04-29-2003, 06:11 PM
MMORPG, as I see it, is not what Diablo II is. The game does not reward role playing by any constructive measure, it is an attrition-based-combat-model-using dungeon crawl. And fun. :) However, as you raised this issue and choose to characterize Diablo II as an MMORPG:
From Occhi: Company does own all, but at what point does this censoring become ridiculous?
The ethics of this can be addressed, or evaded by use of a Fig Leaf: it says 17 years old/Mature on the rating, :P, so if someone can see an R or X rated film, nothing on bnet would be expected to be more offensive than that. I did say . . . Fig Leaf.
You can't say c*ck on battle.net, but you can't say l*sbian either.
So much for filters making any sense, you can't type D1ck on this forum. In an X-rated film, you can see a c*ck full frontally, and even watch two l*sbians do things in some explicit detail: if you are 17 or older. Bnet has not as yet devolved that far.
That always bothered me.
It does not bother me very much. I am confused as to why 'lesbian' is filtered out and gay or homosexual are not, given common bnet parlance by the immature jerk element. Most true MMORPG's do have either a filter or an 'appeal' function, however, since bnet has no Game Master, all of my comments on Game Master / Player relationships really don't apply in fine granularity to this case.
And what about a case-by-case basis? Blizzard does nothing about these.
Well, see the Fig Leaf issue. And, no game master. Per Bnet's structure, they don't have to. They can, however, if they choose to do so. And the Fig Leaf starts to slip a bit, IMO. Their tolerance of whatever their gamers want puts the onus of the nonsense names on The Gamers. Oops, looks like maturity level is not guaranteed by purchase!!
I will ask: why is it that you are upset at Blizzard, rather than the players who come up with the lewd names? Part of the problem is that what offends you is what some find foolishly sohphomoric, and others find clever and witty, and still others find tiresome and boorish. Thus ever with 'humor' and punnery. Note: Eddie Murphy and his early humor was grossly scatalogical, but he was also insanely popular. See also Chris Rock, and for some reason, George Carlin has held to using the Seven Words, even long after the shock value has any merit. With him, it is now habit. Still funny, but for a guy with such a mastery of words, disappointing to me.
Excuse me, but I happen to find "SlayerofJews" and "BurnStrsNstrps" offensive.
How is BurnStrsNstrps offensive? Did I miss an acronym here, did I not sound it out correctly? Burns Transcripts? Burn Stars And Stripes? (And I have caps of these too.) OK, if some one comes to take my flag from my front porch and try to burn it, gun play will ensue. If they buy their own flag and burn it in political protest, fine, I am free to consider them an asshole, a European, or an Arab: or even all three. :)
Blizzard disregards the email I send, and the "image is everything" trick that we Hollins girls use to get the administration's trick doesn't work with the Coldwurm the Burrower that is Blizzard Entertainment.
Right. Blizzard has to both cater to you, and to the fellows who think those names are clever. Note: you are both EQUAL in their eyes as customers. You can choose to NOT associate with those who employ the uncouth names. Bnet is a big place. If their mere existence offends you, then Blizzard may be able to counter your dismay and complaint about bad taste -- which I agree with you on, the badness of taste -- as 'too thin a skin, too PC' and 'why is your taste bar any more relevant than the UncouthClan's taste bar?' You have options to mitigate any irritation or dilike for those character names. You can avoid those characters. You have some control and are not required to get upset about it. That you can control. Given the speed and volume of account and char naming, the way bnet for DII is set up, how should Blizzard censor, or try to censor, these names? The folks exercising their free speech are also exercising their option to present themselves as jerkoffs.
Ethically? Blizzard hides behind the Fig Leaf that this is 'a game for mature audiences, and mature people can deal with it maturely.' My own disappointment is with the jerks, not Blizz.
And can you believe that HansOnnerTitz is taken on US West? I sure can. Not sure about East.
Of course. As are, no doubt, a Staff Barbarian named Big_DikHertzer, a Druid called MiloDelCholkya, and dozens of others. :P Sophomoric humor in an unregulated chatroom: that is bnet in a nutshell.
Ethics issue: How do you draw a line that makes every one happy? Simple: you can't.
Would even a case-by-case be more feasible? From what I've been reading, even EverQuest is better patrolled than B.net.
Yes, exactly, and that is where the game master, for pay, takes action that the un-game mastered Bnet can't due to how those two are structured differently. Everquest is more of an MMORPG, and fits your idea on how to 'clean up the act Writ Large' can be better enforced For A Price. Let's see how WoW works out before you write Blizz off, since there they will have game masters for pay. Or, so we think. :P
All items belong to the proprietary game environment created in the game.
Yes, but is it ethical to charge a "transaction fee" for such items? Research on various item-selling sites has shown me that sellers put in this clause to make things okey-dokey so Blizzard won't get after 'em. Are they really protected from Blizzard's wrath if all they're charging for is the movement of an item file from one account to another, and nothing else?
Is a finder's fee a legal fee? Yes. There you are. And, like illicit drugs, without demand there would be No Supply Requirement! Right back to The Players. Sort of like Pogo once said: We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us!
This makes me wonder if and how often Blizzard patrols the realms and how active a role they're taking in enforcing their ToS. Alas, that is another PowerPoint presentation for another time.
Blizz set up bnet as a free fire zone. They left to the players the level of taste they will apply. As you can see, the Efffed up: they trusted them all. :)
I see tasteless names all the time. Heck, I just made one myself the other day, a Sorceress called YourFez_MyAdze. If Roland finds it too offensive, I will delete it. The name is the punchline of a very old, and a bit uncouth, joke:
What did the lumberjack say to the Morrocon when he was asked "Hey, buddy, you got a match?" It is a spoof on the "your face and my arse" punchline from the same joke about some one asking for a light for their cigarette by saying: "You gotta match?"
