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

[MHR]

Yes, there's a damn good reason to ban anyone that's fucked up so much that they've earned it.

Much of the time there's a singleplayer mode you can point at and say "there, you still can play the game you bought. Stop crying."

 

[Signa]

That's entirely hyperbolic. No one buys a game just to screw off for every game they ever play. For the few that do, there isn't enough warrant this new system to take care of the problem.

Many years of experience in multiplayer games suggests otherwise.

There's no need to accept it and allow Tripwire this kind of power.

I'm not concerned with evil corporate overlords flexing their muscle and banning me from games to force new purchases because in 30+ years of gaming this has happened to me never. In the same 30+ years of gaming I've had literally thousands upon thousands of incidences of unchecked asshats blowing up an evening's entertainment because pissing people off is their driving passion in life.

I don't play Killing Floor, but I do play DOTA, and "vote kicking" toxic people accomplishes absolutely nothing. The moment a single person decides to go toxic and fuck up a game, the game is fucked. Whether it's 10, 20, 30, or 60 minutes of your time, that game is now fucked. One guy fucks over nine guys, and if you go read the "I stopped playing DOTA because of..." stories it's about 95% "toxic community".

DOTA is a FTP game, but following the logic of "consumer above all", if this guy had dropped a couple hundred bucks buying skins for heroes and announcer packs, he has basically purchased the right to antagonize the playerbase at whim, and the worst consequence he'll ever experience is sitting in the timeout chair for a few hours.

I like what I wrote here:

The post below you explains why this is a problem. I don't care what they enforce on their own servers, but it's applying to more than that apparently. I'm not very interested in KF2 because KF1 didn't do much for me. I'm worried about it becoming a standard practice in other games. I'm worried about vague definitions of "harassment" like at the Calgary Expo. I'm worried about big-picture stuff, because it's these little battles that build that scene.

Maybe I don't play enough multiplayer games to even be effected by these assholes, but I'm really scared at the idea of the rules being imposed on me could result in my games being taken away from me for non-cheating reasons. Last year alone, I invested over $800 in Steam. I don't think it's unreasonable to be protective of my investments.

I realize you're flying the flag of "being offended is the absolute worst thing anyone can be" and "we must protect the assholes, won't someone please think of the assholes", but I don't agree, dude. Show me a company wildly abusing their power and banning innocents left and right and I'll join you in your crusade. Until that happens, the more anti-fuckhead rules we have in multiplayer gaming the better. I'm getting really sick and tired of adults incapable of comporting themselves like civil human beings fucking up my past-time. I cannot think of a single other recreational activity where this degree of rampant shittery is not only commonplace but actually argued for and defended by a percentage of its constituents. Even drunk morons at sporting contests are held to higher standards. It's ridiculous.

I think that's the opposite flag I'm flying here. Being offended is the least of your life's worries, and I'm not protecting assholes, I'm trying to protect freedom. My idea of an asshole is different than a thousand other peoples' ideas of an asshole. My money shouldn't ride on one of them that isn't my own. I can't define their ideas of an asshole, I have no concept of it. It's intangible.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

The developers have control over their game. They set the rules. Break the rules at your own peril. If people want to forget (or don't care) that they're making the lives of others miserable, then they should own up to the repercussions.

Of course it'd help to have their games set aside so only the people misbehaving only play with their ilk, but not every game developer has the resources to set it up.

The problem is, like any ratings system, or just about any system that allows a community to police itself are, essentially the assholes that are going to abuse it.

Do you think disruptive players should be banned from playing the game alone, though?

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.

captcha: ring-fencing
I wonder if it has to do with the medieval fighting in a ring I saw on TV once?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

My money shouldn't ride on one of them that isn't my own. I can't define their ideas of an asshole, I have no concept of it. It's intangible.

And that's your slippery slope. Has there been any concrete, confirmed evidence of this happening? Of players being banned from games for benign behavior, or some absurdly flexible definition of disruptive behavior? I've only ever heard from griping, banned players a few times in memory, and it almost always came to light that they were a lot less innocent than they claimed.

