An Eye on Player Behavior and Reporting Improvements in Patch 9.2.5

[Jester Joe]

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.

Except it's not allowed on WoW or any Blizzard game.

Weird to think that it's normal human behavior.

[Zenfoldor]

I really don't like this company or this game anymore. I just wish I could finally convince my friends. It's not that there aren't other games, just that this one game here was a great way for us to casually chat and compete with each other, a great "lobby" game...until Legion ended. Then it got bad, then it got worse. Now they want to control my behavior by contract, lol. This crap jumped the shark recently and now it's circling the bowl, only M$ can save them now....but seeing how apparently hands off M$ has been with their other first party aquisitions, I'm not expecting any miracles.

Honestly, this is exactly what I've come to expect, and the reason I dislike this company in the first place. Nothing has changed from my perspective, except for the worse.

[Nelle]

/leave general
/leave trade

Disable raid, instance and party chat in chat-options.
Problem solved. No longer at risk. And you can continue to play this game like the single player game it have turned into.

[Jester Joe]

I really don't like this company or this game anymore. I just wish I could finally convince my friends. It's not that there aren't other games, just that this one game here was a great way for us to casually chat and compete with each other, a great "lobby" game...until Legion ended. Then it got bad, then it got worse. Now they want to control my behavior by contract, lol. This crap jumped the shark recently and now it's circling the bowl, only M$ can save them now....but seeing how apparently hands off M$ has been with their other first party aquisitions, I'm not expecting any miracles.

Honestly, this is exactly what I've come to expect, and the reason I dislike this company in the first place. Nothing has changed from my perspective, except for the worse.

Tell you to not be a dick in game isn't controlling your behavior. And it's been a rule since day one of the game. Just now there's an actual warning in game first before starting.

It's mindboggling that people are so against this when it's not even uncommon in other games for online gameplay.

[KevyB]

Man, they sure find new and absurd ways to desecrate the corpse of my beloved WoW...

Just disband already.

[MoanaLisa]

I really don't like this company or this game anymore. I just wish I could finally convince my friends. It's not that there aren't other games, just that this one game here was a great way for us to casually chat and compete with each other, a great "lobby" game...until Legion ended. Then it got bad, then it got worse. Now they want to control my behavior by contract, lol. This crap jumped the shark recently and now it's circling the bowl, only M$ can save them now....but seeing how apparently hands off M$ has been with their other first party aquisitions, I'm not expecting any miracles.

Honestly, this is exactly what I've come to expect, and the reason I dislike this company in the first place. Nothing has changed from my perspective, except for the worse.

You know, if I attempted to convince my friends not to play a video game because I don't care for it they rightly would tell me to fuck off and I would deserve it. The rest of it is restating rules that have been in place forever—rules that you've already agreed to—and a mild attempt to get you to read them instead of just clicking through. Most games have rules. Most games try to control your behavior which is really a laughable phrase when you consider it for a moment. That's what rules do.

[Ryzeth]

Amazing how many people in this thread are quick to call out "sensitive" people... While simultaneously getting upset about something that is meant to reinforce the "don't be a toxic asshat" rule in Blizzard games.


Love me some delicious irony.

[Caprias]

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.

That neither makes it okay nor an excuse to not punish those players.

It's their game so they can ofc. let that behaviour slide, that's not a good look for them though so they should crack down on it.

Nobody is talking about "snowflakes" that'll get a panic attack when you call them out for not carrying their weight, but stuff like throwing around the n-word/kys/get cancer and insults on equivalent level do happen somewhat regular in M+ and should just be a perma, it is in other games with better communities (I wonder why).

And on a personal note I find it quite funny when that happens due to how unbelievably bold some people are, I still know this should have drastic consequences though.

[Kirbydude65]

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.

True, but you're missing another half of this. While it may not curb the people who would be considered punishable under this contract, it also gives power to the people who might see something and go, "Is this a reportable offense?" Curbing is one part of it, but more widespread knowledge of what is and isn't acceptable (which has sometimes been a grey area in WoW's past), is a good thing as well.

[Dorothyjean]

Lol, imagine feeling threatened in a video game

Imagine just being normal and somewhat nice/decent in a video game.

I'm super sarcastic so nothing really bothers me but for as long as I've played MMO's since Ultima Online it's been this cult of personality where Person A is a dick to Person B, time passes on, Person B is a dick to Person C "because", time passes on etc. etc. etc.

It's like on the pvp servers when people would spawn camp, or kill lowbies... then later on said person would do the same to others like a moronic right of passage. It's boring and lacks nuance. Sarcasm is where it's at but being a dick "because" ... boooring.

[aldahar]

Potential for enforcement of this contract to be misapplied? Sure. As with anything. But the angst being posted here about it? Currently overblown.

As my opinion carries no weight here (kind of like my marriage, too, lol), here's some data instead: Been playing since vanilla. I talk in chat; guild, trade, general. Total # of warnings and/or bans since 2004 = 0. Players I've known who have been banned = 0. Level of overall toxic/hateful behavior I've encountered: Low. Room for improvement? Absolutely. We have no need, ever, to see chat filled with racial slurs, sexual harassment, or threats.

[Iain]

Good, sounds like you're the problem they're trying to solve.

The game will be a better place without people shitmouthing everyone who isn't on their level or doesn't love idiotic politics talk with hate speech peppered in for a giggle.

