Ah, the age old MMORPG issue: Elitism.
The reality of the genre is that elitism is a very real thing, the game itself creates a progressive difficulty curve that supports players with more time and skill to rise above others. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with this set up but the elitist community will often times become inclusive, strangling itself over the long term. There's plenty of examples through different MMOs, especially with FFXI, WoW and EQ.
The same time of nature ends up bleeding into the RP community as well. Each person has a naturally different style and personality with their RP. People who have similar RP experiences tend to gravitate to one another naturally, growing friendships and tight communities.Â
This, however, leads to the same kind of inclusive behavior we see in raiding guilds. There is a familiarity there that others can have a hard time cracking. Some call these Cliques, but in reality they are often mistaken as Elitism.
Standards are often touted as elitism as well, however is having standards for your free time really all that elitist? The reality of the situation is that we all have limited game time and we would all rather do it having fun. Some people don't have fun when people aren't up to their standards, what ever they may be. This isn't necessarily bad either, I think we can all understand and support wanting to spend our free time doing something we enjoy.
The line gets crossed when behavior becomes rude, by either side. To be frank, being pushy with someone when they don't want to RP is just rude behavior. So is someone dismissing and interested party offhandedly without explaining they just have other interests. In our P.C. society sometimes avoiding the issue creates more issues at the start.Â
When it comes down to it Elitism is often a label used to cover up other issues. It's a security blanket to avoid confrontation or even a simple explanation. Talk, be polite and be thorough and we wouldn't have these issues any longer.
The reality of the genre is that elitism is a very real thing, the game itself creates a progressive difficulty curve that supports players with more time and skill to rise above others. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with this set up but the elitist community will often times become inclusive, strangling itself over the long term. There's plenty of examples through different MMOs, especially with FFXI, WoW and EQ.
The same time of nature ends up bleeding into the RP community as well. Each person has a naturally different style and personality with their RP. People who have similar RP experiences tend to gravitate to one another naturally, growing friendships and tight communities.Â
This, however, leads to the same kind of inclusive behavior we see in raiding guilds. There is a familiarity there that others can have a hard time cracking. Some call these Cliques, but in reality they are often mistaken as Elitism.
Standards are often touted as elitism as well, however is having standards for your free time really all that elitist? The reality of the situation is that we all have limited game time and we would all rather do it having fun. Some people don't have fun when people aren't up to their standards, what ever they may be. This isn't necessarily bad either, I think we can all understand and support wanting to spend our free time doing something we enjoy.
The line gets crossed when behavior becomes rude, by either side. To be frank, being pushy with someone when they don't want to RP is just rude behavior. So is someone dismissing and interested party offhandedly without explaining they just have other interests. In our P.C. society sometimes avoiding the issue creates more issues at the start.Â
When it comes down to it Elitism is often a label used to cover up other issues. It's a security blanket to avoid confrontation or even a simple explanation. Talk, be polite and be thorough and we wouldn't have these issues any longer.
