Hear, hear. I suggest that you have a look at the moron of the day over at Gevlon's today, where a wanding lock is bullied out of the game. How about giving a nice pointer to the guy rather than just telling him off? Do some people thrive on stomping others into the ground? Are they ridden by some inner demons that they only can let out in the game?

Or what about this lovely trolling comment I got right out of the blue on my blog the other day?

"You are the worst kind of "fanboy" and the part of the reason I hate Wow. You socialist, weak minded, lonely person. Delete your toons and start living life."

How did it happen that WoW became the World of Hatecraft?
 

"If instead of bashing newbies the veterans would go and help these players become better, the community would obviously be much better."

I tried that. In 99.9% of the tries I got one of the following responses:
A.) Incoherent insults. Usually along the lines of "You $!&§!!, how dare you suggest that there is anything I could still learn, I rock!"

B.) Getting politely but very firm told that this is a game while learning anything is obviously work and therefore has absolutely no business in World of Warcraft. If pressed can lead to a silent quit or develope into A

C.) Getting told that its hopeless anyway, with a subtone of desperation. If pressed will leave nearly always, sometimes even with a genuine thanks for the thought, but without trying nonetheless.

I blame the game. WoW does a horrible job at teaching you important stuff while at the same time you don't reach any roadblocks or other signs that you are doing anything other than great before 80. The result are people who think they are great players but are barely able to hit the right buttons, much less doing it fast and in the right order. If it was just the bad teaching-job players could jump in and help, but you can't teach someone who won't admit that he needs teaching.
 

"Pretty much every other activity, hobby, or sport has a strong solidarity: People generally like other people with the same interests. "

Try and get two football fans together to talk about their sport in a meta-context - what's good, what's bad, what needs to change - and *not* have it descend into 'you only say that because your team is losing/winning [delete as applicable]'.

MMO fans/ players are just the same as football fans - most are too caught up in their tribal loyalties to be able to step back and discuss the wider contenxt of their hobby/passion without it descending into 'my team/game = good; your team/game = bad'.

and that's not a criticism in and of itself, because those tribal loyalties, that sense of commonality with (a small set of) similar ppl is precisely why (but not only why) we play MMO/ follow football/ engage in hobbies.

in my experience, the only time fans can discuss their fandom *without* it descending into 'your choices are dumb! mine are great!' is when the hobby is so marginal that, well, you cling to whoever you actually find.

doesn't make it less annoying when you want to, for example, discuss the changes to the offside rule and someone pipes up with 'you only say that because your team's striker couldn't hit a barn door'.

but at this point yr up against something which might very well be human nature, so why beat yr head against a wall when it happens? accept that it does and try to find those ppl to talk to who want to chew the meta-analysis.
 

Try and get two football fans together to talk about their sport in a meta-context - what's good, what's bad, what needs to change - and *not* have it descend into 'you only say that because your team is losing/winning [delete as applicable]'.

But in MMORPGs it is the supporters of the SAME TEAM (players of the same game) that bash each other!
 

But in MMORPGs it is the supporters of the SAME TEAM (players of the same game) that bash each other!

This is mostly just thoughts from me, but I think that as soon as you can find relatively sizeable subsets within groups this is more likely to happen.

I'm not entirely sure if the analogy of a specific game vs a football team is exactly the right one. I would probably say that a specific game is more like the football sport like Seanas said, and that's just because I'm not sure if you can create any more subsets within fans of a certain team. If you can then it's probably too small to matter. Do fans of different players within a team bicker over which one is the best to any large degree? Well I still think that it's too small a subset.

Right off the top of my head I can't really think of any great analogy but I can think of those similar to the football one. Computers - Operating systems. Mobile phones - Operating systems or platforms. TV consoles - Different platforms.

This isn't really a refined thought but I really do think that it has something to do with this subset thing.
 

I think the root of this problem might be in the mass appealing nature of the MMOG. There are several very valid ways of "winning" in this game, which poses alot of problems for meta gaming "discussions".

