Harrassment, elitism, bullying and toxic behavior were far more prolific in games like EQ1 than in today's MMOs because in today's MMOs you can just walk away. In most scenarios, there is no way another player can affect you or how you play the game. This is because countless changes have been made over the past decade specifically to protect people from the vile cesspools borne in EQ1 and some other earlier games.
If you didn't experience it in EQ1, then that might be because you weren't the group on the receiving end.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Loktofeit Harrassment, elitism, bullying and toxic behavior were far more prolific in games like EQ1 than in today's MMOs because in today's MMOs you can just walk away. In most scenarios, there is no way another player can affect you or how you play the game. This is because countless changes have been made over the past decade specifically to protect people from the vile cesspools borne in EQ1 and some other earlier games. If you didn't experience it in EQ1, then that might be because you weren't the group on the receiving end.
totally disagree with this. to this day i have never seen a community as a whole work together like it did in EQ.
if people even did the most minor of grieving, they were often black listed and shunned by the community and likely kicked from their guild.
even on the pvp server i played on (vallon zek) the community was far better and less toxic than most current mmo's
for example, if i was on a mob and someone came by to kill me, they would wait until that mob was dead and usually let me heal up and get mana back before proceeding to kick the crap out of me.
in some cases they would rez me and buff me up before i had to loot and scoot from the zone (if i died to them in pvp). there was honor in playing your character in EQ and if you dishonored yourself or your guild, it was usually met with harsh consequences.
heck, ive heard of many people back in the day that got black listed for being a griefing jerk that had to either leave the server or re-roll because nobody will group with them and no guild worth a crap wanted them.
mmo's today have none of that (although there are guilds with similar standards). i remember when i first tried wow and that community was the exact opposite from what i was used to.
the more of an ass you were, especially on the forums, the more people thought you were "cool".
there is no need to work together with other players like there was in EQ, people can openly act like jerks and there is no consequence.
to be honest, i question if you even played EQ if you actually think those communities are more toxic than most of the mmo's we see today.
sure there was elitism, just like there is in all raid centric mmo's. but more toxic behavior than in current mmo's? you have to be joking.....
People tend to look at forums for an mmo, or even these forums, and make an incorrect assumption that this is what an actual mmo is like. Forum culture and in game culture are polar opposites in my experience.
I've met plenty of people from these forums in an mmo and once we start talking, it almost always comes up how the way we behave on these forums are not how we behave in an actual game.
Press that quit button then and solo in your instance ? if that does not sound like a punishment to you,it is really ok ,believe me,that is your dream come true MMO so enjoy.
MMOs are not dreams .. they are just entertainment .. but yeah .. I solo in instances all the time. In fact, i often ignore group request. And yes, not only it does not sound like a punishment .. it is great .. i do enjoy that often. In fact, I just had a solo instanced dungeon in D3 today .. loads of fun .. tweak a build and try new things (also because of a new gear drop).
And given by that group and solo poll on the other topic, I am not the only one .. may even be in the majority.
And back to harassment .. i would love to see how one can harass me or another in an instanced game like that. I have grouped before too .. but again, if there is anything i don't like for 5 seconds, i will quit and find another group (which takes just 5 seconds). In fact, other players are no different than intelligent NPCs that you can discard at will .. so how can they harass anyone?
You just nailed the whole thread just there. That's the problem. No players are NOT the same as NPCs. They are human beings with emotions. The idea that they do not exist beyond yourself is the problem with the internet, you don't see the damage you are doing. Most people have a conscience and some form of morality but when they think of human being as pieces of code that don't exist beyond their computer screen they can treat them with immunity to their conscience and morality.
Now I'm not saying ignoring someone asking to group you is harassment or hell even necessarily wrong in the slightest way but your still describing the attitude problem people have on the internet.
and you dont' get the point .. how can anyone treat another with impunity when such interactions are not even possible?
I did not claim that people are nice (in fact, there are pretty toxic people in games), but that harassment is not possible because it is programmed out, and not physically possible.
And we are talking about games ... if some strangers have an "attitude problem" when playing their games, and they do not affect me, why should i care?
People still play LoL (although not me) when the "community" is toxic, right? So clearly this "bad" attitude is not a problem preventing people to have fun.
Originally posted by OhhPaigey Yeah, I've had to deal with some creepy stuff lmao.
