What happened to players?

[Macho]

I wish you were on my server so you could be in my FC! We are super small because we only want people like you. Willing to take time to help eachother out. Yes we have some people that got to 50 really fast but guess what, they sit there and dungeon with me for 2hrs a day to help me get to 50 too.

The other night we had a sch with us who clearly knew he was not cutting it. We were unaware it was his/her first time in Aurum and we wiped at the first boss (locksmith). A very simple boss yet we died. I realized we forgot to check, he/she admitted it was their first time. I explained and we tried again and 2 more times we wiped..sch going out first each time. S/He offered to leave the duty, obviously feeling bad for us...I'm not going to lie we considered accepting it because heals were just no where close to keeping up and he/she was wiping within a minute or two. At the same time though, I didn't want to be that guy saying yes, maybe it's time you go find another party.

We just all instinctively started moving forward again without saying a word. We get to locksmith and there was a concerted effort from the sch on heals and we made it. We lived, and pushed forward. Coincounter was cake after that, then when we got to to the miser's mistress I took a moment to say "ok, this one's a little different". Sch says, great...another malboro lol. I could sense their dread but we told him/her you got this. It got a little shaky here and there but towards the last 1/4 health we knew we had it. Heals were steady and you could tell we had gotten used to working together. We all congratted the sch whom btw walked out with all healer drops on all the chests and I told him/her way to step your game up.

It was then I was reminded to not get in to that rut of just being concerned about our core group. I asked the sch what server their were on but they weren't on ours. I said transfers are coming soon lol.

We have to remind ourselves at times it's up to us to ensure our community is good. We can work to make it better or we can leave it the way it is.

[Nenin]

I don't know about you guys, but I never met an elitist in Final Fantasy XI. The game was a lot more unforgiving, there's no DF so you have to go with the old-school "Form your own party" routine and people were a lot more patient with the game and with each other. Those other people in your party? You looked out for them and they looked out for you. Those who didn't were singled out and eventually quit.

You don't meet players like that in FFXIV. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to laugh in the face of people who have ragequitted over wiping a few times in Garuda HM with more than enough time left. Death is so trivial in FFXIV compared to FFXI, all you have to do is click "Okay/Accept Raise" and you are back on your feet and spend a few hundreds/thousands in gil in repair costs. 60 minutes left? "No, I quit. You all are scrubs. L2P nubs." Nobody has the patience to do anything...

You must have a very selective memory. Yes, people HAD to be friendlier to get anything done. Unless you were BST you couldn't solo anything Even Match past level 15 or so. The game was much slower and getting a party together could take hours. If you realized the tank was terrible after spending 2 hours gathering everyone you couldn't exactly kick him and find a replacement in 3 minutes. So you had to grit your teeth and try to give them constructive criticism without being offensive.

People have not changed since then, the game has. You are no longer punished harshly for cursing someone out and leaving a group. Now you can finally see everyone's true colors. Chances are you will never see them again because of the larger player base, WAY faster leveling, and the fact that they very likely aren't even on your server.


If anything I'd say the elitism and xenophobia was significantly more noticeable in XI. If I had a dollar for every time I saw <Looking for Members><Japanese><German><French><Okay><English><No Thanks> I'd be a very wealthy man. At first I thought they had someone who could speak the other languages, but lacked an english speaker. After I started joining as German and saying Hallo! Wie geht es dir? I realized they couldn't speak or understand German at all. They just hated English players and refused to party with them.

Do you remember all the players who would instantly switch gear when you examined them? Doing so would close their gear menu and cause them to flash. They had macros created and at the ready for the sole purpose of making sure the plebian scum couldn't see their dynamis gear. I specifically remember typing out /em examines you. In Jueno and watching 20 people by the auction house start blinking.



People have always been arrogant, elitist, and short tempered. Being that way in /party chat while playing XI didn't get you very far because the crappy players were often your only option.

[Arcturius]

Its just funny that I go on WoW forums and everyone is helpful and constructive and don't bash other games. Come on to this forum and everyone acts like jerks and bashes on WoW as the worst game ever with the worst community.