Imagine, when in soccer, not only scoring goals would lead to "winning" the game (PvE), but there would be a faction that would consider "winning" by sitting in the middle of the playing field, sharing the only ball and discussing what they had for lunch. (RP)

And another faction who's most prized goal is not to get the ball into the enemy's goal, but to foul and kick and insult the enemy players as much as possible while denying them the ball. (For the lulz-PvP-faction)

Everybody's winning, yet the activities are not compatible with each other. No referee would stop any of these activities. In fact, the referees would state that all of these goals are valid within the game of soccer.

I think, that would maybe make soccer even appeal to me :)
 

I agree with you entirely, Tobold, and with you, Larísa. Gevlon has helped make bullying acceptable to many people: in fact he has promoted it; and it's about time we made it clear to him and his followers that just as bullying isn't acceptable in real life, it isn't acceptable in WoW, either.
 

I'm sorry, I have to side with Gevlon. That Warlock was wanding, which certainly meant his DPS would have been low enough to justify kicking him. But they did not even do that, all they did was crack some jokes and he left of his own accord.

Did you even read the first response to this guild application he posted? This was a hardcore guild for min/max players who already know what they're doing. That first response is not rude or insulting, he takes the time to point out the flaws in the applicant's character.

Does he take the advice and fix his character? Hell no. Instead he spends double the time that would have taken to make a flame war about how unfair it is that this top raiding guild didn't take him even though he clearly wasn't qualified.

It is extremely easy to find all the info you need to improve if you are going to make that effort. They won't take 5 minutes to do a Google search to improve themselves, how much effort am I supposed to give for this guy?
 

It doesn't need to be two different teams in sport, take a look at any forum and you'll find abundant vitriol directed at management for selecting terrible players, the players themselves for being terrible, other fans for not seeing how terrible those players are... Even if the team are winning everything there'll be something wrong, other fans not cheering enough, or cheering too much, or the half-time pie being too expensive, or...

Mind you at the actual games, or pubs showing matches, the atmosphere tends to be better (occasional crowd violence aside); probably the good old Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory at work again, same reason you wouldn't send out that e-mail to the company, but I bet an anonymous forum would find plenty of people slagging off management, co-workers, the cleaners...
 

Thomas is on the money. MMOs aren't unified "games" operating under an agreed set of rules. They are gaming spaces in which players make up a variety of games that they play under rules of their own devising. Not surprisingly, this leads to factions with conflicting goals and that leads to conflict over use of the gamespace.

The proposition that "People generally like other people with the same interests" is also untrue. I was an active comics fan for most of the 1980s and 1990s for example. The scene was ridden with cliques, many of which treated others with contempt. Many individuals had feuds or hatreds of others. People were routinely ridiculed or abused for holding various points of view.

Just like the MMO blogosphere, only in slow-motion because it all happened in fanzines that published irregularly rather than in real-time on the internet.
 

@Dacheng

Please do not call it bullying. That is a slap in the face to anyone who has actually been bullied in real life.

It is just a video game. Nothing these people do can harm you. If you feel real fear at how these people treat you with their pixels, you need a therapist first, nicer guild/group second.
 

I enjoyed Klep's article but I would say what he was talking about is more elitism and snobbery rather than negativity.

Also maybe we don't read the same blogs but I wouldn't say that it's mainly bloggers who complain about the lack of skill by other players. All my experiences of that have been limited to in-game and, in particular, the official forums.

I do find it ironic though that Blizz have themselves admitted that it's a problem and that actually being 100% perfect or having the perfect talent spec is not a pre-requite to doing well in the game yet they still make features like iLvL available to the public! I would move than anything for them to remove iLvl from the game and shut down add-ons like Gearscore for good. I think that would go a long way to solving this elitism issue.
 

"Pretty much every other activity, hobby, or sport has a strong solidarity: People generally like other people with the same interests."

Because you don't interact with them outside of the game. I think that's pretty much the whole reason.

Think of it this way, if I know someone who likes baseball, but is terrible at it while I am great at it (and I'm not), will I be rude and harrassing to them? No, I might not want to play a tournament with them (i.e. Raid), but I will still be friendly and maybe do heroics with them or other content.

