Why is this community considered "extremely toxic"?

[Sithalos]

Both communities are toxic, but I'd say that classic is slightly worse because it's filled to the brim with insufferable private server players.

[Mukind]

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

The meta is set in classic

95% of people have no fuckign idea what is going on in a new patch....Not the same for a 15 year old game

I'm never "toxic" in any games I play until I'm good at them....I was good at this one before it launched

[Eapoe]

This is the community that shit on Blizzard’s product talking about how shit it is and how shit the devs are and how shit the retail players are while hyping up Classic as the best thing to have ever existed while begging Blizzard to give them access back to it. Years this happened. Years. Now they are the people that shit talk detail while talking about how great their community is that allows everyone a chance to play regardless of how they play while bitching about the people who won’t take them for playing how they want to play.
I’m not saying Retail is some circle sitting, hymn singing group of friendly pals. Retail has its own set of assholes, but the topic is about Classic.

[Mukind]

This is the community that shit on Blizzard’s product talking about how shit it is and how shit the devs are and how shit the retail players are while hyping up Classic as the best thing to have ever existed while begging Blizzard to give them access back to it. Years this happened. Years. Now they are the people that shit talk detail while talking about how great their community is that allows everyone a chance to play regardless of how they play while bitching about the people who won’t take them for playing how they want to play.
I’m not saying Retail is some circle sitting, hymn singing group of friendly pals. Retail has its own set of assholes, but the topic is about Classic.

Who says they allow everyone to play how they wanna play?

Sure you can do whatever you want. But not im my group/guild lol

Total straw man

Source: P server player....It's old content that means your choices are reduced not expanded. Everyone has the math/theorycrafting to say why X,Y, or Z choice isn't optimal. Nor will it ever be cuz there are no patches coming

That's retailer fantasy that you could play how you want. None of the p server players thought that, the people who got you classic

[Shakana]

Disagree. I think forums overall about wow is the toxic part of the community (MMOC being one of them due to it's reputation with all kinds of mentality comes here and say what they want)

On actual classic, there's no toxicity on many servers i saw people playing, and on retail, as everything else, you can encounter "good" and "bad" people.

Classic if anything i just think it's toxic, when they call people that play retail as "retailers" and say "ofc you're a retailer", besides that, i don't think it's toxic in any way. Having drama is not the same as being toxic, and what classic has is a lot of drama.

[Eapoe]

Who says they allow everyone to play how they wanna play?

Sure you can do whatever you want. But not im my group/guild lol

Total straw man

Source: P server player....It's old content that means your choices are reduced not expanded. Everyone has the math/theorycrafting to say why X,Y, or Z choice isn't optimal. Nor will it ever be cuz there are no patches coming

That's retailer fantasy that you could play how you want. None of the p server players thought that, the people who got you classic

Did you even read my post? Maybe didn’t understand? I didn’t say people were allowed to play that way, I stated the community states you can and then bitches when the community doesn’t let them. Reread it.
Also, there’s literally hundreds, if not thousands of posts, from people saying that you can play how you want and have fun coming up with crazy ways to spend your talents and be a true RPG. Now they find it’s not true. That’s the point.

[Zentail]

There are a few points worth mentioning, in my opinion, as someone who plays and love Retail and someone who also players and loves Classic.

1. There seems to just, generally speaking, be more Classic players who are vocal about "Retail is garbage!", "Look how awesome Classic is!", "We have 1000x more players than you because you're nothing!", "Retail players don't know anything and are stupid!", etc. Obviously these aren't exact quotes, but you get what I'm saying. There are players who play Retail who are the same way towards Classic, but that should be expected. Classic players just appears to be more vocal about it.

2. The games are the same. There doesn't need to be hostility like there is. A Classic player wouldn't have Classic without Retail. A Retail player will continue getting content funded because of Classic players. Both players benefit each other and that should be okay.

3. Arguments between the versions come out because of groundless statistics and misreading what Blizzard has maybe said about something. For example, "Classic brought back the biggest bump in subscribers ever!" does NOT mean "Classic has more people than Retail!" People misunderstand things like that. Plenty of people on Retail right now have said they came back for Classic and hopped right off to Retail. Similarly, plenty of Retail players jumped to Classic. We don't have exact numbers though. Despite what plenty of people think, none of the online "census" sites are accurate. Some use a so-called "API" which players obviously don't know what mean because Blizzard would have to intentionally make one to be used to grab population numbers. Others use things like AddOns to try and fetch the data in-game. There's a plethora of problems with these AddOns and the method at which they retrieve numbers. Fact is, more people are on Retail. And that's fine. This doesn't change my, or your, experience on Classic. No need to get hostile about it. Some Classic players just seem to get hostile anyway.

4. Realistically, it's not game/server related. Online community tend to be toxic by nature. You get a whole bunch of people with different opinions and put them in a room together, they're going to argue. The more different opinions are, the more heated things will become.

