Deleting emotions: facade and blaming players for being toxic?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Everyone is to blame for the toxic nature of WoW and its community. The base community is fairly toxic to anything that opposes their view of the game. The creators of the game have a pretty long history of being fairly toxic to anyone that stepped out of line with them even if its just a fairly innocent question. Most the community sites have a fairly toxic way handling each other. Most of it centers around "if I disagree with you then I need to silence you" approach to conversation. Someone only wants to raid log but you want tons of world content? Then whichever side you are on is what makes the game live and the other side is killing it with no between. Creators of the game get asked why women are objectived and the response is "well how else would you have us objective them" snark as the microphone is pulled away. Disagree with someone on a fan site? Mass report them and have the mods ban them. I mean this is the MO of this entire WoW community top to bottom. It really cannot be fixed. The whole mechanism is built around the ability to hush people you disagree with on variable abilities to silence people. No one is ever able to make a full point. The mic is always pulled away if you happen to slide to the side of those that control the wire. Echo chambers form. Trolling becomes the only way to oppose anything because you at least get to toss a bomb into the room before you get silenced.

[Delever]

So now the people that called everybody crazy when people said that the removal of /spit would lead to more dumb changes have changed the narrative to "oh these emotes were always toxic and if you dont fart on people irl then why would you in a video game?"
Ummm.... well that would be BECAUSE ITS A VIDEO GAME???
Why do we kill people in video games if we dont do it IRL? Because in a harmless, virtual F A N T A S Y setting its fun. And no this time I will not side with the supposed "victims".
If you are offended by an in game fart emote or a suggestive pixelated picture of a woman you are either American or a lunatic and need to seek help immediately.

[LordVargK]

Toxicity has reason, and that reason is absolute impunity ingame. You can be crazy mf, ganking and ninja-looting and be just fine. You can butthurt in chat all day, and all your punishment is none. Blizz have nothing to do with that.
Humans are jerks, fresh news, everyone!

Well, Blizzard removed most options for other players to punish such behaviour by undermining the importance of guilds. Blizzard gave assholes impunity, because Blizzard made it possible to play the game anonymously.

- - - Updated - - -

Basically Blizzard built a house with no rules and people accepted the invite. While some people can say that a toxic community creates a toxic game I feel its the other way around. Blizzard need to get out of this competitive mindset for all their games, but they wont because it makes them money. So in which they they deserve the toxic community, I advice to people who do not like it just leave, because the game and Blizzard do not care and when they do they make the wrong changes to compensate.

They build a functioning house where rules existed for a reason. Then, bit by bit, they removed all ways for players/communities to regulate themselves. Sure, many decision were good from a gameplay perspective (cross realm play comes to mind), but very bad for the social aspect of the game.

[kaminaris]

Thats not even a question, game conditions shaped community, never the other way around.

Can be easily proven if you play other games how much different communities are. And no, xrealm has nothing to do with it.

[Orby]

It's almost as if the world turns and developers are people too who can change their mind.

Things put into the game 17 years ago which once were used moderately were now being automated. That's the only reason it came to Blizzards attention, some dickheads automating being dickheads so Blizzard took action. And started to think about the whole system removing more stuff.

Its a god damn emote though... Its not a hard R word, or cultural appropriation we talking about here. Its a damn emote. No one is getting offended by a god damn emote. People getting upset because they were spammed and harassed with it. Which I understand, but its the idea of removing something over just putting a time out feature on emotes to stop repeated spam... And as you said you can still do it in game through other means anyway which makes the removal even more absurd. Or if people are getting literally harassed then that person needs to be dealt with not the emote.

And let's be honest Blizzard only removed it because people were using it against people who brought store mounts. it has nothing to do with it being about what's culturally acceptable.

And this is the ongoing thing with Blizzard, they are constantly changing little things, removing altering, and in light of most recent events I have no issue with some of the stuff they are changing (more so because we have no idea why they are changing said things outside of assuming) But the emote thing just out foxes me and its something I can complain about because we know the reason why they removed it. I just don't agree with it

I don't know, its very along the lines of 'if one person cannot play nice, then no one will get to play with it' attitude over removing the person using it badly and letting the rest of us play with it.

I do think toxicity can also be formed for punishing the many for the act of a few. But that's another subject...

[Dancaris]

Thats not even a question, game conditions shaped community, never the other way around.

