I don't see adult servers as a huge issue. I think as we have more nuanced or complex issues arise, having an open discussion with the community around the topic will ensure all facets of the issue are represented and understood. This has been a good discussion.
I think it is incredibly important to underscore and highlight just how important social servers have been to the development of the scripts and tools used to run and maintain persistent worlds. People would be stunned to learn how much of the early PW community was made possible because of programmers on social servers.
Much like how sex drives real world technological innovation... Social servers have contributed to persistent location, persistent time, persistent storage, crafting, new models, textures, and animations that have become the gold standard today. Heck, even some of the first mail and bulletin boards were first made public thanks to social servers.
It has been 10 years so I am short on examples but Milambus and his Dye & Tailor scripts come immediately to mind.
Any witch hunt (and I know that's not the intent) could be harmful to the future development of all persistent worlds. Ultimately, those people are hurting no one. They are on their own servers, interacting with their own communities and if anything, they would like some form of protection from underage people joining their communities as much (perhaps even more so) than parents.
On top of that. It is impossible for Beamdog to police ERP. Any DM for a high population server will tell you It happens absolutely everywhere on regular RP servers. It is just more overt on social servers.
As lead developer for The World of Arleah back in 2004-2006 (Top 3 RP server back in its day), I ended up having to build a "Tea House" with private rooms upstairs to stop people ERP'ing out in public with characters they had yet to purchase a house for. Even then, our DM staff would encounter a couple of people a week ERP'ing in public places.
So even if ERP/Social servers were eradicated then the problem would still exist on RP servers.
Again, I know that's not your goal but it it's important to understand the scope when identifying the issue.
I also understand this is not 2002 anymore and the 2010's has popularized outrage culture to which Beamdog has already been the unjust target of (Siege of Dragonspear).
And not to put too fine a point on it... But there are some really disturbed people on ERP servers. 97% of them are lovely, creative, and imaginative people but the other 3% are predatory scum and I think you are right to want to keep ERP servers and minors seperate. Heck, that's what the ERP servers want as well.
So ultimately the solution needs to provide the following:
Keep minors separated from ERP servers.
Allow ERP servers to still be part of the wider NWN community.
Legally protect Beamdog.
Allow ERP servers to identify themselves as such.
The flaw with a flag system or ERP servers having their own specific category is that it draws attention to it. 14 year olds always want to play MA games and watch R-rated movies.
Banning ERP servers won't change their existence, they will simply go underground and be even more difficult to moderate and potentially cuts the greater persistent world community away from an important development branch.
Policing persistent worlds is going to be like digging through quicksand and if Beamdog employees could log into a server without password or invite, see everyone's text messages using Beamdogs own tools and banning anyone ERP'ing would be bad for trust, privacy, and good will.
Outright acknowledging ERP servers normalizes them which can be seen as an endorsement from Beamdog.
Ultimately I feel the only sane solution is to provide some form of age gate when someone joins multiplayer or when they first join a server.
And it wouldn't be too bad a thing to allow servers to list themselves as adult only. Even if they are not revolving around pretending to have sex.
For a year now I have been working on a persistent world that draws inspiration from H.P Lovecraft, Kingdom Death Monster, and Claymore. The player spawns in for the first time naked, without weapons or armor and must fight their way out of the underworld. Between atmosphere, dialogue and soundscape I take pride in just how disturbing and emotionally unsettling my world is.
However, it's not a place I want a 14 year old to play.
The opt-in tagging/filtering idea is great. That said, it would probably help to give an option to password protect the "show adult content" filter setting, so that parents have the option of adding a bit of security if they're concerned their kid will check that box. I don't really know of a good way to make that option obvious to the parent, though, without also giving kids ideas.
Age-gating is also pretty reasonable, but I know when I was a kid, I basically never entered a date of birth that would've made me less than 18. So I wouldn't want to count on that working very well.
Do a Credit Card / PayPal / Whatever approval similar to the way eBay etc do where you get a code
You pay a buck which is re-charged to the original authourizing account
Now I as the account owner can chose whether or not to allow porn in the game for the kids
I can't do this as a child 'cos I can't get a valid account until I'm of age (PP may be an issue)
As @TrentOster desires this it should be do-able without any issues should this be the chosen method
As @niv mentions a HTTPS header with a content type sorta thing should be checked against the users wishes
The only problem I have with this concept is how it's managed. Maybe @niv checks it or @TrentOster - not being privy to the internal workings of my Teleported Pooch (Beamdog) I can only state how I'd handle the situation
I could go into much more sophisticated methods for the auth but this is not a techie forum so...
Personally I like niv's suggestion the most but then I am old school with regards to this and usually work on the basis of the old acronym KISS (keep it simple stupid!) in my mostly PW experience since around 2003? (long time ago) pretty much all the servers I have been on were very family friendly and always had server rules/guidelines to follow and any infraction on the rare occasions were usually dealt with swiftly by both DM's and players alike. *many times I have seen DM's, mod admins, and players bring their kids to play the world As for the "Adult" content servers, they usually have a warning/disclaimer regarding their content, I have never played any of them and never even tried and I'm 63yo, simply because of the server description and that is not why I play the game, so I think niv's suggestion would cover any other possible issues with these. I would advise not to over complicate the matter and add more paper work, red tape etc to an already for the most part, working system.
Do a Credit Card / PayPal / Whatever approval similar to the way eBay etc do where you get a code
You pay a buck which is re-charged to the original authourizing account
Now I as the account owner can chose whether or not to allow porn in the game for the kids
I can't do this as a child 'cos I can't get a valid account until I'm of age (PP may be an issue)
As @TrentOster desires this it should be do-able without any issues should this be the chosen method
As @niv mentions a HTTPS header with a content type sorta thing should be checked against the users wishes
The only problem I have with this concept is how it's managed. Maybe @niv checks it or @TrentOster - not being privy to the internal workings of my Teleported Pooch (Beamdog) I can only state how I'd handle the situation
I could go into much more sophisticated methods for the auth but this is not a techie forum so...
Shut up Simon
With the payment issue we would be unable to do that due to legal reasons bc of licencing.
Again I think the distinction between servers in terms of what a movies rating board would deem as pornographic or "adult only" is not too huge. Servers may label themselves as PG13 but no agency or committee is supplying them this rating. A little use of Google will usually reveal some history that conflicts with self-styled ratings, NWN is no stranger to server scandals and drama, especially if they aren't dealt with appropriately. So at best it's always self governing and flawed. You'll never get guarantees on online content which is why products usually have a disclaimer that says online experience may differ from the rating.
As for adult servers that are real and not just hypothetical servers, the largest social/rp server still operates on NWN:DE because they use a highly customized and enhanced character customization system. They can't port it to NWN:EE probably because of updates changing the client every few months and NWN:EE hasn't added the same kind of features in to the base game.
So it's kind of a dead issue right now unless you want to start policing rp servers in general, adult single player modules, or the use of haks and overrides.
If you are worried about your butt, simply block them completely.,......
Why do you think Sinfar is popular with some, and not with others?
t it.
Sinfar only looked popular because they ghosted the player counts with bots. The guy behind it is skilled but should use those skills to not being a 13 year old mindset
Sinfar have explained themselves that they broadcasted their total players across all servers plus their integrated web client as a single server at one point. They've also explained that they have since rectified the situation.
The alternative is simply ridiculous because it would assume that Mavrixio the admin of Sinfar is a once in a generation genius that has created bots with independent behavior. Bots that have their own thoughts, and goals, capable of customizing characters, writing pc descriptions and finding matching art online for custom portraits, and able to interact with eachother and humans easily and seamlessly. It would imply that his bots had a certain common sense intelligence that humans have which has eluded AI researchers for the (almost) 70 years the field has existed.
Personally I would err on the side of the less fantastical explanation and accept they used to just total up their player count rather than fill their server with intelligent bots.
Personally I would err on the side of the less fantastical explanation and accept they used to just total up their player count rather than fill their server with intelligent bots.
Except that while being unlisted for the last couple of years from the community server list they still reach peaks of 100-150 players across all their servers, as of posting right now they're at about 130. Their individual server totals are public through the internet, their player list of logged in characters with portrait, account name, and description is public too. These lists continuously update with pc logins and logouts. They're obviously still popular among a significant portion of the NWN community and it would certainly be fantastical to think it's populated by bots that have created all those publicly searchable characters.
They're obviously still popular among a significant portion of the NWN community and it would certainly be fantastical to think it's populated by bots that have created all those publicly searchable characters.
We all knew he wasn't referring to bots, but to player count number boosting. And I'm quite sure they continue to do that. Adult servers, frankly, will always be popular, and they will also always give NWN EE a bad name.
Hm... a bad name for being popular? Like the Speakeasy in the 1930s, perhaps?
Gay and straight people can happily coexist, so why not erotophiles and erotophobes? A litle tolerance goes a long way. We just need to stop thinking that we need to "do something" about people who aren't like us.
No, I think when the post specifically said bots it specifically meant bots or it was a mistake. There's no good in rumor mongering, when even if you believe they're privately faking numbers among themselves, you would need bots to do that in the way their lists are presented with individual accounts and characters.
Honestly, immature behavior would be snubbing noses at such a significant portion of the player population for differences in preference. It wouldn't make good business sense to just ignore that they have a lot of players either. There's also the fact that players that choose social servers are very diverse and historically they're typically far more accepting of LGBT characters, where other servers have at times had a different reputation.
People should be able to coexist and learn to not have such a kneejerk and negative reaction to those with different preferences. Nine times out of ten it only reflects poorly on yourself.
Any form of tag or policing will fail. Most servers will simply change their tag or outward appearance to "look" friendly, but could still be adult without anyone knowing just to keep its player numbers.
Good example: Gary's Mod Servers. All have a sort of filter attachment, some are modded, to filter certain server types but its easy to get around it and young kids continue to play on servers that should be 18+.
Hm... a bad name for being popular? Like the Speakeasy in the 1930s, perhaps?
Gay and straight people can happily coexist, so why not erotophiles and erotophobes? A litle tolerance goes a long way. We just need to stop thinking that we need to "do something" about people who aren't like us.
Yes, let's make it fine for kids to find smut servers...
Anything sexually explicit which children can reach, if there is no warning or tag, is a great way for Beamdog to risk being sued.
Any form of tag or policing will fail. Most servers will simply change their tag or outward appearance to "look" friendly, but could still be adult without anyone knowing just to keep its player numbers.
