Don't cuss. It's always innapropriate. You can use the next 7 days to think of more intelligent and creative ways to express your anger, or learn some new words.

Also you can't "report" a MMO because they banned you. I suppose you could go get a lawyer to laugh at you?

Well, to answer your question, you really can't report it.  I can almost guarantee it states in their Terms of Use (One of those big blocks of texts you "agree" to at the beginning of a game) that profanity is not allowed in the game, and you may be banned from the game for cursing.

Seven days does seem quite harsh, and I completely support your emailing them and trying to get that reduced.  The reality of the situation, though, is that they have every right to ban you for breaking their Terms of Use Policy, without refund.   They should want to keep your business, and might give you a break in order to keep it, but all in all, it's up to them.

Originally posted by Aemi

Don't cuss. It's always innapropriate. You can use the next 7 days to think of more intelligent and creative ways to express your anger, or learn some new words.

Gotta agree here, in the old days we'd kick people out of communities for continued rude behavior, as players not GMs. Maybe the 7 days is a bit much but when WoW is handing down 2 day bans for possibly having a key logger on your system DDO may be trying to make a point. As far as reporting an MMO, as always the only power we hold over these companies is our wallet, walk if it bothers you that much but I wouldn't expect a lot of veteran players, parents, aunts or uncles feeling sorry for you.

Check your terms of use, friend.  An MMO can, more or less, ban you for any reason they please.  It sucks, but hey, you agreed to it.

when I said it it wasn't in anger. No it does not say in its ToS that cussing is against the rules. In fact it has profanity filters. what's the point of having profanity filters if it isn't allowed? Then you'd just ban all profanity to begin with. 

However using it to offend someone such as using racial slurs and sexual harassment is.  . the s word is not. 

as far as banning for everything, they shouldn't be allowed to if we're PAYING them. you know what happens if you pay someone to babysit for you and they don't do it? You get the money back, you don't pay them for something they didn't do so why should I be paying them for a game I can't play?

and as far as report I didn't mean like take them to some business ethics corporation I just meant if people know of how you report it to higher ups instead of just those email people cause that's all that happens.

Originally posted by Aemi

Don't cuss. It's always innapropriate. You can use the next 7 days to think of more intelligent and creative ways to express your anger, or learn some new words.

Also you can't "report" a MMO because they banned you. I suppose you could go get a lawyer to laugh at you?

Best burn of 2009!!!!!! Thank you.  I lol'ed and am now off to bed. 

1. While participating in Dungeons & Dragons Online, you must respect the rights of others to play and enjoy the game world as intended by Turbine, Inc.
2. You may not communicate any player’s real-world information through the use of the official game Web portal, game client or any other means.
3. You may not use or distribute sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language (including, by way of example, but not limited to, ethnic slurs and religious epithets), content, character names, titles, descriptions, or in-game labels (including, by way of example, but not limited to, offensive or inappropriate guild names, pet names and inscriptions). You may not distribute or spotlight sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive content.
4. While playing the game or participating in the Dungeons & Dragons Online service, you may not exhibit or partake in generally disruptive behavior causing grief or alarm to other players or degrade the Dungeons & Dragons Online service performance or other players’ client software (for example, deliberately using game bugs or loopholes to disrupt the game).
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nothing about profanity

Originally posted by Cyraneternal

 

 

3. You may not use or distribute sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language (including, by way of example, but not limited to, ethnic slurs and religious epithets), content, character names, titles, descriptions, or in-game labels (including, by way of example, but not limited to, offensive or inappropriate guild names, pet names and inscriptions). You may not distribute or spotlight sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive content.

 

nothing about profanity

I guess it's included in #3, cussing is usually referred to as obscene language.

3. You may not use or distribute sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language (including, by way of example, but not limited to, ethnic slurs and religious epithets), content, character names, titles, descriptions, or in-game labels (including, by way of example, but not limited to, offensive or inappropriate guild names, pet names and inscriptions). You may not distribute or spotlight sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive content.

--Didn't you understand that?

Originally posted by Cyraneternal

 

 

as far as banning for everything, they shouldn't be allowed to if we're PAYING them. you know what happens if you pay someone to babysit for you and they don't do it? You get the money back, you don't pay them for something they didn't do so why should I be paying them for a game I can't play?

If you have been banned in two different games that says something about your behaviour in-game, please take a moment to think about that.

Bans are there mainly to protect the other gamers' gaming experience. And they also play for the game. Profanity filters or not, rules are rules - and read better that ToS and you will surely find that rule in there.

Edit: as seen in the previous posts, it was not that hard to find the rule...

Thanks for posting, here's what you are missing.

3. You may not use or distribute sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive language (including, by way of example, but not limited to, ethnic slurs and religious epithets), content, character names, titles, descriptions, or in-game labels (including, by way of example, but not limited to, offensive or inappropriate guild names, pet names and inscriptions). You may not distribute or spotlight sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive content.

See, that's where you went wrong.  I realize now days the "S" word is popping up everywhere, even on network Television but there's still a segment of the population that views this word as obscene.

Ask yourself this, would you say the word in front of your pastor, your boss, your grandmother, or to the President of the US?  if the answer is no, then the word is obscene.  More importantly, even if you would say it in front of these folks, is it generally accepteable to the bulk of the general population. Again, if not, then its probably obscene and you should refrain.

Obscentity filters are an odd duck, but since they can be circumvented most games take the position of asking players to control their language.

