Hello friends of Moon Guard! You all may have noticed something new when you logged in since 9.2.5 dropped: the Social Contract.
What is the Social Contract? The Social Contract is the Terms of Service you agreed to when you first started playing WoW. It’s a reminder of the rules you agreed to abide by (no swearing, using slurs, discrimination, etc.). The Social Contract is the Terms of Service in a smaller form to remind players to be nice to each other in-game.
The Social Contract is not anything new. The Social Contract does not present any new rules to abide by. The Social Contract itself is not an enforceable document, merely a reminder of the rules you agreed to abide by.
So what does this mean for roleplayers? It’s a sign Blizzard could be getting serious about moderating its community. Blizzard has been fairly hands-off with enforcing rules in the game in the past, but with the wave of complaints coming in about account actions being taken (silencing, suspensions), it looks like things are changing. This presents a challenge for the roleplay community, as there may be a number of us who aren’t aware of the rules of the game.
I posted a thread in the Customer Support forums asking how GMs approach roleplay scenarios when reports come in: An Eye on Roleplayers Behavior
I posted 3 examples of potential scenarios and asked how a GM would approach it. Please take a look at all of the responses in the thread, particularly from Vrakthris, who was nice enough to take the time to provide a detailed response to my post to explain how roleplay is affected by the ToS.
The underlying theme of the thread is when in doubt, put it in party chat. Is your argument going to get heated? Is your fight going to get graphically violent? Is your ritual just a little too dark? Even if you’re out in the middle of nowhere, to better protect yourself from reports, take it to party chat and be sure everyone involved is aware of what the scene will entail and all agree to it.
The reality we face is roleplayers are not always well liked. While I hope the GMs can differentiate between reports and false reports, it’s important to realize there are people who will try to abuse the reporting system for malicious purposes. We all enjoy this game, but it’s hard to do that when account actions are taken against us for breaking the rules. Please share this post with your friends, guild, Discord servers, and community. The more roleplayers are aware of the rules Blizzard expects us to abide by, the better equipped we can be to avoid coming afoul of them. The game is much more fun to play when we’re not being actioned!
I’d encourage everyone to take another look at the Terms of Service. Make yourself aware of what the rules are. When roleplaying, be aware of what scenes you plan to write, and think about “what channel, if any at all, would this be most appropriate for?” If it involves swearing, violence, or dark themes, it might not be a good idea to put it in a public channel.
Please note nothing presented in this post is a reflection of my own personal thoughts or feelings. I’ve kept it intentionally neutral because I want to encourage conversations about this issue.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Do NOT use the linked post to ask questions or debate the issue. That is NOT what the post is for. It’s here to serve as a general guide for you and the community to understand what’s being expected of us. If you have questions or concerns, please either:
- Open a ticket
- Make a new thread in the realm forums, General Discussion, or even Customer Support (note: Customer Support is NOT Customer Service. Customer Support is player-to-player support, GMs and devs do not look at that forum.)
- Post your questions/concerns in this post.
Do NOT use the linked post. Please be respectful of those who want to use it as a quick reference guide.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and see you in Azeroth!