Good example: Gary's Mod Servers. All have a sort of filter attachment, some are modded, to filter certain server types but its easy to get around it and young kids continue to play on servers that should be 18+.
This is a private game. So, unlike public spaces, the game creator has the right to try to warn about or restrict things of questionable nature. I would hazard a guess that most Gary's Mod Servers will ban those who violate any rules, such as 18+.
Hm... a bad name for being popular? Like the Speakeasy in the 1930s, perhaps?
Gay and straight people can happily coexist, so why not erotophiles and erotophobes? A litle tolerance goes a long way. We just need to stop thinking that we need to "do something" about people who aren't like us.
Yes, let's make it fine for kids to find smut servers...
Anything sexually explicit which children can reach, if there is no warning or tag, is a great way for Beamdog to risk being sued.
Any form of tag or policing will fail. Most servers will simply change their tag or outward appearance to "look" friendly, but could still be adult without anyone knowing just to keep its player numbers.
Good example: Gary's Mod Servers. All have a sort of filter attachment, some are modded, to filter certain server types but its easy to get around it and young kids continue to play on servers that should be 18+.
This is a private game. So, unlike public spaces, the game creator has the right to try to warn about or restrict things of questionable nature. I would hazard a guess that most Gary's Mod Servers will ban those who violate any rules, such as 18+.
you must not know much about garys mod servers then. The Dark RP servers allow kiddies to play as prostitutes, fascist police, drug dealers and anything in between and as far i know most of the players are underage.
you must not know much about garys mod servers then. The Dark RP servers allow kiddies to play as prostitutes, fascist police, drug dealers and anything in between and as far i know most of the players are underage.
Not quite. You already specifically agreed that successors to Atari and BioWare also cannot be held responsible for any behavior you experience from other users during online play.
9. Disclaimer of Other User Conduct and Gameplay Risks. You agree
and acknowledge that an integral feature of NEVERWINTER NIGHTS is
the ability to play online with other game users, including playing
Variations created by other users. Atari, Inc. and BioWare specifically
disclaim any warranties relating in any way to such user-created content,
and you agree that neither Atari, Inc., BioWare, their assignees or successors,
nor any of their licensors or suppliers shall in any way be responsible
for the content or functionality of such user content. You further
agree and acknowledge that while playing multi-player games, you may be
subject to conduct of other users that may impact your own gameplay
and characters, or that you may find objectionable or offensive.
Atari, Inc. and BioWare also specifically disclaim any warranties relating
to the conduct of other users (including in-game, and in game-related forums,
chatrooms, etc.), and you agree that neither Atari, Inc., BioWare,
their assignees or successors, nor any of their licensors or suppliers
shall in any way be responsible for the conduct of other users.
While I'm not a lawyer I take that to mean Beamdog is not in any way responsible for what goes on in NWN servers, but I imagine a server could face other other legal liabilities itself. For example falsely suggesting MPAA trademarks such as PG-13 or even false ESRB ratings for servers, COPPA, GDPR, and DMCA for using copyrighted works without an appropriate use and distribution license.
It's possible that the fact the community is so small and insignificant plays a part in the lack of court cases. On the other hand I would caution against trusting any servers that don't have a user agreement and disclaimer upon entry.
Also since it can't be stated enough if you are a concerned parent then remember that you have absolutely no guarantees on the content experienced during online play. Just as it is with other unmonitored and unsupervised online activities.
I would say that's all pretty normal stuff when it comes to most privately hosted game servers.
you must not know much about garys mod servers then. The Dark RP servers allow kiddies to play as prostitutes, fascist police, drug dealers and anything in between and as far i know most of the players are underage.
you wanna be an asshole? okay fine so im just goin to leave these here then
There arent any prostitutes listed in this list but it still says you can play as a hobo or terrorist which depending on your prudeness could be considered something as adult
I still stand by the fact that it would be quite obvious to say that Garys mod servers are a great example of what servers here will do too if presented with a policing or tag based system and why it will not work.
actually havin a think about it, as a owner of two servers, wouldn't it be better to just have servers police the age requirement themselves or do what sinfar does and add a age requirement? or if there was a way to add age requirements to play online?
you must not know much about garys mod servers then. The Dark RP servers allow kiddies to play as prostitutes, fascist police, drug dealers and anything in between and as far i know most of the players are underage.
you wanna be an asshole? okay fine so im just goin to leave these here then
There arent any prostitutes listed in this list but it still says you can play as a hobo or terrorist which depending on your prudeness could be considered something as adult
I still stand by the fact that it would be quite obvious to say that Garys mod servers are a great example of what servers here will do too if presented with a policing or tag based system and why it will not work.
So, you found a server which doesn't fit the whole "adult situations" qualifier? And furthermore, like I said, servers have rules, such as AGE LIMITS. Weird...
I remember a time when the "child" argument deployed here was used to promote fear of gay folk. While, sadly, some die-hard bigots remain, these days most responsible people would call that out as homophobic hate speech, because the underlying assumption is that being gay is somehow harmful, and ignorantly conflates homosexuality with pedophilia.
Time we started calling out erotophobia, too. Respect is a two-way street.
actually havin a think about it, as a owner of two servers, wouldn't it be better to just have servers police the age requirement themselves or do what sinfar does and add a age requirement? or if there was a way to add age requirements to play online?