The other thing is this person and I have already established a connection. If I meet someone in a tournament and they are playing for my team and they are horrible, I will wonder how they got there. It is not a value judgement on them as a person, but them as a player. I won't have as much sympathy for someone I don't know as someone I do. But I still won't think less of them as a person.

Because they are behind an internet connection, it is easy to forget these people are in fact people and only judge them on the basis of an avitar.
 

People like complaining, and complaining on your blog probably drives numbers. Just look at your comments; people complaining about how other people play the game.
 

hear,hear

This is one of the two things about vanilla wow that I think cause so much nostalgia.

Entire Guilds from EQ and other MMO's jumped to wow and they brought a sense of community. Back then the Big guilds at least were more respectful and team oriented.

That and they had to actually go out and communicate and play with players to recruit.

I'm not going to say the game hasn't been improved since then but the community has steadily gotten worse.
 

@ Samus

It does hit the level of Bullying in game. And remember some of those players being harrassed are 10-12 year old kids that can get just as upset about in game bullying as schoolyard bullying.

I'll give you that its easier to walk away and not as bad as in person. But bullying does happen in game.

Though there are some people who need to learn that aggressively arguing your point is not bullying. Some people are so sensitive they can't tell the difference between passion and meanness.
 

If you combine Seanas and Thomas' comments you get that the "team" is likely a guild or people someone typically runs with. This is the game they created. A pug is a stranger and just as much the enemy as the horde is. Especially if you are trying to show how much better your guild is than the rest by server firsts, achievements, etc.

A lot of people on my server have this attitude and it likely explains why we can never win wintergrasp. Everyone cares much more about themselves and appearing more competent and "better" than the next guy. For this reason there is never any teamwork. Nobody will agree on strategy or stick together. Then they whine that we lose.

@Samus: Sorry, but it looks like the people in that pic were looking to start something, probably so they could get on his blog. That is what his little ending post is doing really, it's encouraging people to LOOK for reasons to start arguments with other players. It's just boring after a while.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

@tobold

But in MMORPGs it is the supporters of the SAME TEAM (players of the same game) that bash each other!

I've seen people nearly come to blows over arguments about coaches and players on the same team.

And little league games are a sickness. Little league parents are like MMO players. Everybody is stupid, everybody is bad but thier child.

Groups of people are the same everywhere. If you have effective leadership most of these things don't happen. If you don't they get ugly. In person and on the internet. the internet just has less consequences for bad behavior.
 

The lack of solidarity among MMORPG players may come from the same source as the lack of solidarity among people who wait for the same train that is perpetually late. There's nothing to advancing towards your destination but waiting and being aware enough to catch the train as it comes through, so the people really have nothing that relates them. In WoW, most players don't do much more than spending time in order to advance, so they wouldn't have much of a bond with other players because there is no meaningful action to actually build solidarity.

Now compare the casual commuter to someone who uses the train system multiple times a day and knows every route and the schedule to perfection. Among the people who are enthusiasts about the system, there will be solidarity, but the enthusiast has no solidarity with the guy who takes the train a few times a week and doesn't care about it beyond getting from one place to another.
 

What we are dealing with here is the same thing that has happened to other highly successful online games.

As the number of users/players increase, the result is that the signal to noise ratio of accurate and spot-on analysis gets saturated by more noise than signal. Now, who gets to determine what is accurate and spot-on analysis? Certainly not me nor anyone else in the bogosphere - this responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the developers who are left trying to perform a balancing act between what everyone is saying.

I left the first person shooter community due to these same reasons. The communities just fell apart after a period of time and it seems to be the nature of the beast as hacks, cheats and player asshattery slowly grew to rule the roost.

MMO's are no different. In early WoW it was about people using positioning exploits and evade bugs to gain boss kills. Then came Gold Selling/Buying. Then came PvP and the associated gear disparity bitchfest. Then came...issue D, E, F, G...well, hopefully you get the picture.

