Why are WoW players so much nastier than CoH players?

[PatrickG]

Okay. I played CoH for two years.

Last year, I tried (briefly) to switch to a Linux lifestyle. It was annoying trying to get CoH to work with Cedega or Wine.

So I switched to WoW and have played for about a year.

I don't have any IRL friends who play CoH so I stick with WoW...

But WoW is full of dense jerks who only care about their class, their faction, their guild and their personal reputation. And they believe everyone else is the same or is an idiot to be dismissed. They also seem more inclined to be racist, drug addicts and generally mean spirited and use high level alts to promote low level alts.

In short, they're sociopaths or play-to-win gamers, whichever you prefer. Either way, they get lined up and shot when I conquer the planet.

But in CoH, the devs play alongside players and help out, people are friendly and throw heaps of money at new players. There are in-game parties and costume contests. There's no advantage to having a high level alt, generally. People are social, don't blow up when groups underperform and generally approach things with an attitude of, "What can I personally do to make the game more fun for other people?"

These people would be my cabinet when I take over the world.

But seriously, what accounts for the difference? Gameplay? Demographics? Are sword and sorcery fans savages who need to be forcibly medicated by society? I wish I understood the difference.

I think it's more than numbers since both CoH's couple hundred thousand and WoW's nine million are big numbers, either of which could represent the world at large depending on how random the sample is.

It's that the sample isn't random that makes the distinction IMO. But what makes one game full of misanthropic blood crazed frat boys and the other full of people who act like benevolent aliens from an early Spielberg flick?

[Gezora]

Welcome to the Internet. Have you been here long?

Just kidding. Actually, Since WoW is so much more popular, it's bound to attract a more diverse group of people, which include more assholes who use the anonymity of the internet to get away with saying whatever they want.

You get used to it after awhile.

[StreetFighterRyu]

Welcome to the Internet. Have you been here long?

Just kidding. Actually, Since WoW is so much more popular, it's bound to attract a more diverse group of people, which include more assholes who use the anonymity of the internet to get away with saying whatever they want.

You get used to it after awhile.

Never played WoW, but alot of that is in XBL too.

[Alex]

Welcome to the Internet. Have you been here long?

Just kidding. Actually, Since WoW is so much more popular, it's bound to attract a more diverse group of people, which include more assholes who use the anonymity of the internet to get away with saying whatever they want.

You get used to it after awhile.

Yeah, thats pretty much it.
Wow has around what...4 million people on the us/aussie servers, coh has about 50k total.
Since most people are jerks, and more people play wow, it has more jerks. I've been in the same guild for a year, so in most of my interactions i don't have a lot of problems.

[Xero Kaiser]

There's no advantage to having a high level alt, generally

This is it.

High levels play with low levels, low level play with high levels. You don't need "x" gear/level/spec/class to be play with others. Cuts down on the elitism present in other MMOs, cuts down the "hardcore vs casual" division present in other MMOs and cuts down the amount of ----heads that are in most other MMOs.

And they believe everyone else is the same or is an idiot to be dismissed.

Most people who play WoW are idiots to be dismissed.

Or killed for honor....I need more arena gear

[Agent Helix]

There's plenty of drooling troglodytes playing CoH. One of the main reasons, aside from mind-crushing boredom, that I quit.

It really is just numbers. There's SO MANY PEOPLE that play WoW. While I was playing, I personally had far more good experiences than bad, even with PUGs.

[Agent Helix]

Edit: Never mind.

[Perry Holley]

Wally west, please be aware of this board's rules regarding the use of profanity (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=20244).

4) Don't use excessive language, especially in the thread titles. Unlike some of the boards, we try to avoid a lot of swearing here. The occasional PG-13 comment is fine, but avoid using the f-word and s-word (or anything stronger). Also, no links to sites with questionable content (i.e. nudity/porn).

[Ragnorok64]

I know WoW is World of Warcraft, but what does CoH refer to? Could you at least use the unabbreviated version of a title once before using the abbreviation please?

[Xero Kaiser]

I know WoW is World of Warcraft, but what does CoH refer to? Could you at least use the unabbreviated version of a title once before using the abbreviation please?

City of Heroes

[Ragnorok64]

City of Heroes

Thank you.

[Amy Grendel]

Part of it is also that there are few, if any, in-game consequences to being a jerk. In previous MMOs, people had to group up with each other if they wanted to enter a dungeon or advance their gameplay. Reputation mattered and if someone was exposed as a jerk or troublemaker, life could get significantly harder where they'd find themselves unwelcomed in groups, guilds, and pre-formed raids. In WoW, a person can be pretty self-sufficent. They can get from 1 to 70 without having to group up with anyone at all. They can get a full set of pvp gear solo. Even on the forums, people can troll on alts without ever having to expose who their mains are. There's not really much incentive to be on one's best behavior, in other words.

Jerks exist in every game -- they're just more obvious because of the amount of people playing. Don't sweat it. Plenty of decent people simply have the general chat turned off and avoid the forums. That's why it seems like the idiots are everywhere when they're really just extremely vocal. ;)

[Josef F.]

