wow Datamined Social Contract in Latest Patch 9.2.5 Build

[Stan 4,722]

New players will be greeted with a Social Contract in Patch 9.2.5 and can either accept it or exit the game. 

New global strings added in Patch 9.2.5 Build 43412 refer to an interesting addition named Social Contract. Players who launch the game for the very first time will see it and must either accept it or exit the game.

Here are the new global strings tied to the Social Contract.

SOCIAL_CONTRACT_TITLE_BAR - Social Contract SOCIAL_CONTRACT_ACCEPT_BUTTON - Accept SOCIAL_CONTRACT_DECLINE_BUTTON - Exit Game SOCIAL_CONTRACT_TEXT1 - 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: SOCIAL_CONTRACT_TEXT2 - 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! SOCIAL_CONTRACT_TEXT3 - 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 f 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

[Ken007 40]

"Negative comments that target..... another player's ability." I see comments like that in almost every M+ run. They are going to ban half the M+ community and a lot of pvp/ arena types as well, ha, ha.

I agree with it though. This a game people play for fun and to relax after work/ school etc. The negativity should really not be a part of that. If you care so much about the ability of other players in your group- then don't pug: run pre mades.

[wetsocks 14]

WoW devs,

Your game's social aspect sucks because you neglect it. The aspects of the game that drove people toward social cohesion have been stripped down and diluted. You now double down on solutions you think work, but come off as patronizing and ineffectual. The reduction of our social etiquette and expectations into a pseudo ToS is insulting. Pathetic nannying is all it really is.

The game has changed to trivialize most aspects of itself. Gameplay and bugs are seen more concretely with patch notes. Social aspects suffer a more incorporeal state of change. Subtle and slow you do not realize it until it is unrecognizable. Walking around because you're questing to 40 to get a mount increased the amount of people you interacted with. Scarcity and challenging enemies required groups of your peers to overcome. These things required cooperation and organically fostered them to occur. Now you press a button to be placed with random people to accomplish your tasks. You're placed with people who see you not as a fellow player on your server, but some random pugscrub that gets outdps'd by the healer. People you are not going to see walking around as you complete your quests in the world. Many things are trivialized to the point where anything you do in game have discounted the very interaction that made this game thrive for over 15 years. The resurgence of classic gave a brief glimpse of what we could expect from our fellow players; a server of likeminded players creating close-knit social webs.  developed into an ethereal metropolis of gigantic player populations artificially divided so we all get our slices of pie to be happy. Analogous to a miser reminiscing about the expansion of his hometown into a cold, ugly, indifferent vast city, I remain on my porch to complain about the state of the current world of warcraft. To remember the world for how it was as it rushes me by in the streets before me. Hastened by youngsters that do not accept it for what it is.

[saturn4301 1]

Sorry, not sorry. If you queue up as tank for a +15, and have no idea what you are doing or how to remotely play your class, then my negativity is coming your way. I have no idea how you got invited, but you should prop delete the character you just purchased.

[SidonisAntares 281]

2 hours ago, wetsocks said:

WoW devs,

Your game's social aspect sucks because you neglect it. The aspects of the game that drove people toward social cohesion have been stripped down and diluted. You now double down on solutions you think work, but come off as patronizing and ineffectual. The reduction of our social etiquette and expectations into a pseudo ToS is insulting. Pathetic nannying is all it really is.

The game has changed to trivialize most aspects of itself. Gameplay and bugs are seen more concretely with patch notes. Social aspects suffer a more incorporeal state of change. Subtle and slow you do not realize it until it is unrecognizable. Walking around because you're questing to 40 to get a mount increased the amount of people you interacted with. Scarcity and challenging enemies required groups of your peers to overcome. These things required cooperation and organically fostered them to occur. Now you press a button to be placed with random people to accomplish your tasks. You're placed with people who see you not as a fellow player on your server, but some random pugscrub that gets outdps'd by the healer. People you are not going to see walking around as you complete your quests in the world. Many things are trivialized to the point where anything you do in game have discounted the very interaction that made this game thrive for over 15 years. The resurgence of classic gave a brief glimpse of what we could expect from our fellow players; a server of likeminded players creating close-knit social webs.  developed into an ethereal metropolis of gigantic player populations artificially divided so we all get our slices of pie to be happy. Analogous to a miser reminiscing about the expansion of his hometown into a cold, ugly, indifferent vast city, I remain on my porch to complain about the state of the current world of warcraft. To remember the world for how it was as it rushes me by in the streets before me. Hastened by youngsters that do not accept it for what it is.

