An Eye on Player Behavior and Reporting Improvements in Patch 9.2.5

[Caradras]

These negative comments are great.

It's like....tell me you're an asshole in game, without telling me you're an asshole in game.

Only an asshole can see anything negative about what Blizzard is trying to do here.

So when people have a different opinion than you on this subject they are assholes? Maybe try to understand the points that are made against this dumb system before dumping your uninformed opinion here.

[ablib]

Its clear what kind of conversation to avoid?

Yes. It's common decency. Things we're taught as small children.

[Polybius]

Yes. It's common decency. Things we're taught as small children.

Some children didn’t have good parents.

[korijenkins]

Nothing about abusing the system where loads of people can report a single person?

That would require them to admit fault. They don't want players to know the penalties are automated and based on sheer number of reports to allow them NOT to pay actual humans for reviews.

[ablib]

Some children didn’t have good parents.

True. That's why we have assholes and why Blizzard has to do something like create a ridiculous Social Contract.

[Caradras]

If you’re offended by someone sensitive then you can ignore them. And no social contract needed for stalking and spamming I agree. I’ve never joined a guild either.

You are misinterpreting my post... Iam not offended by sensitive people. But everyone being forced to verbally tiptoe because someone might take offence is offensive.

[Jasper Kazai]

I mean, you say this as if that isn't what people did with ToS for years now. Doesn't change that even if people skip the fine print they're still held to it.

That's my point. The aim of this social contract is, presumably, to curb/reform behavior. Throwing a screen of text at people that they are forced to click through is not the way to reach people. Unless they want to just ban people and have the banned people not be entirely sure of why they're banned. If that's the case, then this is exactly what they need to be doing.
I'm not saying I have a solution - I don't. But the people who they would want to take this message to heart are exactly the people who aren't going to read a single word of it.

[Eurhetemec]

I support this goal.

However, from examples I have seen very effective in the past on other systems, rewarding good behavior is more effective than punishing bad behavior. I am talking completely outside of gaming, in work environment and for instance dog training.

I will admit though, systems that try to "reward good behavior" in games (LoL commend, OW commend on end screen) never felt very rewarding and was mostly awarded to the best performing players or friends.

The opposite seems to be true in gaming, perhaps because IRL, people (and even animals!) have to look at the people they're behaving badly towards, and likewise be looked at and so on. In work environments too the main thing is leadership modelling good behaviour, whilst people who ignore that completely do have to be punished/fired. Which doesn't really apply here, particularly because a lot of players use strangers whose job is to be get clicks/views and thus who don't behave in a normal/sane way, as their behaviour models.

In gaming, if we look at say FFXIV, where you can be punished for doing far less than in WoW, and punished for what might seem like very minor infractions, the typical level of of behaviour is much, much better than WoW. In GW2, a game which attempt to create a "positive environment", but did almost nothing to enforce that, the level of behaviour is about as bad as WoW (in some ways it is even worse).

[GratsDing45]

True. That's why we have assholes and why Blizzard has to do something like create a ridiculous Social Contract.

No, my asshole is for shitting.

[Jester Joe]

That's my point. The aim of this social contract is, presumably, to curb/reform behavior. Throwing a screen of text at people that they are forced to click through is not the way to reach people. Unless they want to just ban people and have the banned people not be entirely sure of why they're banned. If that's the case, then this is exactly what they need to be doing.
I'm not saying I have a solution - I don't. But the people who they would want to take this message to heart are exactly the people who aren't going to read a single word of it.

The curb is Blizzard being more harsh on negative behavior with the ability to go "you should have read the social contract".

[Polybius]

You are misinterpreting my post... Iam not offended by sensitive people. But everyone being forced to verbally tiptoe because someone might take offence is offensive.

I don’t think you’d have to worry about the social contract if you’ve conversed as you usually do. And as others have said this doesn’t do much but serves as a warning to repeat offenders so that there are no surprises or gotchas.

The social contract holds as much value as a mission statement (no legal bearing), only the social contract is just the ToA policy summarized for newcomers.

[Caradras]

Yes. It's common decency. Things we're taught as small children.

Small children arent able to even hold a decent conversation so your point makes no sense.

[Eurhetemec]

That's my point. The aim of this social contract is, presumably, to curb/reform behavior. Throwing a screen of text at people that they are forced to click through is not the way to reach people. Unless they want to just ban people and have the banned people not be entirely sure of why they're banned. If that's the case, then this is exactly what they need to be doing.
I'm not saying I have a solution - I don't. But the people who they would want to take this message to heart are exactly the people who aren't going to read a single word of it.

At least they actually see it here, whereas the TOS had it buried deep (seriously, go look), and it's so vague in the TOS that aside from the most obvious and extreme examples, it's unclear what behaviour would not be okay.

Also, did you notice the bit about warnings? Now people who are close to being banned but haven't passed the threshold yet, and presumably those about to go up a level on the penalty volcano, get an actual behaviour warning in-game.

