MMORPG Etiquette
Some of us have been playing online games for a while now. Most of us (I assume) have been living in reality for a while as well, and we’ve probably become aware of little unspoken rules and codes of behavior that apply to us when doing a social activity. Some of these are codified as laws (don’t murder people, don’t steal stuff, don’t kidnap your neighbor’s dog, etc.) and some of them are simply expected politeness and courtesy (cover your mouth when you cough, don’t yell in a restaurant, don’t stare at boobs, etc.). The realm of MMORPGs is much like this. Certain behaviors like harassment are prevented by GM enforcement (we hope), while other behaviors are rude and don’t win you any friends, but aren’t exactly breaking the rules.
What unspoken rules exist vary from game to game. Some games are open PVP with corpse-looting, and so these games are essentially nothing more than frightening, lawless swamps inhabited by bandits and teabaggers. This is a less common model, these days, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Not many people enjoy having their relaxing game-time interrupted by having their character trampled to death by a horde of axe-wielding centaurs in a guild called “t3h h4xx0rz r3p0rt.”
There is no such thing as etiquette in these games. Like a hostage with stockholm syndrome, you’ll find yourself thanking people for not calling you “lol gaynoob” and crouch-humping your ruined body. Of course, some guilds might form bastions of civilization, but in my experience, the shameless, barbarian hordes will always outnumber the honorable, civilized folk.
Then you have the WoW-style MMORPG. We’ll assume everyone reading this knows what I’m talking about. Etiquette in these kinds of games is as simple as “don’t ninja loot” and “don’t kill-steal.” At a glance, we might think that a game with rules as strict as this have no opportunity for a lone lunatic to cause mayhem – in general, you’d be wrong. Sure, you could argue that getting blacklisted is a huge deterrent against bad behavior, but that doesn’t stop people from doing things like joining a guild, building up trust, and then cleaning out the guild bank, only to disappear like a thief in the night.
But of course, you ruin your credibility as a player. But, who cares?! It’s just a game. Lolz, look at those noobs scramble and rage!
I am not endorsing this behavior. I think.
Then you have everything else. The match-based FPS, if it has voice-chat, appreciates it when you don’t abuse this privilege and scream into your microphone like an alarmed rabbit every time a flag is being captured (have you ever heard a rabbit scream? It sounds a lot like an angry 13-year old boy squealing). RTS games like Starcraft? Always end the match with a “GG.” Same goes with League of Legends and others. Don’t be a jerk and mock a downed opponent, and don’t be an ass and complain when you lose.
Really, it all just comes down to walking a fine line between remembering that it’s just a game, and that also, there are thousands of other human beings behind those avatars with some degree of investment in what’s happening.
Tl;dr version: Don’t be a dick.
By B. Olivia
October 28, 2011
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on the final statements from “I am not endorsing this behavior. I think…” to “of investment in what’s happening” i totally agree because i play league of legends and those things happens very often when the game ends..
October 29, 2011
#1
Great article, haven’t read a good one in a while:D
October 29, 2011
#2
WHAT OMG THIS IZ SO DUM I HATE YOU IM GONA KILL YOU I BEEN LEETING ON YOU!!!
Ahh… I remember reading a guide on “How not to be a noob” on the FlyffWorld forums wayyy back when I first started MMO’s (damn you flyff what have you done to my life… hey that rhymed!)… And it was a good bit like this. And that’s a good thing.
And ya… rabbits…. are loud. Freaked the CRAP outta me first time I heard one scream.
October 29, 2011
#3
Those four words sum up a wall of text. Good article though.
October 29, 2011
#4
I wouldn’t have gone as far as including league of legends in good etiquette, well at least the United States servers. GG does not exclude all the ranting and raving earlier by these so called pros. Either way the way I see it is that you don’t need to care at all about what people say. Why waste time on getting offended or taking the time to try and offend someone. Just play the game. And people honestly know what they are getting into. The internet alone is a cesspool. Add that and a game and well the world is in wonders of how far people can go in being idiots.
