Do players lack Sympathy? Has Apathy increased?

[Avaddon]

I'm just curious to hear peoples opinion on this. I feel as though it has become tough for people to put themselves in other peoples shoes however I find that a minority of toxic new players may be to blame. For example lets say Billy has just started playing WoW for the first time, he goes around asking people the in's and out's of the game, now from person experience when I started in vanilla I did the same thing. And I had a very positive experience infact I had a higher level person run me all the way from Darnassus, across the Wetlands to Ironforge and then even Stormwind City. It took probably a good hour or two but we had a lot of fun. (There was no boat to Stormwind back then and Stormwind had the weapon trainer I needed + I prefered Elwynn Forest / Westfall / Duskwood for leveling).

Anyway I feel as though this may not occur anymore. But I think this may be because there are people who come to this game and actually feel as though they don't really need to learn anything, they can just jump into LFR or what have you and there's no learning curve and when people tell them they are playing poorly they do not seek advice rather they reject it and say "It's just a game bro".

I guess I just miss the lack of community where things in-game were taught by more experienced players and you had to really ask for that help and a majority of the time you would get a positive response from someone.I'm not talking about begging for gold as a new player I'm talking about just legitimate help in helping others progress in the game. If there's a guy not pulling his weight in your raid and you know why it doesn't hurt to point it out to him and tell him that maybe he's not using his second pot CD or maybe he isn't effectively managing his CD's at the right time.

TL;DR I just want to know if the increase in apathy and toxicity is because of the way the game has been developed over the years or is there a stronger underlying issue?

[Kithelle]

People are getting more toxic in general...I joined this small community for a mobile game I play...newbs would ask questions and these people would post the memes with a big L in them...just to be assholes...growing toxicity isn't exclusive to WoW.

MMO I used to play...kinda P2W...every time they released something that wasn't the top of its class, people would start threads just to say how much it sucks because it wasn't top of the line best...toxicity is all over the place and is on a steady rise and I doubt it will stop.

[Freedom]

WoW was never really underground, but it's got a much more developed online community than ten years ago. Players no longer need to explain things to people. It's been "found", and people have made livings off reporting on it. With the huge number of websites dedicated to it (in particular WoWhead, MMO Champion, Curse, etc), it's easier to tell someone where to look something up rather than spend time explaining things to them.

That being said, the tolerance for failure seems to be low right now, but it's always that way towards the end of a tier/expansion. People might not have kicked you for bodypulling Gragga on HFC's release, but they do now.

[cFortyfive]

TL;DR I just want to know if the increase in apathy and toxicity is because of the way the game has been developed over the years or is there a stronger underlying issue?

Might have been worth it to put in the latter as an actual poll option since it certainly isn't just the direction the developers took for the game or new players being garbage.

[Daetur]

Honestly, at this point, I think we have to consider the attitude of the general gaming population as a whole- complaints about player behavior in multiplayer games, whether it's PC gaming or something like Xbox Live, from MOBAs to FPS, to MMOs, are widespread and consistent. It's becoming an issue with established gaming communities as a whole, and certainly isn't a Warcraft-specific problem that can be linked to a single change in Warcraft itself.

Yes, there have been changes to the game that have reduced player accountability and the necessity of socialization. But while that may be correlated with apathy, it doesn't necessarily correlate to the hostility new or inexperienced or unskilled players are often met with, or even express themselves.

That's an issue with individual attitudes, and an issue with the community across the board. We need to be better.

[Leyre]

I lack any symphaty for idiots who like to pull everything on a dungeon

[cFortyfive]

Honestly, at this point, I think we have to consider the attitude of the general gaming population as a whole- complaints about player behavior in multiplayer games, whether it's PC gaming or something like Xbox Live, from MOBAs to FPS, to MMOs, are widespread and consistent. It's becoming an issue with established gaming communities as a whole, and certainly isn't a Warcraft-specific problem that can be linked to a single change in Warcraft itself.

