Blizzard has caused incredible communication anxiety

Community General Discussion
1

I want to put a disclaimer first:
My account is from 2007 and I have played every single tier/season since.
I have -never- gotten a penalty until Dragonflight, I never write slurs or alike to randoms (would only write it to close friends where strangers wouldn’t be able to see it). The closest thing to being toxic I ever type, is being a little passive aggressive, but not to the point of breaking any ToS.
I’m a very calm and usually very nice, friendly and in a good mood. I also almost exclusively play with friends, and generally don’t really write in chat anymore, because I’m on discord.

ANYWAY -

In S3 I got a chat ban (this one I will admit might be my own fault. I play on Argent Dawn and was having a degenerate conversation in trade chat, nothing toxic and no slurs, but as degenerate as Argent Dawn trade chat gets)

I have hardly played for a week, except killing Fyrakk and explaining to our tank that I thought he was being unfair when flaming me(Top heals, top dispels, doing seeds and only seeder to survive), explained I had to leave anyway because I promised a friend to do keys.
Basically the only interaction I’ve had through chat that wasn’t “Hi” or “GG ty”
The tank whispered me, calling me a snowflake, I reply “Wow you really hurt my feelings. Anyway…” and then I put him on ignore.

And then I get hit with a 7 day account suspension.
I immediately appeal the suspension, asking for evidence / chatlogs and a detailed description on how my actions justify a 7 day suspension.
6 days pass before I get the bot response “We’ve revised the material and determined that your suspension was legit”
No chatlogs, no proof, no description on what has caused this, and I didn’t even get to reply to the auto-response, no, the ticket was immediately marked as “resolved”. Sadly it caused me to miss out on 2 weeks of loot (due to bad timing and a hospitalization). Luckily I don’t care too much about the loot, I do however care about the treatment from Blizzard.

I have an amazing friend group, we go on a trip every year and one of our friends even invited us to his wedding. I’ve been in this game for so long, and depended on it to be my safe-space where I could make friends that I didn’t need to hang out with all the time irl.
Sadly, this suspension has caused me to have insane anxiety when interacting with the community.
I came back from a hospitalization, looking forward to play with my friends again, but as soon as I came online, the anxiety suddenly hit.
I’m terrified of saying “Hi” or “Thanks for the key” in chat. I’m scared of offering to do void bombs on Sarkareth or ask who wants Pi.
I’m scared of interacting with the community in an MMORPG that I’ve literally grown up in, found love and friendship in for so many years. This was my safe-space, where my autistic brain didn’t have to worry about social rules and norms, as long as I was kind to other people.

Anything you type, no matter how harmless it is, even if it’s merely a “Hello” or “Thanks!” can result in a suspension if you get mass-reported. As a result, I no longer wish to communicate with the community. I’d rather get kicked from a group for not responding, than get a suspension because someone mass-reported my message saying “Hello”.

So well done Blizzard, a game I love and have spent so incredibly many hours in, making friends and memories, now causes me insane anxiety, all because you would rather have bots reviewing reports and appeals, than actual people.
Multiple of my friends also refuse to write in chat anymore, purely out of fear of getting suspended even when doing nothing wrong.

I hope Blizzard will look into their report system, even though I highly doubt it.

18 Likes
2

Not enough people are talking about it.

Yes, this is atrocious. But whereas sometimes indeed the person being penalized is guilty, just like the innocence presumption does not apply anymore in the real world (and the media can tarnish the one being accused of something forever, so the process is the punishment) so too popularity 》truth in video games these days.

I find it absolutely inexcusable that low-wage community managers were laid off to install this dehumanizing reporting mechanism.

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3

AD drama again.

4

I sympathize but I doubt you’ll get much help here, this forum too is full of people too afraid to say what they really mean so it’s just a lot of fake niceties and people acting different than how they really are.

Sucks that we’ve even gotten here, can’t say anything anymore. Got banned for making a joke myself… Its just boring at this point.

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5

Talking to people in an NA game or social media? Are you crazy? Why would you even attempt such thing?

