Maybe I am wrong. Tell me if I am.
I don't want to talk about the "good old times" when I started playing about 3 years ago. Things were new to me, and maybe I had a different point of view. I had a large break (nearly 2 years) and continued playing only 2 months ago.
And I think that many of the players (at least on Innoruuk server) still are helpful and friendly. Higher lvl players still give weapons or equipment to lower lvls, and I still enjoy talking to people from all over the world. But the last few weeks made me think.
I wanted to do the Scavenger Hunt and knew that I couldn't do it alone. I don't know any high lvl players personally, so I just tried to find someone who would help me; I went to Plane of Knowledge (from 30 to 70 players there) and said something like:
/ooc Is any of you, noble lords, willing to help a non-twinked lvl 15 gnome mage to gather a piece for the scavenger hunt?
Most of the time there was only silence; Only once I got an answer , and that was: "/ooc If I would help, he wouldn't be untwinked anymore, would he?" Yeah. Great.
So I went to the zones where the pieces that I couldn't get alone are dropped. I asked different players, and they replied: "Sorry, logging in 2 mins." "Sorry, preparing for a LDoN." I accepted those answers, and at least somebody was talking to me :)
And then there was that guy I met at Mistmoore castle, 65 chanter, also looking for granite. I asked him if he would help me gather a piece, he said that he would gate as soon as he got his. Ok this far. I asked him if he needed hints for the other pieces, and he replied that he didn't because it was such an easy quest. When I said "Yes, easy for lvl 65, but not for lvl 15" he started insulting me, telling me to f*** off, called me son of a rapist and things like that. I was totally surprised, as I didn't harm him in any way.
Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe he was just a 13-year old frustrated boy. But that day, I really lost the fun in playing. And as I tried for some weeks to find somebody to help me, but no-one was willing, I cannot denie that people seem to be less helpful and less friendly. I didn't ask for a big thing. I didn't want money, or armor, or whatever. I just asked people to kill a mob they could easily kill.
Am I wrong?