Hello, dear friends! How are you doing? :)

First of all, I would like to apologize for the - almost - bad english because this is not my native language. I consider myself very good at reading written english and hearing it, but worse at writing and talking.

I am just an ordinary Transformice player from the brazilian community, but today I am here to ask you how are you feeling about your social in-game experience? is it good or is it bad? do the most part of the players follow the rules - and if not, why do you think it happens?

I say that because, in my server, people almost do not know the meaning of "respect". Since Brazil has a poor education level for the young children and teenagers (majority of the players in all servers, I guess), playing Transformice has turned into a nightmare. Room chat is always filled of vulgarities, racism and homophobia.

I am a psychology student at SUM (State University of Maringá, state of Paraná, Brazil), and I think my experience dealing with different types of behaviors can help brazilian moderators and community manager (Galaktine) fix that problem, that's why I need you guys to tell me how things are going in EN server so I can study the case from another point of view.

Please comment below and give me every kind of information you can, including print screens if possible.

Thank you so much! :D

I think there was a topic about this earlier but it got lost in the pages of the Discussions topic

---

Overall I do currently enjoy the community. Well, those who aren't excessively disrespectful, that is.
I'm the kind of 'everybody person' meaning I won't just be in a room talking to two people I know easily, I wanna talk to all the strangers in the room, get 'em to joke around with me. I like being humorous with this community :)

However, something I really dislike are those who say "You guys are depressing me" or "you're causing me to do self-harm". To the trolls, I wouldn't joke around about this. To those who mean it, please, seek professional help and do not tell this to random strangers on the internet. I fully respect you but please do not force others to support you; you may just make your situation worse. Please don't let that happen!

I have made great friends over the past, and I'm glad to still see them every now and then. I don't do too much communication with them, because I honestly feel more comfortable talking to strangers despite the fact I'm talking to people I know better. I think deep inside I'm afraid I'll say something wrong that'll affect my current relationships? If that's the case, I'm very consent (may be the wrong term) about it. I'm not as social to friends than I am socially public. It's strange.

And finally, to those professional players who've played this game for a long time, can you please at least respect our new players? Yes, they're new. If they're putting attitude towards you (in a dickish manner, go ahead and insult 'em), but, instead of being a troll, seem possibly very defensive, can you just please leave them alone? You don't know their experiences. If they do seem like a troll, be easy unless they're a complete, 100% asshole to you.

For those who read through this entire passage, you're awesome? Thanks for reading my opinion.

Diamondwing, I understood at least 95% of everything you wrote and I admit my surprise. The way you face the game is certainly what I hope to see in my community. Unfortunately I have to admit that it is very difficult to find people of your kind there.

The difference between the brazilian and english players is striking, for the following reasons:

1. While you are open to contact and seeks to make new friends through healthy conversation, the brazilian player is restricted to a "bubble" of friends who have the same toxic way of thinking and only make new friends if the other person is also negligible (sometimes not even that happens).
2. While you care to help and make the most experienced users help beginners, the brazilian player expects these same newcomers to already start the game knowing exactly how to be the best shaman in the world with knowledge that the rest took years to learn.

Anyway, I believe we are in a much worse situation than any other community. I guarantee you that the word equivalent to the term "f ** k" in portuguese language can barely be considered a dirty word during the matches in BR server. It makes me extremely upset because the hostile attitudes coming from my friends destroys the image of the country and themselves on the internet.

I wish I could talk more about it with you, since you seemed very intelligent to me. It is a pity that the language is a barrier between us.

Thank you for your opinion! Surely you are contributing to a better Transformice. :)

meleagrant a dit :

2. While you care to help and make the most experienced users help beginners, the brazilian player expects these same newcomers to already start the game knowing exactly how to be the best shaman in the world with knowledge that the rest took years to learn.

100% agree. Most people seem to forget we were all new once!

The disrespect is not unique to your server! Not at all! There are "bubbles" of friend groups on EN and EN2, and some of them I flat out avoid. Even people I'm friendly toward, when enough of them are in a room together, I leave. The concerns you voiced about "destroying the image..." are not unique to your server either! I struggle nearly every time I play to find a room that someone isn't going off cursing. One thing that bothers me is when I room gangs up on a player, and is mocking them because they've admitted to being any age (8-17), and then the entire room bullies them over it! "They ARE A CHILD. Leave them alone!" Is how I normally react to that.

From your original post--- I think there are not nearly enough moderators for how many members are online at any given time. There are between 4000-20000 people online at a time, and you're lucky to find 4 moderators! That ratio is INSANE! How can you expect them to moderate the community when they are that outnumbered?!

I also feel like the report system takes away from the effectiveness of reporting users. I've had my account longer than the report system has existed, and honestly, I can't tell you if I should "report" or /ban people, I don't know which system is more effective.

Base on what I see so far in EN, most of the time the chat is pretty silent and kind iMO
An argument always happens however when a player got agitated for not getting a 1st or being killed. Or during a double shaman map.

Also people in farm rooms are very particular about speed, so being slow, afking or stalling will send you a ton of flaming.

---

As much as the problem comes from the community and culture itself, I want to blame atelier801 on a particular one, in response to this statement you presented:
" the brazilian player expects these same newcomers to already start the game knowing exactly how to be the best shaman in the world with knowledge that the rest took years to learn."

This is the company's fault for not making a detailed IN-GAME tutorial for new players to come in. Even in EN, some players would act mean towards the new players for not being able to get to the cheese because they don't think of the player but their progress on getting stats or farming for cheese in general. It is true that players can search online for tutorials but it is a basic to have some link to the basics, even just a link to a youtube video is already good enough, but they didn't.

