Players attitudes

[LucidSpirit]

One of the many reasons why I joined a WoW site (nice site btw) is to get some opinions/reasons as to why players, especially what I can only describe as the ignorant, pubescent males, behave so crudely.

Don’t get me wrong, banter can be and is fun, but what I am talking about is something a little darker.

For instance, I know of a player who started life out in WoW as a reasonable and apparently rather balanced guy. In fact, I have done couple of dungeons with him and thought he’s a rather decent and honourable fellow. Now, being a casual player (I don’t play nowhere as often as he does), he has levelled extremely fast and is now in his late 60s, compared to my 45 mage main. But when I bumped into him recently, couldn’t helped noticing that he was constantly rude to less experienced players. “Noob” seems to be his favourite word at the moment, preceded by some carefully selected profanity. This is surprising because when he was learning the ropes, I seem to recall him pestering lots of other players to assist him with his quests.

I don’t believe that Hordes are far more civil than the Alliance or vica-versa for the simple reason that many players have characters in both factions. However, and although I am generalising, I do believe that gender seems to play a role.

So the question(s) are:

Does WoW make some people more aggressive or is it likely that it only magnifies these sorts of negative traits that are already deeply woven into the personality?

Does the pseudo-anonymity of the internet provide a false sense of security, allowing the more socially inept to behave nastily, and in some cases abhorrently towards other players? If this is the case, this problem is not exclusive to WoW.

Just some thoughts.

LucidSpirit

[Azaha]

People can hide behind the character, probably find if fronted by someone in "real-life" they would be scared of their own shadows !

[Toxicshadow]

There can be quite a few reasons why a person is rude to you. The second to most common is probably that they know you don't know who they are, and thus they don't mind loosing a friend if they can't gain anything off him.. Then there's the schoolkids who know that the bullies seem popular and thus try to be one..

And finally there's the class I believe myself to be in (which is actually FAR more common than the anonyms):
The other cultures. If you go from having learned to speak English at a school where what you'd refer to as profanity is considered even a bit too polite, filtering out all those words will take years (did for me) and so you'll end up offending a lot of those who've been raised to that "****" is enough to send the guy saying it to the hospital. Also applies in less extreme cases.


Oh and one more thing: Before he started refering too you as a "noob", had there by any chance been a long break in communications between you? If you haven't spoken to him in a few weeks, names are a lot less distinctive than faces and thus he might've had no memory of who you were. How do you react when some random guy starts asking questions?
Personally I believe in paying it forward, and thus try to be helpful and polite to anyone who asks me a question as that was how I was treated when I was a noob, but if someone I've never met asks me for money, items, or going through an instance with him, I do tend to get a little.. blunt.

[Drakkor]

I agree people hide behind thier Char, but it's the same in online forums too. I like to help out others because others have helped me. I am still a NOOB to WoW, only been playing about 4 months, but I can help even less experienced players than myself. If someone is rude, simple I just "ignore" them. If someone is polite I go out of my to help them. I think some of what you are talking about is also younger players that find it humorous to be crude online because they cannot speak/act that way in "life".

Just my .02

[piscene]

I think that some of it is that they can hide behind the anonymity of their toon. Some is that they are high on the power of having a high level character. It may be the first time in some kid's life that he's ever had any power over anyone else, so its no surprise that he may go a little overboard with it, whether that be ganking, or just being rude.

[Kisark]

1) Anyonimity-you can be something you aren't in RL.
2) A lot of people are basically rude mean people and so it comes out in the game more because what can happen really?
3) bad day?
4) hang around the major cities enough and you'll get tired of the really dumb questions or the beggars that you might snap and tell folks off. Might be a defensive mechanism.

I am usually a nice person, but sometimes i get fed up with the lack of desire to help themselves people exhibit sometimes. Really how hard is it to read the book or check one of the websites? I think some folks are really into instant gratification so they just find it easier to ask in chat about something as where is the weapons merchant...or the AH. When a guard will tell you and show you on the mini-map.

[moopy]

I am usually a nice person, but sometimes i get fed up with the lack of desire to help themselves people exhibit sometimes. Really how hard is it to read the book or check one of the websites? I think some folks are really into instant gratification so they just find it easier to ask in chat about something as where is the weapons merchant...or the AH. When a guard will tell you and show you on the mini-map.

My pet peeve, and it's a minor one, is people who constantly spam the trade channel with "do sum1 haev good sword 4 me?????" or "wtb a good axe". No research at all, expecting others to think for them. They even expect you to check their class and level, and then know better than them which stats are needed, source the item, and offer it up on a plate (usually below the AH price). Oh, while I am getting stuff off my chest, people who spam the trade channels for a portal between cities for longer than it takes to travel between them (especially IF and SW, where there's a tram).

Grumble, mutter, buggrem, I remember when all this was fields..

[piscene]

There's a tram?? WTF?? Where?? I better quit paying for portals... ;)

[rgirty]

pseudo-anonymity

There is your answer.

When your actions have little or no consequence people will do what they like.

That is why we have laws.

People will do what they can get away with, others will do more and go to jail and or get banned from wow.

Human nature.

[Amurko]

I behave just as rudely and obnoxiously in Wow as I do in real life..

At least you can get away with it if you don't live in a small town.

[kcma]

There is your answer.

When your actions have little or no consequence people will do what they like.

That is why we have laws.

People will do what they can get away with, others will do more and go to jail and or get banned from wow.

Human nature.

how anonymous am i? :D not very huh hehe :D