I just got done watching Total Biscuit play Single Draft Disaster at my lunch break. A repeat for me, but I hadn't seen it in a while and I felt like watching some DOTA with my flatbread. TB spent almost the ENTIRE GAME bitching furiously about how disgusting the player base is, how there wasn't enough reports, and how Valve were too busy sitting on their hands and counting money to attend to proper customer service and create tools to get the idiots out of the game. TB is a pretty easily antagonized guy, and he was tilty because he'd been losing a lot, but does he strike you being consumer unfriendly, or lacking concern for the freedoms of the game playing public?

Maybe I've run into a few too many of them lately, as I'm not in a particularly charitable mood towards some of the pricks that have been fucking up games. I'm not terribly concerned about protecting their investment, because they're not terribly concerned about protecting their investment, and they're entirely concerned with fucking up mine. The anonymity of the internet affords people tremendous opportunity to flex their budding sociopathic tendencies. It gets tiresome. If someone loses access to their $50 because of repeated anti-social behavior and general fuckheadery, do you consider that to be an unreasonable penalty?

See I have absolutely zero fear of being a victim of such a ban, because I know I comport myself like a sane, civil adult in online settings when I'm gathered with strangers for what is ostensibly supposed to be a fun time. I've no idea why we cannot expect others to do the same.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

The developers have control over their game. They set the rules. Break the rules at your own peril. If people want to forget (or don't care) that they're making the lives of others miserable, then they should own up to the repercussions.

Of course it'd help to have their games set aside so only the people misbehaving only play with their ilk, but not every game developer has the resources to set it up.

The problem is, like any ratings system, or just about any system that allows a community to police itself are, essentially the assholes that are going to abuse it.

Do you think disruptive players should be banned from playing the game alone, though?

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.

captcha: ring-fencing
I wonder if it has to do with the medieval fighting in a ring I saw on TV once?

But if they are being trolls on a platform outside of the game itself, (which they would be since by this point they would have been banned from playing on online public servers), shouldn't they be punished on that platform rather then by taking away their stuff? Ban them from that platform then. If they do it on other platforms, ban them from those.

Don't punish them for something unrelated to what they did wrong, IMO.

Like, would you be in favor of a company taking away somebodies blu ray movies just because they said something rude on twitter?

 

[Denamic]

Basically, when you 'buy' a game, you pay for the license to use the software. You do not actually own the game itself. This is true with all media. If you break the license agreement, then your license can be revoked. There's really not much to complain about here, imo.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Basically, when you 'buy' a game, you pay for the license to use the software. You do not actually own the game itself. This is true with all media. If you break the license agreement, then your license can be revoked. There's really not much to complain about here, imo.

The topic is should that be the case, though, not is it.

 

[Naraku578]

I like how dota2 handles this,

verbally abusive: your muted and cannot interact with anyone aside from chat wheel and pings.
griefing/ intentionally throwing: stick them in low priority and force them to play with other jerks until they clean up.

I can't really imagine anything else being necessary, unless someone spam makes accounts in which an ip ban may be necessary.

For games you pay, unless your breaking some sort of law, restricting their ability to communicate or who they can play with should be all thats needed.

If they break the law, get the police or some authority to handle it.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

The developers have control over their game. They set the rules. Break the rules at your own peril. If people want to forget (or don't care) that they're making the lives of others miserable, then they should own up to the repercussions.

Of course it'd help to have their games set aside so only the people misbehaving only play with their ilk, but not every game developer has the resources to set it up.

The problem is, like any ratings system, or just about any system that allows a community to police itself are, essentially the assholes that are going to abuse it.

Do you think disruptive players should be banned from playing the game alone, though?

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.

captcha: ring-fencing
I wonder if it has to do with the medieval fighting in a ring I saw on TV once?

But if they are being trolls on a platform outside of the game itself, (which they would be since by this point they would have been banned from playing on online public servers), shouldn't they be punished on that platform rather then by taking away their stuff? Ban them from that platform then. If they do it on other platforms, ban them from those.

Don't punish them for something unrelated to what they did wrong, IMO.

Like, would you be in favor of a company taking away somebodies blu ray movies just because they said something rude on twitter?

Well, the problem with banning people from pulic servers is the fact that it's difficult to do it to a person deterimined to play. Fake accounts, fake I.P adresses (nevermind that 2 people can end up with the same I.P. adress or one gets the I.P. of a banned person), and so forth make the truely determined quite formidable.

