Toxicity and Community

I know we had this type of thread already but i kinda want to have a little conversation with you fellas out there that isn't based on a troll bait thread.

What i want to discuss about is basically your stance (mine ofc too) on what a community is and what toxicity really means when we talk about MMOs which harbor hundres of thousands of players.

My opinion about this topic is that there isn't really a community since we are so many players and there are thousands of little sub-groups like roleplayers, pve players and whatnot. Sadly at this point i have to talk also about Asmongold, i heard many people talk about how the behaivior that was shown when he started to play the game by players who obviously play the game a bit longer shows the toxicity of the XIV "community". In my opinion we could we could double or triple the amount of players that were actually trolling him and still it wouldn't have any meaning tbh since we are talking about a drip of water on a hot stone.

To me it is really strange how people talk about community as if there is this strange hivemind we all belong to. Completely ignoring that the NA playerbase is really different from the JP playerbase of the EU playerbase. But people always talk about "the community" as if all the people which are playing the game are part of this mystic hivemind blob. Meanwhile in my opinion the majority of all players don't even care about any of this and just play in their own little worlds, made out of daily beasttribes or relic grinds. So i don't get why we talk about community when only adressing the minority of some trolls which are ofc screaming the loudest and that way getting all the attention. It's like saying all americans are like trump or all journalists are paparazzis.

One extreme i witnessed was lazypeon getting death threats from some XIV zealots and then talking about how the "community" send him death threats.

So yeah, i know it's a bit of a long thread but i wanted to have a "serious" conversation about it that isn't founded on a titanmen thread. Would love to hear (or more read) what you fellas think about this topic.

I think, in general, it's about the culture found in the community.

Some people say they prefer that people can be openly insulting to others rather than be forced to do it in secret.

That's like saying they prefer people can rob openly rather than try to not get caught.

When there is a rule in place and it's enforced, there is a restraining force in place, which limits how toxic people can get, and some might even leave because of it. Passive aggressive is also not an actual replacement to open toxicity, because it can get reported too depending on what the actual behaviors are. People getting banned for disrupting Asmongold's play, for example, are being passive aggressive (or just being an overly excited fan), not directly being toxic. And they are still bound by the ToS.

Things done in secret, by definition, is not toxic because it doesn't impact the target directly. Also, people don't have to want to play with certain people without it being toxic.

I think not just in XIV but the internet in general people need to get over the fact they're supposed to cope with sharing a place on Earth with people who don't have the same point of view as them. Not all opposing views are evil.
And people need to stop prosecuting based on hearsay that they don't bother confirming themselves. That's why "fake news" was such a hot topic not long ago.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

My opinion about this topic is that there isn't really a community since we are so many players and there are thousands of little sub-groups like roleplayers, pve players and whatnot. Sadly at this point i have to talk also about Asmongold, i heard many people talk about how the behaivior that was shown when he started to play the game by players who obviously play the game a bit longer shows the toxicity of the XIV "community". In my opinion we could we could double or triple the amount of players that were actually trolling him and still it wouldn't have any meaning tbh since we are talking about a drip of water on a hot stone.

To me it is really strange how people talk about community as if there is this strange hivemind we all belong to.

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the people living in one particular area or people who are considered as a unit because of their common interests, social group, or nationality

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Just many other animals people differ from each another. You will not find a group with people being the same. And even in beehives there are different expositions (source: https://www.scinexx.de/news/biowisse...nd-angsthasen/).

That being said our community includes people who love Final Fantasy XIV. Of course there are differences in behaviour like toxicsm and other hostility.

Gamemakers create a world which attracts different people. Rules from GMs and from gamers can increase the amount of good and bad behaviour. We need to sanction toxicity and promote helping others.

