Closing discussion as people still express their concerns on the matter of AI?

carlos424

As of others have alluded to, I would like to know if there has been an analysis about this AI system’s effect on performance. With the recent decline in performance (long lag spikes, rubber banding, etc.), it would seem logical to conclude that the AI system could be the cause. But it would be nice to hear if ZOS has done any internal analysis of this.

JustLovely

carlos424 wrote: »

As of others have alluded to, I would like to know if there has been an analysis about this AI system’s effect on performance. With the recent decline in performance (long lag spikes, rubber banding, etc.), it would seem logical to conclude that the AI system could be the cause. But it would be nice to hear if ZOS has done any internal analysis of this.

@ZOS_Kevin

Please explain to us what impact this AI chat monitor is having on performance. Is it just a coincidence that performance took a steep dive a few months ago when this system was implemented?

Marto

JustLovely wrote: »

Please explain to us what impact this AI chat monitor is having on performance. Is it just a coincidence that performance took a steep dive a few months ago when this system was implemented?

There has always been some sort of automated system taking all chat messages and parsing through them to find insults, harassment, bigoted comments, etc. That was true back in 2014, and it's true today.

All that data has always been recorded and sent to a separate server/shard/compartment so it can be analyzed.

Whatever happens to it there, there's no way it can affect the performance of the game. Whether it's being analyzed by a dumb-as-rocks algorithm, or by some of what today is marketed as "AI"

Syldras

Marto wrote: »

There has always been some sort of automated system taking all chat messages and parsing through them to find insults, harassment, bigoted comments, etc. That was true back in 2014, and it's true today.
All that data has always been recorded and sent to a separate server/shard/compartment so it can be analyzed.

For a very simple word filter like the one we've seen all the years, no data has to be "recorded and sent to a separate server". If you mean something else than this filter, do you have a source for that? I've never seen any proof for something else being utilized.

Thee_Cheshire_Cat

AngryPenguin wrote: »

The take home message is simple.

We already have a profanity filter. So anyone who can't deal with profanity can filter it out of their chat and never see it.

We already have a report player feature. So anyone who is being harassed can easily report the offender.

I also strongly suspect this AI chat monitoring is having a very negative impact on performance. Almost all my disconnects happen while chatting, and I'm plagued with disconnecting these last few weeks plus, and the disconnecting is getting more and more frequent as time goes on.

i'm only just getting back home after being away, and am able to comment here again.

The reply ZOS gave about the Ai being used or not sounded well thought out and im sure their legal team was paid well to try and calm the masses.

However, some of the people who got banned were people who were having PRIVATE one on one conversations. They didn't report each other, and yet banned. Yet ZOS is saying they don't monitor private conversations?

When i'm in game i am role-playing. One of my characters is NOT a rainbow and flowers farter, she's as crude and crass and as volatile as they come. The day i get banned for ROLE PLAY with my character, with someone who is also a legal adult and who wanted to RP with me, is the day i leave this -M- rated game.

i hope everyone takes up this stance.

i've had RP friends tell me how they have been taking their RP out of game to 'be safe'. NO ONE should have to take their RP out of a MATURE rated game to 'be safe'. Especially if it's done in a private home and or out of a public channel such as /say, zone chat etc.

In a world now, where you can get in trouble for LOOKING at someone the wrong way, or even using the wrong pronoun or whatever, i come into a GAME to be able to RP and enjoy myself without the same constraints and worries of the real world.

Marto

Syldras wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

There has always been some sort of automated system taking all chat messages and parsing through them to find insults, harassment, bigoted comments, etc. That was true back in 2014, and it's true today.
All that data has always been recorded and sent to a separate server/shard/compartment so it can be analyzed.

For a very simple word filter like the one we've seen all the years, no data has to be "recorded and sent to a separate server". If you mean something else than this filter, do you have a source for that? I've never seen any proof for something else being utilized.

The only reason why that data would need to be analyzed as it arrives to the server is for the profanity filter. That way the game already knows whether to censor it before it even shows up.

There's no reason for ZOS to analyze the message before it gets sent, because there's no active system that prevents messages from being sent if they are potentially harmful.

