I would recommend caring less about what someone who might as well be a million miles away says about your wife. They probably aren't doing anything about it because some stupid kid calling your wife a "blow up doll" is no different then him calling her a "doodoo head." Its playground bullying, hit the ignore button.
So Why Censor at all? Whats the point? All this does is create problems for people... Your absolutely right, Kids hear worse on their way to school. Offensive Language is not going to cause some kid to turn green and blow up! Instead Turbine throws some "Code of Conduct" up, and then gives me a 1 day suspension for responding to this kids remarks
ok so obviously what ever words you used to retaliate to some 12 year old got you in trouble when you should have just reported him.
Or he kept PMing a GM after he said he would take care of it and pissed the GM off. So he probally was harrassing the GM to see his point of the problem. The GM got tired of all the tickets and banned him for a day and now is whining here about it.
How many delicate flowers have you met in Counterstrike?
I got a case of beer and a chainsaw waiting for me at home after work.
Clearly states in many area's that this person violated the terms of conduct, and this person violated a number of their rules. Yet for the GM's to turn around and threaten a BAN on the one who reports the violation is absurd. In addition, the comment made is extreme in nature.
See, that's the thing though. It does seem absurd that a GM, given the situation as you have described it, would respond in the way you have described. The more reasonable conclusion—by far—is not that there is a problem with LOTRO's policies or their enforcement, but rather that there is a problem with your description. I very much doubt that we are hearing the whole story.
OK...
This kid has some issue with me from some Kin that we left in good standing. I really don't remember the Kid, but he has kept me on his hit list (He attempted to contact one of My Kin Leaders, etc)...
The Kid makes a remark in response to something I posted on GLFF (a user created channel everyone uses)...
I call the kid a (censored)... and was given a day suspension... I really didn't care much, I figured I did break the rules... But I also assumed that action was taken with his actions.
A few days later I mentioned something in GLFF, and here is this Kid back in my face with more comments... I reported him to the GM's and was told that If I continued to "Abuse the Reporting System I would get banned". I contacted his Kin leader, who again we left in good standing with, and he got kicked out of the kin.
His rage continues and the vulger comments increase. More of the same, insults of me, insults of the kin I was in, insults of my wife... So after about a half an hour I send in another report. Soon after I am talking to a GM and he is telling me that if I make another report we will be banned.
Their was no time limit mentioned and the only reason/explination I got was that I "Abused The Reporting System".... As far as I know, in 3 years I find that someone is harassing me in away that I can not simply type '/ignore' and I will be banned from the game.
I recorded the entire thing, and kept all records (including all tickets filed, all emails, etc) but I did loose abit of one conversation because the game crashed on me... Its about 4 pages long, and quite boring read (thats why I don't post it)
I would recommend caring less about what someone who might as well be a million miles away says about your wife. They probably aren't doing anything about it because some stupid kid calling your wife a "blow up doll" is no different then him calling her a "doodoo head." Its playground bullying, hit the ignore button.
So Why Censor at all? Whats the point? All this does is create problems for people... Your absolutely right, Kids hear worse on their way to school. Offensive Language is not going to cause some kid to turn green and blow up! Instead Turbine throws some "Code of Conduct" up, and then gives me a 1 day suspension for responding to this kids remarks
ok so obviously what ever words you used to retaliate to some 12 year old got you in trouble when you should have just reported him.
Or he kept PMing a GM after he said he would take care of it and pissed the GM off. So he probally was harrassing the GM to see his point of the problem. The GM got tired of all the tickets and banned him for a day and now is whining here about it.
THATS WHAT I DID! DANG, Didn't Know it... I was too tired from kicking My Dog, and Dumping My garbage in My Neighbors Yard to have paid attention to the harassment I gave to the GM!
I would recommend caring less about what someone who might as well be a million miles away says about your wife. They probably aren't doing anything about it because some stupid kid calling your wife a "blow up doll" is no different then him calling her a "doodoo head." Its playground bullying, hit the ignore button.
