As a loyal Xbox customer of nearly 12 years, I'm really disappointed in the whole social aspect of live as of late and the way Xbox hands out com bans like candy.

I remember back when modern warfare 1&2 were popular you could join a game and nearly everyone in the lobby was just talking away. It was easy to make friends, play, and just enjoy yourself for hours on end. Nowadays I rarely meet anyone in public chats, but, the last few times I have I realized through talking to them why that might be.

The last guy I met in a public lobby was in gears of war 4 playing king of the hill, he told me that he was surprised he's even talking to me, at which point I obviously asked why. The man proceeded to tell me that he has been communication banned 5 times and that he's scared to even go into a public chat because he feels he's constantly at risk of a ban now. I only talked to him for about 40 minutes but he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, yeah he had a potty mouth like myself but he never actually complained or got bitchy when he died.

Now, I don't know about you guys but when I signed my account up for live I chose the underground option, which I believed at the time was for people who didn't give a shit if you use profanity or not, because those are the people I tend to get along with the most, I don't want to play with someone who gets upset when I say "shit" or "fuck". I honestly don't remember what those options were for anymore though since its been so long.

So I've been playing dark souls 3 the last month and I havnt talked to anyone or even sent a message in that time, except for last night when I tried out PvP. I was getting destroyed by the same 2 guys over and over until I got a message, just a normal message to which I replied "dude, I fuckin suck at PvP lol" hoping that maybe I can spark up conversation and possibly join him and his buddy or get some tips to help me so I can get all the achievements. Well, within the same damn minute I sent the message I get communication banned. That was the first message I've sent to someone that's not a friend since 11/21. I can honestly see clearly now why so many people stick to party chat and just don't bother. I get banned for saying fuck yet tons of games including the XBOX EXCLUSIVE gears of war has tons of profanity in them. Now, I'm not bitching about the ban, as I said I'm playing dark souls and I didn't plan on talking to anyone in the next week anyways so it barely effects me. What I'm upset about is the fact that in trying to make Xbox live a "safe" and "enjoyable" experience they have also made it a very anti-social experience (or at least it seems like that to me). Some people are actually scared to just talk to someone because they feel they might be banned.

I'm really not too sure what else to say, I'm mainly trying to vent a bit of my thoughts as I'm honestly pretty upset over this, I miss being able to make new buddies on the fly just by chatting with them. Most of my buddies I've played with daily over the last 5 years have gotten engaged, married, had children, enlisted, or just stopped playing all together. Now, it's extremely hard to make new friends. I know someone's going to say "can't you just not curse?" Well, no, I can't. I've had a potty mouth for a very long time and it's just part of who I am, I can't help using my sentence enhancers. Before I continue to ramble on I'm going to end this here, but, does anyone else feel like they have gotten a bit too strict with the code of conduct? Do you think they may need to rework it a little bit?

Ninja edit?: aaaand that totally didn't format the way I planned. Sorry guys.