News Support update - Reiteration of player harassment rules

[DaylightM]

Hi everyone,

In light of recent issues relating to the way a small collective of players have been approaching and targeting specific private groups and other community events such as charity livestreams, we wanted to reinforce an important part of the existing rules regarding in-game harassment that every player agrees to when creating their account.

We wanted to reiterate some examples regarding the rules of Player harassment. If a player has been blocked from a private group, or a group/individual has taken every step possible to remove a player from their gameplay, then attempting to circumvent this in any fashion is a serious offense and action will be taken accordingly. Attempting to re-establish contact with an individual who has blocked a player through secondary accounts or other methods of attempting to evade the block are against the rules. Action can and will be taken against both the accounts in question and the main accounts of players that we deem to be harassing players through this method.

In addition taking action such as seeking out and targeting specific players purely for the purpose of being disruptive, to cause offence, or to upset players within the community can also be considered harassment. A perfect example of this is deliberately attempting to disrupt public livestreams such as the charity ones mentioned before. This includes, but is not limited to, the capturing of footage and releasing it publically in an attempt to create upset or gain notoriety through the actions listed above.

We have previously stated, and it remains true, that Frontier are not able to manage group specific rules. Players considered to be breaking these group rule sets as established by group moderators should be removed from those groups by said moderators. In addition, running a livestream in Open does invite the potential for players to approach and impact your gameplay and running a livestream in which you are declaring war on another group and they come and take action against you is reasonable and should be expected.

Ultimately it’s about context. The support team can and will review these kinds of offences and will be taking action against accounts that set their entire purpose on harassing players and groups in this way. They are currently investigating a number of incidents and will be dealing directly with any parties involved.

The Frontier Support team take the protection and safety of the community very seriously, they strive to ensure that the game remains fair and friendly. If you feel the need to report an incident, please do get in contact with support via our support site at https://support.frontier.co.uk - please include as much detail of the event as possible.

You can see a copy of the rules that everyone signs up to by creating an account, including harassment, here:
https://www.frontierstore.net/ed-eula/

Thanks for reading.

Many thanks for the clarification

 

[Aigaion]

Because....it is harassment? by any standard I know, and not allowed?

There are so many possible in game reasons that make for perfect fine killing of people, however yes, most of them do require some sort of interaction with others.....which you'd think is why people play in open.
So yeah, the play methods described in EULA/TOS are not allowed, removing a very select few playstyles, but still allowing a ton of others....?

Okay then, in this case, I'm just gonna open tickets each time I get streamsniped because I am a pirate.

Oh wait, Zac said deal with it... Positive harassment, negative harassment, all a question of point of view, and now we know FDev's POV.

 

[Chance-]

Action can and will be taken against both the accounts in question and the main accounts of players that we deem to be harassing players through this method.

Let's be real for a second here, you guys don't even ban hackers or combat loggers with video evidence so I don't see you doing anything against people making alt accounts to "be disruptive". It's easy to say what people want to hear but when you start backing it up then it might be taken seriously.

 

[Roybe]

A few questions:

How can a group owner identify secondary accounts? If they can't, then how do they report the problem of the same person bothering the players in their group? Is the best course of action at this point to report all rule breakers to Support for their activities and hope support can sort out the ownership of accounts?


Stream sniping will 'have action taken' against it? Does this include a ban from repurchasing the game? Does it include shutting down all other accounts owned by the same person? Shadowbans?

I certainly support the stance Zac. There really seems to be nothing that will be able to be done about stopping the problems, short of some of the suggestions that would derail this thread. I wish you, and Support, a lot of luck with this...I hope it keeps the problems to a minimum.

 

[Aigaion]

Let's be real for a second here, you guys don't even ban hackers or combat loggers with video evidence so I don't see you doing anything against people making alt accounts to "be disruptive". It's easy to say what people want to hear but when you start backing it up then it might be taken seriously.

 

[xondk]

Okay then, in this case, I'm just gonna open tickets each time I get streamsniped because I am a pirate.

Oh wait, Zac said deal with it... Positive harassment, negative harassment, all a question of point of view, and now we know FDev's POV.

Ok....I don't know how you read what he wrote.

We have previously stated, and it remains true, that Frontier are not able to manage group specific rules. Players considered to be breaking these group rule sets as established by group moderators should be removed from those groups by said moderators. In addition, running a livestream in Open does invite the potential for players to approach and impact your gameplay and running a livestream in which you are declaring war on another group and they come and take action against you is reasonable and should be expected.

Which...yeah, as a pirate you are, well a pirate, it would seem to fall under this, if you get stream snipped, namely that you kinda are asking for it by declaring your intentions openly?

 

[Aigaion]

Ok....I don't know how you read what he wrote.

Which...yeah, as a pirate you are, well a pirate, it would seem to fall under this, if you get stream snipped, namely that you kinda are asking for it by declaring your intentions openly?

It's what I just said, me being streamsniped because I am a pirate is considered as positive harassment, but if I try to attack people in game from any means necessary, it's negative harassment. You basically just admited it. Why would I be asking for it when I am streaming ? I do it to entertain, to share what I do, not to get attacked by salty people.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

To be honest this could be solved pretty easily by the 'game' fighting back.

If your out there causing trouble (ganking or otherwsie) and you get a massive bounty on your head then the next time people leave a space port they should be running for their lives. Personally I Have no issues with people playing the game and assuming the role of a bad guy, or just a mass murderer. But the game should be set up to deal with people like that.

Unfortunately the game currently doesn't work like that. Hopefully some day it will.

 

[Chance-]

This includes, but is not limited to, the capturing of footage and releasing it publically in an attempt to create upset or gain notoriety through the actions listed above.

You may also want to rethink your stance on this as this goes against the fair use act which can and very likely will result in legal action should you decide to do that.

 

[Roybe]

Ok....I don't know how you read what he wrote.

Which...yeah, as a pirate you are, well a pirate, it would seem to fall under this, if you get stream snipped, namely that you kinda are asking for it by declaring your intentions openly?

He could also Pirate in his own Private Group...unless he is Pirating in Open. It just seems to be making more and more sense for an Open PvE area...so that any interactions in the Open PvP can be differentiated from.

 

[xondk]

Let's be real for a second here, you guys don't even ban hackers or combat loggers with video evidence so I don't see you doing anything against people making alt accounts to "be disruptive". It's easy to say what people want to hear but when you start backing it up then it might be taken seriously.

How do you know this? I've seen and heard precious little about hackers being an issue, and as for combat logging again how do you know nothing is done? do you keep running into said people that did the combat logging after FD has had reasonable time to respond to a report? and are you expecting frontier to tell you "We have banned that person"? because that's generally not how it works.

A few questions:

How can a group owner identify secondary accounts? If they can't, then how do they report the problem of the same person bothering the players in their group? Is the best course of action at this point to report all rule breakers to Support for their activities and hope support can sort out the ownership of accounts?


Stream sniping will close a single account. Does this include a ban from repurchasing the game? Does it include shutting down all other accounts owned by the same person?

I certainly support the stance Zac. There really seems to be nothing that will be able to be done about stopping the problems, short of some of the suggestions that would derail this thread. I wish you, and Support, a lot of luck with this...I hope it keeps the problems to a minimum.

Identification would be fairly easy done by ip's? that people have played through?

I don't believe anything was said about closing account, I am fairly sure the common method is shadowbanning, allowing people to keep playing the game they bought, but disallowing them interaction with other people? I've seen people write about the issue so shadowbanning clearly does exist?

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He could also Pirate in his own Private Group...unless he is Pirating in Open. It just seems to be making more and more sense for an Open PvE area...so that any interactions in the Open PvP can be differentiated from.

I suppose, but if that is the case, someone joining his private group to attack him, is fairly well covered, and should result in them being booted from group?
But in this case I believe it is referred generally to open.

 

[Chance-]

How do you know this? I've seen and heard precious little about hackers being an issue, and as for combat logging again how do you know nothing is done? do you keep running into said people that did the combat logging after FD has had reasonable time to respond to a report? and are you expecting frontier to tell you "We have banned that person"? because that's generally not how it works.

There have been multiple instances where players have admitted to hacking and continue to taunt the players that they hacked against boasting that they weren't banned. Go on reddit for that.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

You may also want to rethink your stance on this as this goes against the fair use act which can and very likely will result in legal action should you decide to do that.

Costly and unsuccessful legal action, perhaps.

"Your Honour, we provide a service based on some rules which we recently clarified. The defendant breached those rules, was warned and breached them again. We exercised our right to refuse service..."

"Case dismissed"

 

[Jypson]

You may also want to rethink your stance on this as this goes against the fair use act which can and very likely will result in legal action should you decide to do that.

>

 

[Chance-]

Costly and unsuccessful legal action, perhaps.

"Your Honour, we provide a service based on some rules which we recently clarified. The defendant breached those rules, was warned and breached them again. We exercised our right to refuse service..."

"Case dismissed"

You clearly have no legal experience. They can not pick and choose what content is put up and remove any content that goes against what they think. That goes against both US and UK law.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

You clearly have no legal experience. They can not pick and choose what content is put up and remove any content that goes against what they think. That goes against both US and UK law.

They are not talking about removing content uploaded by others. They are talking about taking action against players who have broken what FD have laid down as being acceptable rules of play. The video will stay up... the player's though might find themselves censured in some way for their actions, such as being barred from playing in private groups, or sent to the shadowban server, or some other punishment.

 

[Thetele]

You clearly have no legal experience. They can not pick and choose what content is put up and remove any content that goes against what they think. That goes against both US and UK law.

They don´t remove the video, they just ban their game account that was used to do it.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

You clearly have no legal experience. They can not pick and choose what content is put up and remove any content that goes against what they think. That goes against both US and UK law.

They aren't removing the content, they are removing the player.

I've watched every episode of the Rockford Files, that must count for something.

Edited to remove needless inflammatory jibe.

 

[bitstorm]

You clearly have no legal experience. They can not pick and choose what content is put up and remove any content that goes against what they think. That goes against both US and UK law.

Frontier are not talking about removing content because it's copyright, they're talking about banning users for harassment.

edit: x4

 

[Chance-]

They are not talking about removing content uploaded by others. They are talking about taking action against players who have broken what FD have laid down as being acceptable rules of play. The video will stay up... the player's though might find themselves censured in some way for their actions, such as being barred from playing in private groups, or sent to the shadowban server, or some other punishment.

Ahh I see. A dangerous policy to put in place.