Should people lose access to a game because of how they act?

[Lightknight]

Way, way better ways to handle the situation. maybe force a mute on them but still let them play, revoke only multiplayer aspects of a game, or rewarding players who act right with freebies.

There are other ways to grief that don't require your mouth. Depends on the game.

 

[Bad Jim]

Oh, also money is a HUGE part of it. If someone pays you money to play a game, a few swears shouldn't even appear as a blip in the radar, whereas if it's a F2P it's more justified to make people "play by your rules".

Or at least it would be if F2P was truly free. But they are designed to get you to pay, and if you have paid for anything, banning you is (or should be) just as serious as if you had purchased the game.

 

[Signa]

Yes, for the same reason I think an asshole standing up and shouting in a movie theater during the movie should be removed.

It's not about taking something away from that person so much as it is preventing that person from taking away from everyone else. The rest of the people there also paid for the experience and they're ruining it for everyone.

As long as this is part of the user agreement then absolutely. But even if not, social contract isn't unreasonable to follow.

I think it's very important to point out that in the movie theater analogy, customers in the theater all paid for that session of movie viewing, and nothing else. They don't have the option to come back later and enjoy the movie without the douche in the room, nor can they go see a different movie later. In order for the situations to be similar, the theater would have to offer a permanent service where customers can come and go as they please to each movie in the theater. Suddenly, ruining one movie for a lot of people isn't so bad since they can just go see a different one or view it again when the douche isn't around.

The analogy still falls apart when you consider things like people's time in getting to and attending the theater. I have no problem saying that a douche in the real world should be removed from a theater, but in an online world, the affected customers have options to get away from the douche without compromising their experience significantly. Options that doesn't involve the douche losing money or rights.

Ok then, let me give you a new analogy.

Let's say I and my friends paid for an infinite supply of pies (gaming sessions) as long as the pie making company (hosting site) is still in business. Let's say we're all sharing our pies and enjoying them together (in a multiplayer lobby). Now here comes along Mr. Troll McAsshole who did pay for pies too but has taken it upon himself to ruin our enjoyment of our pies by sticking his poop in each of them. He does this repeatedly during multiple pie enjoyment sessions and has not listened to infractions and warnings levied at him as a result. He knows full well that he agreed to a disclosure that explicitly tells him not to poop (or place poop) into the pies.

Yep, not only should he be removed, but precautions should be put in place to prevent him from doing that again in the future. Only letting him have pie by himself and not in our pie loving group is a perfectly legitimate way to do that.

Seriously, stop defending trolls. They can keep their games but they don't get to ruin our experiences non-stop just because they want to.

Be warned, tearing apart this analogy just means I will then have to come up with an erotic analogy for you. I'm thinking I'll make it involve tassel pasties...

That is a far more apt analogy, but I still ask, why can't you just not eat the pies that he wants to reenact American Pie with? You have infinite pies, and he paid for access to them too. Can he not be sent off with the other pie fuckers into his own group of infinite pies?

Those questions are rhetorical since we aren't talking about pies here, but it's still the point I'm driving here. Removing the pie fuckers doesn't make pie fuckers stop existing (man, I love typing pie fucker), it just treats them like shit for being a pie fucker. We should be making mousetrap pies, or Icy-Hot pies to make pie fucking less enjoyable instead of just saying that pie fuckers can't have pies after they paid for them.

 

[Signa]

I still can't help but feel we're all mad at some boogieman that doesn't really exist on the level everyone says he does. That anger is driving the support for this measure which I can't agree with. Personally, I've never seen a troll/asshole get kicked, and then have him show up again later, let alone still being an asshole later.

If that's true and these kinds of trolls don't exist then what are you complaining about? This would inherently then mean that no one gets kicked.

Oh, double quoted.

I'm worried that people will redefine trolling to a lower threshold so that people do get banned. You're right, and I hope no one does get banned, but I don't think this should even be an option on the table. We're giving away too much power.

