Was the WoW community this horrible a year ago?

[twiddler]

I blame MTV.

[Deleted]

So true. And not only WoW.

So true.

I used to play different games in the past, mainly FPS (Tribes, UT) as well as MMO's like UO, SWG and a few others and the player base a good 10-15 years ago was completely different to what we have today - we had genuinely nice, courteous and well communicating players (even in FPS which tend to be really competitive) and the percentage of raging ass hats was the minority, not the majority that it seems to be today.

I guess this is the price we pay for more people having access to games, complete anonymity and the average (mental) age of the average player dropping like a rock - not to mention kids don't get slapped for being douchebags any more.

[Deleted]

Mate, this communicaty you've been talking about was even during Wrath of the Lich king,

especially when GEARSCORE came out, people wanted others to have over 6k gearscore to do a heroic. But I can see what you're talking about,

I wanted to join a Flex group and they said i needed an ilvl of 540 for the first Tier.

WTF! I'm in a casual guild that doesn't raid much at all, i'm fully LFR geared + upgraded and when i say i'm at 537 ilvl fully enchanted KNOWS tactics and fully gemmed,

I get no invite,
why ? Cuz i'm below 540 ilvl.
And I can't get higher unless i farm burdens and upgrade my gear like that which is utter BS.

Can't do much about this mate, you can always make a group yourself or something.

[greysaber]

The game has been like this since as far back as I can remember. In BC everyone expected you to out gear Karazahn to do pick up heroics.

PUGs always expect more than is necessary. Some because they expect people to not try and not care. Some because they're bad players that want everything to be easy. Some because they simply don't know any better.

um, BC heroics were HARDER than kara. a few of them anyway. (eat shit heroic shattered halls)

[Sabi]

- 540 ilvl seems to be the minimum to do flex, 560 for normal (which is logical because it only requires u to have full flex/normal gear, in order to clear flex/normal derp.) Apparantly everyone feels the need to overgear everything, skill doesnt matter anymore, everyone wants it to be over quick, without communication, etc.

It's the GearScore disease, this happened A LOT in WotLK, on my server anyway, where ICC and TOC were being pugged. You'd have people looking for ICC10N with a GS requirement for ICC25HC. You'd look at them and they had a mish mosh of easy to obtain PvP gear and AH blues. It's stacking the deck, even then it's nothing new. I remember in classic people wouldn't want group with other people who shared their armor type or want to group with hunters at all..yet non english speaking guildless rogues with gibberish for names was fine...never got that... It even happened in guilds, probably still does with loot councils and stuff. But hey it's their raid let them do what they want. If they can get 24 other people to carry them..good for them.

- People don't care to invite anymore for anything, be it quests, rares, etc. People have become so poisoned by trolls, ninja's and dicks that they turned into anxious lootwhores. Trust is gone entirely.

That has always been the case in wow and any other game with a tagging system. It was worse when the world was littered with chests where you'd be clearing mobs around a chest and that guildless rogue with the gibberish name would just be like "LOL stealth, I Take loots then try sell you 5 G pls..you want buy cat?"

WORSE on a pvp server, which it's not the ganking that made me go PVE it's like..when someone is getting ganked more often then not everyone else would run like when you recall all your peons in WC3 (I think that was the one you could do that) and hide in a town till the gankers went away. Or even better killing a quest mob other people wait there for you to kill it why bother to group. As your killing the mob you get ganked and even though there's enough people around there to have killed the gankers it just meant they didn't have to wait for you to kill the mob to get their tag in.

That reminds me of being a hunter in classic..sure you can tag before most classes and from greater distance but so many people would go out of their way to grief you doing the Rohk'ladar quest..even on your own faction. then there's Broken Tooth...people would get but hurt they got beat by a hunter in PvP using BT so they would camp his spawn, not kill you (on a pvp server) but wait for you to start taming then kill BT and /lol.

Not everyone was like this then or is like this now..we, as people, just tend to remember the dick heads more than the nice people. Granted the majority of them are..like

Remember when ShinRotam was a horde only quest mob summoned by horde? I had to have it on my hunter..NE hunter. I tried our servers IRC, it got me ganked. I tried emotes when emotes didn't translate as "makes weird hand gestures" targeting a toss away pet...got me even more ganked..I mean who would gank a begging naked purple elf in a santa hat with a bear named "GetShinRotm"? After a month of trying everyday I finally got someone who actually helped on the other faction on a PvP server.

- No1 "chats" anymore. The closest thing to chat is "hi" and "bye", with the occasional "f*ckig retarded noob [insert random player name]".

I'm kind of thankful for that and guilty of it myself. I'm really casual now, never was before BUUUUUT I got so used to talking in vent and dealing with trade chat I've completely, and unintentionally ignore my chat box. Yet sometimes you want to just do a dungeon and be out because honestly how many times can you do something till it's just "oh god not this again". there's the other extreme to this which is why I try not to talk in chat. I really don't need to know your life story or what your cat did, don't get me wrong I'm a cat person, but there's a time and a place and not to be an ass I don't know you so I really don't care.