And yet, I witness a fraction of a pittance of the toxicity in WoW when playing FFXIV, where antisocial behavior as described in the above contract is stamped out through its reporting system, especially when it is towards new players (Sprouts). All while having similar cross-realm play features to reduce queue times as WoW does that people have long blamed for the social decay in the game. Even in Frontline (FFXIV's daily roulette queue of a PvP battleground of the day), the toxicity is far far less.

Oh, and there is no trade chat, which probably does wonders.

[Bobbis 208]

I'd be fine with this, if they actually had competent and effective CS staff who could look into this abuse and uphold bans, or undo false reports...

I agree with Wetsocks in that Blizz have allowed it to get to this state, though without such rose tinted glasses (classic did no such thing and if anything is just as toxic...) and completely neglected their CS side of the company (read, cost saved...).

The community as a whole is as much to blame, but I have no faith in this not being abused, and Blizz failing people further with this.

[Arcling 764]

4 hours ago, wetsocks said:

WoW devs,

Your game's social aspect sucks because you neglect it. The aspects of the game that drove people toward social cohesion have been stripped down and diluted. You now double down on solutions you think work, but come off as patronizing and ineffectual. The reduction of our social etiquette and expectations into a pseudo ToS is insulting. Pathetic nannying is all it really is.

The game has changed to trivialize most aspects of itself. Gameplay and bugs are seen more concretely with patch notes. Social aspects suffer a more incorporeal state of change. Subtle and slow you do not realize it until it is unrecognizable. Walking around because you're questing to 40 to get a mount increased the amount of people you interacted with. Scarcity and challenging enemies required groups of your peers to overcome. These things required cooperation and organically fostered them to occur. Now you press a button to be placed with random people to accomplish your tasks. You're placed with people who see you not as a fellow player on your server, but some random pugscrub that gets outdps'd by the healer. People you are not going to see walking around as you complete your quests in the world. Many things are trivialized to the point where anything you do in game have discounted the very interaction that made this game thrive for over 15 years. The resurgence of classic gave a brief glimpse of what we could expect from our fellow players; a server of likeminded players creating close-knit social webs.  developed into an ethereal metropolis of gigantic player populations artificially divided so we all get our slices of pie to be happy. Analogous to a miser reminiscing about the expansion of his hometown into a cold, ugly, indifferent vast city, I remain on my porch to complain about the state of the current world of warcraft. To remember the world for how it was as it rushes me by in the streets before me. Hastened by youngsters that do not accept it for what it is.

As someone who has played since the "old days", I didn't experience that much of any of these "social aspects" outside of my own raiding guild. People were still unwilling to talk to each other, quick to insult others when something went wrong in group, passed by each other just to get their quests done etc. Much of it is a myth amd elitism was already present back then. Main difference was the raiding part, if you were on a smaller server you knew quite a lot of players, but it also sucked since recruitment pool was pretty small (which eventually led to the death of raiding on these servers, until crossrealm was introduced, although Alliance raiding is pretty much dead these days anyway). Being divided by servers (as well as factions) is an outdated solution, which doesn't work, look how many dead servers are on classic right now.

[KODIAKC 0]

When Blizzard stopped supporting the game, did cut backs, and took away any real customer service then people either stopped caring or just left the game completely. My personal experiences with customer support over the last few years have been horrible and I am a total casual player. Play Heroes of the Storm for 1 day and its even worse. All customer service is now is canned msgs from people that don't care and that are trying to fill a ticket quota. And when you complain about your customer service experience or ask for a manager you are just threatened by CS that they will shut your account off. So why bother.

[Calorat 78]

The reason WoW is so negative is Blizz pushed it as a competition and not a game.  I mean the entire game is centered around 2 factions that are at war and can't play together and Blizz pushed that Horde vs Alliance mentality every chance they got.  The goals in the game became focused on speed/rewards and not on having fun.  The goals shifted from run a dungeon for fun and some gear to "you gotta run this in x amount of time or you are punished and don't get gear"  Blizzard devs are the ones who added so many "you have to do this every day" aspects to game to push up their  "daily engagement stats" that players feel like there are so many things they have to do every day that they end up feeling crunched for time cause most of them have limited time to play every day so they feel rushed and angry if another player slows them down or wastes their time.   the game has become a job, not a game,  That speed and results first mentality was pushed to the extreme with the creation of M+ is the main reason the community is filled with jerks now cause how often do you see toxic behavior doing a quest?  It's always in instances or pvp cause someone cares more about winning/getting best rewards in fastest time possible. The rewards over fun and that player is your enemy mentality is what Blizz pushed since the game began and now it's the players fault that we acted like they wanted us too?  Plus the fact they don't actually permanently ban players and advertise it so everyone knows doesn't help.  Game would be a much better place if when you reported players for being harassing jerks Blizz actually did something and then said "hey this guy was a *filtered*, we banned him, don't be like him" 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Calorat

[Lithari 188]

6 hours ago, Ken007 said:

"Negative comments that target..... another player's ability." I see comments like that in almost every M+ run. They are going to ban half the M+ community and a lot of pvp/ arena types as well, ha, ha.