Outside of the game? Then it becomes how much of a headache they are for the people involved with the game. If people are a pain on the game's forums, and they refuse to stop, especially if it's known that there's going to be in game repercussions, by all means remove their ability to play.
If they're on Twitter making life miserable for a game dev, then if they can link the account to the gamer, then by all means they have the right to kick the troll in the balls and then to the curb.
If they make people miserable enough on a PC version of the game, then be ready to shut them down on XBL. Why reward them for being nice on one platform when they're assholes on another?

If the person makes death threats or threatens acts of violence, pushes a person towards suicide, SWATS, or is generally just a shitty person to others often on twitter and it's not related to the game, I'm a bit on the fence. It'd be case by case.
The problem is honestly linking the twitter user to the game account, or what ever account to what ever account what ever account.
If, say someone threatens the family of someone working on CoD because of a patch/change they shouldn't be able to play CoD period, and I wouldn't blame other games from preventing them from playing their games, too.

Honestly, I'd not mind some consequence happen to trolls on the internet. I can't imagine a much better way than the game industry cracking down on them. It's hitting them where it hurts. The game industry might be the only force on the planet that can create enough impact, really. They're international, and it's getting to the point that every person on the internet cares about them to some degree, from the farmville player to the GTA player.

I'm not saying all trolling has to stop, mind you. There's varying degrees, and definitions of trolling so each incident requires an individual look through.
I mean there are "good" trolls that target the assholes out there more oft than not. Even the bad trolls aren't bad in doses, but maybe making trolls realize they have to pick their fights a bit more carefully might be in order.

The last sentence changes the question drastically. Pardon me if I split hairs to much.
Blu rays aren't a game, rather the media that they play games off of (well, just two consoles from sony, IIRC) and it's a physical medium.
Blu Ray players aren't limited to the afore mentioned consoles.
Do you mean the company kicking in the door and pillaging the discs, and/or putting an ax in their players?
It'd be impossible to remotely destroy a person's ability to watch blu-rays because not all of them are online.
I think the matter would have to be resolved on the software end of things, like trophy/achievement checks (which aren't exactly private), use of some digital serial code on the game and/or console to help filter out the software they're banned from, etc.
Even then, the truly determined will find a way.

You're gunna have to define "rude" here. There's many levels of rude, and rude is also a matter of opinion.

 

[TruthInGaming]

After watching this video from ReviewTech USA about how the Killing Floor 2 Devs plan on revoking access of their game to trolls and griefers. It begs the question but should people lose access to a game because they are generally unpleasant? Here is the video.

Spoiler

Personally I like and dislike the idea. I agree that griefers, trolls, and other generally unpleasant people shouldn't be allowed to play with others that just want to play the game and have fun. I don't think it's right they lose access to their game. I'm curious as to what others think of this. Do people find this to be a good idea or too harsh?

I still think they should have access. I'd be in favor of some kind of rating system where if get down voted so many times in such amount of time then you get banned from playing for a short amount of time but this should be fairly limited. I would much prefer people host games and just boot people who act like A-holes if they don't want them in their game.

 

[Signa]

Sniping out the rest

See I have absolutely zero fear of being a victim of such a ban, because I know I comport myself like a sane, civil adult in online settings when I'm gathered with strangers for what is ostensibly supposed to be a fun time. I've no idea why we cannot expect others to do the same.

Backing up one second, since not one person in this thread has explained it to me, why is a vote-kick option not enough? Why does it have to be the ownership of the game that is threatened instead?



As far as fear goes, I don't think I've ever done anything banworthy in my time online, but that could change at any time. Not because my conduct would change, but what the other players consider to be socially acceptable can. Something like an odd comment about not liking the current state of feminism if the topic comes up, or not supporting the team the way the team wants support could get me banned by some pissy people with no patience. Hell, look at this forum and how many people attempt to strategically get people warned or banned, just because they don't like what someone said. If the players know that someone is able to be banned, and they don't like them, what's to stop them from trying to get a person completely removed from the game forever? That's my slippery slope.

