Zone chat has become really antagonistic

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO

This was an issue in beta as well, and I wish it wasn't, because the weird aggressively antagonistic nature of people in zone chat is pretty much the major downside to this game, as far as I'm concerned. Anytime someone expresses an opinion, the first thing that happens is half of zone chat attacks that person and calls them stupid or whatever. I had refused to pretty much talk in zone chat at all for all of yesterday anticipating this, and then today, after someone had said they hoped there was not a cap on the ignore list (because gold sellers) I said "An ignore list cap would be the dumbest thing." Which I don't think anybody disagrees with. Who wants an ignore cap? And lo and behold someone immediately called me a troll and ignored me. We really need to make an effort as a community to be welcoming in public chats and try to help people, because I really believe that right now it's going to drive people away. Anyway. Just my thoughts. I, for one, am going to try to be as helpful and welcoming as possible in public chat, but I will also probably refrain from expressing any opinions at all, because that kind of thing happens.

tl;dr: Be nice.

Korah_Eaglecry

Agreed. Unfortunately there is always growing pains within a community the first month of a games release. As the month goes by and those who are only interested in playing this game for the free month start to leave. Im pretty certain the majority of the trolling and antagonizing will go away.

Zargorius

I always found the Zone chats in any game just distracting and often offensive. First thing I did in ESO is make a new chat tab and exclude the Zone from it so I can just read people close to me. Problem solved.

illogicbh

I just have my guild chat enabled. Zone chat is full of trolls. People are much much friendlier and helpful in guild chat.

Loxy37

Its not going to happen. MMOs chat has gone down hill for years. The only MMO I have ever known where everyone were decent was Fallen Earth before it went F2P. In that game you could chat with the mods and devs and they would help you to the best of their ability. Thing that I'm surprised with ESO is that there's not even an help channel which should be moderated at all time and its usually safe within such channel.

Yeah I usually avoid them and do my own thing. Way I look at it is that, I talk to people in these games as if I was standing infront of them and I try to be helpful where I can.

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO

I agree, Zargorius, and it's sad that we have to do that, but I am concerned for how this affects new players who are just trying the game out. Also (and this is a general opinion of mine and is definitely not directed to Korah, who used the term correctly) we overuse the term "troll." Zone chat has a tendency (as someone did to me today) to call someone a troll because they disagree with them or... even expressed a strong opinion? I guess? Anyway... just generally it's overused or people don't realize the malicious intent inherent in that term. I do hope that Korah's right and the jerks leave after the first month, but I had thought we would just have less of them in general because they have to purchase the game (then again, I thought the same about gold sellers, and there have been like 100 of them today in Daggerfall alone). Thanks for responding, guys.

Narrator

Unfortunately when people can hide behind the internet or an avatar, their true nature is revealed. The saddest part is most are 14-17 years old who are taking mommy and daddy issues out on the rest of the internet. Gives you great expectations for the next generation doesn't it?

Moyana

Sadly I find that the constant trolling, spamming and general mudslinging from certain individuals in zone chat is really quite off-putting.

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO

Loxy37 wrote: »

Its not going to happen. MMOs chat has gone down hill for years. The only MMO I have ever known where everyone were decent was Fallen Earth before it went F2P. In that game you could chat with the mods and devs and they would help you to the best of their ability. Thing that I'm surprised with ESO is that there's not even an help channel which should be moderated at all time and its usually safe within such channel.

Yeah I usually avoid them and do my own thing. Way I look at it is that, I talk to people in these games as if I was standing infront of them and I try to be helpful where I can.

You're right about the MMO chat going down hill thing for sure. But I don't think I've ever seen it quite this bad. People are so quick to attack as if they had something seriously to gain from it. I don't know if it's some sort of zealous loyalty to Bethesda or something that does it, but people are super aggressive. And I 100% agree with you about the help channel thing. Really, there needs to be a greater variety of public channels in general. A help channel would be a great addition, as would an auction channel so that we can filter out people trying to buy and sell things.