From Occhi: Company does own all, but at what point does this censoring become ridiculous?
The ethics of this can be addressed, or evaded by use of a Fig Leaf: it says 17 years old/Mature on the rating, :P, so if someone can see an R or X rated film, nothing on bnet would be expected to be more offensive than that. I did say . . . Fig Leaf.
You can't say c*ck on battle.net, but you can't say l*sbian either.
So much for filters making any sense, you can't type D1ck on this forum. In an X-rated film, you can see a c*ck full frontally, and even watch two l*sbians do things in some explicit detail: if you are 17 or older. Bnet has not as yet devolved that far.
That always bothered me.
It does not bother me very much. I am confused as to why 'lesbian' is filtered out and gay or homosexual are not, given common bnet parlance by the immature jerk element. Most true MMORPG's do have either a filter or an 'appeal' function, however, since bnet has no Game Master, all of my comments on Game Master / Player relationships really don't apply in fine granularity to this case.
And what about a case-by-case basis? Blizzard does nothing about these.
Well, see the Fig Leaf issue. And, no game master. Per Bnet's structure, they don't have to. They can, however, if they choose to do so. And the Fig Leaf starts to slip a bit, IMO. Their tolerance of whatever their gamers want puts the onus of the nonsense names on The Gamers. Oops, looks like maturity level is not guaranteed by purchase!!
I will ask: why is it that you are upset at Blizzard, rather than the players who come up with the lewd names? Part of the problem is that what offends you is what some find foolishly sohphomoric, and others find clever and witty, and still others find tiresome and boorish. Thus ever with 'humor' and punnery. Note: Eddie Murphy and his early humor was grossly scatalogical, but he was also insanely popular. See also Chris Rock, and for some reason, George Carlin has held to using the Seven Words, even long after the shock value has any merit. With him, it is now habit. Still funny, but for a guy with such a mastery of words, disappointing to me.
Excuse me, but I happen to find "SlayerofJews" and "BurnStrsNstrps" offensive.
How is BurnStrsNstrps offensive? Did I miss an acronym here, did I not sound it out correctly? Burns Transcripts? Burn Stars And Stripes? (And I have caps of these too.) OK, if some one comes to take my flag from my front porch and try to burn it, gun play will ensue. If they buy their own flag and burn it in political protest, fine, I am free to consider them an asshole, a European, or an Arab: or even all three. :)
Blizzard disregards the email I send, and the "image is everything" trick that we Hollins girls use to get the administration's trick doesn't work with the Coldwurm the Burrower that is Blizzard Entertainment.
Right. Blizzard has to both cater to you, and to the fellows who think those names are clever. Note: you are both EQUAL in their eyes as customers. You can choose to NOT associate with those who employ the uncouth names. Bnet is a big place. If their mere existence offends you, then Blizzard may be able to counter your dismay and complaint about bad taste -- which I agree with you on, the badness of taste -- as 'too thin a skin, too PC' and 'why is your taste bar any more relevant than the UncouthClan's taste bar?' You have options to mitigate any irritation or dilike for those character names. You can avoid those characters. You have some control and are not required to get upset about it. That you can control. Given the speed and volume of account and char naming, the way bnet for DII is set up, how should Blizzard censor, or try to censor, these names? The folks exercising their free speech are also exercising their option to present themselves as jerkoffs.
Ethically? Blizzard hides behind the Fig Leaf that this is 'a game for mature audiences, and mature people can deal with it maturely.' My own disappointment is with the jerks, not Blizz.
And can you believe that HansOnnerTitz is taken on US West? I sure can. Not sure about East.
Of course. As are, no doubt, a Staff Barbarian named Big_DikHertzer, a Druid called MiloDelCholkya, and dozens of others. :P Sophomoric humor in an unregulated chatroom: that is bnet in a nutshell.
Ethics issue: How do you draw a line that makes every one happy? Simple: you can't.
Would even a case-by-case be more feasible? From what I've been reading, even EverQuest is better patrolled than B.net.
Yes, exactly, and that is where the game master, for pay, takes action that the un-game mastered Bnet can't due to how those two are structured differently. Everquest is more of an MMORPG, and fits your idea on how to 'clean up the act Writ Large' can be better enforced For A Price. Let's see how WoW works out before you write Blizz off, since there they will have game masters for pay. Or, so we think. :P
All items belong to the proprietary game environment created in the game.
Yes, but is it ethical to charge a "transaction fee" for such items? Research on various item-selling sites has shown me that sellers put in this clause to make things okey-dokey so Blizzard won't get after 'em. Are they really protected from Blizzard's wrath if all they're charging for is the movement of an item file from one account to another, and nothing else?
Is a finder's fee a legal fee? Yes. There you are. And, like illicit drugs, without demand there would be No Supply Requirement! Right back to The Players. Sort of like Pogo once said: We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us!
This makes me wonder if and how often Blizzard patrols the realms and how active a role they're taking in enforcing their ToS. Alas, that is another PowerPoint presentation for another time.
Blizz set up bnet as a free fire zone. They left to the players the level of taste they will apply. As you can see, the Efffed up: they trusted them all. :)
I see tasteless names all the time. Heck, I just made one myself the other day, a Sorceress called YourFez_MyAdze. If Roland finds it too offensive, I will delete it. The name is the punchline of a very old, and a bit uncouth, joke:
What did the lumberjack say to the Morrocon when he was asked "Hey, buddy, you got a match?" It is a spoof on the "your face and my arse" punchline from the same joke about some one asking for a light for their cigarette by saying: "You gotta match?"
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete