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Reporting users on OCTGN

#1

Now that I’ve been playing on OCTGN rather than just in-person, I find that more people have bad sportsmanship. OCTGN doesn’t have a reporting feature for people who ragequit, insult other players, or even try to cheat. It would be good to keep track of bad sportsmanship to improve player and game quality, but what is the best way of doing so?

I posted a recent (mild) example of bad sportsmanship on BGG:

In that thread, someone linked to the OCTGN “Wall of Shame”, but it only has 3 entries and isn’t commonly used:

What is the best solution?

#2

When I played DOTA in undergrad (when it was still a warcraft 3 mod…old school represent) there was no formal system for tracking negative players. There was a community where poor player interactions got posted, but it was up to individuals to enforce it themselves. Eventually someone made a script that you could run with a text file of usernames.

It worked moderately well. Of course, in OCTGN you can just create a new username on a whim, right? That seems problematic.

(Off topic) On subject of cheating: I really don’t understand why people would do this. What do you gain by cheating? Does winning a game through cheating even feel satisfactory? If anything, I would think the opposite would be true…I like it when my opponents are hard to beat, that’s the only time I feel like I’m learning anything or getting better.

#3

I keep my own google doc shame list, but honestly can’t be bothered to cross-reference it every time someone joins an open game. Some people are lame and such is the price of OCTGN.

#5

You can rclick a username in the octgn chatroom and select to ignore the user. It’s very much like how you can add friends. Well, that’s where I keep my short list of people I’ve encountered who I’d rather not play with again.

#6

But I think games they create are still shown, and they can still enter your games( I never bother checking my reported user list so I don’t know for sure)

#7

EDIT: Read the full BGG thread, I agree with them, there was no BM here. Your ‘lol’ was misinterpreted as rude, the ‘insult’ was the tamest thing ever, and ‘gg hacker’ could be considered more of a ragey meme at this point in the life of the internet.

And that DOTA script was exploitable my so many asshats. I was banned from the few games people ran with that blacklist because I killed the host when I played Ursa with Lothar’s Edge many times during the game. I hardly typed
more than ‘gg’.

The only way to have moderation in OCTGN is to have a dedicated report person. Scripted or trusting report tools just end up getting exploited by the BM players themselves or trivial things like saying I vote conservative or democrat.

I personally have never met a rude person on OCTGN in the ~25 games I’ve played with strangers, but I am prepared for it every game. It’s the internet, after all. And the design of OCTGN is unfortunately designed to trust the community and I see no cost-free way to enforce good sportsmanship.

If it all goes to shit we just migrate to Jinteki.net

#8

That’s sad to hear. I always wondered if that ever happened. I never had issues because we always had 5 for a team, either when we lived in the dorms or when we were having those post-drinking recovery days and LANed it up in the apartments.

I imagine the same problems would arise in this case.

#9

Yep you can still join their games and they can join yours. you’d have to look at your list the same as everywhere else but I’m not certain if you’ll see anything they type or not. I know in my own game lobby I won’t actually start until the person tells me hi back.

#10

Which is why I included the caveat before the link:

I was never arguing that this was a serious offence that must be acted upon, just trying to add to collective knowledge to improve play experience.

#11

You aren’t helping improve play experience @Zebadiah because between this post and the other you made with an OCTGN screenshot, all you’ve proven is you have no clue what bad manners or bad sportsmanship are.

So making a list for actual cheaters or something on OCTGN is welcome, you clearly aren’t the person to do it.

#12

I would say that insulting your opponent is bad manners–that’s what I was reporting.

It sounds like you disagree with reporting people for anything other than actual cheating, is that the case?

#13

If getting a ‘gg’ from your opponent is that important to you maybe stop Biotic Labouring Astroscripts.

#14

Let’s consider some different points of views here:

  1. No one likes a rude player. Everyone plays this game to keep an enjoyable air but sometimes you may encounter someone on a bad day and is just tilting against a type of deck. There is no remedy to this. Let them blow their steam and don’t passive aggressively berate them.

  2. Ok, so now there’s a list of BM players, what is that doing? Are we the karma police? Is getting your name on a list really threatening? What are you accomplishing by “warning” players of someone’s potential attitude? If someone is shitty, it’ll show not just with you, but with the community at large. There’s a reason we don’t see Axul in our Stimhack League. He may be uncomfortable competing in this environment after his past with the community, but it’s a known thing.

The best way to create an engaging community with positive vibes is just live it. Don’t make witch hunts out of it. We’re past the medieval era for a reason. Act in a civilized manner and let those who want to poison the well show themselves. We, as a community will show them the door. Until then, believe in positive intent and grant benefit of the doubt. It is the only way we’re going to make this the best possible community, and I have faith in you all.

#15

He wasn’t insulting you. If you think he was, you have thin skin. There is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, this isn’t even sniffing it. In the two screenshots I have seen you post, you seem to be the one with worse manners than your opponents.

Either way, @d1en has the right of it. Trouncing out players names for silly things like this is only going to make you look bad.

#16

Brilliant post. Forming a clique who decide what is and isn’t bad manners is not the way to go. Brilliant site btw.

#17

This x10.

If someone wants to call someone out for issues of serious harassment (say, racialized insults, threats of violence, or the like), I might not object. But creating a list of people you think are “rude” is just petty and, frankly, counterproductive.

#18

Instead of a rude people list, we should stay positive and resurrect the Gentleman’s Cup:

#19

By jove that’s exactly what I wear whilst partaking in some netrunner.

#20

I need that cup now for evening tea.