Guild Wars 2

I just had a moderately annoying experience. After finishing a dungeon run with a PUG with relative ease, I asked if they wanted to do the next easy path in the dungeon, to which they replied “Kitten you” and immediately kicked me from the party. My guildie, who was running the dungeon with me, laughed when I said I had reported them for verbal abuse. I realize that they were probably joking but it’s so hard to tell via text alone.

Was I being melodramatic? Why do we put up with people like this? To tie this back to the title, I understand that almost a month ago, guild wars 2 went f2p or “free to try” or whatever. Could this be adversly affecting the amazing community (overall) that we have here?

Edit: To everyone who thinks I am blaming f2p players for anything just know that I am not. The following is a post further down the thread that explains what my thought process was for creating this thread. Also, the story wasn’t the main point here, it was simply meant to give context to the main point of discussion and I understand that it was done poorly.

dlmoore:
Where in my original post do I say that it hurt my feelings? If you must know, the incident that I described (and a slew of others) caused me to think about the community as a whole. I then entertained the thought that guild wars 2 going free to play caused these changes (derived from a highly subjective observation) in the overall attitudes of the players. This thought occurred because guild wars 2 going free to play was already primed in my mind from all of the advertisements and coverage on the topic. Wondering what other players thought of this, I made this thread and overall I think this has been a very successful thread. I have heard a lot of different opinions regarding the issue that the post is primarily about. Thank you to everyone who has posted here!

How do you know person that did this was F2P player? Could be any player with bad attitude. Not the first time anyone ever talk about verbal abuse. This happen many time before GW2 F2P to many people.

Qugi.2653:

How do you know person that did this was F2P player? Could be any player with bad attitude.

True

Wow. Just wow.

So you got cussed out in a pug group by somebody you don’t know in the least bit and will probably never talk again.

Do you really feel this warrants a discussion over? Is it that big of a deal?

This has nothing to do with f2p. The only thing that hurts the community is the veteran elitism.

We have plenty of helpful veterans in this game. However, those few people who want that sense of superiority in a video game can potentially ruin it.

Had some of my best experiences so far with the newcomers. New players are generally very enchanted by the rich world compared to the already sour and disappointed old players. :P

We were doing tahida when some guy on the map chat started blaming f2p people for not knowing the mechanic and threw a hissy fit. I loled.

Yes it dose create toxicity but usually only when elitism starts to rear it’s ugly head from the non free players….

toxicity…trolls

gw2 itself already has a lot of dota/lol-like kids, so it has nothing to do with f2p, the proportion of these kids are the same through out.

It’s everywhere regardless of the “game mode”

This has no link to F2P people. Also peeple do need to realise that new players wil not be aware of what ‘10k+ AP’ and ‘metazerk’ mean so patience and explaination would be nice on the part of veteran players when someone incorrectly joins their party.

Dungeons have been toxic for quite sometime prior to F2P. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that it has gotten worse.

The only toxicity I’ve seen as a result of F2P is “veterans” being toxic to those F2P people. I’ve not experienced any toxicity coming from people who are playing the game for free. On the other hand since the update every single time something negative happens they get the blame. So the answer to your question is yes, F2P is causing toxicity in the community since people are being toxic towards them

In PVP i see myself more insults and troll than before. And so more reports needed. Maybe old WOW players?

I get a kick out of the few post trying to turn the topic in an elitism thread. No, there wasn’t any of that in the OP’s post. For the OP, I would say when a person has to invest in anything, they’d appreciate and care for it more. So if something is for free and easily replaceable, one should expect it to not be cared for as much.

I just object to the OP trying to blame something on f2p players, without having any actual evidence that a f2p player was responsible. Isn’t the playerbase divided enough without making unprovable assumptions?

DeWolfe.2174:

I get a kick out of the few post trying to turn the topic in an elitism thread. No, there wasn’t any of that in the OP’s post. For the OP, I would say when a person has to invest in anything, they’d appreciate and care for it more. So if something is for free and easily replaceable, one should expect it to not be cared for as much.

Don’t blame the community, please. The post we were reffering to (including every response that had a quote from this post – mine too, yey!) was deleted and only half of the thread remained.

