MMORPG or other multiplayer drama

[Traab]

Anyone got any good stories to share? Basically, your best story of the craziest most out of control drama ever to happen in game to either you or that you were witness to, either way. I will start.


I was playing World of Warcraft back when the first expansion was out. My druid was specced feral and playing on its cat form, basically making it a rogue style melee dps type. I was in a pickup group in one of the higher level dungeons when an epic item dropped. This item was an amazing upgrade for a rogue style class, worth TONS of money at the time, and wouldnt you know it? In this group we had me, a rogue style druid, and an actual rogue. The looting system was need before greed, so I linked my terrible gear for that slot and rolled, winning against the rogue. OH MY GOD this guy practically exploded with rage, declaring me a ninja looter and that as a hybrid class I didnt deserve to roll on "rogue loot". He dropped out of the group, left for the main zone, and turned it into a battleground in chat as everyone in the zone started picking sides as to who the jerk was. It got so bad my own guild got dragged into it, and again, opinion was evenly split as it was a common opinion back then that so called hybrid classes shouldnt be allowed to roll need on loot because the main classes could "use it better" Things were so out of control the guild leader literally booted over 20 guild members until they agreed to shut up about it in chat. Eventually it was settled that I did nothing wrong as it was a pickup group, it was a clear upgrade for me, and I was observed equipping it so clearly wasnt trying to sell it for a profit but wow, ive never seen so much screaming over loot before, and it really brought to a head the rather nasty opinion so many people had for anyone that dared to play a class other than warrior priest or mage.

[Psyren]

I follow a number of YouTubers and streamers that comment on MMO drama (mostly WoW since that's what I play), and the ones who commentate Classic tend to have more interesting drama to share since (a) a lot of what happens there is more community-driven due to lacking some of the systems like queues and sharding that typify retail, and (b) retail itself is in a bit of a content lull as things gear up for Shadowlands.

One such streamer, MadSeasonShow, recently took a hiatus from making content in order to commit himself to the insane Rank 14 Grand Marshal/High Warlord grind and documented his experiences. It's some of the best content I've seen from him, since his trademark deadpan/laconic style is quite at odds with the vats of toxic waste and vitriol in which he had to immerse himself during that slow climb to the top of his server's PvP bracket. Anyway, he released a series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ64f3gZPo0) of (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYeNsSO2J7g) videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMZv5fvV6sI) about his experience that, if you're interested in MMO drama at all, I highly recommend.

As for retail - well, it certainly has its fair share of drama too, but as mentioned above Blizzard has taken a lot of steps to mitigate the worst of it through various systems. Most of those have done little more than make Blizzard themselves the targets of the community's ire, but they do prevent some of the worst excesses of the community from rearing their heads. For example, sharding and layering keep PvP server imbalance in check, and PvP servers themselves have become a much more diluted concept due to Warmode. Similarly, the advent of personal loot in the game has its annoyances, but it does remove a great deal of social stigma from simply keeping an item you earned, without having to go through player-run frameworks like loot councils.

[danzibr]

Anyone got any good stories to share? Basically, your best story of the craziest most out of control drama ever to happen in game to either you or that you were witness to, either way. I will start.


I was playing World of Warcraft back when the first expansion was out. My druid was specced feral and playing on its cat form, basically making it a rogue style melee dps type. I was in a pickup group in one of the higher level dungeons when an epic item dropped. This item was an amazing upgrade for a rogue style class, worth TONS of money at the time, and wouldnt you know it? In this group we had me, a rogue style druid, and an actual rogue. The looting system was need before greed, so I linked my terrible gear for that slot and rolled, winning against the rogue. OH MY GOD this guy practically exploded with rage, declaring me a ninja looter and that as a hybrid class I didnt deserve to roll on "rogue loot". He dropped out of the group, left for the main zone, and turned it into a battleground in chat as everyone in the zone started picking sides as to who the jerk was. It got so bad my own guild got dragged into it, and again, opinion was evenly split as it was a common opinion back then that so called hybrid classes shouldnt be allowed to roll need on loot because the main classes could "use it better" Things were so out of control the guild leader literally booted over 20 guild members until they agreed to shut up about it in chat. Eventually it was settled that I did nothing wrong as it was a pickup group, it was a clear upgrade for me, and I was observed equipping it so clearly wasnt trying to sell it for a profit but wow, ive never seen so much screaming over loot before, and it really brought to a head the rather nasty opinion so many people had for anyone that dared to play a class other than warrior priest or mage.
This is uh... pretty hilarious to me.