I have my own opinions about certain things, but they are my opinions and I hold fast to them. However, I dont openely call people names or publicly bemoan individuals for how they play the game. I do however hold the people behind the avatars accountable for in game actions that will cause a resulting loss of enjoyment for other players. If a player repeatedly signs up for a guild run and doesnt show, then they lose their slot for that event for a certain period of time. If a player is reported to have ninjaed something during an event and it is substantiated by more than one player, then that player is kicked from the guild.

But to say that someone is an eliteist or stupid because they play the game for different reasons than you is just wrong on so many levels. We have players in my guild who do nothing but socialize, while others earn achievements or do nothing but dailies.

Some want to raid, so there is a reasonable expectation that they will put some kind of effort into learning their class and its associated abilities. It's not elitist to think this way, it's expected because there are 9 or 24 other people behind the avatars in a raid that are affected by the actions of this one player. However, as with any sharded game, the culture that exists on one server might not necessarily exist and hold true on another, so as the game population rises, and the associated opinions that are offered rises, you have a homoginization of ideals on what is considered the "correct" way to play the game. This results in titles being perpetuated like; Elitist, hardcore, casual, noob and the like. The end result is everyone picks a corner and allows themselves to be backed into it whenever they feel threatened.

I think a lot of people forget that WoW is just a game, as as such it's no different than the TV or radio in that regard. In that if you dont like what you see or hear you should just hit the OFF button and stop watching, listening or playing in this case.

I highly suspect that there is a deeper psychology at work here, where people become way too attached to their online toons/avatars after months or years of playing, and they just simply refuse to, or cannot in fact, just walk away or stop playing.
 

Tobold,

Get a grip.

To some MMOs are a hobby...

To some MMOs are sport...


Have you SEEN any blogs on sport teams lately? Perhaps you can look at ManU sometime.... might be educational.
 

I agree Tobold.

People just love to hate. Most of the people that hate in the game (Gevlon) are the same people that get hated on in real life because they are ugly, nerdy, fat, stupid, or exhibit some other trait that marks them as an outcast. The anonymity of an MMO is the only place they can feel "powerful".
 

You are 100% correct in this post. The wow blogosphere is extremely negative reflecting the general interactions with other players in game. There are so many more random trolls than helpful, substantive writers.

I think you should start a forum on your site discussing MMORPG's. It would create such a community you desire and I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to moderate it for you.

If you look at Just My Two Copper's success (almost 6k subscribers atm) you'll notice that it's all about building a positive community around helping out not just the pros but also the noobs and newbs.
 

Tobold, you mentioned the other day that in blogs you mostly hear the negative side of comments so I wanted to say I agree with your comment today. I generally don't post because whether I agree or disagree with what you have written there are usually many well-written thoughtful replies to your blog that express my thoughts much better then I could express them myself. I enjoy reading your blogs and the thoughtful replies they generate.

And, I disagree respectfully with Seanas, I was bullied over my bad playing in WOW to the point of tears (at that point in the game I was such a noob I had no idea there there hundreds of forums, websites and blogs entirely devoted to WOW. I was amazed, and pleased when I found that out). Being verbally harassed in a game or in some other electronic space like Facebook can be every bit as hurtful as being physically and verbally harassed in real life (something I was familiar with in high school, myself).
 

Lol noob, I ninjaed ur post and u cant do anything about it.

I feel I must point out that many of the bullies don't care in the slightest about community or social connections; they're even hostile to the concepts, at least by statement.

I don't think veterans even need to help out newbies. They just need to stop the bashing and let them figure things out. When I started I didn't need bashing or help to get better, just time. Lots of time. Oh the stories I could tell...
 

an MMO that makes it easy to judge and compare competency is asking for trouble.
 

Comparing wow-bloggers whining to writing an email to everyone in your company is a bad analogy. Compare wow-bloggers to people whining about people in their everyday life in work/friends? That is a good analogy, and there are many such blogs with huge followings. Sometimes these people are outed and fired, which is why they aren't even more prevalent.
 

Help? Newbies? But wont you catch newbie-cooties doing that?
 