So Why Censor at all? Whats the point? All this does is create problems for people... Your absolutely right, Kids hear worse on their way to school. Offensive Language is not going to cause some kid to turn green and blow up! Instead Turbine throws some "Code of Conduct" up, and then gives me a 1 day suspension for responding to this kids remarks
ok so obviously what ever words you used to retaliate to some 12 year old got you in trouble when you should have just reported him.
Or he kept PMing a GM after he said he would take care of it and pissed the GM off. So he probally was harrassing the GM to see his point of the problem. The GM got tired of all the tickets and banned him for a day and now is whining here about it.
THATS WHAT I DID! DANG, Didn't Know it... I was too tired from kicking My Dog, and Dumped My garbage in My Neighbors Yard to have paid attention to the harassment I gave to the GM!
Serves you right then. Can only hope they go back and fix it to a month long ban then.
How many delicate flowers have you met in Counterstrike?
I got a case of beer and a chainsaw waiting for me at home after work.
Trolls should be left in peace. That's what they do not like. The more flame, the better (for them). Trolls are akin to the Sith (Lords). You can't defeat a person, feeding off hate and conflict by ... hate and conflict.
You took offence to that? Turbine did well to tell you to clear off and stop making a fuss over that comment, just drop the whole “ you dishonest muuuuy wife” theatrics. That fact you gave the impression you've guild hopped a lot might suggest that you two are the problem not the other guilds and their jesting comments.
Both of you truly need a thicker skin while playing online games. MMO's can bring out the worst in people and you have to accept it and move on. I'd never work a day in my life if I was given coin for each degrating statement or offers for 'sexes chat' that came my way. Tell your woman to be the best gamer she can be and dont look back.
Ignore the clowns, trolls and teenage boys, and youre golden.
Speaking as a female gamer, I completely disagree with you. LOTRO is not a cesspool. I don't know a lot of female gamers that tell men to tell their women to go do things either. I don't know the context of the problem, but calling a woman a blow up doll is akin to calling her a sex toy. I suspect that there is something else going on if youre' being threatened by using the report system though. If you haven't put them on the ignore list, do so. If they try to find ways around that, report them again in a polite way of course.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
To OP, I think it's dishonest how you presented the thing.
You presented it as if the comments the guy made to your wife were insulting, which they are, but the problem I have is that you didn't mention all of the other stuff. It's part of a much larger context in which you claim this guy is harassing you and has been for a while.
The harassment is wrong, full stop, whether it's sexist comments or not. Presenting it as an affront to women in games only though... that means that those of us female gamers who are experiencing much worse harassment will have a harder time airing our problems because you've trivialised the issue in this thread.
Being called a 'blow up doll' isn't nice, but it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I've had much worse happen to me in MMOs.
And the best limits are the limits that suit one's interests, isn't it? The limits are a very interesting thing. In some cultures, a mere existence of a person of a different ... is already considered largely "off limits".
Some would consider such a comment worthy of death penalty, others will simply move on, with the person in question in deep ignore. Thus, the objective horridness of such events is always somewhere in the middle.
As far as T rating is concerned (which is a limit in this MMO), it wasn't terribly out of bounds, as was already pointed out.
Sure, it's simple enough to enforce some system to ban for any single word in MMO (say, a screenshot of the chat line in question).
However, one must be prepared to deal with the forgeries too.
I would recommend caring less about what someone who might as well be a million miles away says about your wife. They probably aren't doing anything about it because some stupid kid calling your wife a "blow up doll" is no different then him calling her a "doodoo head." Its playground bullying, hit the ignore button.
So Why Censor at all? Whats the point? All this does is create problems for people... Your absolutely right, Kids hear worse on their way to school. Offensive Language is not going to cause some kid to turn green and blow up! Instead Turbine throws some "Code of Conduct" up, and then gives me a 1 day suspension for responding to this kids remarks
Because other wise Turbine becomes a target for Concerned Citizen groups, and grandstanding politicians (think of the CHIL-DE-REN!!)...
This way, that angle is covered. As others have said, just ignore them and move on.
So the real issue is that OP's wife was insulted by a mildly offensive comment (as part of an apparently running dispute that could have been easily solved using /ignore) who then retalitated in local chat with word in clear violation of the TOS. The OP got a one day ban for the offense while his antagonist goes unpunished. Also the OP has been threatened with banning because he continues to open complaints with the GM's over the same issue.
