I hear ya. The culture has changed so much. I’m 40; I grew up on ‘Stick and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’ It’s why it’s impossible to offend me. I couldn’t care less what some random stranger says or thinks of me. Indifference is a powerful tool. It’s called being an adult and being mature.
But these kids…it’s not enough to simply ignore someone. They need to silence them from the world! Those people need to be punished for saying something I don’t like! It’s such a childish mentality. It really shows how intolerant our society has become.
I’m in my 20s but having grown up in the 90s playing online video games I wonder how these overly sensitive kids would have even managed to survive online gaming as little as 20 years ago.
These days it’s a traumatic event that demands justice, and back in the 90s we just called it Tuesday.
To be fair the core concept is good. It’s not like we couldn’t report people back in Vanilla, and this just frees up GM time by not needing a ticket for it.
The problem is entirely with the automated part of the system that can auto-squelch people for the mere act of being reported.
Without that it would still come down to a GM before you got punished, just like it was in Vanilla.
The culture has changed for sure but one of the biggest indicators of that change, imo, is this attitude that people should be able to spout whatever they want, wherever they want, and if someone doesn’t like it, that’s their problem.
When I played EQ, DAoC, and eventually WoW at the beginning, people didn’t sit around in cities complaining about how bored they were and making racist comments in chat.
You didn’t run up and snake someone’s node if they were fighting a mob right next to it.
You didn’t stand on top of someone else’s character and jump repetitively or block the mailbox, etc.
You didn’t attack another player who was on half hp and fighting two mobs, etc.
You didn’t constantly yell stuff and you didn’t have nonsense conversations in public channels.
I feel old saying it but there was a certain code of conduct and respect for other players experiences that came from having lived a bit of life without the internet. You don’t walk into a library and start shouting.
All of that is part of the counter-strike generation of gamers who have grown up with instanced content, sharding, short matches, etc that means they have zero accountability and consequences for being pricks to other players because they’ll probably never see them again.
There’s a pretty simple way to avoid being reported/squelched.
It’s not like GMs answering the tickets changes anything since they’d just answer with a generic “Thank you for the report we will look into the matter”.
All it did was contribute to longer wait times on tickets that actually needed the player to talk to the GM.
Insisting that the GMs use an old inefficient way of doing their jobs is in the same vein as insisting that we all use 2004 PCs to play the game.
All they need to do it remove the one aspect that actually changes things: The auto-squelch.
It really is that simple. Right click report is fine. People can simply ignore someone and as far as you’re concerned they’re squelched.
Funny thing about GM tickets. I only filled out maybe 3 or 4 during Vanilla and I would say the average wait time was 10 minutes tops. GMs were SO fast back then. WoW’s customer support was top notch at the time.
The auto squelch isn’t going anywhere. In fact the auto squelch is the only part of it that has teeth. Its the only part that makes a troll regret the system. Take away a morons microphone and watch them cry. Anyone thinking they will strip the mute is literally missing the entire point of the system.
THEY WANT to remove your access to a megaphone if you are being such a tool tons of people report you. That’s literally the intention of the system… to hit you where it hurts.
You can still play, and raid, and group, and talk to your guild and level and whatever else the game offers. But your most prized possession… access to an audience? That’s gone.