That's going to give a few people pause, and those it doesn't will be able to much more easily connect their misbehaviour to what happens to them. It seems trite but a lot of these people come up with elaborate fantasies that avoid blame, and that's much harder to do when you got warned before something happened.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Are you saying women cant be problematic?

I don't know am I saying woman can't be problematic or am I pointing towards the multiple new hires blizzard has had recently for things like work place culture and other potion's that have been on the MMOC front page and have length threads of people bitching and moaning?

[Polybius]

That would require them to admit fault. They don't want players to know the penalties are automated and based on sheer number of reports to allow them NOT to pay actual humans for reviews.

Unfortunately there were false negatives for human reviewed reports too. I still remember the old forums and friends who were flagged.

The biggest problem at the moment are false negatives that aren’t removed on time. The same is true for game breaking bugs where players cannot recover characters, guilds, items, etc. during transfers.

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Small children arent able to even hold a decent conversation so your point makes no sense.

It’s a stage of development that leads to adulthood, esp. the moral stages. Children learn, adults practice what they’ve learned.

[Alayea]

Presenting everyone with a screen of text before they can play. That's definitely going to ensure everyone reads it and they don't just click through it so they can begin playing.

This. There has always been the Terms of Use and adding yet another rules and guidelines on top of it isn't going to change anything. It's not the end of the world, but still annoying -- especially when the entity that needed a "social contract" was (is) Blizzard itself.

[Neotart]

I literally got a 7 day ingame silence for asking a battleground to report a player AFK.... |
Opened a ticket and got some shit auto systems reply closing the ticket, and yes when u open a ticket, it shows chatlog's on why u were silenced or banned to be sure u want to open the ticket, i even opened another one and blizzard pretty much said stop wasting their time and further tickets may resort to a penalty

The report system is already abused, i'm not the only case of this. if u look u will find many others. 10 unique reports = 7day ingame silence no blizzard oversight, done automatically.
After thats over if it happens again it's a auto 7day BAN, players report others for just having another opinion about something.

Bottomline, if u disagree with a player, or they disagree with you no matter the subject, u can get followers/friend/guildies to mass report and get someone in trouble. even before 9.2.5 this has been going on.

[exochaft]

That's my point. The aim of this social contract is, presumably, to curb/reform behavior. Throwing a screen of text at people that they are forced to click through is not the way to reach people. Unless they want to just ban people and have the banned people not be entirely sure of why they're banned. If that's the case, then this is exactly what they need to be doing.
I'm not saying I have a solution - I don't. But the people who they would want to take this message to heart are exactly the people who aren't going to read a single word of it.

Kind of reminds me of the South Park episode HUMANCENTiPAD, where they're trying to get people to actually read the terms but they just keep signing their lives away without reading it. Let's be honest: most people rarely, if ever, read the EULA or TOS for things, they just click and sign away... and there's some shady stuff occasionally found in the terms.

The entire point of the player contract is a PR stunt, nothing more, nothing less. Everything this contract states and would bind on the player already existed in the ToS in some shape or form, they're just making a huge deal out of it because "We're the new and improved Blizz! ...please buy our stuff."

Ultimately, you aren't going to fix what they're supposedly trying to solve, because this is humans being humans towards other humans. We got several thousands of years of documentation of how badly humans will treat each other over the silliest of things. Best thing you can do is give people the freedom and tools to deal with it once it comes to their doorstep.

Beyond that, you'll need some major reformations on a social and cultural level, where Blizz is likely more a source of the problem rather than the potential solution. We're living in a time where it's becoming increasingly common to have people do insanely horribly things because they don't agree with someone's ideas. There's those of us that would like to talk out our differences, then there are others who would rather insult/silence/imprison/destroy/etc. any opposition when they find anything disagreeable about their target. When it comes to Blizz themselves, they tend to align themselves with countries/people who practice the latter.

[Sentynel]

No, this is for people loosing their shit in m+ pugs throwing around the N-word or telling you to kys.

You don't type that and press enter "by accident", that should always be a instant perma.

Welcome to the internet. People saying this shit to others since forever. If you feel offended by this, call your ISP and disconnect from the webz for good.

I’d say players were less annoying and more approachable than today. It was never this bad, particularly armchair protesting. People are more irritable, and it’s not just any specific crowd.

Being constantly assfucked in Winterspring for hours definitely fell into griefing, but I never felt the pressure to report someone for it. When I got tired of the fucker killing me over and over, I just alt f4'd and called it a day.

[Neotart]

Welcome to the internet. People saying this shit to others since forever. If you feel offended by this, call your ISP and disconnect from the webz for good.



Being constantly assfucked in Winterspring for hours definitely fell into griefing, but I never felt the pressure to report someone for it. When I got tired of the fucker killing me over and over, I just alt f4'd and called it a day.

its always been blizzards polity to inform you to /ignore said players.... and PVP? they tell u to turn off warmode, its why they did it....