A Call for Community

[Fred Skinner]

Well, i thought about playing classic just to treat everyone playing it hardcore like shit.

But i think i will skip that.

[Ghostile]

Good evening all,

I have come forward with a plea to the WoW Classic community. One of the largest concepts of WoW those of us passionate enough about it, is the sense of community in the Classic period of the game.

We all readily know the state of the community in Retail. One might say many of us are waiting for Classic in the hopes of re-experiencing that sense of community.

I only wish for one thing. When someone invariably asks you a question in game; before you answer them, consider giving a fair and decent answer. Each of us holds the ability to either be a troll or a decent person. It’s my hope that many of us choose to be the player who fosters a strong community, not through trolling, but through lifting each other up from time to time.

Let’s find our groups, say our hellos, crack a few jokes and clear the instance out.

I for one will try my hardest to shed the cloak of anonymity I have had in Retail, place aside my Trollish tendencies; and answer any questions with the best of intentions. I will greet those in my groups, and join in on the bants.

I hope we all find our community in Classic. Let’s show Blizzard why we feel it’s closer to the game we wish to play, and not the Retail version of anonymity and toxicity.

Good luck all, and see you all in Azeroth (Classic).

So instead of not being a dick in retail, and blaming retail for being a dick, you somehow think classic will magically undick you?

[Sevyvia]

In a social space where online identity matters, where even slight mistakes are never forgiven, where self-described elite players trash those who don't measure up in chat channels, where blacklisting is enthusiastically viewed as a way to clean out the trash and where it's easy to game all of that against someone that a player decides to dislike for whatever reason, it's not really the bed of roses that it's being portrayed as.

I hope it doesn't come to that but I've watched the debates, flaming, and trolling over the last year about this and remain very skeptical. Idealism is great. Reality doesn't care much about ideals.

You can be as skeptic as you want. The present-day internet is far more toxic, trolling and tribal than Classic ever was on any of the 3 servers I played it on. Any system has downsides, though. On Classic, it was that you felt stuck. So yes, if you did something dumb, it stuck with you. You can't have everything. People sitting around circlejerking in their Discords has proven to be far worse than having to integrate in a server environment ever was as far as I'm concerned, though. And, amusingly, far more likely to develop and maintain feuds than Classic proved to be, overall.

[tikcol]

Much love until everyone eventually reaches STV aka vietkong valley aka jungle of salt and start cursing each other in their sleep.

You'll remain sane as long as you keep in mind that it's nothing personal, just your virtual pixels getting tea bagged in a virtual jungle.

WoW Classic is a beautiful game.

[XDurionX]

Vanillas community is long gone. Classic will be full of egoistic tryhards.

[ifrah]

Vanillas community is long gone. Classic will be full of egoistic tryhards.

I'd like to say you're wrong, but that's pretty much my assumption summed up as well. The realm system will obviously have some impact on how things work, but.. yeah.

[freezion]

The community is never going to be the same, not even close IMO.
The culture in general have changed. adding to that, the servers are going to have vastly more players than there ever were in vanilla. even in vanilla the community feeling, your reputation etc. would often be confined in the sub-community you'd circumvent, and the rest of the server would barely know you existed, unless you were on a particularly small server/faction or were some high-profile player (e.g high pvp rank, main-roster high-end raider in the topguilds etc.)

And judging by the hostile outlashes and general rhetoric from mmo-c (and other places) for even the smallest mistakes, memorizing things wrong/differently and different opinions, then it's going to be no different than how it already is.

[Asrialol]

Let me tell you why Classic can succeed, and let me tell you why Classic can fail.

Classic can succeed, if Blizzard sticks to its guns and makes it actually classic. No QoL changes, no Xmog, no LFG addons. None of that crappola. The people who want that stuff will get bored of Classic and leave after a month. What you will be left with is old timers. Classic will be success if this is how it is in a month.

Classic can fail, if Blizzard caves and it turns into Classic 2.0. The modern player will stay and the game will turn into garbage. Xmog, Addons to automate everything, faster leveling, WoW tokens, bored Bnet kiddies crying that they don't have anything to do.

In my succeed scenario, the OP has merit and value. In my fail scenario, OP is hopeless.

Since you don't want specific add-ons like LFG, that means you don't want classic to be classic. What else should we remove, that we had in classic other than LFG add-ons?

[Mauzi92]

I didnt read all the posts but i want to ask for another thing.

Dont spam bullshitty unfunny troll shit.

Dont come into barrens and ask for the location of that wife. Dont spam thunderfury crap. Dont start that stupid "what is love" thing.

Some zones will be so grouded that chat might be full of test even without spam. Thank you very much

[allegos]

The return of Barrens Chat is one of the things I’ve looked forward to the most. The joke in SWTOR has always been that Dromund Kaas was where Barrens Chat fled to after the Caraclysm.

[Aurabolt]

Why have these in the first place, People like to blame "Retail" for the toxicity but it wasn't the game that ruined community, it was the community itself. Everyone needs to climb down off their crosses and fix their shit instead of tossing it at blizzard and blaming them.

