I’m not writing this because I expect anything to change, but maybe someone else experiencing the same thing will feel a little less alone.
I’ve been playing WoW since launch, and over the years, I’ve brought many others into the game. For 20 years, my family and I have used WoW as a way to stay connected—my kids (now in their 30s) still play, and their husbands have joined in too. We still do family fun runs every Saturday afternoon, and it’s been such a great way to stay connected.
But sometimes I join LFG solo, and I’ve noticed a real shift in attitude—even in casual content like Timewalking. I was trying out a new class for me (a dps monk!), and instead of just playing the dungeon, I got insulted and threatened for not keeping up with some hyper-optimized speed meta. I think the other characters moved about twice the speed I did (speed boost enchants and whatnot).
I don’t know if it’s the community or the game—or both. There’s zero time to say hi, zero time to loot, zero time to even exist before the group is charging ahead. The dungeon was done in under 10 minutes. I can’t even imagine what this might feel like to a new player who’s never seen the dungeon before! The only time I caught up was when they got lost and I knew from decades of experience where I was going.
Do I want things to move smoothly and quickly… yes! Do I want the tank to blow past things so everyone else has to deal with adds while they kill the boss? NO!
Speed can be fun. But does it have to come at the cost of basic decency?
You can play casually, but don’t expect people around you to play like you (especially since you’re a DPS), either adapt to the group, leave or find friends/family to play with… these people in que, aren’t your friend.
Also if you played since vanilla, you’d know the community has ALWAYS been aggressive.
People who chat me up in elevators are not decent.
We know what we’re here to do, and will never see each other again in our lives. There are other places to talk and be social, not something that doesn’t last long enough for any useful communication.
And yet… you seem to be debating me rather than acknowledging that maybe (a) someone has had a different experience than you in the past and (b) someone is hoping for a different game than you’re enjoying in the present.
If you’re holding the team back, you’re gonna get called out, if you can’t handle that than mute chat altogether or play a single player game. No one here can help you bud.
OH my gosh… you’re absolutely right. I am the same person. Apologies. I haven’t posted before. It posted under Galega (one of my characters but one I haven’t played in forever which I thought was odd.) So I immediately (within 2 min) deleted it and reposted on Whew, my character with the most achievement points so that people would know I was an actual player and not just someone trolling. Thanks for pointing out my very human error though!
I always try to at least say ‘thank you’. But, yes… at times, we might as well be playing ‘offline’ with ourselves off line? Especially with dungeons. They already have AI ‘follower’ dungeons. Those work pretty well.
Soon, we won’t know what is a player or not, and, whether if we are rating in the social score what kind of rewards we might get?
The community most certainly has NOT always been aggressive. There has been a gradual tilt towards the aggressive nature of the current community since Cata. It didn’t really start to become super noticeable until WoD though. Prior to WoD the community wasn’t really agressive… people may not have always been agreeable, but the aggression just simply wasn’t always there… it may have been due to how isolated WoD made everyone feel, the content drought, or the rise of certain toxic streamers… but regardless yhings weren’t always like this.
I was just thinking something very similar but was going to use a public restroom as my example. People are going there for a specific reason and conversation isn’t it.
