Why is this community considered "extremely toxic"?

[Eapoe]

Yea retailers say you can play how you want

That's not p server players. It's the p server players saying you can't. lol. Two separate groups of people which is why they're saying two irreconcilable things.

It's old game choice is reduced in group because you have to be competent. That simple

No, it wasn’t. It actually wasn’t retailers or p server players but those that had quit and were trying to live thru rose colored glasses while shitting on everything Blizzard has done since the “glory days.”
At this point though you’re either just arguing to argue or trying to spin the whole thing around on retail players, which is just laughable.

[Laqweeta]

More than likely it's because classic has repercussions. You can't just name change or xfer off the realm you're on. You've got a reputation and you'd best keep it good.

[Egomaniac]

The Toxic part of the Retail community calls the classic community toxic.
The Toxic part of the Classic community calls the retail community toxic.

[RobertMugabe]

WoW Classic might have a more toxic community than retail, but the good thing about Classic is that this game is designed around guilds and friends and thus you can be in a non-toxic small or very large guild. The only people that are really "screwed" by all this, are those that have no proper guild and rely on pugs only.

[Sensa1]

Do your part, try to become a good example, and you will see others follow. It is up to the players to make the community great, no one else.

are there jerks in Classic...without a doubt...but I just completed the ZF mallet quest in a group of 4 horde, a 46 alli mage and her 60 Palli friend...that's not toxic in the least...in fact its moments like that that are why i play classic to begin with...you often get what you've from a game.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...n-a-pvp-server

[ghays]

I play Final Fantasy XIV and that community is amazing. I've met like 2 unpleasant individuals in 5 years or so and everyone else has been decent, helpful and friendly.

Most of the Horde On my server are pretty decent. Bu the, I go out of my way to help people out. Even without being asked. So most folks who interact with me tend to have a neutral or better opinion. Except for trolling assholes who are just there to be assholes. Which is why I make an effort to ostracize those players.

[Akka]

The same doesn't seem to apply to the retail community and its the same game after all.

It's considered toxic only in the MMO-C forums.
And the irony is, it's because these forums have been non-stop trolled by anti-Classic haters since Classic was announced, yeas ago. So the toxicity comes mainly from the non-Classic community.

[Phuongvi]

I don't feel that WoW community is toxic in game, sure you will have a cry baby here and there in Gen chat once every 2 months

But on the other hand if you're too much into forums ... I have bad news for you.

It depend where you base your opinion, my guess would be play the games and don't care about forums

[Akasha64]

Elitism spread, and so has the toxicity. You aren't going to get the same community Vanilla WoW had in 2004-2005. Too much e-peen has been stroked over the years, and people became douches.

- - - Updated - - -

I play Final Fantasy XIV and that community is amazing. I've met like 2 unpleasant individuals in 5 years or so and everyone else has been decent, helpful and friendly.

FFXIV community has a lot of asshats in it. I would say it's far from ideal. Not sure why people keep going on about how FFXIV has a great community after some of the things I experienced. It's the interwebz, mate, there are asshats everywhere, including in FFXIV.

[Moor Shadows]

Toxic? You don't say. You have hybrid specs being shut out of raiding even though it's easy as can be. They don't want a challenge or a variety in gameplay, they just want purples because "they mean something in classic!".

And why yes, corpse camping *is* toxic gameplay. Just because it's within the rules doesn't mean it can be reasonably frowned upon.
Why yes, I do think people defending the server imbalance are toxic.
Ditto people complaining about paid dungeon runs or crying about being warned over sitting on flight masters in Booty Bay: All crap I have seen on the forums recently.

Oh, and telling players who suggest even tiny improvements that they are "noob zoomers who need to go back to retail nochanges". Totally non-toxic that.

[ReVnX]

Flamelash says hi

[Gratlim]

Elitism spread, and so has the toxicity. You aren't going to get the same community Vanilla WoW had in 2004-2005. Too much e-peen has been stroked over the years, and people became douches.

This sums up the issue pretty much. Well said.

[Donald Hellscream]

I wouldn't say its more toxic than retail, nor is it less toxic. My personal experience is that everything is cool until you even if just in passing dare mention retail, then all hell breaks loose.

WoW is filled with assholes regardless of which version you play.

[Relapses]

It's considered toxic only in the MMO-C forums.
And the irony is, it's because these forums have been non-stop trolled by anti-Classic haters since Classic was announced, yeas ago. So the toxicity comes mainly from the non-Classic community.