My main always was a Rogue (started in BC, haven't played the newest expansion though). Kinda wished I went Druid for the versatility, but glad I didn't have to deal with this sorta drama.

I encountered some WoW drama, but of a different sort. I played a lot, like every night, all my free time went to WoW. This is BC, by the way. Finally ran through Kara a couple times, had enough skill and gear to do the next couple raids. We attempted them a few times, lost. And then... I had a change of heart, realized I was putting too much time into WoW, quit. Got a bunch of crap for abandoning the guild and whatnot.

[Winthur]

I play on Wrath of the Lich King private servers and we have had three different guilds fall apart to one person doing this:

1) coming over and acting like the most friendly player in the entire world
2) actually, while helping out others in stuff like levelling and farming, whispering to them that the guildmaster and officers are inactive and uncaring, which was verifiably untrue, but the guild was a raiding one and thus most officers were busy organising raids and collecting mats instead of catering to every single person needing a boost (member turnout was really high at that time); at some times the person in question would also openly question how well the person they were accusing was playing the game, because we were somehow both a guild for rejects from any actually heavily minmaxing guilds yet also still oriented towards progression (this never works, btw; people, as a whole, don't value other people's time, and when they say they "want to just casually progress" it most likely means they won't research their spec or simply won't bother to show up)
3) guy gets called out / ratted out by someone who notices what they're doing, which causes them to have a nuclear meltdown and a huge leave from the server, and also proceeds to spread more falsified information
4) people affected by step 1) and 2) are suddenly of the opinion that the only person keeping the guild running has been unjustly kicked out of the guild and pitchforks are set against the lazy entitled GMs and officers kicking out their uwu cinnamon roll

things that happened from this behavior:

one guy who got kicked out for lobbying to bench one of our best main tanks while him and his underperforming friends (literally paladins that never used any of their Hand spells for utility) later changed his avatar to a swastika. We initially agreed that we're going to keep all of his transgressions to the officer chat, but then he went ahead and told everyone lies about how he only had the "best intentions" and because it was his word against the word of a female player and he got his foot into the accusation bonanza first, plus he pretended to be an authority on many matters (he was not), many people thought he was in the right even though he was literally the worst feral tank I've ever raided with.
one guy who did this followed us to a different server and made a character pretending to be a friendly druid interested in our guild. He was doing the same "I'm so helpful schtick", but he decided to blunder into revealing his evil plan to a fellow Dutchman who was our friend, because he had this weird notion that national ties are stronger than anything else. The friend, of course, immediately told us about us having a literal honest-to-goodness mole in our guild and we confronted him. His diabolical plan was to level to 80 with us and then dramatically ditch us when we need him during a raid while telling them that we've done him a great injustice by discarding his free help so easily.


this is on top of all the other people that sign up to a raid and refuse to show, or leave the guild in a huff because their healer alt got passed over for a spellpower trinket by a core player who is in every raid

when funnymen from twitter spend hours upon hours of their lives raiding and PVPing in WoW and then retweet memes about how league of legends has the worst community in the world they are absolutely delusional; in League I was only forced to harbor four possible psychopaths in any given game instead of signing up to a guild with 30 people picked selectively from a community where discussing the feasibility of Hitler's social policies in barrens chat is a favourite pastime and pretending that I care to make friends with them

if you can't tell I wrote this in the middle of a severe burnout

[Psyren]

This is uh... pretty hilarious to me.

My main always was a Rogue (started in BC, haven't played the newest expansion though). Kinda wished I went Druid for the versatility, but glad I didn't have to deal with this sorta drama.

I encountered some WoW drama, but of a different sort. I played a lot, like every night, all my free time went to WoW. This is BC, by the way. Finally ran through Kara a couple times, had enough skill and gear to do the next couple raids. We attempted them a few times, lost. And then... I had a change of heart, realized I was putting too much time into WoW, quit. Got a bunch of crap for abandoning the guild and whatnot.

If you want to change mains, now is the time; Lots of classes are being seriously overhauled for Shadowlands, and the level squish means leveling will be a breeze compared to previous.


I play on Wrath of the Lich King private servers and we have had three different guilds fall apart to one person doing this:

*snip*

if you can't tell I wrote this in the middle of a severe burnout

This is part of the problem I have with the concept of private servers - you get the same very dedicated and insular/niche crowd willing to go to those lengths for nostalgia, which means that the asshats get magnified as you run into them (or they follow you) repeatedly. They're very much the minority, but it's hard to appreciate that when they repeatedly show up. This is on top of the normal problems with private servers where they operate in a questionably legal framework and can be shut off at any time, resulting in the loss of weeks if not months of your life.