Simple explanation: continued proliferation of GIFT through impersonal grouping "tools" (term used loosely). Not just LFD - this goes back to the inception of cross-realm BGs.

I win the thread.
 

I think you may have some confirmation bias at work. I simply stop reading game blogs that are full of negativity. I never read Gevlon because he was obnoxious, and I stopped reading your blog when you got too obsessed with him and became obnoxious yourself.

Write what you want to read, and don't read what you don't want to. You'll be happier for it. --Flyv
 

Once upon a time, those who were generally anti-social idiots would effectively isolate themselves from others. They would be ejected from more normal groups and portions of society. Of course these types would eventually find their own and these groups of anti-socials would most likely be varying shades of criminal with the weaker among probably not surviving. It is not that they didn't exist but simply that they were once easier to avoid.

Now, enter the internet. You really cannot drive off these anti-social misfits. Certainly some still gravitate toward gang life or other anti-social activities but the weaker among them now have an alternate place to hide. A place that allows them to think they are strong or smart or what ever they feel like they are lacking. Certainly not everyone online is like this but every group has its misfit portion. The difference now is that they are harder to shoo away. Combine this with the tendency for these types to try to loudly prove themselves and it would seem that the whole internet, and the online gaming communities that are a part of it are nothing more than a cesspool of smacktalk. Further pile on a general lack of men socializing boy in our society. The tendency for boys to find TV less than interesting, or at least less interesting than games. Therefore, if you leave a boy undirected in a relatively affluent middle class home what is he likely to do with his time? Probably spend it in a game.

It is not that game players are unsocialized idiots but rather that a disproportionate number of unsocialized idiots having nothing better to do than spend time playing online games. Now put that together with a deep seated need to be good at something, a strong desire to be know for something and boom, you have a whole sea of elitists. WoW is not really to difficult of a game to get reasonably good at so it offers many kids something they can really dig into and try to become l334 at. But now threaten the tenuous dominance at something that is not so very difficult anyway and you have a pack of angry dogs fighting over a few scraps a sense of being cool.

It is not simply wow, wow is simply big and so gets more of these people. Every game, even the games that are know for having a great community still have a few angry elitists. Thus the WAR players say the WoW players are wimps and the WoW players say WAR is dying anyway so whatevar and so on goes the elitism between games. Then the console gamers laugh at the pc gamers for having no skills and the old players start reminiscing about how it was in the old days when games were actually hard to play. And then the programmers laugh at the gamers for wasting their time on playing games rather than writing them. And so on and so on and so on.

But of course, only ever online, got to be an internet toughguy after all.

The question is, where do we fit into all this? What are we doing to make the online community a more civilized and socialized place to be. Ultimately we cannot get rid of these misfits but we can form guilds and clans and then hold those groups to a higher standard. It is easy to go with the flow and let come what may. It is something else all together to actually lead with an eye towards the group's common good.
 

I have never understood why people have this weird urge to be rude to each other.

Yeah, call me a hippie, but I just feel better when people are being nice to each other.

And the strangest thing of all is that the rudeness increases once we remove the whole facial interaction. Really, communicating with fewer indications of the other person's actual intentions increases uncertainty and logically (I think) should also increase one's tolerance. But instead the opposite happens. wtf?
 

Or to put it more succinctly, in response to today's headline: I love you all!
 

Humans have needs, right after water, food and a bed comes social security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

Respect gives you that security. Humans need respect.

Respect is what drives these haters. Take Gevlons moron of the day.

Some guys gang up on a noob and between them respect is forged by "bullying" someone els.
The person being bullied understands that these guys are taking respect from him. His own idea of how much respect he deserves is what made him leave the group.

You can't change humans they will always need respect and those who do not get thier need fulfilled may try to take it from others.

You can change the game so that those who deserve respect get it. Blizzard decides how respect is devided.

Tobold, your point that the comunity would be better if veterans help newbies can only happen if those veterans get thier respect.

When we are seing veterans bashing newbies it is atleast partially because thier need for respect is not met.

