Letter To The Wynn Community

Hey, Wynn Community.

It's weird knowing this post will be my last one, but that really isn't significant because I only have 200 and something posts. Either way, I'll get to the point. People have always told me to leave a place cleaner than you left it, so that's what this post is all about.

**Exposition Incoming**

I started Wynn 4 years ago, and played for about a year before I took a 3 year break, mostly because I forgot about it. During the period I did play, I didn't involve myself in any communities, so I guess I didn't really maximize my experience in the Wynncraft community then, although I doubt people would want to hear my extremely high pitched squeaky voice back then. Anyway, after I returned I joined a guild (nevermind, epic guild btw) and met some people and learned some things. I also joined the Wynncraft discord, which is in my opinion a huge step in getting more well-versed into the community since it's an incredibly different experience than the forums. After a while, I started to see groups of players. There were the proffers, the class builders, and loot runners to name a few. I dipped a foot into most communities besides proffs (hate grinding sry, ironically do enjoy loot running though). But, most of my time was spent in class builds. #class_builds is a pretty intimidating place to be if you don't know anybody or have any experience, and I say that from personal experience. Getting corrected hundreds of times and even joining a class builds guild eventually led to competence (lol not rly im still bad), but more importantly it was easier to socialize with the people there.

** End Exposition**

Now if you've read everything up to now, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this.

The reason I'm quitting is because I couldn't bear some aspects of the community anymore. Now, call me snowflake and sensitive (which truthfully I kind of am ngl), but from my time in different communities and knowing people that spent so much time in different communities I can confidently say that there needs to be some form of change. While I still think Wynn has an amazing community overall, some specific issues within it breed toxicity.

I can't personally target any specific group of players one by one since I don't have enough experience in them and it would be an inaccurate generalization, but I will share the opinions of different players who have been in the community longer than I have. (And also my own)

I asked each person if they noticed any major issues within the community, and if so what. Here are their responses.


Person 1 (requested anonymous):

In the wynncraft community, groups of people with similar interests have popped up, which is perfectly natural, but the problem with the groups as a whole (not saying that the people in said groups are bad or promoting toxicity), but the idea of 'my group best' does come up, with all the, for lack of a better word, brainwashing, that happens in those communities, i.e, someone joins a guild or say the professions community, everyone around them constantly reinforce certain ideas, even passively, like 'x guild is bad' or something along those lines. it's not exactly a good idea to disband all of them because of that, but some of the outspoken members of those groups could maybe try to be more understanding or compassionate towards their 'enemies'. after all, it's just a game, right?


Person 2 (requested anonymous):

"I mean there are individuals that are not good, but overall I do not think it is terrible.

Like "haha fuck guilds/lootrunners/class builders/profs." The communities as a whole, are generally fine, but you can take bad people from all of them."


Person 3 (requested anonymous):

"After some thought, I just have to say that overall as more members join Wynncraft, we attract a wider variety of players and people. Although it is good for business and great for increasing the community size, I have a harboring worry about the new players and how they can bring somewhat interesting beliefs that can create a form of divide as seen from the TommyInnit fiasco and the resulting opinion from the Wynncraft community. This is not to say we do not have these types of people already; I have seen a few such examples previously and I know that they will continue.

Moving on from the discussion of the community itself, the culture of Wynncraft is interesting, and since it is the first real community I have identified myself with, I cannot bring any strong opinions. However, while I admire places such as #class-builds for "bringing together the geeks and intellectuals," the off-topic and memes channel have portrayed the opposite to me, showing more toxicity than I usually see from the safe bubble of #wynncraft and #questions. This interesting dilemma is further exacerbated by what I hesitate to call anything other than a lack of staff communication with the overall public. As an example, I was shocked to find the sudden change to the channel names, as there was no announcement of it occurring.

Although I know that there must be a multitude more of such examples, I know how difficult it must be for everyone in the moderator team and the ct team to connect to the community, so I should not in fact include this.


Overall, I feel as though there are a few minor aspects of the community that I have come to dislike, but those are the side effects of a growing community."


Person 4 (requested anonymous):

"elitism. Also, some people don't understand that Wynncraft is a minecraft server, that you play for fun."


Person 5 (99loulou999):

"well, for one positive thing: we love new players, like for real I sometimes wish I was a new player because to see that everyone helps new players be it running a dungeon with them, giving them mob totems, answering their questions, helping them builds, id say Wynn has one of the most helpful community (from what I see)

The guild community is toxic though, being a second in command of a major guild, it's pretty toxic." (Changed some words for less swearing rofl)

Loulou also stated that the most "toxic" part about guilds was guild politics and warring more than guild community.


Person 6 (requested anonymous):

"Guild alliances turn into a circlejerk of semi propaganda of "my alliance good, other alliance toxic bad". I as part of a guild politics member know there are amazing members and pretty bad people on both sides of the most important alliances, (removed) and (removed) alike, I don't call for everyone to be friend and sing campfire songs while exchanging territories between each others for free, but at least be decent between each others even if you disagree with your foes."


