Trust & Friendship in Online video games

I have been playing online video games for almost 10 years now and have learned quite a bit in this time. One area that I know of quite well is how to handle trust and friendships in mmorpgs. I should also note that I am quite paranoid by nature these days.

I feel that you can never be too paranoid when interacting with people online. You should always expect the other guy to rip you off. So in other words if you give something to someone or do something for them, don't expect things to always work out. If you loan someone an item or money, expect that you might not get it back.

There are very few people with true honor in video games today. I have seen it get worse as the years have gone by. Even those people that have honor can be put into a situation where they will change.

I like to think of it like everyone can play the bad guy in the right situation. Some people automatically do not like eachother for whatever reason. Actually it can be quite fun being the bad guy sometimes.

I have had some really good friends and enemies in my gaming career. I have seen people that I have gamed with for multiple years flip on me for trivial stuff. Instead of communicating they threw me under the bus and made me look like the bad guy. These are people I was on voice chat regularly for long durations. I believe it was because I would not do exactly what they wanted me to do.

When you are playing MMORPGS, you should think about yourself first. Horde in game money and never trust 100%. 99% trust is fine, but expect that 1% to come up so you are not suprised when it happens. Never share your account information with anyone. The only exception to this rule is if it is a trusted family member or someone in real life that you know won't take advantage of you.

Believe it or not I have had real life friends backstab me on an online video game over trivial stuff. This friend I knew for 24+ years and we grew up together. This individual lived about 40 minutes from me. Now he did not take anything but left a guild that a group of us started together. He took a big chunk of the guild with him and didn't even call before hand. When I called him he got rude and hung up. Needless to say I am one less friend, and this should be a lesson to all.

You should also avoid giving too much real life information. People can and will use this against you in the right situations. Try to be vague, such as I live in this state and only giving a first name if that.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good people out there playing video games and it is well worth the grief. As for me I prefer to play more as a loner when gaming today. Remember, a lot of people will use and take advantage of you to get ahead both in the real world and online worlds.

Be careful who you buy game accounts from and how you do it. I have seen many accounts get hacked and recalled. I have also seen this happen with account sharing. I would do research on the person selling the character if you can. These days I would prefer to get a check and get it cleared before transferring a character or account. I personally would never recall an account that I have sold, even if I knew it was innactive.

I try to use game mechanics to avoid bad situations. If there is a situation such as a trade, where one person must take a chance, let the other person take it.

My gaming history includes but is not limited to:

Asheron's Call Darktide

Runescape 2

World of Warcraft

Everquest 2

Eve Online

Dark Age of Camelot

Age of Conan

I am currently playing Eve Online which I feel is one of the top games of today. I intend on sticking with this game for the forseeable future. Anyone looking to discussion online games should visit Online Game Forum

Online Game Forum is a newer forum community dedicated to online games.

Relationship Forums a great place to discuss relationships and stories like this.