5. Just remember, there's something called the "1% Rule" that statistic people use. 99% of all players literally will never post anything online and all data gathered from players on, say, a Forum like MMO-Champion, will never represent more than 1% of the actual playerbase. While the 1% could accurately represent everyone, there's also times where the 1% could possibly not represent a single person of the other 99%. Translating this to WoW and how many dungeons I've done on Retail and Classic, 99% of the time people won't say a single word in any group I'm ever in except random need-to-know stuff, like a healer saying, "mana."

Translating this to forums, the Classic community being "extremely toxic" just means that maybe more Classic people are online and are nearing 2%+ of the playerbase instead of the typical rule that says 1% and, as such, more "toxicity" is visible. While any situation where there's more people involved would appear more toxic, more Classic players than Retail players are actually online communicating, so it only appears that Classic is more toxic. Imagine 2% of the Classic community is on forums and only 0.5% of Retail's community is on forums. There's no way for Retail players to appear the same way unless Retail had a minimum of 4x more players than Classic (which it probably doesn't).

[threads]

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.

must not have experienced the raiding community in ff then lol.

[Morbownz]

If you ask me, it's the portion of the Classic community that came from retail and have done nothing but spread toxicity and hate throughout the game.


Just watch this clip from a retail streamer shit talking Classic whilst playing it, and no... it's not a Rickroll

[MoanaLisa]

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

Well, no it's not the same game really. Opinions can vary on that but I don't see it as the same game at all mainly due to its displacement in time.

As to toxicity, if you read that on a forum I would discount that quite a bit and see how it is in your particular spot/realm/locality in the game. Some are better than others but there are certainly more people in the game to play the game than there are here or on any other forum.

I would also recommend ignoring anyone who uses a single anecdote or a single video to generalize to everyone else. That seems obvious but it's surprising how often it happens.

Lastly anyone who thinks the two games are in some sort of competition or at war with each other are generally to be avoided. That's toxic all by itself and doesn't do anyone any good.

[Mukind]

Did you even read my post? Maybe didn’t understand? I didn’t say people were allowed to play that way, I stated the community states you can and then bitches when the community doesn’t let them. Reread it.
Also, there’s literally hundreds, if not thousands of posts, from people saying that you can play how you want and have fun coming up with crazy ways to spend your talents and be a true RPG. Now they find it’s not true. That’s the point.

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

[Dakara]

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

M+ says hi.

[gd8]

gamers are just toxic shitty bottom of the barrel people in general and anywhere they go toxicity is bound to follow

[Relapses]

Confirmation Bias: The Thread.

[Nnyco]

Just scroll thru the classic forum for five minutes and you got your answer.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I disagree in that it doesn't apply to retail.
In my experience,the classic community is several orders of magnitude better than the retail one.
Sure,there are still a lot of assholes and it's nowhere near perfect,but it doesn't seem even close to how bad it is on retail.

Then again,it probably depends on the realm you're playing on

Retail in my experience has a mindset of "git gud or git out of my game."

Classic in my experience has a mindset of "we're all suffering here so let's make the best of it."

Had a level 60 join our BFD group accidentally thinking it was a BRD group and was like "eh what the hell I'll go nuke it for you guys."

[Shibito]

Retail in my experience has a mindset of "git gud or git out of my game."

Classic in my experience has a mindset of "we're all suffering here so let's make the best of it."

Had a level 60 join our BFD group accidentally thinking it was a BRD group and was like "eh what the hell I'll go nuke it for you guys."

Not really classic has the same mentality of git gud

[BeepBoo]

Any and every game that has any reliance on other people to get results you personally want will have some level of toxicity. People hate failure. They hate it even more when it's out of their control.

The expectation for a lot of people who have been playing wow for ever, let alone any game (the similarities between most games lead to a baseline competency for just gaming in general, much like sports), is that they have no patience for people who are just learning. They would rather get into a group of people who know what they're doing already, conveniently, and get shit done.

The noobs or bads then perceive this as an affront to their gaming experience since they're victims of "gatekeeping."

I'm personally fine with toxicity existing in video games. People are free to decide if they are or aren't, but really... you should blame the game and the requirements the game has for succeeding or the fact that you're trying to do something you can't or shouldn't be. Go practice on your own or form a group of friends. Trying to get into the random community without already being competent is top tier stupidity, and any criticism you get there is deserved IMO.

[Will]

Lol if you think WoW has an 'extremely toxic' community, you haven't played some other games

Though I will say as an EU WoW player I actually think WoW has a pretty decent community all things considered.

I did once have the misfortune of playing on USA servers and the community was SO, SO MUCH WORSE than EU servers though. People trolled more, insulted each other more, the trade chat spam was twice as banal. It was just awful. I also noticed a lot more elitism, unjustified group behaviour and so on.

[Twoddle]

Another loaded statement thread with no basis. OP even put quotes which means people are saying it, where? Who?