This is all for the purposes of moderation. Which takes place hours, days, or weeks after the fact.

Ugrak

Syldras wrote: »

For a very simple word filter like the one we've seen all the years, no data has to be "recorded and sent to a separate server". If you mean something else than this filter, do you have a source for that? I've never seen any proof for something else being utilized.

I believe it is more than an old school "dumb" word filter, though keywords will be at the heart of any such tool.

A few other games use Modulate's ToxMod:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=omiWGw2xKUg

Modulate - ToxMod Overview: Dashboard and Live Stream

2 min, 15 sec.


Edited to add one about the limitations that particular service operate with regarding what insight moderators themselves can gain with the data. So it doesn't make people assume all such systems automatically are limitless digital panopticons, and also might explain why sometimes the missing avaiabilty of context can cause mistakes.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bcvUwTBxRFc

Unlocking the Secrets: How ToxMod Protects User #privacy #gaming #dataprotection #

2 min, 50 sec.


https://modulate.ai/toxmod/gaming

ESO does not appear on their banner of games with the product in deployment, and I don't know if ESO even uses something quite like this, but these typers of services do exist in other games already, and the deployment in ESO of something like this would be consistent with a sudden uptick in moderation effectiveness, as it becomes independent of active reporting.

Sinch the TOS mention AI in the context of moderation, it seems plausible that the AI in question could be something along these lines.

That doesn't mean it is the game server doing that work, at the cost of processing the actual game. Whatever automod tool is being used, it doesn't appear to be accepting/denying input in real time so it could just as well be sent to some other system.

Heren

Syldras wrote: »

For a very simple word filter like the one we've seen all the years, no data has to be "recorded and sent to a separate server". If you mean something else than this filter, do you have a source for that? I've never seen any proof for something else being utilized.

A quick tour in the TOS can prove instructive. It's in french but i'm sure you can find the terms in your language of choice ( well, in a selection of languages at least ). In short, ZeniMax may or may not record datas of players activities, as well as they can provide judiciary instances recorded datas of players activties ( wich supposed they recorded them ). But it's neither required nor expected that they monitor or record online players activities. <wink>

"Sauf indication contraire, il n'est pas exigé, ni attendu que ZeniMax surveille ou enregistre les activités en ligne sur les Services. ZeniMax se réserve le droit, mais n'y est pas tenue, de surveiller les communications dans ou à travers les Services, tels que dans les Jeux ou sur les forums. ZeniMax se réserve également le droit d'accéder et/ou d'enregistrer toute activité en ligne sur les Services et vous donnez à ZeniMax votre autorisation expresse d'accéder et d'enregistrer vos activités. Cela inclut, sans toutefois s’y limiter, votre autorisation pour accéder, enregistrer et divulguer toute activité en ligne si ZeniMax estime que la divulgation est nécessaire pour respecter la loi, lutter contre la fraude et/ou pour se conformer à une procédure judiciaire, ordonnance ou processus légal concernant ZeniMax ou pour se conformer à une ordonnance d'une autorité administrative ou d'une autre autorité compétente ou si ZeniMax a des raisons de croire qu'une divulgation est nécessaire pour en vue de l'établissement d’une responsabilité ou de faire cesser toute atteinte, réelle ou supposée, aux droits de ZeniMax, à vos droits ou aux droits d'autres utilisateurs, à la propriété ou aux activités, ou afin de protéger d'autres personnes pouvant être victimes de dommages ou de pertes."

kyle.wilson

JustLovely wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

As of others have alluded to, I would like to know if there has been an analysis about this AI system’s effect on performance. With the recent decline in performance (long lag spikes, rubber banding, etc.), it would seem logical to conclude that the AI system could be the cause. But it would be nice to hear if ZOS has done any internal analysis of this.

@ZOS_Kevin

Please explain to us what impact this AI chat monitor is having on performance. Is it just a coincidence that performance took a steep dive a few months ago when this system was implemented?

Is this also part of the reason we have seen significantly more issues with lag in Cyrodil? It's a zone with 3 chats streams and alot of crass speech.

FelisCatus

Idelise wrote: »

I don't know, it feels ill-intended to do so. People expressed their valid concerns and wanted to have a constructive discussion.
Instead, we got one generic post, and no answer to people who asked for clarification on the matter... is that how discussions are handled here? By being stifled?

Get used to it, this is ZOS' domain and they will do what they want. I cannot even count how many times I've been voicing my opinion in a non-inflammatory constructive way only for them to "shut it down". Don't expect free speech here. You're honestly better off on Steam forums. There you can see constant dismay at the downfall of this game.

Idelise

FelisCatus wrote: »

Idelise wrote: »

I don't know, it feels ill-intended to do so. People expressed their valid concerns and wanted to have a constructive discussion.
Instead, we got one generic post, and no answer to people who asked for clarification on the matter... is that how discussions are handled here? By being stifled?

Get used to it, this is ZOS' domain and they will do what they want. I cannot even count how many times I've been voicing my opinion in a non-inflammatory constructive way only for them to "shut it down". Don't expect free speech here. You're honestly better off on Steam forums. There you can see constant dismay at the downfall of this game.

Eh, seeing the discussion I think it was an unfortunate list of coincidences - but coincidences which at the end removed all our platforms for discussions on the matter. And from the looks of this thread, a lot of questions remain unanswered.
It's also sad to see people moving away from game as medium for RP, for example. If you use both (game for visuals, Discord etc. for chat), it has to be horribly uncomfortable to do. I am curious to see though if any RPer will actually get banned for too 'crude' a character or, idk - ERP.

Thee_Cheshire_Cat

Idelise wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

Idelise wrote: »

I don't know, it feels ill-intended to do so. People expressed their valid concerns and wanted to have a constructive discussion.
Instead, we got one generic post, and no answer to people who asked for clarification on the matter... is that how discussions are handled here? By being stifled?

Get used to it, this is ZOS' domain and they will do what they want. I cannot even count how many times I've been voicing my opinion in a non-inflammatory constructive way only for them to "shut it down". Don't expect free speech here. You're honestly better off on Steam forums. There you can see constant dismay at the downfall of this game.

Eh, seeing the discussion I think it was an unfortunate list of coincidences - but coincidences which at the end removed all our platforms for discussions on the matter. And from the looks of this thread, a lot of questions remain unanswered.
It's also sad to see people moving away from game as medium for RP, for example. If you use both (game for visuals, Discord etc. for chat), it has to be horribly uncomfortable to do. I am curious to see though if any RPer will actually get banned for too 'crude' a character or, idk - ERP.

Will let you know if it happens. *Sly wink*

Stafford197

Let’s establish a clear timeline.

1. August/September. Players began noticing a large uptick in bans related to explicit or RP-based conversational content they engaged in with other consenting adults/friends.

2. September 13th. A thread titled “How will the AI that monitors our in-game chats effect RP?” was created, and becomes the primary thread for discussion on this topic, totaling 19 pages of discussion (without removed comments). Many players use it to express their ban experiences and to speculate if an automated system was being used to monitor ingame chat, both public (aka zone w/ everybody) and private (aka whispers w/friends).

3. September 13th-September 19th. Many threads open on this pressing topic, gathering a lot of attention, but Moderators close these in order to redirect and consolidate the discussion towards the aforementioned thread.

4. September 19th. ZOS_Kevin officially replies to the topic (copied his comment below this post). Essentially, a newly implemented automated system is now working in the background to actively track any flagged keywords we post ingame. Human CSR agents then check all flagged text on a case-by-case basis to issue bans. This was not previously disclosed to players. His official statement also indirectly confirms how yes, the situation we could formerly only call speculation was now real (some players chalked up the situation as fake until this point).

5. September 20th. The thread, which had become the only allowed thread on the forums for this topic, was closed due to the request of the original poster, according to moderation.

And that’s how things have played out. Please make sure to get the word out to your guilds especially if they are RP guilds. I know numerous players who have been affected by this and it would be best if all players were at least informed about this new system.

Here below is what ZOS_Kevin had to say on this topic on September 19th. No these are not my words nor me attempting to imitate a mod and idk how else to link it:

”Hi All,

We want to follow up on this thread regarding moderation tools and how this intersects with the role-play community. First, thank you for your feedback and raising your concerns about some recent actions we took due to identified chat-based Terms of Service violations. Since you all raised these concerns, we wanted to provide a bit more insight and context to the tools and process.

As with any online game, our goal is to make sure you all can have fun while making sure bad actors do not have the ability to cause harm. To achieve this, our customer service team uses tools to check for potentially harmful terms and phrases. No action is taken at that point. A human then evaluates the full context of the terms or phrases to ensure nothing harmful or illegal is occurring. A human is always in control of the final call of an action and not an AI system.

That being said, we have been iterating on some processes recently and are still learning and training on the best way to use these tools, so there will be some occasional hiccups. But we want to stress a few core points.
• We are by no means trying to disrupt or limit your role-play experiences or general discourse with friends and guildmates. You should have confidence that your private role-play experiences and conversations are yours and we are not looking to action anyone engaging in consensual conversations with fellow players.
• The tools used are intended to be preventative, and alert us to serious crimes, hate speech, and extreme cases of harm.
• To reiterate, no system is auto-banning players. If an action does occur, it’s because one of our CS agents identified something concerning enough to action on. That can always be appealed through our support ticketing system. And in an instance where you challenge the appeal process, please feel free to flag here on the forum and we can work with you to get to the bottom of the situation.
• As a company we also abide by the Digital Service Act law and all similar laws.

To wrap this up, for those who were actioned, we have reversed most of the small number of temporary suspensions and bans. If you believe you were impacted and the action was not reversed, please issue an appeal and share your ticket number. We will pass it along to our customer service to investigate.

We hope this helps to alleviate any concern around our in-game chat moderation and your role-play experiences. We understand the importance of having safe spaces for a variety of role-play communities and want to continue to foster that in ESO.“

jle30303

In general, the practice of closing all threads but one *on any given subject* - whether it be reporting of a particular bug, discussion of a particular in-game feature, discussion of the effect of AI on chat moderation, whatever - is in my opinion not a good practice.

Because, then, when that one thread ALSO gets closed - "as per the original poster's request" - when other people are still wanting to talk on the subject, and when there are legitimate concerns to be made and discussed - then suddenly the number of available threads is down to zero. And the result of that, is that one or several MORE complaint threads pop up, inevitably, like this one.

If trying to consolidate threads into one, I would instead recommend the mods putting their "redirect to the officially biggest discussion thread" post in all the "other" threads pointing towards the officially approved thread, but WITHOUT closing the side thread... so that if the officially approved one gets closed, one of the others is still available, on a "just in case" basis.

reazea

Sleepsin wrote: »

Sadly, we will never get a clear definition of the rules. This is how modern censorship works.

Exactly.

Syldras

jle30303 wrote: »

In general, the practice of closing all threads but one *on any given subject* - whether it be reporting of a particular bug, discussion of a particular in-game feature, discussion of the effect of AI on chat moderation, whatever - is in my opinion not a good practice.

I think it is, because having 5 threads about the same topic and people writing the same things again and again in all threads is a waste of time - both for the writer and for the reader.

But: I don't think it should be possible to just demand a thread's deletion, especially if the topic is of bigger general interest. Only exception I could understand is if it contains any info that someone wants to get removed for some privacy reasons. But even then, OP could just edit their first post, replacing it with "(redacted)" or something like that, so their text is gone, but the discussion could be continued by others nonetheless.

Varana

jle30303 wrote: »

In general, the practice of closing all threads but one *on any given subject* - whether it be reporting of a particular bug, discussion of a particular in-game feature, discussion of the effect of AI on chat moderation, whatever - is in my opinion not a good practice.

In general, I think it's a good and necessary rule.

It suffers from the usual issues like all moderation here, of course - content and context often aren't taken into account. If there are two threads seemingly about the same topic, one will go - even if there has developed a healthy discussion about some entirely different aspect of the topic than in the other one. It seems threads are sometimes not actually read beyond heading and maybe first post.

If anything, the option to request "my" thread to be closed, is the rule that's not really necessary, except in cases where moderation should be needed anyway.

In this case, the usually independent rules - consolidation of different threads with the same topic, and the OP's request to close "their" thread - came together with the unfortunate result that they happened to close the only remaining thread.

But I suspect that coincidence was not entirely unwelcome, shutting the discussion down for a while, and removing the issue from the front page.

endorphinsplox

So it goes I guess. This is the classic Bethesda/Zenimax play, to force dissenting voices to speak out only where the company can control and silence them, so they can stifle backlash and pray it gets forgotten about while scaring those who do remember into silence via threats of taking away their services. Guaranteed that the moment they noticed a spike in suspensions and bans, and backlash on the forums, they suppressed it, paused the banning spree and prayed it would fade into the background. They put out a tepid statement admitting to only a "hiccup" in some new practice or tool, without telling us what it is even still, even being careful not to confirm or deny directly that they are indeed just spying on private conversations, because they know we can't post screenshots of the automated response to appeals that admits it.

Its just a shame. And even still there are people refusing to accept that this is what they're doing, or worse yet, agreeing with these actions. Like I said before, accepting this unending surveillance is akin to condemning the NSA whistleblower as a traitor.

Arunei

I'd like to remind people saying ZOS is within their rights to do this and all because of the ToS of something very worrying.

People have shared that they were actioned for lore-friendly names and terms and such, or others they knew were.

How does that make sense? And let's also forget the M rating and how ratings work and, like I said in the original thread, keep in mind the nature of the TES universe. There's a demon who is literally commonly referred to in-universe as the King of Grape without the g. And yet the ToS claims we can't send messages of a graphic nature, even if it's between consenting parties and done in a private chat such as in a player home or whispers?

Also I don't mean private as in 'no one is allowed to read these messages except the people I send them to', I mean private in the sense of them not being sent to zone or emote or say where the general population can read them if they're in range. I'm pretty sure most people using the term private mean it that way.

People are being actioned for things that make no sense to be actioned for when we consider the nature of the game universe, what channels they're being said in, and the fact that characters and situations that adult themed exist in the game already.

I said it once, I'll say it again: I don't care how offended a CS agent gets over what they read. The only time action should be taken is if someone is actually harassing or insulting someone or doing something illegal or super against ToS like gold selling. For a game that the devs have tried to claim is supposed to be RP-friendly, they're sure making it seem like the opposite.

Stafford197

I wonder what sort of outcome ZOS expected from this, especially once players inevitably found out. All it’s managed so far is to build a whole bunch of rightfully earned bad PR.

That’s where resources are going though apparently. Who needs zone content in Q4 when we can get a new automated banning system for bad words instead?

Thee_Cheshire_Cat

Arunei wrote: »

I'd like to remind people saying ZOS is within their rights to do this and all because of the ToS of something very worrying.

People have shared that they were actioned for lore-friendly names and terms and such, or others they knew were.

How does that make sense? And let's also forget the M rating and how ratings work and, like I said in the original thread, keep in mind the nature of the TES universe. There's a demon who is literally commonly referred to in-universe as the King of Grape without the g. And yet the ToS claims we can't send messages of a graphic nature, even if it's between consenting parties and done in a private chat such as in a player home or whispers?

Also I don't mean private as in 'no one is allowed to read these messages except the people I send them to', I mean private in the sense of them not being sent to zone or emote or say where the general population can read them if they're in range. I'm pretty sure most people using the term private mean it that way.

People are being actioned for things that make no sense to be actioned for when we consider the nature of the game universe, what channels they're being said in, and the fact that characters and situations that adult themed exist in the game already.

I said it once, I'll say it again: I don't care how offended a CS agent gets over what they read. The only time action should be taken is if someone is actually harassing or insulting someone or doing something illegal or super against ToS like gold selling. For a game that the devs have tried to claim is supposed to be RP-friendly, they're sure making it seem like the opposite.

So well said!

Not only is it seeming to be NOT role-play friendly, it also seems to not be a Mature-rated game. More like a PG game, the way they are handing out bans.

endorphinsplox

Thee_Cheshire_Cat wrote: »

Not only is it seeming to be NOT role-play friendly, it also seems to not be a Mature-rated game. More like a PG game, the way they are handing out bans.

