Let’s drop all the unnecessary labels and call it what it is. “Elitism”, “casuals”, “prestige”, “deserving”… all needless dressings on the nature of the problem.
The WoW community is insufferably condescending:
con·de·scend·ing
adjective
having or showing a feeling of patronizing superiority. “she thought the teachers were arrogant and condescending”
No matter how you slice it, the problems of this game ALWAYS seem to come down from the more advanced players smugly talking down to those who are having any sort of difficulty trying to make their way through the game.
Quite often, they take any sort of expressed frustration and attach some made up reasoning that the person is trying to “cheat”, “skip” or otherwise find some work-around to how the system works. They also seem to enjoy flaunting various “exclusives” (notably time-limited ones) under the justification that they’re meant to be “prestigious” or something to that effect.
But no matter what it is, it ALWAYS comes across as being talked down to.
When people ask for help… there is no compassion nor support, no offers to help or friendly advice. Instead they are met with arrogance and condescension, being told to “solve their own problem” in some form or another.
Whether or not Blizz intentionally fostered this behaviour or not, I cannot say… but they have allowed it to fester and corrupt the community over many years.
It’s no wonder most players have quit the game over the years…
It just isn’t fun to be a part of the WoW community.
You could try finding a chill guild? It’s really not that hard. Some things are meant to be prestigious. You sound like you want everything to be a participation trophy.
The community was plenty terrible back in the “good ol’ days.” Tbh, I probably would have quit years ago if I didn’t have friends and guildies to play with.
If you think someone riding a limited-time mount while AFking in Boralus is the worst thing in the world, then just stick with single player games. MMOs aren’t appealing to everyone.
As expected, several cases of being talked down to for complaining.
Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
Well, at least this is an attempt at friendly advice…
… and you lost it.
While almost certainly not the intent, you are starting to talk down with that seemingly innocent little line right there. It’s the little things like these which reinforce the issue and have allowed it to become a systematic problem.
Sorry, but I had to take this as an example to show how prolific and ingrained the issue is.
There’s plenty of more accomplished players who will answer questions and help folks. And there’s plenty of not so accomplished folks just complaining about various things that the folks who put in tons of time and energy have.
Not acting like a jerk goes both ways in the community.
i go out of my way for the community the problem is the people who do not want to improve. if you are bad at the game thats okay im willing to help and teach but when someone just simply wants to be carried through everything thats not what i wanna see. Those are the things wrong with the community the people who do not wanna get better yet still wanna do same content as everyone else. People in my guild are like this…they want me to get their 15 done for the week but have no urge of improving to the point where they can. Every week i help them tho(for the guild) but every week they get hit by same mechanics.
This is entirely false. I go out of my way to actively coach people who voice wanting it, and people from these forums can confirm that. I’ve brought people into my discord and taught them everything I could on a subject without ever once talking down to someone. Generalizations are bad.
Is there an approved list of things we can say that won’t hurt your feelings? Because “it’s really not that hard” isn’t offensive unless you’re trying to be offended.
Granted the wording of the OP is not stellar, the message is still relevant. I know I’ll lay off on the condescending crap. I just want to be able to chat about the game and not argue, I’m done with that.