How do you control a Toxic Community like World of Warcraft or most other MMOs have?

[Blackmist]

Easy. Take away all text and voice communications, along with any way to differentiate different skill levels of player. Give each player exactly one ability called "attack". Prevent movement in combat. Remove all gear.

All communities will be toxic in any situation where my playing differently to you somehow impedes you and your goals, even by a millisecond.

[Echocho]

But he is right.
Wasting other peoples time because you are a bad player is far more toxic than getting told that you are bad.
Time you can never get back, words you can just ignore.

So if your kid is bad at hockey he's being toxic towards the other kids? No room for learning or practicing? We should probably close all schools since the kids that don't know everything there is to know in the world on their first day are being toxic.

[NineSpine]

Easy. Take away all text and voice communications, along with any way to differentiate different skill levels of player. Give each player exactly one ability called "attack". Prevent movement in combat. Remove all gear.

All communities will be toxic in any situation where my playing differently to you somehow impedes you and your goals, even by a millisecond.

That's just false. People playing differently slows me down and I don't really give a shit at all. It's a subset of players that gets terribly upset by those things. Don't project your attitudes onto the rest of us.

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So if your kid is bad at hockey he's being toxic towards the other kids? No room for learning or practicing? We should probably close all schools since the kids that don't know everything there is to know in the world on their first day are being toxic.

I'm imagining this guys as a parent. "My son may have punched your daughter in the back of the head, but she was walking too slowly down the hall so what was he supposed to do? When you think about it, she was really the bully by walking so slowly!"

[Nobleshield]

I think people are too focused on "wasting my time". Like there's a limit where it's not really wasting your time and where it becomes that. taking 20 or even 30 minutes to do a dungeon you may speedrun in 15 isn't so bad. Taking an hour to do it is. But people are so caught up in themselves that it's like even a minute past what they "think" they could do is a waste of time and god damn it somebody has to pay for wasting their oh-so-valuable time.

[niztheundead87]

I think people are too focused on "wasting my time". Like there's a limit where it's not really wasting your time and where it becomes that. taking 20 or even 30 minutes to do a dungeon you may speedrun in 15 isn't so bad. Taking an hour to do it is. But people are so caught up in themselves that it's like even a minute past what they "think" they could do is a waste of time and god damn it somebody has to pay for wasting their oh-so-valuable time.

time is ticking in real life.

[Dazmalak]

Many WoW players have an e-sport mentality. They are competitive and min-max for results with little concern for the journey. Blizzard has catered more to these players in recent years, because leveling in each expansion feels more like a bump in the road to get to max level and experience the "real content" whether it be raiding, pvp, or mythic+.

These players are competitive. Nothing inherently wrong with that. They want to play with skilled players like themselves and improve their game, down bosses, and brag about their new shiny gear or DPS meter or whatever. It's like if a professional athlete were to go play backyard ball with a bunch of amateurs or kids. Sure, it's probably fun to mess around and show off how awesome they are, but they're at a completely different level and aren't going to be challenged in doing so. It might make them a better person, especially if they can inspire and offer advice to others aspiring to be better themselves, but it won't make them a better player. There's not really much incentive in coaching less skilled players, though, particularly complete strangers.

Many RPG focused players are looking for a rewarding journey, which is something that Classic had in its leveling and questing imo. They like the subtle things in the game that immerse them. They don't tend to look at the game as a game, but just another world they can get lost in. These players like to see their character grow and aren't as concerned about their own growth (meaning skill). They are less concerned with being competitive as well. Before Cataclysm, the journeys in WoW were long enough that these players could sink their teeth in and not get bored. All of that leveling content has gotten stale though because it's been out for so long. Now that the leveling scope of expansions has become so short, trivial, and laughably easy, there isn't much for these players left to do unless they want to get competitive.

And that brings up my theory on why toxicity exists in the game to begin with. You have two major gaming mentalities in conflict over the identity of WoW. Each of these groups thinks the game should cater to them and so by default they hold animosity or indifference to the other group's desires from the game. Blizzard, imo, has tried to balance it (albeit poorly) to give everyone something to do, though in more recent expansions I would say that balance has skewed more favorably to the e-sport crowd/competitive crowd.

