MMO Elitism – A Major Problem for the Industry
While often fodder for amusing videos and funny jokes, the way “noobs“ are derided in MMO culture is a very disturbing thing. While it is nothing new for insular hobbies or communities to be hesitant to embrace newcomers, MMO Elitism seems to take this to new levels. “Leet“ (or 3l33t, or elite) players take newbie abuse to an extreme in some MMOs. It is obvious that for many of these established players, trashing or humiliating “noobs” is clearly an act of compensation for some hole in their otherwise unfulfilling existence.
Take raid heavy games like World of Warcraft as an example:
- Players who want meaningful character advancement but are uninterested in pressing the “1″ button for 20 hours a week in repetitive raid dungeons are callously told to “l2play.”
- If they express a desire to participate in the end game content Blizzard focuses most of its development resources on, they are told “gear up noob.”
- Experienced players look up prospective party members’ WoW Armory profiles and reject them if their gear doesn’t measure up.
I don’t entirely blame the experienced players for all of the above. The game design is such that carrying a noob is rarely even possible. A single weak link can pretty much ruin a dungeon run. Game design that is hostile to the idea of experienced players playing with “noobs” is poorly thought out. The ability for highly skilled players to carry less skilled ones is actually something I miss. That used to be a huge part of the fun and reward for getting good at a game. But I digress…
There are estimates that over 50 million people worldwide currently play MMOs. That’s wonderful news, but for the industry to continue to grow and mature we need to first mature as individuals. If we want a wide variety of MMO games in all sorts of genres with all sorts of gameplay options, the industry needs to get a lot bigger. By bigger I don’t mean 1 or 2 successful MMOs launching every year. I mean 10-20 launching per year (including niche MMOs). Until we reach that critical mass, you can expect to see little more than a steady stream of generic monster bashers with minor gameplay tweaks and graphic reskins.
Game designers need to avoid design decisions that discourage experienced players from playing with “noobs.” Players need to cut it out with the outright hostility towards inexperienced players, and they need to stop equating character power in a game with self worth. Considering how little skill is involved in most modern MMOs anyway, the sense of superiority these 3l33t jerks feel is probably misplaced anyway.
In running Threshold RPG I have battled with this for years. Elitism has driven off more great players that I could count, and it really depresses me. We try to be hyper vigilant in stamping it out, but MMO Elitism is a powerful force that plagues the entire industry.
What do you think can be done to ameliorate this problem? Do you even agree it is as big of a problem as I claim?
I totally agree Muckbeast.
I also had a good laugh at “Cockatron” and NaM’s expense.
Thanks guys, the one who claimed to not be a moron and the guy who called himself such turned out to be the two biggest morons in the room.
Ahahhaaa. ehh, irony is great.
Grats to Muckbeast for jamming their posts so far back up their asses, that they’re reading the things, with their eyes closed.
Thanks Jason. It is really convenient to write an article about elitist jerks and then have some actually show up and provide a case study.
I read your post and I partly disagree. Although there are many elitists in WoW that love insulting ppl with STFU n00b / get on my level / l2play and don’t want them in their raid groups, there are just as many friendly raid guilds that also want to kill endgame bosses but will gladly help friendly “noobs” and help them to “gear up”.
That’s my experience but I guess everyone makes their own experiences…
Do you really think there are “just as many” friendly raid guilds helping new players kill endgame bosses? I don’t remember encountering ANY on Dalaran – one of the original servers. But I certainly observed zillions of assholes treating “nubs” like they were lepers.
FYI I’ll be posting under the name Aislingi from now on.
You’re quite welcome. People like Cockatron and NotaMoron (Still can’t get over the irony) are the saddest people in gaming. They have nothing else to be proud of. No real power except the feeble skill they developed online.
The sad truth is, most of these elitists (especially in WoW) aren’t even that good. They’re usually competent and, friends with high skill players. They ride a semi-top guild’s coat tails while using their guild name as a pedestal.
