The truth is, I’m a lot more lenient with my friends because I know their capabilities and, more often than not, I’m on vent with them and we can discuss issues more openly.

I try to be as polite as possible with strangers, and sometimes have even found friends among them – although with everyone on different servers, they are more passing than permanent friendships. But I tend to let my friends get away with more with less comment (pulling aggro, pulling mobs, running ahead, etc) than I would ever tolerate from strangers.

It’s funny, that you mention Warhammer, because we talked a few days ago about our experience there. Actually, I think it is a pretty good example social wise.

Regarding your hopes for Cataclysm, I think it is fair to say, that Blizzard reached for the first time a Crossroad.

Either they stick with the current US/Asian Style, based on Competition and Soloesque Development. (Keep in mind, Asia is their biggest Market.)

Or they start focusing on European Teamgeist and Player generated content.

My suggestion is, that they go with the later, because Warcraft has completed it’s life cycle and adding social components, does not bind as many resources, as having to create new Encounters over and over.
Besides the fact, that you already mentioned, social networks tying customers to a game.

Personally, I think they are preparing Warcraft for a niche, with all those shiny, arcade style Games on the horizon, ready to satisfy the “I am Hero” Clientele.

Coming back to your topic, there are two social extremes in an OnlineRPG, with the majority being somewhere in between.
The one extreme, plays the game for Teamwork and Group experience, like the original P&P Games.
The other extreme, is the SoloRPG Player, who faces the problem, that outside of the cellar, nobody cares for his achievements. For him, the OnlineRPG is stage and arena.

Enjoy!

So on balance, it makes sense to be polite.

For example, MMOs often feel friendlier when they have just gone live because people have not yet completely settled into their cliques. It may be inevitable that an older game tends to feel more unfriendly, purely /because/ a lot of people treat friends better than strangers.

Also, a game that encourages people to play often with large groups of strangers (eg, WAR battlegroups) will tend to feel friendlier than one that encourages them to form into tight-knit 25 and 10 man cliques … there’s some food for thought there, especially since ‘networks of friends’ are one of the things that tie people into a game longterm.

And wait …. is there really a Singstar addon? I must get it.

I do think there are ways in which game design can make a game friendlier. I wonder if the WoW team will dabble in social engineering for cataclysm, aside from having guild goals.

I really believe strongly in strangers becoming friends though. All of my great cyber friends were once totally unknown to me and I can recall when I first started grouping with them. We just kept bumping into each other, eventually joined the same guild and now are all best buddies.

With strangers I’m simply more prepared for negative outcome of our encounter. But I won’t act differently. After all, the friends became friends exactly because they passed the test as strangers.

Being polite is of course always the best choice in life, however you can directly influence any group if you use their behavior pattern to your advantage.

To explain the basic concept, I beg your pardon of introducing some denglish, but sadly this very self explaining phrase does not exist in English (or at least I have not heard it so far):

Schmidt sucht Schmidtchen – Smith searches for Smithy

Although it has a bad connotation it basically says, that you are always searching for someone who is similar to yourself but “smaller”.
Besides, we know a phenomenon called Echoing: I attend the Sites, Blogs etc. which share my opinion.

Obviously a PuG is not an Echo-Chamber, since it consists of different people with different attitudes.

Keeping in mind, that no form of zero or no communication exists, everyone in a PuG is sending and receiving signals to find his peers.

I hate Smilies and Leed Speech, for this strangers often consider my messages impolite, on the other hand I have found most of my peers because of using mature communication.

People can get aggressive, if you question their opinion. So instead of calling them wrong, a better idea would be saying “Yes, but …”. This obviously does not solve the problem that he is wrong, but gives him the chance to keep his face, while following your suggestion.

I hate Voice Chats, but most Raid Leaders tend to either explain nothing, or to give a long history of the boss childhood, his parents and his last votes for nutella subventions, or just get aggressive during the fight, shouting at everyone, asking them to do things, they are already doing. (More DPS!!! Overheal!!!)
Because I hate it, I have been chosen as our Raid-Tourist-Guide (follow the Umbrella..), and they love me for doing the job.

… but, when we start Raiding with PuGs, they tend not to listen. The average PuG Raider, is either Twink of some high end raider, or someone who is deeply convinced of his abilities, why should he listen, to something he already knows?

At that point we achieved the best results by giving Raid Lead to our Ladies.
(Banning the Singstar Addon usually is enough to make them talk.)

The effect of a female voice to a testosterone tortured, lonely soul is incredible.

So Yes, treat others the way you like to be treated. … or treat them the way that suits your purpose the best, without making them feel being used.

I do try. I’m running more PuGs these days. Part of this is having my own tank, part of it is being slightly off-colour and wanting the lack of interaction of the PuG.
Mostly I find PuGs fine. Occasionally you just get a case of fail, like the feral druid that refused to res as ‘Am not resto, ‘tard!’ or AFK. I was particularly annoyed by the t10 rogue who appeared to be on /follow and did zero damage outside of boss fights.

However the thing that gets my dander up is the bizarre achievement desires of PuGers. Nutellea syndrome I shall refer to it as Spinks has covered the topic well.
I try to be polite. I try and help people through or explain I do not in fact want to spend time wiping on getting les-rabi or whatever (as I already have it on my main and dont care about the others) BUT and here’s where I am perhaps being _bad_ is that once I’ve noted that politeness has failed I simply either vote kick the offender or leave party. I simply dont have the time/energy to get into it with the lolkidz or want the hostility. Add to /ignore and leave. And in a really bad example I just leave. (The shammy healer is stacking spirit, the Dk tank is in Blood presence and has no def gear and the mage pulled despite nobody having mana :- including him. All in one group.). I’ll be polite and try to explain/educate where it looks like there’s at least the ghost of sentience….but sometimes the mountain looks so large.

To paraphrase a hostage rescue expert of my slight acquaintance*:- Sometimes you stop talking and just shoot them all before they do anything else silly.

(*Okay I spent a great couple of days being taught how to kick down doors, not to brush against walls when sneaking up on someone, the proper manner to grenade a room and when its okay to take their wallets. The actual phraseology was somewhat more direct and to the point. Interestingly one of the most famous hostage situations was resolved dramatically during daytime for the TVcamera’s just to send a ‘no tolerance’ message. As opposed to doing it with night vision gear while most of the bad guys were asleep. Sometimes it’s worth making a noise to modify behaviour. Cheers Mssr MacAlvennie a fantastic couple of days and my sympathy for your recent loss)