By creepy, do you mean guys playing female characters sending you whispers of sweet nothings to your male characters?
Like people finding out my address, stalking me, getting my phone number, finding my characters on like every game, my Facebook, people sending me mail IRL, following me around different games, trying to send me money, trying to get me to quit my job to live with them, ect. And that's mainly just from WoW.
You wouldn't believe half the stories some of my guildys know/have been a part of rofl.
Heck, even some of the messages I've gotten on this forum would probably make you say 'wtf". XD
Do you want to know why you have been dealing with creepy stuff? Because you are the only one in this thread using an actual photo as your avatar.
Let's check: Female sounding username, picture of female teenager as avatar, post about perceived online harassment. That's attention whoring 101.
It's people like you who give female gamers a bad reputation.
Hmmm, do we have to have the whole "asking for it" debate here now? I'll start by repeating what I've said and keeping it small. "The point is we shouldn't be blaming the victim of getting [harassed] because we told them how to avoid it after the incident happened, especially since it's often youth involved."
He makes a good point... regardless of the "asking for it debate"...
ANd yes we should blame folks for putting themselves out there in such an environment, especially teenaged girls. That's not blaming them for getting harassed, it's blaming them for not taking harassment into account when making such decisions. Your well being is first and foremost in your own hands after all.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw the photo as the avatar. Why wouldn't guys be sending you all kind of requests when they think you look like that? May be change it to a chibi ? Just a suggestion.
for example, if i was on a mob and someone came by to kill me, they would wait until that mob was dead and usually let me heal up and get mana back before proceeding to kick the crap out of me.
If anyone ever wonders if people look at the older MMOs with a 'skewed' view, this is the cherry on the icing on the cake of nostalgia to link to.
On the off chance that you actually somehow believe that was the norm and you're not [specialposting]...
Just... WOW.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
for example, if i was on a mob and someone came by to kill me, they would wait until that mob was dead and usually let me heal up and get mana back before proceeding to kick the crap out of me.
If anyone ever wonders if people look at the older MMOs with a 'skewed' view, this is the cherry on the icing on the cake of nostalgia to link to.
On the off chance that you actually somehow believe that was the norm and you're not [specialposting]...
In eq blacklists were only used by a very few guilds. The community at large knew of the lists but had never seen them abd for the most part didn't care. It was only afew guilds that even bothered with then. The idea that the blacklists actually worked for the server at large is a myth
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by Chrisbox Everyone has gotten significantly better at video games since the EQ days, thus expectations rise and people get angry when other players don't meet said expectations. Just the nature of the internet.
Nope, everyone have become a lot worse on videogames since then. the games have just become a lot easier now.
Heck, ran a few Commodore 64 games a year ago and was shocked, I remember them as being very easy games as a kid but years of dumbing down had really put me off my game.
Of course since it is incredible easy besides a few harder dungeons and raids people could get annoyed on people that can't do easy stuff but I doubt that is the problem. I think it have way more to do with the fact that MMOers used to be a rather small niche group of people with the same interests (and many of them were old pen and paper roleplayers). Now everybody and their grandmother plays so there is not the same connection as we had in the old days.
Everybody is better at computer games now.. ROTFL.
Actually I find most players very polite compared to the old days. I've never seen 'thank you' and 'please' typed so much. Then again I don't group that often. People can get very competitive and angry in groups or areas with lots of players and few quest spawns.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Compared to when I played EQ, harassment is much much more pronounced.
100x more players = 100x the chance of finding a jerk
its all relevant. The MMO genre has a far larger playerbase
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Harrassment, elitism, bullying and toxic behavior were far more prolific in games like EQ1 than in today's MMOs because in today's MMOs you can just walk away. In most scenarios, there is no way another player can affect you or how you play the game. This is because countless changes have been made over the past decade specifically to protect people from the vile cesspools borne in EQ1 and some other earlier games.
If you didn't experience it in EQ1, then that might be because you weren't the group on the receiving end.
Why couldn't you walk away from EQ? There were other games available in 1999. Hell, you could of even re-rolled if EQ was that important to you.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Originally posted by Octagon7711 Actually I find most players very polite compared to the old days. I've never seen 'thank you' and 'please' typed so much. Then again I don't group that often. People can get very competitive and angry in groups or areas with lots of players and few quest spawns.
