Quote Originally Posted by Vahlnir View Post
I respect your opinion, but a "toxic" atmosphere isn't typically responsible for a game's decline. I still don't believe this game is there yet. What's usually responsible is a rift that grows between the players, the devs and the company in charge of a game as the quality and quantity begin to...degrade. This has been very much the case with WoW as a more recent example.
Speaking as someone who quit WoW after ten years, I'm not disagreeing with you, but the toxicity of the community there was a contributing factor to why I quit. My main reason was of course, as you say, the rift between the players and the company. But I'd be lying if I said that FFXIV's much calmer community wasn't a welcome change and surprise that made it easier to leave WoW behind.

Before I quit WoW I stepped down from hardcore raiding and played casually, and the toxicity I encountered in lvling content was sometimes awful. I got harassed in a lvl 60 dungeon because I was playing a dwarf warlock. They laughed at me because I was supposedly a noob for not playing as a human or gnome. And no they didn't stop when I explained it was only an alt to have a bit of fun. I saw a tank get mocked for being bad simply because he didn't want to chain pull while the healer was afk. A dps pulled, it caused a wipe and they blamed it on the tank for not reacting fast enough. I could go on like this for a while. Of course not every dungeon was as dramatic as this but it wasn't a rare occurrence to see some completely needless and downright mean comments in casual content. Never mind all the stuff I saw as a hardcore raider.

These experiences with toxicity didn't make me quit WoW, but my god they made it easier to.