YES YES YES AGREE x1000!

I have been saying this since Wrath myself. People blame Blizz for everything wrong with their lives. I mean WTF.

[Irian]

Why have these in the first place, People like to blame "Retail" for the toxicity but it wasn't the game that ruined community, it was the community itself. Everyone needs to climb down off their crosses and fix their shit instead of tossing it at blizzard and blaming them.

lol it's the same game as retail with the same trolls of people. Classic isn't a time machine so good luck with this community thing..

Seriously this. Most of the people playing classic are going to be the same people on retail.

The community will be the same. You can't wish away a decade and a half of internet societal change. People don't treat online interactions the way they used to when the internet as a common communication and gaming device was fresher.

You're a different person, OP, You admitted it yourself that your attitude has changed. You're walking (typing?) proof of why the vanilla WoW community can never come back.

[Deadite]

Vanillas community is long gone. Classic will be full of egoistic tryhards.

15 years of people shitting on other people who play the game differently is an insurmountable hurdle. Some fanny is going to make an addon that will assign you number and you won't get a look in with a huge portion of the community. The starry-eyed optimism that was classic will never return imho.

[Zafire]

"I for one will try my hardest to shed the cloak of anonymity I have had in Retail, place aside my Trollish tendencies; and answer any questions with the best of intentions. I will greet those in my groups, and join in on the bants"

Why have these in the first place, People like to blame "Retail" for the toxicity but it wasn't the game that ruined community, it was the community itself. Everyone needs to climb down off their crosses and fix their shit instead of tossing it at blizzard and blaming them.

Blizzard created that culture though.

Best example I have are schools in the US. Some Students are natural test-takers, but test taking is not a viable way of measuring intelligence. The culture this creates is simply teachers training kids to take tests and nothing else, which is part of the reason the US #17 in education.

The job I work at uses a contract company that pays people by performance. They could make $80 one day and $160 the next day. This creates a culture that doesn't care about quality because they get paid less if they take the time to care. I'm sure corporate is saving money, but the stress it creates is unpleasant for everyone that has to deal with it.

If Blizzard creates a culture where you're actually rewarded more for not speaking to people (because talking costs time, which takes away from what you could be doing), people are going to stop socializing.

So IMO, based on my life experiences and other data, it is partially Blizzards fault.

[Elkfingers]

"I for one will try my hardest to shed the cloak of anonymity I have had in Retail, place aside my Trollish tendencies; and answer any questions with the best of intentions. I will greet those in my groups, and join in on the bants"

Why have these in the first place, People like to blame "Retail" for the toxicity but it wasn't the game that ruined community, it was the community itself. Everyone needs to climb down off their crosses and fix their shit instead of tossing it at blizzard and blaming them.

I mean yes and no. Obviously people are responsible for behaving in antisocial ways, but you can't just ignore all of the context around that.

If there are systems that make it easier/convenient for people to act like assholes, then they're more likely to do that. It's like if you gave everyone in a world a suitcase nuke and then blamed the people for causing a nuclear apocalypse - sure you'd be right, but it also wouldn't have happened if there wasn't active facilitation.

Telling large groups of people to 'just sort it out' has never worked. You also need to regulate shit so that toxic behaviour is less rewarding.

[Kyphael]

You're more likely to just stumble into community in-game rather than call for it on a forum populated by players you likely won't actually come across in-game anyway or won't know you did even if you do.

[Kantoro]

It is interesting that people can hit the quote/reply button, but not actually read the post they are quoting/replying to

O.o

[Jikate-Stormrage]

Why limit yourself to in-game? Inquiring minds are curious to know. How difficult is that to do all the time? It's a question I ask myself a lot.

To answer you directly MoanaLisa, it is not that difficult at all. I generally do not treat people like trash (tho everyone has their moments).

In retail, I don’t waste my time to treat others in any manner honestly. The system is mostly set up (outside of the highest echelon) to join, act, and leave. And that is exactly what I do. I don’t really talk to anyone. Classic demanded more than that. Not because the game was “harder”, but it requires being slightly more sociable.

To all those saying “good luck” or it can never be that way again... I’m not expecting it to. But I simply put a message out that each person has that choice, and it is a choice. You can have a snarky reply, or you can hold off for a second and fashion a decent reply. You can greet your party at the instance, crack jokes and what not. It’s all a choice.

So maybe instead of complaining about it, you can choose to be part of the solution. YOU can choose to be different. That is all I’m putting out there.

Take it or leave it, it is your choice.

[-aiko-]

You're going to be in for quite the shock if you expect the overall Classic community to be "good".

Sure, you can make your own circle of friends and acquaintances and all be friendly together, but the overall community? It was toxic back then, it is toxic now in retail, and it will be toxic in Classic.

[Hitei]

Vanillas community is long gone. Classic will be full of egoistic tryhards.

So the same as Vanilla?