Yesterday venturing through Elwynn Forest I encountered 2 ERP couples in different places in the matter of a few minutes (and, surprisingly, they were not in Goldshire) and it got me thinking.
I dunno but, wouldn’t a fairly simple solution to the excessive ERP players be to just put a system in place that scans the chats for sexually explicit content and blocks it/the individual? If sites like good old Club Penguin can pull it off I dont see why and how Blizzard couldnt. My main concern is that it’s a 12+ game, so this sort of thing really shouldnt happen.
Thoughts? Is there a reason this hasnt been done yet? And please keep in mind Im talking about explicit content, the kind that really should be 18+.
A chat filter would require extreme intelligence to cope with all the metaphors with legit words you could come with to spew off profanities. That’s a brute solution that solves nothing and does not perform much more than the actual profanity filter.
Sadly, all we can do is report and cross fingers.
People would find a way around the filter. They always do.
It may reduce activity for a while, but they (ERPers) would figure something out eventually. They’re incredibly greasy.
If they wanted to close down Goldshire they could just have a GM stay there (Yes the old ones if anyone remembers with the blue robes) and start suspending accounts for a month or two.
The thing I find funny is that there is a 18+ version of WoW out there (ofc made by fans), that is specifically for people who want to engage in that kind of thing. So I dont know why they keep doing what theyre doing on RP servers
I find that strange. One of these couples was as nude a you can be in WoW, with the male laying down and the female sitting down and standing up on his pelvic area, over and over. You get the idea. They were having a private chat, but the actions themselves are also in my opinion inappropriate, so I think it is really a flaw if they cant be reported for that.
I reckon filters would just obfuscate the problem. Add an algorithm with little to no nuance that could very well hit people that are not engaging in that stuff, while affectively allowing the continuation of the hands-off approach that is part of the problem because ‘well, there’s the filter’.
I honestly think there needs to be a real endeavour; from players and from devs, to adjust the attitude and to encourage and further the idea that… using World of Warcraft as yet another means to get off is not only not a right you have, it’s also pathetic and unwelcome.
ERPers get ousted by an occasional screenshot, with the same people saying how awful it is (it is), and then another batch of people going on about how it’s fine really, two adults can do what they want, who are we to judge.
We need less of the latter. A few well-meaning folk who took the idea that kink is sacrosanct tolerated and argued the rights of cyber to exist on this platform, and basically gave the ERPers an ‘okay’ to keep on. Unfortunately, it’s damaging in the longterm, as we are starting to see and find out.
More people need to realise that, the ‘think of the children’ angle aside, there is the issue that when a space ends up too pornified it’s eventually ruined and made sleazy and unpleasant.
In a way, the presence of a notorious draenei trucker and her madaming website helped shine a light on exactly what does start to happen when you make concessions for ‘smut but privately’, ‘two consenting adults’, ‘nsfw art in a trp profile with a tag’ and so on.
TL;DR; Filter won’t do anything, this is an attitude adjustment issue and we need the issues of erp to be better vocalised and publicised by both us as users, public figure content creators and most importantly the devs themselves.
This always has the potential to be as much of a thorny topic as it is a thorny issue. I’ve no personal interest in ERP, and I don’t permit it within my guild, but I also feel what two consenting adults do, providing it done in a way in which it can’t be “walked in on” is their choice.
That to one side, I do think it presents very serious safeguarding issues around child protection, exploitation and issues around grooming which, I can only hope, the game’s moderators are fully trained on and take proactive steps to protect younger members of our community.
They don’t and they won’t, as proven time and time again. Sub numbers are more important to blizzard than moderating these pathetic individuals and giving them the boot for de[redacted]acy.
This is also my concern, because with these types of things you have no idea who is sitting on the other side of the screen. When I started playing WoW many years ago I was a kid, and was approached by people who wanted to do ERP with me. At first of course they just acted nice and I thought I was making friends, then somewhere down the line they started getting sexual with it, and my young mind had not connected that this was where the RP was headed until that point. I think with the argument “eh, consenting adults can do what they want” we need to also take into consideration that one of these people might not be a consenting adult, or an adult at all.
Of course, although it should be noted that “two consenting adults” does explicitly mean just that and those circumstances where it is exactly that. It doesn’t, by any way, justify or make up for circumstances where one person is either not an adult or is an adult but is not giving their consent.
I do think the game would benefit from a specific set of dedicated safeguarding tools available in game where you can immediately report if you’re feeling unsafe or uncomfortable with what someone is saying/ asking you to do. Similar to the CEOP report function without having to open a ticket.
Two consenting adults absolutely can and will do what they want.
It doesn’t always mean where they choose to indulge is appropriate or even welcome.
Cybering and jacking off in World of Warcraft isn’t a right.
It’s actually kind of sad.
Is there truly nowhere else on the internet that caters to that urge? Must it be allowed and okay’d here too?
This is genuinely my issue. Safeguarding aside, it’s just frustrating when pornography takes over and infects; when you RP with someone and realise they’re trying to lead you into being part of their cyber-session; when it hits you that for all the bluster about character development and romance and organic RPing it’s really just some losers that’re unable to even play this game without using even this as an opportunity for self-love.
I suppose, yes, if everything was just adults and all was private it’s not quite as bad as the situation we have; but it doesn’t ever play that way, does it? Because we’re always going on about it being adults doing it in private but that’s yet to be what actually ends up happening.
How do you know they were ERP couples?
Just curious, they were naked and emoting or chating with /say instead of /wisper?
Or just the usual two lewdly dressed Nelf girl siting in front of each other hiding in the forest?
Or checked their TRP?
Not mocking or anything, I’m really curious how do you came to the conclusion they are ERPers