I think there are a higher percentage of rude players now but the rude ones back then were way more extreme. The ones today are mainly annoying.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar In eq blacklists were only used by a very few guilds. The community at large knew of the lists but had never seen them abd for the most part didn't care. It was only afew guilds that even bothered with then. The idea that the blacklists actually worked for the server at large is a myth
Not true. Most of the jerks were well known. Claiming otherwise only makes me think you weren't there.
If in real life "six degrees of separation" theory states every person is six people away from knowing everyone through a friend of a friend. On a server with a few thousand people, its therefore highly unlikely that 1 of the 6 people in your group didn't know whether a guy was a known troll.
Originally posted by Octagon7711 Actually I find most players very polite compared to the old days. I've never seen 'thank you' and 'please' typed so much. Then again I don't group that often. People can get very competitive and angry in groups or areas with lots of players and few quest spawns.
Really, I can barely get a "hi" out of current MMO when a group forms. If you get a hi out of a group, count yourself lucky. That's a far cry from people getting married in MMO and having real life guild meetings.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar In eq blacklists were only used by a very few guilds. The community at large knew of the lists but had never seen them abd for the most part didn't care. It was only afew guilds that even bothered with then. The idea that the blacklists actually worked for the server at large is a myth
Not true. Most of the jerks were well known. Claiming otherwise only makes me think you weren't there.
Agree, jerks were well known in Everquest. The community cared a whole lot who they were, because the community depended on each other.
As far as elitism, elitism doesn't necessarily mean "jerk". I had some pretty fancy gear, was fully decked out in CoA, and I ran open raids for players and had a guild for our alts and newbies to EQ. I liked having the latest gear, however, I was never a jerk about it, if anything it was extremely gratifying being in a position where you could help others.
Harrassment, elitism, bullying and toxic behavior were far more prolific in games like EQ1 than in today's MMOs because in today's MMOs you can just walk away. In most scenarios, there is no way another player can affect you or how you play the game. This is because countless changes have been made over the past decade specifically to protect people from the vile cesspools borne in EQ1 and some other earlier games.
If you didn't experience it in EQ1, then that might be because you weren't the group on the receiving end.
Why couldn't you walk away from EQ? There were other games available in 1999. Hell, you could of even re-rolled if EQ was that important to you.
What a weird response.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by OhhPaigey Yeah, I've had to deal with some creepy stuff lmao.
By creepy, do you mean guys playing female characters sending you whispers of sweet nothings to your male characters?
Like people finding out my address, stalking me, getting my phone number, finding my characters on like every game, my Facebook, people sending me mail IRL, following me around different games, trying to send me money, trying to get me to quit my job to live with them, ect. And that's mainly just from WoW.
You wouldn't believe half the stories some of my guildys know/have been a part of rofl.
Heck, even some of the messages I've gotten on this forum would probably make you say 'wtf". XD
Do you want to know why you have been dealing with creepy stuff? Because you are the only one in this thread using an actual photo as your avatar.
Let's check: Female sounding username, picture of female teenager as avatar, post about perceived online harassment. That's attention whoring 101.
It's people like you who give female gamers a bad reputation.
Actually the worst cases of harassment, and most of them I've had to deal with were on WoW, where I was just a character, I've had two weird people message me from these forums, but other than that it's fairly normal, but I guess I'm an attention whore for playing a female character on WoW, my fault, sorry. :>
It's people like you who give male gamers are bad reputation, btw.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
Originally posted by OhhPaigey Yeah, I've had to deal with some creepy stuff lmao.
By creepy, do you mean guys playing female characters sending you whispers of sweet nothings to your male characters?
Like people finding out my address, stalking me, getting my phone number, finding my characters on like every game, my Facebook, people sending me mail IRL, following me around different games, trying to send me money, trying to get me to quit my job to live with them, ect. And that's mainly just from WoW.
You wouldn't believe half the stories some of my guildys know/have been a part of rofl.
Heck, even some of the messages I've gotten on this forum would probably make you say 'wtf". XD
Do you want to know why you have been dealing with creepy stuff? Because you are the only one in this thread using an actual photo as your avatar.
Let's check: Female sounding username, picture of female teenager as avatar, post about perceived online harassment. That's attention whoring 101.
