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Check out the v.255 - The Dark Ride: Ride or DIe Patch Notes
here!
On/Off Toggle For Profanity Filter
So I don't know if this has been brought up in these new forums but I didn't see it on the recently compiled list of suggestions and it's a fundamental issue in this game for as long as I can remember. Although nexon has recently taken steps to change the censorship status of certain words (like 'S>perm nx' and 'Whisper me'), it's still such a huge annoyance that can easily be solved with a simple on/off toggle.
Leave it on by default once you first play the game and have an option to toggle it off, making all words entered and seen by others be visible as it's written. This way, Nexon doesn't not have to bother trying to define what is and isn't vulgar. They just have to program a basic toggle.
This is some thing most other MMO's (like runescape and WoW) have already done years ago and I see no reason why it can't be done in maplestory. If you have other suggestions or improvements, share it in this thread.
Comments
Suppose you're a sensitive person who doesn't want to be reading bad language in your game. So you keep the filter on. Since it's as strict as it's always been (and Nexon will have no reason to go whitelisting words, because most of the population will have the filter off and not care), you're constantly asking your friends and guildies, "What did you say? It got censored!" Just like we do now. But if the filter has a toggle, then your friends will tell you, "Come on, turn the filter off, we can't keep repeating ourselves just for you!"
In other words, you'll be under intense social pressure to turn it off, or be left out of conversations.
The only difference between having a toggle and having no filter at all, is in Nexon being able to keep whatever family-friendly rating the game has, by pointing to the existence of the filter. But if that's all they cared about they could have gone with a much stupider filter, one that doesn't ignore whitespace and punctuation (i.e., that filters "bad" but not "b a d").
In my opinion, the correct way to solve the problem is to improve the censor algorithm, so that it doesn't flag "bad words" that are part of other words. Not just an ever-growing "whitelist" of legit phrases that contain bad words, but an actual algorithm that's a tiny bit more complex than simple string-matching.
Plus language by nature is always changing. Many new vulgar words get created by society and others get 'devulgared' over time. So it's just not worth it to keep updating and keep deciding what is and isn't vulgar because offense is always taken, not given. There are some people that find the word 'retarded' to be as offensive as the F word, even though it's still a valid medical term.
If a person doesn't want to be offended because his friends is using 'harsh' language but still WANTS to talk to his friend, then its his problem not the player talking to him. Because now the OTHER person is under intense social pressure not to talk the way he wants to. I mean imagine if he was talking to the same person in real life. Would he just keep closing his hears so that his friend doesn't say the 'F' word so casually?
I'm just saying, for the third time, that the toggle alone is pointless. The problem is not the friend.
Say you have a whole guild of good Christian kids who never use bad language. But they don't want to see bad language in smegas, either. So they keep the filter toggle on.
But if the filter remains the way it is today, cutting out perfectly legitimate words and actually teaching people new bad words which they learn when they try to piece together what the other person is saying, then your toggle is not helping them.
The toggle is good for those who want to "talk like in real life". But the censor exists in the game to begin with so people won't "talk like in real life" within the hearing (reading) of people who'd rather not be exposed to such language. If we decide that nobody who plays the game should be protected from "bad words" (because they always change or whatever) then let's just get rid of the censor entirely.
If all they're doing is whitelisting some of the more common censored phrases, that's not much of an improvement.
What we have here is a mechanism that's not working right.
Some people don't want the mechanism at all, so for them, the ability to opt out is obviously a perfect solution.
But some people do want the mechanism, and for them, it needs to be fixed.
It's a brain exercise sure, but one I'd rather do without.
Also, it should get better in a few days when the young kids no longer find it a novelty to swear.
Side note, best swear filter I've seen is GW2. A very short list of words are changed into '-' for everyone (including the person who typed it, which helps immensely), but its incredibly short so you can tell what they wrote anyway. And on their forums, every word on their blacklist (which is significantly larger on the forums than in game) is just automatically changed to "kitten" which is hilarious
They'll still be swearing after a week has passed. If people were daily bypassing the filter when we had it via symbols and abbreviations, there'll be swearing even more freely now that there are no restrictions. I believe it will never die down. -_- So now how am I supposed to point out that it's wrong and ask others to be considerate of comfort levels? I can't believe a change such as this is making me quit...
I wish maple had every vulgarity changed to something like 'kitten' like you mentioned... It would make the game much more enjoyable instead of leaving players to let anything run out of their mouths as they please. D=<
also i heard this was a mistake that nexon uncensored the words? not sure but if the uncensoring was what made buddy + guild chat glitches fixed --- I dont mind it. As long as guild + buddy chat is fixed!