 

[shintakie10]

As far as fear goes, I don't think I've ever done anything banworthy in my time online, but that could change at any time. Not because my conduct would change, but what the other players consider to be socially acceptable can. Something like an odd comment about not liking the current state of feminism if the topic comes up, or not supporting the team the way the team wants support could get me banned by some pissy people with no patience. Hell, look at this forum and how many people attempt to strategically get people warned or banned, just because they don't like what someone said. If the players know that someone is able to be banned, and they don't like them, what's to stop them from trying to get a person completely removed from the game forever? That's my slippery slope.

Because vote kicks do fuck all, much like the time out queue does fuck all. You have a dick bag for 10 minutes in your game and vote kick him. Guess what? Those 10 minutes were fuckin awful. Now that asshat can either get back in if you don't have some form of banlist handy, in which case he'll be an even bigger asshat, or go into someone elses game and ruin the experience for another 4-7 people. They vote kick him and their playtime has been ruined by this 1 dickhead.

1 megadouche has now ruined the game experience of 8-14 people and will continue to do so. Your argument is that that is a better alternative than simply getting rid of the megadouche. Your reasoning is that we'll go from getting rid of the megadouches to roving bands of different types of megadouches will totally game the system to get rid of people that wear pink fedoras.

Do you know whats to stop megadouches from trying to get a person removed from the game forever? Not being an idiot. You do what Blizzard does and take the literal 2 minutes to pull up a chat log and go "Hmmm, seems legit to me!" Or "I'm not sure what the hell you people are talking about" and warn/go about your business as usual.

Slippery slope arguments need to make some sense for people to buy into them. Yours needs a whole lot of explaining on how we would get from point A to point B before I'd buy that as even the remotest possibility.

 

[Johnny Impact]

As such, I think what should be done is what is done in Dark Souls II. If you keep dropping out during an invasion, which is something a lot of people did in the first game because they either didn't want to lose or the other person was hacking, eventually the game puts you in time out. You are cut off from the online world, but you can still play the game. If you want to get back into the online world, you have to use a special item. You start with one as a freebie, but if you need another one, you literally have to go back to the start of the game and just leave your character there for over an hour. You move, and the timer starts all over again.

That's awesome. I played both Souls games and actually didn't know that (I don't do PvP). Great idea.

OT: Ban cheaters. Give players the means to votekick and/or blacklist douchebags. That's about all the control you need.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Something like an odd comment about not liking the current state of feminism

Really? That's where you want to take this?

Hell, look at this forum and how many people attempt to strategically get people warned or banned

OMG how many? Do you have evidence of this? Secret recordings? Do people admit to it accidentally under interrogation? How did this come to light?!

If the players know that someone is able to be banned, and they don't like them, what's to stop them from trying to get a person completely removed from the game forever? That's my slippery slope.

Yes, you are correct. That IS your slippery slope. I said it once, I'll say it again. Show me evidence of this actually happening, and I'll be right there beside you addressing the problem. People acting like abusive assholes in online gaming isn't a speculative problem. It's an ongoing, fully visible one. I tend to give those more weight than dystopian scenarios or alarmist flights of fancy.

 

[Signa]

Something like an odd comment about not liking the current state of feminism

Really? That's where you want to take this?

Hell, look at this forum and how many people attempt to strategically get people warned or banned

OMG how many? Do you have evidence of this? Secret recordings? Do people admit to it accidentally under interrogation? How did this come to light?!

If the players know that someone is able to be banned, and they don't like them, what's to stop them from trying to get a person completely removed from the game forever? That's my slippery slope.

Yes, you are correct. That IS your slippery slope. I said it once, I'll say it again. Show me evidence of this actually happening, and I'll be right there beside you addressing the problem. People acting like abusive assholes in online gaming isn't a speculative problem. It's an ongoing, fully visible one. I tend to give those more weight than dystopian scenarios or alarmist flights of fancy.

And that is what I appreciate about you, you don't turn these conversations into an inquisition because I made a statement about a feeling.

Really? Not my rapier wit?

Let's try this again. I'll say "What do you appreciate about me" and you say "Your rapier wit". On three.

*sigh*

I'm done.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

The developers have control over their game. They set the rules. Break the rules at your own peril. If people want to forget (or don't care) that they're making the lives of others miserable, then they should own up to the repercussions.

