World of Warcraft Introduced a Social Contract to Avoid Toxicity

The new contract is aimed at making players nicer to each other.

World of Warcraft has introduced a new "Social Contract" aimed at making people nicer to other gamers while playing the MMO. It first appeared in the PTR a couple of weeks ago, and now it went fully live with the release of patch 9.2.5 on May 31.

The "Social Contract" appears after installing the update and it reads that "every player deserves to have a world where they feel safe in." As a part of the contract, players are asked to be friendly, play as part of a team, help those in need, and whenever possible answer newcomers' questions in the chat.

The contract also has restrictions including hate speech, in particular when it comes to players' race, gender, and gaming skills, harassment, threats, abusive language and behavior, and spamming and advertising. If players violate any of the contract's rules, their account is said to be suspended.

Players must accept the contract in order to continue the game – otherwise, they'll have to close the MMO.

The World of Warcraft community has long been known for its toxicity issues. The new contract seems to be Blizzard's first attempt to solve this problem. However, it remains to be seen whether the company will undertake other measures against the subpar behavior of the players.

What do you think of the "Social Contract"? Do you believe it will help change the World of Warcraft community culture? Share your thoughts in the comments below and don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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Comments 6

Anonymous user
To the user saying 'safe spaces making people not used to anything': citation needed, wild claims with no basis can be dismissed without evidence, and luckily, safe spaces do work in places like 'a video game' where you're just chilling out. Maybe consider using finding research papers rather than just randomly vomiting out ideas as if your brain has some flawless simulation machine in it lol
1
Anonymous user
·2 years ago·
_ CyberNomad
Some of you would not have survived gaming about 10-15 yrs ago. To the commenter that mentioned personal responsibility, I like you, but it works both ways... can't handle it, don't seek it.
0
_ CyberNomad
·2 years ago·
Lockett Brian
Just another case of "This is why we can't have nice things."

If people weren't so bad, we wouldn't need such rules.
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Lockett Brian
·2 years ago·
Anonymous user
Whose bright idea was it to emphasize World of Warcrafts existing TOS/EULA in the form of a social contract? Just enforce the rules. Also, this PR stunt assumes all players are intelligent enough to listen to more experienced players regarding content. I've seen players who can't even walk in a straight line let alone complete even the simplest of DF content. I'm not going to answer some persons simple questions in chat when they have the internet at their fingertips. Players should be expected to know the mechanics of each Normal+ Raid boss or Mythic Keystone because it's not they're playing the game for the story at that point. The exception is if the raid was just released. It's also an insult to be expected to carry players who haven't completed a single LFR instance. Raiders should never need to waste hours of their time listening to a raid lead mansplain every aspect of a fight.
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Anonymous user
·2 years ago·
Anonymous user
Oh no, not the consequences of people's actions coming to bite them in the butt....
0
Anonymous user
·2 years ago·
Anonymous user
Trash. Safe spaces only make people not know how to deal with things and turns them into even bigger pussies then they already are 🙄
-3
Anonymous user
·2 years ago·

World of Warcraft Introduced a Social Contract to Avoid Toxicity

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Comments 6

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