Was the WoW community ever good?

[Greendog]

The best time to play WoW was from Vanilla right up until the end of Wrath. It's hard to describe what made it such a joy to play back then. Many people playing the game throughout the summers made it feel so warm and inviting. People lost RL relationships due to this, not only that but many people met, fell in love and I'd bet many are still together and perhaps even still playing the game... despite the games descending appeal as more and more single player features were introduced. Once the sense of wonder vanished during the games peak active player count the game started its slow decline into mediocrity. The community back then was kind, helpful, determined, you had the trouble makers sure but for the most part people put in the "extra" and worked together in groups to achieve their goals. It's hard to put these feels into language but playing it back then everyone knew they were playing something really really special.

So to answer your question YES. The community was great at a certain point and if you weren't playing WoW around this time you were really REALLY unlucky missing out on the games heart and soul.There was absolutely 100% nothing at all like it. Nothing came close and even today now as I write this still nothing has got anywhere close to what WoW was back then.

[Ange]

SERVER only everything forced some type of players to more social behaviour because otherwise the consequences were pretty harsh - esp. on social servers where guilds were not isolated but had trade deals for crafting and sharing raidpools.

But I really see no big difference in the community, it allways depends what type of game play you enjoy and how selective you are with the players you play with.

The amount of skilled players available 24/7 to play with is insane in current WoW. If you can deal with the language barrier (EU) I would claim right now is maybe the most enjoyable time to play WoW. Raiding is basicly dead, people do what ever they enjoy the most for gear progression and its overall a very fun experience.

If you cant meet certaint requirements in hardware/internet connection and basic game knowledge you might of course have a harder timer since players might call you out for it. You could hide better in a 40 man raid with the low skill and slow pace of vanilla raiding, but thats more a you problem and not really a community issue.

Played all expansions as excessive as it gets:

[WowIsDead64]

Basically as someone who joined the game around MoP I often see people reminisce on how good trade chat used to be or how people were much nicer back in the day so I am posing the question of was the WoW community ever good and if so when?

Back in WotLK guys were RLing PUG raids just because they were nice people.

[Lurker1]

it always sucked even from the start how do i know this i been playing WoW from the first day it came out it didnt change only got worse over time imho! oh yeah and im still playing it so yeah nothing has changed at all.

[Autoriot]

Trade chat back in the early days: People spamming for groups for dungeons (and sometimes raids) and asking general questions, actually looking for certain tradeskills/patterns

Trade chat in the middle days: People talking about politics and other BS

Trade chat now: Spammed by boosters

[Averrix]

The community was great back in Vanilla WoW. BC was still pretty great, then it just went downhill from there.

[shade076]

It was better in 2004 but imo it was never good. You had more one on one interaction with people, people couldn't just switch servers or change their names so there was less anonymity and more people who cared about their reputation. That being said, back in 2004- til BC I'd consider it the 2nd most toxic community only behind Counter Strike at the time.

[Sofo1]

The community has been the same since late BC (where i started). People might be abit more elitist now when the game is "figured out" but it's not by alot.

[WaltherLeopold]

Back when being the best wasn't a priority for most people you meet ingame it was yeah.

Back when everyone wasn't allowed to raid, you didn't have this issue as widespread, the good players got to raid, the bad ones had to do older content, like kara when bt was out.

Obviously, it's all relative, since theyre all pretty bad by todays' standards, but there used to be a much better delineation between bad (no expectations) and good (regular/ultra expectations).

[Lime]

In my experience yeah, it was better before the systems went cross realm. Before that, you lived on your reputation: you treated people with respect you were treated back with respect. You were an idiot to other people you risked yourself to be blacklisted on a server level.

The server blacklist myth needs to die in a fire. That's not how it worked, at all. It doesn't even make sense logically, so I'm not sure how it ever caught on.

To believe in a server-wide blacklist, you'd have to believe:

1. That people would hear about your issue.
2. That people would just take your word for it.
3. That people would care.

On Point 1, 99% of the server, no matter how big enough of an issue you thought it was, would never ever hear about it.
On Point 2, out of the few people who heard about it, why would they just take your word over it?

On Point 3, even if you found one of the few people who heard about it and trust your word, how many do you think would actually care? It's pretty easy to play with someone and avoid the drama, especially if said player is a sought after role. With how long it took to make groups, PuGs certainly wouldn't care. Why would most guilds care so long as it doesn't affect them?

Blacklisting was limited to friend groups and guild groups, but nothing beyond that. It still happens today in that capacity. It's a myth that was perpetuated by dorky guild leaders who thought they had more power than they did. No group of people had a server on lock.

If you want evidence of just how ineffective server-wide blacklists are, just look at the streamers', with their massive audiences, attempt at it with Classic. For all of the "if they gank us, they'll never be able to play the game" boasting they did, the blacklist crumbled as soon the beta started and they realized how ineffective it'd be.

[prwraith]

These types of threads are so cringe. The WoW community is still good, if you can't find nice people to hang out with it's your problem.

Cringe because you disagree with it lol. It wasn't a question about who you hang out with. It was a question about the community as a whole. Kind of like the difference between a person and people. And as a whole the wow community is toxic as shit.

Also..stop using cringe incorrectly.

[Varodoc]

Cringe because you disagree with it lol. It wasn't a question about who you hang out with. It was a question about the community as a whole. Kind of like the difference between a person and people. And as a whole the wow community is toxic as shit.

Also..stop using cringe incorrectly.

No, it's cringe because it assumes there was a time when the toxic people were the minority.

[kranur]

Yes and not really. In the early days .. becase the tryhard elitists were not yet developed. As soon as they got the hang on the game, well you have cool people and retarded douches.

[Tronski]

No not really, it’s just you interacted with more people one on one instead of anonymously through queues, so people were forced to be a little more respectful but overall no not really, people are the same as they’ve ever been.

People might be the same, but server identity and community were things before Xrealm. Some people were unmitigateable shitheads and trolls, but most people behaved way better than now.

One factor in vanilla was that playing the game was more important than topping every meter on every occasion, but even this doesn't account for the fact that whole servers/factions cooperate in the AQ war effort these days. More trolls now, because more players and information to go on when sabotaging, but community is very much a thing in the less competitive setting of classic.

[Drusin]

I started in BC, players were nice and everyone was cool when I was leveling, after getting out of that and into competitive play it was different, no less toxic and crazy than today.

[Zuido]

Here is the sad truth ..literally any online game that comes out for the 1st time are cool, fun and majority of the playerbase are nice even when people reach the endgame for the 1st time.
I remember having lots of fun when i played overwatch and heroes of the storm for the 1st time in the beta and after they were released, same with Wow when i 1st played it when i was like 12 years old, but as time passed ..the fun started to fade away. Every game you joined was all about winning, which meant that you were expected to pick classes/heroes that were the meta or you are wasting *their* time.