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[Helios]

Mordhau Dev Won’t Police Their Fanbase, Suggests Offended Players Use the Mute Function

Triternion released the full version of Mordhau, their ambitious multiplayer medieval combat game, a bit before the summer kicked off. The game has soared in popularity, and when things get popular…

nichegamer.com

A new report from PC Gamer details the game’s issue with vitriolic, racist, or sexist commenters or players. While they decry Triternion’s seemingly lax moderation on the community, the developer simply offers players make use of the mute function.

“Whatever stance we take officially, some group of people are going to be upset with us” Triternion rep Andrew Geach said. “And so, ideally we’d put the power in the players’ hands, and give them the option to enable and disable different things.”

Artist Mike Desrosiers added, “If we take an official stance and we put an official filter list on all the words in chat, people will, first, find a way around it, and it might catch innocent words, or people might claim we’re censoring. So we’d rather put the power in the player’s hands.”
Geach followed up with, “We do of course act on inappropriate posts or discussions when seen personally. That being said, we don’t try to police our players too tightly. We allow for discussion on most topics, within reason.”
“I do apologize on behalf of the team for some of these… ‘people’ that are spouting off terrible things in game,” Mordhau community manager Jax said on their forums. “All I can say at this point in time is that we’re working on improving the situation.”

To be clear, any offending users on their forums or Discord found are banned, but the team isn’t going out of their way to police every single post made or user.
Instead of wasting time and resources policing their community, the developer is looking for ways to meaningfully interact with and engage them, implement features they want, and so on.
Currently, the game only lets you play as a white male – they’re planning on letting you don a full suit of armor complete with a huge bastard sword as a female, or a person of color if you’re interested.
However, historical purists would naturally object to this, so they’re mulling over a toggle for this as well. Geach noted that the toggle to revert the game back to its white male-only avatars “is not set in stone” and “depends how our community is in the future.”
“Maybe if it calms down… the game still has a lot of players, a lot of toxicity, a lot of racism, a lot of politics, everything, people argue in chat about all sorts of nonsense,” he added.
Community manager Jax noted the team is “trying to improve our moderation, but we’re a small team and there are a lot of you.”

Editor’s Note: We removed the blurb about adding a toggle to make all avatars in-game stay white. Triternion has gone on record via Twitter to say this is not the case, and are promising a statement soon.


Kotaku also reported on this, but using a different title.

 

[NikuNashi]

Kotaku or Kuktaku as they are more commonly known in the white knighting circles. Unsurprising really, hysterical reactionary outrage addicts.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

Mordhau Dev Won’t Police Their Fanbase, Suggests Offended Players Use the Mute Function

Triternion released the full version of Mordhau, their ambitious multiplayer medieval combat game, a bit before the summer kicked off. The game has soared in popularity, and when things get popular…

nichegamer.com

A new report from PC Gamer details the game’s issue with vitriolic, racist, or sexist commenters or players. While they decry Triternion’s seemingly lax moderation on the community, the developer simply offers players make use of the mute function.

“Whatever stance we take officially, some group of people are going to be upset with us” Triternion rep Andrew Geach said. “And so, ideally we’d put the power in the players’ hands, and give them the option to enable and disable different things.”

Artist Mike Desrosiers added, “If we take an official stance and we put an official filter list on all the words in chat, people will, first, find a way around it, and it might catch innocent words, or people might claim we’re censoring. So we’d rather put the power in the player’s hands.”
Geach followed up with, “We do of course act on inappropriate posts or discussions when seen personally. That being said, we don’t try to police our players too tightly. We allow for discussion on most topics, within reason.”
“I do apologize on behalf of the team for some of these… ‘people’ that are spouting off terrible things in game,” Mordhau community manager Jax said on their forums. “All I can say at this point in time is that we’re working on improving the situation.”

To be clear, any offending users on their forums or Discord found are banned, but the team isn’t going out of their way to police every single post made or user.
Instead of wasting time and resources policing their community, the developer is looking for ways to meaningfully interact with and engage them, implement features they want, and so on.
Currently, the game only lets you play as a white male – they’re planning on letting you don a full suit of armor complete with a huge bastard sword as a female, or a person of color if you’re interested.
However, historical purists would naturally object to this, so they’re mulling over a toggle for this as well. Geach noted that the toggle to revert the game back to its white male-only avatars “is not set in stone” and “depends how our community is in the future.”
“Maybe if it calms down… the game still has a lot of players, a lot of toxicity, a lot of racism, a lot of politics, everything, people argue in chat about all sorts of nonsense,” he added.
Community manager Jax noted the team is “trying to improve our moderation, but we’re a small team and there are a lot of you.”