You can change the environment

When I talk about people being toxic in this game I dont mean the one idiot in your PF or DF run, or that person in your FC who is kind of an ass. I mean those who have sent Death threats to streamers and youtubers such as Lazy Peon, Scottzone, and even some In community members Such as Sfia. People have also Threatend to Rape XenosysVex's Wife, People have also threatend The Devs with violence over Male Viera and Female Horthgar and iirc there were people telling Yoshi P to kill himself on Twitter as well over Male Viera and Hrothgar.

Now I wanna say these are not hot takes, this isnt a jab at XIV, but simply stating the facts, bad actors did bad things, these are people within our community, they've done this in the name of FFXIV, or to stir drama, or because they really are unhinged peoples who need help. If we're truly a community that wants any and everyone to play and enjoy the game, no matter what they're preferred way of playing it, we have to deal with these types of people. We have to remind them that opinions exist, and a difference of opinion is not worth losing your account.

What a lot of people are missing, is that interacting with games like WoW isnt as inharently bad, not just from the devs standpoint but from the community as well.

I've been playing WoW since Vanilla, when I was a child, the game as a whole was like XIV around the time I started playing which was 3.1 in HW, it was a close knit community on each server and over all everyone was nice and helpful, the game a bit more difficult but overall a worth while experience. There were some bad actors but ultimately none that were extreme, just mean spirited people who may ninja your loot or just say something hurtful, but thats life, you can always re-run the dungeon and always blacklist mean people. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with XIV. Well WoW grew, almost seemingly became popular overnight,With that growth we gained peoples from all walks of life and our close knit communities began to shatter and fade away, the game was bigger, our enviornments changed.

The same is happening to XIV as we speak, with this popularity and growth, a lot of the people who think things shouldn;t change start to act, start being tribal even to newer players. They were mean, and even chased away people flocking into WoW from Guild Wars 1, ina similar way to how a lot of the people here in XIV were with Asmongold, It got so bad the GMs had to step in and ban players. To say history repeats itself would almost be appropriate, but no this sint history, this is th enatural growth of an MMO, no matter how nice or good your community is, this is how these things naturally pan out, My advice to those who would listen is to look to older MMOs and how they handled it if the peoples here in XIV are stuggling with how on their own. The Popularity of XIV will attract many, and many from within will show just how much they care, in the worst ways possible.

There's "toxicity" everywhere. Even offline.

Online, part of it is the anonymity.

Please see John Gabriel's Greater Internet F*kwad theory (google Green blackboards and other anomalies).

Normal person + anonymity + audience = total wad.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

When I talk about people being toxic in this game I dont mean the one idiot in your PF or DF run, or that person in your FC who is kind of an ass. I mean those who have sent Death threats to streamers and youtubers such as Lazy Peon, Scottzone, and even some In community members Such as Sfia. People have also Threatend to Rape XenosysVex's Wife, People have also threatend The Devs with violence over Male Viera and Female Horthgar and iirc there were people telling Yoshi P to kill himself on Twitter as well over Male Viera and Hrothgar.

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The problem with those cases is that they are special cases directed at specific, high profile people. The average people coming into the game would likely never have those experiences. Meanwhile, people acting badly in the game in general do affect the people playing the game.

The community response to people sending all manners of threats to specific people should simply be the simple response of disavowing those people, from the general community, not just the FFXIV community, as those behaviors are criminal behaviors (or should be if not).

But it's harder disavow them when others in the community insist that those people belong to the community, and that's unfair to the community at large.

Toxicitiy is just a banket bomb statement that's basically lost all its meaning because it gets thrown around far too much about absolutely anything and everything a player may happen to disagree with..

the community on the whole is no where near as toxic as its made out to be. its just that people use that word because it's well basically fashionable at the minute.. it's a word that essentially carries as much credibility as the word casual..

casual gamers are seen as low skilled terrible entitled impatient and a million other things when a causal is really just someone who plays less frequently...

toxic basically is the same thing. anything anyone disagrees with is basically lavbelled as toxic.

