Breakfast Topic: Real-life virtues in WoW
by Robert Tardio 
Jun 12th 2010 at 8:00AM
Is your WoW behavior radically different from how you act in real life? If it is, should it be? Is the virtual world of WoW your escape from the rigid expectations of society, the requirements to be a productive member of your community in terms of career, education and family? Is WoW your opportunity to "act out," to take out your aggressions and subliminal anger on other players you come in contact with? Or do you look at your WoW characters as extensions of self and attempt to emulate your real-life, day-to-day behavior (or possibly even improve on that behavior)?
Let's look at a few common virtues, the actions and words that support them, and then ask, "Am I doing that? Or am I deliberately doing the opposite?"
- Respect Do you treat people in game with courtesy and consideration? Are "please" and "thank you" normal parts of your vocabulary? Most people operate on the premise that they give respect and expect it in return.
- Responsibility Do you do what you commit to do? Are you prompt and prepared? In real life, responsibility can be a pretty tough burden. It can be interesting that some WoW players shoulder that load well, while others may fall short.
- Cooperation Being able to work with others is important to success in WoW, just as it is in real life. Any married folks among us can certainly identify with that -- and for that matter, players with siblings will also know that working well with a brother or sister is more productive (and more fun) than the alternative. When you raid, do you do as directed? How about in BGs, where a bit of cooperation can easily be the difference between victory and defeat? In game, we have only to look to successful arena teams to see cooperation at its finest.
- Generosity Ever help someone in RL, even if they don't ask? How about in WoW? Have you ever seen a player being overwhelmed by mobs and decided to jump in? That's a form of generosity, because you're giving freely of your time and effort with no expectation of return. Have you ever helped a player by purchasing an item to help him level a skill, even if you really didn't need that item?
- Loyalty Generally speaking, real life rewards loyalty. We are loyal to friends, to family, to our employer, our alma mater, even to our country. Do you demonstrate that same level of loyalty in game? The best example is to consider whether you're loyal to your guild. Do you stick with the guild through the ups and downs of progression, even if the grass may seem greener elsewhere?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Vanz Jun 12th 2010 8:13AM
The only difference is that if i see someone being a dick in trade or whatever, I openly talk them down regardless of their "popularity". IRL I would ask myself the implications of doing so, but with WoW, noone knows me so I use it as a way of doing stuff that I wish I could do IRL.
Eli Jun 12th 2010 8:38AM
Sounds like someone needs to assert themselves and do what they think is right IRL more often. You'll feel better about yourself, and people will start listening to you and taking you seriously if you're not a total flipping moron.
Lars Petersson Jun 12th 2010 10:46AM
I jsut wish everyone who posts in /trade would read this comic: http://xkcd.com/481/
Eli Jun 12th 2010 11:33AM
:( Downranked for truth.
Baneraven Jun 12th 2010 7:44PM
No, downranked for being a pedantic busybody who comes off like they know everything.
jimbob Jun 13th 2010 2:08PM
IRL i'm a very independant individual, and i view indpendence as a strong character trait which i try to encourage in others, however, in-game, i prefer being a healer (have 2 80 holy priests), am i subconciously making up for my lack of empathy by helping others ingame? discuss...
Gamer am I Jun 12th 2010 8:19AM
I think you'd have to be pretty self-centered or inconsiderate to not apply the same virtues you apply to your interactions with other people to the people you meet in WoW. Those avatars aren't just computer generated caricatures for you to see as means to help you achieve your ends; there are real people on the other side of those avatars. In fact, they're more real to me than many of the people I see on the street in real life. I say that because 95% of the people I see in every day life, I have no reason to think I have anything in common with them. In WoW, however, we have our shared status as a WoW player to give us something in common. That shared interest gives them a little bit more humanity in my eyes.
Quite honestly, I think it takes a lot of cowardice to hide behind the anonymity of your avatar and use that anonymity as a way to be rude to other people. No matter what rhetoric you use to try to justify it, there is simply no excuse to be more rude to people in-game than you are in real life. You'll probably never see them again, you say? You'll probably never see many of the people you meet in real life again, yet you probably aren't exceedingly rude to them. In fact, what kind of excuse is that? Is it really ok to be rude to someone because you'll never see them again? Not only is that a really jerk-like justification, it says that strangers aren't worth as much respect as people you know, just because you don't know them as well. It's really denying them a bit of their humanity, just because you haven't been introduced.
Or maybe I'm just self-righteous and no one else cares when others are rude to them. Who knows?
Pat Jun 12th 2010 10:28AM
You took the words right out of my mouth.. Er fingertips? Anywho. I like what your saying.
Bronwyn Jun 12th 2010 10:38AM
You're completely and utterly right.
A_V Jun 12th 2010 11:00AM
The basline reason people feel they can be more rude to the people in WoW than in RL is this: consequences. If you walked up to a person on the street and screamed in their face, swearing about the fact that the clothes they're wearing aren't the 'latest' and that it makes them a noob... you'd most likely get bitchslapped (in the very least). Or have the police called on you if you made it into a manic rant. On WoW... short of people reporting you, you can effectively do what you wish, if only for a short period of time.
MW Jun 12th 2010 12:54PM
Gamer am I, I totally agree with you. Wow is an environment that fosters the best of what humans are. We save people and towns, we help those who need it, and we try to uphold the "right." That's only the quests and interactions with the NPCs. With our fellow adventurers, no matter what faction, we have the ability to show how horrible humans can be to others, and also to show the great strengths of humanity. It is totally up to us how we treat others. I try to being the best of who I can be to the game, and also try to be the best I can be in RL.