Kotaku also reported on this, but using a different title.

And here is the most logical decision they could've made. It's a lose lose situation. Even this decision will have it's complainers but they gave themselves an easy out by putting it in the players hands.

 

[EviLore]

Kotaku

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Where's Jason Schreier on this issue?

We need heavy research into why gamers can't use the mute function..... something that has been around for probably 20 years.

 

[hayesdude]

Kotatku

 

[NikuNashi]

The Asylum is going wild over this. Funny nobody over there mentions putting 'POC' into a historic white battle as 'problematic'. I should give up looking for logic in their inane virtuous outrage squawks.

 

[Ivellios]

The Asylum is going wild over this. Funny nobody over there mentions putting 'POC' into a historic white battle as 'problematic'. I should give up looking for logic in their inane virtuous outrage squawks.

There is no such thing as historical accuracy there, either you put poc/woman/etc on everything or you are a fragile white man, racist misogynist homophobic transphobic etc.

 

[Kenpachii]

Somebody should just make a game to trigger those people to the max and call it triggered the game.

 

[Pallas]

Wonder if Mordhau is doing a social experiment lol. Not against it, but I’m skeptical to think they will keep this up after a few months.

 

[NikuNashi]

There is no such thing as historical accuracy there, either you put poc/woman/etc on everything or you are a fragile white man, racist misogynist homophobic transphobic etc.

It hurts my brain. How can you complain about 'white washing' so vehemently then turn a blind eye when a historically accurate European battle gets turned into a United Colors Of Benetton ad. Isn't that the dictionary definition of hypocrisy.

 

[ZeroGravity]

Kotaku also reported on this, but using a different title.

Kotaku reporters: You're unprofessional and lack ethics if you offer a single line of gratitude towards a developer for their game
Also Kotaku: "We don't like how this developer is handling their game and they are bullshit."

 

[HagglesworthMD]

Good.

Let the players decide what's acceptable, not games "journalists"

 

[Helios]

NicheGamer has edited their article
Editor’s Note: We removed the blurb about adding a toggle to make all avatars in-game stay white. Triternion has gone on record via Twitter to say this is not the case, and are promising a statement soon.

 

[Arkage]

If your game depends primarily upon a functional community, then yes, there should be a myriad of tools that lets the community moderate itself. This would certainly not be characterized as “wasting resources” per the super steaming hot take from the OP. Leaving it a cest pool of blatant sexist and racist trolling isn’t an answer, and neither is a mute button, if your goal is to engage people beyond the 4chan code of ethics tolerance level aka normal human beings.

 

[Bonfires Down]

Kotaku

We need a poo reaction emoji

 

[donfonzie]

Pootaku

 

[mcz117chief]

Well done, lads. Those devs seem like fine gentlemen. I just wish there were more people like this, especially within SONY's US division.

 

[Husky]

Unruly internet is best internet
rah rah

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Pre-ordering Mordhau as we speak.

 

[SonGoku]

Pre-ordering Mordhau as we speak.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 

[Oberstein]

Good.

Let the players decide what's acceptable, not games "journalists"

This.
Hopefully they won't retract afterwards.

 

[TeamGhobad]

Based.

 

[yet_another_alt]

Muting or using ignore is the easy way out. Where's the fun if you can't get someone banned after reporting them for something you didn't find personally offensive but know they will be punished for?

 

[Lanrutcon]

Very practical approach. These days it's really all you can do.

 

[Helios]

Leaving it a cest pool of blatant sexist and racist trolling isn’t an answer, and neither is a mute button, if your goal is to engage people beyond the 4chan code of ethics tolerance level aka normal human beings.

Yes, because games that spend a lot of resources trying to combat toxicity in their games are just rainbows and sunshine. No one ever throws slurs in games like league of legends and overwatch. Face it, these things don't work. Especially not for a small developer like Triternion. Mute options will always be the most effective way to combat negativity online.

 

[Virex]

Kotaku is such a piece of shit "company". Literal shit.

 

[VertigoOA]

Good on the devs. Best approach. As someone who almost exclusively plays online games... I rarely see this toxic behavior craptaku goes on and on about. Most people act fucking civilized even when they are 14-year old retards... they want that raid carry.

Fuck these pussies. They wouldn’t surivive a day in the bronx.

 

[renzolama]

Why do developers continue getting suckered into answering baited questions like this to give ammo for outrage articles?

 

[Saruhashi]

If your game depends primarily upon a functional community, then yes, there should be a myriad of tools that lets the community moderate itself. This would certainly not be characterized as “wasting resources” per the super steaming hot take from the OP. Leaving it a cest pool of blatant sexist and racist trolling isn’t an answer, and neither is a mute button, if your goal is to engage people beyond the 4chan code of ethics tolerance level aka normal human beings.

