This ought to bring out the rants. Nevertheless, it needs to be asked (and it would be nice to see an HTC rep actually comment here).
The MA is proving to be a festering cesspool of foul mouthed idjits. The absence of any mention of such conduct in the TOS is also somewhat disheartening. I realize there are certain limitations insofar as manpower goes. However there doesn't even appear to be an intent to keep a clean shop, nor from what I've seen the necessary tools for the players to try to do it themselves with any reasonable degree of effectiveness.
Now just to be clear, I can spew verbal diaherra with the best of them. Actually I can pretty much guarantee that I could teach the bulk of the folks online a thing or two about pitching back rye, spewing filth, and getting in one bar brawl too many. However, there's a place and time for that and, imo, AH isn't the place or the time. I just don't come here for that and I do my best to offer that same respect to everyone else logged in. I'm of the opinion that the person sitting in his den with his son on his knee trying to enjoy some fun in game doesn't want to see Joe Circlejerk show us all the less than noteworthy limitations of his vocabulary and his intellect.
The norm online here suggests that there is a vocal minority of Joe Circlejerks that don't have such reservations. That's not a surprise though. I've been involved in online gaming long enough to know that folks can get quite ballsy with their comments when they've got a computer monitor and thousands of miles between them and their counterparts. It is entertaining though if you finally get a chance to meet them face to face. Oh how attitudes change
. But that's a different issue entirely.
Here's the poop though as I see it. I haven't been here that long, I quite enjoy the game itself and think its a superb work in progress (a "Bravo!" is indeed deserved to the HT, Pyro and all the HTC folks for that), accordingly I'm quite interested in staying and playing. However, in good conscience I can't bring myself to pay for a product that consists so largely of offensive material, whether by design or simple circumstance. Simply put, I just don't enjoy logging in to the channel garbage that is the norm in AH.
Now I've had the pleasure of meeting both HT and Pyro personally and know them to be decent, stand-up guys. Further, I realize with a small business that one has to be very careful how far you extend your resources. Policing this sort of thing can be a drain on resources. However I must say that a complete absence of any conduct reference in the TOS does come as a surprise to me. It does help explain the rampant disregard for others that is the norm over the various radio channels in MA though. "F" this and "F" that is fast becoming the most oft used word on channel 1 (channel 2 a lot more lately as well).
So to the questions at hand (finally :->):
1) Are there plans to put in place, and enforce, any level of conduct ground rules for online play? If so, a time frame for this would be great.
2) Is there a possibility for empowering the players to tailor what they do and don't see a bit more vigorously? What I mean by this is a more effective squelch tool that, at minimum, does the following...
a) Allows me to squelch ALL channels, including the country channel;
b) Allows me to save and automacally load on login channel squelches as well as any individual players that are squelched. Basiclaly a squelch tool that is persistant;
c) Provide a language filter. This is common place in online games and is very much needed here. It allows parents to help control what is seen as well as lets one leave channel 1 and 2 unsquelched so they can talk to friends, etc without being innudated with the verbal diaherra.
3) If you folks at HTC are happy with the present levels of conduct in MA and don't see that any steps need to be taken, although unfortunate, that's cool by me. Its your game after all. Just let me know here if you could.
Personally I'd prefer to see HTC get forcefull with a conduct policy and start punting accounts. The simple fact of the matter is that the tools mentioned above don't do anything to promote a sense of community as they place the player in a bit of a squelched bubble. Howver if you're not actively policing it on the corporate side you need to allow the players to do it from their end. Although its not by intent, you guys ARE running an X-rated product here with no means by which for the player to effectively restrict that (.squelch just isn't near robust enough). That's eventually going to cause some problems I'm sure.
Would really like to hear from someone at HTC just to get a feel for where this is, or isn't, going.
Vortex