Toxic people will of course catch the most reports. However, people will also recognise your name for that one time you messed up their mythic plus run and add to your report count just because they can.

[Caprias]

Toxic people will of course catch the most reports. However, people will also recognise your name for that one time you messed up their mythic plus run and add to your report count just because they can.

Abusing the report function is also a bannable offense (at least in systems where it works well).

So...yeah.

Or you go the League route where people can click: "bad player" to let off some steam but it's actually a dead end function that does nothing.

[Dorothyjean]

Imagine logging into a game and being annoyed that you can't be normal towards people around you and hating that you can't be an asshole "because".

I also love how they tell you to /leave everything and disable chat... just so they can be assholes "if" or "because" instead of just acting like a normal person. I get the whole "welcome to the internet" because I'm 50 and have been on the thing since forever but honestly way back in the day before the internet had a graphic interface people were actually relatively nice towards one another. Once Windows showed up and it was readily available the cult of personality slowly grew to the point where people were being assholes to others "because people had been assholes to them". Now instead of just going "Well, guess I'll just be normal and joke around with my friends" you want people to stfu, turn off all chat so that you and your precious idiocy can run rampant and be a dick towards everyone and everything... "because".

Don't get me wrong either... I get it. You can crack jokes about my dead mom and I'll get a laugh out of it and nothing phases me but on the same hand is it really that hard for you to be normal and just act like a regular person?

[Goatfish]

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....

Warmode wasn't always a thing. The previous policy was "You chose to play on a PvP realm or to enable pvp so it's your own fault if you get camped for hours by someone 40 levels higher than you." Not really much different, but they did make it more appealing to turn on PvP because almost no one wanted to take that risk for no benefit at all. I don't play with warmode because I don't want the griefing and I think that's a good option.

I personally don't understand why we need to cut mean people out of the game when they could just improve their block function to block accounts instead of characters and take off or heavily increase the blacklist cap. I don't like the Chinese restaurant culture where if you want to order you scream at the waitress, but I'm not going around petitioning to force them to change. I wasn't a fan of early 2000's online gamer culture where screaming slurs in voice chat was the norm, but I just turned off voice chat and played just fine rather than request the game company ban everyone who did it. If people want to engage that way, that's fine to me, it doesn't mean I need to engage back nor does it mean I need to prevent them from playing. We don't need giant companies enforcing rules that could easily be enforced by guilds, communities, friends, and yourself.

My guild does a lot of shit talking, and rules like this could lead to a destruction of a performance critical culture we've had for over a decade. We aren't assholes unless you have such thin skin that a statement of fact sends you into a ban frenzy state of rage. The funniest part to me is that we've raised up dozens of players to be better at the game by pointing out their weaknesses, and that these people enjoy the game more because their performance has gotten better by realizing those weaknesses. Those people playing better then make the game more enjoyable for others that they group with. Being called shit is what spurred me on to be better at the game, and even if that's not what works for you, criticism of that method is denial of the very thing that helped me enjoy playing this game for over a decade rather than just quitting back in BC.

All this reminds me of the people who fight to make Boot Camp an inclusive and kind experience when the whole point is to put you through unpleasant shit to prepare you for the future. It's just antithetical to the results that you want. A solid point of putting people through shit is to weed out weak people that you don't want on your side when it actually matters.

[Iain]

Abusing the report function is also a bannable offense (at least in systems where it works well).

So...yeah.

Or you go the League route where people can click: "bad player" to let off some steam but it's actually a dead end function that does nothing.

Ha yeah same in HotS. The only thing people get sanctioned for is using profanity because that's something a world filter can check. There's no resources for having gamemasters be the referee of toxic gameplay. Then again, I also doubt they'll be able to weed through subtle 'family-friendly' toxicity. It's going to be a numbers game.

[munkeyinorbit]

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.

Just because it's "always been this way" doesn't mean it can't change for the better. You've seen this sort of argument in places like america whenever change and progress are brought up.

If you're fighting this then maybe you are the problem.

[vincink]

Tell you to not be a dick in game isn't controlling your behavior.

False. Assuming "being a dick" is a descriptor of behavior, and assuming "Tell you" is a descriptor of the new Social Contract or existing EULA or both, then Blizzard is controlling player behavior by disincentivizing poor behavior.

[Iain]

Warmode wasn't always a thing. The previous policy was "You chose to play on a PvP realm or to enable pvp so it's your own fault if you get camped for hours by someone 40 levels higher than you." Not really much different, but they did make it more appealing to turn on PvP because almost no one wanted to take that risk for no benefit at all. I don't play with warmode because I don't want the griefing and I think that's a good option.

You'd think Blizzard would have invented more creative solutions against grieving by now. Like a camped corpse attracting dangerous mobs, or the player getting abilities in ghost form allowing them to haunt their camper.

Way more fun than trying to draw some arbitrary and circumstantial line between what is playing the game as intended and what is being undermining another player's experience.

[caninepawprints]

We’ve also taken some time to further streamline our system and penalties, allowing us to act more quickly, accurately, and (if necessary) more severely depending on the in-game violation.

"Streamlined" until it comes to appeals. Then they only look for generalizations and keywords in the player's entire chat log instead of looking at just the message that was reported to determine if it was warranted or the report tool was abused.