Is it impolite to ask questions in general chat or within a guild? A few times I have asked simple questions and the response I get is “Google it”. This has happened in both Ally and Horde chats, and I just want to make sure before I keep making a wrong move.
As mentioned above the questions have been simple, for example, “Where is the holiday vendor”
Unfortunately, the people most likely to be paying attention to the in game chats like Trade and General are the peoplke already using it to chat, which often includes attention seekers who are more likely to give you an obnoxious answer. (“Google it” is actually fairly innocuous. I often see at least a couple people give intentionally wrong answers.) Sometimes you’ll get helpful people too. It’s just the luck of the draw on who happens to be looking at the chat at the time.
The important thing to realize is that you’re not doing anything impolite. (Unless you’re spamming the same question every minute or two.) The people responding with unhelpful stuff are just being jerks. (If they don’t want to bother answering, they can just not answer.) Of course, if you don’t get a useful answer, your next best option is to google it. (Or look it up on wowhead.) Because of the chat trolls, most people will start with google for their own sanity.
If your getting non-helpful responses in guild chat (especially if they are on the hostile side) it’s a good sign that the guild is not a good fit for you. Don’t feel like you can’t leave a guild where you aren’t comfortable. It’s pretty common to have to try out multiple guilds to find a good fit.
To expand on what Udiza mentioned about guilds, you’ll find that every guild is different. For example, in my horde guild’s prime, it was a fairly hardcore pvp guild. Due to the nature and focus of the guild, a lot of players were more elitist by nature, and wouldn’t spare much time for basic questions. They’d theorycraft advanced strats, comps, and builds all day long, but it just wasn’t a place for new players that weren’t interested in the overall goal of pvp. You’ll find a lot of hardcore PvE guilds to be the same way. They’ll help get somebody into shape to join the raid team, but won’t spare much time with those who don’t understand the game yet.
My alliance guild however was built from the ground up as a new player friendly, social guild. The members there are always willing to answer questions and help people out.
It just takes some searching to find something that feels right for you.
A couple tips: If somebody is advertising a guild in trade chat and you decide to whisper them, take a few minutes and talk to them. Use it as an interview for the guild. If it seems like the person is annoyed or trying to rush you for an answer, it probably won’t be a good fit.
If you’re looking for a guild in the newly updated guild finder tool, look for guilds that mention the social aspect of their group, or even ones that specifically say they are new and returning player friendly.
Basically, you should never feel like you’re being rude for asking a question. If you’re being made to feel like you are, just /gquit and continue on with your search. If they didn’t care enough to talk to you in the guild, they won’t care if you quit.
Unfortunately your experience is not uncommon within the game culture of WoW. As Udiza mentioned, the majority of people paying attention to public chat channels tend to be a sampling of the worst personalities, out for attention or trolling rather than to be legitimately helpful.
So while it’s not “impolite” to ask questions in public chat or guild chat, you’re more likely to get a serious answer by either asking it here in the new player forums, where we tend to discourage trolls and have a fairly comprehensive collective knowledge base for both Horde and Alliance sides of things, or by doing as the disinterested types have suggested and Googling the answer for yourself.
Most times, the information you’re looking for is available out there (the site Udiza mentioned, wowhead.com is a hugely comprehensive database of information, and definitely worth a look for any and all general game-related information you might want), and it’s only really the subjective or “minor” types of things that you can get better answers about from asking people directly.
Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it! The forums, wowhead and youtube are slowly becoming my new BFFs lol.
I join random guilds with all my characters. I ask them how many do you have online before I tell them to invite me. If your in a big active social guild with a lot of players online there is a better chance some will chat and group for dungeons. The guilds I’m in usually have 50-100 online at any given time.
I would expect jerks in general and trade chat, but in guild chat? Your guild should be helpful. You may get a few wise guys in your guide but you should also very quickly get help. If you don’t, you’re in the wrong guild.
I’ve seen this a bunch of times. The types of guilds that new players can find (usually though the Guild finder feature) and actually let new players in typically just let anyone in and rarely have I heard of them being helpful more than half the time it seems. Then when you tell them its the wrong guild for them to be in they just say “All I want is for some funny chat to read while I quest and people to see my achievements” 