Heey everybody! I’m Ljohnsilver or L-J for short.You might have seen me on the Podcast that WoW Weekly does every week and decided to do my first column so if it sucks (which it probably will), cut me some slack and please say what I could improve! I’ve been playing WoW almost from the start now as a Healadin. Anyways, I’m gonna be doing it a little bit differently than you are probably used to on WoW Weekly. As this is basically all pro WoW and everything around it (except the devs cause f*ck em) im gonna be talking about WoW players and why they can be such…. unfriendly people (in-game that is! No promises on “Real Life” situations).

We probably have all encountered one of the aforementioned people one time or another, when leveling your first character, running LFR (never ceases to amaze me, LFR that is) or just in general when standing in Stor
mwind/Orgrimmar. Now, I’m not saying that all players like this, on the contrary Watson, in my personal experience 95% of all people are generally nice and helpful when you are nice and polite yourself. It just that rotten egg once in a while that ticks you off by being unreasonable, annoying, rude or any of the other 15 million reasons that are possible.

Now, why is this? Why is it so difficult for some people to actually be a kind human being and help you with your quest or why do they swoop in to steal that mining node while clearly you were killing those mobs for it. Now,I have no idea as to the psychological aspects to this (please see my brother who is studying psychology!) but I can figure out one or two things that are in effect here and will try my best to explain them in the next few paragraphs:

The Internet

We all know and love the internet and what it has brought us. It has opened up and changed world like nothing has before. You can watch, buy, sell and much much more all in a few mouse clicks. Regular citizens and people have never had so much power in which, when gathered together for a common purpose we have brought down companies. But the internet also gives us anonymity (Not you NSA, please go away). And it’s this anonymity which gives a lot of people a feeling of power which leads them to be really rotten on online games. We all know the reputation average Call of Duty players have gotten over the years as being spoiled 13-year-olds that have *beeeep* with my mother. This is not the only example out there and I am willing to bet most of us have our own experience with this behaviour which is almost accepted nowadays. The “trollz” (how these people are known as) always like to antagonize the average Joe and Jane which leads me to my next bit.

The time and energy

I’m guessing, as you are on a website that provides you with WoW news, you to play WoW or at least, you play games. We all know that this can consume a lot of your time in which you try to achieve the greatest feat possible or you just simply enjoy yourself and have a good time. This is where we, the people, and them, the trollz, differ. As we like to mind our own business or in a party just want the dungeon to be done/enjoy the dungeon, the troll seems to enjoy themself by spending its time and energy in wasting yours. Not only is this frustrating, it is also confusing to most people as the trolls are playing the same game as you, they are probably the same level as you which means they have spent about as much time in the game as you, yet all they do is make life miserable to others. To most, of which I am one, this is mind boggling and leads me to my third and final bit about the troll.

WoW, higher than average?

Now, as stated before,Ihave played WoW for almost 10 years and my /played is scary. But I have also played a lot (and I mean a lot) of other games, single and multiplayer (yes CoD, Battlefield and other, major extreme time consumers a.k.a. MMOs). And in my own experience WoW, or more specific, the community is becoming more and more, infested if you will, with trollz. Now this is only the hardcore trollz who make trolling a profession and not the average 13-year-old that say everything that comes up in their mind because they don’t have a filter yet, I think that WoW has mostly become a victim of its own success when the subs were high and a lot of people were playing the game. A lot of people joined and played the game and a lot of the people who joined back then have become fed up with the game and have since resorted to other methods inside the game to have fun in their own way.

Epic Conclusion

After playing WoW for so long and there isn’t an end in sight for me,I think that as the game progresses, a lot of people will either stop playing it, including trolls, or they will become more and more bitter which is a path that can ultimately lead to the dark side. Trollz have also been something that is inside of every human being, some more than other is which the feeling of being better than others and showing this, narcissism, is a normal feeling, to a certain degree. It is what the person decides to do with this feeling which ultimately leads to becoming a troll, becoming a bitter player, staying and just playing the game or leaving the game altogether.

L-J

P.s.I hope you enjoyed reading my first column! Please do post your opinions below and any (constructive) remarks as to the column (such as writing style, the subject etc) will be seriously be taken into account in the future!

Thanks again!