Summary:
A number of players reported seeing a notification saying “broken” when they tried using the label maker in a multiplayer game. I have been informed that this is by design due to restrictions required to avoid players potentially writing offensive messages to each other during gameplay.
I have since submitted a request to the team to make this clearer in game or to change the “broken” notification to better reflect what is happening so it does not appear to be a bug in the game.
Workarounds:
None.
Players should have no issue using the label maker in single player.
Yikes, really? Seems like the team is cutting off their leg because their toe itches. First of all, the game doesn’t take place on a public server; you have to join someone else’s save file. So even if there was offensive labels, its not as though its happening in a public forum that the team could be held responsible for keeping “safe”. Why not just slap a “Online Interactions not Rated” warning on the title screen and call it good? Or write up a list of obviously offensive words and block their usage? Or at the very least allow us to use the names of items like “sticks”, “tools”, “cloth”, etc. Learning to label my crates was a game changing moment that made it possible to organize the 50+ boxes of stuff that a player inevitably ends up with. And I would argue that labeling crates becomes MORE important when a friend joins because if I can’t remember what is in every box, how can I expect a friend or even a stranger to know whats in there?! But the bottom line is: ITS NOT A PUBLIC SPACE. We are joining someone else’s world and therefore at the mercy of the owner. Its the responsibility of the joining player to decide for themselves if a host player is being offensive. And if someone is being offensive we always have the option to leave their world and report them for misconduct. Don’t let the lowest common denominator dictate the terms for the majority.
TL;DR: Any online space is potentially dangerous. Tell the devs to have some faith in the player base and let individuals be held responsible for their individual actions.
Could add a program that registers offensive wording and not allow those words to be added to items. Hopefully in a future patch something like this will be implemented.
I couldn’t agree more! Being that I can’t seem to use the cartographer at all in co-op, labeling my shelters was pretty much the ONLY way I could accurately navigate the map when traveling. When I’d get a little off-course, I’d simply look at the shelter name of an island I’ve already visited and know exactly where I am. This definitely makes travel (for me at least) a lot more complicated for sure!
Same here, couldn’t agree more. Heard from this feature and thought it was amazing. I’m only playing with a friend, not with randoms. I understand the reason regarding language, but it should be dealt with differently. Every other game has a chat function as well, where language might be a problem, solution is not to deactivate it. Would be amazing to put it back in with a whitelist or something like that. Frustrating to see labelmaker and not being able to use it, while this is a great function in so many ways.
This is ridiculous. It feels like laziness of making a list of offensive words and filter it. That’s how most of the games controls this kind of thing.
I do very much like the idea of making a very short list of game specific words you could choose from when using the label maker in multiplayer (mainly for crate labeling), though I also understand if there is any possible way to misuse the good intentions of the design, there will always be people looking to exploit them and potentially offend someone. Though online interactions are not rated or guaranteed safe overall as far as I know, that is a pretty common issue across many games and platforms especially when communicating by headset. Perhaps it would be possible to make it where players can only see labels that they themselves have created. That would add a little extra work for players working together to label everything the same, but would essentially privatize all labels to each individual account and eliminate the potential for harassment or bullying. Probably a lot of extra work to implement, but would be cool to see the label maker made usuable (even if very limited) at some point in the future. Above all, be kind to your fellow survivors. We’re all just out here looking for our next drink and a shady spot to hang out until help arrives. Eventually. Maybe. Eh, we should probably just try to escape on our own.
REALLY missing the ability to use the label maker. Surely there is a way to just filter obscene words or simply place a disclaimer on multiplayer interactions like another commenter suggested.