What will Blizzard do about toxic players?

[mmines]

Too true. I'm not sure how many sublosses were directly caused by toxic players, but its safe to say the ugly community keeps alot of new players away or quitting early.

This is so very true. It's like people have no patience for those just learning the game. Luckily I group with any friends just starting to play the game, it really keeps the jerks down to a minimum.

[dashflash890]

If you get that much offended by a fat ass behind a computer screen you need to take a break from PC gaming. Go play COD then come back and you will see WoWs community is bad but not toxic.

[MoanaLisa]

I asked that too, wondering why people suddenly had a universal mind and were chanting it like a mantra...

To answer that - it was League of Legends creators who coined it via a very popular set of programs and discussions about preventing "toxic behavior" and finding ways to encourage good behavior, which players have sadly mis-translated into "toxic players"... which, if they listened to the LoL creators, are not the same thing.

If you actually watch the info about LoL's methods, they actually found that "banning" people doesn't work. What they did do was a huge in-game study using symbols, colors and such at the start of every battle - and found it improved player interaction.

The LoL guys, from what I remember, say they do not believe in "toxic players"... that they believe that everybody is nice but revert to toxic behavior when frustrated. The idea is to find ways to eliminate the stressors that cause "Toxic behavior".

FYI, here's a link to the news post that summarizes what was in the presentation and then links to it:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...havior-Fan-Art

Scroll down to the bit about Toxic Player Behavior. The video is about 25 minutes in length and more interesting than you would think.

Link direct to the presentation at GDC:

http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The...Shaping-Player

The point that everyone that thinks this is BS is missing is that it drives away customers and potential revenue. So dismissing it as inconsequential isn't going to make it go away. It's seen as an industry-wide problem that's only getting worse. As games strive to become more and more social, those houses that design such games are looking very hard at ways to rein it in. It's not so much an Internet thing as a business thing and that's why it won't be ignored.

[Trogie]

[Otimus]

Looks like thin-skinned people get their feelings hurt on the internet and demand that not only "toxic players" be punished but they are informed of the punishment and made sure that it's sufficient. There's a reason Blizzard doesn't tell you what they do to the people they "punish" and it has as much to do with protecting privacy as it does to tell you that it's not your job to worry about what happens to rule-breakers.

You are not the authority and no one cares if you got your feelings hurt by random people on the internet. When the world starts habitually caving to people like you there will be no freedom to tell people the truth because you'll be seen as being "toxic".

I regularly tell people if they are playing at such a shitty level that they need to improve or quit playing with my team. I'm not being "toxic", I'm conveying a truth to them that they need to realize in order to stop bringing my team down and expecting us to pick up their slack. Although the difference with me is that I don't care to remain anonymous and I don't give a crap about offending people. I will just as happily invite an uppity offended person in to skype so that I can yell at them with my real voice and see where things go from there.

So again, no one cares if you're offended. I hope your cries for justice only result in you being trolled harder. Gotta love the internet.

There's a huge difference in being an asshole and being truthful. Going from one silly extreme to ANOTHER silly extreme isn't doing much of anything.

[kwflange]

. I will just as happily invite an uppity offended person in to skype so that I can yell at them with my real voice and see where things go from there.

Sulla has been confirmed as being a fat neckbeard.

Mod Edit: Please don't insult other users.

[xanzul]

If LoL can be cleaned up, so can WoW.

What do you think Blizzard is going to do?

Among other things, I'd like to see players have to agree to a simple one page "Summoner's Code" type login screen. Not every time but at least as often as they are presented with the unreadable ToS and license screens.

Player tribunals have problems but I would like to see Blizzard develop those too.

I guarantee you, Blizzard is going to move on this problem by the start of the next expansion.

I said it before and I will say it again it is usually the worst of the worst of this community that tends to whine the loudest about this "toxic" community and you are a great example of this. I remember you spending a significant amount of time on official forums defending to the death anyone who plays badly by choice and I noticed you doing it here as well in that thread with the guy complaining his friend he powerlvled to 70 not having a fucking clue how to play the game and you basically said the community was at fault for his bad group experiences and not the guy who powerlvled his friend.

