How many report harassment?

[Texic]

Now that I am in my mid 40's on my shaman I am finding that I run into a lot more people that think I am a bot. I tend to ignore most people that call me a bot or whatever because most of them will never understand and it's not worth the time. Last night I had some guy following me and he figured I was a bot so he would run ahead and tag mobs or tag one and run it over to me. Obviously I am not stupid and just watched him waste time killing the mobs and didn't bother trying to attack them because I knew what he was doing.
I know this technically can be reported as harassment and griefing but is it even worth it?

How many people actually bother to report people like this?

[Eteocles]

Biggest way to make them realize you're not a bot is to talk in obviously not pre-written msgs; did you say anything to the guy taggin your mobs? "Scuse me, you mind not jacking my mobs? I'm tryin to quest here :p" "I'm flattered you think you can get some easy exp off me but I'm not a bot, kill yer own mobs dude ;p" stuff like that. Maybe poke fun at him with emotes, point at him with main alt, /lol with 2nd, /rofl with 3rd, /cackle with 4th, /golfclap with 5th or something ;p

If all else fails, report as a last resort. "If you don't cut that shit out I'm gonna have you reported for physical harassment, impairing my gameplay by stealing every quest mob in the area on purpose anytime I try to get one."

[Texic]

"mob stealing" is a slipperly slope. Often questing areas are congested with multiple quests - its often easier to just go somewhere else. (there are multiple zones of just about every level range)

Well in this case it was a level 61 tagging level 44 mobs. He wasn't doing it for the XP.

Also when I went to say something to him he ran off because he realized I wasn't going to attack the mobs. I then saw him later but he logged out before my message was sent.

[Contents]

I tend to give people a bit of leeway when it comes to tagging my mobs, or watching which mob i have targetted and the they instant cast something on it. But after 5+ mobs like that I get a bit aggitated and /s "You realize that kill stealing / greifing is against the TOS right?"

depending on how they respond I'll either report them or chat with them for a bit. I've noticed that generally people are testing to see if you're a bot or not.

[Diamndzngunz]

Bunch of di*ks if you ask me. Report them all, we don't need people like that playing wow.

[Vyndree]

Bunch of di*ks if you ask me. Report them all, we don't need people like that playing wow.

A very slipperly slope. At what point does 1 person paying for 5 acounts become more important than 5 people paying for 5 accounts? Blizzard is not going to kill off paying customers for harrassing one customer (paying for 5 accounts) that is basically an un-intentional attention getter (unless you're playing shammies and droping lots of totems... hehe).

Incorrect assumption. Harassment/language is also a slippery slope (and imo I believe it's already on the slide -- just look at Trade chat).

Let's assume I'm 1 player playing 1 character, and another player comes up and starts harassing me in whispers, says, and emotes. If Blizzard doesn't take action, the people walking by seeing this harassment going on will consider it standard practice, I'll probably scream and yell on forums/trade/say/general about how unfair it is, and game quality will degrade as nobody cares to play on a game where harassment isn't punished.

The fact that we have 5 characters just means that we're more likely to gather attention and more likely to get people to listen to our complaints since we're more visible. According to blizz, multiboxing is not against the ToU. Also according to blizz, Harassment (verbal & physical) is against the terms of use.

Now I'm not saying perma-ban everyone who has a potty mouth (lol), but this behavior can be nipped in the bud from anything from a 3-72 hour ban (depending on repeat offenses) to a simple "I'm warning you" pst from a GM.

People will argue that it's not their job to police the game. This is true - you're not paying money so that you can do a GM's job. However, GMs are human too and can't be everywhere at once. Your action in assisting with the enforcement of the Terms of Use will ASSIST the GMs and generally make WoW a better place to play.

So it's your choice to report or not. Half the time, threatening to report is enough to get your little trollish friend to stfu.

[Texic]

I don't believe they will treat it any different than if it were 1 person being harassed by another. The point is that they are doing it purposely to disrupt our play because they don't understand or don't agree with it. I personally have never reported anyone and feel a lot of times it takes more effort to write the report than to just ignore them.

It's just annoying I guess.

[Eteocles]

I only report for gameplay-related abuse; such as *cough* roof campers in azeroth(It's been a damn rule since 1.6, STAY OFF DARKSHIRE/IF ROOFS already, christ) or other truly report-worthy stuff; I've had thick skin since long before WoW and am one of the few people who ignores via Brain v2.3 and Common Sense v6.8b instead of /ignore ;p More entertaining to argue anyways =x

[Vyndree]

After this happens 1000+ times, somebody is going to forumulate a theory that "multiboxers get more negative attention than solo players, and require more money to support" which directly means to a bean counter "the profit margin on multiboxers is lower than solo plays". (since it takes more GM time to deal with them or something like that)

Ah, I gotcha this time.

Agreed - but I think at the same time with the amount of reporting that's done to US, we've already passed that point where multiboxers cost more via customer support than other players due to the number of reports we get.

