I thought for my inaugural post, I could begin with something that has been plaguing me a bit lately: battleground etiquette, or rather, the lack thereof. I’ll admit, I have on a few occurrences uttered a curse in BG chat (mostly miss-tells intended for my guild), but nothing more. If I’m frustrated, I’ll offer up suggestions, but not insults. Many of my companions, however, do not feel that this is the proper way to go about chatting with those in your Arathi Basin group.
While I admit, I haven’t really BGed much since the release of the expansion (leveling, repping up and upping skills has become a priority, if not a job), but recently I’ve begun to hit the battle grounds again in an attempt to get some new gear and kill a few gnomes (a tried –but true– maxim), and I’ve noticed a change in the attitudes of players. Maybe it’s because of the introduction of battle groups that makes being in a BG less personal (and thus, it’s not as awkward to ridicule a teammate), but it seems as though the chat has gone from strategy advice, to a mix of insults and frustrated cries. In any given group, there will be at least two players who, before the BG has even begun, complain about how were going to lose and are up against a premade, whether or not this appears to be the case.
The types of insults being slung have also seemed to increased in specificity. While once, comments like, “Well, this sucks,” or “How many damn healers do they have?” seemed to be as far as a player would go in addressing an issue (aside from the mocking and derision bestowed upon those who AFK’d through AV), now it’s more than common to see something along the lines of, “WTF!!11?? U GUYS SUK SO BAD!! HORED IS FUKIN STUPID” (sic.) at the first loss of a tower/base/cap of a flag. What follows through the rest of the battle is neither more pleasant, nor correctly/legibly typed.
I’m not trying to figure out why this happens; I have my theories (an increasing number of younger players, the impersonal nature of battle groups, etc.). What I am curious about is this: does anyone even think about being polite in a BG? My thinking is that there are very few out there who do. In the spirit of creating a more pleasant environment in which to farm honour, I thought I’d posit this:
- Everyone waited in the same queue you did. Yes, it was a pain waiting an hour and a half for AV (on Rampage…more on this later), but we all did it. No one is trying to lose on purpose.
- You are talking to people; not machines, not androids, people. And as people, they do not enjoy being verbally abused by some anonymous person on the internet any more than you would.
- Yelling doesn’t help. No matter how forceful you are, “U GUYS SUK SO BAD” (sic.) isn’t going to make the battle turn around. Cooperation and teamwork tends to work better. Trust me.
- There will be other battles. Hopefully not all with a group of newbies, and not against premades. Yes, you want your pauldrons now (only three more tokens!), but you waited this long, you can wait some more. And finally…
- This is just a game. I cannot stress this enough. You pay $15 dollars a month (plus however much for the software itself) to have fun, not to stress out and yell. Along those lines, other people pay $15 to have fun, and not to be yelled at. I know it’s no fun to lose a BG, but you can still go on after this has happened.
While these “rules” might seem straightforward to you, literate blog reader, apparently they aren’t as widely followed as would be desired. Of course, I realize that only a small fraction of players actually insult everyone in BGs, but this is one of those situations where the negative actions are far more apparent than the positive. Maybe reminding people of these things (I usually do, though politely) could make your BG experience a little less annoying.
