The thing that strikes me most about ERP is how unnecessary it is.
Even if you RP a character with an active love life, why not just drop the scene the moment things even approach the limits of what a 12+ movie would reasonably show? Detailing anything after that limit has zero importance for the story. It’s always been my approach.
There is no way I can give ERPers the benefit of the doubt in terms of it being for ‘genuine’ reasons - I honestly can barely call it RP at all.
Dedicating a lot of words to something you apparently not only don’t care about but actively want other people to not care about
At this stage this is over a quarter of the total of your posts on this forum
Them kick them if they don’t respect the rules and put your effort into getting them banned for breach of ToS, even if in the end it results in nothing.
It’s a lot better than your “Pfa, I can do nothing so just let them be and sully the server, nothing will change.” attitude.
‘They were caught ERPing’ is one of the least controversial reasons I can think of to kick someone.
As someone who dwelled there for a long time before becoming a superior being and moving to greener pastures, i can tell you that these incidents are neither new nor out of the ordinary.
Almost all RP on GW2 is foreplay. Well, what little RP still exists, considering both the community and Anet were deadset on destroying it.
Always cringe.
People actually do that?
Not really a secret, though? What gets to me is when someone vocally opposes these things but then spends time on an alt creeping on people. Or a guild with a strict no hankypanky rule actually engaging when they think nobody’s looking. This happens.
Play a character who doesn’t do the naughty for various reasons making the pursuits of others futile.
Applies equally to the toxic OOC political game between guilds and mutually exclusive headcanons.
This. You know how in films not meant for 18+ people still have realtionships without showing explicit things? Yea, do like that.
Go on with those accusations. I don’t have to report to you or anyone about what I look past and what I actually report to Blizz. 
Don’t want to be accused of something you do or show now?
It’s true that you mustn’t but, I also have the right to point it out your lazy attitude, and how it doesn’t help at all.
colon pee .
I made it sound miles worse, and am being a bit unfair, in that this isn’t so much an AD-exclusive thing. I’m talking about people sharing anecdotes and stories -about- ERP, perhaps drawing NSFW work inspired by an RP session or making allusions to an RP couple that ‘finally consumated’ and so on, as if it was just a bit of cheeky platonic fun and not an endeavour to get each other off…
It’s not morally repulsive, this is beyond the game after all, but I admit I’m baffled at how, again, casual it all feels?
That’s okay, I can make a fairly educated guess
Exactly. Relationship/Romance RP can actually be enjoyable and good for character progression if done right, but like Chíeun said, ERP is completely unnecessary and not even a genuine reason relating to romance rp or considered RP at all.
Like, if you feel like you need that type of content in the IC relationship, at least go write a smut fanfic and post it somewhere where the age rating is 18+ and please have mercy on our eyes so we don’t have to see this degeneracy ever again.
If that were so, they wouldn’t be doing naughty things.
At which point it’s violating both decency and the privacy of other parties. Yeah, that’s not kosher.
“Guess what we just did!”???
See the thing with erp is…
You can only fantasize about the things you cant get.
Love me some good smut.
Just not when I’m playing a 12+ roleplaying game with my friends, several of whom are under 18
This is always the funniest. The old community pillars were some of the worst around for this type of behaviour, even today the more pompous holier-than-thou cliques have ERP circles. Mark my words, the biggest moralizers are always the worst degenerates with their own commissioned ‘art’.
I couldn’t help commenting on this because I always find the double standards some people on these forums hold absolutely hilarious.
This has been going on since late TBC when Darknest exploded, we’ve always had ERP but it really got out control around late TBC when Goldshire was hijacked by normies looking for a quick fix. The most you can really do is report someone but unless what they do is visible in public chat channels they will not get in to trouble. Now unless the rules have been specifically changed even back in the day (when GMs cared) GM’s didn’t give you the ban hammer for erotica, only if it was done in public channels repeatedly. First, even second offense typically resulted in a warning and being moved to a private location to continue your RP, not even joking. The only time the GMs used too truely step in is when they were alerted to an account that was registered to a minor being groomed.
In regards to the actual idea? I’m personally not a fan of automated systems because generally they tend to catch a lot of innocent people in the crossfire, this can be rectified by a GM like they are now but obviously there’s a multitude of different reasons why these type of systems haven’t been implemented. Especially when it comes down to giving the players agency. Games like League learnt the hard way that allowing players to police their own community was a good idea on paper that backfired spectacularly in practice. Generally though it just comes down to practicality and the fact that, at the end day, we’re playing an MMORPG. The developers (even if they could) would likely be opposed to it because of how damaging it could be to the wider community. They would also essentially be punishing the games playerbase for a minority of people on RP servers, that’s with out factoring in developement costs and all the other garbage that they have to wade through. (e.g. The automated system we have now took years to develop and it was only done to save money)
If the system’s punishment and the actual censorship involved a human rather than a robot/automatic censor that punishes me, I’d be all for it. I don’t think Blizzard will invest in that though or even bother to update the ToS to allow their GMs to do so, if anything it’s gotten more lax over the years. We don’t even have RP server rules anymore. Their focus is on maximizing profits etc.
TL;DR:
Online interactions are unrated and Blizzard aren’t responsible for them in a court of law. They have certain obligations but the age rating on the box is in regards to the actual content of the game not what other players get up too. Greedy corporate goblins like Bobby Kotick aren’t going to invest in a system that they aren’t legally obliged too. Games like FF14 cultivate their community because that’s what the company wants for a variety of different reasons, Acti-Blizz on the other hand is every bad meme about corporations rolled in to one, they only want your money and to provide the bare minimum of content for maximum profit. They don’t care. Even when the GMs did care in the yesteryear you didn’t get banned for ERP, if at all.
I wouldn’t mind an automated system but I would prefer it to have some oversight.
Edited: Phoneposting, sue me.
A veeeeery big group of people will be immediately targetted even if not involved in ERP at all if a very brute-force system like this was implemented.
But then again, it would probably leave Battlegrounds and trade chat empty… I will support this system!
Especially if that system is as crazy as the automated forum bot.
We’re in for a wild ride if they implement that.
Would all that much actually be lost if the mature language filter was enforced?
I’ve been running it for a long time and my chat experience is honestly better for it