You could make an argument that this is why they released Classic (to cater to the casual RPG oriented player), but this gets stale eventually without new content.

In short, these groups blame one another for the game's perceived deficiencies and it is the root for the toxicity. A prime example is all the threads supporting and decrying the Covenant system.

How do you control it? You can't. But that doesn't mean hope is lost. You can control yourself and how you interact with other players. You can be positive. You can say hello to strangers or help them out. You can offer advice without being a condescending dick or you can politely point them to resources that can help them get better. You can accept that not all players are the same and want different things out of the game. But outside of yourself, there isn't much else you can do about it except be the change you want to see.

[NineSpine]

Many WoW players have an e-sport mentality. They are competitive and min-max for results with little concern for the journey. Blizzard has catered more to these players in recent years, because leveling in each expansion feels more like a bump in the road to get to max level and experience the "real content" whether it be raiding, pvp, or mythic+.

These players are competitive. Nothing inherently wrong with that. They want to play with skilled players like themselves and improve their game, down bosses, and brag about their new shiny gear or DPS meter or whatever. It's like if a professional athlete were to go play backyard ball with a bunch of amateurs or kids. Sure, it's probably fun to mess around and show off how awesome they are, but they're at a completely different level and aren't going to be challenged in doing so. It might make them a better person, especially if they can inspire and offer advice to others aspiring to be better themselves, but it won't make them a better player. There's not really much incentive in coaching less skilled players, though, particularly complete strangers.

Many RPG focused players are looking for a rewarding journey, which is something that Classic had in its leveling and questing imo. They like the subtle things in the game that immerse them. They don't tend to look at the game as a game, but just another world they can get lost in. These players like to see their character grow and aren't as concerned about their own growth (meaning skill). They are less concerned with being competitive as well. Before Cataclysm, the journeys in WoW were long enough that these players could sink their teeth in and not get bored. All of that leveling content has gotten stale though because it's been out for so long. Now that the leveling scope of expansions has become so short, trivial, and laughably easy, there isn't much for these players left to do unless they want to get competitive.

And that brings up my theory on why toxicity exists in the game to begin with. You have two major gaming mentalities in conflict over the identity of WoW. Each of these groups thinks the game should cater to them and so by default they hold animosity or indifference to the other group's desires from the game. Blizzard, imo, has tried to balance it (albeit poorly) to give everyone something to do, though in more recent expansions I would say that balance has skewed more favorably to the e-sport crowd/competitive crowd.

You could make an argument that this is why they released Classic (to cater to the casual RPG oriented player), but this gets stale eventually without new content.

In short, these groups blame one another for the game's perceived deficiencies and it is the root for the toxicity. A prime example is all the threads supporting and decrying the Covenant system.

How do you control it? You can't. But that doesn't mean hope is lost. You can control yourself and how you interact with other players. You can be positive. You can say hello to strangers or help them out. You can offer advice without being a condescending dick or you can politely point them to resources that can help them get better. You can accept that not all players are the same and want different things out of the game. But outside of yourself, there isn't much else you can do about it except be the change you want to see.

You are right, but the dynamics are slightly more complicated.

You can break players down into four main categories: Achievers, socializers, explorers, and killers.
Achievers: Play to win, want to have the best gear, enjoy min-maxing, and enjoy optimization. Either make the meta or follow the meta.
Socializers: Primarily interested in interacting with other people, and the content they are working on is secondary to that.
Explorers: Want to go out into the world and see/find things.
Killers: Mostly griefers. This group is very small.

These groupings are not uniform, and most players are on spectrums between them, but the categories are still useful.

You can break an MMO down into three pillars: Game, socialization, and world.
Game: The mechanics, systems, etc..
Socialization: How players interact with each other.
World: The persistent shared place players occupy, made up of not just the locations but also the lore, aesthetics, etc..

These pillars overlap a lot, but choices that make one aspect better can make another aspect worse. For example, making changes to a class that make the rotation feel better may make the game pillar feel better, but if those changes take away from class fantasy then they are diminishing the world pillar. Specifically, LFG made the game pillar better but at a huge cost to socialization. Being teleported to dungeons made the game pillar better but at a huge cost to world. These trade-offs may be defensible, but the pendulum has swung so far that it becomes a problem.