Yep, FF community is best and all other games are not unique or good. All trash. Except ffxi of coarse. /sarcasm

Also love how I hear this phrase from every ffxi fan boy, "I haven't played WoW and it sucks." At least the WoW community doesn't bash games they have never played. Personally think most of this negativity came from f2p mmos and ffxi. Meh that's my only problem with this game. If you haven't played a game don't talk bad about it. Saves yourself from looking silly.

[Noahlimits]

I was with you until you said:

At least the WoW community doesn't bash games they have never played.

I've seen and heard numerous WoW players bash any and all other MMOs. Elitists and bashers exist in every MMO. No exceptions.

[Arcturius]

Hmm I guess I just never saw it. But finding it in these forums is as plain as the sun while standing on top of a mountain at noon on a day with a clear sky.

[Iskander]

The problem lies in the raising in the current generation.
1. Children from the early MMO days were raised with discipline, and taught to respect others or suffer an unholy beating. Those people grew into adults and decided to not raise their children the same. Those children got away with a lot more, and because of such, they began growing into the elitists we see today. And their kids suffer from even a more severe lack of discipline, resulting in the kids you see running around our MMOs. Today, parents are so afraid of beating their kids that the kids have no reason to learn respect for others, and their attitudes only get worse with the internet's anonymity (sp?). Some good unholy discipline beatings would definitely help with the issue.

[Asmodeus]

The problem lies in the raising in the current generation.
1. Children from the early MMO days were raised with discipline, and taught to respect others or suffer an unholy beating. Those people grew into adults and decided to not raise their children the same. Those children got away with a lot more, and because of such, they began growing into the elitists we see today. And their kids suffer from even a more severe lack of discipline, resulting in the kids you see running around our MMOs. Today, parents are so afraid of beating their kids that the kids have no reason to learn respect for others, and their attitudes only get worse with the internet's anonymity (sp?). Some good unholy discipline beatings would definitely help with the issue.

The problem with what your saying is that it is illegal in some countries to "beat" your kids, hell you are even very strongly encourage to avoid words like "punishments" in favor of the word "consequences".

It is easy to say blah blah blah in my day we...XYZ when in your day you didn't have A to W to deal with.

[Rochetm]

Its just funny that I go on WoW forums and everyone is helpful and constructive and don't bash other games. Come on to this forum and everyone acts like jerks and bashes on WoW as the worst game ever with the worst community.

Yep, FF community is best and all other games are not unique or good. All trash. Except ffxi of coarse. /sarcasm

Also love how I hear this phrase from every ffxi fan boy, "I haven't played WoW and it sucks." At least the WoW community doesn't bash games they have never played. Personally think most of this negativity came from f2p mmos and ffxi. Meh that's my only problem with this game. If you haven't played a game don't talk bad about it. Saves yourself from looking silly.

This guy has not played WoW or cannot read... WoW players don't bash other games... tell us another funny one Joe.

[EQBallzz]

I don't think anything "happened to players". There is still the same players there always were but there are just a lot more people playing MMOs these days so it changes the dynamic of the community quite a bit. It seems like a good analogy would be the difference between living in a small town where you know everyone and are more connected to the community as a whole and living in a big city where you still have connections but are more of a random person lost in the crowd. There are jerks in either case but in a small town jerks won't get very far and will be isolated whereas a big city there is always another group to play with that has no idea of their history or reputation. They can use the fact that they are lost in a crowd to their advantage. This is especially true with cross-server DF groups. I mean there is literally zero drawback for acting like an asshat.

The other dimension to this is interdependence. Both class and group interdependence were huge in a game like EQ. You just weren't going to make any progress without other people so the number of options you had were inversely proportional to how big of an asshat you were.

[Niko_Kishiko]

"my question is, what happened to MMOs?"

It's not just mmorpgs, it's a lot of the world. The economy is crap. People are stressed to the limit. Some may have completely lost faith the the country they live in. No medical insurance even though you really need it. Can't get an education without a decent job or being in massive amount of debt the rest of your life, can't get a decent job without an education. Entertainment is too expensive. Going to the movies is like 20$ for only 2 hours of entertainment and who wants to go to a theater where you might just get shot or blown up anyway.

They want to escape so they play games because it's affordable and their misery comes into the game with them.