It really isn't that hard btw.

edit:: whoops, forgot your orginal question.  No, you can't report them anywhere, all you can do is refuse to pay them for another month.

sexually explicit - only if it's scat

, harmful- only after eating a lot of mexican food

, threatening- dunno when it is,

abusive- I don't think I can make it abusive

, defamatory- unless someone's name is the same, but that'd be really bad and still not associated

obscene- if saying "I don't want that ___" is too obscene I'm sorry. There's still a PROFANITY FILTER. If you're not allowed to say any cuss words why is it THERE? Trying to bait us to break the rules? Besides Obscene is opinionative. now if I had chosen to be descriptive about the nature of the word as its literal object meaning rather than metaphor then yeah, that could be obscene. This is the closest rule to it, but does NOT limit its use.

hateful- errr, it can be, but it wasn't

racially or ethnically offensive language- Errrr, unless we breed a new race then I don't know how it's inferred to this category.

You may not distribute or spotlight sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive content.- If wer'e talking about websites or describing situations we've seen it still wasn't done.

actually the reason I was banned the first time was cause in the report someone said I was spamming STFU to them on different characters. They banned me for two days to review as they said the claim said ____ bag said. Once they found out I didn't do what was claimed they refunded me the time off, and then later I ended up getting the other guy the temporary ban.

(since a lot of people like reading stories, why after I got the guy banned is cause he did the exact same thing he claimed I did to me. Except he didn't just spam hoodeeenee on each character I blocked but also claimed that I sucked at the game so much that any of his characters could beat me, etc. real e-hotshot threats ya know? So I reported it after getting the 10th character change from him.

Originally posted by Cyraneternal

 

 

sexually explicit - only if it's scat

, harmful- only after eating a lot of mexican food

, threatening- dunno when it is,

abusive- I don't think I can make it abusive

, defamatory- unless someone's name is the same, but that'd be really bad and still not associated

obscene- if saying "I don't want that ___" is too obscene I'm sorry. There's still a PROFANITY FILTER. If you're not allowed to say any cuss words why is it THERE? Trying to bait us to break the rules? Besides Obscene is opinionative. now if I had chosen to be descriptive about the nature of the word as its literal object meaning rather than metaphor then yeah, that could be obscene. This is the closest rule to it, but does NOT limit its use.

hateful- errr, it can be, but it wasn't

racially or ethnically offensive language- Errrr, unless we breed a new race then I don't know how it's inferred to this category.

You may not distribute or spotlight sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive content.- If wer'e talking about websites or describing situations we've seen it still wasn't done.

Rules are rules, sometimes you have to accept things you find acceptable others do not.

Originally posted by Cyraneternal

 

as far as banning for everything, they shouldn't be allowed to if we're PAYING them. you know what happens if you pay someone to babysit for you and they don't do it? You get the money back, you don't pay them for something they didn't do so why should I be paying them for a game I can't play?

Soon after I moved to EQ from UO there was a point where I realized the biggest difference between the two was not the graphic style but the GMs style. UO GMs were there to help us build our game in what was essentially their world, EQ GMs were there to make sure we played their game in their world and this has been how most companies continue today. Bottom line you are paying to be allowed to play in their world as are other paying customers of an unknown age. If your babysitter brought in a friend who taught your kids things you would never want them to know when they are of that age then you would not pay the babysitter, you are the friend, the GMs are the babysitters. This is not new.

Originally posted by Cyraneternal

 

I know this might not be the right place but felt like trying anyhow.

 

So I recently started playing DDO. Just a few days ago I paid to upgrade it to VIP ($15.00) and earlier in general chat I said the s word amongst other words that are considered of lesser severity. Without warning I'm slapped with a 7 day ban.

 

Now, I left them an email and they have yet to respond but if they don't either refund me the money or unban me I'm wondering what measures could be taken. I AM paying for this so I'd like to be able to play the game

 

I would also like that moderators learned some common sense. You have a profanity filter there for a reason. I dealt with this before from WoW where I got banned for 2 days for saying stfu because the f stood for a curse word and it was harassing someone (I said it in response to someone spamming hoodeeeeneeee over and over) but again, why profanity is banned when it's OPTIONAL to look at is beyond me. and seriously, 7 days ban?

 

 

It's hard to tell what has happened. I can't imagine that you got banned for using one word. What was the rest of the conversation like?

Besides that. Dunno that you can do much besides trying to contact customer support and try discuss matters again. Or just wait that 7 days.

Originally posted by Cyraneternal

and as far as report I didn't mean like take them to some business ethics corporation I just meant if people know of how you report it to higher ups instead of just those email people cause that's all that happens.

Stop whining and take your ban like a man.  Act a little more like a mature person and it won't happen again.  Enjoy your 7 days of R&R.

You keep asking why there is a profanity filter.  It's because the company knows they have outlawed profanity, and they also know that people are still going to use it.  So they make a filter so people don't have to see it, and they ban those who continue to use it.

To answer your question you can report them to the BBB (Better Business Bureau) if they did something serious or shady (and are based in the US or Canada); however you did violate the TOS.  You only paid $15 and got a 7 day ban, frankly it's not that big a deal.  Choke it up and watch your language next time.  If you see someone spamming the chat and it's really bothering you, you should report them.  I agree bans can be unreasonable at times and difficult to dispute.  I know someone who got banned for a day for saying the word "Jew" in a non-derogatory sentence and apparently someone decided to report him as a joke.