To be fair I think it doesn't make too much sense to limit the blame to gaming communities. The internet as a whole is hardly an overwhelmingly nice place and expecting gaming to be "better" is certainly a nice dream to have but in the end we know that's not going to happen.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

I voted that nothing has changed, and found it interesting that 63% of people polled voted the same way I did.

Its hard to talk about all the factors, but in general, the situation is mostly described as, "Years of game content droughts mean only the unethical assholes are still around."

And they're significantly less amicable than before, having been starved.

[Deleted]

Players never been sympathethic at all, they just seemed nice because they wanted something from you

[DarthMonk79]

Yes gone are the days of asking a question in chat and getting the answer without multiple rude comments. Partly due to the community, partly because there's so many websites available now that the community expects people to look this stuff up and know it. It's steadily gotten worse each expansion. I remember running ToT and people saying they didn't know about the snails, I responded with didn't your guild tell you about it and they responded with "guilds talk?". I mean isn't that one of the many advantages to a guild, the communication. I know the guild I made and stayed with for 8 years would always explain stuff, give little FYI's on stuff that came out or unique things they found out. Now it seems guilds are just used to form raid groups. For a online game there is a extreme lack of communication... at least of the good kind.

[Zyky]

I'm just curious to hear peoples opinion on this. I feel as though it has become tough for people to put themselves in other peoples shoes however I find that a minority of toxic new players may be to blame. For example lets say Billy has just started playing WoW for the first time, he goes around asking people the in's and out's of the game, now from person experience when I started in vanilla I did the same thing. And I had a very positive experience infact I had a higher level person run me all the way from Darnassus, across the Wetlands to Ironforge and then even Stormwind City. It took probably a good hour or two but we had a lot of fun. (There was no boat to Stormwind back then and Stormwind had the weapon trainer I needed + I prefered Elwynn Forest / Westfall / Duskwood for leveling).

Anyway I feel as though this may not occur anymore. But I think this may be because there are people who come to this game and actually feel as though they don't really need to learn anything, they can just jump into LFR or what have you and there's no learning curve and when people tell them they are playing poorly they do not seek advice rather they reject it and say "It's just a game bro".

I guess I just miss the lack of community where things in-game were taught by more experienced players and you had to really ask for that help and a majority of the time you would get a positive response from someone.I'm not talking about begging for gold as a new player I'm talking about just legitimate help in helping others progress in the game. If there's a guy not pulling his weight in your raid and you know why it doesn't hurt to point it out to him and tell him that maybe he's not using his second pot CD or maybe he isn't effectively managing his CD's at the right time.

TL;DR I just want to know if the increase in apathy and toxicity is because of the way the game has been developed over the years or is there a stronger underlying issue?

The huge difference between Vanilla and now is that there are now many resources that show up on google searches. Back in the day people were more helpful because those resources weren't available. I have no problem helping a noob, when they're willing to learn. I do however have a problem with a noob, in any game, who thinks they're so fucking good and refuse to learn.

[Taeldorian]

That being said, the tolerance for failure seems to be low right now, but it's always that way towards the end of a tier/expansion. People might not have kicked you for bodypulling Gragga on HFC's release, but they do now.

I'd say that's fair though. If you're new or you're coming back as a returning player you should always look up the fights. If you wanna raid, look up what you need to do in order to not bring down the whole raid. I always see people saying "how do you not know what to do when we're 11 months into HFC?" and I can't help but agree. Even if you're returning or you're new there are so many guides and such (even the dungeon journal) that can help.

[therealbowser]

I don't believe any of those things. Or, in a sense, I believe it's all of them.

Players are apathetic, sure, but its really in our nature to act that way. By removing consequences to actions, we begin to act harsh, cruel, uncaring, some more than others. This act attracts both attracts new players with this attitude, and encourages it in others -- both old and new. It's a cycle that is unlikely to be broken.

So, in a sense, it's all of the above and then some.

