one thing i'll say is that i think toxicity will actually go down over time. this is not generally how it works, but Classic WoW is a different beast from anything else. you cited Overwatch, or Fallout 76, etc...those are new games that everyone is coming to, new. none of us know what to expect, or how to act, or whats important, etc...it's very much a wild west, every time. WoW Classic is a returning game, and i think the real backbone of the community is going to be people like us. the old guard that remember what it was like "back in my day...". the way i see it, we already know what we want and how we want it. New games dont start with a 'backbone' community like that. so, we are very much going to be setting the pace for how the game/community evolves overtime. Sure, there will be a 'wild west' at launch. but there will be repercussions, and eventually people that don't 'fit in' will find themselves getting pushed out.
as a quick side note, there's another kind of community toxicity in the form of e-peen grandstanding. things like "you think THATS a good item? you suck at this game, noob". vanilla wow has been around for umpteen years. we know whats viable. we have all the data. we know all the everything. sure, some new people will be ignorant of stuff, but there wont really be a point to someone 'showing off' their vast knowledge of the game by putting them down....we ALL have access to that vast knowledge. so i think its much more likely the community will meet new players with an attitude of "if you dont know, you can find more info here..." because, at the very least, its easier than starting an argument that wont win you anything.
tl;dr new games get MORE toxic over time, because there is no core community. the toxic crowd usually has the loudest voices and fills that void over time. WoW Classic is an old game, with a pre-established core community. we'll be the arbiters of how people should act, and the toxic voice won't be able to establish dominance in the community. over time, that toxicity will be burnt out in our crucible.
The only way to 100% avoid toxicity is to avoid other players altogether.
I need my safe space!
I absolutely love the idea of what you're trying to create with your guild. I've been planning on creating something similar on my server once the game launches, still searching for the name. But the idea of a guild that exists just to help people is awesome. It also works well for me since my favorite part of WoW has always been world pvp, and gankers are the most common thing that anyone needs help with. I think that by just attempting to create such a guild, you will probably make great strides towards creating the "non-toxic" environment you're looking for, at the very least within your guild. If nothing else it's a noble pursuit.
I absolutely love the idea of what you're trying to create with your guild. I've been planning on creating something similar on my server once the game launches, still searching for the name. But the idea of a guild that exists just to help people is awesome. It also works well for me since my favorite part of WoW has always been world pvp, and gankers are the most common thing that anyone needs help with. I think that by just attempting to create such a guild, you will probably make great strides towards creating the "non-toxic" environment you're looking for, at the very least within your guild. If nothing else it's a noble pursuit.
Oh hey this post made me create my own guild :razz: hah, I'd forgotten about the origins of my train of thought.
Thanks for the kind words. While this post is the origins of the guild, I'm just here to say that our main goal is pretty much helping out anyone we can, and being good examples of decent players.
This doesn't mean not ganking people.
This doesn't mean our rogues will not be waiting for an ally to get low on HP and cheap shot them, and wait for a mob to finish them off so they have to pay repair bills. It's a PvP server so we will not be monitoring any PvP related behaviour. From our code of conduct:
Attacking another alliance player is fair game, regardless of the situation. However killing a player over and over again with the intend to cause frustration (camping) could be considered griefing. While we won't be enforcing this rule when it comes to World PvP, just remember the human being on the other side.
So we leave it up to the players conscience. I personally won't be corpse camping anyone (unless they managed to piss me off royally), but I won't police anyone doing it.
What we do have for rules is simple; help others!
:white_check_mark:Buff other players!
:white_check_mark:If you see someone accidentally pulling multiple mobs, and/or is about to die, help them!
:white_check_mark:If you see another horde being ganked, help them!
:white_check_mark:Tip mages for their portal. Casting a portal costs a Rune, which costs 18-20 silver to buy. It is customary to tip a little bit more than just the raw cost of the material. Also tipping a mage for 3-4 stacks of food and water is strongly suggested, as it costs you less vs. outright buying it from the vendor. Plus, you'll soon make a lot of mage friends with tipping!