And how this means Turbine is a bad game company who has a policy that is derogatory towards women I'm just not seeing.
OP, you got into a pissing contest with someone and the GM's at Turbine are tired of it. You got the guy kicked out of his kinship, just put the offender on ignore and let it go.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Um, as a woman, I think referring to your wife as a "blow up doll" was more of a slur aimed at you - viz. your wife is imaginary, or inflatable and made of plastic...
It was an idiotic comment indeed, but hardly falls under harrassment of women or a derogatory comment towards one. Especially since (as stated above) it seems to have been more aimed at you than her.
I play lots of MMOs and have yet to be put on the defensive or feel offended by stupid comments about my gender - to my mind the person posting such arrant nonsense is making a platinum plated jackass out of themselves publicly. Says more about them than it does about me. They never get a public reaction from me either, I'm not willing to stoop to their level. And the only time I have ever reported someone in an MMO was for telling me to stfu (not abbreviated) in a help channel when I tried to stop them going OT.
Did your wife also complain, or was it you complaining on her behalf? There would probably be a better outcome if she complained herself. Second-hand complaints are never taken as seriously as first-hand ones. Perhaps that's what they meant by "abuse of the reporting system" or did you make a number of complaints on the topic?
I played LOTRO for a while but I'm not up to speed with their TOS.
I can understand that you're upset, and that you feel your wife has been slighted, but if Turbine don;t want to do anything about it, then they don;t want to do anything about it. As long as it wasn't a Turbine employee posting the slur, you can't accuse them of being derogatory towards women, lax on complaint response maybe, but it doesn't add up to the same thing. If they had used the c word - as you said, they would have been banned, and rightly so.
While it's annoying, I don't see it as an offense that crossed the line to the point that you may feel it does. There are plenty of battles that Turbine does have to fight, and like anything you have to pick and choose your battles. I don't think this is one that I'd pick. Either way it sucks that a troll is ruining the game for you. Sorry to hear that.
Clearly states in many area's that this person violated the terms of conduct, and this person violated a number of their rules. Yet for the GM's to turn around and threaten a BAN on the one who reports the violation is absurd. In addition, the comment made is extreme in nature.
See, that's the thing though. It does seem absurd that a GM, given the situation as you have described it, would respond in the way you have described. The more reasonable conclusion—by far—is not that there is a problem with LOTRO's policies or their enforcement, but rather that there is a problem with your description. I very much doubt that we are hearing the whole story.
OK...
This kid has some issue with me from some Kin that we left in good standing. I really don't remember the Kid, but he has kept me on his hit list (He attempted to contact one of My Kin Leaders, etc)...
The Kid makes a remark in response to something I posted on GLFF (a user created channel everyone uses)...
I call the kid a (censored)... and was given a day suspension... I really didn't care much, I figured I did break the rules... But I also assumed that action was taken with his actions.
A few days later I mentioned something in GLFF, and here is this Kid back in my face with more comments... I reported him to the GM's and was told that If I continued to "Abuse the Reporting System I would get banned". I contacted his Kin leader, who again we left in good standing with, and he got kicked out of the kin.
His rage continues and the vulger comments increase. More of the same, insults of me, insults of the kin I was in, insults of my wife... So after about a half an hour I send in another report. Soon after I am talking to a GM and he is telling me that if I make another report we will be banned.
Their was no time limit mentioned and the only reason/explination I got was that I "Abused The Reporting System".... As far as I know, in 3 years I find that someone is harassing me in away that I can not simply type '/ignore' and I will be banned from the game.
I recorded the entire thing, and kept all records (including all tickets filed, all emails, etc) but I did loose abit of one conversation because the game crashed on me... Its about 4 pages long, and quite boring read (thats why I don't post it)
What it sounds like it boils down to, OP, is that you and the guy you got into a long-term pissing contest which finally came to blows publicly in GLFF and you stooped to the level of a "kid" and you want Turbine and the mmorpg community to condone your - admittedly wrong - actions so that you can feel justified about your one day suspension.