That's the essentially crux of the issue here. As a server owner you can't possibly control how other users behave while still allowing users to interact with each other normally. Probably the best thing would be to have an age and consent disclaimer that a player must respond to affirmatively in order to play. That way like adult servers and professional online games you hold users accountable for their actions while disclaiming responsibility for everything people say and do. Essentially the same thing you would do with a website that has user generated content.
One thing to keep in mind - children aren't really picking up and playing NWN on their own these days. Older teens interested in the D&D backlog, yes, but not children. It's not 2002 anymore. Children on NWN are playing under the guidance and supervision of an interested parent, and only a rare determined few would keep playing it on their own.
Kids aren't even getting into World of Warcraft these days. They are getting into Fortnite.
That's the demographic reality, and so I think the role of self-regulation in families that play NWN shouldn't be discounted. There should be additional barriers like warnings, pop ups and questionnaires, but they don't need to be overly cumbersome or strict. When I was a kid, my friends and I would frequent chat rooms and games and would occasionally run into obscene/adult content. We knew to avoid places that put up barriers and warning popups (that stuff is gross to pre-teens) and when it did show up we knew how to ignore it. We don't have PTSD as a result.
This may just be my anecdotal experience, but as one of those rare determined kids who explored and persisted in the kinds of nerdy gaming interests that led me back then to mini-mmos and MUDs (and kids these days to NWN) - that kind of mentality comes with enough awareness and fortitude to avoid bad stuff on the internet.
On a grim counterpoint note to @Drakon, there... depressingly, that "immune reaction" rests very much on the immune system not having been previously compromised. Not all families extend protection to their children, and the children from such families are frequently ones who are receiving little enough nurturing from their immediate surroundings that "caring-bait" from unscrupulous individuals actually seems like a good deal. The grim turnout of that tends to be that "emotionally immune-compromised" children are most highly at risk of being used and abused by strangers on top of not having immediate family they can rely on. The result is crippling. It is bone-deep certainty that nobody can ever be trusted. These experiences ruin lives.
Taking up the "erotophobia-vs-erotophilia" turn of phrase; it's worth noting that we are a species that is overwhelmingly biologically predisposed to be able to enjoy intimacy. Most cases of erotophobia go back to somebody, somewhere, somewhen, prioritizing their own gratification over the mental or emotional or even physical health of the person who goes on to become erotophobic (or somebody they know, wherefore they made the experience second-hand, which can also cause trauma).
It's something to keep in mind during this debate, and when dealing with 'disproportionately' strong reactions from the erotophobic side. If somebody "overreacts" to concepts like "It's not that big of a deal" and "Just let people do what they want to do" and "People have needs" (or it's more pointedly raised and problematic form, "People have a right to have their needs for sexual gratification met"), there is likely to be a reason behind that, and it's one where signalling compassion and understanding of our responsibility to restrain and police ourselves and, where necessary, one another, is likely to be more well-received and appreciated than avid insistence on the freedom of people at large to pursue personal gratification uninhibitedly. I've used this phrase before, in different context, and I'll no doubt use it again - "It's a little counterintuitive to respond with compassion when offered a rebuke, but that is what (the erotophobes) need to hear right now".
Pragmatically, though, the protection of collective efficacy can only be extended into an environment via the people that frequent that environment. The users of social servers are the ones who are ultimately going to be in control of the actions that impact the users of social servers (including the ones that should not be on those servers at all). If the erotophobic side wants to make a serious impact on those kinds of environments, then forming alliances with as many erotophiliac people as possible is very much in their interests, cripplingly painful as that may be to admit to oneself. It is, however, a path to instilling lasting change, and to personal happiness as well. It is possible to find solace in knowing that another person has not suffered the same damage.
Moreover, to a point, destigmatization of sexuality in general is also destigmatization of the impairment suffered by those who were negatively impacted by actions within a sexual context. While "Kids who frequent those kinds of surroundings are tough and smart enough to recognize danger and stay out of it" is reassuring and well-intentioned, it also carries the connotation that having at one point been trusting enough not to see the "danger flags" signifies personal defectiveness on part of the impacted, which is a terribly cruel thought to think, considering that the inability to see warning flags tends to correlate with an absence of experience with what safety looks like.
Many people who do have experience with the lasting mental and physical damage abuse leaves behind, lifelong PTSD symptoms and all, know that the affected people frequently struggle with self-blame; "I should have seen the signs", "I tempted them to do this", "It's my fault, I should have walked away/fought back harder". These are some of the most heartbreaking things you can ever see people say. Many of them directly or indirectly defend the people who used them, and blame themselves.
So, at the erotophiliac side... if somebody is trying to tell you that you should be feeling like crap about yourselves for having an intact sexual drive, then chances are they're being a bit of a jerk and should knock it off and spend some time burying their heads in biology books. But, this conflict is one where the erotophiliac side can afford to be self-assured enough to respond compassionately to some mild outrage from the erotophobic one every once in a while, without taking offense.
