【Watch Believer Online】

Jeff Kaplan isn't taking any of your shit,Watch Believer Online Overwatchtrolls.

The game's outspoken director hasn't ever shied away from speaking up in the Blizzard Forums, but his latest post is downright artful. Let it be a lesson, too: don't whine about being punished for things you actually did do. Jeff is always watching.

It all started innocently enough on Monday morning with an Overwatchforum post bearing the subject heading: "LOL I just [got] banned for a week on my main in quickplay."

It goes like this: Forum poster Ceaya drew a temporary ban for "disruptive gameplay" and took issue with the fact that the reports leading to the ban came from Quick Play mode. That's the primary unranked Overwatchmode, where people tend to be more chill about which heroes are used.

After decrying the fact that "you aren't even safe in quickplay," Ceaya took aim at Blizzard's oft-targeted reporting mechanism: "The system is clearly automated and abusable."

While it's true that the reporting feature hasn't exactly stemmed the tide of toxic behavior in Overwatch-- though Blizzard claims to have a new fix incoming -- it's also not as transparent as it could be. And, as Kaplan proved shortly after (his text is in blue), it's not completelyineffective.

"We checked the IP address of the account you posted from and found a suspended account," Kaplan wrote.

"That account has a total of 2247 complaints filed it against it, making it one of the worst offending accounts we've seen. The account has also been silenced for a total of 9216 hours. There are 3 gameplay suspensions on the accounts as well as 7 silences against this account (these are for abusive chat and/or spam). There is also a manual GM account suspension for 'massive griefing' levied."

That's a very long and detailed Danaerys-first-of-her-name-mother-of-dragons rundown of in-game offenses linked to Ceaya's home address on the internet. The implication is clear: Ceaya is a troll, and the director of Overwatchcalled it out.

Kaplan admits: it's possible the offending account belongs to a different player using the same online connection. "But someone from your IP has been a less-than-ideal OWcitizen," he cheekily added.

While it's always great to see a troll get (metaphorically) burned, there's another layer to Kaplan's response that's worth considering.

Video game development and post-release upkeep is often a cloistered, we-must-please-everyone kind of process. That's still true here in a lot of ways, but members of the Overwatchteam have consistently shown a willingness to pull back the curtain and engage with the community on a more grounded level than you typically see.

This is an example of that. It's refreshing. When a creator can engage with their community on a fan-to-fan level, everyone wins (except for hilariously shamed trolls).