October 29, 2011
#5
This isn’t a good article at all.
October 29, 2011
#6
Sadly, some people view FUN as griefing and they tend to get a hard on by annoying others, it is just a fact of life.
Some game companies view the “risk” of getting griefed as something that should elicit an adrenaline rush and thus make the game more fun.
Sadly it just keeps people from enjoying the game.
It has become more like (We stay because of our investments) rather than (we stay because it is fun).
With some games that have a broken system like those where a helpless noob can’t even have fun, somebody in the design phase messed up.
October 30, 2011
#7
Well, in league of legends, ou cant say GG after a defeat, when your teammates are lvl 30 and cant even last hit the creeps and feed like hell :/ just sayin
October 30, 2011
#8
But I like starring at boobs
October 31, 2011
#9
Teabagging and calling people noobs after beating them is your right. If they don’t like it, then they can improve and beat you so they can do it to you. I antagonize players every time I kill them. It’s actually an effective tactic. You’d be surprised how easy it is to win in games like HoN and LoL just by typing “PWNT” every time you get a kill. It adds to their frustration, which leads them to RQing, which ends up costing the opposing team the game. Besides, if they are a big enough ass to ditch their team, they are a big enough ass to be made fun of. Nuff said.
October 31, 2011
#10
“But of course, you ruin your credibility as a player. But, who cares?! It’s just a game. Lolz, look at those noobs scramble and rage!” ~ DO YOU SEE HOW THE CYCLE JUST CONTINUED THERE??? Even if you say it “calmly” in the passive agressive form, it is written, and there fore left to the reader to take super offensively, or as nothing at all. You can’t create these articles it is futile. Yes, resistance to the noobs is futile. I like LoL, I like allot of other games.Games also have emotes used to “taunt” the enemy. IT is a part of the game. Get used to it. What I do find interesting, I moved to Europe, and they are just naturally better people. The French servers and people I play with never curse. I go back to American servers, or UK, They are space bar spamming little shet fewks.
October 31, 2011
#11
haha, this totally reminds me of a game i used to play called Voyage Century Online. Everyone on there would harass each other on Public chat 24/7. .
November 1, 2011
#12
I personaly haven’t seen that much teabagging in Open World PVP games. But then again I’ve realy only been playing Face of Mankind alot recently in which its pretty easy to get revenge on someone that killed you.
November 1, 2011
#13
I love pvp mmos they are easily the most fun where everyone is just out for one thing, to become top dog and earn some real cash and earn it without hitting billions of mindless mobs and popping the occasional potion, I want to fight for my rewards and I want the person im murdering to run and scream for help while doing it. It just makes games more fun that way :p it gets old killing a hundred boars every day. Granted the problem is most of these pvp mmos require you get to a high level before you even stand a chance to do so and the only way to get there is to kill the same mobs but also watch your back for someone 10 levels higher than you slowing the process about 50 times more. Very few games get this balance right.
November 2, 2011
#14
very interesting article,only you forgot to talk about eve online where all of this is brought to a new level,spying,stealing the lawlessness of it all.There’s entire “guilds” that only live for the tears of others. P.S. keep the articles coming ,they are awesome
November 2, 2011
#15
the easiest way to troll noobs is to play enforcer on apb – that way you can still follow the game rules and roleplay characteristics while getting the satisfaction that you just killed a criminal with his pants around his ankles
November 5, 2011
#16
Trolls. I hate them. What an absolute waste of time and effort. Generally speaking, these are the people who are too afraid of consequences in real life so they take out their aggression on others in games. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think there is anything wrong with a teabag or using /taunt in WoW for example. But what about the people that hack in CoD specifically to troll? Really? Does it really matter to you that much? Is your life so absolutely horrible that you really feel the need to put that much effort into harassing other players?
Also, I really don’t get the whole “troll the noobs” thing. Ok, so let me get this straight. you’ve been playing this game for four years, and this other guy just started playing yesterday because he has a life that’s worth living…. so OBVIOUSLY the correct thing to do is to harass him… because…. oh wait, you forgot to think that far ahead.
