Please report harassment and bullying in game - it's AGAINST the EULA

[rootsrat]

While Elite PR blurb clearly states that hunting other Commanders is perfectly legit and part of the game (and I personally fully agree with that), the ED EULA also clearly states that: (highlights mine)

7.3 Communication and interaction with other users
7.3.1 The Game and/or Online Features may allow communications between users by means including but not limited to text and voice. When using such features you must use common sense and good manners, your behaviour, conduct and communications must be considerate to other users and you must not be directly or indirectly offensive, threatening, harassing or bullying to others or violate any applicable laws including but not limited to anti-discrimination legislation based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

Now, this is obviously open to interpretation and it's solely Frontier's task to assess whether a player was harassed or not, but I would encourage all players to use the in game Report Player function and report all the instances of harassment and bullying in Elite. Again, this is all open to interpretation. What is or isn't harassment and bullying is up to Frontier to decide, on an individual basis.

So, don't Combat Log, as that IS an exploit and clearly against the rules. You can get banned for that. Swallow the bitter pill, let your ship be destroyed and - if you feel you were bullied - report the offender.

And just to give you my personal opinion - I don't think that killing another player without any reason is harassment or bullying. In my opinion it's legit. Definitely not against the rules. But it all depends on the circumstances. If someone kills me "for the lolz" - fine. I accept this is the risk of playing in Open. If they do it again. I can swallow that. But if they continuously keep killing me for no reason - that becomes bullying to me and I would then personally report that player for breaking EULA.

I really miss good old piracy, as opposed to mindless killing of unarmed ships...

And for the record - I don't feel that I was ever harassed in Elite. 99% of my game time is in Open and I was genuinely pirated (give me your cargo!) once. And I was attacked for no reason maybe 4 times or so... But the offenders never attacked me more than once or twice.


::EDIT::

Adding this to further clarify my point:

Like I said in the OP - it all depends on a context.

If an imperial aligned group announces a blockade of a system where Federal CG is held, and a Federal player continuously attempts to break through, but gets killed all the time - that's not harassment to me. Imps have a genuine reason to stop that CG from succeeding. It's the Federal player's fault for trying to break through, even though clear signs the system is blocked by the Imps.

If a group of players known as, let's say, "Smug Daisy Calipers", camps a player starter systems, repeatedly killing the same Commander in a Sidewinder, using their engineered Corvettes - that is harassment to me.

If a single Commander chases me across the galaxy, because I messed up with his faction's BGS - fine, he's got a reason.

If the same Commander uses a SLF to get the Shinrarta Dezhra station kill me by ramming my ship when I'm speeding - that is bullying to me.

Ultimately FDEV have provided us with the in-game option to report a misbehaving players. If they didn't want us to report others, they wouldn't implement it. If they thought the harassment and bullying are OK, they wouldm't have put that bit in the EULA.

(...)

This will also have another advantage - if harassment and bullying REALLY is a massive problem in game (which I honestly don't think is the case), the reports will highlight this as an issue to them and they MAY do something about it. Constant fighting over whether people should play in Solo or Open, begging to remove Solo, begging to ban griefers - those things already proven to not have any effect.

The downside is that there will be people that will report others simply for attacking them for no reason - (and attacking someone for no reason is perfectly fine in my eyes, as long as it's not continuous... you guessed - harassment). But hey, pros and cons, right? We tried forum wars - it didn't work. We (community as whole, and yes, I'm generalisng there, but only for the sake of simplicity) tried begging and asking - it didn't work. We tried Combat Logging - it didn't work. Maybe it's time to try something that is actually provided by FDEV to highlight problems like that in game?

 

[RagingxPenguin]

....really?

 

[TieKnee]

@raging Pen ... took the words right out of my mouth!

 

[rootsrat]

Please elaborate, I don't know what do you mean.

 

[lenna]

Interpretation for those that can not understand the sentiment of the OP:-

Essentially, if any given player thinks a particular PvPer or group of PvPers is behaving in a harassing or bullying manner (e.g. ganking/griefing with or without verbal/textual communication) rather than combat log report the given player(s) using the in-game tools. Then let FD decide if the given report was justified or not.

 

[jasonbarron]

Really, Rootsrat?