I agree with it though. This a game people play for fun and to relax after work/ school etc. The negativity should really not be a part of that. If you care so much about the ability of other players in your group- then don't pug: run pre mades.

Exactly, i have had many negative pug experiences, but you won't see me, crying about it...why? cause i am an adult......physically and emotionally, these people that NEED these stupid rules need to grow up, these developers need to stop catering to these people, it destroys franchises all for a vocal minority...its tragic.

[Lithari 188]

1 hour ago, Arcling said:

As someone who has played since the "old days", I didn't experience that much of any of these "social aspects" outside of my own raiding guild. People were still unwilling to talk to each other, quick to insult others when something went wrong in group, passed by each other just to get their quests done etc. Much of it is a myth amd elitism was already present back then. Main difference was the raiding part, if you were on a smaller server you knew quite a lot of players, but it also sucked since recruitment pool was pretty small (which eventually led to the death of raiding on these servers, until crossrealm was introduced, although Alliance raiding is pretty much dead these days anyway). Being divided by servers (as well as factions) is an outdated solution, which doesn't work, look how many dead servers are on classic right now.

I remember playing wow since just after the Burning Crusade first came out and there was no group finder, you had to do premades and i found it highly socialable and people were polite, chatty and when the dungeon finder came out, people stopped talking, now, dps are a so common, that, if you are even slightly bad, kick, replace......leaving Tanks and healers rare and therefore enjoy a level of royalty status, which alot of them abuse beyond belief.

[Arcling 764]

1 minute ago, Lithari said:

I remember playing wow since just after the Burning Crusade first came out and there was no group finder, you had to do premades and i found it highly socialable and people were polite, chatty and when the dungeon finder came out, people stopped talking, now, dps are a so common, that, if you are even slightly bad, kick, replace......leaving Tanks and healers rare and therefore enjoy a level of royalty status, which alot of them abuse beyond belief.

That thing was happening in TBC as well, which was my raiding expansion. Some tanks and healers in guild were actually abusing their status (due to small recruitment pool, they knew it was hard to replace them), so skips (only showing for wednesday raids to get loot from boss that were on farm) and DKP hoarding were happening. When it came to random groups, many people were assholes back then too, including elitists (a lot of fake ones, since majority wasn't that skilled). And no, people weren't talking much in pugs either, it was even harder to get someone on voice, a lot of communication was pretty minimal like "mage, make water".

[Ragingwolf 250]

No matter what you are still going to find some ounce of toxicity in any type of mmo online gaming setting.  Either it be vile pm's/dm's, offensive language in live chat, emote abuse, ddos'ing, doxing, or even player stalking.   It's going to happen no matter what preventive measures, as a company, can make....this is the equivalent of takeing a water pistol and trying to put out a bonfire.

[Lithari 188]

The only way to stop toxicity is to make it illegal to speak at all......the world is supposed to go to hell anyway.

[Toky 33]

"...the following behaviors are not accepted in Azeroth:

...including negative comments that target another player's...ability"

Dude, you suck! = Ban Hammer

[Gugar 0]

Reading this I am reminded of the movie Dazed and Confused. In the movie there was a drug free pledge that one of the main characters was required to sign if he was to play football the next year. Many of the supporting characters told him to sign it because “who cares” its not like it makes a difference anyway. The issue as he ended up deciding is the principle of the matter. Forcing a meaningless contract or law on someone for no reason other than virtue signaling is pointless and dumb. I am pretty quiet when I play the game. I don’t talk in trade chat much or at all and get annoyed with then trolls get going. As a competent main tank I enjoy helping others in both group and raid situations and always give pugs more consideration than they probably deserve (except Ragnaros, they just suck ). On the surface there is no reason not to click accept on this contract and play as I always do. The issue is I cant. I cannot support meaningless woke propaganda aimed at addressing an issue that I was not part of in the first place. If this goes into the live game my account after 18 years of play will go inactive.

[Baharok 216]

3 hours ago, Toky said:

"...the following behaviors are not accepted in Azeroth:

...including negative comments that target another player's...ability"

Dude, you suck! = Ban Hammer

Is it really THAT hard to just think and not write this stuff? It shows off who has patience and is willing to behave friendly, even if it is hard from own point of view and limited horizon (this means, if you dont think about or at least have all possibilities in mind, what led to a "bad" performance (in your point of view at least) - greetings to Explosive weeks at this point!).