I am not educated in psychology but it is my hobby to understand the minds of mmorpg players so take it for what it is worth.
 

Doesn't this issue stem from an earlier article where Larisa (?) was saying that wow only has ONE way to play. ie. non-optimal rotations, gear, talents are simply not tolerated.

Wow is not really a game. It's more of a copying race.
 

I had to respond to this. Now, not only do players with limited time on their hands have to learn their own class and attempt to raid for gear that has a 5-12% of dropping, they now need to teach other people (in their limited time) about the preferred dps rotations, gearing, gemming, enchants, etc. Not gonna happen. I'm sick of seeing people misgem and misenchant lvl 264 gear with gearscores in the high 5ks that are doing about half of the dps they're supposed to be doing.

I see it all the time with rogues (since I'm a rogue). Rogues with mid-to-high 5k gear scores can easily do 10k dps plus on single target fights where they don't move much (Saurfang, Festergut). I run with some rogues that are pulling 5-6k dps on the same fight. How is that possible? Because they don't know what stats are preferred to give them the best dps, and they don't know how to hit the damn keys in the right order to get that dps.

This is just one example of the reason people are getting upset. They figure, I'm taking the time to learn my class and do well, and I freakin lose the roll to someone with better gear who is doing less than half the dps I'm doing.

Like it or not, many of these groups I'm talking about are PUGs, and more than half of the people I will never raid with again. In that sense, it is a zero-sum game and I do care more about gearing up my player than feeling happy for that higher-geared but lower performance player.

Now, in this scenario, you want me to teach THEM how to play better? Of course, it's different for guilds where you will be raiding with the same people for weeks at a time...
 

Perhaps "they" aren't "misenchanting" and failing to do their "supposed" dps just to spite you?

Isn't it possible that "they" have a different set of priorities?

Perhaps, if the evil thing™ dies, it wasn't the end of the world that "they" did 5k dps instead of 10k?

Someone mentioned "respect". Perhaps that's what we all can do, just treat each other with respect and not assume as much? Not assume that that other guy is an idiot just because he doesn't "pull his dps" or that woman is a moron just because she didn't read MMO Champion?
 

We're talking about Group Identity, and how groups decide that there is a "right" way to do things, and a "wrong" way to do things.

Whether it's a MMO, FPS, RTS, or any other type of hobby, people are going to find other people who they agree with on certain tenets of that hobby, find people they disagree with, and segregate themselves based on that relationship.

Look at politics. In any given country, the population, at least theoretically, lives amongst each other, and should be working together for their country and their society. Yet, people become vitriolic about any number of "issues" and separate themselves into groups (political parties). These parties believe that only they are doing it the right way, and that the other party is doing it wrong.

I don't think you can ever create a super community of everyone, because there will always be people who disagree. No matter how "inconsequential" the subject matter is. Whether it is separate cultures/groups within a video game like WoW, or in professional sports. Isn't there a rift between Star Trek fans based on the original Star Trek, and the spin-offs? Couldn't this rift be labeled as absolutely inconsequential (except for the Star Trek fans, of course)?

Groups and group identity will always exist. There's nothing anyone can do to change it, as it seems to be pretty embedded in human culture and our psyche.
 

@Oscar

The only people who complain about 5k instead of 10k DPS are the hardcore guilds. If you sign up for one of them, I have no sympathy when you get exactly what you signed up for.

The people who get berated for incompetence are people doing less than 1k DPS, or people who sign up as tank and don't even OWN a shield. Why should I drag this person through an instance so they can get a free epic? I don't even know this person.

Why don't we take a real life example. Let's say your company formed a project team with people from different departments. You've never met any of these people, and you'll never see them again. One person refuses to work, he just sits there surfing the web all day.

Sure, the rest of you could do the project without him, but are you really going to say nothing? When it comes times to decide raises and bonuses, are you really okay with him getting as big a raise or bigger than you get?

Why would this person ever do work? And why would a bad player ever improve when the world is filled with nice helpful people like you who think it is rude to point out their incompetence?