There are those who cry, "He made me do it!" that their bad actions are because they were "forced" to do something bad because of what was said/done to them. No one makes us act a certain way by their actions, we alone bear the responsibility of the consequences of our actions. My signature line sums up my feelings.
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way. " Viktor Frankl
Rubitard Jun 12th 2010 2:11PM
Inasmuch as I love this game, I also hate how jaded it has made me to many actual flesh-and-blood, RL players. I don't want to hate PuGs. There's absolutely no reason to despise PvP. But, it's other players that have driven me away from these aspects of the game, not game design or mechanics. There are accepted baseline behaviors in MMOs, apparently, that are counter to everything this post is about. Maybe is the good, ol' "G.I.F.T." model coming into play here (thank you, Penny Arcade) but it's hard to stomach group after group of random instances where impatience and intolerance drive the model. Show of hands: How many times have you seen people kicked for not having GS well above the instance level? How many times has the tank or healer said, "brb", the other doesn't hear, a pull starts, a wipe happens, and everyone drops group? It happens all too often, and I almost feel cheated out of my monthly fee by these people.
slythwolf Jun 12th 2010 4:22PM
I keep telling people (though they don't listen), the internet is a form of communication, like the telephone. Just because you can't actually see or hear them (...except when you can) doesn't mean those aren't still human beings on the other end. It isn't "just the internet", it's human beings you're talking to.
Memorious Jun 12th 2010 8:33AM
It's an interesting issue, because the standards of who you are are tied to your role much more than in real life. To be a good DPS is just to have a high output and not stand in fire. To be a good tank is to withstand damage well and position the boss so that healers and DPS are not damaged/ can continue to do their jobs. To be a good healer is to heal others or mitigate their incoming damage without standing in fire. To be a good raider is to be a good DPS/Tank/Healer AND turn up on time and fully prepared to satisfy your role as DPS/Tank/Healer. The question "is he a good healer" boils down to "would I want him, over any other healer, healing me in ICC HM"? The question, "is he a good raider?" is "do I want him in my raid [given that I want to down bosses]?" Your task, to down bosses that require cooperation, demands that you are also co-operative. The co-ordination demands that you know your place, that you don't fail in your role chasing the shiny Recount meter, or your raid will wipe. Your virtues as a raider are written into raiding itself; you show those virtues in raiding or by definition you will fail. So of course you have virtues in game - the definition of the class roles contains what it is to be good or not, and the definition of the group objective contains what it is to be good or not in a wider sense.
FGJustice Jun 12th 2010 8:50AM
Respect doesn't have to be restrained solely to conversation. On PvP servers, it's common for high-level players to go around gleefully messing with low-levels of the opposing faction, just because they can.
As an example, I'm leveling my warlock in STV the other day. An 80 death knight comes up as I'm in the middle of a pull; I sigh and resign myself to the inevitable ganking. Instead, the DK Death Grips my voidwalker and kills it, leaving me exposed to the three mobs who are now interested in my head. Bam - I'm dead, and now I have durability damage instead of just being one-shot by the DK. This occurred several times before I just gave up and went back to Heroic grinding on another character.
I wish people would follow the Golden Rule. I add the Golden Addendum: Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. If you're bored, go level an alt, or farm something, or do random Heroics/BGs. Leave the defenseless lowbies alone. Remember that there's a player on the other side of that screen, a player just trying to enjoy themselves, and there's no reason for you to swoop in and ruin his fun just to have some of your own.
Baba Jun 12th 2010 10:13AM
I agree 100% with you, but remember its a PvP realm, and world-PvP is the only distinguishing feature. Having never played on a PvP realm I'm not in a great place to say, but if I did roll on one I would be quite miffed if I wasn't ganked around 5 times per level. I hope that I'd enjoy being much quieter and more subtle with pulls, hiding in bushes etc.
Obviously that might wear thin on me in time though.
FGJustice Jun 12th 2010 10:21AM
It was one thing back in Vanilla, when a group of lower-level characters at least had a chance to gang up on a 60 and take him down. Nowadays though, the difference in power between a 30ish character and an 80 is so enormous that i doubt a full 40-man raid of 30s could even scratch an 80 - and don't get me started on the Resilience stat.
Kaz Jun 12th 2010 10:30AM
This is one of the reasons I don't play on a PvP realm. There's no disincentive for very high level toons to mess with low level ones. Even if you were in a group with four other people you would probably have just been killed by that DK.
There used to be Dishonor Points for killing toons of a much lower level, but it never really worked and was eliminated when they revised the honor system.
I wish they would figure out some way to stop the griefing, but until they do either steer clear of leveling toons on PvP servers, or have one of your friends 80's act as a bodyguard.
Yakuko Jun 12th 2010 11:24AM
@Baba, thing is you don't get ganked that much. Hell, I have toons that I levelled 1-80 on PvP servers who weren't even ganked that many times in total. Also, you'd be surprised how many high levels will just run right by you without caring. Having played on all server-types, I can honestly say there's little difference between PvP and PvE nowadays.
Xano Jun 12th 2010 12:01PM
Another thing to note here, is that it is a war. Technically your low level character is a military personnel in training. Think of levels 1-79 as a field boot camp of sorts. If military personnel encounter other enemy military personnel who are considered hostile, they need to try to stem the threat that the hostile entity could pose. Since WoW does not have a set of "rules of engagement" or a way to "detain and question", then the only other option would be destruction of the entity. To quote one of my favorite books that "somewhat" fits here, see below.
"I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher."