Not long after Shadowlands released, there was a heavily upvoted thread on the World of Warcraft subreddit in which a player related a story about an awful dungeon run. He’d been in a group with a new player who had weak damage but who was otherwise competent and hadn’t caused any wipes or serious problems or toxicity. And yet another player in the group “did not have time for some low DPS in the group” and tried to get the rest of the group to votekick the new player – four times.
Fortunately, it sounds as if the other players refused to go along, and the community rallied behind the sentiment. “There is new players coming to World of Warcraft, they might be younger then the game itself,” the OP wrote. “This is a massive game. Give out some tips, ask if there is something they wonder about. Help them a little instead of kicking them out of the group for trying to learn the game.”
I can’t personally imagine votekicking someone for learning. It’d have to be some extreme toxicity – like ninja looting in games where that’s still possible – to get me to click kick. I don’t particularly like the feature at all, since I’ve seen it wielded to hassle people more often than not. How about you? Do you make use of votekicking in MMOs? And what actions merit a kick in your eyes?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
