Online Harassment/misconduct NEEDS to stop! (guilty Balrog)

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

I hate to break this year’s ice in our dedicated forums with such a gloomy subject, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t heated as could be over the matter at the moment. I for one think this is an issue that should be addressed more often and dealt with in a serious matter. Online (cyber) bullying, harassment, trolling, or whatever you choose to call it runs rampant on XBL and I hate that for one reason or another MS can’t seem to find a fix to this issue. Avoiding the issue and/or person responsible for it is one alternative often cited amongst the community, but I’m not one to stand idle and ignore it, ohh no… I’m going to try this in an effort not to halt and prevent it. And I’m going to do so in the only way I know how, by putting the person on “blast”.

Not having any type of repercussions for one’s online antics and allowing one’s inner badass to take over is no excuse, regardless of how much alcohol, weed, bath salts, or whatever other drug you’re currently experimenting with resides in your system.

I came across a fellow Balrog player today by the name of HAPPY303 with who I played one heck of a laggy game with. Upon finishing the first match I decided to boot him out of my room for obvious reasons (we had a 1 bar connection). Not thinking much of it as must people would understand why I did what I did, he decides to create his own room and invited me to it. Not wanting to play under those conditions I did not respond to his request. Evidently not happy with his previous loss HAPPY303 then decides to send me the following message as a provocation: “Join, don’t be scared kid”. I (took the bait) read the msg and replied to him by saying, “1 bar connection einstein… BTW I’m 28, if that makes me the kid than you’re too old to be acting this way. Please let the FGC mature”.

Now, I can’t be the only one on here that gets this type of emails and I know must of us are typically pretty good at ignoring them or having a good laugh at the sender’s expense. But I cracked! I clock in quite a few hours of offline play per week (10-15 per week), specially if the arcade is open, and thus online is but an afterthought when it comes to playing the game. Unfortunately, for us Austinites we’ve been without an arcade for a while as it’s undergoing renovations and I’ve been left with XBL as a means of practice. I get on about twice per week and it never fails… either a derogatory msg, or a smart remark about how my turtle tactics are scrubby and I would lose to them offline. I’ve played a bit more this time around than in previous weeks and my blood has been boiling over and so you get this rant of a post.

I wish the story ended here, but our “friend” wasn’t satisfied with my response and as we all know, in order to win online you must always have the last word. Here is a picture of HAPPY303’s last message:

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/406134_10151380431536743_553399869_n.jpg

At the time of this incident HAPPY303 had over 5000 PP so I figured there’d be a good chance of him being an active figure head around the site, if not an active tournament player where ever it is he’s from. I’m hoping this gains a bit of traction and brings to light the poor judgement and actions of our less mature players and in turn produces a backlash of sorts against this type of behavior. You never know who’s on the other side of the tube… In my own twisted, moral-induced way of thinking I figured people would be prompted to act in a more professional matter when dealing with strangers, go figure. Alas, not having any form of punishment for their actions brings out the worst in us all. Having the respect and balls to swallow your pride and carry on about your day, well that’s a whole other topic.

J.

2

Lol thicken your skin and just press the “Block Communications” button there, problem solved.

3

I was expecting something a bit worse, like he had your genitals as his avatar.

4

It’s possible he’s not around these boards.
TBH, it actually isn’t too hard to hit up around 5000 PP. Been around 5000, drop down to 2000, then back up to 4000. So yeah, anything is possible, and in no way am I a skilled player. So if I can pull of something that silly, anyone can, really (oddly enough, I do kick people out of my endless rooms with players below 2000 pp… I’m such a hypocrite).

I’ve gotten worse, but I understand the concern. Internet harassment is a terrible thing… but easy to avoid.
Like you said, you took the bait. All I gotta say is, lesson learn and don’t fall for such duplicity. Don’t give the troll the satisfaction of feeling better about themselves, YOU ONLY MAKE THEM STRONGER!!

5

Without going into details, I’ve spent a total of 6 years in the military and did my time in the sand box, if there is one thing I have plenty of is tough skin. I’m tired of this being tolerated instead of frowned upon and labeled for what it is: harassment. Yes, the severity of the insult was miniscule but it doesn’t diminish its wrongdoing. I’ve had plenty of N words and F words thrown my way as well. The responsibility lies not only with the console company, but its developers and the community. Halo has already taken steps to reduce, if not all together eliminate this, why can’t Capcom? … Long story short, I got fed up and wanted to put him on blast though… haha

6

you arent any decent until you get hatemail

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It’s not Capcom’s responsibility to keep player’s behavior in check. If you have a problem with another player XBL provides the means you can use to avoid them.

8

Might be some PTSD then there buddy, but it’s a free internet and people can and will call you a faggot without repercussion if they feel like it, and most often if they lose to you and they’re bad, they will. Getting pissy about it is totally the wrong idea when getting the most nefarious insults thrown at you by a 15yo with a bruised ego can come up on an XBL message is actually a sign of competence as these messages are called ragemail for a reason, and nobody ever sends ragemail because they won.

What you do after can be sorted to three options:

  1. Possibly laugh at his bitterness and poor grasp of the english language and completely ignore his message.
  2. Troll him by talking shit back to get him to send even more ragemail and see how long can you keep this fountain of mirth running.
  3. Sink down to his level by actually getting your knickers in a bunch and seriously replying him back with similar messages.

Pick one.

Yo did you change your nick? What kind of magic is this?