As a woman, I'm not offended by another player insulting you by calling your wife a blow up doll. Why? The player is implying (as others have already stated) that your wife is non-existent because you are incapable of maintaining a relationship with a real live human being - a state your admitted (or at least implied) continued guild-hopping seems to back up, as does the fact that you have engaged in a long term pissing contest with another player whom you classify as "a kid," whether the player is, in fact, a kid or not rather than simply adding the player to your ignore list and enjoying the game like any normal mature adult would do.
The fact that you attempted to portray the situation as one where only the other player was in the wrong until several people here called you on it only further lowers my opinion of your tactics and maturity level. Hope you aren't on my server in LoTRO. The fact is that you deliberately violated the TOS of the game in how you handled the situation in using a "censored" word directed at another player, deliberately skewed the situation in posting it here, and then repeatedly reported the player for a situation that you deliberately exacerbated. Were I a GM at Turbine, I'd have also taken action against your account as well because what it looks like based on what you've said here is that you deliberately provoked and exacerbated the situation with the other player specifically so you could report him in the hope that a GM would take action against his account and in so doing, you got caught and are now pissed off about it. Frankly, in my opinion, you got off easy and should learn your lesson.
"You are obviously confusing a mature rating with actual maturity." -Asherman
Maybe MMO is not your genre, go play Modern Warfare...or something you can be all twitchy...and rank up all night. This is seriously getting tired. -Ranyr
As a woman, I'm not offended by another player insulting you by calling your wife a blow up doll. Why? The player is implying (as others have already stated) that your wife is non-existent because you are incapable of maintaining a relationship with a real live human being - a state your admitted (or at least implied) continued guild-hopping seems to back up, as does the fact that you have engaged in a long term pissing contest with another player whom you classify as "a kid," whether the player is, in fact, a kid or not rather than simply adding the player to your ignore list and enjoying the game like any normal mature adult would do.
That would be a nice theory, unless of course he regularly (almost daily) talked to My Wife on vent..
Is your ignore button broken? Now, you are telling us he talks to you in vent???
Not seeing how you are an innocent bystander, at all. It seems you are going out of your way to harrass each other. Every time he retaliates with profanity you run off to daddy(gms). I've been insulted much worse IRL, and was able to work it out with no intevention from a higher authority. Are you telling me that someone calling you names inside of a gamewolrd who can easily be ignored is somehow stopping you from enjoying the game? How is that possible?
Look around this website. Its not as bad as the VN boards, but its still not for the easily offended.
There really isn't much else to be said that hasn't already been stated in this thread.
Trolls will be trolls. Report once, ignore them, and move on.
I 'do' have a little sympathy for you, since you seem like a somewhat decent fellow, but I can also see it from the GM point of view. Hitting the report button repeatedly, especially for the same person and same offence over and over, can honestly get a little annoying to any GM out there. Its sort of like having a younger brother who continually runs into the other room to tell your mother what you're doing wrong over and over again. Pretty soon, even the most patient mom is going to get a little frustrated.
I'm not quite sure why you would bring this to the forum here, expecting the community to sympathize with open arms. MMORPG.com is a very wonderful, informative website that I love dearly and visit every day, but in the same breath, this is where old, angry, cynical MMO players come to die and complain and argue with each other, just to have something to do with their jaded, depressing little lives.
As you can tell, you're already starting to attract even more trolls within this thread. They love the smell of frustration and anger.
It was an idiotic comment indeed, but hardly falls under harrassment of women or a derogatory comment towards one. Especially since (as stated above) it seems to have been more aimed at you than her.
Odd though if the 'kid' actually spoke to his wife on vent; that to me means that perhaps the 'kid' was actually jesting.
I play lots of MMOs and have yet to be put on the defensive or feel offended by stupid comments about my gender - to my mind the person posting such arrant nonsense is making a platinum plated jackass out of themselves publicly. Says more about them than it does about me. They never get a public reaction from me either, I'm not willing to stoop to their level. And the only time I have ever reported someone in an MMO was for telling me to stfu (not abbreviated) in a help channel when I tried to stop them going OT.