It’s always amazing to see how “clearing up” the forums causes unnecessary confusion.

DeWolfe.2174:

I get a kick out of the few post trying to turn the topic in an elitism thread. No, there wasn’t any of that in the OP’s post. For the OP, I would say when a person has to invest in anything, they’d appreciate and care for it more. So if something is for free and easily replaceable, one should expect it to not be cared for as much.

a now-deleted post by a notoriously toxic and elitist individual on this board (guess who, no really, guess) said some toxic and elitist things about F2P players

the board’s software is STUPID and deletes any post that quoted a deleted post, robbing this thread of much context, those posts were in response to an actual toxic elitist, not trying to change the post.

dlmoore.7293:

I just had a moderately annoying experience. After finishing a dungeon run with a PUG with relative ease, I asked if they wanted to do the next easy path in the dungeon, to which they replied “Kitten you” and immediately kicked me from the party. My guildie, who was running the dungeon with me, laughed when I said I had reported them for verbal abuse. I realize that they were probably joking but it’s so hard to tell via text alone.

Was I being melodramatic? Why do we put up with people like this? To tie this back to the title, I understand that almost a month ago, guild wars 2 went f2p or “free to try” or whatever. Could this be adversly affecting the amazing community (overall) that we have here?

No, I don’t think F2P is causing community toxicity, although I do think a lot of toxicity will be blamed on F2P, even if it was there beforehand. Because it’s an easy target to blame, and people tend to forget that the game always had a few cranky players.

What happened to you has happened before in PUGs, way before F2P. That’s just the way that some people choose to behave. Spending money on something doesn’t make you a nice person. There are people who look like they single-handedly keep the gem store running, and they are just as rude.

There will always be people who will be toxic, may it be f2ps or elitist veterans.

I’ve been with a bunch of f2p people lately while doing story dungeons and a couple of explorables. But they are not being toxic in anyway, some need to get a waypoint linked to them so they can enter the dungeon, some will just stand there in the red circles and dodge too late and die over and over etc etc – It’s fine, we all been there at some point but those i’ve met are not being toxic (yet).

Now yesterday i was with a veteran who was just being toxic against the f2p players, telling them that they were being slow and they should stop kittening sleep and shape up, spam pinging on mini map and just being elitist wanna be in general.

Some will joke and some will be real, best way to do is just to let it be and move on – nicer groups out there (and worse).

And ofc since we get raids in expansion we are going to see quite a decent amount of toxic elitist try to “lead” the raid without patience.

So we are closing in on it, less then a month now before Toxic Wars 2: Salt of Thorns will be real for a period of time.

I’ve not noticed any more or less unpleasant behaviour since F2P.

Having a paywall doesn’t do anything to prevent horrible behaviour and attitudes (spend 10 minutes playing WoW, you’ll see what I mean). every game has it’s share of “bad apples”, there’s no escaping that.

I see no reason whatsoever that that had anything to do with f2p. They were clearly being a jerk but they could just as easily have been a paid player.

So now we’re blaming the f2p players for some random guy(s) being a jerk?
I’m not seeing f2p related in there anywhere.
So if f2p is making anyone toxic here….its you.

I’ve actually taken to carrying Packets of Salt around with me to mail to people who keep banging on about the oh-so ebil f2pers ruining everything and how they’ll destroy the game. Most of the time this sort of rubbish starts up in chat, it’s because the person doing the complaining couldn’t be bothered to explain something, screwed up themselves or simply has no patience. I started playing a couple of days before the f2pers and you know, I’d have been one of them myself had I not had the money to buy the game (which was a birthday present to myself as I share it with the game). That’s another reason I find this so abhorrent, other than the blatant scapegoating. As other people have said, you’re going to get kittens playing this game whether they pay or not, as can be seen in oh, I don’t know, practically every gaming community ever. All I can say is those bashing f2pers are the real problem.

out of curiosity – which dungeon and about which path you asked?

Lord Trejgon.2809:

out of curiosity – which dungeon and about which path you asked?

It was CoF P1.