want a reward go do the content the same way as everyone else... (such a toxc opinion because i want the reward handed to me)
want to do content set up a practice party in party finder same way everyone else does. (such a toxic opinion because i want to be carried)
hey you'd play your job much better if you did xyz rotation (stop telling me how to play you toxic elitist you dont pay my sub)
content is too difficult make it easier... "well you could you know stop watching netflix and actually try". (thats so toxic i dont play the game to be a second job)
i want a legacy chocobo mount because you have one (so toxic to keep it exclusive)
housing is toxic (cos i cant get a house....)

the list goes on. (it was longr but i tried to generalize it)

but it is a vastly overused word for literally anything someone does like or agree with...

blue is better than green.... god thats so toxic green is awesome why you so toxic and full of hate??

the only thing thats actually toxic in the game is the lainess and entitlement many players have. as that has a huge impact on the game for everyone else.... if you take raiding for example..

everyone says its so toxic because they need a static to do it and don't have to time to make those massive commitments they should just be able to get a group and get carried...

however that is the exact attitude that has totally destroyed the raid finder in the west. because everyone expects to be carried only to then complain noones wants to carry them or no one uses the raid finder tool precisely because it was so full of entitled people who just wanted to be carried.

by contrast in the east where players arent lazy or entitled.. literally everyone can get the content they want done.. people even pug ultimates on the jp side.....

but over here expecting players to make a tiny amount of effort is the most toxic crime of all....

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Originally Posted by linayar

The problem with those cases is that they are special cases directed at specific, high profile people. The average people coming into the game would likely never have those experiences. Meanwhile, people acting badly in the game in general do affect the people playing the game.

The community response to people sending all manners of threats to specific people should simply be the simple response of disavowing those people, from the general community, not just the FFXIV community, as those behaviors are criminal behaviors (or should be if not).

But it's harder disavow them when others in the community insist that those people belong to the community, and that's unfair to the community at large.

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That is true, and I agree, but my main point is to demonstarte and hopefully show some who thinks our community isnt capable of it that this is a long standing issue. I see a lot of people think and actively say FF isnt toxic, and if people in XIV are toxic its because they're from other games. No our community is very capable and have acted like this in the past. ANd you're right, they should let it be known that these actions arent ok, they should speak out sooner and faster.

It may be helpful to state the definition.

Toxic - very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.

So it is not just about being overused, but also about being subjective. So when people try to communicate with each other, it is better to understand how one defines harmful/unpleasant, but also to see if there is a pervasiveness or an insidiousness to what is being labeled as toxic. That's why I say that people who are restrained by the ToS are not being toxic even if their personality doesn't change.

When I see people saying the FFXIV community is not toxic, the examples they use are usually along the lines of, "Oh I made a mistake in a dungeon and people are willing to stick with the group and not kick me and/or insult me." Obviously, there are exceptions, especially if you're no longer new to the game or if it looks like you're doing it on purpose, but in general, that behavior creates a pleasant, non-toxic environment.

Now let's take a look at Asmongold's experience. Did it create an unpleasant experience for him? Definitely.

Was it harmful? Not really, as long as it stays in game, because he's used to that as a popular streamer. (Real life threats, on the other hand, are definitely harmful and serious matters.) The lines between fans and haters blur sometimes when both groups are obsessed over a celebrity.

Was it pervasive or insidious? No, because that's not how the community behaves in general. And people within the community calling it out shows that, but it doesn't help that they then seemingly blame the community at large as well.

So, is it still bad and people deserve to be banned for disrupting gameplay? Definitely.

But is it toxic? Not according to the definition, especially in light of the bans, which shows it is not an acceptable behavior.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

I've been playing WoW since Vanilla, when I was a child, the game as a whole was like XIV around the time I started playing which was 3.1 in HW, it was a close knit community on each server and over all everyone was nice and helpful, the game a bit more difficult but overall a worth while experience. There were some bad actors but ultimately none that were extreme, just mean spirited people who may ninja your loot or just say something hurtful, but thats life, you can always re-run the dungeon and always blacklist mean people. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with XIV. Well WoW grew, almost seemingly became popular overnight,With that growth we gained peoples from all walks of life and our close knit communities began to shatter and fade away, the game was bigger, our enviornments changed.