If they are just a small indie team and their game grows to hundreds of thousands of players then it seems unfair that they then have to plow time and money into policing those players.

Why should a bunch of complete arseholes be allowed the power to drain money and resources away from indie developers?

I've never understood why people can't just mute and block?

 

[DrumNBassDanTTV]

Yeah just use ignore or mute, ppl need to stop being so soft.

 

[Dontero]

Kutkaku, i love it.

 

[Orpheum]

Finally a Studio that acts with reason. Good stuff.

And fuck Kotaku btw

 

[Ballthyrm]

Kotaku or Kuktaku as they are more commonly known in the white knighting circles. Unsurprising really, hysterical reactionary outrage addicts.

They could always create literal white knights characters in the game and kill the offending parties.
Make a clan called the social justice warriors and show what they are made of.

 

[Holammer]

Actually... They SHOULD add women and PoC to the game, along with Ogres & Oubliettes.

 

[danielberg]

Well... they are not wrong its a option for a reason and if all the people who are outraged actually use the various mute and ignore options in their life there wouldnt even be a damn issue If everyone was adult enough to just mute/ignore the people they dont want to hear from this would be solved instantly lol
But of course being outraged is the actual aim..

 

[spandexmonkey]

I have to take responsibility and push a button to turn off things I don't like!? Thats some bullshit, I'm a hardcore gamer and I expect mom, I mean the developer to protect me.

 

[renzolama]

Actually... They SHOULD add women and PoC to the game, along with Ogres & Oubliettes.

Next week: 'Mordhau's Developers Glorify Violence Against Women!'

 

[Ballthyrm]

But of course being outraged is the actual aim..

There is an untapped market here, make a game where the goal is to be outrage at everything.
Like game dev tycoon but for woke journalism.

That would give these people some virtue signalling dopamine hit they are craving for.

 

[Whitesnake]

If your game depends primarily upon a functional community, then yes, there should be a myriad of tools that lets the community moderate itself. This would certainly not be characterized as “wasting resources” per the super steaming hot take from the OP. Leaving it a cest pool of blatant sexist and racist trolling isn’t an answer, and neither is a mute button, if your goal is to engage people beyond the 4chan code of ethics tolerance level aka normal human beings.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there always be mean people on the internet wherever you go. No filter or blocklist on earth can stop that.

Maybe you can be a bit more mature and learn to just block blatant trolls and assholes, and ignore everyone else.

The devs have no responsibility to waste resorces (and it absolutely would be a waste) to curtail their entire community to your personal sensibilities. The fact that you would want them to do that shows an incredible level of narcissism on your part, believing that your personal fragile psyche is more important than everyone else's fun.

Evolve, cro magnon.

 

[Birdo]

 

[Hinedorf]

This has become my favorite game and about the only thing I've been playing for weeks. It does seem like there's some servers rampant with individuals using every racial slur for attention.

When you're focusing on fighting it's easy to just ignore it but there's always those who don't. It's not really a shock to think there's a bunch of anonymous young people acting immature.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

I agree with the reaction of the developers. If you don't like it - mute them! It's that simple and they shouldn't waste development resources trying to beat something that players will inevitably find a way around. In addition to that, they would most likely drive players away as a result. So long as there is the ability to mute a player, who cares? Mute and move on.

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

They have an option to disable the chat box which is what I use. Communication isn't important in this game at all really so the chat box is essentially there just to bullshit.

 

[Fuz]

This is the only correct approach to the issue.

 

[Stuart360]

Must protect people from the evil words, it could scar them for life!.

 

[oagboghi2]

If your game depends primarily upon a functional community, then yes, there should be a myriad of tools that lets the community moderate itself. This would certainly not be characterized as “wasting resources” per the super steaming hot take from the OP. Leaving it a cest pool of blatant sexist and racist trolling isn’t an answer, and neither is a mute button, if your goal is to engage people beyond the 4chan code of ethics tolerance level aka normal human beings.

Can you make an argument that isn't a strawman?

 

[Helios]

NicheGamer has edited their article
Editor’s Note: We removed the blurb about adding a toggle to make all avatars in-game stay white. Triternion has gone on record via Twitter to say this is not the case, and are promising a statement soon.

Apparently this misinformation came from Kotaku.

 

[Tesseract]

GOOD

this is the only correct response and i've been shocked over the years to see otherwise

shit talking is fun, if words rustle your jimmies then it's time to go home to mommy and hide under your bunk bed for your chicken tender dinner