I joined at the beginning of the 'WoW Exodus' curve a while before all those allegations came out, and my first impressions of FFXIV were amazing; particularly from the community.

Everyone in FFXIV seemed extremely social, extremely helpful, and extremely patient, all things which I took full advantage of from level 1 all the way up to where I am now. I made a few cool friends and joined a FC, and had tons of fun hamming it up with people in the Diadem while I saved up for an apartment. I was having a blast!

But as time went on, it felt like all those chummy, friendly people stopped being chummy and friendly, with the pervasive attitude I felt shifting from social to... silent. No responses when I wave hi in dungeons, nobody wanting to talk in the Diadem, even Limsa is silent except for RP ads and RMTers.

And as time continued to pass even further, the silence turned into uncomfortable judgement. A situation that is recent in my mind is an Eden's Promise: Litany run that I was directly responsible for wiping once. I was being bothered by someone IRL and couldn't put my full attention into healing, and died a few times before the other healer couldn't take the stress anymore and died as well. I knew it was my fault, apologized, and got a very passive-aggressive response. We pulled again and I feel like I did a real good job. When we killed it I thanked the RDM for their help, and was met with another passive-aggressive response before everyone dipped out of the lobby.

Now, I'm not saying people aren't allowed to be passive-aggressive; I'll admit that I was pretty toxic too during my time in WoW (though I swore to leave it behind when I came here). But such a drastic change in attitude in both open world, low, and high level duties? What could have happened?

Did hardcore WoW players saturate the game? Did all the friendlier people leave to wait for EW? Am I just going insane and nothing has actually changed?