The same is happening to XIV as we speak, with this popularity and growth, a lot of the people who think things shouldn;t change start to act, start being tribal even to newer players. They were mean, and even chased away people flocking into WoW from Guild Wars 1, ina similar way to how a lot of the people here in XIV were with Asmongold, It got so bad the GMs had to step in and ban players. To say history repeats itself would almost be appropriate, but no this sint history, this is th enatural growth of an MMO, no matter how nice or good your community is, this is how these things naturally pan out, My advice to those who would listen is to look to older MMOs and how they handled it if the peoples here in XIV are stuggling with how on their own. The Popularity of XIV will attract many, and many from within will show just how much they care, in the worst ways possible.

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This is a really good point.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

want a reward go do the content the same way as everyone else... (such a toxc opinion because i want the reward handed to me)
want to do content set up a practice party in party finder same way everyone else does. (such a toxic opinion because i want to be carried)
hey you'd play your job much better if you did xyz rotation (stop telling me how to play you toxic elitist you dont pay my sub)
content is too difficult make it easier... "well you could you know stop watching netflix and actually try". (thats so toxic i dont play the game to be a second job)
i want a legacy chocobo mount because you have one (so toxic to keep it exclusive)
housing is toxic (cos i cant get a house....)

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Literally never seen that confusion at all. The carry complaints are about people who don't pull their own weight, don't use essences, etc, and still want the rewards or clears.

You can find toxicity anywhere, in all areas of life.

However, the FFXIV community is special in that there is a widely held belief that it is 'better'. All this serves to do is cause the community to readily sweep incidents under the rug, or engage in victim blaming. If you do end up being the victim of Toxicity in FFXIV, it can feel really amplified because of this.

People that go out of their way to project how much of a good person they are usually turn out to be some of the worst people (There're some great examples of that on this very board). Virtue signaling is extremely rampant in the FFXIV community and often goes unquestioned, allowing noxious individuals to flip the script and frame themselves as moral paragons in the community. Amusingly enough, some of the most outspoken of these people are actually known bad actors from the tumblr days, who've moved to FFXIV twitter and continue to ply their craft and instigate the same drama.

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Originally Posted by linayar

It may be helpful to state the definition.

Toxic - very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.

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Its why I used the streamer and youtuber examples, its a lot more closer to the original meaning when compared to how its been used a lot lately as a buzzword. Those people were being fairly toxic. But the people harassing Asmongold? Within that original definition no they were just being annoying.

So at this point we have to look at intent, and with what we've seen if we're to beleieve its true, they had a toxic intent, tho the means by which they did what they did isn't toxic. To look at the base term within the MMO space Toxic is used more so as short hand for someone being rude or mean. Some behaviours may fall into the actual dictionary term of Toxic, but in my experience with the older FF community and WoWs community I would say those behaviours are usually from people who arent putting others within healthy situations, being manupulative, gas lighting etc. But I would also say within my own experiences such situations were rare™ as many were embarassed to speak about it openly back then, or simply wanted to move on from said situations.

So The shorthand term used in the MMO space has changed a lot over the years, and the text book term where in someone is being: "Toxic - very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way" is something thats a lot more nuanced then what most people realized. And I hope more people can realize that, and stop using the term for something as simple as "Hey you shouldn't be only spamming medica 1" , when something more like what People have done within MMOs for a long time which is manipulate people for their own ends is more so Toxic.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

You can find toxicity anywhere, in all areas of life.

However, the FFXIV community is special in that there is a widely held belief that it is 'better'. All this serves to do is cause the community to readily sweep incidents under the rug, or engage in victim blaming. If you do end up being the victim of Toxicity in FFXIV, it can feel really amplified because of this.

