Notes

Should WoW Players be Responsible for Accountability for Players?

Blizzard's policies regarding reporting players has been about the same since day one. If you encounter problems with a player, report them. Blizzard will reach out to thank you for bringing up the problem, but it does not provide any information about the steps it took to fix it. This is always clear for me. In the many years in which I worked in customer service or call center jobs, rule #1 was to not talk to anyone other than an account holder regarding the status of their account. To me this policy seems to me like Blizzard policy is a continuation of the same treatment. Blizzard cannot tell you about actions that are taken against the account of another player since the account they have isn't yours You know? It's private information.



However, I have had to report a lot of players over the years, and never knew if any action was taken against them. Simple violations of names, like inappropriate guild names or characters were easy to spot. The guild or player would be able to change their name, and I could determine if there was action taken. You don't know what they've been told in the case of player harassment. It's just a matter of hoping this means the person harassing you will go away and that will be the end of the matter, but there are absolutely no assurances.



Pugnacious Priest posted an interesting blog post about complaints and player reports, specifically in the League of Legends universe. Apparently, League of Legends is doing something wholly strange in the world of gaming -- it is taking these reported cases and letting players decide whether there is something that needs to be accountable for or not. Pugnacious Priest takes this one step further, and is wondering if this is the kind of system that could be used in WoW one day.
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Over the years, WoW has seen its fair amount of jerks. This includes players who took advantage of equipment that was stolen by ninjas and players who deliberately caused drama, and players who utilized GearScore to determine another player's validity. Players who used Recount to put higher DPS scores in other players' faces. WoW also has had its share of unsavory people who just want to make someone else's life miserable, whether it's because of a bizarre sense of entitlement, a personal vendetta, or the desire to be as obnoxious as possible in a social environment where, presumably, nobody will catch you.



It is strange that WoW doesn't have a premise for accountability of players. Vanilla had players confined to various servers, and each was a tightly knit community. The servers had one thing in common that people spoke like they would in a small town. Anyone who did something that was considered to be offensive to the server in general was immediately expelled from guilds, raids and instance runs. They were expelled. In the past it was impossible to pay to change your name, or transfer servers. If you did something wrong you either apologised and attempted to make amends for what you'd done, or you started over on a different server at the level 1.



This odd little watchdog system for WoW has almost vanished. The potential audience that the Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder systems draw from is vast. There is almost zero chance of encountering an offensive player more times than once. Why should you? You're not going to meet them again.



It makes strange sense on one hand. You can draw from more players and you won't face an offender who is a regular, or a person who is extremely harassing. This system, on the contrary, allows players to be jerks at any time and anywhere they want. Why is that? It's not like anyone is going to bother to report them.



This is one of those bizarre small questions that don't have an easy answer. Do we give up the flexibility and convenience of things like the Raid Finder and the Dungeon Finder to be able to return to that self-policing state again? Do we just throw up our hands and let the players who are offensive continue to be offensive? Pugnacious Priest asked whether we should create the same system as LoL and let players decide for themselves who is right or wrong.


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