9

While I agree with your overall message, plenty of goonies send ‘hate’ or ‘troll-mail’ if you will, over wins. “suck it easy, scrub faggot.” I personally have a chuckle over any poor soul that validates themself over online play, but you know there is always people who take serious pride in beating people who are essentially playing the game under water.

10

People often rage when they get booted. I played a laggy game against a Dee Jay and lost, then proceeded to boot him. He reacted by sending me “u mad” and “stay free” messages. I proceeded to troll the shit out of him.

The lesson: if someone actually takes the time to message you in a negative manner after a game, you know they are a bitch. Either ignore them or troll the shit out of them and move on.

11

I’m a big fan of the “ignore user” myself but, that will never help the bigger picture. I’m okay with random saltiness but after the second message… ignore, move on.

I think “League of Legends” implemented an okay system that allows the players to (essentially) judge the fuck out of each other.XBL/PSN has at most 1/100th of the shit talk this game alone has, so Riot turned their players into the enforcement.

At the end of each game, your opponents can “honor” you and your team mates have three options to pick from (friendly/helpful/teamwork). Being able to rank opponents ON THEIR CHARACTER is a huge deal… after you have gained enough “honor” ranks from opponents, you earn a visible “badge of honor”. Shit, even when another player really effs up (rage quits too many games, talks too much smack, general dick-headedness)… OTHER PLAYERS get to decide whether or not you get banned via the “Tribunal”.

I’ve played so many online games, trolling is part of it (even in shit like Runescape…) but I’ve never seen a system as effective as Riot’s. I am so surprised that something like theirs hasn’t been implemented in other ways/other games/online services. When no such system is in place, I resort to Yomipower’s #1. If it persists and they still haven’t formed a proper sentence… ignore.

12

terrible idea

13

my two cents, is that you definitely can’t control the internet, but you can control you. Jonas is a stand-up guy. Win or lose, online we should do our best to portray the person we are IRL. Given some people are actually trolls IRL, not much can be done, but take both your wins and losses with respect.

Personally I rage IRL (I suck at losing) and send ggs.

14

’

Just saying… he needs to learn how to spell. Also just block people. I did that when i had an xbox and now when they threaten to do something, then you take precautions.-

15

All my childish bitterness aside, I’d like to thank all who contributed to the [healthy] discussion. Regardless of where anyone stood in the matter I got some really good ideas/suggestions. I’m highly illeterate relating all things electronic so feel free to laugh if this is general knowledge, but I had an aquaintace inform me about the ability to block all incoming messages (on the XBox) with the exception of friend’s… Freaking genius!

Case closed
J.

16

I see absolutely no reason as to how anyone can tag ‘ignoring the rightfully ignorable’ as some sort of ‘dodging’ of some ‘bigger picture’ or ‘problem’ - This isn’t a new trend - The internet gives everyone a faceless mask they can safely throw mud from and will proceed to do so, no matter the game, community, reason or motive - I find the best way to handle this is to simply ignore the message and, in turn, block the person - Why? Because fueling the flames is more satisfying to them than just wordlessly blocking and moving on with your own game.

I have no time, patience or desire to entertain the wild random flaming nonsense that comes out of people’s brain after an incident that they feel compelled to dirty my inbox with - I’ve had everything from troll attempts to racist comments, flaming, “Spam” (One guy quite literally flooded my inbox with 30 messages while I was calmly making tea after some unknown thing that caused said spammer to go rage mode) to accusations, threats (Ingame and out) and everything you can think of… If I reply to any of it it’s simply in the vain hopes that the person I’m replying to MIGHT be reasoned with and to reach an understanding - If at any point this seems impossible, why the fuck would I sit there wasting my time even typing to this person who makes it their business to attempt to make me feel angry, or miserable, or insulted, or begging for some ‘rematch’ that they so desperately want in an attempt to ‘prove’ something to the other internet handle they just fought?

The tools are there to quite simply block these turds and carry on enjoying the game - Use of said tools is not something that should be tagged as neglecting an ‘issue’ - How many people out there do you think actually stoop to the same exact level as the person who starts a war with them simply because they actually fed the troll and engaged in a hot headed flame fest over all the messages? I’d wager about 75% of people who get hatemail bite back and end up either making themselves out to be no better than the person who started it, sometimes worse - Either way, NO GOOD COMES OF IT outside of your own personal enjoyment (If you are the weird type who seems to think trolling in retaliation is actually worth it, which I find pretty stupid, personally).

This isn’t worth your time or energy - Block and carry on enjoying the game - If people want to enjoy the game with me, great! If they want to ruin my enjoyment, block and forget about the random no-name online person who forms 80% of the internet population of haters.

I’d be all for working on a bigger picture if the game makers themselves were also interested in this - But they aren’t - I don’t even want to imagine how many names get ‘reported’ for X or Y reason, beit some petty nonsense or a serious matter and you can be sure it’s tiresome for them to have to sift through all that crap when X person could quite simply have ignored the offender and moved on (Which is a lot quicker, safer and less tiresome than entertaining the twerp trying to piss you off).

Just meh.

17

Oh, I had a guy once who was just relentless with accusing me of using a turbo button (would there even be any benefit of using turbo in this game?) after I jabbed the hell out of him during the match and won. He called me bad names and kept sending rage messages, while I tried to say, “Hey man, no disrespect, I’ll play you again.” I played him again and beat him again, spamming jabs as before (he really did kinda suck). Anyway, he kept on with the hate mail over and over, even when I stopped responding to it. Finally I told him I was going to Report Abuse (PSN) and I never heard another word out of him.

18

I get a lot of racist remarks LOL
and I can barely get to 2000 pp

19

just ignore + block
kids will be kids