:white_check_mark:If you see a horde fighting mob(s) next to an herb/mining node, chances are they want to gather it. Do not swoop in and collect it.
:white_check_mark:Ask someone before you invite them to a party.
:white_check_mark:Ask someone before you open a trade window with them (unless you are trading, or giving away free items).
:white_check_mark: In dungeons, roll before looting a chest or container. If you see a chest during combat, wait until combat is over before announcing your discovery and making your roll ("Roll for chest").
:white_check_mark:Not a rule, but suggestion: tanks and healers, try to offer your services for free! This is one of the best ways to promote our guild (and make friends)!
:x:Do not troll or grief other players, horde and alliance likewise. Do not beg for money.
:x:Attacking another alliance player is fair game, regardless of the situation. However killing a player over and over again with the intend to cause frustration (camping) could be considered griefing. While we won't be enforcing this rule when it comes to World PvP, just remember the human being on the other side.
:x:Do not ninja-loot. Ninja-looting refers to taking an item (usually in a dungeon setting) while not intending to use it, or using it for an off-spec. The unwritten rule in Classic is that you should need an item only for the current spec you are playing as (tank, healer or DPS), and that item is an upgrade for you. If you need an item for your off-spec, ask the party if it's OK to roll Need on it before actually rolling. For BoE blues/epics, consult the party.
:x:Unless it's an emergency, do not leave parties in the middle of a dungeon. Make sure you can commit the time before you start a run.
:x:Do not push the tank to go faster at a dungeon ("GO GO GO!"). They could be new players, or new to tanking, or less skilled in the game. Give them time to adjust.
:x:Do not scam other players.
:x:Do not use tactless, excessive profanity.
:x:Do not spam.
:x:Do not engage in illegal activities (botting, gold buying/selling or hacking).
Which basicallyt boils down to this....
:white_check_mark:Be an awesome person.
:x:Don't be a jerk.
So far we have like 16 people interested with the idea, so I'm clearly not alone :smile:
We don't think that the gaming in general can be toxicity free, and we are not a "hurr safe space" guild like that one anonymous person here proclaimed. I don't think anyone in our guild thinks that we can "change the gaming scene to an awesome carebear environment", just that we want to have meaninful encounters who make you feel good about them at the end of the day. I think that's what's going to matter in Classic for me, and hopefully for others.
I honestly think toxicity is just a side effect of a healthy community. It can surely can be the downfall of one, but it's up to the people to try to balance out the inevitable trolls.
and we are not a "hurr safe space" guild like that one anonymous person here proclaimed
Anonymity is a lovely thing isn't it. It was yet another example of toxicity that exists in the human psyche. I'm looking forward to seeing <GRFR> come to fruition Gallow.
Camping someone for hours on PvP servers
Whenever someone camps your body for literally two hours, B R E A T H. And tell to yourself, "Don't let them get to your brain".
It's a part of the G A M E.
Toxicity is a weird phenomenon, once someone famous talks about a problem and how much he hates it, everyone starts to hate it, just look at BfA, when you ask what's wrong with the game, instead of making their own arguments people will phrase some popular Youtuber/Streamer's opinion.
In my opinion, the cure to toxicity is being around people who enjoys the game as much as you do, like here, right now, people on this forum is being friendly, and you guys like to help and advice others.
DELETE SOCIAL MEDIA & ENJOY WOW WITH YOUR FRIENDS.
That's the cure for toxicity.
Camping someone for hours on PvP servers
Whenever someone camps your body for literally two hours, B R E A T H. And tell to yourself, "Don't let them get to your brain".
It's a part of the G A M E.
The second I realize I'm being camped I just log into an alt and do something else for a while. If some loser wants to spend an hour staring at my corpse on his 60 because I liked his lvl 25 alt with my lvl 25 main, he is welcome to ruin his own night by doing so while I take care of autions on my bank alt or screw around with another toon. Usually I'll just hang out a few minutes in ghost form to see what they do. But you can be damn sure if someone brings their main to kill me, I will be killing their low level alt every chance I get after that just on principle.
When the retailers go back
I suspect the size of an online community contributes to toxicity, akin to Dunbar's number. This may also explain why John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory seems to be more relevant the larger the size of the audience.
