The other day me and my friend went to Goldshire for the purpose of trolling around, having fun. We pretended to be Youtubers, doing the type of ingame-chat typing that people did back in the day. You know? Where people would type in text programs instead of speaking during their tutorials and such.
Well, one thing stood out to us. People would start whispering my friend, offering him various different types of sexual RP, and some of them would just outright start typing disgusting ERP to my friend as he had a female avatar.
He explained to many of these people that he was underage, to which they replied that they didn’t care etc. This honestly disgusts me. The fact that Goldshire has gotten to this point is insane. All it takes is one bad media hit about this, and WoW all of a sudden has a media shizstorm on their hands with the way things spread these days. (Which makes it even more incredible they do nothing about it.)
It’s clearly gotten out of hand, and it appears WoW doesn’t actually enforce any of the ToS guidelines in that place. Personally I have been throwing reports around and I still see the same people wandering around very blatantly ERPing with people above and below their own reasonable agegroup and continuing their blatant misconduct of the ToS with no repurcussions.
What do you guys think? Am I the only one who’s bothered by this? I honestly find it disgusting.
Edit: Since making this post I have reported a few people, Blizzard claims to have dealt with them but nothing happened. (Despite screenshots clearly showing them describing how much they want to ride people’s **** in paragraphs). These people were not banned, and they’re still dancing around as I write this.
This game has a rating of 11+ - some countries (12 in most) as have been made apparent to me. I am disgusted by this situation. Both at Blizzard and at the people involved.
If Blizzard actually does anything about this, I will update the post.
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Step one: never go to Goldshire.
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Report any ERP that you see and all trps that promote ERP.
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Most sane people would probably agree with you. Working out a feasible solution is probably the issue from Blizzard’s point of view.
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I’d argue the solution is pretty simple. Save face before it takes the rug right underneath you. Unfortunately if Blizzard won’t do anything about it, they’ll be making up for it when it eventually blows up in mass media. Meaning everyone and their mother will be looking at Blizz, just like it once did to YouTube and other various famous individuals on the internet.
I’d agree with you. Problem is they don’t actually do anything. I’d gladly display all the names I have written down of people who do this stuff. I’ve reported tons of people, and they still appear to be active weeks after. Blizzard is clearly not doing anything active. Sadly you can’t expose people either, since they remove those types of posts within seconds… It’s almost like Blizzard is on the side of the people doing these things… Which doesn’t help.
I doubt a company has an interest in having this kind of dirty laundry available to anyone capable of paying 12.99€ a month. Not only is it a stain on their reputation that cannot be washed, but it is a truly horrible thing.
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I’m feeling unease after reading this. Ugh. There I thought the Goldshire bunch cannot become any weirder…
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I’m hoping there’s some logical way to fix this, I simply don’t buy the “Oh, they can’t do anything cause people don’t report it.”
People do report it, and nothing happens. This is unacceptable.
Imo you should just send all the proof you have to any Blizzard representative you can. Make tickets if you have to, stir the pot. If they don’t do anything at all then they deserve the fallout that might come as a result.
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I caught some people ERP’ing in public. Excessive emotes and all of it.
Made a ticket. The GM tells me to “just report it ingame and then move along”.
Basically the same what might happen in this scenario. Just report it and then move on. Will it solve the problem? Most likely not.
Step one. Never go to Goldshire.
Step two. Report all ERP you see.
That’s it.
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Yeah, and then when nothing happens (because enforcement is hard) get in touch with a journalist about it - 'cos negative press about a Grooming Game will probably get more action from blizz than any reports do.
The problem is… This game is for people over the age of 12 or something like this. It’s not sufficient to not have this shiz dealt with. Blizzard tells people that their kids can play this game safely, yet this is clearly not the case.
I know people whose kids play this server, and of course they’re advised to stay clear of Goldshire. But imagine all those parents whose kids play this game with little to no supervision, because it’s advertised for that demographic…
It’s very very lousy enforcement, and it punishes the wrong people.
And that’s why a Kotaku post (or some normie triggered media) will pick it up in the future and then we will have a huge issue on our hands.
You think you want this gone, but you don’t since the issues that will follow due to such a controversy is usually what will put RP into a bad light etc.
I agree with this, except I am concerned for people who appreciate RP for what it is and aren’t Goldshire rats. It could have far reaching consequences for them. One solution is to make the RP realms 18+.
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I suppose this is one solution. You’ve already gotten further than Blizzard on the issue. Congratulations.
Edit:
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And Blizzard would enforce this how exactly? They can’t even enforce a simple naming policy.
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Perhaps put Roleplay servers in a seperate section, and when peoples age on their profile doesn’t match up they simply don’t see them. That way if a parent buys their kid a game and set up a profile for them, they won’t see the RP servers… Or something like that. At least it’s a step in the right direction, rather than ignoring the problem and hoping mainstream media doesn’t pick up on it.
Well there’s an idea. I personally hadn’t a clue how to make it invisible, but this sounds like it could work in practice. Blizzard might be hesitant however because of the ratings it might give to their game. That apparently influences their sales. However I don’t think that’s appropriate justification.
The innate problems of age checking is the fact there’s no way to be sure either. You go on any digital platform and if it asks for your age you can lie and most parents don’t tend to monitor their children on the internet. After all this is how I played something like DOOM or GTA when I was much younger. It was a no brainer and easy to go through.
The difference however is between Blizzard trying to take steps to protect minors on their services and not taking any action at all.
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