You're very lucky. I have had two incidents where the ignore button was not enough to keep from being harassed because of my real gender. These happened in the early 2000s though, when graphical MMOs were new. Recently, I have not had these problems thankfully, and I feel more and more comfortable telling people my real gender. From my experience, things are definitely on the up for women gamers in MMOs.
I can understand that you're upset, and that you feel your wife has been slighted, but if Turbine don;t want to do anything about it, then they don;t want to do anything about it. As long as it wasn't a Turbine employee posting the slur, you can't accuse them of being derogatory towards women, lax on complaint response maybe, but it doesn't add up to the same thing. If they had used the c word - as you said, they would have been banned, and rightly so.
Agreed though it seems like Turbine has a problem with the OP perhaps because of other actions/reactions he has done/had. I don't think it boils down to his wife being slighted. As others have pointed out, something else is at stake and it seems to me that both the OP and the 'kid' are at fault, with the OP having done something worse in the eyes of Turbine than the 'kid'.
Thing is, an insult is an insult, whether it's a sexist insult or not. Harassment is harassment. That's why I have an issue with this entire thread. The OP is being dishonest with us. We'll never really know what went on and what caused the problem in the first place.
I'm pretty much done with this thread since we'll never know the truth.
I think what made the issue worse is that it is your wife that got insulted. I agree with what the other guy said "an insult is an insult", that's the thing about MMO. People have the guts to say things because it's impersonal.
On the other hand, I do not know about how Turbine investigates those type of cases. It would be bias to take sides not knowing every detail of what happened. All I could say is, if you have the proper evidences/proof of what occurred then by all means do something about it. File a complaint. It very easy to give comments especially if you're not involved but I think everyone would act differently if their loved ones are involved. Good luck!
I disagree with the title of your thread, it's more likely a poor GM than a case of the game/industry being derogatory towards women.
I empathise with the op though, I really do, if someone insulted my other half out in the real world they'd be picking up their teeth, unfortunately the internet by definition gives people anonymity and a soapbox to say whatever the hell they like, it's extremely frustrating. I just hope that some of these morons get so used to giving verbal abuse that they run their mouth off out in the real world, they'll find the over protective laws in many parts of the world will be little comfort when they're lying in their hospital bed recovering.
Follow some simple rules and most of the time you'll get by online just fine (which you seem to have done for some years), whilst I did not expect the GM to ban this pathetic excuse for a human being (due to economics bans are not dished out so quickly, cursing aside which seems to be one of LOTRO's ironclad offences, though what's wrong with a decent profanity filter I have no idea), however, I do believe you got someone who is not suited to being a GM (or maybe is just having a bad day and not taking enough care with their job, they are only human after all).
Having run both technical and customer service departments in the past I can tell you from what has been described the GM in question performed very poorly, even if a ban is something they are not permitted to issue for the comments and behaviour of the other party at the very least they should have talked to you about the issue and talked to the other party.
I'm sure it wouldn't have gotten this far if they'd have been a little more understanding.
To those that don't understand what all the fuss is about, well I feel for your other halves if you can't see the problem, even if you don't agree with how the OP has reacted you should at least understand the reasons why he reacted as such.
Thing is, an insult is an insult, whether it's a sexist insult or not. Harassment is harassment. That's why I have an issue with this entire thread. The OP is being dishonest with us. We'll never really know what went on and what caused the problem in the first place.
I'm pretty much done with this thread since we'll never know the truth.
I have a feeling this whole thing was a two-way street, the more the OP posts the muddier things get.
You're right, we can never know the truth, and I was amused to see your use of quotes on 'kid' - good to see there's someone else out there who sees it for the patronizing label it is. Someone calls me "kid" or "kiddo" and my blood starts boiling.
Might as well be calling me "little woman" and suggesting I go back into the kitchen...
Comments
Or he kept PMing a GM after he said he would take care of it and pissed the GM off. So he probally was harrassing the GM to see his point of the problem. The GM got tired of all the tickets and banned him for a day and now is whining here about it.
How many delicate flowers have you met in Counterstrike?
I got a case of beer and a chainsaw waiting for me at home after work.
OK...
