XBL language filter prevents harmless words from being used in Quarrel
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Microsoft's language filter on Xbox Live is strangling the linguistic skills of Quarrel players, banning such words as "help," "train," "balls" and "shaft" from being played. While we can understand the potential risque-ness of some of these words -- especially "help," which we're sure was added at the request of the XBL customer-service team -- without context we don't see the harm in them.
These words are fair game in singleplayer (with the Family Setting turned off), but Microsoft adds an extra filter to Live play, developer Denki's Gary Penn told Edge: "Quarrel uses the Collins official Scrabble dictionary comprising over 110,000 words up to eight letters in length, including a huge collection of words deemed 'offensive' by Collins, such as 'arse', 'shit', 'wank' and 'fuck.'"
Other banned words include "start," "skid," "poop," "hung," "dice" and "god." We're stumped on how to use "dice" in an offensive manner, but we've seen "fag" flung around Xbox Live chat with alarming, unfiltered regularity, so we're not going to try to figure out Microsoft's regulation process here.
These words are fair game in singleplayer (with the Family Setting turned off), but Microsoft adds an extra filter to Live play, developer Denki's Gary Penn told Edge: "Quarrel uses the Collins official Scrabble dictionary comprising over 110,000 words up to eight letters in length, including a huge collection of words deemed 'offensive' by Collins, such as 'arse', 'shit', 'wank' and 'fuck.'"
Other banned words include "start," "skid," "poop," "hung," "dice" and "god." We're stumped on how to use "dice" in an offensive manner, but we've seen "fag" flung around Xbox Live chat with alarming, unfiltered regularity, so we're not going to try to figure out Microsoft's regulation process here.
Reader Comments (41)
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:46PM Vidaluko said
I got some balls in a train to help me get to the shaft
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:49PM King Johngie the Fourth said
Article of the day!
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:06PM King Johngie the Fourth said
@CoconutSkittle
NO, YOU ***** YOUR ********
Reply
NO, YOU ***** YOUR ********
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:15PM (Unverified) said
@CoconutSkittle What the math Jake? Calm down man.
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Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:50PM Warlock234 said
Help and train?! What the hell.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:50PM Gibbeynator said
Why does Microsoft care about bad language in online play NOW?
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:50PM GuitarHero666 said
Is it me or are British "offensive" words just funnier? Wanker, bellend, twat, arse...
Posted: Jan 28th 2012 1:59PM Mr Meow Meow said
@KillerC Sorry, dood. The rest of the world sees you guys as British, because you never bothered to make your voices sound all that different. Seems to me like you're all just pretending to not be part of England, just to make us lower our guards. Well you ain't gonna stick it in my bum, I tell you wat.
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Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:51PM Dan50 said
*Facepalms*
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:55PM BrianZeluz said
Since when did "god" become offensive?.....oh yeah its probably offensive to all those innocent people killed in the name of one god because someone else thought their god was better. Isn't religion so much fun!
Posted: Jan 28th 2012 1:08AM PedoJokerBear said
@Esposch
we dont kill fun, we kill imaginary people.
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we dont kill fun, we kill imaginary people.
Posted: Jan 28th 2012 1:42PM (Unverified) said
@Esposch
islam = no alcohol
catholic church = no condoms
list goes on
so what was that again about atheists killing fun and religions don't?
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islam = no alcohol
catholic church = no condoms
list goes on
so what was that again about atheists killing fun and religions don't?
Posted: Jan 28th 2012 2:14PM Mr Meow Meow said
@(Unverified) Well, you do tend to ruin the internet for anyone of any Religious faith when you can't go five minutes without insulting everything they believe in at the slightest mention of religion. Even when you're trying to be civil, you guys can't seem to not call it crazy or say something about imaginary people.
I mean look at this article. They ban a couple of funny words, and you guys have to go off on the fact that 'god' happens to be one of the words (although I'm pretty sure that first dood is totally Trollin').
Also see: USSR (lol, Atheists can kill people based on their beliefs, too)
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I mean look at this article. They ban a couple of funny words, and you guys have to go off on the fact that 'god' happens to be one of the words (although I'm pretty sure that first dood is totally Trollin').
