The introduction of the new social contract from MacMillanwu's blog

The introduction of the new social contract comes amid an ongoing sexual harassment and discrimination case for Activision Blizzard brought by the state of California which alleges that the company has for a long time fostered an "frat boy" workplace culture. Activision Blizzard leadership's "tone deaf" reaction to the allegations led to company walkouts with WoTLK Classic Gold. Numerous other lawsuits and investigations which included a $18 million settlement to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, have also occurred in the after the state of California's first lawsuit.

As a result of the suit, Blizzard began to make a variety of modifications to WoW and updated older game content and references to in-game that could be seen as "not proper." It was later revealed that the WoW development team would eventually issue a statement explaining the need to update older and possibly problematic in-game content and references were part of "building an inclusive and friendly game world."

Alongside the new Social Contract, Shadowlands patch 9.2.5 will introduce cross-faction play the first time. This allows players of the Horde or Alliance to form a group for quests, dungeons or other games. Patch 9.2.5 does not currently have the release date. Blizzard recently announced WoW's next expansion, Dragonflight the expansion will include a brand-new playable race, class, and the brand new Dragon Isles region, along with overhauls to systems such as skills and professions. Dragonflight does not have a release date, but an Amazon list for the expansion's prequel novel could provide an indication of when it could arrive.

It's been awhile since we covered what will be coming to the next version of WoTLK Gold, so here's a recap of the most recent blog posts by Blizzard on changes to the Shadowlands Class changes.