This kid has some issue with me from some Kin that we left in good standing. I really don't remember the Kid, but he has kept me on his hit list (He attempted to contact one of My Kin Leaders, etc)...
The Kid makes a remark in response to something I posted on GLFF (a user created channel everyone uses)...
I call the kid a (censored)... and was given a day suspension... I really didn't care much, I figured I did break the rules... But I also assumed that action was taken with his actions.
A few days later I mentioned something in GLFF, and here is this Kid back in my face with more comments... I reported him to the GM's and was told that If I continued to "Abuse the Reporting System I would get banned". I contacted his Kin leader, who again we left in good standing with, and he got kicked out of the kin.
His rage continues and the vulger comments increase. More of the same, insults of me, insults of the kin I was in, insults of my wife... So after about a half an hour I send in another report. Soon after I am talking to a GM and he is telling me that if I make another report we will be banned.
Their was no time limit mentioned and the only reason/explination I got was that I "Abused The Reporting System".... As far as I know, in 3 years I find that someone is harassing me in away that I can not simply type '/ignore' and I will be banned from the game.
I recorded the entire thing, and kept all records (including all tickets filed, all emails, etc) but I did loose abit of one conversation because the game crashed on me... Its about 4 pages long, and quite boring read (thats why I don't post it)
THATS WHAT I DID! DANG, Didn't Know it... I was too tired from kicking My Dog, and Dumping My garbage in My Neighbors Yard to have paid attention to the harassment I gave to the GM!
Serves you right then. Can only hope they go back and fix it to a month long ban then.
How many delicate flowers have you met in Counterstrike?
I got a case of beer and a chainsaw waiting for me at home after work.
Well i think its blatantly obvious now what the deal is lmao.
Trolls should be left in peace. That's what they do not like. The more flame, the better (for them). Trolls are akin to the Sith (Lords). You can't defeat a person, feeding off hate and conflict by ... hate and conflict.
But you can very well defeat them by banning. Banning is not hate. It's just limits and control.
And if he tries to buy his way back, you earn more money. If you're not going to stop him playing, at least you'll earn more money out of him.
Sadly all boils down to money...it's like Blizzard not bothering to ban extreme trolls, at the most give them a suspension. Too much money involved.
You took offence to that? Turbine did well to tell you to clear off and stop making a fuss over that comment, just drop the whole “ you dishonest muuuuy wife” theatrics. That fact you gave the impression you've guild hopped a lot might suggest that you two are the problem not the other guilds and their jesting comments.
Speaking as a female gamer, I completely disagree with you. LOTRO is not a cesspool. I don't know a lot of female gamers that tell men to tell their women to go do things either. I don't know the context of the problem, but calling a woman a blow up doll is akin to calling her a sex toy. I suspect that there is something else going on if youre' being threatened by using the report system though. If you haven't put them on the ignore list, do so. If they try to find ways around that, report them again in a polite way of course.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
To OP, I think it's dishonest how you presented the thing.
You presented it as if the comments the guy made to your wife were insulting, which they are, but the problem I have is that you didn't mention all of the other stuff. It's part of a much larger context in which you claim this guy is harassing you and has been for a while.
The harassment is wrong, full stop, whether it's sexist comments or not. Presenting it as an affront to women in games only though... that means that those of us female gamers who are experiencing much worse harassment will have a harder time airing our problems because you've trivialised the issue in this thread.
Being called a 'blow up doll' isn't nice, but it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I've had much worse happen to me in MMOs.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
And the best limits are the limits that suit one's interests, isn't it? The limits are a very interesting thing. In some cultures, a mere existence of a person of a different ... is already considered largely "off limits".
Some would consider such a comment worthy of death penalty, others will simply move on, with the person in question in deep ignore. Thus, the objective horridness of such events is always somewhere in the middle.
As far as T rating is concerned (which is a limit in this MMO), it wasn't terribly out of bounds, as was already pointed out.
Sure, it's simple enough to enforce some system to ban for any single word in MMO (say, a screenshot of the chat line in question).
However, one must be prepared to deal with the forgeries too.
Because other wise Turbine becomes a target for Concerned Citizen groups, and grandstanding politicians (think of the CHIL-DE-REN!!)...
