So I’m not sure if my search is failing, or if this just isn’t being talked about, but the only things I’m seeing reported here is how the profanity censor is getting bypassed by odd words or exploitation of glitches.
I’m going to make what is apparently a controversial opinion and say - This is a mature rated game. While I do kind of agree that maybe F bombs should be blocked viciously along with overt discussions of passionate hugging, I feel that basically all other 4 letter words, general cursing, etc…should be allowed. You should have a profanity filter, sure, but the settings on it should be drastically more lenient than they are now. As is, it’s powerful enough that it’s actively getting in the way of quite a few discussions of normal game mechanics that don’t even have direct swearing in them.
Ya gotta confirm that you’re 18+ in order to even view the store page on Steam. You already have the plausible deniability to say that anyone underage shouldn’t be playing in the first place. Again, I’m not saying that you should allow people to yell strings of curses, but you should be lax enough that the Scunthorpe Problem isn’t a factor.
Like sure you’re an indie game and you can’t assign an entire team to whittle down a pre-bought chat filter, but that’s approaching the problem from the wrong direction. You should start the chat filter with the settings off, and proceed to disable specific words and slurs. You shouldn’t start with all the settings on, and then enable as things come up. This is a mature game. We can handle a few bad words dripping through the cracks as long as they’re eventually patched.
edit I kept saying loot filter instead of chat filter. Oops.
Totally agree, I couldn’t even type Homogeneous today lol. Sometimes even completely innocent words with literally nothing to them get picked up as well. For instance, I typed in the company name Martin Manetta and somehow that was flagged? JUST MARTIN MANETTA was the line of text, nothing else. Also, profanity? I mean… I doubt many five year olds are playing so… I don’t see the need for that as well. I mean… really? I tend to curse a lot and it’s very annoying that half the lines that I type aren’t able to be posted, some after a lot of typing too because it has like one F bomb in it. I dunno, just seems overkill and I totally agree with this post.
Yeah the “Homogenous” issue that you’re referring to is an example of the Scunthorpe problem, where a primitive profanity filter will look only at the literal letters used (possibly with an extra substitution filter, like 7 for Ts). Another example is the White Wolf forums in the '90s and early '00s, where the Buttamites (a clan of deadly vampire buttbuttins in the game) were having trouble being taken seriously due to a bad automatic censor that plagued the forums.
The Scunthorpe problem is a previously thought to be NP hard problem in censorship algorithms that has been mostly solved since the early '10s. This is one of the reasons I mentioned it, because this is not a problem that modern filters should be having.
Oh so that’s what’s happening. I just started not talking about the game in global chat at all since I would type things with no profanity, long things too, and it would be blocked.
Just to be vindictive I typed stuff that would be easily read as profanity but not by a filter. First time I’ve done that because I’ve never encountered a filter like this before.
Filter is off in my settings too so what’s the point of that? I mean why not just **** stuff if someone has the filter on.
I would say that the filter is the worst I’ve ever seen as has been said.
This is so helpful and really illustrates the absurdity of the filter. It reminds me of the recent kefuffle in the fandom world where a crowdsourced ‘obscenity’ filter people use for family friendly content (crucially administered by a specific internet provider) started blocking a bunch of innocuous sites after a group of moms got together and reported some sites they don’t like. It seems like this is the same deal, using probably a crowdsourced filter combined with the Scunthorpe Problem, leading to the inability to say really normal ARPG stuff like one-shot.
I agree, I also typed something that was just about how a game mechanic worked
zero swears, zero anything like that, just something to the effect of “falconer dps is not bugged, it is just the result of how almost every skill buffed divebomb” which is not the exact text I used, but chances are the filter somehow read a swear in the stuff that didn’t include a swear
and besides, there is a profanity filter toggle, so even if it were for it having a “swear” in it, it should still allow it and have it trip the profanity filter on other players end - for it to be allways on essentially makes the profanity filter option meaningless
For instance, I typed in the company name Martin Manetta and somehow that was flagged?
I can’t even type my username (which you can see here) in the game chat without getting filtered lol. There’s definitely some kind of copyright check going on alongside the profanity filter. It’s a bit ridiculous.
Haha no, it’s a Futurama reference. I did think at first that it might be the word “bot” triggering it, but it was fine when I typed that in alone. Someone else pointed out it has to be a copyright thing.
Chat censor has made me not even care to talk to people. The dumbest little word and it censors your entire sentece…sometimes I dont even know why… So…fuck last epochs chat system it will make people move to other games…shit there is not even grouping or guilds in this dumb game.
While I agree the filter may be too aggressive, I do agree with blocking all hate speech language, like the r-word, n-word, that kind of stuff. I don’t know if they still do this, but GW2 used to have it set so that any objectionable words were replaced with “kitten,” which I found amusing and cute. Maybe something along that lines work work for the worst stuff? I don’t have problems with swearing, but hate speech should never be deemed acceptable. iirc, being exposed to enough of it helps people dehumanise those groups (more), so allowing people to choose their own level of filtering isn’t enough.
The problem isn’t that hate speech is blocked, the problem is that the profanity filter was implemented in a fundamentally incorrect manner.
If this is a filter they purchased to implement (it absolutely is) rather than one they programmed themselves, then they have a number of options to check on or off.
As far as we can tell, they started with all options checked, and are slowly (when they have the time) removing words that aren’t actually problematic.
What they should’ve done is start with a clear filter, and then checked all the words that ARE problematic that they can think of, and then use player reports to further refine what does need to be filtered as the game goes on.
Right now, with everything that could conceivably be even remotely problematic being filtered, it’s preventing several key words that are necessary for basic communication. Resulting in global chat being nearly useless for actual players discussing the game, while bots and gold sellers are free to do whatever they want.
I do know that they’ve gone overboard with how the filter is implemented. Mine was mostly a comment directed at people who feel that turning the profanity filter off means they should be able to say and see absolutely everything that anyone says. Basically making a point that some things should be blocked, no matter how much people might complain about censorship. That turning off the filter shouldn’t cater to the bigots and such.
I agree that a filter should start simpler and evolve, with maybe the exception of buying a more extensive list from an established game with similar filtering goals.
This thread was enlightening to me. I was unaware the game was so heavy handed with the filter.
-I am gay and the first thing I do in online oriented games like this is just turn chat OFF because I want to have fun and get my money’s worth and not hear every negative thing called “gay” nonstop, etc.
I’m also not a fan of heavily censoring everything which is why I just usually opt to turn it all off and then not care. I can’t imagine a reason I would want global chat on anyway but I have a “guild” of folks that play various games and we talk on Discord. I suppose the chat is more useful for folks begging for playmates or some such?
It gets old with the amount of words that are filtered. I remember first playing this my friend and I realized we should talk on voice or use discord… so many normal words are censored, then you have to retype whole sentences. Gets old fast. Some of the words are so goofy how it’s censored, just common language is often denied.
The only time it bugs me is when I try to type something quickly while fighting or whatever, it gets blocked, then I have to wait for another opportunity to type and figure out how to change English into a dumb chat filter so I can communicate. Just another thing to fix on the list though.
