Toxicity in online gaming just keeps popping up – specifically as it pertains to chat and commenting.
MOP reader Tanek pointed us to a thread about Standing Stone Games, which is apparently blocking specific words in LOTRO’s chat, including supposedly “political” words, leading some players to demand the company publish the full list to prove to said players they’re not “biased” (not gonna happen).
Reader Stephen then linked us to the amusing story of a Norwegian site that’s developed a WordPress plugin that requires people to take a quiz on an article’s contents before being allowed to comment.
Finally, there’s Saga of Lucimia, which this week spent its Monday dev blog discussing the Fair Play Alliance and its own home-grown play nice policy – and the fact that it will take a zero-tolerance, insta-ban approach to dealing with racism (we’ll assume other bigotry too).
All of these are approaches to handling specific community problems that MMO players deal with in text-based chat and forums (vs other online games that are more focused on toxic voice chat or grief play). Do you think they’re effective? Do text-based games have a bigger problem than voice-based games? Are chat blacklists, intelligence vetting, and dire threats enough to thwart text toxicity, or is there another way?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
