How can we make "In Game Support" better so this won't happen again?

[Jirel of Joiry]

I'm asking this on the heels of a EXTREMELY bad situation that I personally witnessed.

It happened a week ago Saturday night. A nasty troll with an agenda made accusations in global chat of a nature that could cause the intended victims actual legal problems. I will not post/repeat the accusations in this forum! PM or email me I will tell you.

When my sister, myself and several other guild mates/ allies tried to put the troll on ignore it would not work. When we tried to page on him using the harassment option; nine people including me and my sister got the same thing "the character does not exist".

We all tried paging under the "other issues" option and the GM on duty kept sending everyone canned messages to repage using the harrassment option.

I had to wait and call phone support monday morning. I will say kudoes to the phone support people. After careful explaintion of what had happened they sent me a email address to send the name/s of the offenders and/or screenshots of the accusations.

Anyway I would like to see the GMs system "fixed". For starters make them aware of the existing bug that prevents players from being paged on with the harassment option. Its only been around since Jeremy was Community Rep.

Secondly when people page about not being able to use the harassment option on a player. Try talking to the player using the GM chat feature (it the one you press shift+: to talk to the GM) instead of repeated canned messages.

Thats just for starters.


We ended up using Guild/Alliance/ and party chat to talk to each other the rest of that night until the troll gave up and went away. I'm just deeply concerned at the lack of access to in game help when one truely needs it.

I would really like to find a way to remedy the situation because I truly love UO and think think better in game support would only make UO better!

Please Mods I promise this isn't a rant nor is it meant as such in any way. I am deeply concerned and thought it over a long time before posting here.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my rather long winded post.

Jirel

 

[Derium of ls]

To be honest, I'm shocked the GM's didn't appear to you/take you to jail to figure it out.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

I know or at least use the GM Chat system; talk to me or one of the other people who had paged.

It was really messed up. I felt terrible for the victims of the troll's horrible rantings.

I know I have complained alot over the years about the GM system but this was a serious problem and there was no help to be had.

IMMHO: the troll in question is a bully and bullies shouldn't be tolerated, period! Stand up to them and make them accountable for their actions/ words in game.

Just my thoughts.

(IMMHO= In my most humble opinon)

 

[Silverbird]

Hmmm ... I wonder, what happens, if someone uses the chat under the effect of a disguise kit? Thought the id of that char shouldnt change.

 

[Mapper]

I know or at least use the GM Chat system; talk to me or one of the other people who had paged.

It was really messed up. I felt terrible for the victims of the troll's horrible rantings.

I know I have complained alot over the years about the GM system but this was a serious problem and there was no help to be had.

IMMHO: the troll in question is a bully and bullies shouldn't be tolerated, period! Stand up to them and make them accountable for their actions/ words in game.

Just my thoughts.

(IMMHO= In my most humble opinon)

They must have said something awful for you all to spend all evening calling GMs. Personally had ignore not worked I would have left the chat and left it at that, I'm not going to waste my time calling GMs. And had it been REALLY awful I may have called them once, Then got fed up.

 

[Lord Chaos]

What likely happened is that the person had a number or weird sign in their name that looks like a letter, for instance 1awrence instead of lawrence. (just a crude example) And thats why you couldn't block him and the GM couldn't find him.

What on earth kind of accusation could land someone in legal trouble made through a computer game?

 

[It Lives]

I'm asking this on the heels of a EXTREMELY bad situation that I personally witnessed.

It happened a week ago Saturday night. A nasty troll with an agenda made accusations in global chat of a nature that could cause the intended victims actual legal problems. I will not post/repeat the accusations in this forum! PM or email me I will tell you.

When my sister, myself and several other guild mates/ allies tried to put the troll on ignore it would not work. When we tried to page on him using the harassment option; nine people including me and my sister got the same thing "the character does not exist".

We all tried paging under the "other issues" option and the GM on duty kept sending everyone canned messages to repage using the harrassment option.

I had to wait and call phone support monday morning. I will say kudoes to the phone support people. After careful explaintion of what had happened they sent me a email address to send the name/s of the offenders and/or screenshots of the accusations.

Anyway I would like to see the GMs system "fixed". For starters make them aware of the existing bug that prevents players from being paged on with the harassment option. Its only been around since Jeremy was Community Rep.

Secondly when people page about not being able to use the harassment option on a player. Try talking to the player using the GM chat feature (it the one you press shift+: to talk to the GM) instead of repeated canned messages.

Thats just for starters.


We ended up using Guild/Alliance/ and party chat to talk to each other the rest of that night until the troll gave up and went away. I'm just deeply concerned at the lack of access to in game help when one truely needs it.

I would really like to find a way to remedy the situation because I truly love UO and think think better in game support would only make UO better!

Please Mods I promise this isn't a rant nor is it meant as such in any way. I am deeply concerned and thought it over a long time before posting here.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my rather long winded post.

Jirel

They should take your computers away and put you in the room, you know the one.

 

[Old Man of UO]

What likely happened is that the person had a number or weird sign in their name that looks like a letter, for instance 1awrence instead of lawrence. (just a crude example) And thats why you couldn't block him and the GM couldn't find him...