So I’m a little confused. Do people think I’m blaming the f2pers? I was simply posing a question. As it stands, I have no position on this particular topic.

dlmoore.7293:

Was I being melodramatic?

yes. block and move on.

RSLongK.8961:

dlmoore.7293:

Was I being melodramatic?

yes. block and move on.

Haha fair enough

My original post was deleted too. So here’s an abridged version:

I’ve not seen any toxicity from free players, but I have seen some directed towards anyone who might be new, just in case they’re playing on a free account. Somewhat amusingly I went out of my way to try and make it obvious my new Mesmer is an alt and not a new account (HoM skins, Abyss and Celestial dyes, Faithful title & Liadri mini) and I’ve still had people giving me “helpful” advice which basically amounts to asking me to stay away from them and anyone like them until I’m at level 80.

But I think what the OP experienced is just the usual idiots that have been in the game since launch (and in every other game). Without more information there’s no way to tell if they were annoyed with you for some reason and just waiting until the end to kick you, just didn’t want to do more paths and were really bad at explaining it or had some other reason, but I think all you can do is report them, move on and hope you don’t end up in a group with them again.

dlmoore.7293:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

out of curiosity – which dungeon and about which path you asked?

It was CoF P1.

So I’m a little confused. Do people think I’m blaming the f2pers? I was simply posing a question. As it stands, I have no position on this particular topic.

Well yes, because your thread title suggests it. Perhaps change your thread title to your actual position to avoid confusion

I have to agree with some of the other posters that there’s no evidence F2P was at the root of your incident.

I don’t like the F2P model. I don’t want it here. That includes a cash shop that makes the game feel F2P. This is a B2P with expansions and it should play like one.

My opinion is that F2P brings in a less desirable crowd as well. If I wanted a F2P I would have downloaded one. I opted to buy instead, I think that boundary should be respected.

People were displaying that kind of rude behavior well before f2p. Stinks it happened, but let’s blame the individual, not the entirety of a subset of a community.

Free-To-Play doesn’t cause toxicity. Toxic players (attitudes) cause toxicity.

Just like guns don’t kill people…people WITH guns kill people. Triggers don’t pull themselves. Well…unless we are talking about an engineer’s turrets, but that’s a whole other topic.

GamerOnline.3650:

Free-To-Play doesn’t cause toxicity. Toxic players (attitudes) cause toxicity.

Just like guns don’t kill people…people WITH guns kill people. Triggers don’t pull themselves. Well…unless we are talking about an engineer’s turrets, but that’s a whole other topic.

Guns don’t kill people. Engineers kill people.

dlmoore.7293:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

out of curiosity – which dungeon and about which path you asked?

It was CoF P1.

So I’m a little confused. Do people think I’m blaming the f2pers? I was simply posing a question. As it stands, I have no position on this particular topic.

Yes. Because what happened (some random person being rude) has no visible ties to f2p accounts. Since there isn’t any tie to f2p, then you bringing it up says that to you the two are connected (or else you wouldn’t have thought it) and that you are blaming f2p accounts for this behavior.

In a roundabout way… yes.
As some others have stated the new players I’ve played with seem friendly and ask a lot of questions. Which is good. =)
But sometimes I’ve noticed that map chat trolls these questions which is not very nice.
Also noticed that the questioning does not extend into the dungeons.
After a couple of annoying wipes and grumbling a player will sometimes admit to being new but did not want to say that at start because of previous kicks when admitting this. And that’s just sad.

New players is the lifeblood of an mmo and helping them, or just observing them learn, is a wonderful way to re-experience that first awe one had when starting to play and deciding to stay in a game.

And f2p brings a lot of new players.
It’s just a shame it seems they don’t always get a warm welcome. =(

Just a flesh wound.3589:

dlmoore.7293:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

out of curiosity – which dungeon and about which path you asked?

It was CoF P1.

So I’m a little confused. Do people think I’m blaming the f2pers? I was simply posing a question. As it stands, I have no position on this particular topic.