Person 7 (me):

I think the majority of problems sprout from the fact that players are divided into groups that don't treat each other fairly. Also, disagreeing with what someone said earlier, I'd like to say that gatekeeping was and has been an issue in the community, and I myself am guilty of gatekeeping sometimes. Specifically in a class builds scenario, the constant pressure of posting an "unoptimal" build is pretty high, as you'll probably get roasted as soon as you post it.


Person 8 (Linnyflower):

Some people just suck. The way hunted mode is designed creates a shitty power dynamic between communities and causes a lot of toxicity or people being somewhat upset. The only good ways to level professions are during parties (which bring the community together, and it’s cool to have) but if nobody spends money almost nobody will be doing professions. In the case of prof speed there is literally no point crafting without it. In the loop running and guild communities it’s a great opportunity to be elitist even if you aren’t really aware of it. Even the prof discord is somewhat elitist but it’s really hard not to do something that’s not higher level = perms and have a functional server. Community is/was somewhat upset, varying between people ofc about shortening the time to level up professions (xp ingreds) which is something keeping many people away from professions. this isn’t really an issue in and of itself but it shows something about... something. Overall, I do really like the Wynncraft community and doing profession stuff, but some parts are problematic.


Anyway, the point of the post isn't me complaining, it's bringing issues that others and I have noticed during our respective Wynncraft journey.


This thread is no doubt controversial and bound it to spark disagreement. Some argue that I'm leaving Wynn a messier place than I found it, but the fact of the matter is, these issues would only get progressively worse unless they were addressed, and there is absolutely no way to address these issues without bringing up controversy.

(Loulou and Linny y'all are brave for not requesting anon)


Thanks for reading,

Goodbye, and goodnight.

 

Goodbye, Gamer.

 

Sad to see you go, toxicity is a bitch, I wish you well on whatever you wanna do, you're a cool guy and a good friend. Hmu any time

 

oops i made a typo

goodbye it was fun gambling away all my money with you :(

 

As Yraw said, sad to see you go. You made some great points here and I hope us as a community can take them into account. Wish you luck in whatever you wanna do next.

 

ngl, i'm sad seeing you go, hope that the community takes this and learns from it.

remember to stay consistent in hard times and stay gamer.

 

what?

I think the community is pretty good, except (unnamed) individuals, which can be found everywhere (I am not interested in guilds so I don't know how bad is it there). But yeah, #classy_builds and build gatekeeping is an issue.

Farewell and good luck!

 

I battle with toxicity and corruption constantly in another server’s community, I get you.

You just outta keep the fight up.

That being said, so long soldier,

We won’t forget you <3

 

gl my friend, may ArchangeL stay with you ;)

if mod close thread for goodbye, then bruh moment

 

Hate to see you go
Add me on hypixel please if you happen to see me or are online when I am
we'll get that 1v1 in some day...

bye man it was fun, hope I see you around

 

Great thread, Milkman. I can definitely agree with statements about the community being fractured into cliques, but I feel like a lot of issues come from the fact that stuff like lootrunning and hunting rewards you for competing against others, and there's no real reward for helping people out.

At the end of the day, we're all a bunch of recruits from Fruma. We gotta stop thinking of each other as rivals.

 

Good luck in wherever you go next!

 

Any community you encounter will have similar issues, that is if the community is on such a scale, you can either not involved yourself in the community or not take any of it seriously, because its either a joke or its coming from terrible people (which are not worth the time in thinking about).

To put it simple you don't have to leave, however if you feel its necessary, what can I do to stop you.

Any-who, goodbye and I wish you well.

 

Pretty much the way it does tend to be. Especially the last half a year or so, people have gone more and more to one specific subcommunity and kinda stayed there, which eventually does lead to circlejerking and elitism. It's definitely a small percentage, but as shown by guild people (who have been more distant from the general Wynn community in the past) that basically leads to very one-sided discussion and an eventual overgeneralization towards the outside and from others about said community. Good example is the general guild community that is fairly invisible on forums except for a rare suggestion or opinion thread with sudden mountains of support (or discussion often ending up in flamewars), which really doesn't give guild people the best name, at least on forums.. while this really is not the case. Situations like a certain suggestion about gathering xp and rewards for professions levels ended up in a similar fashion, created from a one-sided discussion that went way too passionately the wrong way when people outside of that community reacted.

Still, it doesn't have to be a bad thing- people like talking with people doing the same kinda things, and that's great. People have more fun that way. However, it goes sideways a bit whenever it feels like groups of people go against each other while really not being very aware of said other group. Following that, bad assumptions are made about certain groups, while usually not being true. Still, some of those are true, and I'd like to shortly address them in possibly my most controversial post. Please keep in mind that this is about small minorities turned vocal majority, often just a couple handful at most.

