I hear the conversations every day on 70-79 channel, “So and so took my named, how dare they!” and similar conversations. They’re met with the typical answers, there’s no such thing as camps in EQ2, you should have been quicker, lock your encounters, etc etc. So today when I was out adventuring on Arysh (who dinged 74 warden) I just couldn’t help but ask myself what ever happened to just being nice.
Typical scenario here. I’ve got a scaled wolf from the Field of Bone charmed. It’s a level higher then me, which means it’s prone to breaking. I wander over to kill some prowlers I need for one (of many) repeatable quests. I spot the named up. Make my way over to it. There’s another druid with a charmed Yeti not too far away, also killing prowlers. I have issues, charm breaks, I’m hurting pretty bad. Eulic from Mayhem (a raid guild on AB) sees all this go down. When my charm breaks, he charms the scaled wolf that I had charmed, and takes down the named with me standing right there (I obviously don’t lock my encounters, I never have).
Sent him a tell, saying that was awfully rude, why hadn’t he just asked if I’d like some help, and grouped up so that we both got the aa (it dropped treasured, I have no idea if it drops anything valuable, I just wanted the aa from the kill). He says it’s fair game, and that’s the way the game is played.
Ok. Well, I understand that there’s a whole persona that goes around with “contested” and named mobs. But what ever happened to just being nice. If you see someone in trouble, why not offer to help. Instead of trying to think only of yourself and snatching that named. It’s just a game after all. The problem partially is, I know these people are friendly to their personal friends, and their guilds, it’s just strangers who they feel they can be rude to. They sent me a tell back saying that my guild was of no importance, and that I couldn’t do anything to ruin their reputation due to the fact that Arsenal was small game on Antonia Bayle. It doesn’t matter if that’s true or not, why does it give people an excuse to be rude and mean.
It seems that people thrive on drama. The latest gossip that runs around the server involves a player sleeping with another players wife in real life. It’s broadcast all over the channels, and the response from the general public at times is just atrocious. That’s a personal matter between two (or three) people, why would you start broadcasting it across channels? Maybe it’s just me, and I just don’t understand something key here. Does that mean I’m looking for a carebear type game where everyone is smiling and happy all of the time? No, of course not. That’d be impossible to start with, and just plain weird.
That’s also not to say that nice things don’t randomly happen, they do. A friend of mine on Najena was grinding crafting writs trying to faction up to be able to afford her 78 and 79 sage books which were going for 4p each. Someone asked her for a few spells to be made, and she apologized, saying she couldn’t make them because she didn’t have the advanced books yet. The stranger paid for the books for her, and tipped her for making the spells as well. Random acts of kindness are out there. Just not enough of it.
Karma always gets the ones that are jerks. And its always fun when they all of a sudden need your help.
Damiende
The more i hear about you guys talking about AB the scarier your server seems. I think that with larger servers rudeness like that happens more often because there so many people you rarely see or group or what ever with the same people. Kithicor people just seem more helpful, Ya there some drama… but nothing like this.
I feel the exact same way. I haven’t seen anything as bad as the broadcasting affairs across chat channels, but sometimes I just have to turn the chat channels off on a real busy night just to keep sane. Then again, once I met a player who was deleting a character, and he randomly traded many items and all of his gold to me. So the random acts of kindness are there, I guess they are just a lot more quiet than the drama. Next time there is a random act of kindness, maybe we should broadcast that instead of rumors. :)
Some people have a tendency to become bullies, or adopt bully behaviour whenever and as soon as the can. The greatest pleasure is of course exposing them for what they are and showing them and their behaviour to the world. Sometimes, when I watch the drama on the chat channels, I toy with the idea of screenshotting or cut/pasting it all and post it on the net – along with as much info that can be attained on the idiots (alts, Guild(s) etc)…
What people do not realize is that in a game where there are real people you will piss real people off. Being jerk in-game is just a projection of their (the bullies) inner self. Just as the guy on a forum that is mostly OK but have drunken rants telling people they are idiots (and the day after blaming it on bad vodka).
With the “it is fair game because I can do so and there is no law against it” approach the adultery thing you mentioned should also be OK.
Blog-posts like this actually makes me glad I’m in a family guild. Family as in “only real life family” (and extended family) members have anything to say…
I hate that kind of nonsense. Niceness and communication wins every time for me.
The longer the game keeps going, though, the less I see any problems like this. Must be different on a highly populated server.
I know what you mean. As anti-social as it is, I have just gotten to the point where if there are more than 1 or 2 other people in the area, I just go somewhere else to avoid all of the drama. It always has amazed me how a video game can bring out the school yard bully in so many people.