Edited April 28, 2022 by Baharok

[Yesokgood 0]

On 4/28/2022 at 6:59 AM, Ken007 said:

"Negative comments that target..... another player's ability." I see comments like that in almost every M+ run. They are going to ban half the M+ community and a lot of pvp/ arena types as well, ha, ha.

I agree with it though. This a game people play for fun and to relax after work/ school etc. The negativity should really not be a part of that. If you care so much about the ability of other players in your group- then don't pug: run pre mades.

Brother, they're referring to disabled people... not comments about your gameplay.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Yesokgood

[Arcling 764]

4 hours ago, Toky said:

"...the following behaviors are not accepted in Azeroth:

...including negative comments that target another player's...ability"

Dude, you suck! = Ban Hammer

I think it means something like laughing at someone's disability, not just saying that someone is playing badly.

[Avalanche 0]

7 hours ago, Arcling said:

I think it means something like laughing at someone's disability, not just saying that someone is playing badly.

Yes, but we both know it will be abused by certain players to silence people for any amount of criticism.

[Lithari 188]

7 hours ago, Arcling said:

I think it means something like laughing at someone's disability, not just saying that someone is playing badly.

You would think so, but it will likely be abused.....just like if they put on a review of each player on Rocket League at the end of a match.....players would say the terrible players are bad people and the good ones are good people, even though it was intended to show which players are toxic and who are nice...but will be used as a rating system on skill and nothing else.

[Arcling 764]

10 hours ago, Lithari said:

You would think so, but it will likely be abused.....just like if they put on a review of each player on Rocket League at the end of a match.....players would say the terrible players are bad people and the good ones are good people, even though it was intended to show which players are toxic and who are nice...but will be used as a rating system on skill and nothing else.

I hope they won't take it that far and system is going to ignore these reports. By "ability", it probably means things like calling someone autist for example when he is playing badly etc.

[Loomer 1]

On 4/28/2022 at 8:18 AM, saturn4301 said:

Sorry, not sorry. If you queue up as tank for a +15, and have no idea what you are doing or how to remotely play your class, then my negativity is coming your way. I have no idea how you got invited, but you should prop delete the character you just purchased.

Nobody should be forced into an environment with a bully. If you are constantly pugging there is likely a reason others are not happy to join you. Whatever that reason may be perhaps you should figure it out quickly before you are faced with the reality of being without a game you enjoy.

[Teufel 325]

17 hours ago, Loomer said:

Nobody should be forced into an environment with a bully. If you are constantly pugging there is likely a reason others are not happy to join you. Whatever that reason may be perhaps you should figure it out quickly before you are faced with the reality of being without a game you enjoy.

Irony of your statement is lost upon you, I guess, proud SJWarrior.

Queuing up as a tank without a single clue is indeed is inviting bullying upon yourself, if for nothing else but wasting others' time on a very likely failed run. The game and community at this +15 point expects you to know your sh*t already, not relying on others being "paitent" while you learn cr*p ypu should have learned beforehand. And when one invites themselves - they are not "forced" into anything, are they not?

Hypocritical SJW crap as usual - demanding being respectful towards someone, even if they are not respecting others.

[HeWhoShallNotBeNamed 0]

If this goes live it will have the opposite effect of its deluded creators intentions....like most woke garbage.

First of all no one likes to be told to do something no matter how nice the deluded developer who wrote this trash says it....."Oh your contract you are forcing me to sign as I fork over my money to you says I should help others in game....nah I think I won't do that out of spite"...I can see many people thinking this, and I can't say I blame them.

People won't be nicer, it will not create the fantasy utopia of world of nicecraft.

What people will do is adapt...instead of talking nice people won't talk at all in groups, or at the very minimum. People will retract even more into just the circle they know in game instead of reaching out to discover others.

Friendly banter during dungeons...gone...joking around? Definitely DOA. Textual silence.  Instead of trying to ask why someone is having a problem fulfilling their role in a m+ or whatever, people will just up and leave without a word....why risk a report just move on to the next group of anonymous people

"I don't know who is or isn't a woke perpetually offended person so to avoid getting banned I just won't interact at all"

Help people in game? Why? I mean some women actually get offended when you open a door for them.

"How will I know if that person is overly-sensitive or not, why risk getting reported for some unknown offense."

In the end, after the first few bans come down this "contract" will create a sterile, silent, utterly colorless and boring community.

The A -holes in life come with the package of wonderful, funny and trustworthy people. They may set out rules to rid the game of the former but in doing so they will mute the latter.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Delzun
grammer