- Trolls have been around since the internet began, but damn?! It feels as if 20% is trolling and 30% is trying too. Intentional ninja pulls, screwing up achievs on purpose (19 barrels on ook and then quickly burning him), flaming, afking, auto attacking, the list just doesnt end. The worst thing i found was that fellow raiders dont even care anymore. They rather kick the person calling out afkers / auto attackers and bots than the actual bots, afkers and AA.

See above...it's a combination of those and seriously...I know this isn't a popular opinion here or any wow forum. Tanks and healers tend to be more trollish because the way the game works. The game itself treats them like a special snowflake, they get this inflated ego then the "do what I say of i'm taking my ball (or in this case S&B/2h/healy spells) and going home". Sad thing is people will put up with shitty behavior from tanks and healers cause they would rather get the raid done and over with than wait for a new tank. This also is nothing new WoW has had it's ups and downs with primadonna tank syndrome, just MoP seems to be the worst outbreak since classic wow...not as bad as Tera US launch though...that was..yeah...

- The majority seems to know fuckall what to do. On ready checks everyone just clicks ready, and brainlessly dps's, tanks and heals. No1 watches video's, reads the journal, no nothing. No1 speaks up when unsure about tactics, partially because they will get an immediate kick (easier than explaining the fight right?), partially because the "i dont give a shit" attitude people have these days.

This too is nothing new. I don't tend to watch vids unless I really have to, for one I much prefer trial by fire learning but will skim through the dungeon journal to get an idea. After nearly 10 years, the encounters don't have mechanics that are anything special and new. Half a brain + common sense + DBM/BW/GTFO = path to winning. It's just that, in raids, people keep reading "raiding is easy you only need x amount of people to pay attention and carry the rest" and so on, so people think "hey they'll just carry me" x 25.

Now i know this is a reflection of what todays society strifes to create and be. Egocentrism and narcism has been the hype of the past few years. But has it really gone down hill this fast? That over the span of a year someone like me (and i have played ALOT of online games, some including COD, LoL and Dota) thinks the community has gone to shit this badly?
And maybe more importantly, How and Why?

It's always been like this just people get more attention for it now as do the people who question or QQ about it now. there's always been assholes, trolls and try to hards.

Discuss!

the hell you think I just did AMG NOOOB /vote kick from thread WTS [anal] [thunderfury blessed blade of the windseeker] 50 MSK! >_<

[Shinrael]

I get no invite,
why ? Cuz i'm below 540 ilvl.
And I can't get higher unless i farm burdens and upgrade my gear like that which is utter BS.

Haha I saw a few days ago "LF Flex part 1 fresh run 540+ ilvl no timeless gear"
Like "yeah fck you"

[Metaslave]

Make groups with OpenRaid, where your reputation matters. Problem solved.

[pallyopness]

it is quite easy....be sociable, join a guild that stays active....problem solved....there are tons of guilds looking for active players....maybe people should learn to play with others? The problem is people treating WoW like its a single player game.....

[Nouk]

Your description reminded me 100% of WotLK:

Just two words: PUGs and Gearcheck.

Nearly all Content was Pug-able (Flex) and required ridicilous I-LvL's and Clear XP for most Groups.
I don't know why people forget about this, this was the main concern of players back in that era. One of the reasons LFR was developed.


Otherwise, yeah, look for a nice Guild (seriously the best course of action!) or try openraid, it's really good.

[Pua]

people found out that if you invite more geared or better people than you things get done faster, so no no one bothers to invest time in the game, just be over with it fast.

Astute observation.

The reward for playing now is tangible and gear-related. Previously, the reward was intangible and adventure-related. People now play for rewards they can equip and not to spend some time enjoying themselves with other players. The result is, essentially, the mess that the game is currently in.

[quras]

A year ago? Yes.

Something like 10 years ago, not exactly.

Something bad changed in those 10 years and like 90% of the people are douchebags tbh.
Socializing died completely in games.

SNIP...

What I mean to say is as the time goes on, it seems like there are less and less friendly players and more the opposite let's say it like that.

Something like that ^

Over time it became more and more about efficiency and getting the job done than worrying about player "X" and how they feel in a game. Especially in things like random dungeons and raids. Gamers expect you to carry your weight, not be carried and told everything.

To many gamers over time started showing up to dungeons and raids with no clue what to do. Didn't bother to take any time to even read up on a dungeon and expected someone else to give them all the information as if our time should be their time.

Gamers are not teachers by nature.

If you want to learn a hobby (and games are hobbies) you will either learn it on your own (through reading and effort), find a friend to teach you or you will find a stranger and most likely pay him.

If you fail to do either of the first 2, don't expect some random stranger to do it for free. Don't expect some random gamer to spend his time and monthly dollars on you.


