Ahoy. Recently, I came back to this game, and I deleted all of my pirates to start a new one. Doing this was blissful, and I had the same feeling I did when I started all the way back in beta. But, alas, this came with being pushed around by high level pirates. I was called a "noob", challenged to several duels, and when I declined, they'd point and laugh at me for being scared. This is absolutely aggravating, and I really wish this community wasn't so toxic. At times, this community can be downright awful, and disgraceful. This is just one of many stories I have with the bad side of our community. What are yours, and how did it go out?

Hopefully better than mine.

akhenaten751 on Feb 22, 2016 wrote:

Ahoy. Recently, I came back to this game, and I deleted all of my pirates to start a new one. Doing this was blissful, and I had the same feeling I did when I started all the way back in beta. But, alas, this came with being pushed around by high level pirates. I was called a "noob", challenged to several duels, and when I declined, they'd point and laugh at me for being scared. This is absolutely aggravating, and I really wish this community wasn't so toxic. At times, this community can be downright awful, and disgraceful. This is just one of many stories I have with the bad side of our community. What are yours, and how did it go out?

Hopefully better than mine.

I watched a video called " El Toro to the rescue! " and the guy did not train his companions well. He never even leveled up Subodai ONCE.

I don't believe I have ever had that experience in Pirate... and I have run a lot of noobs (and still have some). Mostly I don't hang around on Avery server much, though (unless looking for a pet morph opportunity), which may be part of why I don't see it.

-Michael

Personally, I haven't really seen anything like that outside of Skull Island in Avery Realm, and if you're hanging around the Brawlin' Hall... well...

Most of the pirates I meet are friendly, helpful or willing to learn, and fun to play with.

Sorry to hear you believe the worst of our community based on a small sampling.

I have. Had one of my low-level pirates in the bazaar and some folks were randomly chatting in the corner. No biggie, but one of them then commented that she "didn't like someone in the room *points behind me*" and named my character by name. She made fun of the name of my pirate, made some unpleasant (and vulgar) comments about my last name, and then tried to talk to me. She even had the gall to pop up a friend request, as if I'd want someone who made fun of me to be my friend.

I should have reported her for evading the filter if nothing else. I can't help thinking that if I'd been a vulnerable youngster instead of an adult, those comments would really kick my self-esteem down.

Willowydream on Feb 22, 2016 wrote:

Personally, I haven't really seen anything like that outside of Skull Island in Avery Realm, and if you're hanging around the Brawlin' Hall... well...

Most of the pirates I meet are friendly, helpful or willing to learn, and fun to play with.

Sorry to hear you believe the worst of our community based on a small sampling.

Then that makes it even more aggravating it affects a small minority. For all we know, those nice and friendly pirates are two-faced and have a secret rudeness to them.

Never really had that happen, basically every player I run into is friendly and willing to help with quests (mostly if me and them have the same quest, however)
Sad to hear you ran into the ruder part of the playerbase, although that's to be expected with any game, really

CaptainBlackWolfBo... on Feb 23, 2016 wrote:

One really bad experience in PvP was when I lost to this swashbuckler with my musketeer and afterwards, he said "spamming traps is bad". I've had a lot more, which has led me to hardly compete in pvp. What IS it with people in pvp?

I don't even bother with PvP. The amount of sore losers and cocky winners draw me away from it, and I'd much rather do the tower.

akhenaten751 on Feb 23, 2016 wrote:

Then that makes it even more aggravating it affects a small minority. For all we know, those nice and friendly pirates are two-faced and have a secret rudeness to them.

Unless you have direct proof of rude behavior, then smearing a nice and friendly pirate with the same brush as a rude one is wrong.
"If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it."

ValkoorTheVictorio... on Feb 23, 2016 wrote:

There's always going to be that risk of running into a few rotten bananas, when you play online, multiplayer games. But the peachy people, by far, outweigh the others.

KI/P101 does a fantastic job of giving the players options to help weed out and eliminate the bad seeds-- ignoring/muting, reporting offenses within the code of conduct, filling friends list with nice/trustworthy players, being able to remove not-so-nice individuals from the list, having pages of realms to find a safer haven to play in, and being able to change chat/filter settings. Plus more.

My guess is that the busy realms and ranked PvP are where most of the "ugliness" would be encountered-- but only from not being able to avoid certain matchups, in regards to PvP. But you can still mute the trouble-causing players.

Overall it's a very safe and friendly Spiral and if any players are constantly witnessing the so-called "toxicity"...well, perhaps they are not doing enough on their part to take advantage of the safety measures that KI has made available, in order to make it less "toxic".

