A question of culture clash
by David Bowers 
Jan 5th 2008 at 4:04PM
I wrongly assumed that guild chat was in-character, and immediately introduced myself in what I hoped was a humorous way. A couple members said "lol," and the leader introduced himself as a former Horde player who was getting started on a new server too. Somewhat disappointed that this guild was not so "RP" as it had advertised, I proceeded to ask some questions about the status of roleplaying on this server. I must not have impressed them this way, however, as I logged in a couple days later to find myself kicked out of the guild already.
One of the members I remembered from that first day happened to be online, so I asked him what had happened. "Oldman" (who's name I changed somewhat in this story) replied that, in the view of his "elder" guild members, I was "too wordy" and also "too juvenile." Thoroughly perplexed, I asked him what exactly I had said that was so juvenile. He told me that was itself a juvenile thing to say, and then used "/ignore" on me. I had been disappointed enough to leave that guild anyway, but to be dismissed offhand like that was rather hurtful until I made a realization: These "elder" members must think that asking questions is itself "juvenile" behavior, especially questions they deem unimportant; while according to my worldview, sincere questions of any sort are paths to more knowledge and understanding, and in themselves a sign of ever-growing maturity. Besides, completely ignoring someone just for asking questions doesn't seem like the pinnacle of maturity to me, either, but who am I to judge? Maybe there was some good reason I don't know about.
Have you ever encountered social situations in WoW that left you completely befuddled? Have real-life cultural values and judgments ever gotten in the way of your gaming, especially in ways that caught you by surprise?
Filed under: Virtual selves, Guilds, RP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Skwidspawn Jan 5th 2008 4:13PM
I was in a PuG run by a fellow guildie of mine who asked for my help in running him through Ramparts. When I got there we gave the tank lead so that he could mark targets, etc... Three pulls in I get a tell from him saying they are kicking my friend for a lvl 70 paladin healer so they could clear it faster. My friend was doing just fine, we wiped (ironically) due to a bad pull and now he was getting kicked. When they booted him seconds later I left as well, invited my friend to our own party and ported to Shattrath. They didn't even have the nerve to tell HIM that they were going to kick him.
clavejones Jan 5th 2008 4:41PM
I have had two similar experiences, in which a buddy of mine was kicked for another player. It's unfortunate that so many people lose their decency when playing. Be big enough to be honest with a person before booting them and don't use the ignore list just because it's uncomfortable to have those conversations.
Aldazor Jan 5th 2008 6:18PM
I have had this happen to me only once. Me and my friend (Who has only just dinged 70.) were in Shattered Halls when suddently our tank kicked him from the group, and started telling him that he was completely useless (He is a rogue). They didn't even have a replacement for him, though it didn't matter to me since i left immediately and formed a new group with my friend.
Carruk Jan 5th 2008 4:22PM
You mean have I ever met any assholes? Yeah - hundreds, then again you meet em on the freeway too.
klink-o Jan 5th 2008 7:32PM
Haha, you beat me to it.
Veji Jan 5th 2008 4:24PM
So i re-activated my shaman last night and i was wandering around SW looking for a Stocks party, when i got a blind ginvite to . I accepted, because i'm aware of their 200+ member reputation and ill quality players. I figured it would be interesting, as i'm level 25 and most n00bs know that lowbies don't have any gold or can power level them thru an instance.
So there i was. Fit to be tied. I rolled thru Stocks with one of their warriors. He was a pretty good player. I had no qualms at all. So i logged thereafter to do some stuff and when i logged back on, I was greeted by either the GM or an officer.
Now, I don't go out of my way to cuss in gchat, but i have the tendency to talk about some pretty bizarre things when i'm bored of the usual grind. Needless to say, it isn't exactly "PG" or "PG-13" chat material. So asked "Do you guys have a PG chat rule?" and one member responded "PG Chat?" and i said "Yeah, can i say f---, sh--, b----, etc?" and BOOM! i got booted out of the guild.
I seriously don't care, but i did a "WTF?" look on my face. So after this, another officer invited me back into the guild and PM'd me to "stfu". At this point, I was like "This has got to be joke. You guys can't be serious." and i honestly thought they were playin around. Well, a few seconds after, the guy who reinvited me got booted out of the guild. I then recieved another PM from the same GM/officer who greeted me initially that stated, "I have strict rules about cussing. Are you going to do it again?" I responded, "Are you guys serious? I have no idea what your guild rules are."
I was then promptly booted from the guild again. Now like i said, i really don't care. Lowbie guilds are a dime a dozen and any halfwit with 10g can make one. Not only that, but this toon is an alt and if i have guild, ok and if not, who cares? But this incident made be chuckle and I figured it would be an interesting read. The name of the guild does suit it's actions imo.
Anyhow, if you have a mature guild with mature chat, and are recruiting lowbies, look me up. lol
Jagoex Jan 5th 2008 4:37PM
An in-game social issue of this sorts is not something I have experienced. But I am dealing with the same kind of treatment from Blizzard themselves.
I was given a 48-hour suspension for something I didn't do, and when I started to ask questions, I was also (and still am) given the "/ignore" treatment. My Account Administration emails were met with standardized responses, and a thread I posted on the Customer Service forum has not yet seen a Blue response, even after almost 1600 views and over 80 posts.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3686744709&sid=1
http://jagoex.blogspot.com/2008/01/ban-update-still-chasing-answers.html
A bit frustrating, to say the least.
Sean Riley Jan 5th 2008 4:41PM
Good lord. No, you're not missing anything -- That's just really, well, buttheadish.
