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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9291479" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Did I say it was impossible for someone to exhibit toxic behavior? Nope. Not once.But you'll notice, this presenter highlighted what bad gatekeeping is. He included in that trying to drive people away simply because they have a different personality or play style. He called this out explicitly as both wrong and indefensible. Yet here you are, saying that someone who leverages rules when they feel they are not personally capable of a task is necessarily "ruining the fun" of everyone else.You have literally given me ammunition with this video, not defended your position:"First, haha, if you're a game master, and you feel someone isn't a good fit for the group, don't be too hasty to kick someone out. The first step is always talking with them, discussing what the issue might be and seeing if you can resolve it. I've been able to resolve the majority of problems in my games simply by putting on my big boy pants and talking to my players..."Instead, you have immediately leapt to the idea that nope, this person is bad and wrong because they aren't directly contributing to the fun of the game, thus we can and should exclude them not just from a given table, but from the hobby in general. Which this video explicitly calls out as the bad form of gatekeeping...exactly like I was saying.I had already seen this video. It is, as you just said, "not the slam dunk you are hoping for." It is in fact quite critical of how this ridiculous situation came to be.Because it literally is the conclusion that merely being ignorant—something every human being necessarily must be until they learn—is somehow "rude" to existing players, and thus existing players are somehow justified in treating merely ignorant players like $#¡†. The video itself dissects exactly how much of a problem this flawed logic is, if you've actually watched it. It calls out that one of the specific problems caused by it is that it strangles growth for a game, by driving off new players before they have the chance to learn and become informed, thus dooming WoW (or any similarly gatekeeping-plagued MMO) to a slow death by attrition. Something WoW has already had to stare in the face.This isn't a "kneejerk defense." It is an actually demonstrable problem that a huge, huge number of real players demonstrate. They exploit the alleged excuse of "well I was just trying to help them play better" to insult, demean, hurt, and (ultimately) drive away so-called "bad" players. Their goal, to ensure that only putatively worthy players remain, instead becomes "be as destructive as possible to anyone who doesn't play the way I think they should." There's a reason I cited specific games, and the specific things in them which encourage this toxic behavior, rather than just making an airy-fairy statement without any grounding in fact or experience.Because, yes, I have played both LoL and WoW, and have seen their "git gud" toxicity first hand. It's not pretty, and it's definitely not good for the game. Even the actual people who run each game explicitly say that and have invested millions of dollars into trying to fix it, mostly without success.Ah, but that wasn't what was described by you and others, was it? It was driving away people who don't play well enough.Did you actually read my post?Because anyone who actually read my post would not need to ask this question. The answer is already present. I admit, I am prone to logorrhea, so perhaps it got lost in there. But it is there.If for some reason you can't find it, the answer is "no, there's definitely a line, you're just far, far away from demonstrating anyone has crossed it."It takes a lot more to "ruin" other players' fun than merely showing up and not contributing all that much. Ruining fun requires actual effort of some kind. The inoffensively silent player is neither a help nor a hurt. Your conflation of "failure to be a constantly positive and constructive force at all times" with "actively and intentionally ruining everyone else's fun" is precisely the flawed, destructive illogic that makes gamer gatekeeping such a huge issue.(Just in case you really can't find it, bolded for emphasis: "This does not mean that we should for any reason tolerate toxicity in the other direction, we absolutely should oppose folks trying to exploit or abuse others. But in the vast majority of cases, a 'bad' player is merely an ignorant player, or an inexperienced player, or a struggling player. Being constructive and supportive is much, much better than aggressively hunting down and expelling 'bad' players.")Good try though, attempting to paint me as an extremist apologist for player toxicity.</blockquote>

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