 

[Lightknight]

I still can't help but feel we're all mad at some boogieman that doesn't really exist on the level everyone says he does. That anger is driving the support for this measure which I can't agree with. Personally, I've never seen a troll/asshole get kicked, and then have him show up again later, let alone still being an asshole later.

If that's true and these kinds of trolls don't exist then what are you complaining about? This would inherently then mean that no one gets kicked.

I'm worried that people will redefine trolling to a lower threshold so that people do get banned. You're right, and I hope no one does get banned, but I don't think this should even be an option on the table. We're giving away too much power.

I'm sure you recognize that this is a slippery slope argument rather than the way things presently are. If people started getting banned for stupid reasons then I'd back you up on this.

But as the question is currently posed, should people who behave this way be able to lose access to games? Sure. You seem to be more arguing that the standards for what constitutes a "troll" can eventually lead to fuzzy reasoning. At which point we will rally against that rather than the general notion of if an bonafide troll can lose their access.

That is a far more apt analogy, but I still ask, why can't you just not eat the pies that he wants to reenact American Pie with? You have infinite pies, and he paid for access to them too.

There may be infinite pies, but I don't have infinite time, infinite appetite, or an infinite patience. Stick shit in enough pies and the whole experience is sufficiently frustrating enough to prevent me from coming back and getting my value's worth.

Can he not be sent off with the other pie fuckers into his own group of infinite pies?

This would be an acceptable compromise.

Those questions are rhetorical since we aren't talking about pies here, but it's still the point I'm driving here. Removing the pie fuckers doesn't make pie fuckers stop existing (man, I love typing pie fucker), it just treats them like shit for being a pie fucker. We should be making mousetrap pies, or Icy-Hot pies to make pie fucking less enjoyable instead of just saying that pie fuckers can't have pies after they paid for them.

Maybe pie fuckers deserve to be treated like shit? These are people who, by definition, treated everyone else like shit.

There are a number of other activities where you can act like an ass and lose access to something you paid for. I'm not sure why we're defending the assholes here...

All this talk of pie fuckers make me think you read my first version where I did actually say that the troll stuck his dick in all the pies. I really posted that first before editing it for "poop" to give more family friendly repostability. Your quote of me though includes the newest version. But I'm glad we're on the same brain-wavelength there.

 

[Tilly]

Have they explained how they'd check on such things? The amount of effort needed to avoid false positives is surely huge.
I bet it's just empty posturing. Like people who stick a "beware the dog" sign on their house even though they don't have a dog.

 

[Signa]

I still can't help but feel we're all mad at some boogieman that doesn't really exist on the level everyone says he does. That anger is driving the support for this measure which I can't agree with. Personally, I've never seen a troll/asshole get kicked, and then have him show up again later, let alone still being an asshole later.

If that's true and these kinds of trolls don't exist then what are you complaining about? This would inherently then mean that no one gets kicked.

I'm worried that people will redefine trolling to a lower threshold so that people do get banned. You're right, and I hope no one does get banned, but I don't think this should even be an option on the table. We're giving away too much power.

I'm sure you recognize that this is a slippery slope argument rather than the way things presently are. If people started getting banned for stupid reasons then I'd back you up on this.

But as the question is currently posed, should people who behave this way be able to lose access to games? Sure. You seem to be more arguing that the standards for what constitutes a "troll" can eventually lead to fuzzy reasoning. At which point we will rally against that rather than the general notion of if an bonafide troll can lose their access.

That is a far more apt analogy, but I still ask, why can't you just not eat the pies that he wants to reenact American Pie with? You have infinite pies, and he paid for access to them too.

There may be infinite pies, but I don't have infinite time, infinite appetite, or an infinite patience. Stick shit in enough pies and the whole experience is sufficiently frustrating enough to prevent me from coming back and getting my value's worth.

Can he not be sent off with the other pie fuckers into his own group of infinite pies?

This would be an acceptable compromise.