With each successive expansion, Blizzard has continually doubled down on the game pillar at the expense of socialization and world. This has benefitted the achievers, as the other pillars barely matter to them. However, explorers and socializers end up left in the dust. The game as it is currently designed seeks to turn explorers and socializers into achievers by putting them on very fast-paced gear treadmills early and providing very little reward to socialization or exploration. This is the root cause of the toxicity. The game is made for achievers, forces everyone to be an achiever, and then everyone is shocked when socializers and explorers feel excluded, bullied, and punished.

To see an example of what I am talking about, watch any Q&A. 90% of the time will be spent on the game pillar, specifically on reward structures most of the time. They barely address any other issues with the game at all. Even the content is secondary. The primary issue they talk about is reward structures.

Shadowlands appears to have some attempts to backpedal at least some of the loss of the world pillar, and the achievers (having been catered to exclusively for nearly a decade) are extremely upset about this because to a privileged person a minor inconvenience that benefits someone else looks like oppression.

[Unholyground]

You teach people to be more understanding and teach them patience, you also teach them to be less contrarian, that is a big start.

[NineSpine]

You teach people to be more understanding and teach them patience, you also teach them to be less contrarian, that is a big start.

None of that addresses the actual issue. The issue is that the game pushes everyone to be an achiever, whether that is their playstyle or not.

[Unholyground]

None of that addresses the actual issue. The issue is that the game pushes everyone to be an achiever, whether that is their playstyle or not.

Nope that is on you the player in the end, and your demeanor will make you handle situations differently. So if you are a hot head want everything now type of person your interactions will cause emotional ripples and that is where toxicity begins.

[Nobleshield]

None of that addresses the actual issue. The issue is that the game pushes everyone to be an achiever, whether that is their playstyle or not.

And it pushes the achiever mindset as being everything. Previously it was everyone being pushed to raid via LFR, rather than provide ways INSTEAD of raiding. M+ was added which on paper is good, as it means a gearing/endgame path that isn't raiding, but it's timed and competitive so it's just another achiever-centric mode of play that pushes achievers. Torghast in Shadowlands looks interesting but I don't know if they've kept to their initial idea which made it sound like endgame content for the solo/duo type of player, the person who doesn't want to join a guild or only plays with their spouse or close friends/family, so they can focus on themselves or their small group and get progress.

[NineSpine]

Nope that is on you the player in the end, and your demeanor will make you handle situations differently. So if you are a hot head want everything now type of person your interactions will cause emotional ripples and that is where toxicity begins.

Collective problems cannot be solved through individual solutions. If the game is designed in such a way that generates and encourages toxicity, there will be toxicity. No amount of "But cmon yall be nice" is going to change that.

There's a reason wow has this problem to such an extreme extent and other MMOs do not. It isn't a coincidence. It's because of how the game is designed.

[Sansnom]

Wow has been toxic for a long time, but it wasnt always like this. I believe that when Name changes and Server transfers began, it gave players the ability to escape their reputation. Is there a way to encourage less toxic behavior or punish toxic players?

Just curious what people think.

Toxicity was here long before MMO. In mine opinion, there are two reasons.

Anonymity.

Accountability.

In the real world, being offensive generally requires face to face contact. People know who is who. Being identified is therefore the first deterrent.

The second is accountability. The person can be reported to some authority, at work, at home, at school, at society. This authority can bring the individual to account for his/hers/theirs action.

In the case WoW, Blizzard does not invest into policing their players, so the same anarchy is happening there. I would imagine as virtual society continues to grow, eventually, we would see some form of policing in those worlds.

The internet is an anarchy state with no rules, laws or any governing body. So people can act the way they like with not consequences. If the same happens in the real world, we would collapses in the same way.

[NineSpine]

And it pushes the achiever mindset as being everything. Previously it was everyone being pushed to raid via LFR, rather than provide ways INSTEAD of raiding. M+ was added which on paper is good, as it means a gearing/endgame path that isn't raiding, but it's timed and competitive so it's just another achiever-centric mode of play that pushes achievers. Torghast in Shadowlands looks interesting but I don't know if they've kept to their initial idea which made it sound like endgame content for the solo/duo type of player, the person who doesn't want to join a guild or only plays with their spouse or close friends/family, so they can focus on themselves or their small group and get progress.