The people who are most aggrieved by these topics are people who are not likely to be getting to enjoy intimacy with the same degree of carefree happiness that you do, and they might have been, once upon a time, had another person - who likely voices similar concepts as you are inclined to voice - not prioritized their own gratification over that of another, or outright at the expense of another. It doesn't always have to be full-on violence either; there still most likely was somebody involved who was being a rather major jerk and, frankly, committing a rather grave misdeed according to erotophiliac values as well; causing a partner long-term suffering rather than pleasure.
I'm not so sure @TheBarbarian and I'll try to show my perspective on some of the issues you brought up. Since you made such an effort to lay out your views for discussion I'll try and do the same.
I don't think it is much of a discussion about eroticism at all. For example what is it that makes individual A an erotophile for playing pvp matches on an adult server or doing adventurer rp on a social server? Then what is it that makes individual B who engages in erp and explicit sexual torture rp on a non-adult rp server not an erotophile?
We can umm and ahh and make much about how we think things ought to be run or how we hope to believe self policing is such and such. At the end of the day it's not plausible to give such guarantees on user experience.
Of course there is also the biological angle but while there might be some cases where abuse can bring out certain negative reactions, in most cases the opinions are informed by the cultural and societal experiences of the individual. There is a certain stigmatization and misrepresentation that goes on which paints individuals as obsessively focused on a particular aspect of the human experience, while in most cases they're not, they just accept it exists. You'll see this in movies too, some cultures prefer showing no intimacy but gratuitous violence while others tend to show more intimacy and glorify violence much less. This doesn't mean that one region is full of erotophiles and the other is full of violent erotophobes. Nor does it really relate to the media preferences of the individual, nor does it relate to widespread abuse in a region.
In causes of trauma and abuse I don't believe there is much difference in population spread either. People have their experiences whether they choose to play on one server or the other, life experiences that inform how they behave and interact with others. People do play adult servers while not engaging in erp or they play and avoid certain content, the adult servers have a highly developed system of telegraphing their preferences. You can also draw comparisons from this to how trigger warnings are used more recently, telegraphing ahead of time so people can avoid it. However on non-adult servers you are less likely to get the telegraphing and situations may be played out and described or discussed in detail that a traumatized individual might find disturbing. While it's good to be mindful of adverse reactions relating to abuse we must not discount the experiences of similar individuals that choose adult servers or even feel safer on adult servers.
So in a sense I think that adult servers have a lot of things that other servers could learn from. Rather than it being a division of erotophiles vs erotophobes.
I believe that much of the tension and push back has more to do with cultural differences, including the culture that has developed on NWN servers. Having also grown up on NWN and having experienced various communities first hand I know there have often always been a lot of snide and dismissive attitudes towards adult roleplaying and adult servers in particular. I also know that outspoken critics of adult content being found to play on adult servers or doing erp is another common trope of NWN drama. So again I don't really see it about one side vs another. Anyone that is looking for such a confrontation could probably start with half of their own server, or any random server, if people are being honest.
So that's why I think overall servers should take steps to act responsibly, have disclaimers in place, don't advertise false guarantees, advise supervision of children on servers with children. Another thing often overlooked is giving people the tools/rules to unambiguously revoke consent for any kind of sensitive content. There are still some places that champion the Nuremberg defense of RP i.e. "well my character did it, but that isn't me, so don't hold me responsible for people feeling bad because of my rp"
So that's why I think overall servers should take steps to act responsibly, have disclaimers in place, don't advertise false guarantees, advise supervision of children on servers with children. Another thing often overlooked is giving people the tools/rules to unambiguously revoke consent for any kind of sensitive content. There are still some places that champion the Nuremberg defense of RP i.e. "well my character did it, but that isn't me, so don't hold me responsible for people feeling bad because of my rp"
At the end of the day, it SHOULD boil down to this. Fact is, you can both be sexually active and sexually healthy person who is not interested in adult RP; it's not mutually exclusive that you have to be into ERP to be sexually engaged IRL. (Not everyone finds ERP with video games models "sexy"; I don't, for one.)
It's a respect thing, both for those adults who aren't really into ERP and for those parents who may not want their children playing on servers with extensive ERP. That second bit comes with responsibility of the parent, but we have warnings on video games (ESRB ratings) and TV shows/movies ( https://www.spectrum.net/support/tv/tv-and-movie-ratings-descriptions/ ) specifically to aid parents in making those decisions for wellbeing of their children. Servers which take the attitude of, "Well, no kids will ever play NWN EE" are just being irresponsible and disrespectful.
In general I agree with what you're saying but lets point out the obvious a few more times. First thing is that while players might play on a server that is called "social" or "adult" that does not mean they are interested in erp either. The main difference is that on an adult server and more so on a social server you let other people do as they please so long it is (1) legal, (2) consensual, (3) not disruptive. So yes while you can be sexually healthy in real life and not engage in erp you can also play on those servers and not engage in erp. All of these things are completely independent of each other. Of course it goes without saying that things like mental maturity and trained skills are also independent of server choice as well as content preferences. It's more appropriate to consider an adult server as the NWN server equivalent of a real life bar or night club.
Second as I've already posted numerous times ratings do not apply to unrated online experiences such as persistent worlds. A parent may wish such a system existed but the simple fact is that it doesn't. Part of being responsible in this case is making sure parents understand that. While a server shouldn't take the position of "Well, no kids will ever play NWN" they also shouldn't take the position of "Well, we're an 'E for Everyone'/'PG-13' server" because you might as well say the server is run by magical unicorns. Server owners of "family friendly" servers cannot provide such guarantees. They can only state their intent to moderate when it pleases their volunteers and as best as human fallibility allows. Now if that sounds kind of shaky that's because in reality it is, as history has shown, numerous times.