Those questions are rhetorical since we aren't talking about pies here, but it's still the point I'm driving here. Removing the pie fuckers doesn't make pie fuckers stop existing (man, I love typing pie fucker), it just treats them like shit for being a pie fucker. We should be making mousetrap pies, or Icy-Hot pies to make pie fucking less enjoyable instead of just saying that pie fuckers can't have pies after they paid for them.

Maybe pie fuckers deserve to be treated like shit? These are people who, by definition, treated everyone else like shit.

There are a number of other activities where you can act like an ass and lose access to something you paid for. I'm not sure why we're defending the assholes here...

All this talk of pie fuckers make me think you read my first version where I did actually say that the troll stuck his dick in all the pies. I really posted that first before editing it for "poop" to give more family friendly repostability. Your quote of me though includes the newest version. But I'm glad we're on the same brain-wavelength there.

All in all, I'm pretty content with your reply. I acknowledge I'm being a slippery slope alarmist, and I'd prefer to be wrong about it. Still, I'm cautious and cynical because of things have gone over the last half-decade or so. I can't just take something like this at face value anymore.

I also acknowledge I was coming off as too kind to the pie fuckers. It doesn't look too reasonable when applied to the proper troll context the analogy was supposed to draw. I just prefer to live and let live when it's possible in a general context. There's always going to be some conflict between people, and while there's options, there's a way to avoid that conflict. We have options, and excommunicating paying customers from a gaming community should be the final option, after all other options has been exhausted. I don't see other options being exhausted, and if those other options were even used, it shouldn't even get to this point of removing a user.

I don't remember which I read. I have a habit of just reading the quoted message in my inbox before even returning to the thread to reply. Pie fucking is a better analogy anyway, because stuffing shit into pies would be a better analogy for hackers and cheaters.

 

[Olas]

I'm totally fine with it. Although a permanent ban seems a little excessive, perhaps just one lasting a week or a month.

Ultimately it's down to the developers how severely they want to punish people in their own game.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Basically, you're asking if people should loose access to the single player part of the game, like story mode in CoD, or Vs AI/Season in madden, or some such?
Not immediately, no.
If they maintain being trolls by what ever means after being punished before they lose access to the game, then yes, they should. It's a likely next step in punishing someone that was bypassing the game's guards against this behaviour.

I can't believe I'm actually reading this. You are advocating taking people's game that THEY PAID FOR, over harmless trolling.

Harmless trolling shouldn't get you in that much trouble. That's the thing.
If it's not harmless (and harmless to who, exactly? The Troll? No one gives a crap about that, it's the targets of the troll that people care about.) then they're progressing in their being a headache to everyone, including the people that have to keep the peace, so, yeah, if a troll goes too far, the troll can also gtfo.

People pay for games to not be made miserable by trolls. People make games to not be made miserable by trolls. Why do trolls get to override all of that?

 

[Joccaren]

I go to a cinema. I purchase a ticket.

Going to use the most recent cinema post as an example, because to be frank it is pissing me off because of how this is actually working, but I'll try to use a cinema as the base even though it'd fit much better if it was home based.

Pretend that you could buy a ticket at a cinema and it will give you permanent access to whatever movie is on the ticket at any place playing the movie. Pipe dream, I know.
Now, you can go see this movie at "official" theaters where the stuff is all nice and fancy and crap, but you have to abide by that company's rules. Fair.
You either act like a dick or just do a few things not fitting too well with the company's terms to watch the movie at their specific theater. You get the boot. Perfectly fine.

Now pretend, that this could also grant the ability for someone else to host a showing of said movie at another location by their own rules. Maybe the ability to do whatever you really like during the movie if people like to have a bit of non-quiet fun and scream and laugh their asses off constantly or even be a bit of a dick, in good fun or not.

This is like the official company coming over and taking your ticket access away permanently so you can't see the movie anywhere, even if you didn't see it at one of their hosted locations, for anything you do beyond their locations, with no refund, and possibly having the movie host's rights revoked because they allowed behavior that the company did not like, also with no refund.

Don't know about anyone else but I think that's far beyond the desired scope of power for any company to have.

