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Gazilllion is just another developer that filters posters even if they have no violations
FrodoFragins
Member EpicPosts: 5,903
I've played by their forum rules since the beginning. I haven't gotten a single warning, let alone an infraction. I'm actually about 50/50 in terms of criticisms and compliments for the game.
I have yet to see a forum community improved by heavy handed hiding of posters, simply because the moderators or devs (hello Doomsaw) don't like their POV. They let you think your posts are visible, but a simple logout or proxy check reveals that they are secretly hiding your posts from the community (except for others in your same situation).
It's a fun little game that has improved a lot. But Gazillion is just as bad as any other developer that tries to only paint a positive picture of their game on the forum. They also don't even abide by their own rules when it comes to forum policing.
They don't even have the decency to admit what they're doing. All in all it's rather questionable to me. It's much better to just warn or infract posters in an upfront manner rather than to do what they do. I'm 100% positive it has to do with people that question their pricing policies.
I'm far from a hater of the game as I've played over 750 hours. For me, it's the best ARPG out there right now. But that doesn't mean that I have to agree with every financial or game design priority they come up with.
I'll keep playing their game, atleast until they figure out a way to isolate my playtime from the community. But that would be a bit much as I barely say anything while playing. But I'm not overly inclined to buy G's to get the costumes I want, which was what I was planning on doing.
Comments
no ban. Next time at least read a post before adding a troll responses.
I'm not the first to report it and I won't be the last. It's the kind of stuff you see from Derek Smart or the LOTRO community manager.
I don't expect much from Doomsaw given his public discourse, but Brevik shouldn't be supporting such practices. I expect it from 3rd rate developers but not one led by Brevik. Maybe that's one of the reasons why Rockjaw bailed on them.
I very much doubt Brevik pays attention to the way the forums are run. If you're going to complain about someone, complain about the mods or Rylonir. You can PM Rylonir on the forums to try and see what he says about it.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
Dude... remind me what the problem is, again... please?!?
Im not judging but you retorted on something I myself was curious over... Did you get banned?
You say you agree and support the dev but somehow can prove that they are hiding forum posts from the public...
I think that is brilliant!!!
Too many times people forget that teenagers read forums and observe chat that is just plain inappropriate on many levels. Yada Yada ESRB blah blah parental .... Teens are unstoppable!!! They will sneak into adult themes and for whatever reason, who cares, they get exposed to garbage that people put out in their moments of rage, ignorance or disgust.
GOOD JOB GAZILLION!!! I dont like anything they make, but thats my own experience (yours may vary).
I just wish more devs would censor character names... it's so out of control!
He's stating that, while the negative posts he's made appear to be visible to him, they're being hidden by the site moderation from being seen by anybody else.
I hold the devs and mod staff for Gazillion in pretty high regard myself. In fact, I've pointed this out to Blizzard on the D3 forums as something they really need to take after, as community interactivity and events is one area where they sorely lag behind their current competition (PoE and MH).
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
This would be my guess too. At the very least there's probably a threshold of 20 or 40 dislikes, that flags a post for a moderator to look at, and maybe it gets hidden manually from there.
I would be interested in seeing some of your hidden posts too; the forum atmosphere is very positive in general on the official boards, the staff regularly engage for suggestions and feedback, and you can actually post images directly in threads.
It's perfectly fine if people don't believe me. I could screenshot what I see and what you see if I'm not logged in. But it's not worth it. I'll let the next person it happens to respond.
The first time it happened I contacted Ryolnir and he said he didn't know who had changed that setting on my account and he reversed it.
Then about two weeks ago I saw that one of their agents, I won't name them because they are obviously just following orders, had responded to my posts, but what really happened is that they hid my posts. There was nothing trolling or inflamatory. I simply stated that the splinter prices of team ups were too high. I messaged Ryolnir and that agent about it and they ignored me. I then followed up a week later and no response. After a few more days I added Doomsaw to the chain and said that what they were doing was cowardly and pathetic.
The first time I ever heard of such filtering was with Sapience of the LOTRO forums sending forum posters to coventry or some similar phrase. It basically meant that they had no reason to ban them and felt that hiding their posts was their only resolution.
A few days ago a post appeared that said if you can read this post then you are a ghost like me. I responded to it and verified that my response didn't show up to others. It's easy to do if you log out or use a proxy. I then verified my other posts were hidden.
If that's how they want to handle it so be it. But to me that's cowardly and sleezy behavior. It's not too much to ask for them to cite me. I've occasionally been banned from forums, even this one. I'll return and support them if they are at least up front about it. The way Doomsaw has Ryolnir running the forums is simply not something I'll support. And it makes me question whether I should spend money on their game anymore, even though I enjoy it.
Accepting the consequences of bad forum behavior is fine. But when the moderators have no respect for you and want to punish you by secretly hiding your posts rather than banning you, then it's a different story.
I'm not really mad, but I can't just let crap like this slide without at least warning others who may wonder why no one responds to their posts.
