Feedback on harassment

[MrPresident]

Was advised in game to post any feedback I had about this on the forums, so am doing so.

The vast majority of the players in this game are regular nice people. Most barely talk honestly, and those that do usually don't say much. However I have had the unfortunate chance of running into a few of the lesser members of the community in my time here.

The vile abuse they throw at you is quite astounding. This isn't CoD "I f*cked your mum!" nonsense. I'm talking encouraging suicide, death threats and sexually assaulting family members kinda stuff, among other sickeningly creative jabs. But never mind, there is a report function. So I just thought I'd report abuse when I got some of the particularly disgusting things said to me and the GMs would take action, right? Wrong.

Of all the people I've ever reported, no visible action has ever been taken. Of course the GM's shield they hide behind is "how do you know, we got our privacy policy!" Well, yes. But if the same people are continually logging in every day, no change in their behaviour, that is a pretty clear sign no action has been taken. Now I'm obviously not expecting a perma ban for every single person I report, but no action against any of them? That seems odd. It is possible they could have gotten a warning, yes. But the warning would surely be a deterrent? If you got a warning for telling one person to kill themselves, would you really do it again to another? Seems unlikely.

But maybe its just me, maybe I'm the only one reporting so its not enough. Wrong again. I got speaking to another player awhile back after her and I were both given a keyboard lashing from another player, to find out said individual always acts that way. Foul language, name calling and telling people to kill themselves are all part of his regular repertoire. Yet nothing is done about it. The player in question has been around since the Beta phase and I am told has been acting this way almost as long. Yet despite numerous reports over multiple incidents from many different players, he is continually spared. He continues to log on every day, his name permanently affixed on the Party Finder as a giant beacon of no action being taken.

As to why I've decided to make this post today. Having been incident free for a decent period (like I said, the majority on here are good people) I ran into an unsavoury character in Weeping City today. Having worked their way through the alliance with insults he/she finally turned to me during the end boss fight. To be fair, it was tame stuff. Back and forth, no extreme insults or foul language, nothing worth reporting as abuse, just a typical display seen in a 24 man run. However what was worthy of reporting was what came next. Following the end of the run the same player logged onto a level 1 alt on my server to ramp up the abuse with clearly pre typed lengthy insults ultimately ending with a death threat, logging out instantly before I could even retort. Quite an effort to go to just harass someone.

I began to fill out a report...but then I stopped. Because honestly, why bother anymore? Whether the GMs have a lack of power, lack of resources, or just have a laid back view towards harassment. No action will be taken, which is disappointing. I honestly find the insults thrown at me rather droll. But not everyone will. There will be children and people much more fragile mentally playing this game. Imagine some random person threatening you at 12 years old?

Ultimately the business side of the game won't suffer from this, as nasty people are still paying subs. But the community will suffer. I now see why people tend to more or less just stay within FC and LS groups for content now. Interacting with random players 9/10 will be fine, but if you're a particularly fragile person that 1/10 could be quite traumatic.

Thanks to anyone who stuck through reading this. Didn't realise quite how long it was.