Why am I experiencing more predatory behaviour ingame? Please read

Recent · October 23

I like to make friends ingame, in guilds or out in zones questing BUT some of these people have bad intentions. I blame this on the whole ERP community. Unfortunately some players that erp in erp guilds then take it out into the non erring community. It's not fair and I'm getting tired of these creeps.
One person I met in a guild we did dungeons together and then they asked me to be friends on discord. I accepted thinking I had made a cool friend to do group content with. They sent me por*
material. I was shocked and deleted my discord account cos of it. Their character is on my ignore list.
Now moving on I'm getting whispers from randoms asking me personal questions in eso ingame while I questing minding my own business.
Since vids were streamed about how one of the top gold makers is erping, I noticed this behaviour has got worse and it is spilling out into our eso community. Young kids play eso, they shouldn't but they do. This predatory behaviour is unacceptable. Eso should never have allowed erp guilds ...there are websites for that sort of thing.

Pelanora · October 23

Wtheck is an erp guild

Desiato · October 23

Pelanora wrote: »

Wtheck is an erp guild

A guild that practices in Enterprise Resource Planning obviously. I hear it's a big thing in Riften.

DenverRalphy · October 23

Pelanora wrote: »

Wtheck is an erp guild

Erotic Role Play. Serioiusly.

I think people are afraid to use the word erotic.

Erickson9610 · October 23

Desiato wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

Wtheck is an erp guild

A guild that practices in Enterprise Resource Planning obviously. I hear it's a big thing in Riften.

I suppose the future of business really is in the metaverse... or whatever kind of virtual reality you'd call The Elder Scrolls Online.

Nerouyn · October 23

Recent wrote: »

Now moving on I'm getting whispers from randoms asking me personal questions in eso ingame while I questing minding my own business.

This would meet the legal definition of sexual harassment.

You should report all of these people, which will auto add them to block.

ZO can't confirm your experience on Discord, and wouldn't be responsible for that component anyway, but the followup personal questions from "randoms" is.

Any company ever sued for sexual harassment needs to be able to demonstrate that they do everything they can to prevent it. That would include taking appropriate action in instances like this.

ZO might not outright ban these people if this is their first offense, but they would be explicitly instructed to leave you alone and never repeat this behaviour.

ArchMikem · October 23

Pelanora wrote: »

Wtheck is an erp guild

Erotic Role-playing.

I'm honestly surprised People can get away with it on ESO without being suspended.

Zombocalypse · October 23

ERP Predators are an everyday reality for lalafells in FFXIV. I expected ESO to have some parallel to that.

ArchMikem · October 23

Quoted post has been removed

It's not a question of offense, but of ToS violations. Even still unwanted solicitation is also offensive.

Nerouyn · October 23

Quoted post has been removed

That is absolutely not what the OP described.

Personal questions - even completely non-sexual ones - can qualify as sexual harassment.

These questions follow the unwelcome sharing of pornographic material, which caused the OP to put another player on ignore.

Getting around that ignore by seemingly having friends or other accounts owned by the ***-sharer send tells is harassment.

Grizzbeorn · October 23

How long have you been playing this game that you're just now noticing this behavior?

I've been getting these kind of messages for YEARS from deplorables when I'm playing a female character.
It's why I started playing in offline mode. They can still follow me around being creepy, but at least they can't message me anymore.

Zombocalypse · October 23

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

How long have you been playing this game that you're just now noticing this behavior?

I've been getting these kind of messages for YEARS from deplorables when I'm playing a female character.
It's why I started playing in offline mode. They can still follow me around being creepy, but at least they can't message me anymore.

ESO can be played offline mode?

fizl101 · October 23

Zombocalypse wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

How long have you been playing this game that you're just now noticing this behavior?

I've been getting these kind of messages for YEARS from deplorables when I'm playing a female character.
It's why I started playing in offline mode. They can still follow me around being creepy, but at least they can't message me anymore.

ESO can be played offline mode?

chat can be set to offline, you can do it via the guild roster or friends list, set your status in the top left (in console UI, not sure where it is on PC UI)

Arunei · October 23

ArchMikem wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

Wtheck is an erp guild

Erotic Role-playing.

I'm honestly surprised People can get away with it on ESO without being suspended.

Probably because as long as it's kept to private DMs between consenting adults, it's really no one else's business? It's not like this game doesn't already have suggestive themes, we have a King of Grape without the g for heck's sake.