- guild people, while not aggressive and extremely entitled (like some people tend to think), tend to be incredibly secluded from the main community, and should realize and accept that those occasional threads are the only impression many people get of them. And yes, guilds do really need some more love, but it's not quite as bad as some make it out to be, and you can't blame every single cyan tagged person for your troubles. Also: get your problems out there. Suggestions and maybe even a discussion thread (very carefully made) would help people understand issues a lot better, and give a better light of the community in general.

- while not class builders per se, current #class_builds devolved from gamer central to a spam zone akin to #memes, and having so little substance at times it's shocking. Builds don't need to and should not be as limited as some make them out to be, there is nothing wrong with making certain builds, and while most people are very helpful and kind with helping people or having item discussions, there are those who really don't care and just spam their own day-old inside jokes anyway. No, #class_builds is not limited to Atlas Inc, opinions from those in Atlas Inc are not law for builds, you don't always know everything better.

- lootrunners are by far not all in the flexing contest or trade market entrepreneurs (read: semi-scammers). Most of them are just people trying to get a couple of cool mythics. But to those other few: I know there are numbers on average chests, but unlucky people exist, as well as lucky ones. Flexing with money and/or mythics is practically useless and mainly just makes others feel bad. Prices of items are not indicative of how much good items are, and loot quality is for sure not ruining the market.

- profession tryhards tend to be much more neutral (certain aforementioned thread aside) and probably the least controversial subcommunity, but even here is the occasional one-sided discussion and some very arbitrary rules about who is good at profs and who isn't (it's all based around time wasted anyway). Some of you could be a bit more open to changes to professions and items as well, and I don't hope anyone disagrees with me that professions and/or hunted mode needs changes. But not in the way of screwing over hunters so you can get a free experience boost..

- people in #questions and Questions (yes these are different things) are generally actually quite helpful, and the people asking their questions somewhere else usually never bothered to go there in the first place. However, I have seen strictly opinions passed around as facts, and I also doubt copypastas are the end all answer to everything.

- content team, in contrast to what i've seen people assume, are generally quite aware of things, and do tend to know what they're doing. While it's unreasonable of some people to hold problems with Wynn those ct members don't have anything to say about against them, there is the never-ending issue of transparency, which can always be improved upon. Sometimes people assume things are intentional while the content team is not even really aware of a problem, and sometimes ct members can also want the same changes as other people, but can't make them happen.

Just some things I've had to repeat, often to deaf ears, but I'm glad I got these off my chest. For everyone, just- stay respectful, stay kind, don't assume people don't know what they're saying (and if they really don't, inform them, don't tell them that a is better than b and leave it at that), don't assume people don't care, stay civilized. I would recommend people do go to different Discord servers and be somewhat active on forums and the main Wynn server. Compared to other places, the Wynn community is still an amazing one, and it really is just a handful of people you hear bad things about. thank you for your consideration.

And thanks to Milkman/Christofu for daring to start a conversation about such a sensitive topic, we'll miss you man. Please do actually come back when next update hits.

 

doubt if i made a post like this anyone would even reply lol
i can't get involved with any communities no matter how nice i am, i always end up leaving. so soloing the game is all i can do
if anyone thinks the opposite, go ahead and prove me wrong (which i doubt you would)

 

We are the same.

 

It's sad to see people leave this place :(
Goodbye!

 

wow.

it really makes you sad when toxicity in a nostalgic community drives off some of the best people in said community.

in older wynn days, before loot quality, before professions, (here is where i'd say before when guilds' only presence on forums was recruitment threads for level 50+ but that never happened so), before class builds devolved into the current situation, there was a hell of a lot less toxicity. when the vocal minority of a group of people is the most toxic, it gives the entire community a really bad reputation, which just continues flame wars. overall, really sad.

super sad to see you go PRO baby puncher, and thanks for initiating this discussion.

i really hope to see you come back one day, but if you don't we understand.

thanks for being PRO.

 

We've had our differences but you're a great friend. I'm sad to see you go, but I totally understand.

I'm no good at writing long messages, so I'll keep this short.

Thanks for all you do for this community and for being a great friend. I loved having chances to talk to you in the discord. You were great at making me and surely others smile; I love your sense of humor.
If you ever come back, we'll be waiting here for you.

Keep me added on discord, kk?

Keep in touch.
-Bast

 

Going to admit that for a while, as part of the overall lootrun community I had some dislike towards prof and guild community members. I changed eventually, and really circlejerking on Wynn is really fucking cringe, this is a fucking block game. I've done it in the past, saying shit like "haha guilds bad" or "prof bad haha" but really this stuff shouldn't happen. It's not being constructive on why you even dislike those groups, but just blind hate because you dislike the people in those communities. It needs to stop.

The overall wynncraft discord experience, especially on #wynncraft or #off_topic is so shitty. It's like a shit or be shit on environment, and I am also guilty of previously being apart of it. There is like zero degree of respect given to anybody in the discord, people get irrationally angry, and shit on people for their opinions. I honestly feel that a big circlejerk comes from the Wynncraft discord itself, people love to shit on others there. It's a reason that I usually don't visit there anymore. I just got sick of the toxic environment.