I would rather have a world where they are frustrated with their own incompetence than a world where I am frustrated with their incompetence.
 

"Do some people thrive on stomping others into the ground?"

Well put, Larissa. The answer is, of course, yes.

We've all been to elementary school. It's rough out there.

When you take simple social cues like eye contact, body language, etc., "normal" interpersonal interactions are impossible. There are simply no drawbacks to flaming a random toon if you're in a crappy mood.

It's Lord of the Flies with characters from an enormous array of ages, education levels, gender, mood, maturity, intoxication, and on and on with no participants able to see each other at all.

And you can say the same thing about blogs. Although as much as you put yourself out there and model yourself a cute, open minded gnomette, it does shock me that you of all bloggers would get such harsh trolling.

We have met the enemy and not only is he us, he also can't see us weeping when he unleashes his flamebreath.

HOWEVER, it's my opinion that those haters are still in the vast minority. But getting hated is so damaging that we tend to focus on it out of proportion to the "normal" interactions we have.
 

Samus,

No. I think it's rude to be rude. You don't know me, I think, so I understand that you have no reason to be aware how I act at work or otherwise.

Of course you shouldn't be forced to run instances with someone you don't like, just like you shouldn't sit by idly and watch your anonymous co-worker do nothing all day while you did his work.

But I'd call you rude if you yelled at your co-worker the minute he sat down to surf the web as you started your first project meeting, just like I'd call you rude if you insulted the shieldless paladin tank as you entered the instance.

There is nothing wrong in expressing your opinions, but it's really not that expensive to do it in a civilised and polite manner. I do it quite often in WoW, and you'd be amazed at people's reactions. I've been asked countless times if I'm a GM, just because I've used complete sentences with capital letters. It's fun! :)

And when the shieldless paladin tank replies to me with an insult instead of a smile (of course that happens a lot, too), then I leave. It's cheaper that way. This is my entertainment. Why should I let someone else ruin it, after all? ;)
 

"But I'd call you rude if you yelled at your co-worker the minute he sat down to surf the web as you started your first project meeting, just like I'd call you rude if you insulted the shieldless paladin tank as you entered the instance."

I am surfing the web right now, and I'm sure that doesn't upset you in the slightest. That lazy co-worker isn't hurting your project any more than I am, so why would that upset you?

Because of the implication from him. He knows the work has to be done, and he knows by slacking off he is requiring a certain level of hard work from you. You think it is rude to demand of him exactly what he's demanding of you?

The incompetent player is doing the same thing. He knows that because of his lack of contribution, he is requiring me to contribute more. Through his own lack of contribution, he is threatening the whole group with failure if I don't do the very thing that HE refuses to do.

Is it rude of me to object to this? Not half as rude as what he's doing.
 

I think you guys missed my point. My point is in reference to Tobold's statement:

"If instead of bashing newbies the veterans would go and help these players become better, the community would obviously be much better."

First off, veterans don't help these people IN GAME because in some instances (like in my personal experience), it just doesn't help. There are tons of guides written by veterans NOT IN GAME that try to educate people as to enchanting, gemming, dps rotations, gearing choices, etc. From my experience, veterans are more than happy to answer questions, but if they try to offer advice, they are shunned.

Second off, I'm not a member of a hardcore guild. I'm only pushing 5.7k gear score and doing 12.5k single target dps as a mutilate rogue in Saurfang and other standing fights (25 man). I see other rogues with gearscore AND BETTER GEAR THAN ME misgemming, misenchanting and not even understanding what a "dps rotation" means when asked. These other rogues are doing much less than half of my single target dps. Do the damn research please or KINDLY ask someone in game!

@Oscar:

"Perhaps, if the evil thing™ dies, it wasn't the end of the world that "they" did 5k dps instead of 10k?"

The difference between 5kdps and 10kdps for many fights is that you don't get past a number of more difficult fights after Saurfang. Good thing some people are pulling 12.5kdps, because if everyone was pulling 5kdps, you wouldn't technically be able to beat enrage timers.

Third off, I never said to call them morons or stupid. Lazy, maybe...
 

