Star Wars the Old Republic Guild Turns to Cyber bullying

 

For almost a year a father and his 9 year old son played on the Star Wars the Old Republic with a great guild.  A few weeks before the new Star Wars the Old Republic expansion started the guild turned nasty.  Suddenly what used to be a fun MMORPG became an ordeal of cyber bulling.

It started in sly comments.  It quickly moved up to nasty in game messages, anonymous posting full of swear words, insults and comments like “you are this and this and should quite the game” but not in so nice words.  Insert any combination of swear words, insults with thinly veiled threats and you get the idea. 

The last straw was when an anonymous posting went on the guild page attacking four players, Suddenly what was just annoying and somewhat childish behaviour became a full out attack.  The guild leader let the posting stay up on the guild page.  This showed that she supported the cyber bulling behaviour of one guild member.  Please note that the bully did not have the guts to put their name on their poison pen posting.  As a result all four members decided independently that they did not want to play in a guild where they were expected to put up with someone treating them like crap.

Not one of the players being cyber bullied had done anything to earn the abuse.  Two were new players, who did not have much experience.  They were in the process of learning the game and building up their levels.  One was a father, with a new born, who played when he could but put his family first.  The fourth was in the US military serving overseas.  He is fighting for his country, with all his time scheduled for him.  Not to mention putting his life on the line every day.  Why would any of these people want to deal with abuse every time they logged onto Star Wars the Old Republic?

Now it is one thing to have someone be nasty on Star Wars the Old Republic, you simply block them.  It is something different to be cyber bullied by someone in your own guild.  Especially when the cyber bully hides who they are, it taints the whole guild.  You don’t know who is doing it.  It is like getting nasty letters in your locker at high school, the bully wants to make their life hell but is not “man” enough to put their name on it.

Oh, and Mr. Anonymous was not so anonymous after all.  The person was creating alternative characters not in the guild so they could cyber bully “anonymously”.  But all four people figured out who it was when they compared notes. 

The cyber bully had recently joined the guild.  He was a new “friend” of the guild leader and was given extra special treatment at the expense of the other guild members.  He was given an officers position right away, even though everyone else had to work their way up the guild and prove themselves.  He was going after the guild members he felt threatened by. 

The ex-guild members felt betrayed by their guild leader, that she would allow such abusive behaviour.  None of the attacked players engage the bully.  It was not worth their time.  They play Star Wars the Old Republic to have fun. 

The funny part is that the cyber bully did not even notice they had left the guild.  He stepped up the attacks after they had already left.  He started posting anonymous abusive messages in the guilds message of the day for everyone to see.  He called them names, put them down and kept saying they should be kicked out of the guild.

At first the guild leader was upset that the guild members quite and asked them back.  That changed within a day.  Suddenly she was being abusive to them as well.  Somehow they were in the wrong for taking offence to the extremely abusive attacks.  She expected them to just put up with it.

Just to be safe the Father decided to log onto his 9 year old sons account and pull him out of the guild.  What did he find, in retaliation for the father leaving the guild leader kicked his son out.  The cyber bully sent the 9 year old a very abusive, bulling message along the same lines as what he had posted to the other guild members.  It was full of swear words and was just plain nasty to say to anyone, let alone a 9 year old.

What was the point of cyber bulling a child?  The kid was already kicked out of the guild.  Why send a child you don’t know an abusive message?  Simple, because he could.  He knew his guild leader will support his cyber bullying of long standing and new guild members.  Why would she have an issue with him attacking a child in the same manner?  He was so confident that he did not even bother to do it anonymously!  This just confirmed the suspicions about who was doing it.

Well he was right.  When this was brought to the guild leader’s attention her response was, she was the one who kicked the child out of the guild and what was the problem with the messages.  After all it was all just a joke.  Extreme abusive cyber bullying for two weeks a joke!  Right.  Who is she kidding?  Most people will not accept this treatment any time, so why should anyone accept it on a MMORPG. 