As far as Blizzard and Wow goes they do everything in their power to clean up the community but that relies on accurate reporting of harassment and other issues. To sit here and claim Blizzard does nothing is a flat out bold faced lie. I have seen several dozen threads both here and on official forums in the past few weeks whining about Blizzard banning for language and other things. Also like I have said before it is up to the community to clean up the community. Blizzard has given us the tools to do it so it is time to stop blaming everyone but ourselves and actually do something other than whine like a bitch.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:17 AM ----------

Remove all possible methods of griefing, both loot and mechanic wise. It's already been done for the most part in this expansion.

You realize players have every ability to leave groups if they don't like the loot rules right? Again more proof that the players who whine about a "toxic" community would rather blame everyone but themselves for it.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:19 AM ----------

Do you play LoL? they really did clean up the toxic players. statistics agree with me

What statistics? This isn't even something that can be explained with statistics. Stop talking shit.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:21 AM ----------

LOL is free to play. Simply means that if they get banned they can just make another account and play more. With WoW its a little different, unless they do something specifically against the ToS(IE botting, hacking, etc), nothing can really be done to these so called 'toxic' players, especially since its player's money you are dealing with.

Nope. Blizzard is very explicit about what is and isn't allowed in game and they do in fact suspend and perm ban players for violations. Want proof? Any of the complaint threads here or on the customer support forums on the official site should provide plenty. This includes things like harassment and language and not just cheating. Stop spreading misinformation people like you and the OP accomplish nothing but convincing people to stop using the tools Blizzard gave us to report problem players.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:25 AM ----------

What are toxic players?

According to the OP basically anyone who expects a modicum of common sense and ability.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:27 AM ----------

[QUOTE=Normie;21473609]That's pretty easy to define.

A player is "toxic" to the community when his behavior has a negative impact on multiple players' desire to remain in the game.[COLOR="red"]

Really now? So you weren't defending a guy who powerlvled his friend to 70 and then inflicted his friend on dungeon groups when all the guy was able to do was cast a few fireballs and use /follow? I would say that is pretty toxic behavior but as I said before you have a history of defending the truly toxic while calling everyone else toxic.

[The One Percent]

What are toxic players?

Death Knights

[xanzul]

Those of you wanting to hop on the OP's bandwagon should take a look at this thread first:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...He-is-a-newbie!

He defends some rather toxic behavior while being incredibly insulting and condescending to those who disagree with him. He is the last person who should be complaining about toxic behavior.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:36 AM ----------

You need to ask yourself, what is it about WoW that is offputting to new players.

Right now, the answer is "Well, some people are just total assholes." The audience of new players is being put off by total assholes.

For a long time, Blizzard has tolerated total assholery as, perhaps, a kind of roleplaying. But I don't think that's sustainable. And I am sure Blizzard no longer thinks it's the way to go either.

WoW has to become a place where people play nice, or they have to play another game. Otherwise, it might actually become a game with 1M subscribers.

Look in a mirror buddy. You are no better than the people you are constantly attacking.

[Seefer]

If LoL can be cleaned up, so can WoW.

What do you think Blizzard is going to do?

Among other things, I'd like to see players have to agree to a simple one page "Summoner's Code" type login screen. Not every time but at least as often as they are presented with the unreadable ToS and license screens.

Player tribunals have problems but I would like to see Blizzard develop those too.

I guarantee you, Blizzard is going to move on this problem by the start of the next expansion.

What will they do? Nothing at all, they don't care imo as long as they get the money.

[xanzul]

You can't eliminate the behavior, but it's possible to make most offenders stop it through corrective action. Not all, but most.

Blizzard has done nothing to stop players behaving like jerks, because Blizzard has tolerated in-game jerkitude as a kind of interpersonal dynamic. But changing that is as simple as flipping a switch.

100% completely totally 100% untrue and you damn well know it. Given your perm ban from the official forums alone you know better than to say something like this.

[Mormolyce]

WoW's playerbase isn't that toxic really. It's just that one toxic player makes a bigger impression than 20 good ones. Also I've noticed a kind of asshole cascade where one toxic player causes other players to start being toxic as well, and this creates a false tone to the game.

[xanzul]

Yeah, basically, assholery must become a non-approved behavior in WoW.

How is it approved? It is only condoned when players like you tell others that reporting it is useless. Mods in all honesty lock this thread up it only serves to worsen the community and not make it better. I'm not saying Blizzard is perfect but they are doing a whole hell of a lot more than the OP is claiming and the blue tracker alone proves it. People like the OP are working overtime to make this community worse.

