Toxicity and Community

[Ranaku]

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.

[linayar]

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.

[ReynTime]

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.

[Varilyon]

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.

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

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

[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.

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.

[Imora]

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.

[linayar]

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.

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.

[Dzian]

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....

[strawberrycake]

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.

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.

[linayar]

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.