WoWtiquette

Last night, while chasing a super annoying way over-powered Hunter on Michelenea in Wailing Caverns I got to thinking about etiquette and the rules we as players seem to agree on. Once in a while there is always someone who will wholeheartedly ignore these rules, and there is an uproar amongst some people because of it.

Instead of going through the "rules" as we understand them, I got to thinking about do they really matter and why do they matter.

One of those rules that I think people seem to all agree on is gatherers in instances. I'm talking about those of us who mine, herb, or skin. In a recent SFK run I was in for example, I noticed that the first time a wolf was killed one of the members of the group said "Any other skinners?" and proceeded to skin the corpse before anyone else said anything. When someone responded, "Yes, I'm one." they worked out between them to go back and forth between the kills so they both came out even, or as close to even as you can come. In fact I also noticed that they congratulated each other when they got something unsual or cool. Great camraderie between the two people which was nice.

This is the opposite of something I experienced myself in BFD. In thost first few rooms there are a lot of skinning that can be done, and on my skinner another person in the group was also a skinner who immediately been skinning everything in sight without asking. Being a bit outspoken I pointed out that I am also a skinner and would like some. This fell on deaf ears, and it became a contest to skin as many as fast as possible. It got kind of annoying to a point where even other members of the group were purposely not looting the the corpses until I got over to be prepared to skin. Eventually the other skinner got annoyed enough and left, allowing us to finish the instance without skin stress.

Why do we have unspoken niceties like the one I outline above? Why isn't it just a matter of every man/woman for himself/herself?

I know some people say that we have it because it allows us to have a more enjoyable experience. I don't know about that though. If you think about it, and there were no rules, wouldn't it be enjoyable to that guy who hauls ass and beats the rest of the party and get everything you want and need. For the record I tend to be the first guy in my example, not the second, but think about it for a minute or two. Wouldn't it be fun just for a day or two to truly be an anarchist and make it all for me?