It even starts before that. The way world quests scale. The way you outgear whole tiers of dungeon content moments after hitting max level. The way gear all scales and is spreadsheet generated rather than hand-made by a designer. And on and on. The entire game is designed around GO GO GO GO GO GEAR GEAR GEAR GEAR GEAR UPGRADE UPGRADE UPGRADE.

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Toxicity was here long before MMO. In mine opinion, there are two reasons.

Anonymity.

Accountability.

In the real world, being offensive generally requires face to face contact. People know who is who. Being identified is therefore the first deterrent.

The second is accountability. The person can be reported to some authority, at work, at home, at school, at society. This authority can bring the individual to account for his/hers/theirs action.

In the case WoW, Blizzard does not invest into policing their players, so the same anarchy is happening there. I would imagine as virtual society continues to grow, eventually, we would see some form of policing in those worlds.

The internet is an anarchy state with no rules, laws or any governing body. So people can act the way they like with not consequences. If the same happens in the real world, we would collapses in the same way.

Everything you are saying is certainly a factor, but its not the primary factor. The primary factor is the "Everyone should be an achiever" mentality.

[Triceron]

Wow has been toxic for a long time, but it wasnt always like this. I believe that when Name changes and Server transfers began, it gave players the ability to escape their reputation. Is there a way to encourage less toxic behavior or punish toxic players?

Just curious what people think.

I think reputations mattered when WoW was still a niche and not played by everyone and their grandmother. The problem is tied to a much larger population that can't regulate itself.

I'm typically against censorship and more in line with creative ways to deter toxic behaviour, but I sometimes think that the environment itself is the problem in that the internet is an absolute excuse to be an anonymous dickwad. With that in mind, these things should only be policed in extreme cases, otherwise there's no real regulation for 'bad behaviour' in a moderate sense. You can't encourage 'less toxic behaviour' if those expressing toxicity are doing it out of their own volition. They will just find other ways of being dickwads, circumvent the solutions that have been put in place.

The alternative I see is some sort of police-state under full moderation at all times, and that's just not fun.

[Elias01]

Haha "Most other MMO"

WoW is leaps and bounds ahead of other MMO in terms of toxic communities.

Not anymore. It used to be back in vannila and tbc.

[NineSpine]

I think reputations mattered when WoW was still a niche and not played by everyone and their grandmother. The problem is tied to a much larger population that can't regulate itself.

I'm typically against censorship and more in line with creative ways to deter toxic behaviour, but I sometimes think that the environment itself is the problem in that the internet is an absolute excuse to be an anonymous dickwad. With that in mind, these things should only be policed in extreme cases, otherwise there's no real regulation for 'bad behaviour' in a moderate sense. You can't encourage 'less toxic behaviour' if those expressing toxicity are doing it out of their own volition. They will just find other ways of being dickwads, circumvent the solutions that have been put in place.

The alternative I see is some sort of police-state under full moderation at all times, and that's just not fun.

You can just build the game the way it used to be: Achiever-oriented players are in their own tier, doing content with other people like them, where they aren't there to ruin everyone else's experience.

[Unholyground]

Collective problems cannot be solved through individual solutions. If the game is designed in such a way that generates and encourages toxicity, there will be toxicity. No amount of "But cmon yall be nice" is going to change that.

There's a reason wow has this problem to such an extreme extent and other MMOs do not. It isn't a coincidence. It's because of how the game is designed.

It could be a factor but it is on you the individual to not be a dick to everyone.

[NineSpine]

It could be a factor but it is on you the individual to not be a dick to everyone.

Sure, but that's like saying the solution to crime is to tell people not to commit crime. This is meaningless lecturing, not productive ideas.

[Krakan]

WoW already handles its community perfectly with tools like raider IO. I have yet to have a toxic run in 2500+ groups and enjoyed making gold in 3k+ groups selling carries.

The trick to a good community is to filter out those without the skill to participate in it.

I mean... your not wrong but I think people are talking about weekly 15s...

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You can just build the game the way it used to be: Achiever-oriented players are in their own tier, doing content with other people like them, where they aren't there to ruin everyone else's experience.

I don't think wow will ever go back to this...