People that go out of their way to project how much of a good person they are usually turn out to be some of the worst people (There're some great examples of that on this very board). Virtue signaling is extremely rampant in the FFXIV community and often goes unquestioned, and allowing noxious individuals to flip the script and frame themselves as moral paragons in the community. Amusingly enough, some of the most outspoken of these people are actually known bad actors from the tumblr days, who've moved to FFXIV twitter and continue to ply their craft and instigate the same drama.

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Also this yes, a lot of this. And when you speak out they actively go out their way to harm you and even make you quit the game.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

You can find toxicity anywhere, in all areas of life.

However, the FFXIV community is special in that there is a widely held belief that it is 'better'. All this serves to do is cause the community to readily sweep incidents under the rug, or engage in victim blaming. If you do end up being the victim of Toxicity in FFXIV, it can feel really amplified because of this.

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Victim blaming and sweeping under the rug are serious accusations to make when there are people within the community, both content creators and posters on the official forum and elsewhere, who are speaking out against the people disturbing Asmongold's play.

And one of the support for the community being better is that, when people are behaving badly, there is the ToS in place. So it presumes that there would be people behaving badly. So pointing out that bad people exist doesn't negate people's claims that FFXIV's community is better. It's also subjective as to what constitutes "better."

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Literally never seen that confusion at all. The carry complaints are about people who don't pull their own weight, don't use essences, etc, and still want the rewards or clears.

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are your eyes closed?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Savage-content.

less than 15 seconds skimming general discussion and you'll find this.. and thats just 1 example.if you spent a few minutes looking youd find dozens..

maybe not specific but as i said i did try and generakize the examples abit rahter than having 10 or 20 examples that were basically the same just generalized it into 1 or 2.

but even in that thread about DR and essences you see it.. anyone who expects players to use essences is basically toxic...

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Originally Posted by linayar

Victim blaming and sweeping under the rug are serious accusations to make when there are people within the community, both content creators and posters on the official forum and elsewhere, who are speaking out against the people disturbing Asmongold's play.

And one of the support for the community being better is that, when people are behaving badly, there is the ToS in place. So it presumes that there would be people behaving badly. So pointing out that bad people exist doesn't negate people's claims that FFXIV's community is better. It's also subjective as to what constitutes "better."

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The Asmongold issue has been a bit of a turning point, and there are many more people speaking out than usual. It shouldn't take being a streamer with 200k viewers for people to take your harassment seriously.

But people have also been blaming Asmongolds own fans and tripping over themselves to justify why he deserves to be harassed in almost every single thread on this topic, be it here or on the subreddit. Twitter is even more insane, and private discords more insane still.

I watched my SO get stalked and harassed by some of the same twitter accounts now organizing against Asmongold. Every time I brought her story up, here or elsewhere, I was told it was probably her fault and that I was withholding details that would incriminate her. One user, who is still active on these boards and not a troll, even baselessly implied she must be racist without knowing literally any details of the situation outside of her being an artist lol.

People in the community go out of their way to try to maintain the illusion that the community is perfect, even at the direct expense of people with legitimate grievances. Hopefully this will become less of an issue as it's brought to light by the Asmon situation.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

I was withholding details that would incriminate her.

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Ok, I think you can understand that the difference is people can see Asmongold on stream.

Nonetheless, yes, I would say people who treat Asmongold differently than a non-streamer can be hypocritical. If there is a lack of detail, then it is better to be neutral rather than be accusing of anyone.

That said, I still wouldn't say that's the case for everyone, nor is it necessarily a case of maintaining an illusion. As said, SE's infamous(?) ToS is proof that they expect bad behaviors within the game. There is no illusion to maintain.

I originally wrote a big'ol wall of the words and letters like I usually do because I enjoy writing stuffs. Buuuuut the forums here have strict character limit so I shall employ the twitter method.

The people do not change, only the scenery does. FF14 has the same troglodytes every single other online community from Everquest to Overwatch does. There is only one difference, the strict terms of service make calling them out impossible.