I've played several other online/mmo's, and believe me-- the Pirate101 Community is faaaaaarrr from "toxic", in comparison to those others. In fact it's a pretty dang friendly, helpful and supportive crew, with way above average ways and means to ensure that the players have a positive and enjoyable gaming experience.

I am sorry for any that have experienced the ugly, but in my opinion (and from experience), those experiences are far from the norm and can be greatly reduced via in-game options. Just keep on piratin' and surround yourself with the right crew for you.

You are right in one aspect; it's far from being bad in comparison to other communities. (The Old Republic, World of Warcraft, etc) But this community's worst crime? Being so unfriendly and hostile to newcomers. I will admit, the beggars are annoying, and give newcomers a terrible reputation, but that's no excuse to be so loud and hostile against the ones who just started playing.

The worst part of this is if the newcomer gets bullied, they'll be drawn away from the game and assume the entire community is like that, and may never play again. Then they might tell their friends and family about how bad their experience was, and they may assume it's all like that as well.

Bottom line, the bad seeds are a vocal minority, but it still in some sense outweighs the good ones because of how loud they are.

akhenaten751 on Feb 23, 2016 wrote:

You are right in one aspect; it's far from being bad in comparison to other communities. (The Old Republic, World of Warcraft, etc) But this community's worst crime? Being so unfriendly and hostile to newcomers. I will admit, the beggars are annoying, and give newcomers a terrible reputation, but that's no excuse to be so loud and hostile against the ones who just started playing.

The worst part of this is if the newcomer gets bullied, they'll be drawn away from the game and assume the entire community is like that, and may never play again. Then they might tell their friends and family about how bad their experience was, and they may assume it's all like that as well.

Bottom line, the bad seeds are a vocal minority, but it still in some sense outweighs the good ones because of how loud they are.

I guess I haven't witnessed as much of the loudness, as you have. But I tend to play in quieter realms & stay out of the loud areas.

Also, I have witnessed a bit of the attention seeking, loud-baiting that goes on in-game. Where players put themselves in the middle of things & try to attract attention. When any negativity brought on by "the baiter" ensues, the player gets upset by what they stirred up. In both cases-- the attention seekers & the rude sorts-- I tend to chalk it up as more of an immaturity issue than a "the Community" is bad, thingy. But I'm an adult & am not bothered by the mind games that get played. If it's just immaturity playing out, well it is somewhat to be expected. But if it is straight disrespect, demoralization, crudeness/profanity, putting younger players in harms way...well that is quite serious & demands action. But if it is more of the "virtual name calling", "you suck", "you think you can beat me", stuff going on...although annoying, mean-spirited & rude, it is just the immature words of a small minority within the game, & there are ways to avoid/silence them.

Some sit in populated places for long periods of time, subject themselves to the inevitable rudeness/immature & then get upset. Instead of moving to a safer area &/or muting the offenders.

I don't really see calling players noobs & challenging them in a virtual setting as true bullying-- mean-spirited, rude, annoying & immature..absolutely. I have known people in real life who have been truly bullied..& what is being described here as bullying, doesn't come close to the ugliness & pain that bullying inflicts.

Not to take away from anyone that has been treated poorly in P101, but what has been defined as "bullying" these days (especially in games), has become a little vague & all encompassing.

This is a wonderful Community, & there's a very minute amount of true bullying going on in the Spiral. But thankfully there are many ways to combat it, & the other negativity, in P101.

akhenaten751 on Feb 23, 2016 wrote:

I'm gonna post one of my personal experiences. (The worst one I've had so far, and it happened on my new character.)

I was walking through Skull Island, and made my way to the Bazaar to get some privateer armour. Outside of the Bazaar were two max levels having a chat. They were talking about how annoying beggars were, so I gave my two cents about it. I said, "They're pretty annoying. Can't they get their own crowns?" Then, and I quote, they said, "Says the beggar." Despite me never begging, ever, (I might of on Wizard101 when I was an adolescent, but still) they assumed I was one. Then when I said, "I'm not a beggar, don't jump to a conclusion." Then I was ignored.

But on the bright side, I found really good 15+ level armour. It's like, +10 will and +22 health. Good outcome to such a bad experience.

Then what happened here was that you interrupted what was a semi-private conversation, and while their reply was rude, it was hardly what I would call bullying.

akhenaten751 on Feb 23, 2016 wrote:

I've tried ignoring them, going to different realms, etc, but every attempt, there's a new group of them waiting.

I highly doubt this