Current News - June 15th, 2009
 

http://www.disneysonlineworlds.com/i...ain_Teague.png
Father's Day Quest Returns!
June 15, 2009

Back by popular demand, the Father's Day Quest returns starting June 17 and will be available through Father's Day, June 21. Complete it and you'll earn a limited time x2 Reputation reward! To start the adventure, visit Captain Jack Sparrow in the Faithful Bride.


Calling All Testers!
June 15, 2009

Bad language of any kind is never acceptable in Pirates Online. We have added a feature that will detect if players use bad language and will automatically suspend your account if you continue to attempt using foul langauge .

It works like this: If you use foul language in chat, you get a warning. If you insist on using bad language, you get one more warning. After that -- your account will be automatically banned from the Caribbean. The length of time you are removed from the game depends on your account history. If you?ve had previous violations, you could be banned from the game permanently!

This feature will be on the Test Servers to start and will eventually be introduced to the Live servers shortly thereafter.

I feel sorry for some people in game, lol. Well, at least some stuff is being cut back on... still no major updates though -.-

Woohoo! Another minor quest :D

So... what does that mean? We should curse up a storm on Test to make sure the feature works?

I wonder if they reset it so everyone that did it last year can do it again this year.

About time, this is great new to all of us who never use bad language and dislike those that do. And to all those players who have questionable account histories beware. This seems to be fair warning by Disney.

I'm thinking this is a feature that requires no testing.

I agree with jason_davy, how do they expect it to be tested? I doubt very much most testers swear, but if they do this enough and find out it works, do they get a free pass on the possible ban? Would have something like that go into a persons record simply because they were testing it.

YES!!!!!!!! We need more double rep days! Those grenades are mind numbing!

Now as much as a good thing I think the bad word filter is, I have a problem; Many people don't say text cursing, they use innocent words which, used in context, is phrased as a bad word. Now, when I use the same word, in G-Rated context, does that mean I should fear for a suspension?

I would not be surprised if the new foul language system reached Toontown as well, there have been some problems with filter bypass there since SpeedChat Plus was added.

Like the update, like the new quest (need that extra rep for me second pirate) But like Sven said.. still waiting for the major update.. I HOPE it comes around summer (or now actually since summer is pretty much here)

A bigger question or concern is... What is going to be consider "bad language". People have been banned for numbers or signing. This is skipping the most obvious ones. What about racial comments? I have heard quite a few in game. Bad, Foul, and obscene are three very different things. I hope they have a group of people that goes over who said what and what was the context of such words. This if not done right and without extreme caution WILL cause a major issue. With most of us getting banned for a very dumb reason such as saying "Four".

I wonder what is going to be consitered foul language.

In that case Skirata, EVERYONE FEAR FOR YOUR CHAT LOG!!!!!!!!!

This is probably the biggest safety update so far this year.

Like I submitted on the POTCO site, we may be pirates but we don't need to talk like them.

I have not been suspended yet. But sometimes I do wonder what they consider to be foul and then why. While on guild chat I was chatting about flavors, and then I notice that the chat would appear on my screen but then on everyone elses it would not. So then I wondered what the word was as in my context everything was clean. So I started trying all the words singly. And I came up with "cherry, raspberry, and even orange. When those words were in a sentence the sentence wouldn't appear in anyone's chat log. It would appear in mine as if it went through.

I wouldn't like a suspension or a ban for saying how I like a certain flavor of candy or even that I got up to get an orange or some cherries.

I know this cause I do still use a basic account for double play. Well it is kinda basic as I used one of them 14 day passes on it.

This is completely goofy to set the chat filter up like this.... We all know the standard curse words, but I don't know what Disney is going to consider as foul language and ban me over. I do not see why they can't just make the standard curse words show up as Arrr all the time along with vulgar words that could be used to describe adult actions. I don't see any point in doing this other than to further cheapen their efforts with POTCO and eliminate the chat monitoring people's job. I refer back to earlier statements I have made about them "dumbing" the game down to a point to get people to actually leave so the higher ups can have an excuse to fire the developers and end the game. The only way this will be fair is if Disney posts a list of the words they consider as "bad" and make them public for all to see. I don't curse in the game, but I do say certain phrases that could be picked up and banned by automated software that can't understand the context of what the word or words were used in; I would say this goes for just about every person who plays the game.

:SkullBullet1:
Larence Tuppington

And I don't talk much while in game...

*sigh

wondering what we will get banned for... can see getting banned for use of

omg

lmbo

dam

lol.. and I truely want to know are they wanting us to actually "test" the filters

The bad part is - there's no "official list" of words which may get you banned - so its all a guessing game! :D

I actually posted a comment about the filter on the website but I don't know if it was approved. I asked some of the same questions that are posted here. For instance, what is foul language. If it is anything that speedchat plus can't see, does that mean pirates will get banned for saying my Disney approved name? And then, of course, why would we want to test this? I am very curious about whether or not we will get a little clarification on this update.

