The transparency is there, and always has been. The fact that you are choosing to ignore it, especially when it’s being directly pointed out to you, is not Blizzard’s fault.
You broke the rules. You got a suspension. If you wish to appeal it, then you do so through a Support ticket.
For the sake of visibility, here’s the link again, updated two months ago.
The information you are looking for is right there:
We silence your account if you are reported multiple times for Spam or Abusive Chat. Repeated offenses will result in account suspensions. The duration of the suspension increases each time we apply it to your account, up until the account is banned.
When WoW released the penalty for language violations was a suspension or perma ban.
The Silence system was introduced in 2016 to give GMs an additional tool to help curb player behavior while not removing them from the game totally.
The option to suspend or ban has always been on the table and has always been used. How often it is used is based on a lot of factors. Current policy, account history of infractions, and the nature of the current violation.
Blizzard does not really discuss the details of the penalty systems so that people don’t try to game or skirt them.
Right now, they do seem to be applying the Suspension option to accounts that have a history of violations, or where the offense is serious enough.
They are not going to tell you where the line is though as to whether or not you might get a silence vs a suspension.
It has always been an option so don’t be shocked if it gets used.
Please believe that is the truth. They can even go straight for a perma ban with no other warning than the EULA we agreed to. There is no mandatory X step procedure in the punishments.
Depends on the violation. It is possible that on your very first offense, you can manage to utter something so vile and irredeemable as to warrant an immediate and permanent account closure. On the other hand, you may just have a bad habit of dropping the rare f-bomb once in a great while, and never receive anything harsher than the proverbial slap on the wrist in the form of a 24-hour silence.
Again, it all depends on what you have done in the past (and how often you’ve done it), and what you’ve done this time. I’m also reasonably sure that they take a dimmer view of profanity directed at another player (verbal abuse) than they do a more general exclamation of frustration, etc.
Plenty of f-bombs and the like, but nothing in that hateful tier of insults. I probably deserved to be reported, I won’t deny that. But I haven’t been suspended from the game in 17 years. There seems to be a wave of overreacted punishments, based on what I’ve read recently on these forums and elsewhere.
Or a renewed effort to combat seemingly ever-increasing levels of toxicity.
The problem is that people don’t seem to learn from a Silence. Suspension tends to get their attention a bit more. That reaction (suspension) is a direct result of people not stopping their behavior.
Understandable, but after years of reading posts on this forum, I would say there is nothing out of line with the punishments. What’s happening is players are finally catching punishments that get their attention, and they don’t like it.
Like you said yourself:
Appreciate the candor, but if players are doing things that deserve to be reported, then there’s no guarantee on the punishment. In fact, one could say that if someone doesn’t like the punishment to the point it moves them to complain about it, it’s probably a much more effective punishment at deterring the behavior.
Maybe. Levels of toxicity seem no greater now than they’ve ever been. Was has changed drastically is the number of subscribers, and that’s overwhelmingly based on content.
Had it been a 3 day suspension, I’d probably just take it on the chin. But 7-days? I’ve already unsubbed, so all it’s deterred me from is giving blizzard more of my money.
So why the need for an updated , transparent policy?
That is certainly a decision you can make. All the players that reported you are also paying customers. Consider that they have a right to expect game rules to be enforced. Blizz is a business and would rather keep the paying customers who don’t violate the rules vs those who can’t control what they type.
It is not fun to feel you are not welcome. You ARE, but only if you stop the behavior. If you don’t want to do that, then unsubbing is certainly a viable option.
I almost exclusively engage in PvP content. I talk no differently in game than 90% of the people I encounter in BGs and arenas. The rules for players in these modes seem like they’re never enforced, otherwise I wouldn’t see daily what I was reported for. Reasonably, would you expect to be held accountable for what’s clearly been accepted as the norm?
And blizzard wants to keep ALL the paying customers, not just the ones that don’t use profanity.
Edit: I went mobile, didn’t intend to post under a different profile.
So you are saying that enforcement needs to be stronger so that those other players also stop doing it? I agree with that. If they get reported and have a history of infractions they will also get suspended. The GMs don’t know you, or them, they just action based on the chat logs, account history, and current policy.
The customer is not always right. Businesses do have a preference for some customers vs others, esp when one set of customers is driving others away with bad behavior that breaks the rules.
You can’t stand around screaming profanity in the middle of a store either, they remove you and likely tell you not to come back - they don’t care if you are a paying customer, if you make the store unpleasant for others they don’t want you shopping there.
That’s not how the rules for this game works, what others are doing doesn’t make it fine now, nor does it magically mean the rules on the matter no longer applies. You knew better and did it anyway. More to the point, Blizzard say X, Y or Z got action for A, B or C in game or on the forums, mainly because Blizzard keeps it between them and the person being action.
Like the old saying goes: If all your friends jump off a bridge, would you do it, too?
Just because others do it does it mean you have to do it as well.
Because the most likely reason it that it is not being reported.
It is not the norm, far from it. And if it has been accepted as such, then those that do are wrong.
Yes, they are a business and they want to make money. But at a certain point, a toxic customer is detrimental to business so the best practice is to remove said customer.
I reject all of that because players have tools in game to insulate themselves from the remarks of other players.
I also reject it because it shows a fundamental lack of understanding about how businesses operate.
If one player can make five others quit by being abusive and toxic, no, that isn’t a player Blizzard is going to go out of their way to retain.
So do you also think that the availability of bulletproof vests and body armor gives you the freedom to shoot people?
Penalties still compound, it just does not stay with silences. A silence is the starting point, suspensions soon follow and eventually the account may be closed if policy continues to be violated.
Yes and no. Silences were implemented as a means of penalizing folks for social violations, but focusing the punishment on social functions, such as chat, grouping with strangers, etc… limiting the ability to impact other players social experience.
Indeed, as noted in a Development Update from August of last year.
It also has updates to improve the game environment for our community, including additional changes to some content to better reflect our shared values, better visibility into the impact of your in-game reports of harassment, and more serious penalties for people engaged in disruptive behavior.
We provide a general understanding of how our penalties work, we are unlikely to ever go into full details of X provides Y penalty, etc… As a customer, paying or otherwise, you also agreed to abide by our Code of Conduct when you enter our game.
That is a progressive system. It was based on the violation and the history on the account. Belief is not a relevant factor.
That isn’t entirely accurate. The unfortunate truth is that a lot of times folks just don’t report the behavior, not that it is ever acceptable or never enforced. This time, it was reported and therefore reviewed and penalty applied.
As previously noted, the Mature Language filter is a social tool, which is there to allow parents of minors and others to block unwanted language. It does not otherwise negate our policies against such language or subject matter.
It doesn’t really, it shows a fundamental understanding of what the majority of people want out of the environment that they spend their time in.
I think this discussion is not really going anywhere.
I will correct one more misunderstanding, based on the current appeal ticket you have in. It wasn’t one person who reported your behavior, it was multiple separate reports that illustrated toxic behavior, including but not limited to inappropriate language.
Good luck in wherever your gaming takes you. It should be noted that a lot of other gaming companies are also focusing on gaming toxicity, and many of those are far less forgiving.