Throughout my gaming life, whenever I've engaged with smaller online communities such as this one I've had a good experience. Seeing familiar names and interacting with the same people over the course of some time allows the building of rapport.
That's virtually impossible with something like the official Blizzard forums. The more people there are engaged in a discussion, the more insignificant and anonymous one feels, and this seems to incentivize trolls to come out of the woodwork and feeds into our tribal tendencies. Maybe it also causes people to try harder to be edgy in order to get attention and build a "brand" for themselves.
I always try to interact with others online as I would if I were engaging with them in person.
The toxicity in games such as Overwatch is unavoidable.
I admit that I myself was a toxic player playing that unbalanced garbage... I consider myself a fairly good player, sometimes I Mercy, sometimes I Pharah, sometimes I D.VA. which were my favourite heroes that I alternate depending on my mood, I'd be more successful with these ones but more often than not I would be stuck on a losing streak, again and again and again because Blizzard cannot fix their broken match making system.
I used to be a platinum but had been dragged into silver-gold because of morons who either don't use a mouse or who are just A.I
I literally feel like I AM 1v6 because of the quality of match-making on that game.
Is this what you mean by toxicity?
Once Blizzard starts making ridiculous class-changes like reducing polymorph in PVP to 5 seconds or reducing the harmful effects of warlock curse,
you know players are going to get increasingly toxic towards each other and at Blizzard who caused the issue.
Why did Mercy have to get so dramatically changed? What the hell did they do to D.VA's armor? this is Blizzard fault.
I suspect the size of an online community contributes to toxicity, akin to Dunbar's number. This may also explain why John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory seems to be more relevant the larger the size of the audience.
Throughout my gaming life, whenever I've engaged with smaller online communities such as this one I've had a good experience. Seeing familiar names and interacting with the same people over the course of some time allows the building of rapport.
That's virtually impossible with something like the official Blizzard forums. The more people there are engaged in a discussion, the more insignificant and anonymous one feels, and this seems to incentivize trolls to come out of the woodwork and feeds into our tribal tendencies. Maybe it also causes people to try harder to be edgy in order to get attention and build a "brand" for themselves.
I always try to interact with others online as I would if I were engaging with them in person.
I think this kills most communities. When too many people are involved, people become just another face / username in the crowd and people just start being assholes to each other. Probably does have something to do with being impossible to build or maintain rapport with a large number of people at the same time.
But there are great sites like 4chan which are hilarious because everybody is anonymous and everybody is an asshole by default, lol. High traffic anonymous image boards are great. But they are a very different experience and place than a web forum. They have their own place.
Probably the only way to hope this place stays civil is to hope that most people stay on Reddit. If this place ever gets flooded with 100k+ new people then the quality of discussion will suffer no matter what is done to head it off.
Good points are made with the amount of players in on any given community.
On a random large forum if I see a questionable post, chances are that people will ridicule the poster.
Here I think people are more cautious in their wording. 85%+ of the replies are respectful. This doesn't mean they are correct or that I agree with them, just that people treat others nicely overal. I have seen almost no ridiculing or trolling or assholery here.
Probably because of the relatively small amount of users? Here I'm Gallow, I'm somebody. Some ppl recognize me so I behave. In a forum with 100k users I wouldn't become the flaming tard poster, but I would be just one of the faceless posters in a sea of users.
I wonder if barrens.chat will stay the same for a long time. I hope so. I know Teebling would much rather become a 50k plus user website, but I wouldn't mind a registered user cap of say 8-10k. Maybe add a queue for new registrations, or limit interaction untill certain time passes.
I know Teebling would much rather become a 50k plus user website, but I wouldn't mind a registered user cap of say 8-10k. Maybe add a queue for new registrations, or limit interaction untill certain time passes.
careful, this is how you get layering :lol:
i hope that the social aspects in-game will weed out most of the truly toxic players, and therefore they won't have much reason to frequent forums like this (aside from legit trolls, but those are easy to spot). those that do remain will likely end up in guilds with other like-minded people, and then it becomes as easy as avoiding that guild.