I think I'll call D on this one. I would like to know exactly what their list of "bad words" contains. I never swear in game, if D is going by George Carlin's list that is. If they're going to start getting people for OMG, and various versoins of LMBO, then everyone is in trouble.

Then there is my typo problem....I once said be "back in a sec", but typo'ed an X instead of a C...if they are going to be banning people for typos, I"M IN TROUBLE ;)

And Testing it...yeah, I'm a little confused on that one. Think I'll hit up on-line supprt for that question. I'll need a transcript for back-up with the questions I have in mind to ask...

Sarah, Ive done that so many times, with a bunch of different things to,
Edit: 777 posts XD

Larence, you can't publish a list of dirty words for children to see.

Granted, they could generate a list of categories certain words would fall into. And let's be honest - our chats are already monitored and most know how to skirt it. But, perhaps it's time for more folks to be creative in their language instead of just trying to misspelled inappropriate ones.

The game already let you say Hell. Which I find amusing. Often on plunder raids, I used to tell my gunners to "Give'em Hell!" I guess I gotta' change that. Suggestions? Give'em Heck just doesn't work... ummm Send'em to Hades? Unleash Hades? To Blazes with them?

One thing I liked about the Pirates movies was the creative language used by the characters to say some pretty rude stuff. Time to use the old imagination...

It works like this..
 

If you use bad language or think something you said might be misconstrued as foul language you get 2 free passes at it. The warning says it clearly. First time you will see a warning, second time you will also only get a warning. After you have clearly used bad language and been warned twice you get banned.

I have gone on test and tried a few things like Beorn, Arktos (Test name), various typos and numbers. Basically, random words that don't show up in plus chat. None of these gave me any kind of warning. However, I don't know how long it will take a warning to come across but so far so good.

I used some words..
 

So far I have used some words that sound like other words that are not appropriate for a G game. None of them has caused any warnings to pop up. At this point I think you would really need to curse outright to get the filter to warn you. Since most of us don't use that kind of language, I don't think this will affect us much if at all.

Do we know if it is an immediate in-game warning or an email warning?

Hmm
 

Seems like the wording "auto" implies immediate but we shall soon see. I'll keep an eye on my e-mail. LOL

It's not an in game warning for sure...I gave it quite a good test. We'll see if they send me a mail ;)

EDIT: Oh, and live chat is "down for upgrades" so no answers to my questions yet.

The Fathers day 2x rep
 

I submited the following to the Grog Blog:

I'm assuming my questions may well go unanswered so I'm hoping people here who experienced last years version of this event will tell the rest of use the answers to my questions. I'm guessing I'll have better luck here. :pirate2:

Last year it was 2 hours of logged in time and it did start when you finished the quest, but I logged a pirate last time right after finishing the quest and was able to save the time and used it 4 months later.

The Father's Day quest last year was a quest to find Captian Teague. At the end of the quest, you were given a symbol next to your name that lasted for 3 hours of GAME TIME. While the symbol was there, you earned double rep. Logging out stops the game time, so unless you are activly using that pirate, your remaining double rep time is "banked".

Make sure you do the quest with EACH of your pirates. (if I remember correctly, the quest took all of 15 minutes, much like the Valentines Day quest) Even your fully Mastered ones. Even though you may not play the fully mastered pirates regularly, and they don't earn rep even if you do play them, it is probably a good thing to have the double rep time waiting for them for that magic day in the future when the rep cap is finally increased.

As Sarah said, get it on every pirate you have, it can come in handy.

If I may ask, can this quest be done at ANY level, or would I have a hard time taking out my little pirates?

Any level can do it easily if it's exactly the same as last year. Here is the Wiki Entry: http://www.disneyonlineworlds.com/in...FATHER%27S_DAY

There is another trick to this.

START the quest on your pirate, but don't finish it. Last year, you could wait to finish it for months. This way, if you have a fully mastered pirate, you don't waste the double rep time every time you log in. Then, wait until the marvelous day in the far future when they raise the caps, and you can finish the quest and earn double rep right at the start.

The down side is: if they don;t raise the caps, you will never finish the quest, and next fathers day, you won't have anything to do.

Or maybe you can do both this years and next years, and get double, double rep.

If I read Wiki correctly, it starts and ends with Jack Sparrow, so when you see him the next year, wouldn't you just end up turning in your task before you can start next year?

I was teasing!

I noticed that they included pictures of Cpt. Teague that looks like hes in game.
I wonder if you actually see him this year... Last year all it was was find him and your done.