The only time it's a problem is when creeps and weirdos start taking it to public areas or soliciting people who've never made any indication they want that sort of thing. In those cases, those people 100% need to be suspended at least, banned if they're repeat offenders.

Also...I have to say that it's really kind of silly to label someone who's sending unwanted adult content to randoms as an ERPer. People have been sending each other awful stuff since home computers and internet access were first becoming a thing back in like the 90s and around that time. Just because someone is being a massive creep doesn't mean they ERP or even RP at all.

And I haven't been in the RP scene in a while thanks to computer issues, but I've genuinely never heard ERP guilds or ERPing in general being a "top gold maker", and I'm kind of curious where this claim is coming from. This is coming from someone who started RPing about a year after the game launched. About the only time I've heard about people getting gold for ERP is when it's an IC transaction and sometimes the person who's the 'client' decides to actually send the other player(s) gold. I'm pretty sure the top gold makers in this game are still things like guilds that sell clears of stuff for achieves or people selling lots of raw mats for crafters to refine for tempers.

SeaGtGruff · October 23

Zombocalypse wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

How long have you been playing this game that you're just now noticing this behavior?

I've been getting these kind of messages for YEARS from deplorables when I'm playing a female character.
It's why I started playing in offline mode. They can still follow me around being creepy, but at least they can't message me anymore.

ESO can be played offline mode?

@Zombocalypse, you can't play ESO offline, but as @fizl101 said, there's a setting that lets you change your status to "offline" while you're playing. You're still playing the game online, but when your friends and fellow guild members look at their friends list and guild roster, you'll be shown as though you're offline, and they won't be able to whisper you or port to you. Everyone can still see your character in the game, of course, and if someone who's harrassing you sees your character they can follow you around and harrass you by typing in zone chat since they won't be able to whisper you, but then their harrassment will be public and visible to everyone else, whereas being able to whisper you lets them harrass you without other people being able to see what they're saying to you.

If you're in a player guild, you may need to be careful with offline mode, since many guilds will kick members who haven't been online within a certain number of days. Therefore it can be a good idea to change your status back to "online" once a week, then immediately change it back to "offline," so friends lists and guild rosters will show that you'd last logged in X number of minutes or days ago. Otherwise you might need to talk to your guild masters and ask them not to kick you out of their guilds for being offline too long.

Rowjoh · October 23

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

SeaGtGruff · October 23

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

The OP didn't say she had joined an ERP guild, simply mentioned that she knows they exist in-game. She said she had run some dungeons with a fellow guild member who ended up harrassing her, but we don't know what kind of guild it was.

Heren · October 23

Just like in real life : you can meet all sort of individuals, so be careful. And if you think some people cross a line, report them. There's nothing more ZOS can really do ( appart from, you know, proactively banning people for using the wrong words, whatever they can be ).

Erickson9610 · October 23

Heren wrote: »

Just like in real life : you can meet all sort of individuals, so be careful. And if you think some people cross a line, report them. There's nothing more ZOS can really do ( appart from, you know, proactively banning people for using the wrong words, whatever they can be ).

I'd hope that their systems would more easily detect cases such as this and put a stop to them early. ESO doesn't need people who sexually harass other players in it.

Rowjoh · October 23

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

The OP didn't say she had joined an ERP guild, simply mentioned that she knows they exist in-game. She said she had run some dungeons with a fellow guild member who ended up harrassing her, but we don't know what kind of guild it was.

I didn't say OP had joined an ERP guild, lol.

I'm merely making a point about 'role play' in general.

manukartofanu · October 23

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

The OP didn't say she had joined an ERP guild, simply mentioned that she knows they exist in-game. She said she had run some dungeons with a fellow guild member who ended up harrassing her, but we don't know what kind of guild it was.

Why do you use 'she'? They never mentioned their gender.

Juomuuri · October 23

Blaming a community as a whole is not ok. Yes there are creeps who ERP and then look for victims to harass, but not everyone is like that. Block and report, if these people keep harassing you and others they'll eventually get banned.

Bammlschwamml · October 23

As far as i know this content creator is just trying to be funny in her videos. And it kind of works for her "how to make gold" videos, because sex work is one of the oldest ways to make money. It's funny because of the way she presents it in her videos. (At least the first couple of times before it gets really old, boring and annoying.) But it's definitely harmless.

What you are discribing has nothing to do with role playing. No means no, and consent is very important. Some people still have to learn that.