It all depends on how you view this. In the situation given, it may be easier to just invalidate the ticket than to put your face on a bulletin board and train all cinema staff members not to let you in, or to program an entirely new ticket and cinema registration system so that they could ban your ticket from the cinemas, but not from home.

IMO, if you have broken the ToS, the company is not obliged to go to extra effort to ensure you can still use the product you broke the ToS on. A number of games have had the functionality to just ban you off online servers, and had it easier to do so than ban you from offline and online. These days with Steam and its DRM, its easier just to ban you from the game. It also gets around IP spoofing and the numerous tricks to get around online server bans. They key to this issue I feel isn't in blocking a person's access to the service they purchased under strict T&C, but with the fact that the infrastructure is not programmed to discriminate between offline and online play - it just sees the game and blocks.
Better infrastructure that simply blocked the game from accessing any online component would be more amiable, to be honest, however at the same time I can fully understand not putting that work in for those who abuse the ToS. In your example, it'd be like your ticket had a number on it that was your access number. They don't take the ticket off you. They just deactivate your access number. As said above, they could spend a fortune training their staff so they don't have to deactivate your access number, but eventually with a large number of people being banned that becomes impractical. They could also spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring someone to come in, build them a new server and data infrastructure that'll allow them to not only scan your ticket and see if its validated, but see if it is validated for that specific cinema too.

Eventually, its too much effort, and those that abuse ToS, and greif, cheat, exploit or harass in game don't really deserve the effort required to make it run for them. If they were willing to foot the bill, sure. Otherwise its like going to hiring an expensive chef and being told he expects a strict formal dress code, so you wear a suit, then tear it off and plop on a tank top and ripped jeans, and complain that they won't refund your booking fee. Doesn't matter if you're at home or in a restaurant, that chef has given you his terms of service. If you break them, its your own fault. It sucks to be them, but that's why it pays to actually know the rules, and follow them.

And I know there will be arguments about the accuracy and how quickly people are banned - I am discussing the principle of denying access, not the execution of it. In its execution, there is still a lot of work to be done. In principle, I'd rather the game devs, and Valve, focused on improving services for normal paying customers, rather than revamping the DRM and potentially breaking things in the process so that it functions differently for offline and online play of each game. Forget private servers, as that's even more difficult.
This is the issue with applying these bans through the DRM, but it is also a fortune cheaper than the devs developing the tools themselves.

I can understand some view it as unfair, however given a perfect world whereby it was a fully justified ban, I see it as fully fair given the context of the issue. It is NOT fair to the developers to have to foot the bill to be able to semi-ban these people who break the ToS. It is NOT fair for Steam to foot the bill and revamp their DRM scheme so it recognises each game's online and offline components separately, and is able to block access to only one. Its not fair for normal consumers to foot the bill for the others that purposefully try to ruin their games, and it is not fair for them to have to put up with those people either. Is it fair that people who break the ToS on a license to use a product are no longer able to use that product, even for private use rather than public? Compared to the rest of the not fairs, yes, yes it is.

 

[Loonyyy]

Have they explained how they'd check on such things? The amount of effort needed to avoid false positives is surely huge.
I bet it's just empty posturing. Like people who stick a "beware the dog" sign on their house even though they don't have a dog.

It is exactly like that. They say they've only ever banned one or two people with it (And that was for games before this one, in Red Orchestra titles), and that was for game breaking, crashing exploits, after removing the players numerous times.

They've put in cleartext what they're already entitled to do by the EULA. Killing Floor 2, as yet, features no ingame features for reporting content, with no system for archiving footage from reported players. So you'd have to do it yourself.

And yeah, there's an awful lot of people in the thread who
a) didn't watch the video and
b) do not play Killing Floor 2
making suggestions which are patently untrue if you've done both of those things, and invoking ridiculous slippery slope arguments about how their right to ban trolls will extend to banning poor innocent people who's only crime is ruining the game for everyone else.

Starting to feel like very few people a) Play multiplayer or b) Play TWI games (Including KF2).