Because all the Jerks are in City of VILLAINS
Ooooh
Hissssss
Booooooooo

[Cyke]

Welcome to the Internet. Have you been here long?

Just kidding. Actually, Since WoW is so much more popular, it's bound to attract a more diverse group of people, which include more assholes who use the anonymity of the internet to get away with saying whatever they want.

You get used to it after awhile.

Yep, that's pretty much it.

To back up Gezora's post, I prefer COH over WOW, but I think WOW has about twice-thrice the number of players that COH has.

Because all the Jerks are in City of VILLAINS
Ooooh
Hissssss
Booooooooo

Hah, perfect answer :)

[PatrickG]

Because all the Jerks are in City of VILLAINS
Ooooh
Hissssss
Booooooooo

My level 16 Mastermind has the title "Heroic" assuming they haven't wiped it.

I had an... interesting glitch at character creation and spent 15 odd levels as a hero. They took away some badges when they fixed it but they also let me keep a few special ones (ie. Troll Task Force) and the title "Heroic".

That, among other things, has me nostalgic for my CoH account.

[G. Wayne]

I tried WoW briefly a few months ago. I turned down every team invite regardless, not wanting to deal with l33t players.

On a sidenote, in CoV my malefactor/lackey and mission difficulty features have the CoH names. I had trouble enough keeping the CoV difficulty levels straight, but now I'm all kinds of mixed up on how high they are.

I didn't notice this at first until playing CoV, and someone asked me to sidekick them. I looked for the option, and it really *did* say sidekick. o.0

[Joe Grendel]

Honestly, WoW varies wildly by server, although in every case, the bottom feeders accumulate in General and Trade, where they can make life miserable for everyone. Turn those off, no matter what server you're on.

If you're not liking the WoW community, try out a few other servers on alts and see what they're like. The difference between PvP, PvE and RP servers is huge -- although some folks like to complain there's not enough difference between them.

In any case, it could be a lot worse. I wanted to strangle everyone on my EQ1 server.

[Joe Grendel]

I tried WoW briefly a few months ago. I turned down every team invite regardless, not wanting to deal with l33t players.
Guilds really are all over the map. If you're turning down "family" guild invites, you were turning away people who are probably pretty similar in their interests to yours.

[Joe Grendel]

To back up Gezora's post, I prefer COH over WOW, but I think WOW has about twice-thrice the number of players that COH has.
No, a lot more than that. WoW has more than 9 million players. CoX has about 100,000, last time I looked.

[Cyke]

No, a lot more than that. WoW has more than 9 million players. CoX has about 100,000, last time I looked.

http://gigaom.com/2007/06/13/top-ten-most-popular-mmos/

Wellp, when you're right, you're right, Grendel. But in (slight) defense of CoX, the 130,000 number comes from US and European players only. Still, even with all the international players taken into account, CoX doesn't reach the 500,000 mark.

Looking at that list, I'm actually quite surprised that CoX and Final Fantasy XI (clocking in at 200-300,000) both failed to make that list.

[Athena Bast]

Honestly, WoW varies wildly by server, although in every case, the bottom feeders accumulate in General and Trade, where they can make life miserable for everyone. Turn those off, no matter what server you're on.

If you're not liking the WoW community, try out a few other servers on alts and see what they're like. The difference between PvP, PvE and RP servers is huge -- although some folks like to complain there's not enough difference between them.

In any case, it could be a lot worse. I wanted to strangle everyone on my EQ1 server.

I've found the nicer people gravitate towards the RP servers in WoW. Most of the cranky biatches are on the PvE servers. I haven't played enough on a PvP server to gage the personalities there.

[Joe Grendel]

The nicer people are definitely on the RP servers: Amy and I are on one! :D

[Hiromi]

http://gigaom.com/2007/06/13/top-ten-most-popular-mmos/

Wellp, when you're right, you're right, Grendel. But in (slight) defense of CoX, the 130,000 number comes from US and European players only. Still, even with all the international players taken into account, CoX doesn't reach the 500,000 mark.

Looking at that list, I'm actually quite surprised that CoX and Final Fantasy XI (clocking in at 200-300,000) both failed to make that list.

I find that list funny as some of those listed(Habbo) are basically glorified chat rooms.

And RP servers smell funny =p I personally like my pvp server community, but then I've spent 3 years on it and know a good bit of it, horde and alliance.

[Darth Joker]

Okay. I played CoH for two years.

Last year, I tried (briefly) to switch to a Linux lifestyle. It was annoying trying to get CoH to work with Cedega or Wine.

So I switched to WoW and have played for about a year.

I don't have any IRL friends who play CoH so I stick with WoW...

But WoW is full of dense jerks who only care about their class, their faction, their guild and their personal reputation. And they believe everyone else is the same or is an idiot to be dismissed. They also seem more inclined to be racist, drug addicts and generally mean spirited and use high level alts to promote low level alts.

In short, they're sociopaths or play-to-win gamers, whichever you prefer. Either way, they get lined up and shot when I conquer the planet.