Yes. Because what happened (some random person being rude) has no visible ties to f2p accounts. Since there isn’t any tie to f2p, then you bringing it up says that to you the two are connected (or else you wouldn’t have thought it) and that you are blaming f2p accounts for this behavior.

No. What it says is that I think the two MIGHT be connected. Hence why I created a thread and engaged in a discussion on the topic. However, upon reading the comments here, I am leaning towards the position that free vs paid status has no effect on how toxic the community is.

dlmoore.7293:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

dlmoore.7293:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

out of curiosity – which dungeon and about which path you asked?

It was CoF P1.

So I’m a little confused. Do people think I’m blaming the f2pers? I was simply posing a question. As it stands, I have no position on this particular topic.

Yes. Because what happened (some random person being rude) has no visible ties to f2p accounts. Since there isn’t any tie to f2p, then you bringing it up says that to you the two are connected (or else you wouldn’t have thought it) and that you are blaming f2p accounts for this behavior.

No. What it says is that I think the two MIGHT be connected. Hence why I created a thread and engaged in a discussion on the topic. However, upon reading the comments here, I am leaning towards the position that free vs paid status has no effect on how toxic the community is.

The thought had to be in your mind though.

What if I made a thread and said,….. was in a dungeon….. Someone was rude….. Do you think that it’s because of (completely unrelated reason for it)? I had to have in my mind that (completely unrelated reason) was a reason for a random person’s rudeness to even ask. And that’s why people think you are blaming the f2p in your post.

Title of topic:

Is f2p causing community toxicity?

dlmoore.7293:

After finishing a dungeon run …I asked if they wanted to do the next easy path in the dungeon, to which they replied “Kitten you” and immediately kicked me from the party.

Was I being melodramatic? Why do we put up with people like this? To tie this back to the title, I understand that almost a month ago, guild wars 2 went f2p or “free to try” or whatever. Could this be adversly affecting the amazing community (overall) that we have here?

dlmoore.7293:

So I’m a little confused. Do people think I’m blaming the f2pers? I was simply posing a question. As it stands, I have no position on this particular topic.

You posted an imflammatory question based on a single incident. The wording of your question implies a strong opinion. If you truly had no position, you would have asked, “Has anyone else seen an increase in ‘verbal abuse’ in the last month?” Instead, you extrapolated an entire culture change based on the one dungeon run and assumed a likely cause to this presumed change.

tl;dr I’m surprised that you’re surprised that people reacted strongly.

BeckaPL.2670:

The only toxicity I’ve seen as a result of F2P is “veterans” being toxic to those F2P people. I’ve not experienced any toxicity coming from people who are playing the game for free. On the other hand since the update every single time something negative happens they get the blame. So the answer to your question is yes, F2P is causing toxicity in the community since people are being toxic towards them

This. A few friends of mine came to this came it the exact thing happened to them, not beeing able to zerker-knoweverythingspeedrundungeon asap. I think it doenst matter if its f2p, its people are beeing rude and actually kittens. thats it.

ShelBlackblood.7826:

DeWolfe.2174:

I get a kick out of the few post trying to turn the topic in an elitism thread. No, there wasn’t any of that in the OP’s post. For the OP, I would say when a person has to invest in anything, they’d appreciate and care for it more. So if something is for free and easily replaceable, one should expect it to not be cared for as much.

Don’t blame the community, please. The post we were reffering to (including every response that had a quote from this post – mine too, yey!) was deleted and only half of the thread remained.

It’s always amazing to see how “clearing up” the forums causes unnecessary confusion.

Fair enough, I understand it better now thank you.

OP, what race and gender was the character of the player that kicked you? If it was a Sylvari, that would explain everything. They only pretend to all nice and peaceful. When really it’s nothing but being passive aggressive! You know, being they are the spawn of a Dragon and all. Nothing good comes from a player whom chooses such a race for their in game avatar. Should ban the lot of them for the good of the game!

Yesterday I runned Arah P4 just to be kicked before last boss death and to see how the P4 is being sold by those people. I told it to my guild on team speak and they said it’s ‘common’ and that’s why they hate Arah so much and don’t run this dungeon. I bet also that these idiots were players that bought the game, so I don’t think like f2p is going to change anything. People are people. Idiots are idiots.