These people consider WoW skill brag-worthy.
It’s a very “grade school” mentality. Ugly kids pick on uglier kids. Popularity only goes as far, as the walls to the school or, even their current grade. They desperately grab what little power/influence they may have and, abuse it as much as they can.
Meanwhile, the truly good players/people, cultivate more good players, by teaching others and being gracious in victory.
No one remembers the asshole who insulted them over something trivial like a game.
They do remember the gracious veteran who helped them and pay it forward.
This is so incredibly true. They think skill is hitting an assist macro and standing on the right spot copying some YouTube video they wanted 47 times of how to beat a raid boss.
There is no decision making going on like there would be in a true skill based RPG. You don’t have to watch what is going on and decide what is best for your character to do. Things don’t change based on circumstances. In raids, you have an EXACT set of instructions that do not vary.
In fact, you don’t even make any choices as to what powers to use and when. Sites like ElitistJerks have number crunched every class to the point where the exact “skill rotation” is a known thing. People set up hotbars and literally just press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and then back to 1.
It is pretty sad, but worst of all are the people who think all of that means they are “uber 3l33t players.”
I could never understand anyone using anything past the fourth column for hotkeys. If you have to MOVE YOUR HAND, you might as well be clicking on buttons.
Kind of wish designers would use default layouts like that. I can see how in a game where keys control movement, you’d be afraid of scaring little Jimmy into realizing the shift and ctrl keys exist… but in a mouse move game like Diablo, there is no excuse.
Oh! Oh. World of Warcraft is doing away with skill ranks, they’ll automatically scale as levels are gained. This move puzzles me – won’t that mean Gold would have almost no value whatsoever? Even if they make the skills gained later on astronomically expensive, it uh, still would be a huge hit in its valuation?
The only thing I know about game economies is that the ways for money to leak out have to be strong and more than how much comes in, or otherwise it’s just a silly number that constantly goes up, like in a Grand Theft Auto game…
I was reading your post and realised that all this behavior is being encouraged due to bad game design. Its never the fault of the player, but the designer that allowed this to happen.
Levels are encouraging seperation of the player base, creating a power gap. Elite players are forced to play with only players of same power level in order to create powerfull guilds able to complete dungeons. This is leading to the creation of getto factions, gearscore, activity requirements, forcing you to be someone who plays 6+ hours per day in order to have leet gear. As time passes new dungeons are made, harder than before in order to satisfy the elite hardcore players who find current content too easy. Previous dungeons are becoming abandoned as everyone already has better gear. Thus casual players are unable to get the gear to be able to participate in dungeons. In order to get gear they have to team up with other players to do instances, but even then they are usually kicked as “not having enough gear” or even worse there are no groups that are doing that instance.
The solution is to tackle the root of all problems Levels !!!
I think that by using a symmetric leveling system in which levels don’t matter, will remove the need for farming. All players will be equal having the same power.
Read more about symmetric leveling, and see why it works.
Minor issue: I think problems CAN be the fault of the player, but a lot of times the seeds are planted through bad game design, or bad community management.
If levels were the problem, then real life wouldn’t work because real life is almost entirely divided up by levels, ranks, titles, etc.
It isn’t levels that forces people to play 6+ hours a day. It is bad content in the early and middle of a game, or the perception created by devs that only “end game” matters that causes that.
It has absolutely nothing to do with levels and instead has to do with the emphasis devs put on certain types of content. Look at the way WoW devs sneer at people who don’t raid. They have openly called loot rewards from non-end game raid dungeon “welfare epics” and other such derogatory terms. The problem is of their creation through game design and community management, not the presence of levels.
I applaud the thought behind your idea, but people also want to feel a sense of accomplishment and progression in your game universe. They get a lot of fun from returning to that area with the level 10 boss who was once challenging, and stomping his head in. Your symmetric leveling idea robs them of this very pure, basic joy that has been part of RPGs from the beginning.
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