SeaGtGruff · October 23

Rowjoh wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

The OP didn't say she had joined an ERP guild, simply mentioned that she knows they exist in-game. She said she had run some dungeons with a fellow guild member who ended up harrassing her, but we don't know what kind of guild it was.

I didn't say OP had joined an ERP guild, lol.

I'm merely making a point about 'role play' in general.

Ah, okay.

But this statement, "you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise," sort of makes it sound like you thought the OP had joined an ERP guild and is now complaining about the unsurprising consequences.

manukartofanu wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

The OP didn't say she had joined an ERP guild, simply mentioned that she knows they exist in-game. She said she had run some dungeons with a fellow guild member who ended up harrassing her, but we don't know what kind of guild it was.

Why do you use 'she'? They never mentioned their gender.

I actually wrote "she(?)" in my first draft, since the OP never mentioned a gender. But I removed the "(?)" because I assumed that female players are probably more likely to be sexually harassed than male players. I know that making assumptions can lead to mistakes, and if I made a mistake in this instance and the OP is offended by it, then I apologize.

But the gender isn't really pertinent to the issue, because harassment (sexual or otherwise) is wrong, and against the ToS and CoC, regardless of what gender is doing the harassment and what gender is receiving the harassment.

Tandor · October 23

I must remember to add this thread to the long list of others that I should produce in evidence in the event of any serious challenge as to my motivation for soloing in MMOs

!

JavaRen · October 23

I am in no way minimizing the experience of the OP or others but in the eight years I and my wife have played this game we have collectively encountered a mild version of this experience once. So experiences vary, and many, many people participate in group and guild activities without problem.

That said, these types of behaviours should result in administrative action, from social bans to full on banhammer smashing, as the specifics dictate.

Rowjoh · October 23

Recent wrote: »

... I noticed this behaviour has got worse and it is spilling out into our eso community. Young kids play eso, they shouldn't but they do... This predatory behaviour is unacceptable.

ESO have flooded the game with fluffy pets, cartoony day-glow mounts, and childish creatures with silly voices in quests (scribing for example) all of which is clearly designed to attract a young audience.

Recent · October 23

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's long been the case that 'role play' covers a multitude of connotations and sins, is a target for ridicule, and a magnet to predators.

A bit like politicians that like to engage in 'fruit play' and come a cropper, you know what you're getting into, so negative consequences should come as no surprise.

The OP didn't say she had joined an ERP guild, simply mentioned that she knows they exist in-game. She said she had run some dungeons with a fellow guild member who ended up harrassing her, but we don't know what kind of guild it was.

It was a trials guild where the rules strictly said no harassment towards other players as it was a family guild. The guild was not the problem but the ' fake friend' I made while I the guild. I left the guild and deleted my discord account. The creep messaged me on ingame whisper so I put them on ignore. I do play off-line mode now. Just sad really cos it gets lonely not being able to do group content and chat ingame in a fun friendly way anymore. I met some amazing people in eso many left to play other games. I had a break from eso too and games change so does the community.
I appreciate your comment.

mdjessup4906 · October 24

Try not to let creeps ruin your game experience. When you do come across them best thing to do is take screenshots of the interaction, block them and report them.

Guilds and discords too. The vast majority of guildmasters don't put up with that *** and will kick people who cause trouble. And if they don't or downplay your experience then yeah dump them, there's lots of good ones out there.

Not sure how discord deals with pm harassment, but I'd think as long as you haven't made public details that would id you in rl, blocking them should be enough to get rid of them.

SilverBride · October 24

I was approached the other day while doing writs in Vivec. The player started whispering me about how hot my character looked, and other such comments, so I told them to stop harassing me. They asked how that was harassing to which I didn't reply, but thankfully they did stop.

I had to end a friendship, too, because he just wouldn't stop flirting, even after several warnings.

I don't play games to look for virtual dates and I'm really surprised by how many actively erp. But I'm even more surprised that they approach strangers with their advances.

TheMajority · October 24

none of this behavior has anything to do with ERP or the roleplay community

this is clearly a bad person who should be reported (and you should of reported them to the guild too because the guild master would probably want to kick them) and also report them to discord instead of deleting your discord account (why would you do that instead of submitting a report and blocking that person?)

ERP community and RP community have consent policies. yeah, there's bad apples around, but those arent roleplayers, those are wolves in sheeps clothing.

im sorry that happened to you but it has nothing to do with ERP. sending unwanted content to a person has not got a single thing to do with ERP.