It shouldn’t be so difficult.
Tag: troll
Valve Bans (Another) Troll Developer
Steam: Valve Finally Bans WayneP
Steam: Valve Bans Armaswag Games
IPE Update: Acceleration Bay Files MTD Against Epic Games
Nearly two months ago Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Acceleration Bay LLC seeking declaratory judgment from the court in regard to allegations that Epic was using technology owned by AB in one of its many patents. Acceleration Bay filed a motion to dismiss on lack of subject matter jurisdiction (wrong court) as well as lack of controversy. In order to receive a declaratory judgment, a plaintiff must show the court that there is very likely to be a lawsuit over the matter.
“The Court should dismiss this action because there is no immediate case or controversy between Epic Games and Acceleration Bay. Epic Games seeks declaratory judgment of non-infringement of seven patents owned by Acceleration Bay. But in the pre-suit communications that Epic Games alleges gave rise to this action, Acceleration Bay did not provide Epic Games with any claim charts or infringement analysis and Acceleration Bay did not threaten Epic Games with litigation. Instead, the parties were engaged in preliminary licensing discussions, when Epic Games abruptly filed this action. The Complaint fails to allege facts sufficient to confer declaratory subject matter jurisdiction over this action, dictating dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1).”
For its part, Acceleration Bay has denied ever threatening Epic with a lawsuit (despite evidence from Epic showing just that) but instead offering a “mutually acceptable path forward” which may end up on the list of veiled threats alongside “nice business you got here, it’d be a shame of something were to happen to it.”
“Acceleration Bay never threatened Epic Games with litigation. For example, on April 30, 2019 and May 8, 2019, Acceleration Bay’s representative (Mr. Garland) stated in an email that Acceleration Bay is “interested in arranging an introductory meeting [to] provide an overview of Acceleration Bay and to agree to a mutually acceptable path forward” and that Acceleration Bay “remain[s] interested in trying to reach a business solution with Epic Games.” Declaration of Paul Andre filed herewith (“Andre Decl.”), Ex. 1 at 1.”
See? No threats, just wanting to reach an amicable solution (and sue if you don’t meet our demands). If you wanted to see the “generic, substance-free form letter” that Epic received, I have included it below.
As always, MMO Fallout has provided the court dockets in our Google Drive at the attached link. Download it, share it, do whatever you want with it. It is 74 pages in whole so get yourself a nice cup of coffee before you dive in.
More on this story as it develops.
In Plain English: Remember the Artifact Twitch Trolls? Twitch Is Suing Them
Donde los yikes!
And some of you thought it wouldn’t get any crazier than Jagex suing anonymous cheaters. Those of you who follow internet drama very closely may recall that last month there was a bit of a controversy surrounding the Artifact category of Twitch streams. Specifically that people were using the service to stream movies and in some cases really inappropriate videos like the Christchurch shooting and hardcore pornography. Twitch acted pretty fast to ban the accounts and stop new streams from going up in the section, but the damage was pretty much done.
Fast forward a few weeks and Twitch is suing! The lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California has been officially dubbed Twitch Interactive Inc. v. John and Jane Does 1-100. The lawsuit demands a jury trial and couches its claims in federal trademark infringement, breach of contract, trespass to chattels, and fraud. As always, links to the documents have been provided via Google Drive at MMO Fallout’s expense, below this article.
Among its claims, Twitch believes that users took advantage of automated software to continue creating Twitch accounts and streaming the live massacre and copyright infringing movies, as well as using bots to artificially increase the popularity of said streams in order to make them more discoverable by actual people. The streams actually became enough of a problem that Twitch was forced to disable streaming for all new accounts before imposing two-factor authentication for certain accounts. Those responsible for streaming the illicit material then went to the lengths of using old accounts and even purchasing accounts in order to keep streaming.
For using the Glitch and Twitch marks on a website associated with the streaming raids, Twitch is asking for injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and attorneys’ fees related to trademark infringement. For breaching contract by willfully, continuously, and materially breaching the Twitch terms of service, Twitch is asking for special damages in lost profits and other reasonably foreseeable harms caused by defendant’s breach. For trespass to chattels (unlawful interference with another person’s property) by continuing to access the service after being banned, Twitch is asking for injunctive relief, compensatory damage, attorneys’ fees, and other remedies. And for committing fraud in misrepresenting and concealing their identities, Twitch is asking for all compensatory and punitive damages available.
In addition, Twitch is asking the courts to permanently enjoin defendants from using Twitch services, creating any bot that would interact with Twitch, using the Twitch trademarks, and assisting in anyone else who might do the above.