So, over time the problem got worse and worse but for both sides. As the "bad player" problems increased, the negative attitude toward other gamers got worse at double the rate (if not worse than that) and it spread like a plague.

Eventually, as it stands today, WOW gamers now have a very short fuse. There is no cure for it. Blizzard can't design in a way to solve it as it is player driven.

The community as a whole is very toxic. It's almost like WOW gamers are always going around with a mob mentality, just waiting to burst.

The good thing is, guilds can offer a good playing environment if you find one that fits you and has people that think similar to you.

Throw some random people together and things can very easily and quickly go downhill.

Overall though, WOW is one of the worst I have ever been in for community. I've seen it go from good ole days vanilla when the community was pretty good to now, where it's sometimes better to treat WOW as a single player game but know your limiting yourself to not seeing all the content.

[Injinjpow]

LFR has poisoned the community, that's the bottom line.

They completely removed any social aspect of getting invited to the raid. Just click, queue and raid.

That in-turn has also increased the minimum requirements to get into flex and normals to try to avoid the mouth breathers that usually run LFR.

[imabanana]

Few examples:

- 540 ilvl seems to be the minimum to do flex, 560 for normal (which is logical because it only requires u to have full flex/normal gear, in order to clear flex/normal derp.) Apparantly everyone feels the need to overgear everything, skill doesnt matter anymore, everyone wants it to be over quick, without communication, etc.

- People don't care to invite anymore for anything, be it quests, rares, etc. People have become so poisoned by trolls, ninja's and dicks that they turned into anxious lootwhores. Trust is gone entirely.

- No1 "chats" anymore. The closest thing to chat is "hi" and "bye", with the occasional "f*ckig retarded noob [insert random player name]".

- Trolls have been around since the internet began, but damn?! It feels as if 20% is trolling and 30% is trying too. Intentional ninja pulls, screwing up achievs on purpose (19 barrels on ook and then quickly burning him), flaming, afking, auto attacking, the list just doesnt end. The worst thing i found was that fellow raiders dont even care anymore. They rather kick the person calling out afkers / auto attackers and bots than the actual bots, afkers and AA.

- The majority seems to know fuckall what to do. On ready checks everyone just clicks ready, and brainlessly dps's, tanks and heals. No1 watches video's, reads the journal, no nothing. No1 speaks up when unsure about tactics, partially because they will get an immediate kick (easier than explaining the fight right?), partially because the "i dont give a shit" attitude people have these days.

That's strange, I've seen absolutely none of these examples. Except maybe the 1st one, there are lots of 540+flex and 550/560+ nm, but I still see 520+ flex and 530+ nm quite often. Also, I fail to see the link between asking for gear requirement and ignoring skill, there are some high ilvl characters we know we'll never group again with because of terrible skill, and some lower geared players we'll invite without worries, but for random unknown players, ilvl is still a good way to minimize risks, a terrible 560 player will still be better than a terrible 540 one. All pickup raids I've been in recently had very good communication, even flex.

[pallyopness]

all goes back to the guild thing for me. I have a relatively large guild, we don't allow asshats in and if they do make it in they are purged quickly. We do everything together, rated bgs, raids, old achieves, flex and really anything. If someone has a friend new to wow, people flock to help level, hell we even had a guy do raf for a new player once just to help out. Find a good guild and everything is fixed as you will have more than enough people to help that actually have something at stake with you.

[dernsaw]

People have always been dbags in this game. The way the game has evolved hasn't helped; name changes, faction changes, realm transfers, LFD, LFR, etc. There's absolutely no way for people to build a reputation with no consequences for good or bad actions. At least in vanilla if somebody was a total tool you'd eventually find out and learn to ignore them, which to some extent was a deterrent.

[twiddler]

So true.

I used to play different games in the past, mainly FPS (Tribes, UT) as well as MMO's like UO, SWG and a few others and the player base a good 10-15 years ago was completely different to what we have today - we had genuinely nice, courteous and well communicating players (even in FPS which tend to be really competitive) and the percentage of raging ass hats was the minority, not the majority that it seems to be today.

I guess this is the price we pay for more people having access to games, complete anonymity and the average (mental) age of the average player dropping like a rock - not to mention kids don't get slapped for being douchebags any more.

I concur. Same actually occurs when you participate in pick up games at the park. Essentially, every basketball court at a popular park will segregate via skill. If you suck, it is possible that good players will call you out for being awful, though it isn't likely as long as you show some tenacity.

In analog, LFR players seem to rarely try. They will stand in fire and sit on a boss all the while doing < 125K DPS in full SoO LFR gear. What makes it worse? Say someone links DPS. EVERYONE is offended? The question is why? Shouldn't you strive to be better instead of "OMG the LFR ePeen!!!" That apathetic trait common among LFR players can only be faulted on themselves and this apathy is very common among many people on the internet as they try to pretend that it is cool to not try hard.