Samus,

I apologise that I didn't express myself very clearly. All I meant to convey was that it's rude to be rude. No more, no less.
 

@Toblod two words: Rodney King.
 

The problem is at its core WoW is a game of time management. People get pissed when others waste their time. Cue fights.
 

First of all, as has been stated several times by numerous posters *beats a dead horse* assuming that people who engage in hobbies do not fight amongst themselves is a ridiculous claim. Since everyone loves examples and analogies so much, here's one for you: in the world of model cars/planes/etc, there are some kits that can be snapped together, and some that must be painstakingly glued together. Guess whether people that prefer each type to the other get along!!

The most hilarious (possibly even ironic) thing in the whole thread is that Oscar and Samus are essentially arguing the same point, but due to a misunderstanding of ...etiquette?, or call it what you will, they continue to fight. At least when it comes to their now off-topic analogy about company projects. I'll throw my hat in the ring on that one: just tell the boss that someone is surfing the web instead of working, and watch them be fired.

All I want to know, especially after reading Klepsacovic's blog post, is why people attach such significant value to particular words. He wrote about a hunter who is obviously a bad player, but puts himself above calling such a person "stupid" or "idiot", rather reserving a [more enlightened?] judgment of "he doesn't care about being a good hunter". How is that different than me thinking to myself that such an anonymous person is an idiot, and not take any more of my time thinking about the reasons why I don't want to associate with him?

Putting yourself above using common vernacular is an extremely great example of elitism. You make yourself appear better than them by "not sinking to their level" and using the words that would commonly be used to describe them. We all are elitist in different ways, and trying to convince anyone otherwise is pretty hypocritical.
 

AndruX,

Well put. I'd argue that I wasn't arguing, but that would be... arguing. :)

For the record, though: in this country telling the boss is the equivalent of "reported" in Trade chat: it's... not very effective.

I don't agree on the "everyone's elitist" though. I feel that's pretty much in the same vein as a lot of the other "this is human nature, get over it" responses up above. Never hurts, I think, to stop and ask "why?".
 

The incompetent player is doing the same thing. He knows that because of his lack of contribution, he is requiring me to contribute more. Through his own lack of contribution, he is threatening the whole group with failure if I don't do the very thing that HE refuses to do.

Is it rude of me to object to this? Not half as rude as what he's doing.

Sure you can yell at him call him out publicly and get your endorphin rush for being "RIGHT". That person will do anything that they can from that point on to derail you. It's pointless, Useless and serves no good end to be rude. Even in the pursuit of being right. Life is a social event whether you like it or not. You can accept that and work with people or you can go agains the flow but the flow never really changes direction.
 

My issue isn't with vernacular, but with the meaning and evidence. I have seen idiots in my life and I have called them such. But in a game it's very hasty to attach personal labels of intelligence with so little to go off. I could, and have, said that a person is a shitty hunter after seeing them over multiple levels with no pet control, random targetting, and failing to control aggro.

It's not elitist to try to be specific and not generalize. Would we go in the other direction and label a good hunter as a genius? Of course not. We'd call him a good hunter.
 

Klepsacovic, I think you're a genius!
 

But I don't even play a hunter anymore.
 

I helped out a real life friend this week when his tank left an UP (normal) group. I came along on my 232 geared Death Knight. He is my 3rd alt so he isn't as well off as my main. However i do gem and enchant his gear and copy/pasted an unholy tanking build from wow.com
My IRL friend started making jokes about how i had the "wrong" talents since he prefers blood tanking on his main.
A random mage joins in saying "yea wth is wrong with ur talents lol". My friend explains he is only joking he just prefers blood spec. This doesn't stop the guy going on asking why i don't just go to the trainer. My friend voted to kick him i voted no but the other 2 randoms voted yes!

I find it incredible that some random person who obviously doesn't know what they are talking about just jumps on the hate bandwagon. No wonder newbies have it so tough!
 

I will miss your frequent posts, and I hope that it will give you the chance to write longer pieces.
 

Mixed up the pages... anyway you get the idea :)