But in CoH, the devs play alongside players and help out, people are friendly and throw heaps of money at new players. There are in-game parties and costume contests. There's no advantage to having a high level alt, generally. People are social, don't blow up when groups underperform and generally approach things with an attitude of, "What can I personally do to make the game more fun for other people?"

These people would be my cabinet when I take over the world.

But seriously, what accounts for the difference? Gameplay? Demographics? Are sword and sorcery fans savages who need to be forcibly medicated by society? I wish I understood the difference.

I think it's more than numbers since both CoH's couple hundred thousand and WoW's nine million are big numbers, either of which could represent the world at large depending on how random the sample is.

It's that the sample isn't random that makes the distinction IMO. But what makes one game full of misanthropic blood crazed frat boys and the other full of people who act like benevolent aliens from an early Spielberg flick?

There's more gameplay-based divisions in Warcraft than in CoH.

In CoH, you're either a hero or a villain. That's pretty much the only major division. Certainly, that's the only major division that I noticed when I played the game for awhile.

Warcraft has loads of gameplay-based divisions in place that, in my view, more or less encourage a sort of elitism, and a sort of dismissing of other guilds, classes, and factions.

There's also the fact that you generally can tell what type of character a person is simply by their appearance (i.e. if they're a human, a Bloodelf, a Gnome, etc...), whereas this isn't frequently the case in CoH where choosing to be magic-based, for example, doesn't mean you can't create a buff guy that looks like Superman for your hero.

Then there's the way that the games promote themselves.

CoH promotes itself has being very team-based with everyone pitching in to beat villains - most of the cutscenes in its promotions either emphasize the Statesman alone (who comes across as a Captain America-level noble hero), or an entire team of heroes.

In Warcraft promotions that I've seen, you usually focus on this particular race or faction a bit, then you focus on this other race or faction a bit, etc..., etc...

Finally, CoH has a relatively simple and straightforward ability/power, ability/power-casting, and equipment-use system. WoW's is very complex and extremely detailed and intricate in comparison. As such, CoH attracts less hardcore gamers who just want to have fun and a good time with other players, while WoW can and does attract people that, well, kind of want to show off a bit with their mastery of a complex and extremely detailed and intricate game mechanics system.

Honestly, I can't blame someone who's extremely good at WoW for having a bit of an ego - you have to be very, very good with handling loads of details to be good at the game. Frequently, I'm amazed at the vast number of ability/power casting options displayed on screen when I watch a couple WoW players I know play.

[K'Nort]

Honestly, I can't blame someone who's extremely good at WoW for having a bit of an ego - you have to be very, very good with handling loads of details to be good at the game. Frequently, I'm amazed at the vast number of ability/power casting options displayed on screen when I watch a couple WoW players I know play.

My brother has a maxed-out mage on WOW and demo'd gameplay when we were visiting over Thanksgiving (on one of those mega-huge landscape monitors too) and I was also amazed. All the things to push. In order. He had task bars all over the place. He's an engineer during the day, so I wasn't surprised he could handle it, but when does his brain get to rest?


I play in a very small MMORPG. Not least because it's my first. And in the forums, I regularly see complaints about the attitudes and griefing in WOW. And people only say nice things about player behavior in CoH/CoV.

[Athena Bast]

My brother has a maxed-out mage on WOW and demo'd gameplay when we were visiting over Thanksgiving (on one of those mega-huge landscape monitors too) and I was also amazed. All the things to push. In order. He had task bars all over the place. He's an engineer during the day, so I wasn't surprised he could handle it, but when does his brain get to rest?


I play in a very small MMORPG. Not least because it's my first. And in the forums, I regularly see complaints about the attitudes and griefing in WOW. And people only say nice things about player behavior in CoH/CoV.

I've got a friend who's heavily into game interface mods for WoW. He's obessive about it really. The only thing I have extra is TITANbar. His screen is so crowded with shit I'm amazed he can play at all. His framerate is about half of mine and we've got equal systems. I'm convinced it's all the crap he's got running.

I do damn good with the basic interface.

[Hiromi]

The "Basic" WoW interface has had quite a few once 3rd party mods incorporated into it.

[Joe Grendel]

Yeah, that was one of the explicit purposes of letting it be modded. As far back as alpha, they were pulling in mods into the core system. (Originally, you created one item at a time, and that's it, and the ability to queue up more tradeskill creations at a time was one of the first mods, so that people didn't have to hit Combine, Combine, Combine ...)

[Serik]

Every online game I've played, be it Battlefield or WoW, is full of dense jerks. That's why I really only enjoy them if I can play them with RL friends or at least internet friends (from various message boards).

[(A)//(E)]

WOW is fun enough. I really don't "talk" to anyone on my server apart from my IRL friends, but any game with ANY kind of PVP is going to be 92% insufferable gits, 6% gold/item begging noobs, 1% afk/botters with the last 1% being people like me that just want to play the friggen game.

[(A)//(E)]

WOW is fun enough. I really don't "talk" to anyone on my server apart from my IRL friends, but any game with ANY kind of PVP is going to be 92% insufferable gits, 6% noobs, 1% afk/botters with the last 1% being people like me that just want to play the friggen game.