It's people like you who give female gamers a bad reputation.
Actually the worst cases of harassment, and most of them I've had to deal with were on WoW, where I was just a character, I've had two weird people message me from these forums, but other than that it's fairly normal, but I guess I'm an attention whore for playing a female character on WoW, my fault, sorry. :>
It's people like you who give male gamers are bad reputation, btw.
If you stop using hot pics of yourself making kissy faces as forum avatars, it might solve the stalker problem.
If you stop using hot pics of yourself making kissy faces as forum avatars, it might solve the stalker problem.
real subtle there, amigo.
oh and as for you paigey, you use the exact same name where you post your pictures and information on what seems to be damn near everything you play or chat on. you can google "ohhpaigey" and it brings up all sorts of stuff. you can pretend it's not attention whoring, but it is. if you weren't doing it for attention, you wouldn't post your shit all over the place and expect people not to notice the "coincidence".
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar In eq blacklists were only used by a very few guilds. The community at large knew of the lists but had never seen them abd for the most part didn't care. It was only afew guilds that even bothered with then. The idea that the blacklists actually worked for the server at large is a myth
Not true. Most of the jerks were well known. Claiming otherwise only makes me think you weren't there.
If in real life "six degrees of separation" theory states every person is six people away from knowing everyone through a friend of a friend. On a server with a few thousand people, its therefore highly unlikely that 1 of the 6 people in your group didn't know whether a guy was a known troll.
You are correct.
Everquest you had a reputation to uphold and not upholding it would give you and your guild a bad name. Today this doesn't matter much but back then a bad rep could prevent you from getting groups or invited to guilds or worst. As a Shadowknight I always kept my usefulness in mind (there were better choices for tank) so I always volunteered to pull or do corpse runs just to give my name a good shine so next time when i'm on the long waiting list for the Frenzied Ghoul in Lower Guk my kindness is remembered and i'm less likely to be maliciously shuffled down to the bottom of the list after 3 hours of waiting.
Comments
Harrassment, elitism, bullying and toxic behavior were far more prolific in games like EQ1 than in today's MMOs because in today's MMOs you can just walk away. In most scenarios, there is no way another player can affect you or how you play the game. This is because countless changes have been made over the past decade specifically to protect people from the vile cesspools borne in EQ1 and some other earlier games.
If you didn't experience it in EQ1, then that might be because you weren't the group on the receiving end.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
totally disagree with this. to this day i have never seen a community as a whole work together like it did in EQ.
if people even did the most minor of grieving, they were often black listed and shunned by the community and likely kicked from their guild.
even on the pvp server i played on (vallon zek) the community was far better and less toxic than most current mmo's
for example, if i was on a mob and someone came by to kill me, they would wait until that mob was dead and usually let me heal up and get mana back before proceeding to kick the crap out of me.
in some cases they would rez me and buff me up before i had to loot and scoot from the zone (if i died to them in pvp). there was honor in playing your character in EQ and if you dishonored yourself or your guild, it was usually met with harsh consequences.
heck, ive heard of many people back in the day that got black listed for being a griefing jerk that had to either leave the server or re-roll because nobody will group with them and no guild worth a crap wanted them.
mmo's today have none of that (although there are guilds with similar standards). i remember when i first tried wow and that community was the exact opposite from what i was used to.
the more of an ass you were, especially on the forums, the more people thought you were "cool".
there is no need to work together with other players like there was in EQ, people can openly act like jerks and there is no consequence.
to be honest, i question if you even played EQ if you actually think those communities are more toxic than most of the mmo's we see today.
sure there was elitism, just like there is in all raid centric mmo's. but more toxic behavior than in current mmo's? you have to be joking.....
People tend to look at forums for an mmo, or even these forums, and make an incorrect assumption that this is what an actual mmo is like. Forum culture and in game culture are polar opposites in my experience.
I've met plenty of people from these forums in an mmo and once we start talking, it almost always comes up how the way we behave on these forums are not how we behave in an actual game.
and you dont' get the point .. how can anyone treat another with impunity when such interactions are not even possible?
I did not claim that people are nice (in fact, there are pretty toxic people in games), but that harassment is not possible because it is programmed out, and not physically possible.
And we are talking about games ... if some strangers have an "attitude problem" when playing their games, and they do not affect me, why should i care?