This started happening with LOTRO when their financials were heading downward. Don't be surprised if Gazillion is trying to paint a rosy picture to hopefully boost the sales of team ups and such.
No. Every post I make now is hidden. And yet I have no infractions and no bars around my avatar as others that have been punished do.
Ryolnir refuses to respond to it and I have thus given up on their forum. I used to update my sig ther every few days with my progress but no more.
Hi Frodo,
I replied to your Reddit thread as well.
The automute feature is a very useful safeguard built into the Vanilla forums.
You haven't done anything that violates the code of conduct, but the number of reports you receive is very high, hence temporary muting while mods investigate.
I think it's likely because of the tone of the posts, more than the content.
People are allowed and encouraged to say whatever they want, as long as they are cool about it, so you never have to worry about criticism in posts, just be aware that if readers perceive you as rude / abusive / whatever, the number of reports will trigger a mute flag.
Vanilla is improving their system so people will get notified of this automatically in the future.
Take care.
well that answers that.. you can remove your tin foil hat now
Edit - but not online that but i mean if you're getting banned here and there on forums and getting infractions etc... maybe you need chill out a little and be a bit more respectful or something, like there is no reason to act in a manner that warrants infractions and banning in the first place.. just sayin
Great, I guessed correctly and can now swagger about on the internet with an over-inflated sense of superiority for a few days!
#DYEL
Did you not read the part where it's the forum posters who get you banned? In other words, white knights have the power to get any and all critics banned.
He also didn't address the fact that their mods never took the time to tell that to myself or others when we sent private tells. It was never a goal to go public over this, the lack of any response to the cause of being hidden was what caused it.
I think you are ignoring the problems their system presents.
The same thing happened to me. I went through that for two weeks. I used multiple accounts to see what was happening. I finally tracked it down and used a secondary account to post asking the questions. I got a mod reply to send him the info. They had it 'fixed' within 24 hours and my posts now appear. This was probably a month or two ago. I'd suggest you document it with screen shots and then send a community manager/mod a PM.
Wow I'm silenced again too OP. I just checked the forums after my last post and found that I am indeed invisible silenced again. Now I see Doomsaw is telling us it is indeed a feature, and its controlled by other players? So someone can be saying things that are perfectly fine, not against tos, and if another player doesn't like it they can flag you and you get silenced. No notification goes to your account, you did nothing wrong, other than have people disagree with you. Wow, just wow.
***I edited this post because I PM'd Ryolnir on their forums and he fixed my status. He is looking into why it happened. Its 2am west coast , where Gazillion is, and he fixed it. He deserved credit for going above and beyond there and thought I should mention that without a doubt. He agreed they need to get the invisible/limbo/ghost issue fixed asap or at the least make sure the user gets notified.***
It takes more than 1 person to get you silenced while pending review, but I agree that the threshold should be bumped to prevent people from just making a bunch of accounts to squelch someone they don't like, or limit how many times one person counts towards squelching.
It's a system with merits and flaws; I think players should be able to somewhat police themselves, but a single guild or group of friends shouldn't have the collective power of a mod. At the moment, it doesn't censor a large group though.
My question is : Why do you care?
It's other forum users making your posts invisible because you're likely being negative or just annoying. I've had multiple posts on this site deleted by mods(not other forum users) and each time I can see why. If you're willing to try to smear a company because of an automated forum policing system that you don't understand, I can't imagine the posts you were trying to make in the first place.
Except so far I haven't seen an example of where it's gone wrong for gazillion yet.
Doomsaw admitted on the reddit post that their system needs to be reworked and that it catches people who it shouldn't.
All it takes is a handful of people who don't like you to permanently silence you. It can't be that difficult to see the problem with non moderators determining your fate on a forum.
seems like a pretty solid system tbh.. it's up to the mods after that to filter out what's a severe case of fan boyism and what's justified really. with properly employed mods i think it could be a very good solution.
I had fun once, it was terrible.
The idea is a decent idea, the practice however is horribly implemented. Sometimes you go weeks on invis ban just waiting in a backlog of the one or two guys they have trying to sort through them. Giving players some chance at community "self moderating" could be great, but then you have to remember the internet is a cesspool and people on a whole on the internet will do everything they can do abuse and break it. I've been "invis'd" twice now and I don't know for when or how long. Is it right that I or others have given them a heap of money, yet other players (not the company I give money to) decide whether I should be allowed to have voice on the company forums?
Both times a quick PM to a mod got me an apology, told it shouldn't have happened, and bam I'm back to full privileges. That tells me a few things. First that their system is so easily abused that more than likely a few disagrees or flags are enough to get you muted. Think for a second what that entails. Even if all it takes is for a dozen people to disagree with you to get you muted, is that right? Second, either they don't have enough mods sorting through these temp mute bans, or even worse the mods don't get notified when it happens either. The player it happens to doesn't get notified, would it be so impossible to believe that maybe the mods don't either? Thats a scary thought.