2 cents: Why the WoW Community is so Toxic

[Pennoyer]

I don't think wow is anymore toxic than other games. Even other mmos I play have worse ppl, because they have a lot of ppl who played wow until they decided they were too cool for school with their "mememe" attitude.

[Deleted]

Because you can do so much stuff on your own that other players are generally seen as a hindrance. Because when you need a group for like a dungeon, random bg or LFR finding them happens automatically and other players are either your enemy in meters (when they're good) or a hindrance (when they're bad).

I've yet to see someone being a dick when we formed the group the old fashioned way.

[Sky High]

To be fair most of the servers that merged don't have a ton of quality players(on ANY of them). If they did they wouldn't need a merge. Low pop realms tend to attract players who are less skilled as well as breed them to a degree. Limited options for quality guilds means you have limited supply of decent players. Get over it and know it won't last forever. This is just a transition period and people are trying to mark their territory like stray dogs.

indeed, plus I have yet to remember a period of time when trade chat wasn't a cavalcade of shitwits.

[Deleted]

So what now, saying "fuck the alliance" is toxic? People cant even roll with faction pride anymore?

[Steampunk]

Folks just flat-out don't care anymore; or when they do... it's not about the things that really make-up WoW's social contract.

You can't boot the ninja, because your tank's always in combat. Or because you can't boot them till the third boss, over how fast runs go.

You can't properly express your concerns because either the community is too huge for your concern to be read, or "lol twitter" where everyone's turning feedback into flame wars.

You stopped reporting racists and "An*l" assaults in chat, because Blizzard doesn't take enough action against the players... if any.

You give up on doing anything that doesn't give you the biggest reward... because Blizzard turned the game into that (for us, for them, doesn't matter).

WoD has to revive the community and Blizzard has to get their act together on customer service/enforcement... or else the decline in player interest, subs and toxicity won't slow down.

[viper823]

Just another case of internet anonymity. Anonymity = zero accountability = bad behavior with no fear of consequences

[Krazzorx]

Its a complicated issue and there is no single answer. Its essentially like asking "why is there a civil war in Syria?"

To me what I put a good amount of weight on the community seeming more toxic is because with LFD different styles of players are forced together. The issue this causes is people are playing a game to be entertained the way they want to be entertained. Of course putting a person who wants to take in the ambience of a dungeon isn't going to mesh well with the rusher. Before LFD, those 2 people would essentially not notice the other exists and never get mad at each other. But with LFD they meet all the time and their perfectly valid playstyles just don't mesh.

[Paulosio]

Because it's online. Show me any online gaming community used mostly by young "adults" and children that isn't toxic.

[wolphe]

Because it's online. Show me any online gaming community used mostly by young "adults" and children that isn't toxic.

WoW, before when you didn't have it so easy, regarding grouping etc

[Steampunk]

Because it's online. Show me any online gaming community used mostly by young "adults" and children that isn't toxic.

Almost all of them before WoW's populace spilled into other games.

It's been 6 years since I retired from private testing, but I've been playing these games since 1999. They were never so foul, so toxic... and so allowed to be that way by support staff.

Blizzard wasn't either back then. In Vanilla, they removed a guild on Mal'Ganis named Giant Communist Robots over what was even perceived as a political insult.

I remember in EQ having a mod pop up in game in front of me, warn me for some irate and poor choiced words I had with another player in /yells across PoK and they did the same to the other player.

Racism, Rape culture and Hate speech of all sorts is outright ignored most of the time by support staff, forcing players to just put them on ignore... assuming that's some sort of cork in the problem. Warn 1 out of 100 and watch that blossom into what we have now.

Surprisingly, there's quite a few communities that aren't full of jerks. Most of those games are either older titles, or games where WoW's entitled influence hasn't poisoned the populace yet.

[Mongoose19]

What shapes people is environment and who is responsible for environment in WoW? Yep Blizz itself. Blizzard allowed the community to be toxic with all the changes since late Wotlk. So yep in this case don't blame the player, blame the game.

[Darkke]

WoW Community is fine. If you want to see really toxic community go play World of Tanks, or any MOBA game for a while, I guarantee that after that WoW Community will feel like best community ever.

[Bullettime]

Dungeon finders were great for convenience, as were transfers, but there's basically no accountability anymore for your actions. Players used to care about their behavior as if they pissed off a lot of the server or got a bad reputation, you would be blacklisted from groups. Now, it's so easy to just basically change your in game identity or use dungeon finders and play with randoms.

WoW is still better than most other online games though in regards to player behavior. You see a lot of trolls and assholes in WoW but this is nothing compared to games like League of Legends. Players still have to worry about getting banned from the game and don't want to shell out more cash and lose their character progress. Not an issue in other games like League that are free and a ban just means "go make another free account and keep trolling."

