Not for the game: to suffer the attentions of a stalker in WoW

There’s a piece in World of Warcraft @ Curse that talks of the plight of a few women in World of Warcraft who had to suffer what the poster described as sexual harassment, although under the law would probably count as stalking (albeit online), but still…

There’s a Level 70 Night Elf Rogue who’s literally being quite the bugger to his female guildmates, from spamming them with lewd suggestions to trying to get their 411 (that’s names, digits, home address preferable) in RL. In-guild disciplinary action didn’t help: said Rogue continues his roguish ways in his new guild. Worse yet, if the poster’s information is correct, he simply puts protesters on his ignore list.

Now yours truly is a guy, but even then, eww. I wouldn’t want to imagine the state of his gaming equipment with that mentality. If this story is true, either this Rogue is completely desperate, a total horndog, undoubtedly a perv, or born with a raging hormonal defect or something.

Yeah, the cynical response to this would be to say “So what? Just get out of the guild, ignore the guy, and get back to the game, **** it.” Yeah, yeah, say that to quite a good portion of the WoW population. More to the point, it’s that kind of attitude that’s lamentable. Blizzard does have a position on sexual innuendo and behavior in-game.

Finally, as VGCats’ Aeris so eloquently put it, if MMORPGs are all about the social interaction, damn it, we ought to point out that society, being people mingling with each other, does have minimum expectations for conduct. For crying out loud, there IS a proper way to pick women up at bars – and maybe even actually score a long-term fulfilling commitment out of it. Yeah, there’s a tendency to crack jokes and all, but… we stop where it hurts.

So if this story is true, and if that Level 70 Rogue is reading this… perhaps you might like to redirect your attentions elsewhere instead.

There’s a piece in World of Warcraft @ Curse that talks of the plight of a few women in World of Warcraft who had to suffer what the poster described as sexual harassment, although under the law would probably count as stalking (albeit online), but still…

There’s a Level 70 Night Elf Rogue who’s literally being quite the bugger to his female guildmates, from spamming them with lewd suggestions to trying to get their 411 (that’s names, digits, home address preferable) in RL. In-guild disciplinary action didn’t help: said Rogue continues his roguish ways in his new guild. Worse yet, if the poster’s information is correct, he simply puts protesters on his ignore list.

Now yours truly is a guy, but even then, eww. I wouldn’t want to imagine the state of his gaming equipment with that mentality. If this story is true, either this Rogue is completely desperate, a total horndog, undoubtedly a perv, or born with a raging hormonal defect or something.

Yeah, the cynical response to this would be to say “So what? Just get out of the guild, ignore the guy, and get back to the game, **** it.” Yeah, yeah, say that to quite a good portion of the WoW population. More to the point, it’s that kind of attitude that’s lamentable. Blizzard does have a position on sexual innuendo and behavior in-game.

Finally, as VGCats’ Aeris so eloquently put it, if MMORPGs are all about the social interaction, damn it, we ought to point out that society, being people mingling with each other, does have minimum expectations for conduct. For crying out loud, there IS a proper way to pick women up at bars – and maybe even actually score a long-term fulfilling commitment out of it. Yeah, there’s a tendency to crack jokes and all, but… we stop where it hurts.

So if this story is true, and if that Level 70 Rogue is reading this… perhaps you might like to redirect your attentions elsewhere instead.