Guild Wars 2

I am writing this post in response to rampant verbal abuse I have received lately in Guild Wars 2. Yes, some of you may be surprised to learn that some people have emotions other than bitter malice. It hurts when trolls and all forms of chronically unhappy people make vicious personal attacks and go out of their way to make other people miserable. I know “haters gonna hate.” as the saying goes, but I encourage everyone who reads this to think twice about the reasons why we mistreat our fellow human beings, and how easy it is to pretend that we’re not affecting other people’s lives when we interact with them from behind a computer screen.

That said, in a moderated environment such as a privately purchased account, i.e. a game account, I find it exceptionally disturbing that offenders are not punished. Of course I’m guessing it’s about money. After all, Arenanet, you can’t profit off someone when that person is banned. Consider this a harbinger of where the community is taking the game. I am presently rather annoyed that I prepurchased Heart of Thrones, as quitting the game will be that much more disappointing, should I find the motivation to stay away. You will not be getting any more of my money, unless things change.

In parting, to everyone, including myself, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We’re all in this together.

Sincerely,
Eric

I feel this may help you OP – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Block-feature-PSA/first#post5556147

I am sorry that you have experienced harrashment. I tried that in GW1 and it was very hurtful. I often question why people think it is okay to say anything they please to others and then blame the victim of having feelings.

If the ingame report function is not sufficient, write a mail to support… add screenshots and describe what they do, if they do more than just talk trash. Block them and maybe keep a low profile? Don’t let it be other people driving you away, if you otherwise enjoy the game.

Sadly these people exist, there is very little you can do about that. You can tell them their behaviour is wrong, how much it really affects people, but in the end they’ll continue doing it because they do not care. It sux, but it’s the same in any and all online communities. All you can really do is report, block/ignore and move on.

Anet has banned people in the past plenty of time, report them so anet can handle them, they cannot do more than give people the tools they already gave them to deal with those who verbally abuse other players. When you see it happening, or it happens to you, simply report, block and ignore the person and move along. There is no reason why you should have to let them continue to abuse you when the tools ingame are already able to stop you from having to listen to a single word they say.

Block feature indeed is your best friend in the internet.

A while back I started to immediately block everyone and anyone the moment they start to troll or say something abusive. I do mean immediately. I don’t wait for them to say anything else or try to explain that it was a joke or anything. Just block when ever I see something I don’t like. Not saying or answering anything to them. It is not a perfect solution, but it works.

It also makes you notice that the game is quickly turning much nicer. Amount of trolls is quite small after all when compared to total population.

Now, I wish the forums would have a block feature too. Would be very useful here too.

You just block and report after 1st abuse sentence and move on. Anet has nothing to do with people being jerks. It’s just that. People.

Also, you should grow some thicker skin, or you might get really hurt in real life. THere might not be a block and report button when face to face with a jerk. Just an advice.

I am presently rather annoyed that I prepurchased Heart of Thrones, as quitting the game will be that much more disappointing, should I find the motivation to stay away. You will not be getting any more of my money, unless things change.

Presumably you have reported these people. Otherwise, how is ANet supposed to do anything about it.

At any rate, someone says anything rude to you, you immediately block and report them. You don’t give them a chance to say anything else and you don’t respond.

Dear Anet, I’m not playing your game because humans are humans. There are good humans and bad humans. Why not find a group of good humans to enjoy your time with (ie guild) instead of depending on complete strangers who may abuse you?

No one is saying what they are doing is right. But your reaction isn’t helping the community, it isn’t helping you, in fact, running away isn’t usually the answer.

Haters are indeed “gonna hate” and the anonymity of t’Internet amplifies that.
Nothing you can say or do will change them and the one thing they all have in common is that they are trying to get a reaction from you. So don’t give ’em one. Ignore and/or report them and move on and console yourself that one day they might reap what they sow.

I don’t get people who act like the moderation doesn’t work. People get banned all the time for this behavior. Generally they get a warning temporary suspension or two before a full on hard ban, but if you bother using the existing tools to report their behavior it will be be reviewed and handled appropriately. Sure, there isn’t going to be a GM there swinging a ban hammer every second of the day, it’s a process not instant gratification. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

I find people are more evil than we give them credit for. Everyone assumes that people on the internet are mean because they don’t grasp that there is another person with feelings behind that glowing computer screen. That if there was a face staring back at them, then they wouldn’t troll or be harsh.