[MisterMine]

This is a post about my opinion, and it doesn't mean it's the truth. it is, however, my truth. reflect about it and try to find your truth as well

IMHO, the reason why WoW's community is so toxic is that we have so many rifts dividing us into so many rival factions, that hatred just runs rampant.

Alliance VS Horde
Casual VS Hardcore
PvE VS PvP
Likes Pandaren VS Hate Pandaren
Tanks VS Healers VS DPS
DPS VS DPS (on who does more dps)

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These are just the ones I could remember now from the top of my head.

"ALLIANCE SUCKS, @#$*&*$ CASUALS RUIN EVERYTHING, PVP DESTROYS BALANCE, LOL PANDAS, DPS IS SO EASY, TANKS ARE THE IMPORTANT ROLE, LOL HEALER YOU SUCK, CAN'T KEEP ME UP, ROUGE IS TERRIBLE DPS, KICK HIM!"

Until the day we stop looking at what's different among ourselves and start looking for what we have in common, we will always be plagued by a toxic community.

thank you gandhi, how long did it take you to come up with such a brilliant observation?

"people hate each other because they dont agree about some stuff" NO REALLY

[Deleted]

WoW Community is fine. If you want to see really toxic community go play World of Tanks, or any MOBA game for a while, I guarantee that after that WoW Community will feel like best community ever.

I have played WoT for a shitload of time, there is litteraly 0 toxicity going on.

[Steampunk]

WoW is still better than most other online games though in regards to player behavior. You see a lot of trolls and assholes in WoW but this is nothing compared to games like League of Legends. Players still have to worry about getting banned from the game and don't want to shell out more cash and lose their character progress. Not an issue in other games like League that are free and a ban just means "go make another free account and keep trolling."

I whole-heartedly agree with the first segment. However, the quoted portion above is quite subjective. League is terrible, sure. However, other MMORPGs are often much better behaved than Warcraft. Or when there's a surge in toxicity, it's when there's lulls in WoW subs, or folks who used to play, that have moved onto other games.

The old running joke on my old EQ2 server was "How many WoW players will show up to complain about WoW this week?".

[Sarcon]

We're all bored with our favorite toy and none of us have anything better to do.

[Deleted]

thing is that you cant help but lose faith in mankind over this stupid people. I am fortunate enough to completely avoid random raids and as a raid lead I can sort out..and if I still feel sad about reading /2 or /1 during raids, I remind myself of how the dota2 community was and how it made me quit the game.
Problem is that there are more idiots who laugh about this "anal [insert spellname]" crap or react to some jackass who delights in making a jerk of himself for "the fame" than people who just get that those attention kids have to be ignored to stop it. And tbh, I think the community is only "toxic" when you let it get to you. I just dont interact with anyone being childish or stupid and ignore/kick them without explanation.

[Finnio]

Accountability was the reason the community was so much better. Things really started to take a turn for the worse when they introduced LFD because chances we're that you'd never meet those players again and everything was possible not to mention the chances of meeting assholes increased as well.

[Puzzlebox]

This is a post about my opinion, and it doesn't mean it's the truth. it is, however, my truth. reflect about it and try to find your truth as well

IMHO, the reason why WoW's community is so toxic is that we have so many rifts dividing us into so many rival factions, that hatred just runs rampant.

Alliance VS Horde
Casual VS Hardcore
PvE VS PvP
Likes Pandaren VS Hate Pandaren
Tanks VS Healers VS DPS
DPS VS DPS (on who does more dps)

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These are just the ones I could remember now from the top of my head.

"ALLIANCE SUCKS, @#$*&*$ CASUALS RUIN EVERYTHING, PVP DESTROYS BALANCE, LOL PANDAS, DPS IS SO EASY, TANKS ARE THE IMPORTANT ROLE, LOL HEALER YOU SUCK, CAN'T KEEP ME UP, ROUGE IS TERRIBLE DPS, KICK HIM!"

Until the day we stop looking at what's different among ourselves and start looking for what we have in common, we will always be plagued by a toxic community.

Literally none of this addresses why WoW is so toxic.

WoW is toxic, because accountability has been taken away.

The game use to require objectives to be met (gating) and it did not allow players to move servers. If you wanted to change servers, you had to level a whole new character. There was no such thing as anonymity if you wanted to be a part of the competing (raider) culture, and you had to build a reputation among your peers. If you decided to ninja loot from a raid, or bad talk a group of players, guilds were able to research you and would deny a player in favor of the opinion of the other reigning guilds.

Now you can just pick up and move as soon as you destroy your name, or perform a name or faction change.

As long as those features exist in an MMO, there will always be a toxic nature to the game, or any other game as well.