I wasn’t even talking about that. This is about how people socialize, and how that affects the way we think.
That’s why that part matters. The other thread and the report linked to earlier provides a lot more details to explain it better.
But ok, to explain it in this post just a bit for the sake of convenience, it’s because you’re more focused on yourself that you care more about what benefits you more.
And it’s the social design that affects how you behave. In other words, it’s the underlying reason why you’re more focused on yourself. Because there’s no proper social immersion that’d otherwise be there, if the social design would’ve been done better.
Which is what vanilla did better. The social design was more wholesome, which in turn affected the way people played the game en masse.
Think of it more like people are more withdrawn in anonymous settings, which in turn makes you more self-centric, because the social immersion isn’t the same. And it’s the social design that affects it the most.
By the way, what you’re talking about is called the “trickle-down effect”. Which is much more prevalent now, yes. But it doesn’t change the fundamental way people socialize. That’s more up to the social design.
For example, it’s about tolerance.
That example, that specific example, is not because of the “way people play games now”. It’s not because of the trickle-down effect either. It’s because we tolerate much less of strangers. So it’s up to the social design to help the bonding process, which in turn helps increase tolerance levels. We also inhibit our anger more when we’re more socially aware, than when we’re anonymous. Which is why that social immersion affects us on that fundamental level.
A simple example of that is stuff like twitter, or 4chan, and so on. Compare that to the way people behave in close social settings, like with best friends for example. We inhibit what we think of as “bad social behavior” and have increased tolerance levels, when we’re more socially aware.
So, following your example, let’s say you’re one of those who “becomes frustrated when you find someone who’s not cooperating in the most efficient way”, you’d still be more willing to help the other person reach your level, if you’d be closer socially to that person. But when it’s a stranger, you’re more inclined to only think of yourself instead, and when the game basically conditions you to not remember most people you get teamed up with & against in BGs, you naturally think much more about yourself and what benefits you instead. On an unconscious level, that’s how you’re made to think.
Anonymity also increases apathy, so you basically also get the “who cares?”-army of trolls as a consequence. People are made to care more when they’re more socially immersed.
These are all the fundamentals of why Vanilla had all those epic stories, while Classic is what it is now. It’s not because of the people. It’s because of the way it has been designed.