Rocket League has announced a new Language Ban system in order to keep Rocket League free of any potential bullying, according to an update post from Rocket League community manager Devin Connors.
“As our community grows larger still, so too does the need to ensure that Rocket League is a consistently-safe, harassment-free place where players of all ages and backgrounds can come together and execute the sweetest of aerial goals and backflip saves,” said Connors in the update post.
The new Language Ban system, which will be added to Player Reports, will automatically ban a player from online matches of Rocket League if the report mentions the use a certain slur (i.e. a racial slur). Currently, the community team has a list of over 20 different slurs in multiple languages (when a player asked if their are slurs on the list that are in Brazilian Portuguese in the Rocket League sub-reddit, Devin answered with “maybe, maybe not”) which will be added to as more reports come in. For people wondering, this list will not be made available publicly.
These slurs have their own extent in which a player can repeat the word, and once they reach that limit, they will automatically be banned. Bans will start at 24 hours and can go all the way up to a permanent ban if the player is caught several times.
“Of the thousands of reports we receive every day, the majority are tied to in-game abuse and harassment — typically in the form of abusive language. This new Language Ban system will help us address reports quickly and precisely while we also continue our usual monitoring of Reddit and other social channels for feedback,” said Connors.
With this new ban system, the Rocket League community team will be able to protect players from others who choose to bully them better. But, the only thing I’m wondering about is how strict could this list possibly be? I don’t think that may be too important since a report would have to be filed (if it was a bunch of friends playing together, I don’t think that they would report each other if they say a certain slur).
“We will organically update our ban policies and system logic as time goes on, of course, but the Rocket League community is the most important element of them all. So, if you see another player using abusive language during your match, please report them, mute them, and let us take care of the rest,” said Connors.
Back in January, Connors also commented on another sub-Reddit post about the ban system and people complaining that the report system isn’t working. The author of the post puts players at the heart of why the report system won’t work if they choose not to report anyone altogether if they don’t think they will be banned from Rocket League immediately.
In response to the post, he said “… So if you ever see a player you think should have been banned back in a game, they probably were banned, and have come back from whatever the ban duration was. Seeing them in a match days or weeks later doesn’t mean we aren’t taking action against them.”
With the new Language Ban system in place, the community team will be able to further filter out reports and carry out bans accordingly.
Along with the addition of the Language Ban system, the Rocket League community team will be taking away Competitive Season 4 reports for players “who abuse the matchmaking system to increase their rank” and will continue to be on the lookout for these incidents for Competitive Season 5.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.