Can't use numbers or "weird sign" in their names, so you can't create a "L33t 1awrence" for example.

 

[Kellgory]

The number next to their name in chat is unique to that char. They can incognito or attempt to change their name all they want but that number stays the same.

 

[Tina Small]

The number next to their name in chat is unique to that char. They can incognito or attempt to change their name all they want but that number stays the same.

Using a name change token also does not change a character's number. I suspect a character's number also stays the same when they make a shard transfer.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

Okay for those who asked what the troll said; well I have to be careful its the sort of accusation that could quite literally ruin a person.

Without going into detail I can tell you that it was a accusation of a henious crime. The sort of crime one would go to prison for and end up on a database for the rest of their life.

If you want more explicit detail please, please PM me. I will not repeat that utter rubbish in Uhall.

I did try just using the ID number and it didn't work. It said it didn't exist.



Jirel

 

[Derium of ls]

What on earth kind of accusation could land someone in legal trouble made through a computer game?

if you have any personal info on someone, you spread that around to people and tag on a certain crime that cops will always take seriously and tear your life apart looking for facts of such actions. That would do it.

If you called Las Vegas Metro and gave them my real name, and told them something like I molested a child, they would turn my life upside down while trying to figure it out. Sad that happens, but even more sad that's the way it needs to be to find a lot of people like that.

so even in a video game if I say gave out your real name and where you live, and accused you of some really bad things, it only takes one person reading it to take the "better safe than sorry" route and land you in a rather long legal battle.

The odds of that happening? VERY VERY low, but still... It could if someone pushed it.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

true. my brother went thru a year of RL hell on just such a bogus charge. the accuser ended up in juvenile detention for a while - amongst other things.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Considering Stratics has a forum where you can freely make such charges and worse, then I don't see how this is much worse. If anything it reflects poorly on the accuser.

But either way, you must really have typed something wrong, perhaps got the number wrong since the person couldn't be found.

 

[Snakeman]

The number next to their name in chat is unique to that char. They can incognito or attempt to change their name all they want but that number stays the same.

He's correct, the ID # stays the same & the GM's won't do a thing if you can't "Target the Accused", I know because I have tried on one for some bs spamming of our famous website that sells UO items at xyz.com website, I have entered the name & ID# on each occasion and I get the same canned bs response,
Thank you for your petition. In order to investigate this matter, it is necessary to list any and all offending players as targets in your petition. Please follow these guide lines when re-petitioning.<br><br>If you are reporting an Unattended Macro/script user, physical harassment, or a player using an unapproved program please use the <b>Physical Harassment</b> option. This will allow you to provide the name of the player in question so that we can review your report.<br><br>If you are reporting verbal harassment, or an possible exploit, talk of an exploit or an issue which was discussed using in game chat please use the <b>Verbal Harassment</b> option to file your report.<br><br>In both cases please make sure to include the <b>TARGET</b> so that the required information is captured. If you are unsure of the exact spelling of the player’s name(s), please make use of the targeting cursor or select the player’s name(s) from the available list.<br><br>Thank you for the extra assistance.
Well how in the ^&*% are you suppose to target the accused in Global chat ! The chara can be in any area of the world, in his home or for all that standing next to you hidden! There has to be some way of a GM to view Global chat conversations, they can view our regular chat logs so why not these.... To me it's plain laziness on the part of the GM to not want to help or doesn't know how to help so just ignore it & sends a canned response. Any way you look at it GM's do need a looking into by by someone with knowledge of this game.

 

[XLaCeDX]

if you have any personal info on someone, you spread that around to people and tag on a certain crime that cops will always take seriously and tear your life apart looking for facts of such actions. That would do it.

If you called Las Vegas Metro and gave them my real name, and told them something like I molested a child, they would turn my life upside down while trying to figure it out. Sad that happens, but even more sad that's the way it needs to be to find a lot of people like that.

so even in a video game if I say gave out your real name and where you live, and accused you of some really bad things, it only takes one person reading it to take the "better safe than sorry" route and land you in a rather long legal battle.

The odds of that happening? VERY VERY low, but still... It could if someone pushed it.

The problem is we do have some actual child molesters in UO.

Now if EA protects them by silencing those who know the truth, EA could potentially be in trouble with the law.

I know of a kid whose serving 5 years in a Mississippi prison for fondling a child who reportedly dated this older 'female' in game when he was 14 or 15.

As a mom I have to say, was this old pervert in game responsible for this kid ending up in prison just as he turned 19?

If so then she needs to be stopped.

Kudos to the GMs for not protecting nasty old pervs I say.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Relax. You cant get in trouble for and adult making a statement about another adult about a crime not related to the person making a statment.

That is so and so molested, robbed, killed etc.

You can or could get in trouble if you make the statment you did those things or will do those things.

You can get in trouble if an under age child makes a statement public

I wouldnt worry to much because if anyone gets in trouble all parties get pulled in.

HOWEVER, it is a pain in the but paging doesnt work for the sole reason legal BS doesnt matter but the act of being so annoying should cause him problems.