I have managed to convince over fifteen family members and friends to try FF14 and all have experienced similar things. Tank griefing toto-rak with all level 80 crafters because "this is the only gear I have". They ran into every single poison pod even the ones in side rooms... Who griefs sprouts during their fourth dungeon?

My uncle who barely plays anymore only made it to Haukke Manor where he was berated by a mentor for the crime of opening chests. This mentor queued with their healer friend who caused three wipes by using only Medica during pulls.

Other instance the tank was asked by friends to stop fricken chain pulling because they could not melee easily while moving in.. Tam Tara. You know, the second dungeon in the game! No no they were not big pulling they were chain pulling. Grab group stop then move then stop then move before pack is dead. Their response, "no time". Would not even open the chests right in front of bosses.

New players do not care how many times you tell them the community is good or better, they will stop playing because they are not seeing it.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

I originally wrote a big'ol wall of the words and letters like I usually do because I enjoy writing stuffs. Buuuuut the forums here have strict character limit so I shall employ the twitter method.

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You can circumvent that by copying what you wrote, posting just a few words, then editing the post with what you originally wanted to write. I have no idea why the character limit is even there other than to make initial posting annoying.

Community, here or else, just refers to your tribe and in 14 those are often warring. Raiders want different things than the rpers. PvPers want different things from glamers. Sure you might have some overlap, but that leads to my next point. Why tie yourself down arbitrarily to some nebulously defined group and make that your identity? It's silly. In my personal opinion you might broadly associate with certain tribes over other, but at the end of the day be a free player and be your own person. Everyone else is dirt for you to grind beneath your heel till they do something worthy of your respect.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Everyone else is dirt for you to grind beneath your heel till they do something worthy of your respect.

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And that is how toxicity begins.

You don't need to automatically respect someone else but you do need to respect boundaries. Common courtesy goes far unless the other person has no interest in being courteous.

In regards to MMO and toxicity

FFXIV's community can be pretty toxic but not in game, I'm referring to the types on youtube, twitter and reddit, the types who obsess over other games, proceed to shit talk their old games of choice like an angry ex with getting over issues. There was a post a week or so ago about " evangelists " being annoying. I've literally never seen a community that obsesses over other MMOs quite like this one and personally I feel this community needs to put down it's zealots because it's giving it a bad reputation.

I also remember the drama over lazypeon OP, he deleted his video from youtube because of the harassment he received from the zealots.

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Originally Posted by Mingqin

In regards to MMO and toxicity

FFXIV's community can be pretty toxic but not in game, I'm referring to the types on youtube, twitter and reddit, the types who obsess over other games, proceed to shit talk their old games of choice like an angry ex with getting over issues. There was a post a week or so ago about " evangelists " being annoying. I've literally never seen a community that obsesses over other MMOs quite like this one and personally I feel this community needs to put down it's zealots because it's giving it a bad reputation.

I also remember the drama over lazypeon OP, he deleted his video from youtube because of the harassment he received from the zealots.

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So true.
Whenever I talk about FFXIV with friends I do say that the people in there are one of the nicer I've met in an MMO.
But I also mention how there are those that are so extreme that it makes me embarrassed to be part of the community.
And I've never felt embarrassed of playing a game due to other players before.
Not even in games with more open toxicity.
FFXIV is one of a kind when it comes to the negative sides.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

And that is how toxicity begins.

You don't need to automatically respect someone else but you do need to respect boundaries. Common courtesy goes far unless the other person has no interest in being courteous.

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Then you missed my point. It's not "toxicity" its using your freedom to create and carve out your own community. One that is an actual community rather than a loose collection of players vaguely connected by interest.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

You can circumvent that by copying what you wrote, posting just a few words, then editing the post with what you originally wanted to write. I have no idea why the character limit is even there other than to make initial posting annoying.

