Now in my irrational hope that there might still be a chance for a pleasurable social experience, I asked if their mission in the game was to eliminate all fun for the opponents, to which they both replied immediately with "YES" (all of their text was caps, of course), followed by more insults.

 

Don't feed the trolls.

Feel the same way...and is a reason I have stayed far away from most competitive multiplayer games lately.  Actually...Demigod is the first game like this that I have purchased in a long time.  So far I haven't encountered anything like you describe, but I am sure it's just a matter of time. 

As far as how to deal with them...not much you can do  unfortunately.  You can create all the filters you want, but at some point you will run into them. 

You know honestly I don't remember online games and their communities being this bad years ago, but over time they have gotten progressively worse.  I really hope this is just an online phenomenon and not some indicator of society in general...

Or you could ignore their trashtalk, don't play with them again and save everybody a lot of time.

I haven't seen a single game company really address this...even MMO's that have in game GM's and such aren't able to really effectively deal with verbal griefers.

The only real option (aside from creating block lists, which still do not garuntee you will not see these people) is to grow thicker skin and ignore those kinds of players.

I quit playing Dota specifically because of this. The lack of a mute/mute all option really made it ridiculous to deal with.   I dont want to have to quit a game because some jerk is flooding the screen with hateful messages, I want to just mute them( and NOT have to type in there stupid misspelled name to do it ) and play the game.  I'm not sure if there is any kind of chat mute(and a blacklist of players i never want to play with would be nice too) capabilty yet in demigod(in linux right now), but if one doesnt get added I'll just quit playing this game too probably.

It is a shame that people just spill out crap from their mouths and make games unfun, but it is going to happen :/.  Just some teenagers who need to show everyone who is boss.  With age comes maturity, well it did for me .  I wasn't the most polite when I played CS.  Hell, I look at some of the things I posted on a specific message board I thought back to myself, "was i really like that?"

For the most part, the Stardock community has been a pleasurable one.  Little hate here and there, but mostly its in fun.  We just let the horrific people talk to themselves in their own thread .

Of course most of the forums I have been reading were turn based strategy games.  Maybe its these faster games that get the testostarone going in the little ones.  Just takes time till they start acting like this in real life and get a good beat down.  Again, it happens to the best of us.  Think we can all use a good beat down once in a while.  We seem to fall out of our place too often.

"( and NOT have to type in there stupid misspelled name to do it )"

there = their

The irony is delicious.

Now listen, this is important.

You will encounter a lot of these people both in life and in games. You have to learn to deal with that kind of people in calm and somewhat refined manner.

In esence it means: Don't let them get to you. They spout insults, so what? Grow some skin for a change. If its a game, simply be better than them and beat them calmly. If its life, well, there are legal means if it gets ecxessive. However, you are required to be able to weather some verbal punishment because if you come running everytime someone throws harsch words at you, wou will run into a brick wall very soon.

For example: coming here, whining about it is one major step in the wrong direction. You cannot remove people like that and trying is a colossal waste of time, not to mention it makes you look stupid. Don chichote way of stupid. You can however ignore them. (ignore is the way to go, aka i want an ignore function so you can filter them out of chat, see. done. no need for filters or a technical solution that will just fck things up.

So. Grow some thickskin. Ignore insults, then beat the people.

When you ask a stupid question like that, you will of course get an equaly stupid answer.

Levelheaded - I understand your overall message, but I don't appreciate being called stupid.  I've already said that I understand that ignoring is one possible solution.  I have been nothing but calm and "somewhat refined".  My post isn't about whining and insisting that these players be banned.  My post is about a solution that would help cater to your preferences for the type of people you play with.  Yes, ignoring is an option.  Yes, I could sit there and filter through the chat for the useful data.  Additionally, I could play with people who haven't proven themselves to be everything that has been mentioned, if there was a system in place.  As kryo said, they're putting one together, so obviously my sentiment isn't as stupid as you imply.  Thanks for your input and life advice.

Oh but it is, when you realy think about it.

What, short of a mute function and the already avaiable friendslist do you need?

You already have half the tools. You also do not remember the fact that only a fraction of the players online are even trolling just to spite you. Some gamers simply get agravated easily and react childish. Everyone has a bad day once in a while, where incompetence on your teams side is more enraging than on other days. Then there are the days when you seemingly only meet insult spouting brats.

Asking for the banhammer has never worked in any game or situation and thats a fact.

The mute button however... so incredibly imbalanced

OP why don't you grow up. You ARE on the internet. Expect the unexpected, you're mom is not here sheltering you.