The “New” Virtual Community

Things change. We all know this.
I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
I want you to think back to a time when you had to actually look for a group.  Think back to the days of yore, back when there wasn’t a button you could press to find a raid or an instance group.
Back then, you were responsible for your actions. You had to communicate with others to get a group, also you were held responsible for your actions. If you acted like a jackass, you would start to get a bad reputation. That reputation would follow you, and haunt you for years to come. People would talk about you in Trade chat for years. Even to this day, I still hear people bad mouth jackasses that have either quit, name changed, or transferred off of the Argent Dawn server years ago.

Then we were given the ability to press one button and be put in a group with random strangers from our own servers.

It gave people a little less personal responsibility for their actions. It lowered the amount of communications needed to find a group, which lowered the amount of communications that went on in the group. You could still get a bad reputation, but it didn’t matter as much, since all you had to do was just re-queue for another group.

That all changed again, when the LFG tool started putting groups together from multiple servers. You were given free reign to do what you wanted to do, without any social repercussions. People stopped talking in group, people started acting worse and worse. They would drop the group if they thought you were bad, if you didn’t do what they said, or just to be a douche-bag. You could do what you wanted, you could say whatever you wanted to say. Gone were the days when if someone didn’t know the instance they could ask questions, and everyone else would explain it to them. Now they get laughed at, or kicked because they’ve never been there before.

The griefing got even worse when Blizz released the LFR tool. Now instead of being a jackass to just 4 other people, you could be a jackass to 24 other people. All you have to do is go on YouTube, and you can find examples of this.

But that is all about to change.

Blizz is introducing a new concept.

Virtual Realms.

New Feature: Virtual Realms

• Virtual Realms are sets of realms that are fused together, and will behave exactly as if they were one cohesive realm. Players on the same Virtual Realm will be able to join guilds, access a single Auction House, join arena teams and raids, as well run dungeons or group up to complete quests.

• Players belonging to the same Virtual Realm will have a (#) symbol next to their name.

Yep.  

That’s right, now if you act like a jackass in an LFR or LFG or a Scenario, all you have to do is look for the #. If you see that happy little symbol, then feel free to let everyone know how that person thinks that they are so special, that they can wreck any group they get in to.

Help them spread their reputation as a buffoon and spread tales of their jackassery. Let everyone know. This is not a smear campaign you’re running against them, it’s spreading the word of what they do, and how they act. If everyone does this, we can take back our groups. We can start to self-police ourselves again. We will start to see a return to players starting to respect each other more again.

So remember when 5.4 hits, and you’re running LFR, think before you speak and act. All of the community will be watching. They will know what you’re doing. You never know if they will pass on the tales of your actions, and in the process make it that much harder for you in all that you do in game.