Can be easily proven if you play other games how much different communities are. And no, xrealm has nothing to do with it.

well, lets watch other games, shall we?
Dota2, LoL, cs:go and other session-games are extremely toxic, WoW is nowhere near them. FF14, Destiny, CoDs, even that tank/warship simulators. All of them are filled with toxic people. And you know what? Its different genre games. All common in them is one thing - its online games. And in that type of games - there are toxic people, no matter of what type of game they play. Because people with impunity is jerks.

[kaminaris]

well, lets watch other games, shall we?
Dota2, LoL, cs:go and other session-games are extremely toxic, WoW is nowhere near them. FF14, Destiny, CoDs, even that tank/warship simulators. All of them are filled with toxic people. And you know what? Its different genre games. All common in them is one thing - its online games. And in that type of games - there are toxic people, no matter of what type of game they play. Because people with impunity is jerks.

You never played FFXIV or Destiny if you think those communities are "filled with foxic people". I guess you can pretend whole community is toxic when you find one bad apple

LoL is even more toxic than WoW.

[Asrialol]

100% the developers. There is no magical fairy that gives specific personality to online communities, it's the games that facilitate whatever behavior and attract whatever demographic.

So when someone makes a bad play in LoL it's the devs fault and not the player making the mistake? Huh.

[Utrrabbit]

My theory is - roadside-riders and wrongside-riders only appear where traffic-jams are. And drivers can't be blamed for traffic jams. Authorities should be. And if authorities do nothing with this problem, then drivers have to adapt and do the same, cuz otherwise they would suffer. At the end all drivers start to do wrong things. And even more. It's wrong to shut them up and take their horns away, so they won't be able to be "toxic" vs each other, in order to "fix" this problem. It's just facade. Illusion of actions.

Example: I was against ninja-looting back in old times. But Blizzard did nothing to prevent ninja-looters from doing it. So I adapted and started to ninja-loot too, because otherwise I would be in constant lose position vs other players. Can I be blamed for becoming ninja-looter? Was it me, who was wrong in this situation? Only possible solution - was personal loot. Some people would say, that personal loot is anti-social and that it should be players, who should be blamed for implementing it. But is it true?

What do you think? Who should be blamed for toxicity in Wow? "Toxic" community? Or developers, who've created conditions for toxicity to grow like cancer in this game?

My own opinion: major source of toxicity in this game - is overusing of competitive content (even in PVE, that should be about cooperation - not competition), that is based on dog-eats-dog principles. Players just have to become toxic vs each other, otherwise they would be "weak" and fall into lose position. That's, what should be fixed. Not band-aiding via removing some emotions, that are just consequence of problem - not it's cause.

Tl;Dr I blame other people for my horrible thoughts and actions. I will not take responsibility, and it is others fault I am like this.

- - - Updated - - -

Toxic systems select for toxic players and against healthy interactions.

It is 100% a design failure that's on the developers.

Yelling "personal responsibility" just reveals ignorance of how systems work.

And yes, WoW is full of systems that reward exploiting others and punish being nice, even in PvE.

It's not rocket science to figure out what kind of community that ends up creating.

Someone never takes personally responsibility in life. Blaming systems for you being a horrible human is factually ignorant.

[stross01]

In a game 100% driven by gogogogogogogofastfastfastspeedspeedspeed or you lose loot/ranking/never finish the dungeon, who would've imagined it'd attract scumbags? Wow, who would've seen it coming?

In a game 100% driven by loot and logs to determine a person's worth, who could've seen that the average player would be left out or left behind? Oh, only an ULTRA genius could have foretold this outcome.

A game where Blizzard publicizes, advertises, and advocates events that display the best classes and specs, while assuring us that everything else is beyond worthless, forming the meta-dickrider community? Oh gosh no.

It can't be at all Blizzard's fault.

[Utrrabbit]

You never played FFXIV or Destiny if you think those communities are "filled with foxic people". I guess you can pretend whole community is toxic when you find one bad apple

LoL is even more toxic than WoW.

I have played FF14 and it is super toxic. Even more so than wow. Only difference is it is hidden behind the facade of not being able to use world chat and having to use discord.

I have been in over a dozen FF14 discords and neay 80% of them were filled with racsist, homophobic people shit talking others.

Now I am not saying everyone is like that; but a lot are.