 

[Kellgory]

It's a game, and I wish people would leave RL crap out of chat. Chat is nice when people ask for spellweavers to gather for a focus or need help doing a quest, but it's gotten to the point that I usually leave chat off because people keep using it to talk about how they performed acts on another chars family member or that so and so should be in jail because they stalk little children. Gm's usually don't do jack about it because they believe that you can simply remove the problem by putting the char on the ignore list or moving out of the channel.

 

[Splup]

We were at parties with my friend one night, his GF was there too really drunk. Well she created an argument out of nothing. So we decided to go to bar instead of staying at those parties. I quess she really got pissed off about that, since she told the guys at the parties that my friend had just beat her up and then went to bar.

I can tell ya we had to defend ourselves with fists for a while before bouncers got there and we got the crap talked through and told that she was talking bs. Yea, they broke up after that...

 

[Derium of ls]

We were at parties with my friend one night, his GF was there too really drunk. Well she created an argument out of nothing. So we decided to go to bar instead of staying at those parties. I quess she really got pissed off about that, since she told the guys at the parties that my friend had just beat her up and then went to bar.

I can tell ya we had to defend ourselves with fists for a while before bouncers got there and we got the crap talked through and told that she was talking bs. Yea, they broke up after that...

I think it was Penn & Teller who said this (not 100% sure) but when you're accused of a crime it's front page news, but when you're found innocent of that crime, it's page 27.

 

[Viper09]

I think it was Penn & Teller who said this (not 100% sure) but when you're accused of a crime it's front page news, but when you're found innocent of that crime, it's page 27.

Of course. Most news is just a different form of entertainment now.

 

[Goodmann]

I'm asking this on the heels of a EXTREMELY bad situation that I personally witnessed.

It happened a week ago Saturday night. A nasty troll with an agenda made accusations in global chat of a nature that could cause the intended victims actual legal problems. I will not post/repeat the accusations in this forum! PM or email me I will tell you.

When my sister, myself and several other guild mates/ allies tried to put the troll on ignore it would not work. When we tried to page on him using the harassment option; nine people including me and my sister got the same thing "the character does not exist".

We all tried paging under the "other issues" option and the GM on duty kept sending everyone canned messages to repage using the harrassment option.

I had to wait and call phone support monday morning. I will say kudoes to the phone support people. After careful explaintion of what had happened they sent me a email address to send the name/s of the offenders and/or screenshots of the accusations.

Anyway I would like to see the GMs system "fixed". For starters make them aware of the existing bug that prevents players from being paged on with the harassment option. Its only been around since Jeremy was Community Rep.

Secondly when people page about not being able to use the harassment option on a player. Try talking to the player using the GM chat feature (it the one you press shift+: to talk to the GM) instead of repeated canned messages.

Thats just for starters.


We ended up using Guild/Alliance/ and party chat to talk to each other the rest of that night until the troll gave up and went away. I'm just deeply concerned at the lack of access to in game help when one truely needs it.

I would really like to find a way to remedy the situation because I truly love UO and think think better in game support would only make UO better!

Please Mods I promise this isn't a rant nor is it meant as such in any way. I am deeply concerned and thought it over a long time before posting here.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my rather long winded post.

Jirel

Turn Global chat off- SImple as that. This is a VIDEO GAME where people can say what ever they like. Get him banned and another dummy account comes out doing the same thing. Stop being a cry baby and get over it.

 

[hen]

The problem is we do have some actual child molesters in UO.

Strangely enough if you were to say this over in OT No Holds Barred, 99.9% of the posters would give you the same name.

 

[Lost-Soul]

I'm surprised the GM's didnt take ya to jail for paging constantly.

 

[Lord Chaos]

The problem is we do have some actual child molesters in UO.

Eh, so what? There's probably also murderers, rapists and thieves in UO. Its not up to a computer game to police RL offenders.

Now if EA protects them by silencing those who know the truth, EA could potentially be in trouble with the law.

Thats complete nonsense. How on earth would EA be able to know whether the person knows the truth or not?

Kudos to the GMs for not protecting nasty old pervs I say.

The GMs have no basis to make such a call whatsoever. You could basically accuse anyone of anything and the GMs would never know the truth.

 

[Viper09]

How on earth would EA be able to know whether the person knows the truth or not?

This pretty much sums it up.

 

[soze]

I don't like the chat feature anyway. I think it should be removed.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Hmm...sounds to me like someone got called a pedo...

BTW...if nine other people were involved in paging, it almost sounds like you were abusing the system. My advice to you is, if you don't like to conversation then leave the channel. Wasting what little resources that are left in this game on a matter which really isn't personal (do you know the persons RL name? was it mentioned?) is irresponsible at best. IMO posting a thread about it is even more ********.

 

[Budweiser KDL]

They must have said something awful for you all to spend all evening calling GMs. Personally had ignore not worked I would have left the chat and left it at that, I'm not going to waste my time calling GMs. And had it been REALLY awful I may have called them once, Then got fed up.

I didn't see anywhere in her post did she spend all evening calling GM's.