f13.net

Because if there isn't, there should be.

I imagine other companies kept records of private messages for data retention/security purposes, but Bioware is the first one I've seen to actually act on the contents of private messages resulting in warnings and bans.

Pretty hilarious imo.

All your messages are logged. If somebody tattles to a GM about you swearing, is it so horrible if they look at your message history to see how bad the problem is?

If it turns out they actually have people off in a backroom reading through peoples messages looking for things to bitch about I'll as outraged as you like. But I seriously doubt that's happening.

Guess I wouldn't care much until we know more details.  Like people said in the other thread, I doubt very much that someone was really banned for swearing a few times in private messages.  Granted a /ignore exists I'm sure, but if you're spamming everyone that walks by you on Coursant with crap in private tells you should be warned/banned.

But we've heard crazier things in MMO's I guess.

I thought AC2 was doing something like this.

Oh c'mon.  This is the internet.  I could say that Bill Gates personally came to my house, set everything on fire, and told me that if I ever thought about getting a Mac again, he'd be back.  As long as I articulate my speech well enough, and sounds pretty damn convincing, who's to say I'm wrong?

In other words, until I see something more concrete than trolls on a forum saying they got spanked in the naughty place, everything is suspect.

If they were really scouring people's private messages for the f-word without that person being reported first, I would've been banned within the first day. Hell, they'd only have to look at my guildline log, really.

Meh their servers. Also, you agree to the same in the Eula. Move along; nothing to see here.

They don't care about tells you send unless you are abusive. Frankly, considering someone calls me a fag on a regular basis for getting slicing nodes, I am not worried about my tells to friends.

If you decide to be a prick to someone via /tell and they appeal you, I'm fine with them reading the private messages.

I've seen no evidence that they're just trolling /tell and /guild logs to find people to preemptively punish. Because my entire guild would have been gone overnight.

I guess a lot of it has to do with phrasing. Their warnings seem to be of the "you can't say the f-word here" variety, instead of "stop harassing other players".

You and your filthy sailor mouth.

Learned at my mother's knee, baby.

Everything you say in any MMO is logged; every submitted keystroke into a text field will be recorded and stored. We used chatlogs a lot (including tells) for figuring out what was going on when a report came in. There was even a /snoop command that streamed all chat to and from a target into a GM's client in real time. It would be impossible to investigate almost all reports of harrassment, cheating and so forth without tools like that. If you're concerned about bored CSRs reading your cybersex sessions then do it over MSN instead.

Schild, do you really think that Bioware is doing anything that isn't standard procedure in any MMO?

When even GAF doesn't use this as an excuse to make another Bioware hate thread, you can tell nobody care.

Have you seen their UI?  :awesome_for_real:

So that it can become part of the Googleverse once the two entities merge.

If it's done online, it'll be public eventually.  If you don't want it traced back to you, don't type it, say it.

I wouldn't consider unsolicited or harrassing tells as 'private' just because the message had a limited audience.  I guess I can sexually harrass co-workers if no-one else hears?

Poor analogy. Games are not jobs. (Or shouldn't be.  :oh_i_see:)

If they want to hear about my Twi'lek foot fetish, more power to them.

Also, All Twi'lek PST!

(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsg8n2g0Ym1r0d3ugo1_500.jpg)

Do you even play SWTOR?

It's so bad people that don't play the game can probably still feel the disturbance in the force caused by it.

Sorry, I can't take your opinion seriously unless it's accompanied by a reposted negative report from Something Awful.  :awesome_for_real:

I've finally learnt that playing MMOs at launch is a fool's game. And to pre-empt your inevitable next question: I'm watching SWTOR closely so I can determine if/when it will actually be worth playing, and "When they fix the UI" is one of those things I'm waiting for.

Another interesting twist to the "Banned for Private Swearing" drama:  Appearently, if you get banned, it COMPLETELY locks you out of your Account Management page, makeing it impossible for you to cancel your subscription.  Meaning that no one is really sure yet if banned accounts might still get charged a monthly fee when the next month rolls over.

http://thedeadpc.blogspot.com/2012/01/maybe-youve-had-enough-of-bioware-hate.html

I get the feeling that SWTOR must be a huge success as its clearly bringing in people who've never played an MMO before.

Both people who have never played an MMO, and by people who have never run an MMO. <3

wonder what the ban impact is on their Origin account.

This just in:  Most people who get banned usually deserve to get banned.  Details at the top of the hour.

They also know what they did before they did it.

I can't imagine their CSRs would have time to do anything else if they want to ban people for saying fuck in a private message to a friend.

Quite sure its only for reported PM's. There is no way they are paying someone to sift through PM's 24/7.

This is seriously much ado about nothing. Everyone does this.

I thought this was about PMs on the forums and thought that was really fucked up.  Then I realized it was about in-game whispers and I did a  :oh_i_see: .  I thought all GMs did that when you report someone for foul language or other types of abuse.

/snoop has been a command since the MUD days.  People think no one is watching because they can't see anyone.