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Wasn't there a system in place somewhere where trolls got stuck with other trolls if they got reported too often? I like that idea. I mean, it would be nothing but angry tweenagers humping rocks and shooting teamates, but that's what they deserve. Meanwhile, everyone else is fine.

That is SUCH a good idea. Create the dumping ground server where all the troll trash can go. Maybe you can work your way out on good behaviour. Nevermind ELO hell. This is douche hell.

 

[Odbarc]

Terms and conditions; If you click accept, I'm pretty sure they say in there somewhere that they'll allowed to and you're letting them do it.

 

[Signa]

Have they explained how they'd check on such things? The amount of effort needed to avoid false positives is surely huge.
I bet it's just empty posturing. Like people who stick a "beware the dog" sign on their house even though they don't have a dog.

It is exactly like that. They say they've only ever banned one or two people with it (And that was for games before this one, in Red Orchestra titles), and that was for game breaking, crashing exploits, after removing the players numerous times.

They've put in cleartext what they're already entitled to do by the EULA. Killing Floor 2, as yet, features no ingame features for reporting content, with no system for archiving footage from reported players. So you'd have to do it yourself.

And yeah, there's an awful lot of people in the thread who
a) didn't watch the video and
b) do not play Killing Floor 2
making suggestions which are patently untrue if you've done both of those things, and invoking ridiculous slippery slope arguments about how their right to ban trolls will extend to banning poor innocent people who's only crime is ruining the game for everyone else.

Starting to feel like very few people a) Play multiplayer or b) Play TWI games (Including KF2).

You reminded me I hadn't seen the video. I've been mostly posting in my "free" time at work where I can read and type a response, but watching a video would be hard to get away with.

That said, I don't think the video changed any of my concerns. I am relieved that they gave one guy like 20 chances before pulling the plug on him, and if that's what we can expect, I will have a hard time complaining about that.

I am still concerned how they mentioned sexism after this Calgary Expo thing went down. One person's idea of being a sexist harasser is another person's idea of having a conversation. I'm also having a hard time picturing a sexist comment offensive enough that warrants cd-key banning.

 

[Kristoffer]

No.

I could agree to timed lockouts and perhaps some "griefer only servers", but no complete lockout.

 

[Pax Romana]

They should just have 2 seperate servers. One where all the players play nice. And another one where they send you for a certain amount of time as punishment, a time-out if you may, where all the other players you will meet are other abusive "players".

I would happily play in the abusive server, I personally used to laugh at all the trolling and insults when I played COD, it was like part of the game. Even more when you massacre their team and they lose their minds. My friends were the same we only said recently we missed all the trash talking when we moved to battlefield because you can only hear your squad. Perhaps we are the minority.

I recall on xbox you could auto mute anyone who was not on your friends list which is a neat little way of ensuring you never have to deal with anyone if you are such inclined.

 

[Leg End]

sniparoo

What you're saying from the theater analogy is to basically take the long and stupid route instead of just, you know, banning that particular ticket.
In this case, just ban a specific CD key from accessing official servers. Anything else is just stupid or, well, stupid. And it still doesn't cover the regulation of private servers.

They've made a new solution to something that isn't really a problem and sticks their hand further into the rectums of users.

 

[Loonyyy]

You reminded me I hadn't seen the video. I've been mostly posting in my "free" time at work where I can read and type a response, but watching a video would be hard to get away with.

Let me make it clear: Killing Floor 2 doesn't have any mechanism for keeping evidence on reports, it doesn't have a report button that I've found, after I put up with some moron who couldn't stop abusing everyone around him (And Killing Floor, especially the second, does not give you time to fuck with settings on the fly to deal with that). The idea that this is going to be abused is mistaken. If you want to make a report, you're going to have to contact TWI, and organise your own evidence.

They've made clear what they already do. This is, and was, their policy.

That said, I don't think the video changed any of my concerns. I am relieved that they gave one guy like 20 chances before pulling the plug on him, and if that's what we can expect, I will have a hard time complaining about that.

