Get Your Act Together Blizzard

I've mentioned before all the hostility you see in trade between people.  Rude comments, insults, you name it.  You see them in random dungeons as well where everyone seems to have a self defense mechanism that makes them instantly insult anyone that questions an action.  Doing battle grounds lately I remembered that is one of thing I did not miss having to see by not PvPed in a long time. 

Hostility is rampant in battle grounds.  I can understand it to a degree.  It took me three hours to get one win yesterday.  My entire free play time for the day trying to get one battle ground win on the alliance side.  That can really create some hostility for sure.  I wished I could scream in the ears of these people and explain to them how to play the game.  EotS is simple, cap 3 bases, let the opposing team run flags all day long, as long as you have 3 bases you will not lose.  You never even need to cap one flag.  Not like any person that plays alliance knows that. 

In my head I am thinking "fucking retards" but do I type it?  No.  Do you want to know why?  I am an adult and I know that insulting someone will not accomplish anything.  I also know that some people just do not know.  If I really wanted to I would premake some battleground guides and post it as a macro before the battle. 

One problem with that.  If I do something like that, people will start insulting me by saying, stfu tard, I know how to play.  See, no matter what you do or say, even if you do it politely, it will be taken as offensive by someone because the game encourages a hostile environment.  You are better off not typing anything at all or better yet, blizzard would be better off taking action against people that would reply to a macro like that with a remark such as stfu tard.

So I am not saying that people do not have the right to be mad at the people around them.  I completely understand it and I agree with them.  Some people just need to be yelled at if not to get your point across then just to get it off your chest.  Honestly, sometimes the act of complaining or yelling alone helps you feel better even if it accomplishes nothing.  I can understand that fully after it taking 3 hours to win one battle ground.  It should just not be done in game.  Yell to yourself.  Complain to a friend, wife, kids, anyone that will listen that is not in the game.

The issue is the language use that the people choose.  Even words as non threatening such as noob should not be thrown around.  Calling someone a noob will most likely get them to call you one back and then it escalates from there.  If you stop the first small words from being said, the later hateful words will never appear.

In a current court case a class action suit has been filed against an MMORPG for creating a hostile gaming environment.   It is based off the concept of the laws that protect people from a hostile work environment that some lawyer figured he could make some money off of. 

Personally, I agree with it.  I want to play a game and not be surrounded by all this hostility.  However I question if the lawsuit can do anything.  I am hoping and praying that it does.  If it does, there will be a very good trickle down effect that will make gaming in a multi player game so much nicer.

A second class action lawsuit is currently being assembled and is going to be filed against a larger MMORPG soon with the concept of the company creating a hostile gaming environment.  These are the only two I have heard about but I am sure there have to be others out there.

In truth I would be more then happy to hire a lawyer and start collecting people to join in on a class action lawsuit against blizzard for creating a hostile gaming environment if I thought that it would actually accomplish something.  Spending some money just to have to never hear someone insult another person in game would be money well spent in my mind.

I would love to play a game that it wasn't like it seems 50 percent of all talking in game is insulting or rude comments to each other.  While the fact might be true I am not the target of these insults it still bothers me to see them being thrown about.  I think sometimes I get more upset about someone being insulted then the person that is actually being insulted does.

Blizzard needs to get their act together and they need to get it together soon.  If this trend continues of lawsuits against MMORPGs it is only a matter of time before one lands on their doorstep.

To defend themselves all they would need to do it prove they are taking as many measures as possible to make sure their game does not feel like a hostile environment.

One visit to a battle ground, one hour sitting in trade, one bad dungeon run, and all those people in them getting no penalty for acting like complete asshats are as much proof as would be needed for a lawsuit to take a foothold.

Even when these people are reported 90% of the time you will not even get a reply to your ticket.  It will just disappear into the abyss.  The other 10% of the time they will say it is being looked into and appropriate action will be taken but because of the nature of actions you will not be informed of what action was taken.

This is not acceptable.  This is what creating a hostile work environment is about.  A worker reports someone for harassment and are either told it will be taken care of and never hear back from human resources at all or they are completely ignored.  Basically, this is how Blizzard handles harassment cases and it is about as wrong as wrong gets.

This is the basis of the lawsuits.  As one person I read said, winning a case against a company that charges you for a service that has one of its terms state that it does not allow this sort of behavior and does nothing to support their own terms shows them to be at fault.  It will be an easy case to win, but it will be paving new ground for the legal definition of hostile environment.

For now, I do not see much coming of the case.  If the largest MMORPG out there gets hit by a similar lawsuit it might change the face of how people are handled in a game.

I say Blizzard should clean up their act now.  Do not think that "noob" is no big deal.  It is a start up word that I usually see most of the hostility come after it kicks off the conversation.  One person starts calling another that and it goes down hill fast from there.

Add to the fact that it would be nice to make people act like... well, people, even when online.  The veil of anonymity  turns so many decent people into complete assholes.  This should not be tolerated in any community and even more so in a community like an MMORPG that thrives off of group play and interaction.

Get your act together Blizzard or you might be the next target of a lawsuit. 

While I would like that it would clean up the game, I would hate that it would also cost the company a great deal of money which in the end can hurt the game a lot more then having to deal with idiots insulting each other because they both suck.

In the end, I would like to play the game and not feel like I am in a third grade class room with a substitute teacher where all the kids are doing anything they want.

Good part is, you only have to deal with people like that for a small part of your game play experience, 20% at most.  Bad part is, 20% is too much.  There is no reason people like that should even be allowed to play.  They should go work on their people skills before they start trying to interact with them.

The best part of WoW is the community.  The worst part of WoW is the community.  Blizzard can fix the worst part... if only they gave a crap.