Comments
Much like how sex drives real world technological innovation... Social servers have contributed to persistent location, persistent time, persistent storage, crafting, new models, textures, and animations that have become the gold standard today. Heck, even some of the first mail and bulletin boards were first made public thanks to social servers.
It has been 10 years so I am short on examples but Milambus and his Dye & Tailor scripts come immediately to mind.
Any witch hunt (and I know that's not the intent) could be harmful to the future development of all persistent worlds. Ultimately, those people are hurting no one. They are on their own servers, interacting with their own communities and if anything, they would like some form of protection from underage people joining their communities as much (perhaps even more so) than parents.
On top of that. It is impossible for Beamdog to police ERP. Any DM for a high population server will tell you It happens absolutely everywhere on regular RP servers. It is just more overt on social servers.
As lead developer for The World of Arleah back in 2004-2006 (Top 3 RP server back in its day), I ended up having to build a "Tea House" with private rooms upstairs to stop people ERP'ing out in public with characters they had yet to purchase a house for. Even then, our DM staff would encounter a couple of people a week ERP'ing in public places.
So even if ERP/Social servers were eradicated then the problem would still exist on RP servers.
Again, I know that's not your goal but it it's important to understand the scope when identifying the issue.
I also understand this is not 2002 anymore and the 2010's has popularized outrage culture to which Beamdog has already been the unjust target of (Siege of Dragonspear).
And not to put too fine a point on it... But there are some really disturbed people on ERP servers. 97% of them are lovely, creative, and imaginative people but the other 3% are predatory scum and I think you are right to want to keep ERP servers and minors seperate. Heck, that's what the ERP servers want as well.
So ultimately the solution needs to provide the following:
- Keep minors separated from ERP servers.
- Allow ERP servers to still be part of the wider NWN community.
- Legally protect Beamdog.
- Allow ERP servers to identify themselves as such.
The flaw with a flag system or ERP servers having their own specific category is that it draws attention to it. 14 year olds always want to play MA games and watch R-rated movies.Banning ERP servers won't change their existence, they will simply go underground and be even more difficult to moderate and potentially cuts the greater persistent world community away from an important development branch.
Policing persistent worlds is going to be like digging through quicksand and if Beamdog employees could log into a server without password or invite, see everyone's text messages using Beamdogs own tools and banning anyone ERP'ing would be bad for trust, privacy, and good will.
Outright acknowledging ERP servers normalizes them which can be seen as an endorsement from Beamdog.
Ultimately I feel the only sane solution is to provide some form of age gate when someone joins multiplayer or when they first join a server.
And it wouldn't be too bad a thing to allow servers to list themselves as adult only. Even if they are not revolving around pretending to have sex.
For a year now I have been working on a persistent world that draws inspiration from H.P Lovecraft, Kingdom Death Monster, and Claymore. The player spawns in for the first time naked, without weapons or armor and must fight their way out of the underworld. Between atmosphere, dialogue and soundscape I take pride in just how disturbing and emotionally unsettling my world is.
However, it's not a place I want a 14 year old to play.
The opt-in tagging/filtering idea is great. That said, it would probably help to give an option to password protect the "show adult content" filter setting, so that parents have the option of adding a bit of security if they're concerned their kid will check that box. I don't really know of a good way to make that option obvious to the parent, though, without also giving kids ideas.
Age-gating is also pretty reasonable, but I know when I was a kid, I basically never entered a date of birth that would've made me less than 18. So I wouldn't want to count on that working very well.
Do a Credit Card / PayPal / Whatever approval similar to the way eBay etc do where you get a code
You pay a buck which is re-charged to the original authourizing account
Now I as the account owner can chose whether or not to allow porn in the game for the kids
I can't do this as a child 'cos I can't get a valid account until I'm of age (PP may be an issue)
As @TrentOster desires this it should be do-able without any issues should this be the chosen method
As @niv mentions a HTTPS header with a content type sorta thing should be checked against the users wishes
The only problem I have with this concept is how it's managed. Maybe @niv checks it or @TrentOster - not being privy to the internal workings of my Teleported Pooch (Beamdog) I can only state how I'd handle the situation
I could go into much more sophisticated methods for the auth but this is not a techie forum so...
Shut up Simon
As for the "Adult" content servers, they usually have a warning/disclaimer regarding their content, I have never played any of them and never even tried and I'm 63yo, simply because of the server description and that is not why I play the game, so I think niv's suggestion would cover any other possible issues with these.
I would advise not to over complicate the matter and add more paper work, red tape etc to an already for the most part, working system.
As for adult servers that are real and not just hypothetical servers, the largest social/rp server still operates on NWN:DE because they use a highly customized and enhanced character customization system. They can't port it to NWN:EE probably because of updates changing the client every few months and NWN:EE hasn't added the same kind of features in to the base game.
So it's kind of a dead issue right now unless you want to start policing rp servers in general, adult single player modules, or the use of haks and overrides.