We're treading on unsteady territory, but I think if blizzard were to ban multiboxing, they'd tick off alot of the dual-boxers (i.e. alt-tab window flippers) of which there are more than just a few. Especially now with dailies, I can see players wanting to put their alt on /follow so they get quest credit when they bomb the skettis eggs or do the escort (which is a pain to find once a day, much less twice). If they were to put the banhammer on multiboxing, they'd lose more than just a few paying subscribers, and they'd have the problem of enforcing a rule like that with multiple players living in the same household.

For now, I think we're safe. But agreed, nothing is certain and we're certainly not giving Blizzard that much profit with the amount of GM-work required to support reporters and reporteds.

[kllrwlf]

If I get "bot" in a major city, then I reply with, "Right... botting in Ironforge is getting me EPIX !!! :P "

For the other faction that run into me (usually a lvl 70), I do a spread, wave and a dance. Sometimes a follow me, then kill a mob so they can see it. Most of the time they wave or just leave.

I'm slowly building up my standard replies from the ideas here on the forum.

For the "no life", "no friends"... type, I reply "My played is X Days, what's yours?"

For the "bot", I use "Right... botting in Ironforge is getting me EPIX !!! :P " because it's usually when I'm in IF that this happens".

For the "reported", i use "Cool, I always enjoy talking with the GMs. To make it easy, just report my guild name for all of my toons. :) "

For the "...", I reply with " :P " and a /lick

[marvein]

If I get "bot" in a major city, then I reply with, "Right... botting in Ironforge is getting me EPIX !!! :P "

For the other faction that run into me (usually a lvl 70), I do a spread, wave and a dance. Sometimes a follow me, then kill a mob so they can see it. Most of the time they wave or just leave.

I'm slowly building up my standard replies from the ideas here on the forum.

For the "no life", "no friends"... type, I reply "My played is X Days, what's yours?"

For the "bot", I use "Right... botting in Ironforge is getting me EPIX !!! :P " because it's usually when I'm in IF that this happens".

For the "reported", i use "Cool, I always enjoy talking with the GMs. To make it easy, just report my guild name for all of my toons. :) "

For the "...", I reply with " :P " and a /lick

lol those are almost the exact same replies I use.

For opposing faction they always seem to love the /dance, especially with 5x ghost wolves :)

for people just saying 'lol', 'wtf' or '...' i respond with :)

For reported I do that same thing, I just say "Cool its been a few days Ive had a chat with a GM"


As for reporting people, i have yet to have someone physically grief me like that and I have only reported two people so far, not because im easily offended (very much the opposite) but to relate to the wonderful penny-arcade comic shown above. if they are being a complete fucktard and give me something to report (like racist/sexual/fbomb swears at me) then hell yes they are getting reported because they deserve it. And despite the threat of 5x report, I doubt I would ever actually do it unless it was really, really, bad.

[Nitro]

I just completely ignore people unless they ask me a question in a cival manner. For the most part my interaction with people has been positive so far.

[Stealthy]

http://boingboing.net/images/20040319hafdg.jpg

Fur,

That's the funniest thing I've seen for a while, and oh so true!

Cheers,
Stealthy

[Zutok]

For now, I think we're safe. But agreed, nothing is certain and we're certainly not giving Blizzard that much profit with the amount of GM-work required to support reporters and reporteds.

I dunno... I think they've got GMs working around the clock whether there's any reports goin' on or not! We're just makin' the GMs work HARDER for their money... not necessarily costin' Blizzard more!

Also, all Blizzard has to EVER do to end legal multiboxing in the game is loose the "follow" ability. They technically don't EVER need to ban it... or make it against the EULA. Drop the "follow" ability, and we're screwed... w/o illegalizing a bot to fill the gaps (in which case, we're caught and still screwed). *Bows to the "follow" command Gods*

EDIT: Well, technically... if you had all the toons on seperate PCs w/ the same viewable resolutions (or seperate instances), and had cursor navigation enable (same loc across all monitors), you could "technically" use the Click-To-Move feature to move all toons together w/o the follow command. (Got the idea from a friend on my realm today, when I stated that melee classes are hard to "box" do to the restrictions of the "follow" ability... he advised to set the Click-To-Move, and get all the toons close the the mob that way. Seems it COULD work in PvE... however, PvP would seem a nightmare!).

[Simulacra]

I created a new DND message:
"Hi - yes I know this looks wierd, not botting but multiboxing - if you have any questions go to www.dual-boxing.com - controlling 5 chars AND chat is a PITA so accept my apology for not answering your WTF?"

on another note:

I started a new shammie crew after some discussion with Slats, they are now level 9 - I was killing some guys in Durotar and got some hassle - (rough quote):
Him : Do you mind not botting!!!!!!!!! I'm going to report you!!!!
Me: Really? Go ahead please :)
Me: Well? Done it yet? I'm waiting.....
Him: So how do you do that?
Me: Have you reported me yet? I'm waiting....
Me:/tap
Him: So how do you do that?
Me: Look if you threaten someone with reporting then go ahead and do it - otherwise shutup.
Him: no I'm not going to report you :)
Me: Nice :)
Him: So how do you do that?
Me: it's mutliboxing - go to www.dual-boxing.com for all your answers
Him: it's probably a keylogger site
Me: whatever cya