Hello again, everyone! Hope you all enjoyed last week’s column; those of you who “got it”. Those of you who didn’t, lighten up. I’m not going to say that it was my best work by any means. I just thought to myself, "The internet needs more poop jokes." And I was right. Enough about that though, it’s super serious time. I got most of the silliness out of my system... I think.
Farts.
Ok, that was for sure the last of it. From here on out I will be using my serious face, because I do have this burden weighing me down and I want to get it off my chest.
Something has been bothering me recently and I feel like it is my duty (notice the spelling - serious) as an average gamer that enjoys playing MMOs, to use this column as a soapbox. The MMO gaming community really needs to check the attitude. I’m not talking about the commenters on this site so take it easy. I’m not even singling out any game in particular. I’m just talking about MMOs in general. The super douche-bag meter is off the charts on an epic level in almost every single game. For some reason there is an epidemic of bigotry, hate, and overall stupidity muddying the waters of MMOs and it needs to stop.
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I can hardly sit down in a single gaming session without getting bombarded with a bunch of pee holes spamming the “n” word or calling each other a “fag” just to be arse-holes. What’s the point of that? Maybe I just come in at the wrong time on all of these exchanges. Maybe, just maybe, a-hole one wronged a-hole two in real life by crushing his puppy dog with a really big rock. A-hole two was just getting his revenge by vomiting racial slurs and death threats via a chat channel in an MMO. That example is absurd and for that I apologize, this is supposed to be "serious time." I can’t be serious all the time though, it hurts me. Anyway, let’s say that the previous example was even the smallest bit true, why wouldn’t they just handle the dispute in real life? Obviously they know where each other live; the one guy killed the other guy’s puppy. Instead they decided to air their grievances for everyone to see.
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Besides bickering racist idiots, I’ve also noticed an increase of arrogant elitists. These people like to use their vast knowledge of the game for evil instead of good. Maybe they don’t even know that much about the game in question, they just know that they know more than you. I can’t understand how someone with an immense knowledge that I know is worthless in real life, can make me feel like the biggest moron just for asking a question. It could even be a question so incredibly complex that it could only be answered by someone who clearly dedicated their life to the subject, but they will answer it in the most condescending way they can so you feel like a loser. It’s really not that hard to help people out. I know because I’ve helped people before and people have helped me in the past, without being a "D" about it, and if I remember clearly it didn’t hurt or anything. As I recall the feeling of helping another person actually felt kind of good.
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I don’t know when it happened but the jerks have all the nice people outnumbered in MMOs, it seems. Most cases I would put money on the nice guy just shutting up and opting to ignore the offending party rather than standing up for what’s right. I’ll give you this; it is hard to rationalize with a moron, especially over the internet. I’ve made attempts before to try and set people straight when they were on a hate spewing tirade because someone said some movie was bad, it rarely works because no one has had my back.
I was going to wrap this up by trying to rally everyone together. Give some kind inspirational speech about how we need to stick together as gamers and take back what’s ours. Fight for what’s right and all that, but I think I’m just going to go back to not caring. When I started writing this I was really pissed off and now it had kind of tapered off. I think that apathy is the way to go now. That’s probably the reason people act like wankers in MMOs now as it is: because they know no one is going to say anything to them.
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At least there are those few good people who are helpful and kind. People who are funny and friendly on the general chat channels are what keep me coming back and that occasional conversation you happen across that is so funny it makes you pee a little. So, I guess my only piece of advice is simply this: It’s ok not to be a dick.
Dilbert image courtesy of Dilbert.com