Sorry, I'm bad at picking up jokes/ teasing/ sarcasm. :b

Is it 3 hours real time? Or does it start/stop when you log in and out?

I cant have the quest.... Jack tell me that he have nothing for me... oO !

EDIT : I have talk to Giladoga, but the same happened ! O_O

I don't think you can do the quest if you did it last year. I had one pirate around last year and Jack said he had nothing for me. My other three pirates that have been created since were given the quest.

I completely agree if i were them i would just take out curse words and racial comments. And ill bet they will ban people just like that just for saying a number.

Then again u can use for for four.

If you're worried about numbers - most folks I know use homonyms or rhyming words:

Won, Too, Tree, For, Hive, Sticks, Heaven, Ate, Mine (Can you use the German - Nein?), etc.

Curious question is - are they going to be able to pick out people doing the same thing for words that are sound alikes for obscene language.

And who is using racial slurs? Good grief... One of the cool things about pirates, I felt was that crews were sometimes made up of racially or culturally mixed groups - and that's not just in the movies but historically.

Just let us police ourselves. If a pirate is being a pig - then report him.

I havent really noticed us giving any reason for POCTCO to do these high sercurity measures but does this mean that if u mistype a word would that ban u because its just in red?

Someone plz answer this question

I have tried random typos and numbers and names that show up in red and I never got a warning. I am pretty sure it is just for real foul language.

thanks i was kinda worried there because i tend to make typos alot

Well the wonderful Fathers Day quest, is not repeatable folks.

So if your pirate did it last year, you cannot do it again this year.

Doesnt Disney know it happens over and over and not just once?
Quite a bummer.

This is very close to the last straw... :sadmh9: Can anyone give me a single compelling reason NOT to allow players to repeat this quest? I certainly can give Disney a few reasons to allow me to complete it again...

1. It's been a year since I last finished it.
2. They have offered very little in terms of incentives to keep taking my $10 month.
3. I am a father and kind of think it's a little cynical to tease me with a gift and take it away.
4. My kids were looking forward to it and now I have to deal with THEIR disappointment.
5. Did I mention I pay $10 a month so three pirates who have finished their Boss Battles can wander around with nothing to do?
6. People are leaving in droves.

I'm sorry but I hope this is a mistake on Disney's part. I hope that they meant to give the gift to EVERYONE regardless of how long they have been loyal customers. Seriously. I feel like I am being punished for sticking around and paying for over a year.

EDIT: After my little rant I went to the POTCO home page to submit a formal complaint and found this on the News Page:

Pirates just posted an update on the website in the Grog Blog (under the Father's Day quest news item) about this:

Avast ye Pirates! We're aware of an issue with this quest where players that completed it last year are not able to complete it this year - this is a bug and we're working to fix it. Another issue is the x2 Rep reward - the icon is not appearing for some players that have completed the quest. To see how much x2 rep time you have, just type the following in your chat window: /x2

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you, again we're working quickly to fix these problems as soon as possible.

Language Warnings

I tested the new language filters a few nights' ago, didn't hear a thing from D.

Tested it tonight. Guess there has been an update....Got an IN GAME warning after saying some colorful phrases. You are warned of the "offensive word" and have to click an "i agree to your terms" button to continue in game.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...hot002-1-1.jpg

and my second warning (I had to REALLY test it)

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/h...hot013-2-1.jpg

What if the system takes a completely non offensive word and says its offensive??

My question is, no one I know uses actual curses to curse in game, they say approved words in context, so its great that it warns people when they actually curse but I don't see how the Big-D is going against who do "educated cursing".

Honestly, I used COMPLETELY offensive words to test the filter. I don't recommend it.

If you get this pop-up message in game, it's going to show you what the offensive word/phrase was in quotes. (i blacked it out). If you get this pop-up, and you feel what you said was taken out of context, I suggest you take a screenie and get in touch with Disney to discuss it.

I mean I dont wanna say for example the number 12 for a quest and the game think I'm asking or giving age...

Wow, Sarah. You must really be a dedicated tester because I know I'd never risk testing this feature by saying anything offensive.

At least we know it works now.

P.S. I just went on to test the new feature and used words that would normally be red. Nothing bad but any word in red that I tried to use wouldn't go through. My test account isn't basic so why can't I see the wrods go through? I used to words, ugly, twelve, 12, and a few other things that normally appear red.

Sarah,

You don't have to take a BULLET for everyone else, hun. But, thanks for taking a hit for the team... 'now get back out on that field, young lady and win one for the Gipper!'

LOL, just doing my job ;)

One more note about the new filter, though I could see everything I typed on my screen, guild members and crew could NOT see what I said.