This way, that angle is covered. As others have said, just ignore them and move on.
So the real issue is that OP's wife was insulted by a mildly offensive comment (as part of an apparently running dispute that could have been easily solved using /ignore) who then retalitated in local chat with word in clear violation of the TOS. The OP got a one day ban for the offense while his antagonist goes unpunished. Also the OP has been threatened with banning because he continues to open complaints with the GM's over the same issue.
And how this means Turbine is a bad game company who has a policy that is derogatory towards women I'm just not seeing.
OP, you got into a pissing contest with someone and the GM's at Turbine are tired of it. You got the guy kicked out of his kinship, just put the offender on ignore and let it go.
Over in EVE we'd just tell you to HTFU.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Um, as a woman, I think referring to your wife as a "blow up doll" was more of a slur aimed at you - viz. your wife is imaginary, or inflatable and made of plastic...
It was an idiotic comment indeed, but hardly falls under harrassment of women or a derogatory comment towards one. Especially since (as stated above) it seems to have been more aimed at you than her.
I play lots of MMOs and have yet to be put on the defensive or feel offended by stupid comments about my gender - to my mind the person posting such arrant nonsense is making a platinum plated jackass out of themselves publicly. Says more about them than it does about me. They never get a public reaction from me either, I'm not willing to stoop to their level. And the only time I have ever reported someone in an MMO was for telling me to stfu (not abbreviated) in a help channel when I tried to stop them going OT.
Did your wife also complain, or was it you complaining on her behalf? There would probably be a better outcome if she complained herself. Second-hand complaints are never taken as seriously as first-hand ones. Perhaps that's what they meant by "abuse of the reporting system" or did you make a number of complaints on the topic?
I played LOTRO for a while but I'm not up to speed with their TOS.
I can understand that you're upset, and that you feel your wife has been slighted, but if Turbine don;t want to do anything about it, then they don;t want to do anything about it. As long as it wasn't a Turbine employee posting the slur, you can't accuse them of being derogatory towards women, lax on complaint response maybe, but it doesn't add up to the same thing. If they had used the c word - as you said, they would have been banned, and rightly so.
While it's annoying, I don't see it as an offense that crossed the line to the point that you may feel it does. There are plenty of battles that Turbine does have to fight, and like anything you have to pick and choose your battles. I don't think this is one that I'd pick. Either way it sucks that a troll is ruining the game for you. Sorry to hear that.
What it sounds like it boils down to, OP, is that you and the guy you got into a long-term pissing contest which finally came to blows publicly in GLFF and you stooped to the level of a "kid" and you want Turbine and the mmorpg community to condone your - admittedly wrong - actions so that you can feel justified about your one day suspension.
As a woman, I'm not offended by another player insulting you by calling your wife a blow up doll. Why? The player is implying (as others have already stated) that your wife is non-existent because you are incapable of maintaining a relationship with a real live human being - a state your admitted (or at least implied) continued guild-hopping seems to back up, as does the fact that you have engaged in a long term pissing contest with another player whom you classify as "a kid," whether the player is, in fact, a kid or not rather than simply adding the player to your ignore list and enjoying the game like any normal mature adult would do.
The fact that you attempted to portray the situation as one where only the other player was in the wrong until several people here called you on it only further lowers my opinion of your tactics and maturity level. Hope you aren't on my server in LoTRO. The fact is that you deliberately violated the TOS of the game in how you handled the situation in using a "censored" word directed at another player, deliberately skewed the situation in posting it here, and then repeatedly reported the player for a situation that you deliberately exacerbated. Were I a GM at Turbine, I'd have also taken action against your account as well because what it looks like based on what you've said here is that you deliberately provoked and exacerbated the situation with the other player specifically so you could report him in the hope that a GM would take action against his account and in so doing, you got caught and are now pissed off about it. Frankly, in my opinion, you got off easy and should learn your lesson.
edited for spelling
Firebrand Art
"You are obviously confusing a mature rating with actual maturity." -Asherman
Maybe MMO is not your genre, go play Modern Warfare...or something you can be all twitchy...and rank up all night. This is seriously getting tired. -Ranyr
That would be a nice theory, unless of course he regularly (almost daily) talked to My Wife on vent..