Source: Google Drive
Jagex Distances Itself From Streamer Bully
Jagex has given a statement on an incident that took place over the weekend in which RuneScape streamer Aus Swag was banned from both Twitch and RuneScape for conduct during a live stream. Aus Swag called an individual live on air, one that he knew to be suicidal, and told her “I think you should just kill yourself, honestly.”
RuneScape community manager Mod Shauny posted a statement distancing itself from Aus Swag, noting that they do not and never have had a business relationship with him.
This morning we became aware that over the weekend a RuneScape player had live streamed himself calling a vulnerable individual who had admitted they were having suicidal thoughts, telling that person to kill themselves. The RuneScape player is not someone with whom Jagex has – or ever had – a business relationship but given the incredibly serious nature of the incident we have taken measures that make it clear such behaviour will not be tolerated.
As a result, the individual has had their RuneScape account permanently banned with immediate effect. Jagex is incredibly passionate about mental health and wellbeing, and we will continue to do all we can to help those in our community – and beyond – receive the support they need to overcome the mental health challenges they face in their day-to-day lives.
Aus Swag posted an apology to Twitter in which he claimed that the microphone was muted during his comment and that he did not intend to put her at risk. He also donated $200 to a charity centered around suicide prevention.
Im Sorry. pic.twitter.com/HZ9Kt3FJQ0
— Aus Swag (@SwagAus) January 21, 2019
[NM] Friday The 13th Cans Team Killing Because Its Community Can’t Behave Itself
Gun Media is removing team killing from Friday the 13th because its community can’t play the game responsibly, the developer announced on Reddit today. In Friday the 13th, one player takes the role of Jason Voorhees while seven others take the roles of camp counselors and try to escape or fight Jason. Or they can act like children and murder each other, which is exactly what happened and happened so often that Gun Media saw fit to take the feature out altogether.
So the biggest thing we’ve heard from our community with the game are issues pertaining to rampant team-killing that has unfortunately been abused by players on all platforms. While the mechanic’s intent is designed to promote life-or-death experiences into each and every game you play, the reality has turned into more of a Battle Royale scenario to a point our team feels a change needs to be made.
So from now on you can’t kill your teammates, well mostly. To prevent people from abusing this by standing in front of the car, it will be possible to kill teammates by running them over. Bear traps will also still do damage or kill but will not cause experience loss.
(Source: Reddit)
MMORPG.com: Slander With Human Shields
You have been issued a warning by one of our moderators.
Warning Category: Trolling
Reason: Posting excessive negative comments or baiting others to respond in a negative manner is considered trolling on the MMORPG.com forums.
I have this problem over on the MMORPG.com forums, and that is whenever I make a positive post about Mortal Online, a moderator comes along and issues me a warning and deletes it. This phenomena doesn’t just follow me when I’m in the Mortal Online forums, but also on the other boards where trolling is frequent and positive voices are low. What does yank my chain, however, is that when I am replying to posts, be it the original poster or someone else in the thread, the actual inflammatory posts are very rarely removed. Someone makes a comment that Star Vault is likely collecting credit card numbers to use for identity theft when Mortal Online goes down? Fine. Calling them a troll? You’ve been issued a warning. In fact, just using the term “troll” in reference to someone else can net you a warning, regardless of the rest of your message.
So, I thought, perhaps the moderators are just misguided. Maybe the career trolls that roam the boards are friends with moderators. However, the answer hit me like a sack of bricks: United States Safe Harbor laws remove the liability of hosts from the actions of their users, so MMORPG.com can’t be sued for slander because someone on the forums, for example, wrote a thread claiming that a company was going bankrupt, using forged “insider” documents, and where the retaliatory posts displaying the true story were conveniently deleted. Meanwhile the website itself moves onward with their faux-passive aggressive writing, not outright trashing but just leaving the door open enough so that the point gets out.
Of course, like any enterprise, the real intent occasionally leaks out in a graphic and clear-cut manner, such as (and I’m just spitballing here), having one of your writers summarize his “I got hacked” rant by claiming that Blizzard is scamming its users by staging account theft in order to scare their users into buying authenticators.
I think Blizzard just staged the whole thing to squeeze some extra money out of me! Damn you Blizzard you slippery snake, I’m on to you. Everyone who is reading this is now wise to your scheme. Oh, I’ll buy your precious little “authenticator” just so you keep your grubby little mitts off my account you cheeky monkeys.
If there’s one thing MMORPG.com is, however, it is efficient. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to call someone out on a lie and have my post stand for more than a half hour after. If there is another thing MMORPG.com is, it is polluted. The community is disgustingly polluted by users who have no other agenda than to sit at their keyboards and make a few thousand posts calling this company a “scam artist,” or gloating about how they managed to perform a fraudulent charge-back and turned around, bought the game again, and performed yet another fraudulent charge-back.
MMORPG.com is a joke, and one that isn’t particularly funny.
MMO Fallout 