Uh huh. And this is where we pretend that many people on this forum aren't overly sensitive and completely averse to any criticism of Classic, right? You, and many others on this forum, have accused me of "trolling" when all I've ever done is try to provide a more neutral viewpoint that doesn't view retail as the antithesis of everything good with gaming. You've even asked moderators to actively remove any negative comments about Classic because, presumably, you only want to see comments which align with your narrow viewpoint. But somehow, it's somebody who wants discussions to consider multiple viewpoints that's "toxic," and it's the people that just want a pro-Classic positivity echo chamber who are the REAL WoW fans.

[mojusk]

i think that the players are pretty much equally toxic, many play both. but blizz have made many changes to the game since vanilla, to prevent toxic behavior from happening.

[Sencha]

Do you have examples?

[Kilee25]

I can't remember when the "idea" of toxicity came into place. I remember the first time someone accused me of being toxic, and I had to "go home and think about it" for a while to even understand what they meant. I do think it's possible for people to become jaded or biased or bitter over time without even becoming aware of it. I think this is probably what we refer to as toxicity..

In any case, I do feel the game has changed significantly over the years from how it was when I first started playing. People seem to want more instant gratification than before. It's more difficult to form groups and spend a night playing together. People seem like they are quicker to give up on something if it isn't going well. Impatience mixed with impoliteness.

For me I think part of it is that I've been playing so long that I know better now when to make a judgement call and stop caring about something that I know either doesn't matter or won't pay off. It looks like rudeness or "toxicity", but from my perspective that's part of the player base being more mature. People are "smarter" than they used to be, so they have less patience for things that will waste their time or not pay off. It's true that in the process of doing that sometimes you miss out on some potential friendships or fun experiences, but I think people are just simply playing the averages.

We've seen those, "Life is too short to waste your time on people who don't matter" pep talks, and for better or worse I actually think it's good advice and something most people agree with. I think that, often, we mis-label this type of behavior as toxicity.

In general, I see "toxic" as a label to throw at people when you want to be dismissive or not really listen to their point of view. It's an easy way to put someone in a category and render their point of view meaningless. For this reason alone, I really miss the days when the word hadn't really been invented and applied to mass groups of people. I don't know maybe my memory is bad and people were always like that, but I feel like our society as a whole is becoming more and more dismissive and likely to lump people into categories so that they can be labeled easily. I don't like it.

[Beet]

Classic is considered toxic? By who? Retail players? I mean shit, after people that wanted classic got treated like shit by other players for years I can see the resentment.

I used to always bring up how I wanted a classic like server and that I just knew Blizzard would one day see the money in it and give it to us. And I'd get mocked hardcore for it. Always told that I was retarded and how it would never happen. So yeah I love to rub it in peoples faces now that we've got classic and it's very much beloved.

[MoanaLisa]

In any case, I do feel the game has changed significantly over the years from how it was when I first started playing. People seem to want more instant gratification than before. It's more difficult to form groups and spend a night playing together. People seem like they are quicker to give up on something if it isn't going well. Impatience mixed with impoliteness.

No argument about the impoliteness. A theory about the impatience though: You start in an MMO like WoW and the time flies by. Hours go by and you don't even notice. Fast forward 10 years: Hours do not necessarily fly by any longer. There are more games to play, more things to do, if you've acquired a family by then there's that and even if you haven't familial responsibilities the other stuff still applies. So perhaps the veterans who aren't in a solid guild are no longer interested in playing 3-4 hours a night, five-to-seven nights a week. I think that's one reason why people might not be as willing to put up with nonsense as they might have been years ago and would simply like to get on with things. And trust me, a lot of it is nonsense.

However, acting like an asshole is strictly on the player. It's not the game; it's not the community; it's the player. I used to get in bad groups as well. When the insults and the yelling started I politely said that my gaming time was limited and that I didn't have the time for whatever was going on. Then I would politely and quietly leave. I never bothered to initiate kicks unless it was clearly just one person looking to spoil everyone else's session. If the game is toxic then it's because people choose the easier way of being an asshole than the very-slightly less easy way of being responsible and walking away from fights, toxicity and other things of that nature.

- - - Updated - - -

Same goes for forums, discords, etc. Too many people are nursing resentments and more interested in having a fight than a conversation.

[Ange]

We've seen those, "Life is too short to waste your time on people who don't matter" pep talks, and for better or worse I actually think it's good advice and something most people agree with. I think that, often, we mis-label this type of behavior as toxicity.

We all play the same game, we all play it to have fun (hopefully). Some players belong to narrow minded sub-communitys with strong visions of the game and they have a harder time to tolerate other players with different views of the game. You can't be the "good guy" and at the same time demote other players, so you can act rude to them or ignore them just because you choose to. As for communication within the chat system, if people have no patience and don't understand the limits of such communication systems, calling them "smarter" does not really fit in my eyes.

At some point people should just ask themself why they want to play any kind of MMO, when all they do is limiting the amount of people they can interact with.