Yeah exactly. I'd understand if this was Club Penguin, but its not. And yeah if you say something toxic in a DM to someone and you get reported by that person, of course those messages will be reviewed by the CS team. Using the chat to bully people, you risk giving up the privacy of that conversation, especially since things like pChat and screenshots exist to immortalize your bad behavior. Saying bad words though? Its so subjective and whatever words currently flagged can easily be replaced by seemingly innocuous words that will end up becoming more offensive than the words they were meant to replace.

Thee_Cheshire_Cat

endorphinsplox wrote: »

Thee_Cheshire_Cat wrote: »

Not only is it seeming to be NOT role-play friendly, it also seems to not be a Mature-rated game. More like a PG game, the way they are handing out bans.

Yeah exactly. I'd understand if this was Club Penguin, but its not. And yeah if you say something toxic in a DM to someone and you get reported by that person, of course those messages will be reviewed by the CS team. Using the chat to bully people, you risk giving up the privacy of that conversation, especially since things like pChat and screenshots exist to immortalize your bad behavior. Saying bad words though? Its so subjective and whatever words currently flagged can easily be replaced by seemingly innocuous words that will end up becoming more offensive than the words they were meant to replace.

And we're not being told which words/phrases are going to set it off to even help make us more aware.

i mean, you're right. If you are going around slamming someone or whatever, it needs to be called out and stopped. Which would work if the person being harassed made a report- and used screenshots and whatever else (like you mentioned) to use as proof.

But then there are us role-players, who are simply speaking IN CHARACTER, giving life to whatever personality they may have, be it liking gRAPEs like Molag 'Bal, because they serve him, or being a raving lunatic and saying whatever weirdness happens to fit at the time, because they are Shaggy's pet or something puts RPers on the chopping block first, for simply using the game as it's intended to be. Role-playing.

A lot of fellow RPers have told me how uneasy they are now about rping in the game and wanting to push RP into discord or other chat platforms. This really doesn't sit well with me. There is already such a limited RP presence of players in game, this might be the nail in the coffin for them/us.

ZOS needs to be doing things to promote RP -in- their game... not relying on systems that are slapping us down for trying.

endorphinsplox

Thee_Cheshire_Cat wrote: »

But then there are us role-players, who are simply speaking IN CHARACTER, giving life to whatever personality they may have, be it liking gRAPEs like Molag 'Bal, because they serve him, or being a raving lunatic and saying whatever weirdness happens to fit at the time, because they are Shaggy's pet or something puts RPers on the chopping block first, for simply using the game as it's intended to be. Role-playing.

As long as things like the Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec are in-game and part of canon, I'll have a hard time accepting their censorship tactics.

Elsonso

.

endorphinsplox wrote: »

Thee_Cheshire_Cat wrote: »

But then there are us role-players, who are simply speaking IN CHARACTER, giving life to whatever personality they may have, be it liking gRAPEs like Molag 'Bal, because they serve him, or being a raving lunatic and saying whatever weirdness happens to fit at the time, because they are Shaggy's pet or something puts RPers on the chopping block first, for simply using the game as it's intended to be. Role-playing.

As long as things like the Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec are in-game and part of canon, I'll have a hard time accepting their censorship tactics.

I think the bottom line is that ZOS can push the limits of the M rating, but the players have to be PG. That seems consistent with the way it has been from launch, and it just seems they are doubling down on it more recently.

Syldras

Thee_Cheshire_Cat wrote: »

But then there are us role-players, who are simply speaking IN CHARACTER, giving life to whatever personality they may have, be it liking gRAPEs like Molag 'Bal, because they serve him

Even if I find the whole censorship thing silly and am of the general opinion that consenting people can roleplay what they want (I might find some topics distasteful, but it's not my business), I can understand that ZOS disallows certain terms or topics for their own safety. Imagine someone screenshots that scenario you described and it somehow gets media's attention without context, and is inflated to a scandal ("Look what people are talking about in ESO! And ZOS does nothing!"). I can understand that ZOS wants to avoid such a scandal.

endorphinsplox wrote: »

As long as things like the Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec are in-game and part of canon, I'll have a hard time accepting their censorship tactics.

