Zeal Omnia

I have been playing Blizzard's game Heroes of the Storm since the day of the game's Alpha launch. This was around 4/2015. Around 5/2021, I was permanently banned and an account valued at well over $1000 is no longer accessible to me. I have been reported numerous times for abusive chat. And this is completely understandable as I have been silenced on multiple occasions for it. Understandably. I have a bit of an issue with expressing my irritability verbally and pressuring people to play correctly. In many cases, however, it was not a matter of straight up crude vulgarity. Although early in the game's life it certainly was, over the years I matured a bit and stuck to more specific claims of other player's performance. Addressing such issues play by play, as many neurotic players do. - My biggest argument is that if Blizzard's matchmaking service was effective, then there would be less frustration displayed by players of their teammates in games. Blizzard, as do all other competitive games developers, provide players with a mute/block button. It is the thin skinned player's responsibility to use such features. - My secondary argument is that if blizzard cannot create a perfect match making system, then Blizzard cannot expect perfect player conduct. To expect either is irrational. - My third argument is that players should not be permanently banned for conduct. Perhaps silenced for a year, perhaps temporarily banned for a year after so many cases. But mental issues are a thing and they are widely possessed in many forms by gamers. Some are offensive, and some are fragile. It is no place of a developer of any sort of software to try and dictate the behaviors of it's users using outright banning of an account as the consequence of not upholding said predefined behaviors. - My final argument has to do with a game's lifespan. If a player displays toxic behavior, be it outright vulgarity or simply the revealing to other players of their individual faults, it is likely that behavior is not going to suddenly disappear. It likely may become toned down over time, especially after numerous and increasing chat restriction penalties, but it is unlikely that it will fully disappear. So the longer the game is up, the chance of the company eventually banning the player increases drematically year by year. Blizzard and other game's developers should be legally restricted to a year-by-year rule where you can impose a penalty for the remainder of an annual cycle that restricts them (up to completely) from a game due to conduct, but never indefinitely - at the very least without a complete and total refund of that player's money. And offenses cannot be gray areas. Threats of violence, for example, would be a zero-tolerance example of how a player could be outright banned and refunded their purchases. But disrespect should never be considered a bannable offense, especially considering that in society disrespect is sometimes endearing and a, perhaps poor, desire to help improve the overall player-base's ability to perform, or weed out those who refuse to improve. Thereby improving the efficacy of the matchmaking system and in turn reducing the degree of toxic behaviors in individual matches. Lastly, this genre of game, specifically. One that originated as a mod on another of Blizzard's games, Warcraft III, is riddled with toxicity. It always has been. And it is toxic players of this genre that ultimately lead to the genre becoming independent of the mod it originated on.