If you people who didn't bother to read any of my other posts on this subject think it's fine and dandy for a company to deliberately build content that equates to nothing more than a safe haven on the Internet for people to be anonymous, faceless bullies, go right ahead and keep giving EA your business and your money.
I know UO is just a game. I understand that just fine. But time and time again in the last few years, we've seen EA add new stuff to the game that seems to have been designed deliberately to allow people to be real jerks to other players who are also paying to play the game. When people complain about it, and rightly so, EA turns a deaf ear and does nothing. This last time, however, the developer slipped and actually admitted that EA doesn't get involved in conflicts between players.
So are we to believe that EA's current policy is to design content that allows the jackasses in the game to take control of new features and new content that are added to the game in Trammel if that's the way they want to play the game because basically none of the other paying customers has any ability to do a damn thing about what the jackasses are doing other than to wait them out and hope that eventually they get bored and stop what they're doing?
If that is really EA's new policy--let the bullies take over if that's what they want to do and everyone else can wish the whole game was set in Felucca so they could stomp on the bullies--then I want nothing to do with it. And if I want to complain about the situation, I think I have the right to do so after having paid EA's subscription fees for five and a half years.
Mark understood the situation perfectly, just like Sakkarah understood the situation when she made new content that could easily be controlled in Trammel by the bullies. Cal understood it too when he authorized the addition of chat channels with a skimpy set of control features. And even today, it's apparent that EA really doesn't give a damn about letting the bullies dominate everyone else. No, every day if you want to be in the general chat channel, the burden is on the paying customers to filter out the filth. There are no repercussions in UO for being a jerk in your actions or talking like one too. I've been told by friends who play other games like WoW that all this anti-social behavior that EA permits and lately even seems to encourage would be stamped out in a heartbeart if it occurred in a different game.
If people think none of this is a big deal, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I happen to think this trend is very disturbing and I'll sit here and yell about it if I want to. Go find someone else to pick on because I'm not backing down on this one. If I want to complain about it before I actually walk out the door and leave, I damn well will do that. Just put me on ignore if you don't want to read my comments and if I'm somehow bothering you. At least Stratics gives you that choice...and they don't make you pay for it either.
And the comment about my grandson. Well, that's mostly a response to Chaos who suggested doing something else and ignoring the problems. I'm not gonna do that. I'm an old granny who's sick of seeing the damage that the bullies do when no one cares enough or is too intimidated to speak up. I understand this is just a damn game and yeah some idiot deciding to hog the spawn is in no way equivalent to having a jerk shake your seven week old grandson and totally mess up the rest of the little guy's life and tip upside down the life of everyone else in the family. Maybe having my life tipped upside down three years ago has made me a little more sensitive about certain issues. No, I'm not gonna back down on this. I will speak up when I see stuff like this. The world doesn't need more bullies and it especially doesn't need large corporations to provide opportunities for the bullies to act in complete anonymity and with no repercussions whatsoever. In my opinion, companies that look like they encourage that kind of behavior truly need to be called out for it and at the very least provide some kind of rational explanation for why they're doing it.