Of course it'd help to have their games set aside so only the people misbehaving only play with their ilk, but not every game developer has the resources to set it up.

The problem is, like any ratings system, or just about any system that allows a community to police itself are, essentially the assholes that are going to abuse it.

Do you think disruptive players should be banned from playing the game alone, though?

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.

captcha: ring-fencing
I wonder if it has to do with the medieval fighting in a ring I saw on TV once?

But if they are being trolls on a platform outside of the game itself, (which they would be since by this point they would have been banned from playing on online public servers), shouldn't they be punished on that platform rather then by taking away their stuff? Ban them from that platform then. If they do it on other platforms, ban them from those.

Don't punish them for something unrelated to what they did wrong, IMO.

Like, would you be in favor of a company taking away somebodies blu ray movies just because they said something rude on twitter?

Well, the problem with banning people from pulic servers is the fact that it's difficult to do it to a person deterimined to play. Fake accounts, fake I.P adresses (nevermind that 2 people can end up with the same I.P. adress or one gets the I.P. of a banned person), and so forth make the truely determined quite formidable.

Outside of the game? Then it becomes how much of a headache they are for the people involved with the game. If people are a pain on the game's forums, and they refuse to stop, especially if it's known that there's going to be in game repercussions, by all means remove their ability to play.
If they're on Twitter making life miserable for a game dev, then if they can link the account to the gamer, then by all means they have the right to kick the troll in the balls and then to the curb.
If they make people miserable enough on a PC version of the game, then be ready to shut them down on XBL. Why reward them for being nice on one platform when they're assholes on another?

If the person makes death threats or threatens acts of violence, pushes a person towards suicide, SWATS, or is generally just a shitty person to others often on twitter and it's not related to the game, I'm a bit on the fence. It'd be case by case.
The problem is honestly linking the twitter user to the game account, or what ever account to what ever account what ever account.
If, say someone threatens the family of someone working on CoD because of a patch/change they shouldn't be able to play CoD period, and I wouldn't blame other games from preventing them from playing their games, too.

Honestly, I'd not mind some consequence happen to trolls on the internet. I can't imagine a much better way than the game industry cracking down on them. It's hitting them where it hurts. The game industry might be the only force on the planet that can create enough impact, really. They're international, and it's getting to the point that every person on the internet cares about them to some degree, from the farmville player to the GTA player.

I'm not saying all trolling has to stop, mind you. There's varying degrees, and definitions of trolling so each incident requires an individual look through.
I mean there are "good" trolls that target the assholes out there more oft than not. Even the bad trolls aren't bad in doses, but maybe making trolls realize they have to pick their fights a bit more carefully might be in order.

The last sentence changes the question drastically. Pardon me if I split hairs to much.
Blu rays aren't a game, rather the media that they play games off of (well, just two consoles from sony, IIRC) and it's a physical medium.
Blu Ray players aren't limited to the afore mentioned consoles.
Do you mean the company kicking in the door and pillaging the discs, and/or putting an ax in their players?
It'd be impossible to remotely destroy a person's ability to watch blu-rays because not all of them are online.
I think the matter would have to be resolved on the software end of things, like trophy/achievement checks (which aren't exactly private), use of some digital serial code on the game and/or console to help filter out the software they're banned from, etc.
Even then, the truly determined will find a way.

You're gonna have to define "rude" here. There's many levels of rude, and rude is also a matter of opinion.

Well, what makes games special? Why is it okay for it to happen with games but not with movies or a car or sheets of paper (IE: the manufacter of paper coming into your home and confiscating the paper you bought because you wrote something mean on it) Regarding the "I'd be impossible to remotely destroy...", yes, it would be, but the issue here is SHOULD it happen, not can it.

Regarding the good troll vs bad troll thing, I entirely disagree. You cannot say "well it's okay for a good cause" because what causes are just or unjust are entirely subjective. (Again, I think you and I will probably agree that killing people is bad, but there's no objective measure of why that is true, and if somebody disagrees with that statement then there's really nothing you or I could say to prove them wrong) In fact I have a great article regarding the importance of the freedom of speech for very rotten things and how lawa and rules do not distinctify between context and as such why it's important rules and laws are worded carefully: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

Personally, I don't feel trolls need to be cracked down on. If they break the laws (which serious threats of violence and swatting does) then arrest them, if they are causing a problem somewhere then they should get banned from that location. Anything beyond that is vigilantism. I similarly do not support schools punishing students for actions they do not commit while at or inside the school. It's not the school's job to parent a child, or should it be a companies job to parent an adult.

