassment” report function, and hypothetically they get banned for 3 days or more, does it solve the “Root” of the problem no, does it solve your problem, no because you may or may not, face this issue again by the same person, using the same tricks, or a new person using the same tricks as that person before, you reported.

So in the end you have to find ways to stop the “Root” of the cause and then once the player starts using new “Tricks” that has been over-looked, then you can you use the “Harassment” report function.

Until then… you can’t report a person for being a “Jerk”. It is the internet after all and really… its not like you can take them to court or something because they can argue “Freedom of Speech”.

I do understand your point.
But how do we get Anet to address the “root” without a more accurate way of reporting the issue.

Your method which I have shown I follow. Also due to past experiences to know how to approach this; is faulty. Would that not mean that a good startingh point is required and is there not a good starting point available at this time.

Additionally I believe the new offiial word for “jerks” is “bullies”

@ Krosslite.1950

I do not understand your argument about mentioning of past bad experiences from another location, is bad to mention. You are saying and stating that there is some magical special formula to these situations.

No, there is nothing special about these functions. Pretty much all these methods are the same basic methods as any chat channel or Online game, follows.

Now to the ideas, you missed, I mentioned already, please read the replies towards “robinsiebler.3801” ’s issues, and look for the key issues of problems I mentioned about the bad designs of “Block” and “Emote” situations.

The issues in reply, list the solutions that has been covered by other Online games, a long time. When the issues I listed, has been implemented on “Guild Wars 2”, then will the “Harassment” report should be included as a feature, until then, we have alot of un-finished programs that need to be updated.

‘Harassment’ would be a very vague option. At least with ‘Verbal Abuse’ they know to check recent chatlogs of the person at the time of the reporting. How would they know what to check?

People could be accused of harassment for any number of things, but without a text box to enter what your complaint is… how would the GMs know what to look for?

The fact that there is no text box or the ability to attach a screen shot is another major oversight that somehow slipped through the cracks.

@Shadowlancer

I saw those you mentioned above.

Sorry for not making sense, typing via phone.

My point is how can we address the broken block and emote issue without a way to report the misconduct being done by the “bullies”
this I feel would be covered by a “harassment” reporting option unless you can name a better one

@ Counciler.7438

I did not want to comment on this but this has been mentioned twice now.

I like the text box idea, but here is the problem with text box explaining a report situation.

Using “World of Warcraft” ’s petition system, as an example, for “Guild Wars 2”.

There were major issues with this system. Trolls, Bad People with ill intent, or people that cannot speak well enough grammatically, foreign language, or people that are not that smart enough; to explain the situation.

Alot of WoW’s petitions were not working because if the person reading the report, read the report wrong or mis-understood what the person was saying, or the situation entirely; the costumer would accuse the Investigator as a poor investigator and asked that his/her situation be looked over again.

This would cause more investigation to be had rather it be necessary or unnecessary. This would also cause “Guild Wars 2” investigation, go into back draft since millions of people are making reports every day, thus making things longer.

That’s why in “Guild Wars 2” to avoid this, they offer categories for you to make a quick report on a player, and Arenanet throws it into a category for people to look over the situation.

There for, Arenanet, enforces the idea that you read their rules fully, because all investigations are final, to avoid loop holes, that people purposely leave on purpose if they are not satisfied of the outcome they are seeking.

A good example is “robinsiebler.3801” ’s situation, where he/she felt embarrassed that /block <name> was not enough and was offended by the emotes spammed there after.

@ Krosslite.1950

Again there is nothing we, the costumers, can do now. I already listed what needs to be done to improve the block/friend list situation, and the emote situation.

This is up to Arenanet to implement the ideas, suggested to be enforced on Guild Wars 2.

Once the /Block has been updated so the people you are avoiding cannot track you, that will fix alot problems.

Once emotes can be invisible from people that are blocked, that fixes that situation.

Once /emotes and /em (Personal Emotes) can be right clicked and can be reported for via /report “Spam”, /report “Verbal Abuse”, or /report (Future Idea: Harassment); only then will things be situated.

Side Note: This is also why you do not see the emotes: /rude /flip or /moon on Guild Wars 2, to avoid such harassment, unlike on other MMOs.

Until then, like I said, the ideas are there, but the programs need to be updated on Arenanet’s part.

robinsiebler.3801:

The fact that there is no text box or the ability to attach a screen shot is another major oversight that somehow slipped through the cracks.

agreed

yes Block needs to be revamped to be a FULL block

yes including a text and screenshot option or a reference number to submit with screenshots via the official support function would be nice.

Including this type of way to report will in itself cause those that are doing it to be malicious to not want to do it.

True it would not stop all, but making it more time consuming on the person reporting the issue would in itself make the ones that are reported most likely to be legitimate.

This is due to the very fact that they truly feel harassed , threatened, embarrassed; caused distress and/or unwanted attention by someone

Shadowlancer.7102 I am not sure why you keep arguing against this. Adding “harassment” or “inappropriate behavior” along with a box to explain the behavior would go a long way to reducing the “jerks” who ARE harassing others. Whether we believe a certain activity is harassment or not isn’t really a factor here because it will be up to ArenaNet to make that determination after they review the report. I also believe that if we do deal with the “jerks” that we have no means to deal with now, it will be a great deterrent for them to stop their behavior in the future, and make for a more pleasant gaming experience.

I do agree, however, that the block feature should block everything, including taking your name off the offending party’s friends list.

What she said, phrased way more politely than what I was thinking.

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@ robinsiebler.3801

By the way, just some friendly advice, if you want anyone to take your posts seriously, try to not reply like a child with childish remarks. If you cannot speak like an intelligent adult, then please stop posting threads and/or replying in them.

I’d think you could still report people using /me commands for verbal abuse… I mean, it’s no less verbal than any other form of communication the game provides. I assume the chat logs it since it appears there to begin with, but if not, you could just use a screenshot.

I really doubt they will ban you for using the report system for that. Even if they decide the person did nothing wrong, if you’re not intentionally doing it to cause trouble (as in you harassing them) that seems unlikely. For instance, back when there was no ‘selling gold’ option I reported dozens of people for ‘spamming’ when they did it. No bans, not even questions. Presumably when they looked, they figured out what I meant. I’m not even sure why they split spamming and selling gold to be honest, because those messages are spam.

re: people adding you to their friends list… does that like… do something?

I think a harassment reporting feature would be nice.