Blizzard Is Beta Testing A ‘Social Contract’ For World Of Warcraft Players
Toxicity and disruptive behavior has always been a problem in virtually any platform with a global chat feature, whether it’s on Discord or your favorite MMO. Blizzard Entertainment is looking to address this in World of Warcraft by requiring players to accept a social contract upon logging in. Here’s what is says:
Hail, traveler, and welcome to the World of Warcraft! Azeroth is a living world full of people like you – other players with different backgrounds, cultures, experiences, and histories who have all come together to play World of Warcraft. Every player deserves to have a world that they feel safe in, so please take a minute to read our Social Contract.
While in Azeroth, do your best to:
- Connect with other players and make friends! Being courteous in group content can help you and your teammates have the best time possible. Sending a friendly hello message can help set your group up for success.
- Play as a team with your fellow players – whether in dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, arenas, or out questing in the world. Do your best to support your team through your communication and behaviors so that you can all celebrate your success together.
- Assist other players that you encounter in the world. Maybe they need some help defeating a tough monster, or maybe they could use a little healing!
- Help answer questions others have in chat channels like General or Trade. We were all newbies once – one person offering some help can go a long way.
We recognize that the Internet is not always a safe haven. With that in mind, please note that the following behaviors are not accepted in Azeroth:
- Hate speech, including negative comments that target another player’s identity, including aspects like race, gender, or ability
- Harassment, threats, or abusive / derogatory language and behaviors
- Spamming, advertising, or other disruptive behaviors
- If you harm your fellow adventurers with any of the above behaviors, you are subject to punishment up to and including suspension of your account.
It’s a big world out there, with all sorts of people in it. So please try to be respectful of each other, and if you ever feel like somebody is acting against this code, please report those behaviors so that our team can look into it. Together, you can help us make the World of Warcraft a safe home away from home for everyone.
Like your run-of-the-mill License Agreement and Terms of Use prompts, players are expected to read the contract then hit either Accept of Exit Game at the end. And like EULAs and TOUs, you can also just scroll down really fast then click on Accept.
While the general population couldn’t care less about the new social contract, its sparked concerns about its vagueness which leaves it open to subjective enforcement. Players could get banned because they didn’t “do their best” in a dungeon run or because one of their teammates reported them when he didn’t get the loot that he wanted.
The good news is that the feature is still currently up for testing on the public test realm as part of PTR Patch 9.2.5 and might not even see the light of day.
You can check out the full patch notes on the World of Warcraft official forums.
