I wish you a nice Wednesday morning. Who is actually responsible for my Complaining Wednesday always appearing at 11 AM instead of right at noon? It must be this sinister Webedia conspiracy going on here. #EverythingIsGoingDownTheDrain #BetterBlameSchuhmann
Joking aside, let’s turn to more serious topics. When I logged into my ancient WoW characters today feeling cheerful, I couldn’t help but take a look at the friend lists from back then. You know, the “good old days” when there was no BattleTag and every char had individual friend lists that you always had to synchronize. A name caught my eye that reminded me of an unpleasant story.
Looting the Guild Bank is “Just a Game”
I think every reader here has experienced something similar. Back then, our raid guild bank was looted by a player who had “worked his way up” in the guild for weeks. Hundreds of potions, herbs, ores, and epic items were gone, now enriching the personal stash of the thieving player. Since the “theft,” which technically isn’t one as the character had the “rights” to it, was the first that caught my attention, I confronted the player back then.
Contrary to all expectations, he even discussed it quite openly with me, as his raid was “in the bag” and he showed no remorse at all. He even admitted to doing it regularly and repeatedly robbing guilds on multiple realms with different characters – just for fun. In his opinion, it’s all “just a game”, the goods are completely virtual, and for him, it was nothing more than an experiment in his way of playing: he deceived and earned the trust of the guild until he could stab them in the back. The broken trust of the other players didn’t seem to bother him at all – empathy was completely absent.
Of course, there are also situations where this can’t be avoided. In PvP, it’s somewhat the goal of the game to “spoil the fun” for others and to set up sneaky traps. But I explicitly want to exclude such obvious “player versus player” systems that are desired by the mechanics.
Which group do you belong to? Is anything permissible in the game because it’s “just a game”? Or does it stop for you where it spoils the fun for others? Let me know in the comments and feel free to share your opinion!