Having a barrier between new and old players, this tension can lead to more of it as the player becomes more defensive of the players around him.
Since you have learnt psychology, I assume you know the Bobo Beatdown, where young children would imitate an action from what they see at a certain situation. In this case: Being bullied by the older players, as time goes on, when the new player becomes a better player himself, he might imitate the way how the older players would treat the younger players, to make himself feel that he is finally good enough at the game, by pulling others down with the influence he had in the past.

---

The thing about bullies is that they could be victims of being bullied as a new player, and feeling the sense of rejection for a very long time, they want validation and something to pull down so they can feel in control and strong.
I have been thinking about this and two ways of 'curing' them would be

• ignoring them
• Spend your time to give them their own medicine

Ignoring is what makes them feel powerless, you would often see them trying to backstab you in different ways but if you can show you are not affected by them, in times to come, they would stop. Though it helps but it would take a long time. It can take years before they realise how irrelevant their actions on bullying are.

You can also cure them by doing the same action as they do, yelling back vulgarities at them and making them feel powerless. This can be a faster way to cure the bullies PROVIDED it is effective and you can give good comebacks that let them reflect about how bad they look. But this means that you would looks as bad as him and if it is not effective, you are the one that is getting hurt. I would not advise doing this unless you really want to risk it.

I am pleased to know these problems are not unique to my server, Tardismouse, and better than this is to see that other people have a similar positioning or equal to mine.

While searching the social problems the servers face, I also dedicate myself to find their source. Knowing where they come from is the first step to develop a corrective action. Although I consider it very difficult to put into practice given the circumstances, it is not impossible - it is necessary!

About the amount of moderators, I understand the difficulties in finding someone who meets the characteristics required for the position, especially considering the fact that all of them are volunteers. However, we must rethink the rules governing the selection process: I do not know if this prerequisite is valid on other servers, but in the brazilian server the candidate must have at least 4000 collected cheese, otherwise he will not not be accepted even if he have maturity and a completely acceptable profile for the position. I do not have 4000 cheeses, but... Hey! I'm only 18 years old, I'm talking to other international players in a language I'm not fluent about a problem that YOU should try to fix.

Thank you for your opinion too! I loved it. :D

Fully agree with you, Techtriostep! I also blame Atelier801.

Another point we should question, following your excellent example of the shaman tutorial, is the lack of participation and intervention of administrators in the day-by-day of the players. I have been playing Transformice for a long time and, until today, did not see the company promoting educational events and activities to teach the users how to properly use reporting tools, the ignore button, the command /ban and everything else. In my opinion, this is ALREADY causing problems: I once asked a moderator of the brazilian server which type of complaint he received more, and as expected, the response was "hack". Now, we have to notice that the amount of hackers is much smaller than the amount of disrespectful people, yet they are are treated more strictly. You agree with me that everyone is going to report the other guy as a hacker, even if he is not, just because hackers are clearly punished more easily than others who do spam and flood? This is the way people found to feel heard and have the impression that "justice is being done".

There are some factors we should consider about the fact that new users repeat the disrespectful actions of which they were victims, including the variables "adrenaline during the game" (caused by the called "firsts") and "moral and ethical code of the individual". I would like to discuss about it, but I can not because of my difficulty in expressing myself in english. Sorry to disappoint you. :(

Thank you for participating! A huge hug! :D

meleagrant a dit :

Now, we have to notice that the amount of hackers is much smaller than the amount of disrespectful people, yet they are are treated more strictly. You agree with me that everyone is going to report the other guy as a hacker, even if he is not, just because hackers are clearly punished more easily than others who do spam and flood? This is the way people found to feel heard and have the impression that "justice is being done".

This is also interesting because it links to why we are afraid of sharks even though the rate of getting eaten by one is lesser than being killed by a vending machine (?!)
Because we tend to think of the thing itself before the risk. like how hackers can take advantage of gameplay while bad talk is just 'harmless' or is too common even out of the game. Even as a moderator's eyes, if you are to ban someone for swearing, not only would not do much because majority of the players (even me) swears, it can even make the moderator's life more difficult as people would than aim at the moderator for banning.

meleagrant a dit :

There are some factors we should consider about the fact that new users repeat the disrespectful actions of which they were victims, including the variables "adrenaline during the game" (caused by the called "firsts") and "moral and ethical code of the individual".

Those these are the few causes of bring those behaviors but as a did study a little in game designing.. well..
Games are meant to give those variables. To instill strong feelings when playing the game and to boost up their moral. To take away those makes a game bad, because you do not gather experience or have anything 'fun' to do while gaming.

But great discussion thread by the way and I hope our insights will aid you with your studies, really interested to see where you can get to with these!

I guess it differs for different players.

Personally I don't go out and play the core gameplay, so I would be with people close to me or in tribe.
And I have met really nice people along the way, probably because between me and them, we don't have competition with each other, unlike when playing in public rooms.

Like what Techtrio said: if we want to do something about them would be either arguing back and show them how they look to others or just ignoring them. As of now, I think that would be the best solutions.

But I feel that all these happens is because of how unstable these people are inside. End of the day, symptoms like looking for attention, bullying and other things is due to not being loved on who they are. I think outside of Transformice, needing to know the importance of good counseling of overcoming their wounds first before healing them. Until our society is given treatment, these type of attitude would continue to grow, and not just in Transformice but literally anywhere.