World of Warcraftis one of the biggest and longest-running games in the industry. Now, developer Blizzard has updatedWorld of Warcraft’s profanity filter to be a bit more aggressive.
For those who don’t know,World of Warcraftis a fantasy MMO that sees thousands of players on every server at a time.World of Warcraftis also still one of the biggest MMOs in the industry, despite releasing all the way back in 2004. Before this update, messages sent by players to global chat or private messages with profanity, the words would be censored with asterisks or simply have the word completely redacted.
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World of Warcraft’s new chat filter will now completely block private messages that violate the policy from being sent at all. Rather than just censoring words, players sending messages with forbidden words will have their entire message blocked and will receive a message saying “Unable to send chat to ‘username’ because your message contained reserved words.” The change comes as part of Blizzard’s newest efforts to combat toxicity, racism, andgriefers inWorld of Warcraft. However, it has yet to be made clear what words are all contained within the new list of reserved words, but it has been confirmed that the list is focusing primarily on racial slurs for now.
The system is still in its early implementation stages and is undergoing a lot of testing. For now, the new filter is only in place inWorld of Warcraft’s messages sent in-client. This means that players can still send messages containing racial slurs when sending messages through Blizzard’s cross-title messaging service Whispers. It is likely that once the system undergoes further testing the list of blocked words will grow to battle more toxicity, and it is also likely that players will see the system begin to be implemented alongside othertoxicity-curbing efforts inBlizzard’s other big titles likeOverwatchandDiablo.
For now, the new system seems like a step in the right direction. Toxicity is a big problem in multiplayer games, and it is good to see Blizzard stepping in and working to address the issue in one of their biggest titles. It will be interesting to see how far Blizzard develops the system and what other changes ornew additions toWorld of Warcraftthey have in mind to help make it a better place for gamers. Hopefully, the company’s efforts will be effective to help makeWorld of Warcraftbe a more welcoming place for everybody.
World of Warcraftis available now on PC.
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