You can visit an art gallery and look at hundreds of Baroque paintings of nude people. But you aren't allowed to walk around there nude. Same with movies. There had always been a difference between a medium that is shown and what behaviour is allowed for visitors.

That said, the censoring and banning process seems flawed right now, and I personally don't find it neccessary to scan chats for anything else than phrases that hint on actual severe criminal plans at all. But in the end it's ZOS who makes the rules and we have agreed on these rules when we joined. I don't think anything can be done here.

endorphinsplox

Syldras wrote: »

You can visit an art gallery and look at hundreds of Baroque paintings of nude people. But you aren't allowed to walk around there nude. Same with movies. There had always been a difference between a medium that is shown and what behaviour is allowed for visitors.

This is a false equivalency. Being nude in a public place is a much different notion than saying bad words in a private space that just so happens to be run by a company. You can't go look at baroque paintings in a museum while nude because of government laws as well as rules of the venue. The artists who made the art aren't making those decisions, nor are you as a viewer participating in an interactive medium like video games.

Look at something like Facebook: you can't post nude imagery on Facebook, but you can send it in a private message or group chat because its none of Facebook's business. Of course, you shouldn't, because if any company is notorious for spying on people, its Facebook, but there are other avenues as a result and Facebook isn't the giant it once was due to a lack of innovation and user-first thinking.

Attempts to restrict language don't actually reduce toxicity, they just cause it to move or change shape. Just like I said about criminal behavior, (which of course, ZOS should absolutely do everything they can to combat without affecting innocent people) people who engage in it are not going to speak in plain language typically because its much easier to flag a specific set of words than to decipher a code, something AI or automated filters are even less capable of recognizing.

Syldras

Then imagine it as a kind of interactive theater. What the actors act out fictionally and what the guests are allowed to do will differ. In the end, the situation is quite clear: ZOS is the owner of this platform, ZOS has house rules (Terms of service, including a code of conduct), we signed these house rules when joining. Whether they make any sense or not, sadly, doesn't matter. ZOS won't change anything, or if it all, become even stricter at most.

JemadarofCaerSalis

Elsonso wrote: »

.

endorphinsplox wrote: »

Thee_Cheshire_Cat wrote: »

But then there are us role-players, who are simply speaking IN CHARACTER, giving life to whatever personality they may have, be it liking gRAPEs like Molag 'Bal, because they serve him, or being a raving lunatic and saying whatever weirdness happens to fit at the time, because they are Shaggy's pet or something puts RPers on the chopping block first, for simply using the game as it's intended to be. Role-playing.

As long as things like the Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec are in-game and part of canon, I'll have a hard time accepting their censorship tactics.

I think the bottom line is that ZOS can push the limits of the M rating, but the players have to be PG. That seems consistent with the way it has been from launch, and it just seems they are doubling down on it more recently.

Honestly, this is exactly how pretty much all of the games I have played that have the ability to talk to other players through official game channels (such as through official forums or official chat)

The developers know exactly how far they can push, and they can make sure that nothing 'steps' over that line.

With players, it is a constant battle preventing a certain subset of them from pushing that line and doing everything possible to get past censors and around rules.

So games, again in my experience, tend to err on the side of 'players get more strict rules than we developers have'.

Thee_Cheshire_Cat

Syldras wrote: »

Then imagine it as a kind of interactive theater. What the actors act out fictionally and what the guests are allowed to do will differ. In the end, the situation is quite clear: ZOS is the owner of this platform, ZOS has house rules (Terms of service, including a code of conduct), we signed these house rules when joining. Whether they make any sense or not, sadly, doesn't matter. ZOS won't change anything, or if it all, become even stricter at most.

That's what i'm afraid of.

i put a lot of thought into deciding to leave my other game of 17 years to this one, when it began doing stupid things with censorship.

i was really hoping to make this game my new next 17 years.... but if things continue how they are...

Makes me sad. This game has so much potential- and has already, some really amazing things going for it, for role-players.