[Alduin]

I have been in over a dozen FF14 discords and neay 80% of them were filled with racsist, homophobic people shit talking others.

Welcome to the internet. Your order please.

Tbh this sounds like most forums and boards. Back in the old days the Elitistjerks forum was toxic af even the mods banning people for the slighest reasons. Same goes with League, CS:GO, Fortnite - hell even Fall Guys.

Only thing that is really disturbing is that in WoW the original community was not as salty as you had a reputation per realm. Nowadays you are basically only grouped for a Dungeon, not part of any major guild with no Game Masters around this toxicity has peaked.
However - I have no clue why the use of emotes is now considered toxic. I haven't seen anyone around using that stuff in a long while - and if most of those players were consenting and playfully joking with each other so no harm done.

If they really want to get rid of stuff like that - well take a look at the DK intro quest where half of OG is spitting on you.

But then again: no idea why these changes are made to the game when the real issue lies within 90% of the employee to employee behaviour and lack of leadership. Maybe a /poke is more hurtful than harassing someone IRL?

[DarkAmbient]

If I tell a player that I hope his entire family suffers an explosive rectal prolapse that's on me. If optimal gameplay requires antisocial behaviour that's on the devs.

[mst3kfan]

Toxicity has reason, and that reason is absolute impunity ingame. You can be crazy mf, ganking and ninja-looting and be just fine. You can butthurt in chat all day, and all your punishment is none. Blizz have nothing to do with that.
Humans are jerks, fresh news, everyone!

You are missing the point partially. Blizzard does not police their World at all. They gutted all their moderation, and basically gutted their GM population. They have a very in-depth TOS, but do nothing to enforce it. You are right in the sense that people are jerks, but the lack of oversight allows it to run rampant.

[Delever]

If I tell a player that I hope his entire family suffers an explosive rectal prolapse that's on me. If optimal gameplay requires antisocial behaviour that's on the devs.

couldnt have said it better

[Alduin]

If I tell a player that I hope his entire family suffers an explosive rectal prolapse that's on me. If optimal gameplay requires antisocial behaviour that's on the devs.

Not to mention frustrating game mechanics, that have gotten negative reviews since any test ever but are still implemented unchanged to get most money of your cash-cow gamers.
Or bugs.
Or unplayable content.
Or changes to the deprecated content making it more difficult (no we are not talking about encounter adjustments but locking stuff behind progression gates again).

Anything that leads to negative customer feedback which - even without any insult - is taken as personal affront even if the developer has not participation in it.

[Thelxi]

So when someone makes a bad play in LoL it's the devs fault and not the player making the mistake? Huh.

No. If you need help interpreting the word "behavior" feel free to use google.

[Hyeonh]

The community being toxic is just the symptoms of bad management. They don't punish actual bad behavior like constant harassment, stalking and other things that warrant immediate action and when they do. It's just a slap on the wrist. This all lie with the company as they themselves have already revealed to us how much worst it is internally which bleeds into its user base too.

[bledgor]

Have none of the people that voted devs played any other online game? Look at the toxicity in a game like dota 2 or LOL, people suck, communities of gamers are assholes.

[Kralljin]

I feel that this is a leading question, because the one who is "at fault" is then supposed to improve and rectify the situation.
So if you think that the community is at fault, the community should improve, right?

But any person that has spent a modicum on the internet knows that this won't happen, the only people that can improve the situation are the devs.
The devs can either absolve them of any guilt, do nothing and watch the ship burn or face reality and attempt to improve the situation.

And that's the long and short of it, if you create situations where it's either beneficial to someone to be an asshole or where players with colliding expectations are put into the same pot, it causes problems.

Have none of the people that voted devs played any other online game? Look at the toxicity in a game like dota 2 or LOL, people suck, communities of gamers are assholes.

That's what i think as well.

When people go out of their way to ruin your experience despite them also doom themselves to the losing side, it's a completely different level of toxicity than what you face in WoW usually.
I've lost count how many times in DotA 2 i've encountered people that started to intentionally feed because someone did something "wrong" from their PoV.
It's just utterly insane when you think about the fact that some people are willing to throw away 30-45 minutes of their life away just to spite someone despite them also losing, this is Crab Mentality on crack.

If i were to guess, it comes down to WoW having a lot of "one game" gamers that play nothing but WoW and thus don't see how deep the hole can really go.