World of Warcraft (opens in new tab) wants you to agree to be nice to other players with the introduction of a social contract.
It was introduced in the PTR a couple of weeks ago and was fully implemented with patch 9.2.5 which landed earlier this week. "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," the contract's introduction reads. "Every player deserves to have a world that they feel safe in, so please take a minute to read our social contract."
It's pretty standard fare: make friends, be nice in dungeons, communicate and behave appropriately, maybe chuck a struggling newbie a heal or lend a hand in defeating enemies. It also goes over some unacceptable behaviours, such as hate speech, spamming, harassment or general abusive language towards other players.
Here is the new "Social Contract" that is coming to World of Warcraft in 9.2.5 pic.twitter.com/FAMLyU0ep1May 12, 2022 See more
It feels like something between a gentle reminder and a stern warning against toxic behaviour. It's mostly the sort of thing you already find buried deep into a game's terms of service, now given its own spotlight. While that hasn't stopped some players from getting their knickers in a twist about the entire situation, most players appear either pretty receptive or largely apathetic to the change.
Checking "I agree" on a box is unlikely to create any wider changes to some of WoW's core toxicity problems unless Blizzard starts to take it more seriously. Hopefully, the social contract is a sign of that and we'll start to see some enforcements for crappy behaviour.
borghive on June 1st, 2022 at 15:19 UTC »
I think a lot of the toxicity comes from the way they design their games these days. They pushed e-sports in all their games and they wonder why people are toxic to each other.
Lawbringer_UK on June 1st, 2022 at 15:11 UTC »
I basically stopped doing any group content because so many players are so exhaustingly rude and/or impatient. I'd love to get back into it if something like this was properly introduced and enforced.
Perhaps even rewards for good behaviour? Eg X amount of time without upheld reports against you? Obviously this will require a fully staffed GM/moderator team to be able to investigate
RedFireSuzaku on June 1st, 2022 at 12:51 UTC »
Maybe they should start by setting the good example themselves… ?