Of course I'm just basing this off of the general question of "Are players apathetic?" without context. Depending on what you're referring to, there are always more detailed reasons why people act the way they do.

[Helgrimm]

My hypothesis is that with things like the raid finder tool, communicating with others is less important. This can be seen by the fact there are less raid and social guilds around. Less communication shows that we see other players as less important, and thus we care less about each other.

[FelPlague]

your options are rather jaded...

maybe should have put more options that arnt trying to blame 2 specific groups...

[Lochton]

TL;DR I just want to know if the increase in apathy and toxicity is because of the way the game has been developed over the years or is there a stronger underlying issue?

Sadly not, this is a scarily normal development in the lives of gamers. You either the good guy or the horrible guy.

[Avaddon]

Thank you for the feedback, I definitely should have added more answers to the poll. I agree with a lot of the posts on here, but now that I'm reflecting upon the original question I feel that it may actually be too hard to boil this down into any number of categories. There has probably always been elitism feeding ego's from the games conception but it can really only be taken down to a persons first hand experience. There may have been people who sailed through this game meeting only friendly people while others may have only been treated like rubbish.

And yes I definitely agree that the accessibility of information from sites like WoWhead has made learning things a very easy task. It's basically a click of a button and the quest objective will be spelled out for you word by word etc.

Personally I think steps to coagulate tighter communities should be taken. I think cross-realm partnered with LFG/LFR has definitely diminished the sense of server community. But I'm definitely enjoying reading peoples opinions on the matter.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I still find the majority of players are very polite and friendly to play with. There are a sizeable minority who can be rude and annoying.

Take a recent MMO poll, for example. When asked about ninja-grabbing secondary quest obectives (e.g., blood orbs) while another player is busy killing the mobs that defended them, most players said that was not ok and very rude, but about 1/3 of players admitted to doing it on a regular basis.

I would also point out that anonymous forums have long been known to bring out the worst in some people. Most people can empathize with strangers, but a significant percentage become amoral when they don't expect consequences. The power of reputation is all that keeps them in check, so when that is removed...

That's why cross-realm groups have been such a mixed blessing. Is it convenient that I can find a group for raid or mythic dungeon at 4 am? Sure! Are some players more likely to act obnoxious when they don't expect to ever see you again? Unfortunately, yes.

[Deleted]

Well, there is a saying about "there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers", but in times when Google, Wikipedia and other databases are freely available to everybody, and in times when you can find a guide on almost everything on YouTube, I would expect people to make a quick search by themselves before they come around with questions.

Also, the game is much easier than before - you have a quest helper built into the game, and a dungeon manual with descriptions of boss abilities and what you have to do when you play a specific role. This will not make you a top performer, but at least gives you some basic information so you don't suck completely. Also, there are tooltips everywhere, you just have to read them.

I don't have much patience with people who lack such basic skills. I give them a newbie bonus if they have started to play recently or if they have been out of the game for some expansions, because many things changed over time. But what I really hate are people who go into a dungeon, and then fuck up in a boss fight AFTER I have asked if everybody knows the fight and there is no request of an explanation. It's incredible how often such things happen in TW events, for example.

[Pua]

The community and its empathy for other players has definitely decreased in quality, certainly in my experience and in the experience of anyone I know who isn't part of the problem. The cause can be attributed in multiple ways, but I'd recommend reading what @Daetur posted again; it's more a gaming problem, and not necessarily a Warcraft problem.

Maybe the snag is that Blizzard are choosing to do very little about it. Rather than taking a page from Riot's playbook, they've decided not to actively try and curtail poor behaviour at all. Some argue that it's because they don't want to chase away more subscriptions, but I'm sure they know that they're losing just as many because of the antagonism running rampant throughout the game's chat channels.

Arguably, it's another indicator that the game is in maintenance mode before the plug gets pulled. How much weight you give to that view is up to you. The alternatives are that Blizzard don't especially care about the problem (more likely) or don't know how to tackle it (unlikely - Riot shared their approach).

Your mileage may vary.