 

[sewerratuk]

Yeah everyone, please report every incident where someone made you feel bad ��
That way we can tie up all the dev time patting you on the back and saying 'there, there'

 

[Sir.Tj]

Let's keep both sides of the discussion constructive please.

 

[Jenner]

Yeah everyone, please report every incident where someone made you feel bad ��
That way we can tie up all the dev time patting you on the back and saying 'there, there'

That's not what rootsrat suggested at all.

 

[Sugarat]

Wow.. what is it with these mod posts lately..? If I didn't know better I'd think there was some kind of concerted effort to push an agenda..

 

[jasonbarron]

Wow.. what is it with these mod posts lately..? If I didn't know better I'd think there was some kind of concerted effort to push an agenda..

Made me laugh out loud, friend

 

[kpmop]

Wait, what?! Someone read the EULA?

 

[Grumpy jawa]

I forsee a lot of Npc bully reports...

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Okay?

I'm not sure where this thread goes. Outside of some sort of communication-related abuse, I can't think of anything that could be fairly considered harassment. Galaxy is a big place. Unless someone is following you around, it probably doesn't meet the minimum definition here. Someone or someones blockading a port or outpost or some such is a gameplay option and you running your head into that brick wall repeatedly isn't harassment; it's the expected result.

OP, do you have an example of a situation where you or someone was harassed in some way other than comms? If not, why did you make this thread?

 

[Littlerift]

Seems like an incredibly vaguely worded line designed solely to give FD the right to ban anybody, which is par for the course as far as EULAs go.

 

[Alec Turner]

The OP seems pretty reasonable to me. I think the main thing that those EULA terms are trying to target is deliberate persecution of one player by another (or group thereof).

For example, if a player decides (for whatever reason) to start a vendetta against you, deliberately and repeatedly tracking you down and attacking your ship, then I think that's definitely a reportable offence.

I've been insta-killed 5 or 6 times (in 2 solid years of play), either at key stations such as "Jameson Memorial" or else at known hotspots such as Barnacle sites or CGs. It's always been the same, notorious, one or two players (who I won't/can't name here but which IS definitely irritating), it's always unprovoked (other than me daring to turn up) but I don't think any of these constituted an infringement of the game's T&Cs (although I would personally call it "bullying" - if a kid roams the playground spoiling everyone's fun but not targetting any one person specifically, that still seems like bullying behaviour to me), there it is - suck it up and move on.

I would also add that even in cases such as the one described here ...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-a-forum-dad?p=4960555&viewfull=1#post4960555

... where the player was killed repeatedly, it didn't sound like deliberate persecution of that one player, the group involved were simply killing everyone and, as Heavenly Hammer puts it, he chose to repeatedly bang his head into that wall.

But I guess, as with bugs, the main point is that if you feel you've been affected by these issues then report it, move on and let FD decide the outcome.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Wow.. what is it with these mod posts lately..? If I didn't know better I'd think there was some kind of concerted effort to push an agenda..

For me rootstat is not showing as a mod any more.

EDIT: and nor is Robert Maynard and Jenner. But T.J. still shows as a mod. Is this a forum bug or have all the moderators resigned on the same day?

 

[Omega Fighter]

Theoretically......camping one system and killing same passing players( the ones you get instanced with) for months. Does this counts as harassing?

 

[Kyokushin]

And if someone stubbornly enter the system what is controlled by a Wing of players (they are playing blockade) and he is also dying over and over this is also not bullying.

 

[lenna]

Outside of some sort of communication-related abuse, I can't think of anything that could be fairly considered harassment.

Then you either do not understand harassment or fairness (or both).

The key point of the OP is essentially the same thing that I have been saying for ages - if you consider another player's in-game behaviours a form of harassment or bullying then report it. Such things are not restricted to verbal or textual communication, and in the context of a game like Elite KOS (Kill On Sight) behaviour with no legitimate in-game cause to do so could be construed as a form of harassment or bullying. A more specific example could be incidents like ganking on the Hutton Run where KOS gankers lay in wait say half way (or most of the way) there. Other examples could also include KOS near Engineer planets/bases. The overriding point of such incidents is that they appear to have very little genuine in-game reasons to engage in such activities.

In short there are plenty of real world cases of harassment which do not involve textual or verbal communication - the virtual world is little different - direct verbal or written communication is not a pre-requisite for an activity to be considered harassment.