WoW Extremes
February 14, 2008WoW brings out extremes in people’s personalities. This isn’t an exclusive WoW phenomenon, the internet as a whole creates the same effect…but I find it to be even more true in MMOs, where it’s even easier to be anonymous.
The negative side of this tends to be more visible and more frequent. People who are normally merely impolite in person turn into total jerks on WoW. The anonymity, combined with how easy it is to ignore the fact that it’s a human being that you’re being rude to, makes this ridiculously easy for them. It’s not just limited to younger players, either, though they have more of a tendency towards this extreme. There are plenty of older players out there who unfortunately have little problem being a negative impact on someone else’s gaming experience.
The opposite is also out there, though…the fact that it is so easy to help someone out with things that will make their stay in Azeroth better means that people who are merely friendly in person will often turn into real sweethearts on WoW, running guildies through instances, giving someone a new piece of gear “just because”, and so on.
Not everyone falls to one of these extremes, of course, and not everyone that is prone to WoW extremism will be that way 100% of the time. In fact, most players sit somewhere in the middle of the scale…but it’s the extreme ones that people remember.
So, extreme or not, think about the players that stick in YOUR mind…which of them do you want to be remembered in the same way as? WoW could use a little more positive extremism to balance things out. Give it a shot.
Another nice article. I am reading your blog with a lot of interest. I try to act in the cyber-world (that includes forums, WoW, comments on blogs, chat) like I do in RL, meaning I am polite, because I know I interact with people, even if they are 10km away of 10.000 km away.
In WoW, when I was more active as an officer, I had to kick failed trials, after having that talk “You are not good enough for us, etc”, and I still tried to do that nice, without offending anyone, even if the player sucked bad or went AFK at the worst times, like one member writing in the raid chat “afk haircut” and going AFK for 30 min.
My bf is the raid leader so he sometimes raises his voice when people screw up really bad. We had players leave because they felt insulted, but everyone who knows him in game think he`s fair and we wouldn`t have done our progress without him.
To sum it up, in some cases it`s ok to be a little “dictatorial”, but to be a jerk and throw insults to the left and the right, no way. It`s a social game, you never know when you want to enter the guild of the PVP team, or need an enchant from the person you just insulted and you`ll just make an ass of yourself.
I agree wholeheartedly…sometimes it’s necessary to be firm with people when problems arise, but even that can be done in a thoughtful manner. Nobody is perfect, of course…even the nicest person in the world is a jerk occasionally. I just wish more people would TRY.