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6

WoW is the first mmo that punishes players for chatting. I personally rarely chat if ever and only with people i trust.

I recommend everyone reading this to disable chat in all blizzard games to avoid getting punished.

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7

It’s sad but it’s better to just stay quiet in this game.

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8

I wouldn’t say I have anxiety to use the chat at all, but sometimes I find myself wondering if words I wouldn’t remotely consider dirty could get me into trouble. And if I can’t find a fitting substitute (due to my limited English) I just end up saying nothing.

10

Half of the people who hang out on the forum, are from Argen Dawn. So it doesn’t surprise me that half of them,are just looking for attention here.

11

Unfortunately you can’t discuss bans on the forum, so ironically you’re quite likely about to get in trouble again for doing so.

Welcome to the social contract; here to justify anything as reportable and minimizing blue workload. The best way to not get in trouble for speaking in the game, is not speaking. Sticking to friends and guildies is typically safe, but outside that, flag abuse is open to all.

12

And yet I have never had an issue. People must be leaving things out. Though if you find someone behaving like a tool, it is best to not interact with them whatsoever and report them. That way they won’t bait you into saying anything either.

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13

Not experiencing an issue does not mean the issue doesn’t exist. Any tool that can be abused, which right-click flagging with automated moderation can, will be. That’s sadly human nature, especially so in online settings with the safety of anonymity. If you think it sounds too far-fetched unless you experience it, that makes sense because it really is ridiculous that such a thing can happen. But do you believe it when you hear similar stories about forum bans? If no, then I got nothing. If yes, then why would it be different in game?

14

Not gonna lie, saying it “might be my own fault” while admitting you had a degenerate conversation in a faction wide city-chat is quite oblivious.

And this is where I stopped reading for the most part. This topic will soon be locked and deleted, because discussing actions taken against accounts on the forum, is a big no-no.

I am on the same realm as you and I never had any issues in that regard.

The worst I ever got was the warning “people are reporting you, adjust your behavior or there will be consequences” showing up on my screen top right corner in S3 of Shadowlands when I was taking part in a rather crooked conversation in Zereth Mortis chat.

Other than that. Nothing.

15

With the forum bans, it is essentially a case of zero tolerance. Whilst I think some cases are extreme that is the rule they use and we accept. However, I did notice some people getting their accounts wrongfully banned then overturned recently. I also think the use of AI systems and not people is wrong and very prone to errors that aren’t checked. I still think people leave stuff out.

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16

Blizzard have a record of over-reacting to issues. There were some complaints about Daily Quests in MOP and rather than fix the issues in WOD we had no more Dailies. There were some compaints about Ninja Looting and then there is no more Group Loot option.

For too long toxicity in grouped content was let fester and now they’ve over-reacted to any minor slight.

I think there should be an option in game for Silent Mode where you cannot speak with others. Might make some grouped content harder to do but also makes penalties such as this far less likely (taking the OP at face value, we only have one side of the story but I’ve seen other similar posts recently).

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you my friend just like many others are viction of wonderfull new world revolution where AI will decide many many things.

just like incoming to west social scoring :slight_smile:

they fired all EU CMs and replaced them with generative AI responses and autoamted ban system

lesson from this is - just do not write anything in in game chat .

if they will want to - they will report anything you write and AI will ban you if 4 people put report button at the same time,

AI overlords are coming.

if you wanna experience old wow - you cannot play in retail :slight_smile:

18

My advice to you. Do not interact with people. This suits me very well as I don’t have any friends who play wow anymore.

19

always filter trade chat before entering the city on fresh toons.

it´s worse than goldshire.

20

that sounds very grim. hopefully there is still time to fight these changes. it is good to see fellow bright minds share important insights like this. keep up the good work my friend.

1 Like
21

Once again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

They tried to eliminate the toxicity, but they created an even worse place.

They should only sanction serious insults and threats and let the rest of the interactions develop normally, since that is why ignore exists and the most of us are adults.

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