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Injustice on the Fields of Justice

guns irl·11/30/2014, 4:51:58 PM·1 votes·811 views

Last week I was alerted via e-mail that I had my S4 awards taken away due to "sexist, homophobic, or racist" in game chat. Well I don't even care about the rewards, it was just for silver anyways, but what I do care about is I don't use any racist, homophobic, or sexist communication in game. Actually I am glad Riot is cracking down on that, because the ignorance of this community is ever so present at the MMR I play at. There is, however, a much large injustice at hand that Riot fails to recognize and even promotes, and that is the use of disabilities as slanderous communication. Sure, you can call people r%%%%%s, autistic, or say other summoners have downs all day and not get punished. It is even promoted by Riot because they fail to include those terms in their already Nazi-like mature language filter. Is this the community Riot wants? Sure, I would say that after starting this game last season and having to work my way from B5 to S3. I have seen the whole gamut and witnessed the depravity of trying to promote an acceptable community in this game.

Riot's priorities are all wrong. They promote a lower class system where you can AFK, intentionally feed, be massively unskilled, and just turn around and queue up and do it all over again; trust me, ELO hell is alive and real. But try to tell someone they are any of those things and you get banned, like I did, for "sexist, homophobic, or racist" comments, even when you don't make them. I guess I should just start calling everyone "r%%%%%s" since that is OK in Riot's eyes, but I digress because unlike Riot I do not pander to the lowest common denominator which in this case is ignorant yet easily offended immature people.

I will tell you a little bit about who I am. I am an adult, I am married (to a woman, despite the bronze/silver community repeatedly calling me a %%%%%%), and I have obviously made some right decisions in my life because I work for a large, well-respected company and earn a very suitable income. When I first started playing League, I decided that I would spend money to buy RP not because I felt like I needed to own a bunch of champs, but because I realize that free-to-play games don't operate for free and I felt my money would go to the development of a better product and community. I now realize that my money has been wasted. I spent probably close to $200 in a year to sponsor those who refuse to pay. Those who have invested nothing, so there is no repercussions to their intentional feeding, for their afking, and no incentive to get better. Everyone wants a good return on their money, but if you spend none, then a few immature laughs as you run down mid for 20 minutes going 0/30/0 is good enough. I recently discussed this with one of my friends, and he said they won't listen to you, you are just a number. Well, he is probably right, but if they can't hear my voice then they will feel my effect because as of now I am not spending a dime on League of Legends until Riot uses my money to actually do something to better this game. Instead they have only used my money to dedicate resources to harassing people like me who are just trying their best to move up through the ladder.

When Riot's AFK system proves to be successful, when Riot starts banning ignorant people who use the words "r%%%%%, autistic, and downs" in a negative manner, and when Riot stops harassing people like me who get punished for using strong language to someone with sensitive feelings who didn't have the foresight to leave the language filter on, or didn't have the ingenuity to mute me if I was coming on too strong, then I will resume paying money to support this product again. If none of this happens, I hope more paid users like me get fed up on what they are getting for their money, do like I do, and let League of Legends suffer the tragedy of the commons as those who have invested nothing in the product deteriorate the experience of every new and potential paying customer that enters the Fields of Injustice.

1 Comments

OhBoyItsaMegaman11/30/2014, 6:45:09 PM2 votes

If you are confused about what you got banned for, then send in a support ticket asking for the chat logs, and then you can post them here to get some feedback. But I suspect that you already have a good idea of why you got banned.

People do get banned for "sexist, homophobic, or racist" remarks. Many of the 2-week bans and Ranked Rewards removals come with an explanation that you were banned for "extreme harassment which includes but is not limited to sexism, homophobia, racism and other forms of hateful speech." Is not limited to. Meaning, there are other kinds of extreme harassment that are none of those things. Using autism, Down syndrome, or mental retardation as insults to demean someone are indeed examples of extreme harassment. I'm sure you understand that the people you encounter who say those things can get banned/restricted if you report them. But that doesn't mean that you are not guilty.

Without resorting to racial slurs or even mildly inappropriate language, you can be reported for harassment. Consider the following statements:

"Vi, you are a terrible jungler and a terrible teammate. We are going to lose and it is completely your fault. I sincerely hope that I never see you in game again, and in my opinion people who are as bad as you should not be allowed to play ranked at all."

That's harassment. There's no homophobia or sexism, no death threats, not even a PG swear word. Yet it's still harassment. It's harassment even if all of the criticisms were warranted. Even if it was a 0/11/0 who got executed twice before hitting level 3, even if they never upgraded the machete, even if they were incredibly rude and blamed the team the whole game. The rules forbid you from using the pre-game, in-game, or post-game chat to demean others. If you don't like what they're doing, say nothing. If you don't like what they're saying, mute them. But you must understand that you'll be rightfully punished if you harass them.

And if you choose to stop playing or stop buying rather than clean up your act, Riot Games will be just fine without you.