Also see: USSR (lol, Atheists can kill people based on their beliefs, too)
Posted: Jan 28th 2012 3:26PM (Unverified) said
@Mr Meow Meow
"you can't go five minutes without insulting everything they believe in at the slightest mention of religion"
where was i insulting anyone/anything?
and guess what: most atheists give a dice about you and the religion you believe in, as long as it isn't interfering with their lifes. it's like saying theists ruin the world for anyone who believes in something else, just because there are people like the westboro baptist church,...
there are idiots on both sides of the fence.
now lets get back to videogames
PS: people in the USSR weren't killed because of atheism. (lol -.-)
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"you can't go five minutes without insulting everything they believe in at the slightest mention of religion"
where was i insulting anyone/anything?
and guess what: most atheists give a dice about you and the religion you believe in, as long as it isn't interfering with their lifes. it's like saying theists ruin the world for anyone who believes in something else, just because there are people like the westboro baptist church,...
there are idiots on both sides of the fence.
now lets get back to videogames
PS: people in the USSR weren't killed because of atheism. (lol -.-)
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 6:58PM ipsum said
The filter, while understandable, is pretty frustrating. I was unable to submit"spice" -.-
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:17PM Gibbeynator said
@ipsum
Obviously they thought someone would be offended by Dune.
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Obviously they thought someone would be offended by Dune.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:21PM Helghast102 said
@ipsum I'm guessing that's because it includes "spic".
God I hate these kind of wordfilters, if they're going to implement one, make it exact.
Like how Engine is filtered on PSN chat, because it contains the word Gin? Seriously?
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God I hate these kind of wordfilters, if they're going to implement one, make it exact.
Like how Engine is filtered on PSN chat, because it contains the word Gin? Seriously?
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:50PM KillerC said
@Helghast102 Didn't know about this one but very stupid. Sounds not to dissimilar to not being able to use Assault as a Custom Class name in CoD, yes it contains the word Ass, but its being used in a full legit word, not to mention it can only be seen player side. (Not sure if thats still exact with this Elite thing, maybe now you can see what players have called classes, don't know, but when it first was highlighted Elite didnt exist, least to the public)
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Posted: Jan 27th 2012 8:11PM SurlyDuff said
@KillerC Its the same in Halo since at least Halo 3. I had a gametype from Halo 2 I called Assault on Uranus. Granted, it was pretty sophmorish. But in Halo 3, "Assault" is banned, as well as "Uranus.". So I changed it to "A Salt on Ur and Us" in custom games. But recently, that's been getting filtered too. Now its "Salt on Us." Pretty soon, I'm sure it'll just have to be shortened to "A."
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Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:08PM Ouranos said
Maybe if Microsoft would start pulling their silly censorship policy off the skids, x-box live wouldn't be a poop service that's only suitable to be hung on a bathroom wall. Asking Microsoft to improve something about anything though, that's like rolling dice and praying to a god.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:43PM Faceless Troll said
The Xbox forums bans the word "screw". This honestly doesn't come as a surprise.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:47PM KillerC said
Help and train really confuse me, someone use an example above but still anyone word can be used to sound "naughty".
God i can kinda see, but first thing that comes to mind if i see god is hackers the film, 4 most used passwords, love, sex, secret and GOD :D lol
God i can kinda see, but first thing that comes to mind if i see god is hackers the film, 4 most used passwords, love, sex, secret and GOD :D lol
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:52PM monkey man said
@KillerC how about, "mmmm....I really really need some...help with my long steam train"
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Posted: Jan 27th 2012 7:48PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said
Microsoft can go to help.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 8:03PM darkinchworm said
@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam
Now would be a good time to start.
Reply
Now would be a good time to start.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 8:13PM Ad134 said
"SOUFFLES".
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 8:21PM joer22784 said
Xbox is trying to be more and more kid friendly cuz you know, its the twelve year olds paying 300 dollars for the system and $60 a POP for the games and the money for the gold account so of course this makes sense
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 8:56PM CodeToJoy said
It seems to be random... I've run into 'HELP' being denied, but then in the same game I've used the word 'C*M' (I'll let you guess the vowel). I'm sure one of those is offensive, just not the once I wasn't able to use.
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:08PM FlashJS said
W.T.F.
How can they ban those words, but allow "Deflower" to appear in the game? It even lists the definition of it during the game. Imagine if a kid was playing it: "Mommie, what's virginity mean?"
How can they ban those words, but allow "Deflower" to appear in the game? It even lists the definition of it during the game. Imagine if a kid was playing it: "Mommie, what's virginity mean?"
Posted: Jan 27th 2012 9:52PM Liquidfingers said
Dice you gonna suck my balls.......?
Posted: Jan 28th 2012 12:19AM Voltanis said
Meanwhile, I was allowed to play "FELLATES" in an online game, which the game itself wasn't expecting to be the anagram. It only had "LEAFLETS" as the solution.
Pwned.
Pwned.
Posted: Jan 30th 2012 3:50PM SnapDragon64 said
The most hilarious example I've seen was when COPULATE was the anagrammed word. One of the people I was playing with figured it out, but the game wouldn't let him enter it. But when the round ended, it was explicitly listed as the anagrammed word!
gg Microsoft...
(In fairness, the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary is also censored. Big corporations are spineless.)
gg Microsoft...
(In fairness, the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary is also censored. Big corporations are spineless.)







