I read a post a few weeks ago written by my friend Ray (Wowprofitz, found here) and he talked a lot about community. I enjoyed the post, agreed with him, and went on my way back into the games I loved and enjoyed. Back onto the internet where I spend most of my time. But the post didnt really resonate with me at the time. Dont get me wrong, I did enjoy it and I do enjoy his style of writing, but the meaning of the post didnt really strike me until a few days ago.
I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember, since I was very young. I played Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega and grew up in the playstation 1 era, until I became the PC gamer I am today. But up until I started playing multiplayer games, I was always alone and didnt need to interact with other people. But I did start playing multiplayer, as most people do, and for the first few years it was ok. See, I had started playing the Huge game, World of Warcraft, and when it first started out, it was all about other people. Forming Dungeon groups, being in a guild, selling the things you made to others, the game just forced the formation of a community upon you. And I liked that. I no longer had to play a video game alone, I could interact with other people, I could PLAY with other people. It was a change for me, back all those years ago. It was fun, it was different, it became what I loved to do.
But it changed, as most games often do. Blizzard tried to make the game a little easier for people to get to end game, implementing a Dungeon finder to make doing dungeon content easier. Gone were the days of standing around trying to find a group to do content with, gone were the days of making friends, filling your friends list with people whom you enjoyed spending time with. It just seemed that the community I had come to know and love was starting to break down slowly. Still, I was lucky, I had found a group of friends and we still did everything together, but some of my other friends began having a tough time with the content that I was still getting to enjoy with people. And I did know why.
Going into these random groups with people that you would most likely never see again just shut off the need to be nice and communicate with each other. The mindset of the player became "me,me,me,screw the other guy". It seemed that most people began to want instant gratification and nothing more. They wanted the mount, the pet, the gear, the achievement, but no longer wanted to put the time into helping others. I felt like I became the odd man out, joining a select few that still wanted to help my fellow player. Not that its a bad thing, far from it, but it felt weird becoming one of the few (I feel like there's a movie reference here, but I cant think of it. Oh well)
My feelings for the game never changed, I still loved logging into it. I still loved playing in a world filled with Magic and Dragons, where I could be a mage that built bombs, or a hunter that mixed potions, or a Shaman that skinned the hides off of animals. I loved trying to make as much gold as I could off the auction house, I still loved the game as a whole. What I began to resent was the player. Not my friends, or the people I had come to think of as extended family. No, I began to resent the people who wanted nothing more than to help themselves, the ones who wanted to race through a dungeons for gear, never saying a word, and then leave to do it all again.
As the years went by, it became worse and I became madder. The guild I had loved fell apart, and they began to leave the realm. I started new characters on another realm, but the feelings I had for other people stayed. I felt alone. So I began contemplating leaving the game and finding somewhere else to hang my hat. Yes, I was ready to hang my WoW hat up after years of enjoying it, years of fun. But thats when two things happened.
The first was I met Brent, my Boyfriend, who started off as one of my best and closest friends. We met in a guild, talked for a while, and then began to do everything together. Quests, dungeons, achievement runs. Everything! He brought back the sense that I wasnt alone in my gaming anymore. I had a friend, and then, after a few months, I had a boyfriend that I was able to share my gaming with. I found my love for World of Warcraft all over again, and I was glad I did.
The second thing that happened didnt happen until a Little later, but I met some awesome people through the WoW forums, and they became friends as well. We shared some laughs, and soon I had a lot of them on real ID, and soon I was never doing anything alone again.
But there are still some moments where I really hate how the community in WoW has turned out to be. I did a Looking for Raid the other night, and where my Boyfriend asked very nicely for combat to be allowed to drop so he could go repair, people raised a fuss. They began to cuss him out, calling him all sorts of names just because they didnt want to wait the extra ten seconds it would take for combat to drop off and him to port out to repair his gear. I sat back, shaking my head and sighing, but not saying anything at his request, remembering a time where if someone needed to leave to repair, people would wait and even summon him back, but no one wants to anymore. People just want instant gratification. Thats it, and it annoys me.
Most of the time, I feel ignored by people. Like Im seen as just another faceless clog in the machine for them to get their gear. And if I dont do things how they want me too, or as fast as they want to go, I get cussed out and called names. And Still, that sense of community is only found with certain people that I have come to know and enjoy. Who have become my friends.
The Moral of this story; Dont forget your roots, or that other people might need your help. Community is still the name of the game when it comes down to it.
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