 

With the number of kids killing themselves over cyber bulling she still thinks it’s ok for her new friend to do this to a child who has never done anything to anyone.  I guess she is not the good person people thought she was.  Who wants to be in a guild that you have to put up with abuse to play in?  What gets me the most though is, how could anyone think it is ok for an adult to cyber bully a child!  It is not ok for anyone to cyber bully a child.

Star Wars the old Republic We are Not a Guild group

Star Wars the Old Republic announced their release date Dec 20, 2011. This has caused quite a stir within the MMORPG community. Many people have been waiting a long time for this announcement. Suddenly there is an actual date set, and people are very excited.

My husband joined Lord of the Rings online to get MMORPG experience. He has made some friends, and found that he actually like playing MMORG’s. The one thing he did not like was that many people bugged him to join their guild/kinship. He turned that feature off and they started IMing him to join thier kinships.Most guilds on Lord of the Rings seemed to have restrictions, guidelines and regulations.

Suddenly you could not just go play. You were expected to only play with and help people in the guild. You were expected to participate at specific times, in specific battles, and had to play so much each day or week. You could not just go play with anyone and everyone. You could not just play when you felt like it or had the time. You could not join fellowships unless they were part of your guild.

It was not his idea of fun. Now understandably not all guilds are like that. It just felt that the idea of guilds was more restrictive then helpful. Not when you could develop friends, and just play for fun. He liked doing things his way, helping and fighting beside anyone, and just enjoying himself.

Now that Star Wars the Old Republic has an official release date the requests to join a guild went from a couple a day, to a flood. People started giving him a hard time trying to get him to join their guild. Some of them had a hard time taking no as an answer. They don’t seem to understand it is nothing personal. He just does not want to join a guild right now, if ever.

Several people that also play Lord of the Rings with him have also decided that they don’t want to join a guild right now. They like the freedom of doing their own thing on Lord of the Rings and they want to be able to do the same thing on Star Wars the Old Republic.

My husband decided to create: We are Not a Guild group. If you are interested in being part of the guild please contact Fenwolf on the East Coast server - the Jedi Covenent

This is a group for people who do not want to be a part of an actual guild. We all work alone and don't want to be invited to join guilds. There are no alliances or adversaries. If you declare war on someone you are on your own. The group will not aid you.

You can participate as much or as little as you want to in the group. You can develop friendships or fighting groups if you want or just ignore everyone. Any republic players welcome from any age or experience. No politics allowed.


Group has 3 rules only.


1 - Be nice and polite to all members. Clean language as there might be kids and teens


in the group.


2 - No harassing people to join the group.


3 - Don't take any actions or make any declarations on behalf of the group.


IE - Do Not Declare War.


P.S. - The group can vote to change this at a later time if we decide to.

I think it is an interesting idea. A good way to get people to back off and let people play the game they want. It could be a very interesting guild as well. Anyone is welcome, no politics and only three very simple rules. Either people will love it, or no one will.

Welcome to Lord of the Rings MMORPG, now I am addicted

Addictions can get you anytime, anywhere. I have never thought of myself as having an addictive personality. I don’t drink, do drugs, hoard stuff or anything I would consider a type of addiction. Even my gambling is “safe”. I play bingo once every few years, I play the lottery weekly and used to spend $10 every couple of months to play online poker. I am addicted to coffee, but have cut it back to one to three cups in a day. So I would never think I could become addicted to anything.

Seems I am addicted to my computer and computer games. I was playing Dragons of Atlantis on Facebook for a bit. Found myself playing for hours on end. I never noticed the time go by. My kids and husband got quite cranky after a couple of weeks. I liked the game but had to stop playing. It is never ending, with new things to do all the time.

My husband made the mistake of introducing me to a MMORPG Lord of the Rings. It is free to play now, and a lot of fun. It blew Dragons of Atlantis away for me. It does not have the strategy aspect I loved on Dragons of Atlantis but the graphics are much better. You can walk around, talk to people, fight things, create things and even find things. There are quests and tasks to do. You can work with people, or alone. Though, at times you are required to form fellowships to finish some quests. I love it.