Is your ignore button broken? Now, you are telling us he talks to you in vent???
Not seeing how you are an innocent bystander, at all. It seems you are going out of your way to harrass each other. Every time he retaliates with profanity you run off to daddy(gms). I've been insulted much worse IRL, and was able to work it out with no intevention from a higher authority. Are you telling me that someone calling you names inside of a gamewolrd who can easily be ignored is somehow stopping you from enjoying the game? How is that possible?
Look around this website. Its not as bad as the VN boards, but its still not for the easily offended.
There really isn't much else to be said that hasn't already been stated in this thread.
Trolls will be trolls. Report once, ignore them, and move on.
I 'do' have a little sympathy for you, since you seem like a somewhat decent fellow, but I can also see it from the GM point of view. Hitting the report button repeatedly, especially for the same person and same offence over and over, can honestly get a little annoying to any GM out there. Its sort of like having a younger brother who continually runs into the other room to tell your mother what you're doing wrong over and over again. Pretty soon, even the most patient mom is going to get a little frustrated.
I'm not quite sure why you would bring this to the forum here, expecting the community to sympathize with open arms. MMORPG.com is a very wonderful, informative website that I love dearly and visit every day, but in the same breath, this is where old, angry, cynical MMO players come to die and complain and argue with each other, just to have something to do with their jaded, depressing little lives.
As you can tell, you're already starting to attract even more trolls within this thread. They love the smell of frustration and anger.
I wish you and your wife the best of luck.
Thing is, an insult is an insult, whether it's a sexist insult or not. Harassment is harassment. That's why I have an issue with this entire thread. The OP is being dishonest with us. We'll never really know what went on and what caused the problem in the first place.
I'm pretty much done with this thread since we'll never know the truth.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
I think what made the issue worse is that it is your wife that got insulted. I agree with what the other guy said "an insult is an insult", that's the thing about MMO. People have the guts to say things because it's impersonal.
On the other hand, I do not know about how Turbine investigates those type of cases. It would be bias to take sides not knowing every detail of what happened. All I could say is, if you have the proper evidences/proof of what occurred then by all means do something about it. File a complaint. It very easy to give comments especially if you're not involved but I think everyone would act differently if their loved ones are involved. Good luck!
I disagree with the title of your thread, it's more likely a poor GM than a case of the game/industry being derogatory towards women.
I empathise with the op though, I really do, if someone insulted my other half out in the real world they'd be picking up their teeth, unfortunately the internet by definition gives people anonymity and a soapbox to say whatever the hell they like, it's extremely frustrating. I just hope that some of these morons get so used to giving verbal abuse that they run their mouth off out in the real world, they'll find the over protective laws in many parts of the world will be little comfort when they're lying in their hospital bed recovering.
Follow some simple rules and most of the time you'll get by online just fine (which you seem to have done for some years), whilst I did not expect the GM to ban this pathetic excuse for a human being (due to economics bans are not dished out so quickly, cursing aside which seems to be one of LOTRO's ironclad offences, though what's wrong with a decent profanity filter I have no idea), however, I do believe you got someone who is not suited to being a GM (or maybe is just having a bad day and not taking enough care with their job, they are only human after all).
Having run both technical and customer service departments in the past I can tell you from what has been described the GM in question performed very poorly, even if a ban is something they are not permitted to issue for the comments and behaviour of the other party at the very least they should have talked to you about the issue and talked to the other party.
I'm sure it wouldn't have gotten this far if they'd have been a little more understanding.
To those that don't understand what all the fuss is about, well I feel for your other halves if you can't see the problem, even if you don't agree with how the OP has reacted you should at least understand the reasons why he reacted as such.
Pi*1337/100 = 42
I have a feeling this whole thing was a two-way street, the more the OP posts the muddier things get.
You're right, we can never know the truth, and I was amused to see your use of quotes on 'kid' - good to see there's someone else out there who sees it for the patronizing label it is. Someone calls me "kid" or "kiddo" and my blood starts boiling.
Might as well be calling me "little woman" and suggesting I go back into the kitchen...