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About the "1337 kiddies"
killerwig
Member UncommonPosts: 236
I've seen this mentioned in a couple of threads, most notably by Koolaider (hey, you're getting a rep.. heheh)
- about the coming invasion of 1337 kiddies to LOTRO. I gotta say that it's my biggest fear - the destruction of the so far, excellent LOTRO community as time goes on. Before I open this to further discussion, trolling, flaming and/or running around with large, double-handed axes, screaming "The Hobbits are coming to Isengard!"... i'd like to tell you what happened yesterday on Laurelin EU RP server.
As you may know, most MMOs get a few idiots who seem to enjoy griefing other players for their own amusement; LOTRO isn't any different as it currently stands. I was in Bree doing a little trading and was watching OOC when this guy started spamming profanities and insults in OOC as well as a few other channels. Of course, this caused an uproar. Counter-insults were thrown liberally toward the guy. The guy's mental state, intelligence, sexual orientation and parentage was invariably brought into question. The RPers were trying hard to put some Lore-based spin on it all, and failing completely in the face of true, thuggish RL ignorance and stupidity. i could almost hear a score of players hit F7 and open a new ticket under "harassment", since there wasn't a ticket option for "tard" - which would have been more appropriate.
Anyway, it lasted for about 15 minutes until the guy either left, or got banned by the GMs. At this point, and due to popular rumour, most players in Bree truely believed the guy to be a 35-year-old retard with learning and social "difficulties", and were taking pity on him, saying that there was nothing wrong with him, and that he was just "special".
It was the first time I've seen this happen in LOTRO, and immediately brought to mind my past experience with WoW's community, though cases such as this were far more prevalent there. Perhaps that was because WoW was far more competitive in nature, and unlike LOTRO, far more emphasis was placed upon e-peen. Or it might have simply been due to WoW's popularity outside of the normally-closed borders of MMO enthusiasts and geeky obscessives.
LOTRO is probably going to be a very popular MMORPG, but I'm left wondering what kind of crowd that success will draw to this game. I'm hoping that it will be different to WoW, because of the IP and the lack of traditional PvP play, and not get it's hooks into the normals and the FPS aficionados. But it's still a worry, nontheless.
So what's your take on it? Have any experiences to share?
Comments
Like you said, that kind of thing will happen at least occasionally - seems unavoidable. But, I think LOTRO will stay "more serious" and "civil" than WoW. I'm making sweeping generalizations here, but a few reasons are:
1. LOTRO is quest driven - appeals to RP'ers who seem to be generally cooperative/friendly, and will get boring for many of the quickfix PvP-types.
2. LOTRO graphics are nice but conservative. So far I haven't seen any in game items that scream "1337." The people that like to be heard by spewing a bunch of garbage over the chat lines also like to be seen. They won't get as much satisfaction if they can't be immediately noticed walking around Bree with T6 and legendary weapons. They'll likely move on.
3. the LOTRO community (on Vilya, anyway) seems to have a fair number of self-appointed "chat police" who quickly chime in to correct errant messages. I imagine that would get old for a troll, to be smacked down by a gang everytime you try to stir up some attention.
4. WAR and AoC will come out, and I suspect all the seriously competitive folks still in LOTRO will head to one of those games, leaving the core lore-heads and RP'ers to keep things going.
Just thoughts.
So far though, I've been impressed with the people I've met...and my son is one of the few teenagers I've met in the game (and that's cause I dragged him away from WOW)
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