People still play LoL (although not me) when the "community" is toxic, right? So clearly this "bad" attitude is not a problem preventing people to have fun.
He makes a good point... regardless of the "asking for it debate"...
ANd yes we should blame folks for putting themselves out there in such an environment, especially teenaged girls. That's not blaming them for getting harassed, it's blaming them for not taking harassment into account when making such decisions. Your well being is first and foremost in your own hands after all.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If anyone ever wonders if people look at the older MMOs with a 'skewed' view, this is the cherry on the icing on the cake of nostalgia to link to.
On the off chance that you actually somehow believe that was the norm and you're not [specialposting]...
Just... WOW.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The MMO market has been expanded to include the Mortal Kombat punks.
Good for the bottom line, bad for the community.
------------
2024: 47 years on the Net.
LMAO WOW for reals....
Nope, everyone have become a lot worse on videogames since then. the games have just become a lot easier now.
Heck, ran a few Commodore 64 games a year ago and was shocked, I remember them as being very easy games as a kid but years of dumbing down had really put me off my game.
Of course since it is incredible easy besides a few harder dungeons and raids people could get annoyed on people that can't do easy stuff but I doubt that is the problem. I think it have way more to do with the fact that MMOers used to be a rather small niche group of people with the same interests (and many of them were old pen and paper roleplayers). Now everybody and their grandmother plays so there is not the same connection as we had in the old days.
Everybody is better at computer games now.. ROTFL.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
100x more players = 100x the chance of finding a jerk
its all relevant. The MMO genre has a far larger playerbase
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Why couldn't you walk away from EQ? There were other games available in 1999. Hell, you could of even re-rolled if EQ was that important to you.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I think there are a higher percentage of rude players now but the rude ones back then were way more extreme. The ones today are mainly annoying.
Not true. Most of the jerks were well known. Claiming otherwise only makes me think you weren't there.
If in real life "six degrees of separation" theory states every person is six people away from knowing everyone through a friend of a friend. On a server with a few thousand people, its therefore highly unlikely that 1 of the 6 people in your group didn't know whether a guy was a known troll.
Really, I can barely get a "hi" out of current MMO when a group forms. If you get a hi out of a group, count yourself lucky. That's a far cry from people getting married in MMO and having real life guild meetings.
Agree, jerks were well known in Everquest. The community cared a whole lot who they were, because the community depended on each other.
As far as elitism, elitism doesn't necessarily mean "jerk". I had some pretty fancy gear, was fully decked out in CoA, and I ran open raids for players and had a guild for our alts and newbies to EQ. I liked having the latest gear, however, I was never a jerk about it, if anything it was extremely gratifying being in a position where you could help others.
"lack of 'thick skin' at all time high - are we facing an epidemic?"
researches envision dark times are comming
2020: 12year old's concerned they might get sued by 40+ over hurt feelings.
2030: talking about lack of skill becomes social taboo
2040: gear acceptance the next big movement?
Pi*1337/100 = 42
What a weird response.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Actually the worst cases of harassment, and most of them I've had to deal with were on WoW, where I was just a character, I've had two weird people message me from these forums, but other than that it's fairly normal, but I guess I'm an attention whore for playing a female character on WoW, my fault, sorry. :>
It's people like you who give male gamers are bad reputation, btw.
If you stop using hot pics of yourself making kissy faces as forum avatars, it might solve the stalker problem.
real subtle there, amigo.
oh and as for you paigey, you use the exact same name where you post your pictures and information on what seems to be damn near everything you play or chat on. you can google "ohhpaigey" and it brings up all sorts of stuff. you can pretend it's not attention whoring, but it is. if you weren't doing it for attention, you wouldn't post your shit all over the place and expect people not to notice the "coincidence".
You are correct.
Everquest you had a reputation to uphold and not upholding it would give you and your guild a bad name. Today this doesn't matter much but back then a bad rep could prevent you from getting groups or invited to guilds or worst. As a Shadowknight I always kept my usefulness in mind (there were better choices for tank) so I always volunteered to pull or do corpse runs just to give my name a good shine so next time when i'm on the long waiting list for the Frenzied Ghoul in Lower Guk my kindness is remembered and i'm less likely to be maliciously shuffled down to the bottom of the list after 3 hours of waiting.