I remember when instagram stopped being iphone exclusive and went to android aswell. I remember seeing hundreds of complaints and whining from iphone users claiming that the android users would cause too much drama, and they wanted it to stay exclusive, never even noting that the ones causing all the drama and ruckus were themselves in the first place.
Here it’s a bit the same. toxic people can be found anywhere, I can log in to WoW, a paid game and still find my fair share of kittenry with relative ease.

I have recently seen more people in PUGs trolling. Not sure if its a new thing or not since I quit playing for a long time. People purposefully joining groups to troll the meta runs. People on brand new accounts ignoring chat and doing things to make the run harder, like aggroing mobs and not doing objectives like stand on one brazier and stay on it in cof. When I run groups I just pick the dungeon and say p1 or p2 and take the first 4. I don’t mind showing people the ropes and actually enjoy it. When I happen to join a group that says zerker only, exp only, etc then the expectation is that everyone will conform to the posted LFG. When someone is new and doesn’t know what to do they should communicate that and respond to chat. Those that don’t are trolling and get booted. But like I said I have seen that more and more since I started playing again. Just like in every other f2p game the trolls will come and do their best to ruin other peoples fun because that’s what they do. Luckily we do have the option of booting someone and replacing them which some games do not have that option. Its still annoying though and shouldn’t happen.

Is f2p causing community toxicity? some, but no way all of it!

Plenty of toxicity below!! and before FP2
Queens Dale champ bag farm before the huge nerf!
SPVP + trolls on private guild custom arenas
WvWvW and EOTM
Orr Temple events
Dungeons
Silver Waste
Fractals
Past LS events

JediYoda.1275:

Is f2p causing community toxicity? some, but no way all of it!

Plenty of toxicity below!! and before FP2
Queens Dale champ bag farm before the huge nerf!
SPVP + trolls on private guild custom arenas
WvWvW and EOTM
Orr Temple events
Dungeons
Silver Waste
Fractals
Past LS events

Yeah there has always been jerks it just easier to tell if someone is f2p new by the total achievement points they have. Some of the trolls I have run into have so little AP that its amazing that they are at level 80. I really don’t know how they could do it. There will always be trolls in all multiplayer games. Its just that f2p tends to bring out more since they have nothing to lose. That and games that do not have a way to punish the trolls.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

JediYoda.1275:

Is f2p causing community toxicity? some, but no way all of it!

Plenty of toxicity below!! and before FP2
Queens Dale champ bag farm before the huge nerf!
SPVP + trolls on private guild custom arenas
WvWvW and EOTM
Orr Temple events
Dungeons
Silver Waste
Fractals
Past LS events

Yeah there has always been jerks it just easier to tell if someone is f2p new by the total achievement points they have. Some of the trolls I have run into have so little AP that its amazing that they are at level 80. I really don’t know how they could do it. There will always be trolls in all multiplayer games. Its just that f2p tends to bring out more since they have nothing to lose. That and games that do not have a way to punish the trolls.

I was only pointing out the fact that F2P accounts aren’t the only or main source of toxicity and that there was plenty of it in game already before the game went F2P.

The thought that f2p players are a source of toxicity is a form of scapegoating. It assumes that f2p accounts are fundamentally different in who uses them and why, which has never been shown to be true. While it is true that a throw away account could be used to troll or be abusive without painful main account repercussions, most people who invest the time needed to get very far with leveling their char aren’t going to want to risk losing it. It may be less painful to lose a f2p account with a level 80 and its gained gold/skins/achieves/crafting/mats than a paid account but it’s not painless. Most people who are have f2p are trying the game to see if it’s worth buying, not f2p in order to be f2btoxic.

There’s no guarantee the player in question was an F2P player, as for the question, I don’t think so, yes the F2P surge has caused some salty veterans because they get sick of Vinewrath’s failing or dungeon runs being slowed down because they constantly are kicking newbies out of their parties, but that’s not necessarily the F2P players fault, so overall maybe it’s causing a little bit of dissidence but it’s not entirely F2P players causing the problem it’s a mix of many other things