They've so far banned a couple of people, and they said it was for exploiting, and crashing games. Have you ever levelled in a TWI game? I'd be fucking pissed if someone crashed my game during that too. Fucking Red Orchestra 2 and Killing Floor have some of the longest levelling I've experienced outside of an MMO, with massive spacing of game changing rewards. I would never have bothered if they weren't some of my favourite games. 20 chances is pretty damn lenient, far too lenient for people who want to be able to play the damn game. Losing up to an hour, nope. That makes people quit the game, for good, and makes the game worse for everyone else.

When you let the scum stay in the game, they drive away players, temporarily or permanently, and that alone, outside of the experience of playing with these children, lowers the value of the game. Less players, less matching, less fun, less longevity. Yeah, nipping it in the bud is better. I'll always side with the people who could behave themselves like they weren't a 3 year old who worked out how to unfasten their diaper after taking a shit.

I am still concerned how they mentioned sexism after this Calgary Expo thing went down. One person's idea of being a sexist harasser is another person's idea of having a conversation.

Oh come the fuck on. If they don't want to have a conversation, then don't keep pestering them. I know that there's this... thing... going on with sexism, but can we be honest and realise that it does occur on some level, to the extent that some people like to send harrassing, stalker message shit, both ingame, and postgame through accounts systems. There are some people who will go to a lot of effort to do this.

You want to see TWI's idea of this, to be sure of prudishness? The first game's trader spent the most of her dialogue in innuendos about needing the players, about liking the big ones (See, guns are dicks).

And why is it sexism that you have a problem with? I mean really, it's listed with racist bigotry. It's pretty clear the degree of stuff they mean. People shouldn't be calling anyone "sluts", "niggers", "faggots", or a whole list of other things in games. That lots of games still put up with this should be a mark of how puerile the community is, how entitled people feel based on spending money. No, you don't get to be a complete and utter shit just because you bought the game, because the 5 other people in the server, and every other server you play on, did the same thing.

Why these things aren't on an automated list for text by default at this point is beyond me. I've never seen anything so useless as the chat window in Battlefield 4. At the very least that would reduce it to voice.

I'm also having a hard time picturing a sexist comment offensive enough that warrants cd-key banning.

Sexist comment offensive enough to warrant banning: Repeatedly calling a female player (Or one they think is female) a slut or a whore(Which usually happens repeatedly). Describing performing various sex acts on them. Asking them to send them nudes. fatuglyorslutty has an entire archive of this shit. I've gotten stupid shit from morons for using the goddamn Kawaii mask in Payday. I've sat through CS: GO matches where someone spent the entire match verbally abusing a player because they used Ariana Grande as their profile image. Can you imagine on this site, someone repeatedly calling Marter or Shrekfan, or any of the many users who regularly use female avatars (Even pop stars) sluts and whores, and making rape threats? Oh, so fucking edgy. I need that sort of comedy in my game. I really need to hear this shit from a kid who can't even survive a buy round, let alone an eco. I really need to, when I finally mute him, now listen to other people on my team getting into arguments with them. Similarly, you don't get to use a bunch of racist language either. And if you do, and they decide to, they will ban you.

I mean really. Killing Floor is a team game. It relies on teamwork. It takes a significant investment of time to have a proper match. Ideally, you are in from the start, and move your way up, so you can have optimal equipment, and then reach the point where the difficulty ramps up and there's some real excitement, and xp on offer.

The Calgary expo bit? Completely irrelevant. TWI have done this before, and will do it again. They aren't Calgary, and to be frank, I don't care what some completely unrelated drama created by stupid assholes being stupid at conventions is meant to mean for this. Yeah, TWI is reserving their right (And making it more than clear), to eject people who are scumfucks who drain on their game and make it a less valuable product. Good. They can only be more strict. Maybe next they can add some more tutorial so that new players don't join hard immediately and cause team wipes enraging flesh pounds and scrakes, and so they have some idea of how to handle the boss.