So the guild I run prides itself on being family friendly so kids can play along with their parents. Sometimes, however, some bozos come along and enter profanities, etc. in the chat dialog. Are there no controls to report such users, filter obscene words or at least clear the Chat log so our kids won't be reading all the nasty things some people write? The only thing I have been able to do, aside from making our guild by-invite-only, is to enter a bunch of multi line gibberish over and over to at least move all the foul words to the bottom of the Chat list, but then it still seems to take several days for that stuff to be removed from view. I would think that the Guild Captain should at least have a Delete or Clear button for the Chat window to erase inappropriate entries.
you chat cant be that active at all, firstly kick the abuser and report it to support with screenshots. Then bump it off so it cant be seen. I am pretty sure this is not a regular occurance on plunder?
It's not a regular occurrence. I just find it very odd that there aren't any filters in place or other tools to deal with such things. Just about every other popular game like this with a chat component at least has a filter to block things like the "f" word from being displayed. I was surprised that Plunder Pirates didn't have such a filter. I really don't want my five year old son who has just learned to read to ask me what this "f" word is. All I was able to do is bump the text so it isn't the first thing you see upon launch. That really isn't enough.
i would suggest your guild description states clearly the standards you expect and set it to request to join only. unfortuantly you cant wrap your children up in cotton wool, and like i would with my children explain thats a naughty word if it comes up and allow them to grow up in the world we have. i think the main reason we dont have the game features you are suggesting is because its the cap and the fm responsibilty to police chat. Also imaigne how bad it could be with global chat!
I agree, it is the Captain's responsibility to police the Chat... but as police, don't we get a gun, billy-club or at least a Delete button? We can't be expected to police Chat if we aren't given the ability to delete an abusive comment or at least Clear the Chat log. We can boot a player, but any filthy comments that were made remain for all to see. If this game targeted only an older audience (such as with shooter games depicting graphic violence) such controls might be less necessary since responsible parents would be less likely to allow young children to play those games, but Plunder Pirates also appeals to very young gamers with its colorful characters and graphic styling.
A good chat filter that isn't able to be bypassed is hard to implement without also censoring a ton of real conversation. I agree a report button would be nice, it may add a lot of extra overhead for Midoki to deal with though, as I know a lot of people will start spamming reports that aren't actually bad just to bog them down, as a sort of denial of service for the reviewers labor time. There are ways to fix that, but it might not be the best solution. A captain being able to delete anything in chat could also be abused by a manipulative captain - I doubt it would often though, so it may be a good option to give captains and qm the option to do that. Another suggestion would be when kicking a player or a players leaves the guild, to automatically remove all of their messages from the chat. This would let you kick offensive players, removing their messages, as well as kick poachers that join in, with their recruitment message being deleted before many people see it (or if they don't hang around themselves for long enough for people to see it, it would be cleared, so players popping in for a minute spamming and leaving would effectively help police themselves). I've seen several bases with racially or culturally offensive names, and pictures drawn with the walls (I usually find these silly, but the player named Adolf Hitler with a giant swastika drawn in his base probably offended quite a few people and probably crossing the line; there also was another racist name around the bottom of the leaderboards, I believe in mmtx, that a few have probably found offensive as well). It would be nice to be able to flag these, as well, but again we run into the issue of players reporting excessive amounts of non-offensive bases to waste a reviewer's time. The only thing I have to add is Plunder Pirates is rated 12+ on the app store, and it is generally understood that companies cannot be accountable for rating online interactions. Some parents may find 12 a bit young still to see some offensive things, although with them going to school I doubt there's many words they won't have heard by then. Its not an excuse for the behavior, just a reminder to blame the player for it, not the game!
That's true... @Skye what about a FM that jumps across guilds? that FM might make an announcement before leaving, this would delete it before many in other time zones would read it. Also, in my guild Spawn of Delta (2nd account of Deltabravo, our captain) leaves to return the favour when poachers come, so.... I suggest that when kicking a person, a checkbox appears on the confirmation screen, saying "delete all messages from player". That'll solve it.
We police our chat and are respect the younger players that participate. That said it is hard sometimes when new people come on and do not listen. Those people who do not respect the guild rules get kicked. In the end I think the kids who play see the results of bad behavior get you nowhere in the game.
Sadly, i am pretty sure that every kid that goes to school, even first grade, knows the "F" word. Regardless, i understand the issue and maybe they could implement a function to delete all chat. Prob.easiest way.
+1 for a delete function by QM & Captain. Even though everyone (regardless of age) has probably heard these various words, they are still unacceptable; members get one warning in relation to behaviour and language, as we also try to maintain a 'family friendly' environment
Has anyone ever reported highly inappropriate chat with success? We had someone come over and really cross a bunch of lines. Way beyond just competitive banter.
I understand and agree with the idea of the Captain being able to remove offensive Chat. Insulting Chat can be worse than profanities. The ability to "pause" chat, so the Captain could calm things down without the insults flying would be nice. In terms of profanity filtering, there is certainly one already in place. With one notable exception of the most common profanity which is allowed for some baffling reason Chats with blacklisted words don't appear. I've fallen foul of the filter being 'overactive' also. It's a tad frustrating to not be able to reword a message except by typing it all again. Leaving an editable version of the Chat with the originator would enable them to make changes. Especially if they had typed something like '1000's of school kids snigger' and not realized that a perfectly innocent word in a long message would mean it got blocked due to the 'embedded' obscenity. 1) some way for the captain to police chat and remove offensive communication 2) a pause that allows only the captain to chat to defuse heated exchanges 3) leave the offending message as editable to the sender while blocking it 4) more intelligence in the censorship algorithm. That would include adding the simple 'change one letter to a number' variants to the censored words as well as allowing actually dictionary words that happen to enclose a censored word.
I know it must be a hard job to police all the pirate names, especially the variations of obscenities and hateful speech. I also notice that there are far fewer obvious crass or sick names out there, however I wish the all seeing eye would see a little more all I've just discovered a pirate in my Guild who has a slightly disguised hate speech name - can't believe I didn't spot it earlier so mea culpa also. Reported and hopefully action will be taken. I'm going to kick as soon as I hear back from the powers that be. I don't want him to just slink off somewhere else. Some people are just morally bankrupt. [edited for a grammar mistake]
