While doing dailies I get a whisper: “tank?”. I wasn’t queued in LFG. I wasn’t even in an instance area. Now, I don’t mind going to a dungeon when it wasn’t planned… but is it too much to ask for a “hello” and a “please”? I might be overly sensitive, but this is just the tip of a big iceberg of egotism. Is “WoW is just a game” the ultimate excuse for everything, from dropping most words in a sentence to abusing other players?

For many, yes, it is. You don’t know those people, you’ll never going to see them, you might not even run into them ever again, especially with the new cross-battlegroup LFG. Why not be a complete dick? Why not limit conversation and manners to the absolute minimum?

Well… because there is a person on the other side of the screen. It might be a school bully or it might be someone’s grandma or young son, and whoever it is, they deserve some consideration.

So why do people do it? It’s probably what everyone is deploring about the internet: it just doesn’t feel like human interaction anymore. People become just a means to an end, a way for you to get fun or epics. Who cares if the others get anything out of it?

I know an article in the sea of articles won’t convince someone to change their ways, but hey, if I get one person thinking, I’m happy. Look at it this way: I try to play the game with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” in mind. Do I like people dropping group as soon as they enter the instance? Do I like ninja AFKers? Do I like being called “omg noob u suck lol”? Do I like people slacking in raids? Do I like single word conversations? I don’t, so I try to treat people like I’d like to be treated. It’s not hard, really: say please, say thank you, don’t be unnecessarily mean (no, not even to noobs), try to give constructive advice or stfu.

By the way, the language barrier is not an excuse: if you can play on that server, you know the words for “please” and “thanks”; if you’re worried your lack of knowledge might be misunderstood, just freaking say it.

TL;DR: Don’t be an asshole/bitch. Use common courtesy. Make the game a better place for everyone. Save the whales.