Gay and straight people can happily coexist, so why not erotophiles and erotophobes? A litle tolerance goes a long way. We just need to stop thinking that we need to "do something" about people who aren't like us.
Good example: Gary's Mod Servers. All have a sort of filter attachment, some are modded, to filter certain server types but its easy to get around it and young kids continue to play on servers that should be 18+.
Anything sexually explicit which children can reach, if there is no warning or tag, is a great way for Beamdog to risk being sued.
This is a private game. So, unlike public spaces, the game creator has the right to try to warn about or restrict things of questionable nature. I would hazard a guess that most Gary's Mod Servers will ban those who violate any rules, such as 18+.
you must not know much about garys mod servers then. The Dark RP servers allow kiddies to play as prostitutes, fascist police, drug dealers and anything in between and as far i know most of the players are underage.
While I'm not a lawyer I take that to mean Beamdog is not in any way responsible for what goes on in NWN servers, but I imagine a server could face other other legal liabilities itself. For example falsely suggesting MPAA trademarks such as PG-13 or even false ESRB ratings for servers, COPPA, GDPR, and DMCA for using copyrighted works without an appropriate use and distribution license.
It's possible that the fact the community is so small and insignificant plays a part in the lack of court cases. On the other hand I would caution against trusting any servers that don't have a user agreement and disclaimer upon entry.
Also since it can't be stated enough if you are a concerned parent then remember that you have absolutely no guarantees on the content experienced during online play. Just as it is with other unmonitored and unsupervised online activities.
I would say that's all pretty normal stuff when it comes to most privately hosted game servers.
you wanna be an asshole? okay fine so im just goin to leave these here then
This is a link to dark rp that states the age to play on this server is 13
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1580130869
There arent any prostitutes listed in this list but it still says you can play as a hobo or terrorist which depending on your prudeness could be considered something as adult
and this server here where it says "For any eager young souls curious about this gamemode"
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=936690495
I still stand by the fact that it would be quite obvious to say that Garys mod servers are a great example of what servers here will do too if presented with a policing or tag based system and why it will not work.
Time we started calling out erotophobia, too. Respect is a two-way street.
That's the essentially crux of the issue here. As a server owner you can't possibly control how other users behave while still allowing users to interact with each other normally. Probably the best thing would be to have an age and consent disclaimer that a player must respond to affirmatively in order to play. That way like adult servers and professional online games you hold users accountable for their actions while disclaiming responsibility for everything people say and do. Essentially the same thing you would do with a website that has user generated content.
Kids aren't even getting into World of Warcraft these days. They are getting into Fortnite.
That's the demographic reality, and so I think the role of self-regulation in families that play NWN shouldn't be discounted. There should be additional barriers like warnings, pop ups and questionnaires, but they don't need to be overly cumbersome or strict. When I was a kid, my friends and I would frequent chat rooms and games and would occasionally run into obscene/adult content. We knew to avoid places that put up barriers and warning popups (that stuff is gross to pre-teens) and when it did show up we knew how to ignore it. We don't have PTSD as a result.
This may just be my anecdotal experience, but as one of those rare determined kids who explored and persisted in the kinds of nerdy gaming interests that led me back then to mini-mmos and MUDs (and kids these days to NWN) - that kind of mentality comes with enough awareness and fortitude to avoid bad stuff on the internet.
Taking up the "erotophobia-vs-erotophilia" turn of phrase; it's worth noting that we are a species that is overwhelmingly biologically predisposed to be able to enjoy intimacy. Most cases of erotophobia go back to somebody, somewhere, somewhen, prioritizing their own gratification over the mental or emotional or even physical health of the person who goes on to become erotophobic (or somebody they know, wherefore they made the experience second-hand, which can also cause trauma).
It's something to keep in mind during this debate, and when dealing with 'disproportionately' strong reactions from the erotophobic side. If somebody "overreacts" to concepts like "It's not that big of a deal" and "Just let people do what they want to do" and "People have needs" (or it's more pointedly raised and problematic form, "People have a right to have their needs for sexual gratification met"), there is likely to be a reason behind that, and it's one where signalling compassion and understanding of our responsibility to restrain and police ourselves and, where necessary, one another, is likely to be more well-received and appreciated than avid insistence on the freedom of people at large to pursue personal gratification uninhibitedly. I've used this phrase before, in different context, and I'll no doubt use it again - "It's a little counterintuitive to respond with compassion when offered a rebuke, but that is what (the erotophobes) need to hear right now".
Pragmatically, though, the protection of collective efficacy can only be extended into an environment via the people that frequent that environment. The users of social servers are the ones who are ultimately going to be in control of the actions that impact the users of social servers (including the ones that should not be on those servers at all). If the erotophobic side wants to make a serious impact on those kinds of environments, then forming alliances with as many erotophiliac people as possible is very much in their interests, cripplingly painful as that may be to admit to oneself. It is, however, a path to instilling lasting change, and to personal happiness as well. It is possible to find solace in knowing that another person has not suffered the same damage.
Moreover, to a point, destigmatization of sexuality in general is also destigmatization of the impairment suffered by those who were negatively impacted by actions within a sexual context. While "Kids who frequent those kinds of surroundings are tough and smart enough to recognize danger and stay out of it" is reassuring and well-intentioned, it also carries the connotation that having at one point been trusting enough not to see the "danger flags" signifies personal defectiveness on part of the impacted, which is a terribly cruel thought to think, considering that the inability to see warning flags tends to correlate with an absence of experience with what safety looks like.