Something like an odd comment about not liking the current state of feminism

Really? That's where you want to take this?

Hell, look at this forum and how many people attempt to strategically get people warned or banned

OMG how many? Do you have evidence of this? Secret recordings? Do people admit to it accidentally under interrogation? How did this come to light?!

If the players know that someone is able to be banned, and they don't like them, what's to stop them from trying to get a person completely removed from the game forever? That's my slippery slope.

Yes, you are correct. That IS your slippery slope. I said it once, I'll say it again. Show me evidence of this actually happening, and I'll be right there beside you addressing the problem. People acting like abusive assholes in online gaming isn't a speculative problem. It's an ongoing, fully visible one. I tend to give those more weight than dystopian scenarios or alarmist flights of fancy.

I could probably try to find screencaps and evidence of instances of this (not on the escapist), but i'm not sure I have the time to find them, though off hand I can think of examples of it happening.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I could probably try to find screencaps and evidence of instances of this (not on the escapist), but i'm not sure I have the time to find them, though off hand I can think of examples of it happening.

I'm sure there are examples of it happening. There are examples of people dying trying to have sex with horses, so it stands to reason you'd be able to find examples of people being douches on forums. The specific claim was regarding this forum, "many people", and "strategic attempts" to get people warned or banned. I'm perfectly receptive to actual evidence that supports those claims, but I'm not anticipating seeing any. And from the looks of it Signa is now annoyed with me so he's not about to put the legwork in either way.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

At most there should be a way to ensure you don't play with a certain person.
Not just because being an asshole is no reason to take a game off someone, but because there isn't a game community in the world that doesn't report people just for losing or doing bad. Or being young. Or having a different opinion.

 

[Joccaren]

I'm with a lot of other people here in that 'consumer rights' only go so far.

I go to a cinema. I purchase a ticket. I sneak some speakers and a laptop in a bag I'm carrying, set it up and start blasting rap music all through the latest chick flick. I WILL get kicked out, and everyone will agree this is completely reasonable. I am not the only person who paid for the movie, and just because I have paid for use of a service does NOT mean I am entitled to break the terms and conditions, and other rules, of that service. If I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and start throwing food everywhere, I'll get kicked out. If I go to a uni lecture and start watching youtube videos on max volume blasting to the class, the lecturer will kick me out.
In all of the above, I've paid for service. Because I am being a shit, I get kicked out. Consumer protection isn't there for the shits. Its there for your normal consumers, and they have a right to be protected against the shits.

That said, provided it comes at not extra cost to the publisher/developer, they should just off greifers/trolls to a separate server and leave them to play with each other. If it does incur significant extra costs to run those services and such, they may choose to charge a subscription to the trolls in order to use them, or they could just ban their access - either would be valid IMO.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I could probably try to find screencaps and evidence of instances of this (not on the escapist), but i'm not sure I have the time to find them, though off hand I can think of examples of it happening.

I'm sure there are examples of it happening. There are examples of people dying trying to have sex with horses, so it stands to reason you'd be able to find examples of people being douches on forums. The specific claim was regarding this forum, "many people", and "strategic attempts" to get people warned or banned. I'm perfectly receptive to actual evidence that supports those claims, but I'm not anticipating seeing any. And from the looks of it Signa is now annoyed with me so he's not about to put the legwork in either way.

Well, I meant "strategic attempts" elsewhere, but again, that's elsewhere. I don't mean to be rude, but would you like me to try to find some I might have saved already or not? I'm pretty busy so I'd appreciate a direct answer.

Its there for your normal consumers, and they have a right to be protected against the shits.

I'm 99% sure that most of the people who are wary about this are wary that it will go beyond that, and it will apply to people who don't deserve it or that it won't just serve as protection but rather punitive measures that will prevent people from being able to play the game period, not just from playing it online with public servers.