Maybe it is because I grew up and live in a poor neighborhood, but I find this exact level of mean-ness IRL. People don’t do mean things because they don’t realize you’re human. They do mean things because they realize you are human. Whether they have something to prove, are irritable to the air itself, or legitimate hate you for some reason, the notion that another person is feeling pain behind a screen brings them comfort or joy. Telling them “stop, you’re hurting me” just makes them hit harder. Every time they get a “you’ve been blocked” message, it brings them satisfaction to know that what they do works. Each time they find themselves banned, they congratulate themselves over a job well done.

GW2 isn’t even the worst of it. The worst case I ever saw was in another MMO wherein upon being angered by the moderation, the individual proceeded to log in and flame people on 30 separate accounts. This person made 30 accounts, just to yell at people. Each time they were muted or banned, 5 seconds later they were back and continuing their tirade. Second worse case, someone made a neo-kitten clan and would dedicate themselves to spreading holocaust denial propaganda everywhere. Apparently it was popular, because for months I kept seeing the same chat macros.

Why? No one knows. It’s complicated, and if we did know then psychology would be respected as a real science. I see the occasional off comment on the forums and in map chat, but overall it isn’t that bad. It isn’t a constant stream of unending obscenity, threats, viruses and scams. You have to dig through the good to find what is bad, and not vice versa.

“We have the friendliest community EVER.” – Queen Jennah

Ameepa.6793:

A while back I started to immediately block everyone and anyone the moment they start to troll or say something abusive. I do mean immediately. I don’t wait for them to say anything else or try to explain that it was a joke or anything. Just block when ever I see something I don’t like. Not saying or answering anything to them. It is not a perfect solution, but it works.

I do this exact thing.
I’ve even blocked players in my party when in dungeon or fractal with no negative effects whatsoever, unsurprisingly trolls/abusers/racists/etc don’t have time to discuss tactics. XD

I’ve unfortunately found that debating with people whose mission is only to spread unpleasantness never works. They don’t listen/read what you say, at most they only use the pause of you speaking/writing to think of what to say/write next. That’s not a debate but a speech with an unwilling audience. And I do not have the time for that.

With slight modification it works in real life too. =)

Triangulator.2867:

“We have the friendliest community EVER.” – Queen Jennah

The funny thing is, we actually do, which is why people are far more likely to get bent out of shape when someone is being particularly abusive in text in GW2, because it’s actually quite rare.

so instead blocking those people (and I am in no way insinuating anet shouldn`t act on harassment) and maturely and confidently just moving on your way you let them win by quitting the game? Seems like a suboptimal strategy, also one that will make online gaming impossible for you in general. But to each their own I guess.

" Second worse case, someone made a neo-kitten clan and would dedicate themselves to spreading holocaust denial propaganda everywhere. Apparently it was popular, because for months I kept seeing the same chat macros."

That’s terrible, did they mean it or were they just roleplaying as bad guys? So you see a charr killing humans…but those humans are bandits and the charr the good guy. It’s a morally gray world we live in buddy.

I don’t know what happened to the OP, but I’ve had pretty positive interactions with people. You’ll find the occasional jerk on map chat, but I don’t see that a whole lot, and there is a block feature.

I know people can get pretty intense about dungeons/fractals, but as long as you play with like-minded people, you can avoid a lot of trouble. (Casual? Leave the hardcore runners to play with each other, while you find casual players. Hardcore? Don’t join a casual run and complain when someone isn’t stacking. Problem solved.)

If it’s more personal drama, like a guild, there’s only so much Anet can do. Block the people you don’t like and move on.

I’ll ask this question, as I do whenever posts like these come up.

So someone “harassed” you. (without saying what was said it’s hard to actually know if you were harassed or you got bent out of shape from something someone said once)
You blocked them. (hopefully, if you didn’t then you have no one to blame but yourself if it continued)
You reported them. (if you didn’t, then what do you expect Anet to do about it.)
You come to the forums to complain nothing was done about it. —> How do you know? Do you think Anet follows up with people who file reports to say, “Oh hi! By the way, that jerk you reported, yea we totally banned him.”

Like seriously, how do you know they didn’t get a one day ban, or a 3 day ban, or a verbal warning from a GM. Do you think just because you got offended by someone that they should be banned from the game permanently and that you should never have to see their player name again for as long as you live?

For all you know, they were reprimanded in some fashion. You do not need to be notified when someone you report is reprimanded just so you can feel some self-satisfaction that you “got them”.