Rosveen

Narrator wrote: »

Unfortunately when people can hide behind the internet or an avatar, their true nature is revealed. The saddest part is most are 14-17 years old who are taking mommy and daddy issues out on the rest of the internet. Gives you great expectations for the next generation doesn't it?

No, the saddest part is that many of them are adults, unlikely to grow out of bad behavior. It's normal than kids do stupid things, are rude and immature, they still have time to learn.

Rosveen

nvm

Sue_D_Nim

This saddens me, although I can't truly say I expected otherwise. The only MMO I've played where general chat was unexceptionally polite, generous, and helpful was Vanguard. Ironically, I hear they're shutting that game down again.

I must add that my impression of zone chat as off-putting in general is only from idly watching zone chat while playing. The one time I've ventured to ask a question in chat, not only did I receive answers, but two people went very far out of their way to offer much more help than I'd asked for, and then followed through to see how I was doing. One of them even stayed IC the whole time, which I always love.

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic.

Trouvo

this is precisely why the first thing I do when joining any mmo is turning off zone/all/global chat.....

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO

Sue_D_Nim wrote: »

This saddens me, although I can't truly say I expected otherwise. The only MMO I've played where general chat was unexceptionally polite, generous, and helpful was Vanguard. Ironically, I hear they're shutting that game down again.

I must add that my impression is only from idly watching zone chat while playing. The one time I've ventured to ask a question in chat, not only did I receive answers, but two people went very far out of their way to offer much more help than I'd asked for, and then followed through to see how I was doing. One of them stayed IC, which I always love.

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic.

That's really encouraging to hear. I hope this is the general trend and the people I am seeing are just the vocal minority and/or just having bad days or something.

tallenn

I honestly have not noticed chat -at all. I had to add a separate tab for just guild chat so I could scroll back through and see what was going on without having to scroll through everything else, as well.

As far as it bothering me though... it's really just a blip in my peripheral vision that so far has failed to pull my attention to it.

Dragonetti

I've experienced this is every MMO I've played. It's unfortunate and distracting, but easily ignored. I find it tends to get better as you get to higher level zones.

Yshaar

After years of managing and living in online communities of large size my most important suggestion to all of you is this:

Control the topics and the attitude. You have the power to control topics and tendencies in every chat situation with the right, wise and striking sentences. Communities often dwell in a rage/troll topic because it is easy to respond to and some other reasons I will not go into detail here. The old rule of don't feed the trolls is applicable. Commenting about "ignoring someone" is feeding the troll scheme and others can jump on your comment and the downward spiral begins.

Always drift the subject! Control the ship into another direction of your liking. Best positive topics at the moment:

1. Trade guilds and how nice they work.
2. Tell them about a treasure you just found and be explicit and positive about it
3. Ask a question no one else asked yet, best with a twist in your language like:" Arr mateys! I am an old, nearly blind pirate, can someone show me where I can find the next dark anchor?"
4. Beautiful sounds and music or bards you can find

Try it out, you will see, the Zone chat is not as bad as you think.

hrdndv_ESO

In Beta I just turned off trolls. I only had to ignore about 4 players and everything settled down. I rarely have time to read posts anyway... LOL: I am better at RP than multiplayer. But, bugs make people frustrated. Frustrated people get nasty. They kick the dog. Things will settle down as the major bugs are solved.

One thing that irritates players is the timed/random spawning of major NPCs, especially when they wait for them for a half hour and nothing happens.

Sue_D_Nim

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO wrote: »

Sue_D_Nim wrote: »

[snip]

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic.

That's really encouraging to hear. I hope this is the general trend and the people I am seeing are just the vocal minority and/or just having bad days or something.

I hope so. I'm trying to let that memory overshadow the one of the sexually explicit conversation between a couple of prepubescent boys who wouldn't be shushed and became antagonistic when anybody commented on the inappropriate chat.

Nate

The solution is real simple. Click the little arrow at the bottom left of the chat window and be done with it.