And basically that sums up a troll. So absolutely miserable in his/her own life that he/she must make others feel the same in a world that he/she feels like he/she has some control over. It’s actually a huge psychological disorder when you get right down to it. I think it may be a God complex because if you ever hear a troll explain why he/she does it, you’ll only hear 2 reasons. 1: Because it’s fun making others react to what I’m saying in a negative way. This is a pretty obvious one: The reason that you want to make others react is because you feel empowered by doing so, showing that in all likely hood, you feel a lack of control over your own life. #2: Because people need to stop being so sensitive about everything. Now this one is a bit more complicated, but it really comes down to the same thing. You need control. How dare someone else feel differently about something than you do. So obviously you feel the need to change things to your liking by attacking other people. Once again, this is a lack of control in your own life which is why you’re acting out: you feel the need to change something, you just don’t have a clear understanding of what it is.
In summary: To those of you who are trolls that read this, don’t even bother fighting it. I’m just dropping off some wisdom here and leaving. To those of you who aren’t trolls, at least you know now why these other jackasses are acting this way, so when you start getting trolled you can just smile, because you know everything you need to know about the poor pathetic sack of crap on the other end.
December 4, 2011
#17
i troll cause it makes people like u type out a huge post to say it dont bother you…it clearly does with how much u wrote against it! (FACE!)
November 6, 2011
#18
To be honest the only game i play now require skill (which mostly limits me to shooters) this eliminates the noob squad problem (that was until cod which has been changing shooters to make them noob friendly which essentially means and eye for an eye and the only way to get a higher then 1-1 kdr is using the cheapest gameplay or just plain cheating.)
But to be honest, i haven’t played a game in years where pvpers are not penalized correctly, lost exp, increased item drop, somtimes even unresurrectable, they use these in pvp heavy games these days which by my book is stupid and makes the game stupid, take a look at how uo was played that game had pretty much all professions, but red’s didn’t rule the world and when they had decided to claim it, blues stepped up to stomp them back into place.
I guess what i’m saying from this rant is, there is no etiquette because there is no real mmorpgs left, we just have mmo social hubs where people like to be themselves and the best at it making for real world frustrations when lost and actually caring (ALOT) about losing there stuff, of course to be fair back in the day we had assholes too, but if it was a duel (the days when the dueling system didn’t exist then everyone would back off and a sacred pact was made.
mmo’s are now just a way to escape from the real world, rather then a mystical land as envisioned by a book or developers, there are no real bosses left (like the eq dragon who took almost 23 hours by a FULL GUILD to complete, and even more importantly i the fact that game developers have made it this way, when was the last time you saw a boss outside an instance drop a top tier weapon?
November 15, 2011
#19
All these sh1tty free games s u c k anyway, some more some less, who cares anyway, Skyrim is out and I’m playing it now, f u c k you everything!
November 19, 2011
#20
most of players froget that they are in a game. I mean they insult you and your fammily
for playing a game.
December 1, 2011
#21
Great article i have nothing to say against it .A lot of actitudes should not be allowed.Great i like it good job Remo!
December 22, 2011
#22
Griefers/trolls in a game are transparently one thing: enraged at their perpetual virginity and getting off as best they can on shooting other dudes with pixelated bullets, yelling in triumph that they just raped a homosexual (that is also gay, jfyi), and in games that allow it, cooling their relieved testicles in their victim’s mouth.
Luckily many though not all will achieve sex with women and kick their console-based homerotic habit.
February 8, 2012
#23
It’s little wonder that some of us come here looking for the next MMO to try out, say “What, it’s OPEN PvP, fuck that!” & look at something else.
Gamers tend to be more polite in the games than they are in the forums, doesn’t matter if it’s mostly 13 year old boys or 40 year old women.
I like it when the chat box is unobtrustive, or better yet collapsible/hideable.