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve experienced harassment. I’ve been playing for over two years and I’ve never been harassed myself. But, like everyone else says here, there are simple steps:

1. Block.
2. Report.
3. Move on.

Contrary to what you say, online games are better than the real world for this because we can “block” and “report” here. If you’re at the local supermarket and someone says something rude to you for taking the last batch of bananas, do you call the police? Of course not. You glower back, maybe retaliate, maybe recoil (depending on your personality) then you pay for your bananas and go home. When you get home, do you call the supermarket’s corporate number, complain about how some other customer treated you and demand that the store spend its time going through security camera footage, identifying the offending party and filling charges against them? Hopefully not, but some people…

This new era of entitlement is, imo, absurd. People are people, some people are rude, some people snap when they’ve had a bad day, so on and so forth. It’s would be great if no one ever had a bad day and everyone was always nice to one another, but unfortunately people aren’t that cut-and-paste. It’s ridiculous to cry, “Punish him! Punish him!!” and force all the responsibility onto other people because we can’t just say, “He was mean, I’m ignoring and moving on with my life.”

I’d rather Anet fix things like bugs and PvP matchmaking. That would go farther towards eliminating bad feelings at their source than simply hitting the “ban” button for each rude person.

As nice as it’d be to have the entire internet(and GW2 community) suck up their grudges and stop being bullies.

It just won’t happen, separate yourself from bullies and block as best you can.

Blair.3796:

It’s ridiculous to cry, “Punish him! Punish him!!” and force all the responsibility onto other people because we can’t just say, “He was mean, I’m ignoring and moving on with my life.”

As opposed to you just now shifting the “responsibility” for being harrassed onto the person being harrassed? ôO

As wrong as it is to claim that Anet doesn’t do anything about trolls and other [insert small feline here] in the game, it is even worse to pretend that, when it happens to you, your responsibility of blocking and reporting is greater than the responsibility of the person who was harrassing you to be a decent human being. I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion. It’s like getting told by teachers to just “stay out of his way” all over again, as if it was my fault some guy decided to pick on me for years. The greater fault always lies with the person doing the harrassing, not with the person at the receiving end.

That said, OP, just keep reporting trolls and harrassers. If they get reported often enough/by enough people, eventually, they’ll be forced to stop – by having their account banned. Until then, discussing this on the forum will accomplish nothing, because the system you ask for is already in place. It’s just like someone already pointed out – if someone gets banned or reprimanded, it’s not advertised.
(This is coming from someone with a block list in the triple digits. Unless someone specifically targets you, it works wonders to improve the overall tone of the mapchat.)

Red Queen.7915:

Blair.3796:

It’s ridiculous to cry, “Punish him! Punish him!!” and force all the responsibility onto other people because we can’t just say, “He was mean, I’m ignoring and moving on with my life.”

As opposed to you just now shifting the “responsibility” for being harrassed onto the person being harrassed? ôO

As wrong as it is to claim that Anet doesn’t do anything about trolls and other [insert small feline here] in the game, it is even worse to pretend that, when it happens to you, your responsibility of blocking and reporting is greater than the responsibility of the person who was harrassing you to be a decent human being. I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion. It’s like getting told by teachers to just “stay out of his way” all over again, as if it was my fault some guy decided to pick on me for years. The greater fault always lies with the person doing the harrassing, not with the person at the receiving end.

As opposed to what? ANet hires an army of people to sit in every instance reading through all the chat? Blocking and reporting are basically the only correct action since anything else is just going to encourage that type of people.

The comparison to real life doesn’t work because real life doesn’t have a block feature to render another person effectively non-existent to you.

Simple advice:

1. humans are humans. When someone says rude stuff to you in public, what do you do? Stand there and take it, or ignore and walk away?
2. Ignore and report options are your friends. Use them instead of ignoring them.
3. The fact that you had to report this instead of just ignore and report means they got to you, and they won.
4. Again, ignore, report, and let it go. Don’t let someone else control and ruin your fun.

Khisanth.2948:

The comparison to real life doesn’t work because real life doesn’t have a block feature to render another person effectively non-existent to you.

Except on Black Mirror.

Agemnon.4608:

" Second worse case, someone made a neo-kitten clan and would dedicate themselves to spreading holocaust denial propaganda everywhere. Apparently it was popular, because for months I kept seeing the same chat macros."

That’s terrible, did they mean it or were they just roleplaying as bad guys? So you see a charr killing humans…but those humans are bandits and the charr the good guy. It’s a morally gray world we live in buddy.

I could invoke Poe’s law, but I’m pretty sure they meant it. The ignition rate and soil concentration of pesticides isn’t exactly standard “troll bait” if you know what I’m saying. This was also around the time that an antisemitic film was at its peak popularity, and I’m certain that those two facts were related.

Truth.5279:

offenders are not punished

[citation needed]

Block/Report

This will deal with it.

Nothing shuts a troll down like not responding to it/him/her…

While I’m sorry you have been harassed, the only thing you can do is block and move on…

Red Queen.7915:

Blair.3796:

It’s ridiculous to cry, “Punish him! Punish him!!” and force all the responsibility onto other people because we can’t just say, “He was mean, I’m ignoring and moving on with my life.”

As opposed to you just now shifting the “responsibility” for being harrassed onto the person being harrassed? ôO

As wrong as it is to claim that Anet doesn’t do anything about trolls and other [insert small feline here] in the game, it is even worse to pretend that, when it happens to you, your responsibility of blocking and reporting is greater than the responsibility of the person who was harrassing you to be a decent human being. I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion. It’s like getting told by teachers to just “stay out of his way” all over again, as if it was my fault some guy decided to pick on me for years. The greater fault always lies with the person doing the harrassing, not with the person at the receiving end.

The responsibility lies with the harasser, and the harasser alone; they should not be harassing in the first place. But people will break rules and people will be mean, so we have to decide how to deal with it. The harasser has harassed, they have broken this social convention, so now what do we do? Do we block them, ignore them, maybe report them, and move on? Or do we whine and cry and appeal to a higher authority to do something about it instead of managing it ourselves?

Sometimes a higher authority is necessary. In cases of persistent and severe bullying, for example, it’s best to get the help of parents, teachers, authorities or managers to eliminate the problem at its source. “Toughing it out” or “brushing it off” doesn’t always work, and it’s not always a good option. This goes for both in-person and internet bullying. It’s important to judge when this is necessary, but it should not become the default option for every case, and herein lies the problem with current social trends and entitlement.

The OP was not specific as to what this “harassment” constituted. Was the OP rudely criticized for his/her actions in PvP? Insulted for his/her armor appearance choices? Told he/she was running a sub-optimal build in dungeons? Cat-called? Rudely hit on?

And then, the most important part: how, or to what intensity? A single isolated comment, “ignore.” Multiple comments, “block” and maybe “report.” Switching accounts to get around the block, getting friends in on the harassment, joining LFG parties and kicking the OP, intentionally losing in PvP… There are a lot of really mean, really bad things that people can do to take what started as an isolated incident or single rude comment too far.

So, use good judgement, be a good person, and try your best to not let downers get you down.

One final note on a part of your post:

I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion.

I have never harassed anyone, in any medium, and I do not condone this behavior. It is most certainly not an excuse for harassing people, though harassers themselves will on occasion try to use it as such (“If it bothered him, he’d block or do something about it, hue hue.”). This is exactly the advice that a psychologist would offer: when confronted with adversity, do you break down and let it control you, or do you take charge of your own life and do what is necessary to stop it? Sometimes this is a simple block, sometimes this is going to a teacher, sometimes this is calling the police, and sometimes this is a plea to the devs.

But without the facts and more information, we don’t know. Hence the advice and debate.

Blair.3796:

Red Queen.7915:

Blair.3796:

It’s ridiculous to cry, “Punish him! Punish him!!” and force all the responsibility onto other people because we can’t just say, “He was mean, I’m ignoring and moving on with my life.”

As opposed to you just now shifting the “responsibility” for being harrassed onto the person being harrassed? ôO

As wrong as it is to claim that Anet doesn’t do anything about trolls and other [insert small feline here] in the game, it is even worse to pretend that, when it happens to you, your responsibility of blocking and reporting is greater than the responsibility of the person who was harrassing you to be a decent human being. I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion. It’s like getting told by teachers to just “stay out of his way” all over again, as if it was my fault some guy decided to pick on me for years. The greater fault always lies with the person doing the harrassing, not with the person at the receiving end.

The responsibility lies with the harasser, and the harasser alone; they should not be harassing in the first place. But people will break rules and people will be mean, so we have to decide how to deal with it. The harasser has harassed, they have broken this social convention, so now what do we do? Do we block them, ignore them, maybe report them, and move on? Or do we whine and cry and appeal to a higher authority to do something about it instead of managing it ourselves?

Sometimes a higher authority is necessary. In cases of persistent and severe bullying, for example, it’s best to get the help of parents, teachers, authorities or managers to eliminate the problem at its source. “Toughing it out” or “brushing it off” doesn’t always work, and it’s not always a good option. This goes for both in-person and internet bullying. It’s important to judge when this is necessary, but it should not become the default option for every case, and herein lies the problem with current social trends and entitlement.

The OP was not specific as to what this “harassment” constituted. Was the OP rudely criticized for his/her actions in PvP? Insulted for his/her armor appearance choices? Told he/she was running a sub-optimal build in dungeons? Cat-called? Rudely hit on?

And then, the most important part: how, or to what intensity? A single isolated comment, “ignore.” Multiple comments, “block” and maybe “report.” Switching accounts to get around the block, getting friends in on the harassment, joining LFG parties and kicking the OP, intentionally losing in PvP… There are a lot of really mean, really bad things that people can do to take what started as an isolated incident or single rude comment too far.

So, use good judgement, be a good person, and try your best to not let downers get you down.

One final note on a part of your post:

I hate this excuse (and that’s what it is, and excuse for harrassing people) with a passion.

I have never harassed anyone, in any medium, and I do not condone this behavior. It is most certainly not an excuse for harassing people, though harassers themselves will on occasion try to use it as such (“If it bothered him, he’d block or do something about it, hue hue.”). This is exactly the advice that a psychologist would offer: when confronted with adversity, do you break down and let it control you, or do you take charge of your own life and do what is necessary to stop it? Sometimes this is a simple block, sometimes this is going to a teacher, sometimes this is calling the police, and sometimes this is a plea to the devs.

But without the facts and more information, we don’t know. Hence the advice and debate.

Can…can we be friends?

Red Queen.7915:

As opposed to you just now shifting the “responsibility” for being harrassed onto the person being harrassed? ôO

That is absolutely not what happened. That’s not even close to what he said.

The responsibility for your personal feelings is on you. Always, in all circumstances. When someone “harasses” you you have choices to make. Make an extensive forum post whining about it, or block, report and move on. Begging arenanet to punish the person who offended you is actually a thinly veiled request for arenanet to TELL you about the punishment, which is frankly every bit as immature as the initial insult itself.

You shouldn’t need to know the person who insulted you is being punished in order to manage your feelings.

I have quite the block list going. I appreciate friendly trolling and joking, but some go too far. I have seen people “joking” in open map chat about child abuse, sexual harassment, and other disgusting topics: these people are blocked without a word from me. Any pug who is rude or verbally abuses party members is also blocked after a dungeon or fractal run (or at the beginning, if we’ve barely started). Just as I limit my interactions with these types of people in real life, I prefer not to have these people join my groups in my play time. It has nothing to do with thick or thin skin. These people create a stressful environment in a place I reserve for fun.

Can’t not read the title of this thread in zefrank’s voice.

*goes to binge on Dear Kitten videos rather than get into the discussion

Oh Jesus…not another cry me a river thread. This is what you do:

1) Block
2) Ignore
3) Go on with life
4) Stop making these attention seeking threads

Shen Slayer.3058:

Oh Jesus…not another cry me a river thread. This is what you do:

1) Block
2) Ignore
3) Go on with life
4) Stop making these attention seeking threads

You realise that you could have taken steps 2 and 3 instead of posting here yes?
Maybe you and the OP aren’t as different as you might think. =P

I’m sad to hear that you’ve been treated this way. I too have been verbally abused and attacked in game. The worse was when I was in PvP and me and another player were 1v1 on a point on Legacy and he killed me and responded with saying “Rekt” and “You suck”. Later, after the game (We won by the way) he whispered me saying very vulgar insults (which I won’t get into detail) and it was hurtful, but I did not follow up with his/her little game. THEN, he blocked me and continued to talk badly of me in map chat while I was waiting for another match to start, then I did respond by saying “You should probably stop talking, before you embarrass yourself and get reported”. I followed up with filling out a report on the player and blocked him.

People will be mean, it happens. I agree, I wish I saw more quick decisions from Anet with handling people like that. ://

I honestly never have map chat up. I will sometimes chat with people that are right around me, and I’ve yet to experience a truly rude person. Closest I got was a “Go Away” in the Eternal Battlegrounds because I didn’t realize the people were in there dueling and messing around and I was attacking people. And even then, I ended up chatting with them for a bit before I wandered off.

Well at least OP is not a troll. But these posts happen like 3x a week. Most of the time the person has no post history. Anyway blocking is easy enough to do. You’ll always meet toxic people in life that get away with things for a time. In the end it doesn’t matter. They are just miserable people and there really is no need for “justice” because they will keep living with their miserable selves and that is punishment enough imo. Although I do believe Anet gives out short bans for this type of behavior once in a while but there’s no way for you to know that.

So block and move on. Be happy you aren’t as miserable as that person that they need to boost their self esteem by being toxic towards others in a mmo.