28 replies to this topic

[Captain Stiffy]

Ecto Cooler, on 09 November 2013 - 06:41 AM, said:

I can't argue against having a profanity filter for people who want it, but I never understood the reasons for having it. I really hate censorship of any type, especially language.

I don't really care if it is a toggle option but the last thing anybody wants in this game is policing like WoW. It's a really dark road to go down and it opens the developers to being bullied by the "concerned parents" in the end.

The internet is still like the wild west when it comes to exposing children to it. You just don't know what experience they are going to have. It's up to the parents to do actual parenting and decide when the experience can be handled.

Also your name is win. If I saw an Ecto Cooler in the store I would buy it.

[Mudhutwarrior]

HeavyRain, on 09 November 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

God forbid our 11-year olds see words like "****" on their screen while they are using a gigantic machine of death and its multitude of lethal weapons to destroy the "enemy".

Yeah, few see the hypocrisy in it. Death and murder good sex words bad. The racism I have issues with and I have been attacked for my race here but you havent seen me ask for a filter I know its out there and deal with it.
Better to talk to your kids about it. I am sure they hear much worse at school and with freinds.

[Corralis]

Captain Stiffy this game is not a 'murder simulator'. You don't shoot someone in the head and see blood and brain matter exploding out the back of their skull. We all know of one very small young girl who used to love playing this game. Most of even bought a mech in her honor after she passed away. Also saying that the internet should be for adults only is just plain wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to make it so. The internet is for everyone and if some parents would prefer their child to not see bad language regardless of where else they may see or hear it then who are you to say no. And telling them to play another game if they don't want to see bad language is just ignorant and stupid.

[101011]

Captain Stiffy, on 09 November 2013 - 06:11 AM, said:

Could you explain why every time there's a thread like this the "concerned parents" ignore everything that people say except where they can be attacked? Try responding to an actual point.

So now I'm a concerned parent? The irony of all this is that I'm a teenager...That was an actual point that was made, by the way. You yourself said

Captain Stiffy, on 09 November 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

My entire point is that the profanity itself is NOTHING compared to the subject matter being discussed.
I think it's wrong to dumb down the gameplay experience in a game that has a very largely adult audience so that people's children can play it.

Send the seed outside. If they aren't old enough for swearing and sexual discussion they aren't old enough for the internet.

I then countered by saying that I very rarely encounter said sexual discussion along with the fact that you said it would "dumb down the gameplay experience". Maybe you aren't sure of what a language filter is, but, unless PGI goes full-draconian censorship with it, it would be an optional setting. Now your point about it being a murder-simulator is a tad bit over the top, wouldn't you say? First of all, this is warfare, this isn't going around murdering people.

"Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder) " (Dictionary.com)

There is a difference. Secondly, there aren't really 'people' as such in the game. Sure, there are some arms you can see, maybe a head, but in essence they're robots. Heck, this game is the tamest MechWarrior game I've played since MechWarrior 2! Even in 3 and 4 there were humans running around. This game is rather inhumane in comparison. Another point would be that some people just don't like to see people spamming the chat with curses, something which happens far more frequently than 'sexual discussion'. You don't have to be a child to be offended.

[Zakie Chan]

Kids on internet = bad

As mentioned, if you feel chat is too rough for the kids then they shouldn't even be on in the first place. GOOD parenting is not letting an easily defeated language filter babysit your kids for you. You yourself proved how trivial it is and will do nothing but waste dev hours.

You should probably home school your kids too... and move to a house isolated on 40 acres. Shelter them in a fuzzy blanket so they never see or hear bad words...

[MarkEwer]

I do homeschool my kids. And it isn't right for you to judge me for that. You don't know me or my kids. It also isn't right for you to assume you know how to raise kids better than I do. Forcing your sense of right and wrong on others is a very arrogant form of prejudice. If you read my original post I asked for an OPTIONAL filter. If you like profanity then who am I to judge you? I don't like profanity. So, who are you to judge me?

I also teach my kids maturity and I teach them that profanity and vulgarity are only ways to demonstrate that you are immature. That being said, I and my kids have played BattleTech and MechWarrior 4 for years and had great fun.

I don't want the game to babysit my kid, I fully intend to team drop with them. But, I still want the game to at least make an attempt to filter some of the vulgarity. I am a programmer, and I am well aware of how hard it is to write a perfect filter system. My point was the system doesn't need to be perfect. This is the 80-20 rule. The first 80% of the benefit would come from the first 20% of the effort. If PGI stopped there, I would be satisfied. Even a half-hearted attempt by PGI would be better than nothing.

I was just really disappointed the other day when my kid came to me with $50 of is own money wanting to buy mech and I had to tell him "Sorry, son, you can't play MechWarrior because some people are rude."

I (and everyone else in this thread) realize that the game is rated TEEN. So, it should be about the same level of maturity as a PG movie. And everything in the game is rated TEEN except the chat log.

[101011]

Ah...the ESRB specifically states that the rating doesn't apply to multiplayer. Good points with the rest of them though.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

Unless you home school your boys. If you think your 11 yo's don't use the no no words and much much worse at school and with their friends, well you must have forgot what it was like to be in the 5/6th grade.

The tighter you squeeze the tighter your pocks are going to be when your trying to figure out how to keep your house when your kid skips bail and drops off the map with a stripper named candy and runs off to Mexico then 5 years later just when you about to give up all hope of seeing your son again. Candy comes back with your grand kids talking about how little Johnny is in some jail in Tijuana while she inhales a smoke from the hole in her throat. You will look back at this thread and think to yourself. "if I just spoke to them like young people growing into adulthood instead of trying to force them to not grow up. None of this would have happened."

Ill bet your kids know words that you and I have never heard of that would turn our hair white. Just trust them to be good people and they will be good people.

[Otto Cannon]

I would be fine with a toggle filter in game, but I think they should make it apply to both the game and the forums. That way those of us who are adults could switch off the forum filter too and enjoy uncensored conversation.

Probably the best kind of filter would be one that ties to your account and allows you access to edit the list of blocked words. So it could start off with just the most obvious ones, or the list the forum uses now, and you could add anything you personally dislike to the list and delete anything you find inoffensive.