[MCerberus]

I've got stories about being in a vanilla wow guild that can best be described as the heels (wrestling term) of the server. I have to push it out of my mind that those were the good times though, both because the guild leader was class 1 abusive, but something that happened during my occasional breaks for wow.

Since I was 14 I also belonged to a Red Orchestra clan, staring with the mod and into the release version. We were good enough that we could bloody the nose of real competitors on our home map, but were generally known as the chill guy. So, as time goes on people drift in and out of the game, we stop fielding competitive teams and generally become a social club.

One day the clan leader, aka dude that pays for the site makes an announcement. One of our members, one of the young ones along with me and a couple of others around the same age had passed from suicide. This immediately brought me through every interaction, every thing I said, everything he said. I was 14 when I joined, aka a terrible person because I didn't know better, and at 20 I was just starting to realize it. Every "joke" and "kidding around" suddenly was a step towards the edge, every odd post or missed skrim a call for help and I had COMPLETELY FAILED this person.

Point being, I reflexively don't engage or have any desire to see any organizational drama any more. Those are people on both ends of it, people that have invested enough to care enough to cause drama. There were a lot of people on my wow vanilla server that did engage with the "game" and saw having opponents as part of the fun. There was also actual hate and abuse in it.

[Traab]

If you want to change mains, now is the time; Lots of classes are being seriously overhauled for Shadowlands, and the level squish means leveling will be a breeze compared to previous.



This is part of the problem I have with the concept of private servers - you get the same very dedicated and insular/niche crowd willing to go to those lengths for nostalgia, which means that the asshats get magnified as you run into them (or they follow you) repeatedly. They're very much the minority, but it's hard to appreciate that when they repeatedly show up. This is on top of the normal problems with private servers where they operate in a questionably legal framework and can be shut off at any time, resulting in the loss of weeks if not months of your life.

Its not exactly hard to level up a new main anyways. First they buffed the low level leveling so much you could literally skip entire zones from the old level guide pathway because you leveled up so much clearing the current zone, then, when everything started leveling up with you it got even crazier because you werent farming greens to finish off the last few quests. And that doesnt even take into account the dungeon level grind. Im sure it will get even easier with shadowlands but seriously, WoW went all in on making leveling up to max as fast and easy as possible. I half expect them to one day introduce a new level system that basically gives you a class tutorial quest chain that takes a half hour, teaches you how your class works, and ends with you at whatever level you need to be to start the current end expansion.

[MCerberus]

Its not exactly hard to level up a new main anyways. First they buffed the low level leveling so much you could literally skip entire zones from the old level guide pathway because you leveled up so much clearing the current zone, then, when everything started leveling up with you it got even crazier because you werent farming greens to finish off the last few quests. And that doesnt even take into account the dungeon level grind. Im sure it will get even easier with shadowlands but seriously, WoW went all in on making leveling up to max as fast and easy as possible. I half expect them to one day introduce a new level system that basically gives you a class tutorial quest chain that takes a half hour, teaches you how your class works, and ends with you at whatever level you need to be to start the current end expansion.

That's literally how level boosters work

[Psyren]

Its not exactly hard to level up a new main anyways. First they buffed the low level leveling so much you could literally skip entire zones from the old level guide pathway because you leveled up so much clearing the current zone, then, when everything started leveling up with you it got even crazier because you werent farming greens to finish off the last few quests. And that doesnt even take into account the dungeon level grind. Im sure it will get even easier with shadowlands but seriously, WoW went all in on making leveling up to max as fast and easy as possible. I half expect them to one day introduce a new level system that basically gives you a class tutorial quest chain that takes a half hour, teaches you how your class works, and ends with you at whatever level you need to be to start the current end expansion.

I didn't say anything about it being "hard" :smallconfused: but it is/was time-consuming, even with full heirlooms + XP boosters + AAP + rested XP, and Shadowlands has made it less so.

[danzibr]

If you want to change mains, now is the time; Lots of classes are being seriously overhauled for Shadowlands, and the level squish means leveling will be a breeze compared to previous.
Thanks for the thought!

I actually have like... 5 or so toons at 110 (that's pre-current expansion cap, right?). Would be real easy to make any of them my main.

