ANet is promoting bad behaviour?

That one short sentence said a lot about attitude. Any of you ever watch professional or even college sports? Do the winners taunt the losers after the game? Or do they shake hands?

The attitude ANet is encouraging with that video is an attitude we're supposed to grow out of.

Oh well, my bad. I forgot that after a judo or karate match the winner, like, totally teabags the beaten opponent to the general cheering of the crowd of spectators. Not.

There are civilized people, and then there are those who think that watching pro wrestling is a great way to learn the proper code of conduct. It looks like the lack of respect is mutual

Enlighten me: How come a fully, 100% PvP competitive online FPS has less people QQing about taunting and "getting rolled?" How come in a game based on skill that when someone dies and gets taunted or becomes a nemesis that the person getting killed or dominated doesn't throw his keyboard in anger?

Granted, we don't see this happening. But I'll tell you one thing: The amount of "discontent" about taunting in TF2 on the official Steam forums is zilch. Nothing.

So, it's not "these people are doing it too, so it's okay!" argument, it's a "how come these people are doing the same thing and are fine?" argument.

There's a misconception in your post that I think needs to be corrected to open up any kind of meaningful dialog about the problem. I don't see people QQing (whining) here. I see people stating their feelings about the behavior of taunting. The two are not synonymous by any stretch of the imagination.

As Wilderness pointed out (in a rather inflammatory approach unbecoming a forum mod btw... that is as long as flaming is still against the rules here) there are those here who do indeed make the behavior of taunting a question of morality by applying the qualities of 'good' and 'bad' to it.

For others of us, however, (speaking for myself and anyone who agrees), it's a question of maturity. And maturity is not subjective like morality is. The parameters of what constitutes maturity are well defined and universally accepted. And taunting, without question, is not within those parameters. Consequently, it doesn't make taunting any more mature if the developers of one... or a thousand other games include it in their game mechanics. It's still immature behavior. And that's all that a lot of the posters here are saying.

I, for one, am not attaching 'good' or 'bad' judgments to immature behavior and am by no means taking the position that I'm entitled to 'criticize' immature behavior (or 'moral' behavior as Wilderness has). I fully acknowledge without apology that I can at times behave immaturely myself and even sometimes enjoy it. I also acknowledge that as an adult, though, I have the responsibility to try to behave as maturely as possible in front of impressionable youth because influence by example is the most powerful influence there is.

That said I think I know why this about face on ANet's part (which is basically what the OP was asking about). Ever since the original development team began working on GW2, I've suspected for a number of reasons that there are inexperienced and underdeveloped 'interns' and/or 'junior' coders running amok virtually unsupervised in the GW workshop. In that the original team appeared to take their responsibility as 'role models' seriously when they discouraged taunting, and there appears to be an abandonment of that sense of responsibility with the release of this new video, my suspicions have grown all the stronger.

Again, while I believe it's a matter of personal choice on the part of players as to whether they want to behave with decorum or not, I believe it's a matter of responsibility on the part of the game developers to encourage evolution, not devolution of player behavior.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. While GW overall has been wonderful, it does feel like some elements are out of place for the original design of the game. This video being one of them.

Well I personally don't /emote, teabag etc. at all, as i find it immature and rude. But I've accepted that this kind of behavior is going to happen in any competative video game (especially in online matches) so I just go along with it and don't really give a rats ass who's being an asshole or not.

In fact more often than not those who do taunt, insult and whatever form of /ranking the game offers tend to make themselves easier targets than those who simply play the game.

It was intended as a bit of light humour, hence it not being aimed at anyone in particular. I find there's little point discussing the facets (and yes, there are facets - it's not always black and white) of morality with children and idiots on an internet forum.

And idiots isn't inflammatory there, it's an objective view.

You're playing an online rpg and you worry about maturity? Tauting with emotes as a finishing move in GWs pvp is, again, a bit of light hearted fun. It in no way directly correlates with with maturity. Maturity is directly related to the emotions of the player and the tone of his/her approach.

That said, you could probably establish some kind of leaning statistic in favour of your claim but most statistics are bullshit at the best of times so we'll forget about that

I want to quote this again.

As I have become deeper involved in the game over the years, what's struck me as quite wonderful has been ArenaNets "Social Awareness".

They've gone to great pains with the Reporting system. They've discouraged bad behavior in PvP with the Dishonourable Hex. Through the community communication they've made it plain that though this is an internet world we inhabit, we should be applying real word behavior.

It shows that Anet CARE about their customers, about keeping them long term (let's just put aside your personal "Nerf/World is dead" opinions for the moment").

They care about making a difference above and beyond the angry gamer stereotype with social issues.

WTB thicker skin plz.

Come on people, I mean, are you all serious? When I played Counter Strike on a regular basis, taunting/tea-bagging/etc. was expected and was hilarious because everyone did it, expected it, and yes were frequently drunk too. But the limited "crouch" animation just made it even more funny.

What do people remember about the Mortal Kombat series, that the original Johnny Cage had some Shadow Bolt move, or that his FATALITY consisted of uppercutting the opponent's spine out of the body in mo-cap? And I'm pretty sure I don't remember ever hearing someone declare fatalities "unsportsmanlike" conduct.

The other thing is, Guild Wars is not a sport, no matter how much you'd all love to be playing Quake 4 "professionally" whatever that means lol. Its a game, a diversion, nothing more. While there is competitive PvP sure, its really no different than playing rock, paper, scissors, but over the interwebs with pretty graphics.

Being unsportsmanlike requires there be something at stake, such as flipping off an audience at a football match, or kicking an opponent while he's down. It requires personal interaction. Online gaming makes use of avatars, and only truly pathetic people get so wrapped up in their little people that they actually report virtual existence for morality infringement...

You see, Anet expect that a light hearted taunt with an emote after a kill would be received with good sportsmanship and a bit of a chuckle. PvP should be fun, just because a percentage of players are so tightly wound you could stick their fingers in a plug socket and use them as a superconducting magnet doesn't mean the fun should be ruined for the rest of us.

As ubiquitous as the internet is in our daily lives now, it's still relatively new to our social mentality.

While some of the burden lies within ourselves, our parents and peer groups to initiate proper social behavior, many aspects of the Internet (social network sites, chatting, forums, gaming) are more and more becoming the ONLY way we interact with other human beings.

To that end, encouraging proper social awareness and interaction is not an over-reaction on a game company's part - they're getting in early as a socially responsible business.

I know how to have fun.

Computer Games get such a bad rap for their supposed influence (violence, sex, drugs, bad social behavior), I don't blame a company for raising social awareness. They don't want to be blame when you head out into the world with an attitude like "Everything I learned about sportsmanship I learned from tea-bagging my GW opponents".

See how far that sort of attitude takes you in the real world.

Okay, fine. But read my previous post and tell me you think that taunting with emotes is properly negative social behaviour.

Ok. Go play a game of golf/basketball/pool with a friend, work colleague or boss. Score a point. Then dance around him, flipping the bird and taunt him with the slur of your choice.

See how popular that makes you.

And don't tell me teh internetz and real world are different. They're not. You can't have two sets of social rules to adequately function within normal society.

QFT HAHA LOLZ!

Guild Wars is not Second Life. If people decide to impress importance for social moderation onto a game, that's the peoples' problem, not a game developer. If the only way you interact with humans is via Guild Wars or social networking sites, then your opinions on morality as it applies to real world dynamics are irrelevant, since a person like that has no basis for comparison.

I don't want games that tell me how to behave, you can have your 1984 social controls if you like, I'll keep tea-bagging away and throwing FATALITY left and right.

The thread is now just rehashing old arguments, so closed.