I am playing a lady hunter who makes jewellery and food. Seems my personality showed up in my game character. I have fun doing tasks and quests but am not very good at fighting with others. I am a little focused on just getting through that I forget about the people playing with me. Not so good, but am working on it. I think it will just take some practice.

My husband tended to take over my character when I did fellowships and skirmish’s. So now that I am actually trying to do them I suck! I just don’t have the skill yet. I will learn it but I have to do group fights at a low level until I get my skill up. I like doing the quests and tasks more than working as a group, but for some things you need to work with a group so I am learning.

I have had to limit myself to how much time I can spend on the game. I thought Dragons of Atlantis had sucked me in. Lord of the Rings is much more addictive. There is just so much to do. Lord of the Rings is so flexible and complex that it works on many levels. Each person is experiencing a different game but playing the same quests and tasks.

You can create unique and individual characters, change their looks and what they do until you are happy. You can create several different characters to play on one account. That way you can be anything and everything in the game. You can even have a home to relax in. There is a hobby, fishing. And you stand there and fish. I think this game is a way to have fun and leave the stress of the day behind, as long as you don’t end up creating problems because you are spending too much time online playing.

My family has made some smart choices about this game. We have limited ourselves to one account with different characters for each of us. This way we have to share the account and the time we spend on it. It would be a bad thing if we each had our own account. It would be too easy to find ourselves playing on different computers for hours. Instead we are limiting our time, but not our fun.

We are working together as a family. We make sure we spend time together off line, and help each other in the game. It is taking a lot of work to make sure we have that balance. Lord of the Rings is just that much fun. I am glad we are playing it the way we are. I am not sure if my husband and son will still be playing once the new Star Wars one comes out, but until then we are having fun together.

Because it is free I am happy to recommend Lord of the Rings to other people. If you do decide to try it out it would be appreciated if you would put Fenwolf1978 as the person who referred the game to you. If you do they will give us some Turbine points that we can use to buy or open up new quests and areas of the map, horses, houses, clothing and more. If you do, thank you in advance. If not, enjoy the game anyway. Look us up, Fenwolf, Mohasaba and Nicdragon. We will be happy to help out with any quests and tasks. You could fight with Fenwolf or Nicdragon. Or you could help me, Mohasaba, be a better team player. Just don’t blame us when you realise you have become addicted to the game.

Another great Jedi Kids Video

The Jedi Kids Video for the Star Wars the Old Republic MMO

The Jedi Kids was created to allow Young Jedi and their parents a place to talk and play. To ensure a safe environment for Kids to enjoy the Star Wars Universe and meet other kids to work together on all the team based content of the game. Any one allied with the Republic and 17 and under can join.

http://www.thejedikids.guildlaunch.com/index.php?gid=209570

Jedi Kids guild for kids

My son has fallen in love with Star Wars, the movies, T.V. shows and video games. My husband is going to be trying out the Star Wars the Old Republic MMO when it comes out. My son cannot wait until the game comes out. He is going to play with his dad and then once he has learned how to play he is going to get his own account and character. My husband is going to sit with him and help him play, until he is much older and can play by himself (with supervision.)

To make it safer my husband and another of the dads have started the Jedi Kids guild. This will give kids a safe place to play, with people they know. This will eliminate the worries of the MMO bullies intimidation tactics, abuse and swearing. The Jedi Kids can enjoy the game as they learn to play and hopefully make friends. Most of the game is single player with specific points where group play is involved, unless you are on the group server. I want the people he plays with to be his friends or at least friendly.

I am glad that they are doing this. I don’t want my son’s love of Star Wars games destroyed by other people who think it is fun to pick on new players. Some people think my son is too young to play. I think it will be fine as long as it is with my husband or me. It is not like we would let him play by himself. All his game play and computer time are supervised.

My son is so happy about this whole thing. He gets to play a Star Wars game, gets Daddy time and is looking forward meeting kids from all over the world. He hopes lots of kids join The Jedi Kids Guild.