But if I ever go back to WoW, I'll either try the Alliance experience with my wife, or go back to my ol' Forsaken Rogue. Nostalgia I guess.

[Rodin]

Title says "other multiplayer", so here's mine from a non-MMO:

When I played the original Call of Duty I was in a clan. The clan had a pretty strict recruiting policy of "over 18s who are mature", which meant that we didn't have a lot of the usual asshattery that goes on in FPS clans. Unfortunately, it also meant that people had adult problems that took them away from the game. The clan I joined was a MOHAA group that had transitioned over to CoD, and a number of the leaders were on hiatus when I got recruited. The clan founder in particular was taking care of a baby and wasn't around at all.

Eventually, a couple of the CoD guys attempted a coup. They had already formed their own practice group with approval of the clan leaders, training the new CoD recruits in how you play a squad FPS competitively. They got a few of the more well-liked recruits (myself included) and tried to seize control of the clan entirely, spreading lies about the old guard and effectively splitting the clan in two.

This did not go unnoticed, and eventually the clan leader brought the hammer down. He ejected the ringleaders with prejudice, and then took the lieutenants like myself aside and sat down with us individually over voice chat. We had barely spoken until that point (because baby), but he laid things out clearly in a "come to Jesus" meeting. Once I found out what was going on behind the scenes I did a full 180 and threw my support behind the clan leader. It wound up being the best community I've ever been a part of, and we played FPS games together for several years.

Good leadership matters, and recruiting based on finding good people instead of just people who are skilled matters even more. Even then you can misjudge people, and people who were previously good can go crazy.

[Winthur]

This is on top of the normal problems with private servers where they operate in a questionably legal framework and can be shut off at any time, resulting in the loss of weeks if not months of your life.
Do you not lose weeks upon months of your life if a Diablo 3 character goes out of season or WoW raid gear from the last tier gets unceremoniously replaced by the next tier? What measure is "loss of weeks"? I was lucky enough that all of the servers I was on died naturally due to content drought brought about by everyone having done Icecrown Citadel multiple times, sideways, backwards and in Romanian.

As for the rest of the post, I might be jaded, but the people I have met on retail weren't really much better, either, and judging by some of the horror stories about retail guilds breaking up and stuff you can read in Asmongold chat or comments (it's amazing to me that Zack, a normal, decent person, harbors this sorta following; just look at the typical comments on the HazelNuttyGames debate video), I feel like I've seen the full breadth of the worst that WoW community has to offer.

[Cespenar]

So, I'm gonna spoil the WoW pool with my "old man story", but:

Back when I was playing Ultima Online in a national RP-focused server (or shard, if you will), there was this clan who were "roleplaying" human extremists who went along and lynched other non-human characters. Up to this point, you only might have an eyebrow up; but suffice it to say that their clan was named after a certain WW2 genocidal term beginning with "H". Yep, young adult + third world country humor indeed.

Anywho, me and my buddy were sorta roleplaying vigilantes who were human but fought against this clan, and during one of the bouts, they had more people online (3 against our 2, I know, lol, and this was considered an active hour) and thus were in the process of beating us up. They chased us through the forest and there was this abandoned house along the way, so we decided we could try our luck hiding in here. We tried to hide through the game mechanics (the hide skill), but since it was primarily a RP server and not a normal one, generally everyone's skills were abysmally low. So while we were trying and failing to hide, the "clan" caught up. Sidebar: the GMs of the server had by this point made up plenty of roleplaying commands like special emotes, dice roll commands, etc. to solve RP problems as much as it could have been done in a D&D game, and encouraged the use of them, so we decided to give them a chance. We waited them to enter the house, and then, intentionally in their line of sight, used hiding emotes and dice rolls to describe us hiding in or under various objects in the house. We had rolled pretty high, so we were waiting them to be gentlemanly and at least try a few rolls before doing what comes naturally.

They, of course, charged and butchered us directly. Cut to days and days of arguments on the server forums, both sides trying to convince the GMs, etc. All in all, fun times. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

Do you not lose weeks upon months of your life if a Diablo 3 character goes out of season or WoW raid gear from the last tier gets unceremoniously replaced by the next tier?

Not the same thing at all:

1) Leveling/gearing a fresh Diablo seasonal character for endgame content is a matter of mere hours thanks to Haedrig's Gift (free endgame tier set, which even has a chance to roll Ancient, or you can reroll the pieces yourself.) No MMO patch or expansion does that; WoW certainly doesn't.