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Shoot! I had forgotten about this! Many thanks, my partner was trying to warn me too but I already deleted it out of feist.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Ok, I think you can understand that the difference is people can see Asmongold on stream.

Nonetheless, yes, I would say people who treat Asmongold differently than a non-streamer can be hypocritical. If there is a lack of detail, then it is better to be neutral rather than be accusing of anyone.

That said, I still wouldn't say that's the case for everyone, nor is it necessarily a case of maintaining an illusion. As said, SE's infamous(?) ToS is proof that they expect bad behaviors within the game. There is no illusion to maintain.

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You're missing the point here it seems. It doesnt matter what the TOS says, People want to have the vanity of being good and positive and that they remove the bad actors is what they're saying. But if people see through their BS or know things about them, or simply called them out on how they're virtue signalling, said people will smear them and make them out to be racist, pedophiles, etc, all to silence them, and that in itself is rampant within FF. A friend of mine is being threatened with being doxxed if they dont leave the server they're on, but people have told them they're lying, many isue like this occur all through out the game.

so.. now its the people who are trying to be good, and respecting others helping out etc that are ruining the community because they are "virtue signalling" by their actions? being good and positive is now a vanity?

I am failing to see much of the logic being tossed around these days at all

the internet has never been a toxin free zone and it never will be, anonymity allows people to sink to the level of least effort for them, which in a lot of cases, is that of the school bully. more than a few act how they want to be treated. the whole place is a homogenization of different personality traits, simple as that, the more extreme you are (not in a good way) the longer your internet "fame". I have never in all my time playing ever heard anyone saying FFXIV was toxin free. but now we have a portion of the community literally dancing in the streets because, I assume, they have found fellow toxic people here and can have "friends" and be toxic together or something.

I enjoy the community, mostly. there are people here I prefer not to be around, because they are rude or what have you, but thats no different than the real world. might my in game friends have a darker more toxic interior, its entirely possible, who knows? I was raised to treat people how you want to be treated and to respect others, didnt specify as to whom, just thats how you treat other people. FFXIV has nicer people generally in my opinion because of this, we are not all saints, and in my experience, games with less baked in interpersonal conflict such as pvp seem to be "nicer" or "less toxic" is the term these days I suppose. only the truly delusional confuse "nicer" with "toxic free"

I guess the reality is, that unless you have met or interacted with a MAJORITY of people in a game, you cannot reasonably label anything toxic or not. in mmos, thats simply not possible. if most of teh people you meet are jerks, my feeling is examine your own behaviour. for me, the interactions have been in the majority, positive. have I met jerks, of course. but I hardly think that they compromise a majority without meeting everyone else first.

meh, tired of this whole "the illusion is broken" garbage. it was only an illusion if you created it. its a game, with people, and people are what they are. as with any society, if you follow the rules or TOS, chances are you contribute in a "good" way.

sorry for the ramble

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I guess the reality is, that unless you have met or interacted with a MAJORITY of people in a game, you cannot reasonably label anything toxic or not.

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This is a key point – though I think you mean "the community" rather than "anything". If you have come across that behaviour, you can label the specific behaviour from that person. But you can't say it represents the entire in-game community.

If people say "everyone in the game is nice", that's wishful thinking. But they can truly say "everyone I've met in the game is nice" if that's their experience.

And if someone else comes back and says "people have been awful to me so your 'nice people' must be fake", you can't confirm that unless you can somehow research who each person has interacted and confirm that they are dealing with the same people acting in very different ways.

Even then, it's inevitable that there are some people like that who are nice to their friends and awful to others. That, unfortunately, is humanity and you'll find some degree of it anywhere a community forms. But it doesn't mean that's the majority or the "true face of the community", just an unquantifiable portion of it.

The best you can do is say that if statistically most people have a positive experience, the community is probably generally "nice".

