r/WarDogs • u/EpikJustice • 22d ago
Discussion & Feedback Anyone noticed more hate speech / political extremism compared to other milsim games?
Look - I'm not trying to be a buzzkill, and I'm not trying to police people's opinions/politics.
I know this is a milsim-inspired game, and so the player base is going to lean towards people interested in the military, war, guns & the history of those things - and that might lean towards a more politically conservative crowd - and there's nothing wrong with that. I've been a big fan of the milsim genre most of my gaming life, and have spent plenty of time in ArmA, Squad, Post-Scriptum, Hell Let Loose, Rising Storm: Vietnam, etc.
One thing I've noticed since WarDogs launched is a fairly high prevalence of stuff like clan tags, player names, or in-game chat that is either hinting at, or straight up, related to hate speech or political extremism. I've seen a pretty wide array of explicitly offensive clan tags, player names, or in-game speech. Clan tags like [RAPE], [NGR], etc. I also see a lot of references to online alt-right / hate subcultures - for example, clan tags like [GOY], [CHUD], [MEN], [CUCK], [WHITE], etc. Also, just generally politics-related stuff that isn't necessarily hateful/offensive, but sometimes at least purposefully controversial - [TRUMP], [KIRK], [IDF], [FJB], etc.
Also - it's an online game, I'm not surprise to see lots of dumb shit in the in-game chat - but I see a fair share of slurs & "edgy" stuff flying around in the text chat. Some games just have edgelords going back & forth the whole match instead of playing the game.
I'm also not talking about silly in-game roleplaying - I think stuff like players in a Vietnam game saying stuff like "GI go home!" or referring to helicopters as "skydragon", etc. is all just relatively harmless fun that often adds to the experience.
I'm used to some amount of all of this in other milsims - but the volume of such things seems perhaps higher than I'm used to. I'm sure that some of it is also due to the massive influx of players the game has seen - most milsims I've played have much smaller communities that trend towards older gamers. The game has probably attracted a lot of players that would normally stick to CoD/Battlefield, or are very young, etc.
I can ignore all this stuff - it's a relatively minor impact on my enjoyment of the game... but I do think that what is/isn't allowed/enforced by the game moderation has an impact on the overall vibe of the community. Just as an anecdote... I once joined a popular private WoW server before WoW Classic was a thing, hoping to relive some of my childhood memories of the game. In terms of performance, lack of P2W, player population, etc. - it was a well-run WoW server - but there was pretty much 0 moderation. The global chat was just absolutely filled with completely vile shit - like just as bad, if not worse, than the kind of banter I'd see on /b/ as a teenager. I tried to ignore that - but I noticed that even beyond the offensive shit in the global chat, the server was just filled with unfun assholes that made it a miserable experience to play - so I stopped playing pretty quickly. Not a big surprise for a private WoW server - and maybe it'd have been filled with a bunch of unfun people even without the hate speech - but I do think that allowing extremist speech/messaging to run amok unmoderated does scare away whatever chance you have of attracting "normal" people to your community, leaving you with a bunch of anti-social, miserable, generally unfun people to play with.
Just curious if any other milsim veterans have noticed a difference in the community/speech we've seen thus far in WarDogs vs other milsim/milsim-inspired games, or if I'm just noticing it more than usual for some reason?
I know that the devs may not have expected or been prepared for this volume of players, and moderation is a hard problem to solve and it can be tricky to find the right balance, and I don't expect any changes overnight - but personally, I'd like to see a bit more moderation around clan tags/player names/text chat/voice chat/etc., to foster a fun, cooperative & at least not overly off-putting community.
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u/RAGE_QUEEFER 20d ago
Could you name a group that isn't stigmatized? I am a middle aged black male. I am in the most racist minority group on the planet. Have you heard our music? Do you know any black people? We love the N word its our favorite word. Do you know what we call the Chinese man that lives a few doors down or owns the food joint on the corner? Do you know what 90% of us calls the white mailman that drops our mail off every morning? What I do see if young always young non minority mostly white kids allways talking about somebody else being racist etc etc etc. In turn doing the most to keep true racism alive and thriving in America. Words are words there nothing more than sounds. When you're people have experienced actual racism and its cost them there lives. A dumb ass kids saying some dumb ass words is comedy not racism or any other title young white kids wanna give it. Is that an Efficient enough answer for you @Thecoldflame ?