It is little surprise that a lecture about MMOs featured a proportionately large consideration on ‘griefing’. Anyone who has played WoW could attest to the level at which this is part of the norm of social interaction.
Griefing started out as a way to describe when a high levelled character would repeatedly kill low level characters or NPCs to prevent quest progress. This of course would disrupt new players’ game time and lead to much rage, which would feed the griefer. Blizzard responded to this by implementing honourable and dishonourable kills (though only the killing of certain NPCs would give a dishonourable kill, killing a low levelled character was a neutral action). Of course this just gave rise to people trying to get as many dishonourable kills as they could; the only people who suffered were those who accidently incited the fury of a NPC who they could not kill without incurring a DK.
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26737 provides a good look into this type of behaviour.
The Cataclysm Expansion pack (as someone who I cannot remember said) should be renamed people with big-ass dragons sitting on top of NPCs. The previous expansion gave people easy access to large chunks of pixels that when positioned on top of the mailbox or other object that people want to interact with became near impossible. The behavioural norm is now to not stand next to things but on top of them, just on the off chance that when you are not playing the game for an hour, your character is actively ruining someone else’s time.
As such when a game that is so heavily reliant on community and social interaction becomes based on so many small games of annoyance it is one way that new players stand out. Just like New Zealand gamers may have become accustomed to lag, experienced WoW players know how to circumvent this behaviour. Sadly the negative behaviour stands out so much more than the players who would gladly help out another player.
On a concluding note, if games are anything like films, than WoW is the Pixar movie. Made for kids but with a small splash of complexity to stimulate brain activity: a Pixar movie that gives you free purple candy for understanding the simple humour.
I found that quite interesting. Players really do add to the feeling of a game. If people are going to be jerks, sometimes I too tend to just get frustrated and leave. Other players are a big part of the vibe a game gives. I hate being a newbie bumbling around while people who have been playing for years just make it harder for you or simply dismiss you once they realise how new you are. Its quite intimidating to be honest, and I think this stops a lot of new people from playing, the fear of not being accepted, because old players take pride in their knowledge, but everyone started at some point right? They seem to forget that, wanting to keep this a secluded community, not really adding to their image...
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