Also, if a portion of the community does want to act "toxicly", there's nothing anyone else can do to stop them besides attempt to summon a GM. They can't physically prevent the person from acting in a way they disapprove of.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

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I don't think you know what a community is. A community is people with common interests living in a particular area. The common interest and area is we all play FFXIV. The player base IS the "Community" of the game.

It's weird how all of these "community is toxic" threads started flooding the forums right around the time that a certain streamer announced that he was going to play the game.

Probably a coincidence.

XIV is much bigger than it was during Stormblood, almost feels like two fold. Anytime you have growth, it will bring bad apples along with it. Many always liked to say "well FFXIV is different, it's not like that community..". Right.

Some are just a little surprised because they sat in their little bubble all-day to see what is really out there.

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Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

It's weird how all of these "community is toxic" threads started flooding the forums right around the time that a certain streamer announced that he was going to play the game.

Probably a coincidence.

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probably has to do with countless of players decrying WoW/all of the WoW community as toxic from anecdotal evidence or just hearsay while saying the same things don't happen in XIV, even though they do
but if you post about them, you get harassed, victim blamed or people make excuses why it happened and how it's just a few bad eggs (but they don't make this distinction in WoW's case, mind you), or hell, in asmon's case, blaming WoW for the harassment he received in XIV

For me, I find community within my small family FC and people who are just overall pleasant folk to be around- that's a very small demographic for me personally and whatever type of joking or messing around it's a very much a contained and private thing- usually taking place on a private Discord among my friends.

I think when I was younger, I might have been able to be the type of person that hangs out in Limsa and who enjoys that banter to a certain degree, however the older I get, the more I feel like I'm beginning to cherish quality personalities and friendships; so I've very much changed to a Quality over Quantity outlook.

That's also altered how I look at things like a community, even in a video game- I kind of see habits and trends in mmorpg's today that I noticed back when things like Myspace, Friendster and Facebook came out; where it all of a sudden became a click away to amassing very large hordes of friends; heck- i even got on that train for a little while.

But quality friendship takes time, commitment; it's very much true for community as well- it's something that requires some fostering and growth; this can be a absurd obstacle course in a environment like a mmorpg, with new and old people coming and going, it can be frustrating at times for that to feel like a community at all.

That's why i stick to Guild communities and the Free company in this game, because that can be fostered more easily and by it's nature, can create quality friendships.

I don't believe people we've never even spoken to can be dubbed "community"; i can't just walk out into Limsa or any large gathering in the game and think; "this is the community I'm a part of" - that's just ridiculous. That's like walking out in the middle of a busy Time Square and yelling: "Hello there my fellow community members!" - which incidentally; (as a New Yorker), that isn't the strangest thing a person might see in Time Square.

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Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

It's weird how all of these "community is toxic" threads started flooding the forums right around the time that a certain streamer announced that he was going to play the game.

Probably a coincidence.

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It's actually a conversation that's been had in the community repeatedly over the years, this isn't something new. Last time it was a big topic was around this time last year (or the year before?) following some youtube videos about FFXIV fans attitudes towards criticism of the game and a series of threads about gameplay norms and player skill. I suppose the scale might be larger now, but the game has been steadily growing so that's to be expected.

I fully expect the drama to die down soon only to be kicked up again in another year or so, just as it always has.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Then you missed my point. It's not "toxicity" its using your freedom to create and carve out your own community. One that is an actual community rather than a loose collection of players vaguely connected by interest.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Everyone else is dirt for you to grind beneath your heel

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Those are not the words of someone trying to build a community.

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Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

It's weird how all of these "community is toxic" threads started flooding the forums right around the time that a certain streamer announced that he was going to play the game.

Probably a coincidence.

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We've had these threads all along. They're far more numerous at the moment thanks to said streamer having a history of being part of the problem in another game and publicizing how he's now giving this game a try.

In the end, people need to stop generalizing entire game communities as toxic because they aren't. It's individuals within those communities who are. The better the policing tools and enforcement a game has, the fewer those individuals tend to be and the less likely others will have problem experiences.