Any RP guild who behaves that way isn't worth being in. You're being unfair on yourself and too lenient on them. There's no good reason for not letting people ask questions. (I suppose, if they've put up the rules of the guild on a webpage somewhere or something, an RTFM might be .... MIGHT be... justified, but that's it.)
potatowedge Jan 5th 2008 4:49PM
I was in what I thought was a nice small guild with pretty mature members. I tried to be as helpful as I could, since technically I think we were a leveling guild. One morning, I logged on, and my note had been changed to simply read "bitch."
Needless to say, I /gquit right away. I would have dealt with it better had one of the guildleaders sent me a note as to why I was suddenly labeled as such, but I'm not one to take that kind of immaturity lying down.
The guild I'm in now is much much nicer, to be sure. The most ironic part? In the old guild, the members were around my age, whereas in my new guild, I'm one of the older ones, and we've got sixteen-year-olds that show more maturity than my old guildies.
LFD Jan 5th 2008 4:51PM
The number of douchebags I encounter every day in WoW makes me want to play it less and less.
Finnicks Jan 6th 2008 5:14AM
The number of total douchebags I encounter on the road, at work, in public, and in general real life makes me want to live lawfully less and less.
Erika Jan 5th 2008 5:08PM
Well this happened to me on a normal pve server. I like to mess around and have fun with this game. But not in this guild. I was helping some people in the guild go thru sm gy and in guild chat we started talking and stuff and then it got to paladin bashing. Who dosent like that anyway. Well i was talkling how i would counter this and all that and i called one of the officers a tree. Like a oak tree or a pine tree. And then I get a whisper from him saying something like "Please do not call people names even if it is in jest" And right there i /gquit. I was mid 50's at the time.
Beaverius Jan 5th 2008 5:27PM
Man that is just another classic case of Assholism in WoW.
I'm sure we've meet countless A-holes in the game and it kinda sucks but I guess it's just something you get used to, not that you should.
One of the first guilds I ever joined was essentially the largest guild on the server that I later found out had a lol-worthy reputation.
Appearantly the GM had a script to invite unguilded people on the server and that was how the guild was created.
Ok so after joining this huge guild in my mid 40's, I had a good time, getting in lots of runs etc. Then I said "shit" in guild chat and was Muted by a 13 year old officer. I was told that there was no cussing in Gchat, despite not having any kinda of website with official rules, etc. I of course made a stink and got my chat privileges back just so I could curse at them again and /gquit.
Matt Jan 5th 2008 5:33PM
what a bunch of douche bags....cmon man...unless you were like "omg i so leikz thiz game!! itz teh ub3r pwn!! so do we cyberz here or wutz?" they were completely out of line...some people are just morons and now their idiotic decision was made public i hope you pm them and tell them they made the wowinsider/massively hall of shame...pathetic RP players...no offense to most of them...but some have a stick in their ass...PVP SERVERS FTMFW!!!
Ktok Jan 5th 2008 5:44PM
The most bizarre thing I’ve seen in game from another player… That would have to be the two Dwarves that were killing the Horde NPCs in the Barrens. I tracked them down on my Hunter and killed them. I don’t feel any remorse for killing someone grey to me if they are killing our NPCs. They send up a big, zonewide alert saying “come here and kill me” so I feel they’re asking for it.
Well, I hang out and one of them revives with his flag still up, so I kill him again. Then he revives in a nearby pond, apparently thinking I won’t see him… and I kill him again. Again, if he’s too dumb to let his flag drop, I’m not feeling any pity.
Then it happens… a /tell from a level 1 Orc with a random-letter-name cussing me out for killing “thos dwarvz” because they were “jus havin fun”. I told him politely that he’d stop dying if he 1) let his flag drop and 2) stop killing Horde NPCs… to which he cussed me out some more and asked me how I would like it if someone camped me. I told him I wouldn’t be dumb enough to revive over and over with my flag up, so that’s not going to happen… but I was already on ignore.
They let their flags drop, revived, did a few /rudes and ran off. Not five minutes later Camp T got hit, it was them, and they died again… a lot.
It blows my mind how anyone can complain about being killed when they are knowingly doing something that will attract someone to kill them.
PeeWee Jan 6th 2008 12:37AM
What has worked for me a couple of times is smashing the intruders to bits, and then set up a camp fire next to their corpses.
Sometimes they actually do take a hint and leave.
M.D. Jan 5th 2008 6:12PM
Hmm. I've only recently started playing and was vaguely considering, down the line, looking for or starting a guild for female players over 25, out of a desire to make a niche for anti-assholism.
However, I've also done some office/retail work with nothing but all female employees, and lemme tell you, we can be amazingly petty and evil in groups ourselves.
Rainnajax Jan 5th 2008 8:05PM
On Uldaman, Savage Maidens is a great guild for female-only toons. We are friendly and help each other and I am not just saying that because that is what all guilds say. It is mostly women IRL, a few men on female toons, and some really great players at lvl 70 who really know their game and don't mind answering questions. Our guild chat gets a little racy now and again, but overall we have a good time.
:-)
Rainnajax
MrAwesome Jan 5th 2008 9:23PM
It took you 25 years to learn that females are petty and evil even among themselves?
M.D. Jan 6th 2008 9:59AM
MrAwesome:
Huh? I think you conflated some stuff, there.
Honestly, you learn girls are catty in school (thereby learning the lesson generally by age 10 and having it pretty thoroughly absorbed by high school), and then in later office environments, realize we never grow out of it. Kind of like guys and the Three Stooges, to make further generalizations. But any of that can be any age.
The '25' thing comes from the fact that, while it's never a guarantee of maturity, I'm freaking 30 and don't want to guild up with a ten year old who only knows text-speak.