2) You can still play the character you put time into even when a season or tier ends - trying out new builds, keeping the best of your recent season and prior season gear etc. If a private server is shut down by its hosts or C&D'd, you lose everything.


What measure is "loss of weeks"? I was lucky enough that all of the servers I was on died naturally due to content drought brought about by everyone having done Icecrown Citadel multiple times, sideways, backwards and in Romanian.

That's fair - if you're only ever interested in one raid tier I can see the draw, as continuity isn't really necessary at that point.


As for the rest of the post, I might be jaded, but the people I have met on retail weren't really much better, either, and judging by some of the horror stories about retail guilds breaking up and stuff you can read in Asmongold chat or comments (it's amazing to me that Zack, a normal, decent person, harbors this sorta following; just look at the typical comments on the HazelNuttyGames debate video), I feel like I've seen the full breadth of the worst that WoW community has to offer.

I wouldn't know as I avoid Asmongold videos on principle. I don't think he's that bad a person either, but he certainly seems to attract some of the more toxic elements of the fanbase since they love a good gripefest. That and his own level of vitriol towards the game are a turnoff for me personally, and we disagree on some fundamental issues like Master Looter.

[Winthur]

1) Leveling/gearing a fresh Diablo seasonal character for endgame content is a matter of mere hours thanks to Haedrig's Gift (free endgame tier set, which even has a chance to roll Ancient, or you can reroll the pieces yourself.) No MMO patch or expansion does that; WoW certainly doesn't.
That is fair enough, although I have also played on a handful of x7 servers. The relatively lowly time investment is something to consider, for sure.


2) You can still play the character you put time into even when a season or tier ends - trying out new builds, keeping the best of your recent season and prior season gear etc. If a private server is shut down by its hosts or C&D'd, you lose everything.
True, although I find most people tend to be "freshchasers" in that regard and abandon characters from the past season. I know I lost interest in my D2 characters that went non-ladder even when I was never a serious ladder chaser, just because of the ladder-only benefits like runewords and a healthier trading economy.




That's fair - if you're only ever interested in one raid tier I can see the draw, as continuity isn't really necessary at that point.

Well, the tiers within one expansion. I can, however, certainly tell you that even on private servers people are absolutely unwilling to stay on Naxxramas and Trial of the Crusader for long, and it's always the period of most relative drought for raidloggers.

Nonetheless, I'm mostly just bitter; I've spent a lot of time recently around various WoW-related communities, with people who also play retail on-and-off or dropped it at some point, and tried retail myself; and at this point I confess I feel like I'd have a tremendously hard time trusting anyone. Nothing flared my paranoia as much as the amount of secret resentments people are capable of harboring over purple names on purple icons.

Also, I always get really bored of my main really quickly or get compelled into raiding more on my offspec due to utility needs. Next time someone tells me "just follow your heart" when asked about which class to pick, I'll shoot them. A mean look. I'm never playing a hybrid class again :smalltongue:

[AdmiralCheez]

When I used to actively play World of Tanks, I remember a lot of arguments happening because some hardcore players were using a mod that took statistic data and analyzed how "good" players in a match were and gave a calculation on the chance that their team would win. Well, this led to a lot of team chat messages at the start of a match of people complaining about their teammates and their low chance of winning, and it would really bring down the mood. Keep in mind, at this point, they've already decided that we were going to lose and the countdown to start the match is still going. We hadn't even started playing yet.

Oh, and anytime someone tried to call them out on it, they would go on the offensive and claim that all the "pros" use that mod, if you weren't using it, you should just uninstall the game, and it was all based on "scientific data" so it's "proven" to be "accurate." Sometimes it felt like they were just playing to bump up their ranking on the mod, not to have fun. And because the mod's calculations based rank heavily upon things like win rate, those players would get upset if they got a low prediction of success, and wouldn't play the game as well because they didn't think it mattered. In their mind, it was already a loss, so what would be the point of trying? Thus, it would make a self-fulfilling prophecy of losing, and everyone else on the team had to deal with being insulted the whole time. "Look at all these tomatoes" was a common one (tomato was the derogatory term for players that got ranked as red, the "worst" level of player). Like, how dare we try to just have fun, and not grind wins to make an algorithm (that isn't even made by the game) think we're pros?

That's pretty much the main reason I stopped playing. I just wanted to roll around and shoot tanks that I recognize from history. I wasn't in it to prove anything to anyone.