[Griffter]

In my opinion, the biggest contributing factor to this "toxic behavior" in the community is the increasing level of anonymity in the game. People were generally nicer to each other in 5-mans when you had to actually form the group yourself and get everyone to the instance. Replacing someone you kicked was enough of a hassle that it was usually easier to just work with them.

You also put more effort into being polite because "toxic players" would get a bad reputation on their server. Now you never see your group members again after the dungeon is finished, so there are no lasting consequences to being a jerk.

I'm not saying the Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder were bad ideas or should be removed (it's way too late for that), but they certainly had some negative effects on the community.

[Magpai]

There are almost no social problems in WoW that can't be solved by /ignore. Or for that matter by learning to shrug off what idiots say about you or your victim demographic of choice.

[xanzul]

Right now, if someone is abusive/unpleasant/a complete turd to you in a random group (LFD/LFR) there is little that will be done if you report the player.

But that can change.

When harassment is correctly and concisely reported Blizzard takes action. 9 times out of 10 on the customer support forums the reason why Blizzard does nothing is because they aren't mind readers and don't know the specifics of the issues players are reporting because they aren't being specific. Also quite often it turns out the people whining about being harassed were doing the harassing.

[Otimus]

Actually there's not a difference at all. Those two concepts are in no way mutually exclusive. I am not being extreme when I tell a bad player that they are playing badly enough to the point that they are going to get removed if they don't improve. Usually if it escalates from there it is a result of them being provided with information that they were uncomfortable hearing. Me being an "asshole" is totally subjective. Some people view linking of meters (solid proof of abysmal performance, not sure how you can be more truthful) as being an "asshole".

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:31 AM ----------



Awwww, cute.

Well, I was mainly referring to your use of wording of "playing shitty". I just wonder exactly how much tact you use in these situations! Especially given how abrasive the rest of your paragraph was.

[xanzul]

I know multiple people who refuse to tank because other people have been assholes in LFDs / LFRs.

I know multiple people who refuse to heal for the same reason.

I also know a handful of people who don't even do dungeons, at all, for that reason -- and I know some folks who only do things with people they know in real life, absolutely nothing with strangers, because of assholes being assholes.

And? People are jerks. And no it isn't exclusive to the internet either. I have spent half my life doing customer service in retail and I know for a fact people have ZERO problem being complete assholes right to your face.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 12:49 AM ----------

Been playing from lauch in EU, and for reasons unknown it seems Blizzard is lessening the the in-game support more and more on each expansion. To a current point where it's almost useless to contant GM on any other than loot issues (48h response time). Not too happy with the battle.net web interface change in latest patch either. With no control things get crazy, and less and less people working with support it's obvious Blizzard has no manpower to fix this. Now in-game one fix could be that ignore get's to a point where the person ignored is sent to another virtual server/phase + ignore limit is raised to 1000+.

More misinformation. Customer support isn't being "lessened" it is being streamlined yes. It is being made more efficient yes. Blizzard not doing what you want isn't bad customer support and sometimes good customer support is telling customers no.

[Wynnyelle]

The thing is, Riot has more to gain from banning players in LoL than Blizzard does. LoL is free to play, so if you get banned, you can just make a new account and start fresh. You aren't a lost customer to them. Sure, you may have purchased stuff with real money in the game, but you can always buy it again if you really want to. WoW is different though, because people put so much time into leveling their characters and gearing them, on top of spending 15 bucks a month to play the game. Being banned after investing so much into the game would be huuugely discouraging for many players, and I'm willing to bet a lot of them would just leave and not bother returning under a new account. This might be good for the playerbase, but that's lost money for Blizzard. It's lame, but that sort of thing is not going to happen the way that it does in LoL.

[xanzul]

The difference is LoL requires players to make impulse purchases, you won't make them if you are in a bad mood and want to leave the environment.

WoW runs on a subscription service and people have already paid for their month/two months/whatever so even if a player encounters a 'toxic environment' they are typically compelled to continue to play to get "the most out of" their subscription plan.

Guess what won't happen? Blizzard banning people for upsetting the thin skinned. Typically the toxic player cares far too much about the game, moreso than the easily offended and who will sub more? The toxic player. Economics will win. They barely even ban botters, and you expect them to ban bitchy teenagers?

Good luck with that.

And yet both here and on the official forums players are complaining about account suspensions for harassing players. What you think is happening and reality are two different things here.