In the brave new world of online gaming, you can take on a personality which is quite unlike the one you use in real life. This increased anonymity has meant an increase in bad behaviour in games. Now, call me old fashioned but I don’t understand why everyone can’t just play nice. If you are playing an MMORPG and somebody rubs you the wrong way, can’t you just talk about it and sort it out like adults? Maybe there aren’t any adults left in MMORPGs? The following story caused quite a stir in our house-hold. What do you think?….

I was recently playing Star Trek Online with my wife, we play a lot of MMORPGs together. I think I’m very lucky that she is interested in that type of thing to be honest. It often takes a lot of encouragement from me to get her to try something like STO. It’s not really her cup of tea. Anyway, after taking a break from the game for a few minutes, I returned to the computers (we have them side by side of course) to find that someone has sent her a tell. I wouldn’t normally evesdrop, but I noticed that there was an expletive in the message. Apparently some player who she was teamed with had said “hey moron get over here and help”. Which upset her greatly, as she was doing the best she could. I could have left it alone, but the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I logged in and asked the player if they had called my wife a moron. “Yup” was the reply, like they were proud of it. A bit more prodding on my part revealed nothing but attitude and smart-alec type responses, until I finally gave up and put them on my “Ignore” list.

The incident, although not uncommon in these types of games, filled me with rage and I decided that I might cancel my subscription, if these were the types of people I had to deal with. I had suggested to this person that maybe they had not considered the fact that my wife might be new at the game, and therefore needed to be helped along a little, rather than taunted. But it was pointless, it only provoked more name-calling and smart-assedness. There was no talking to this person. When in a consequence-free environment, the timid nerd becomes the guiltless griefer, or is it children that are only responsible for this type of behaviour?

If you were walking down the street and some stranger yelled out to your wife: “Hey moron! get over here!”, would you laugh it off? Or maybe you would walk over and punch them in the mouth? I’m more inclined to do the latter. What is the line when it comes to in-game abuse anyway? You couldn’t get away with racial slurs or comments that condem someone’s sexuality or religion. So should you be able to get away with saying hurtful things to anyone you feel like? I certainly wouldn’t want to associate with somebody who did that. They would be booted from my guild so fast that their head would spin, or at least given a severe warning.

"The Griefer" as depicted in the South Park Episode: "Make Love not Warcraft"

So what I would like to know is, what would YOU have done? Do you think this type of person should be reported? Or should it just be taken with a grain of salt? Some people find it easier to ignore things like that than others. Some people would simply ignore it, some would fly off the handle. What would you do? Or maybe you are one of the people who likes to randomly abuse players. What makes you tick? Is it because it makes you feel good about yourself? Maybe you have some major issues yourself, and that helps you get through the day?