Many people who do have experience with the lasting mental and physical damage abuse leaves behind, lifelong PTSD symptoms and all, know that the affected people frequently struggle with self-blame; "I should have seen the signs", "I tempted them to do this", "It's my fault, I should have walked away/fought back harder". These are some of the most heartbreaking things you can ever see people say. Many of them directly or indirectly defend the people who used them, and blame themselves.
So, at the erotophiliac side... if somebody is trying to tell you that you should be feeling like crap about yourselves for having an intact sexual drive, then chances are they're being a bit of a jerk and should knock it off and spend some time burying their heads in biology books. But, this conflict is one where the erotophiliac side can afford to be self-assured enough to respond compassionately to some mild outrage from the erotophobic one every once in a while, without taking offense.
The people who are most aggrieved by these topics are people who are not likely to be getting to enjoy intimacy with the same degree of carefree happiness that you do, and they might have been, once upon a time, had another person - who likely voices similar concepts as you are inclined to voice - not prioritized their own gratification over that of another, or outright at the expense of another. It doesn't always have to be full-on violence either; there still most likely was somebody involved who was being a rather major jerk and, frankly, committing a rather grave misdeed according to erotophiliac values as well; causing a partner long-term suffering rather than pleasure.
I don't think it is much of a discussion about eroticism at all. For example what is it that makes individual A an erotophile for playing pvp matches on an adult server or doing adventurer rp on a social server? Then what is it that makes individual B who engages in erp and explicit sexual torture rp on a non-adult rp server not an erotophile?
We can umm and ahh and make much about how we think things ought to be run or how we hope to believe self policing is such and such. At the end of the day it's not plausible to give such guarantees on user experience.
Of course there is also the biological angle but while there might be some cases where abuse can bring out certain negative reactions, in most cases the opinions are informed by the cultural and societal experiences of the individual. There is a certain stigmatization and misrepresentation that goes on which paints individuals as obsessively focused on a particular aspect of the human experience, while in most cases they're not, they just accept it exists. You'll see this in movies too, some cultures prefer showing no intimacy but gratuitous violence while others tend to show more intimacy and glorify violence much less. This doesn't mean that one region is full of erotophiles and the other is full of violent erotophobes. Nor does it really relate to the media preferences of the individual, nor does it relate to widespread abuse in a region.
In causes of trauma and abuse I don't believe there is much difference in population spread either. People have their experiences whether they choose to play on one server or the other, life experiences that inform how they behave and interact with others. People do play adult servers while not engaging in erp or they play and avoid certain content, the adult servers have a highly developed system of telegraphing their preferences. You can also draw comparisons from this to how trigger warnings are used more recently, telegraphing ahead of time so people can avoid it. However on non-adult servers you are less likely to get the telegraphing and situations may be played out and described or discussed in detail that a traumatized individual might find disturbing. While it's good to be mindful of adverse reactions relating to abuse we must not discount the experiences of similar individuals that choose adult servers or even feel safer on adult servers.
So in a sense I think that adult servers have a lot of things that other servers could learn from. Rather than it being a division of erotophiles vs erotophobes.
I believe that much of the tension and push back has more to do with cultural differences, including the culture that has developed on NWN servers. Having also grown up on NWN and having experienced various communities first hand I know there have often always been a lot of snide and dismissive attitudes towards adult roleplaying and adult servers in particular. I also know that outspoken critics of adult content being found to play on adult servers or doing erp is another common trope of NWN drama. So again I don't really see it about one side vs another. Anyone that is looking for such a confrontation could probably start with half of their own server, or any random server, if people are being honest.
So that's why I think overall servers should take steps to act responsibly, have disclaimers in place, don't advertise false guarantees, advise supervision of children on servers with children. Another thing often overlooked is giving people the tools/rules to unambiguously revoke consent for any kind of sensitive content. There are still some places that champion the Nuremberg defense of RP i.e. "well my character did it, but that isn't me, so don't hold me responsible for people feeling bad because of my rp"
It's a respect thing, both for those adults who aren't really into ERP and for those parents who may not want their children playing on servers with extensive ERP. That second bit comes with responsibility of the parent, but we have warnings on video games (ESRB ratings) and TV shows/movies ( https://www.spectrum.net/support/tv/tv-and-movie-ratings-descriptions/ ) specifically to aid parents in making those decisions for wellbeing of their children. Servers which take the attitude of, "Well, no kids will ever play NWN EE" are just being irresponsible and disrespectful.
Second as I've already posted numerous times ratings do not apply to unrated online experiences such as persistent worlds. A parent may wish such a system existed but the simple fact is that it doesn't. Part of being responsible in this case is making sure parents understand that. While a server shouldn't take the position of "Well, no kids will ever play NWN" they also shouldn't take the position of "Well, we're an 'E for Everyone'/'PG-13' server" because you might as well say the server is run by magical unicorns. Server owners of "family friendly" servers cannot provide such guarantees. They can only state their intent to moderate when it pleases their volunteers and as best as human fallibility allows. Now if that sounds kind of shaky that's because in reality it is, as history has shown, numerous times.