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Wings Over Atreia: Feeding trolls
"WoW was the first MMO." "WTF you --------- [bless the filter]." "Your mom just left here." Channel /3 will be the death of me. Or perhaps just my sanity. If not, then it may be the cause of some random homicides soon. Although I had another topic all planned out (and already mostly penned), I had an about-face for this week's article. This subject is something that is always on the edge of my mind, and as of late, it has been more front and center. In fact, this week has seen discussions on the matter with friends, colleagues, legion-mates, and even my munchkins. The hot topic? Trolls. Aion players know that /3 is the LFG (looking for group) channel, and occasionally you can actually find people looking for groups there! However, because it is the only server-wide channel, people mostly use it for any type of random chatter. And by chatter, I mean a range of sexual comments, preening, raging, and flat-out trolling. Granted, sometimes following along with /3 chatter is simply amusing, but oftentimes it becomes annoying or even outright offensive. In any case, it's hard to pick out anything of value through the fast-paced spam. Now don't get me wrong; I am all for quips and banter and building a community, but it seems that the folks with any amount of consideration and class stay quiet for the most part. If we were to judge society off of universal chat channels, I think I would be all for large-scale nuclear annihilation; people treat others in virtual worlds like they wouldn't dream of vis-à-vis. Why is that? And what can we do to increase civility, decrease trolling, and improve gaming experiences overall? Cross the bridge (don't stop to feed the trolls!) to explore these points with me and share some amusing trolling moments from your server! (Please keep it clean folks!)
How to convince tanks to PuG
I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear. During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.
Horde looking for (and finding) fewer groups?
Distraction on the WoW LJ posts about something I've noticed while sitting in the LFG channel over the last few days on my server as well: Alliance are having a nice big party in the LFG channel, while Horde seem kind of lonely in it.Why does it seem like Alliance run more PUGs than Horde do? It seems to happen on every server that I've been on, and it can't just be a population thing-- even Horde heavy servers (of which there aren't many) seem to have more PUGs rolling on the Alliance side. Could it be that Alliance players are more social, or just more likely to be unguilded?And another thing I've noticed (and while Distraction doesn't mention it obviously, you can see it in his script) is that Horde seem to be less responsive to pleas for help in terms of LFG as well. Not only is it less common for a group to be LFG on Horde side, it seems, but it's less common for anyone LFG to find the help they need. I watched one guy Hordeside look for a Botanica group member for about 2 hours over the weekend, and when I finally joined up, the group frll apart anyway. Has that been your experience? And if so, why could that possibly be?
LFG channel will have to wait
Lots of players logged on yesterday after the patch expecting to share their Chuck Norris jokes look for groups in a chat channel as promised, but it looks like the LFG channel Blizzard said was coming back isn't actually arriving until the next content patch, 2.1.0.Drysc also reminds us that the LFG channel isn't returning worldwide-- it'll only be available for those using the LFG tool. So while we haven't actually used it yet, that means you'll have to flag yourself as LFG, and then you'll get access to the channel.But what hasn't been answered yet is whether you'll get access to a worldwide channel, or just the channel for your instance. It seems like just talking to people LFG for, say, Hellfire Ramparts is pretty pointless-- we can see their names up there on the screen and we can tell them anything we want. So that points to a worldwide LFG channel. But that then lends itself to the kind of stuff that made Blizzard ditch the channel in the first place, not to mention that it seems likely that tons of people who aren't actually LFG will sit flagged for LFG, just to listen in on the channel.The problem here is that the best thing the LFG channel had going for it was the fact that it was an open area for players to listen in on LFG requests-- I could sit on my alt and listen for groups for my main, or on my main I could hear about a group, and then head to a dungeon that I had never planned to go to. I fail to see, however, how implementing the channel in the LFG tool, either local or worldwide, opens itself back up to that kind of ad hoc group forming. I guess we won't know until we get a chance to use it.
Dear Blizz: Here's how to fix LFG
Last Friday, in answer to Nethaera's comment that players should use the LFG system even if they don't like it to come up with a solution for it, I commented that it wasn't the responsibility of players to fix the system, and that I'd be typing "/join lookingforgroup" to find groups until the LFG system was fixed. Now it's Monday, and over the weekend, Neth continued blaming players for not fixing the LFG system, even going so far as to say that people like me who circumvented it "are the ones making the system not work because it only works if people use it." Instead of creating a system players want to use, Blizzard put a system in place that wasn't as good as a mod (Call to Arms, which a lot of players appreciated before the addon meltdown broke it), and then expected the players to tell them how to fix it.Now, I'm not here to fight with Nethaera. From what I know about her, she's a pretty cool chick. All I really want is a working LFG system. So even while I think it's wrong for Blizzard to ask players to fix their system, if you want advice, Blizzard, I'll give it to you. Compiled from my own thoughts (and our readers' across a few different posts about the LFG system), here's how to fix LFG.
No more LFG channel... at least officially
Just a follow up to David's LFG post yesterday. My suggestion for the disappointing LFG system in place after the patch was for Blizzard to leave the system in place and also reinstate the LFG channel-- players who want to use the LFG system can then do so, and players who want to LFG the old fashioned (and messier, and more annoying, and yet more effective) way can do so as well.Blizzard, however, disagrees. Neth says clearly that the devs are standing behind the new system, and that no matter how much players ask for it, the old LFG channel ain't coming back. In fact, she even asks that players who don't want to use the LFG system use it anyway and give feedback on how to make it better. I'm not sure that's going to happen-- it's Blizzard's responsibility to get creative about solutions, not the players'. But in the meantime, lots of players have gotten creative anyway, and if you "/join lookingforgroup" on almost any server, you'll find a close enough approximation of what the LFG channel used to be. Until Blizzard fixes their interface and actually gets something in place that finds me the group I want doing exactly what I want, you can meet me there.