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO

Sue_D_Nim wrote: »

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO wrote: »

Sue_D_Nim wrote: »

[snip]

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic.

That's really encouraging to hear. I hope this is the general trend and the people I am seeing are just the vocal minority and/or just having bad days or something.

I hope so. I'm trying to let that memory overshadow the one of the sexually explicit conversation between a couple of prepubescent boys who wouldn't be shushed and became antagonistic when anybody commented on the inappropriate chat.

Couldn't they have done that in tells? o.O

Inversus

Yeah, this is why we need a general discussion forum.
This is Q&A, so just ask/answer questions here.

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO

Inversus wrote: »

Yeah, this is why we need a general discussion forum.
This is Q&A, so just ask/answer questions here.

I agree, but there isn't one. If there is a section of the forums where this would fit better, please feel free to move the thread there. I certainly wouldn't mind.

Sue_D_Nim

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO wrote: »

Sue_D_Nim wrote: »

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO wrote: »

Sue_D_Nim wrote: »

[snip]

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic.

That's really encouraging to hear. I hope this is the general trend and the people I am seeing are just the vocal minority and/or just having bad days or something.

I hope so. I'm trying to let that memory overshadow the one of the sexually explicit conversation between a couple of prepubescent boys who wouldn't be shushed and became antagonistic when anybody commented on the inappropriate chat.

Couldn't they have done that in tells? o.O

Of course they could, but since their sole purpose was to antagonize the rest of the people in chat, it's not likely.

Skookum

I don't see what the big deal is about people being sassy, I am pretty sure the majority of the people playing are pretty young and I have found that even the sweetest of youngsters will say annoying and even mean things on occasion, to expect them to behave in a game where they go to get away from the people that tell them what to do, and blow off steam is ridiculous.

Why not just play along? See the humor? Sometimes it can be enjoyable to argue, it can be fun to be a "troll"
This isn't the office is it?
I think you all need to pre-order a pair of cajones

JunkyardWolf

Zargorius wrote: »

I always found the Zone chats in any game just distracting and often offensive. First thing I did in ESO is make a new chat tab and exclude the Zone from it so I can just read people close to me. Problem solved.

This I like! ty!

Simonie

I made different tab for the chat. One for general area, one of each guild and one for tell. It makes it easier for me to not miss anything important my guild is doing or the tells I'm getting.

Inversus

TwistedRiddlesb14_ESO wrote: »

Inversus wrote: »

Yeah, this is why we need a general discussion forum.
This is Q&A, so just ask/answer questions here.

I agree, but there isn't one. If there is a section of the forums where this would fit better, please feel free to move the thread there. I certainly wouldn't mind.

I would but there isn't really a better place for this thread, and I'm not a mod

As for the thread topic, I have also noted that zone chat can be argumentative in the beta - I assumed this had toned down a little bit since then, since now we're all paying customers... shame if it hasn't...

Paks_ESO

I enjoy glancing at Zone Chat to see if I can pick up any useful game information, and it really annoys me that I have to turn that off because some people can't control themselves in a social setting. There's nothing right about that. From my experience thus far, I have noticed the Daggerfall zone chat is the worst but that faction just happens to have the best gameplay (in my opinion of course) so is where my main character is.

Baratan

The first thing I do in any mmo is disable zone chat. It's just too attractive to trolls and attention seekers to be ignored or used responsibly by them.

Sue_D_Nim

Skookum wrote: »

I don't see what the big deal is about people being sassy, I am pretty sure the majority of the people playing are pretty young and I have found that even the sweetest of youngsters will say annoying and even mean things on occasion, to expect them to behave in a game where they go to get away from the people that tell them what to do, and blow off steam is ridiculous.

Why not just play along? See the humor? Sometimes it can be enjoyable to argue, it can be fun to be a "troll"
This isn't the office is it?
I think you all need to pre-order a pair of cajones

I do see your point to a certain extent. But I'm never going to want to "play along" and "see the humor" in a couple of kids openly discussing getting a girl to suck their d---s.