Absolutely not. Compared to most online games WoWs community is one of the least toxic and if you argue that it’s not you clearly have not played enough FPS or MOBAs.
When a game as diverse and large-in-scale as WoW gets as big as WoW, especially with a subscription- and expansion-based model, toxicity is pretty much inevitable.
Although I’m anything but a Blizzard fan, their task is pretty difficult. Each expansion has to cater to everyone’s needs, and players have come to expect different facets of the game to be as polished, or as balanced as “the last expansion” or “TBC” or whatever. No matter which way they sway, every single mechanic will either divide opinions, or lead to mass disappointment. And with divided opinions, the most vocal ones tend to turn toxic on one another.
Great example would be the new profs: people used to shopping on AH to max out a prof in two hours, or making gold off of recipes are furious. People who favor the RPG model and don’t mind the grind and time-gating are satisfied. Same with dailies: some cherish the fact there’s no need for a daily grind, some are disgusted at the lack of content.
At this point, “good balancing” seems an impossibility, but here’s hoping that Blizzard can appease as many people as possible with future changes.
It’s way more toxic compared to other MMO’s, at least. A large part of the playerbase can be very toxic, like getting angry because you won’t give them a transmog that drops, or getting angry because you help with dps instead of just healing during a raid, getting angry because your dps is too good, getting angry because your dps is too low, or getting angry because they don’t like your jokes.
But games that are pure pvp are naturally the most toxic, like Counterstrike or whatever.
Yes, extremely toxic community. The game design does little to incentivize helping your fellow player. The game is still a very selfish production. There are things the developers can do to lessen this. They do not do them. Though I admit I do see baby steps in some directions being taken.
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I find that forum-dwellers generally tend to be more toxic than people in-game. (This is generally speaking, not just for blizzard.) - I’ve observed this while moderating Larian Studios’ socials, that those dissatisfied with something are more likely to spend their time online engaging in expressing and venting their thoughts; Those positively happy about a game are more likely to actually spend their time playing the game. Thus you won’t find them as often online. So there’s a skewed community misrepresentation going on if you use online platforms as a sample representing the playerbase as a whole.
There are some arguably “toxic” elements in-game too though, like demanding unreasonably high ilvl equipped for lower m+ keys on stuff people would consider on farm, like +15 keys. So join me in my crusade to make a point out of always inviting a low-ilvl player to farm content, so the group has at least one player who could actually benefit from loot that drops 
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Playing them all and DOTA i can say that Dota and LOL are the most toxic places i have ever played. 1000000% Mobas are the most toxic games ever.
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I LOVE this never ending commentator PARANOIA, defending world of warcraft, and saying DOTA community is more toxic then wow :_D
Just spouting your own rubbish back at you inserting the game you mentioned as opposed to the ones I did. See how daft it looks!
League of legends and MOBA games in general will forever the be most toxic game due to both the allies and the enemies having a beef with you depending on how you perform compared to their expectations.
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I have to say I’ve not been back to LoL recently. My previous interactions were enough and I’m not a big fan of the game. I only ever went to spend time with friends. Loved the Netflix series though.
I do love by saying I’ve had a worse time in other games that somehow got twisted into I’m defending or denying toxicity in WoW. Not by you ofc.
I definitely agree that people are more likely to seek out the official forums if they have an issue with something, we see some incredibly toxic threads about gender, sexual preference, body types, racism etc.
To me a forum dweller is a regular though and they tend to be nicer, though not all of them ofc. I’ve made some really good friendships via the forums. We’ve done lots of activities together as a result.
We even used to have some raids, pvp events, rp events etc arranged by forum regulars.
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yeah because in general, a person who manages to stay in the forums for a long time, has not crossed certain lines
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When compared to something like FF14, yes the WoW community at large is awful.
The difference being that Blizzard is completely hands off the wheel wrt managing its community and actively enforcing its ToS.
It would seem that FF14 is more focused on maintaining a social game vs how WoW is a game where performance and outcome are (almost) everything.
FF14 is Bob Squarepants while WoW is Plankton
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WoW community has more players than any other game,its only natural …
FF has (example) 20 k people playing it,lets say half of the population is made of normal players
WoW has few million people,therefore more toxic idiots.
Yeah keeping a game casual definitely paid off in that respect. They are also banned from sharing things like damage meters. It’s more about having fun.
So much of WoW is competitive, people fling casual around as an insult. We genuinely have people who believe you should study up before taking part in dungeons or raids etc.
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I would agree with that statement.
What remains to be seen is if Blizzard has any interest in copying that or if they will opt to occupy their own slice of the market by remaining a goal-oriented, semi-competitive game as opposed to a more approachable and open MMO.
Blizzard is capable of expanding to accommodate more playstyles more without compromising the existing playstyles.
DF did well in that regard. The communal feast, the harpooning raids and the expanded professions are very good steps to allow people to have fun in more ways.
Sounds lovely! Online gaming as it should be, rather than what some seem hellbent to make anything but.
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Not really. Try CSGO / League of legends lol…
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Yeah… It got to the point i am not good enough anymore for normal leveling dungeons. I got already quite a lot shouted at as healer for not keeping up, and for example not mass dispelling on my holy paladin (like what?). I totally admit i am not an expert of the new dungeons though. But it feels like it is getting out of hand.
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