More crazy people - recent ranked SMITE game.

[Rusty Edge]

The above is the rule more than the exception in my experience,  which is why I don't play such games. 

I remember Defense of the Ancients back in the B-net days for Warcraft 3.

And that was the last of the RTS/RTT games I've played multiplayer for a reason. 

I remember Myth/Myth II competitive.  Before everyone turned into asses.  ****though it's ENTIRELY possible the American audience was always asses, because back in those days I almost exclusively played with Aussies due to my odd schedule****

That's the thing though. It is kind of damning of human nature.

I have philosophized about it somewhat.

Humans have a need to be awesome and separate themselves from what they perceive as the non awesome. Now, there is the concept of morality. That is, not being an arsehole. But that morality is irrelevant when it comes to results. You can be the biggest arse but if you are rich it does not matter. Short of physically killing people and being caught or becoming ill, nothing can stop you. Your wealth depends on not being an arse, you just hire someone for that and fire them if they balk. After all, for enough sucess, people will tolerate arses. That is the reason why the top raid guilds in MMOs always had a high concentration of sociopathic arses.
 
 In the real world there are actual winners and losers. People who have things set up well do not want "losers" on their team or even near them. They separate themselves from the scrubs of real life through high rents, achievements requirements like college degrees or positions, certain positions in society that are invitation only,etc. If you make a mistake or inconvenience someone, you suffer. If you lose, you get crapped on. There are work environments where if someone makes a complaint, that employee is fired no questions asked. You see this in game as well as real life.

But, this is totally sick and not good for society.

It's the reason you have people take guns and shoot up places. After all, if you have no talent nor resources or resourcefulness, the easiest way to get that is shove a gun in someone's face. Your significance goes from 0 to 10 instantly.

It's the reason you get people like Donald [Sleezebag]. They idolize him because he can say anything and get away with it because he is rich. Actions that would get an average joe ostracized and punished. After all, they are awesome and just temporarily embarrassed on their quest to being [Sleezebag]-like. If it was not for those scrubs on welfare, food stamps, etc.... like that makes a difference in one's personal situation.

Now, I am not sure the solution and you go down a deep rabbit hole if you try to enforce people treating people better. There are also people that need to be called out, and sometimes there just is not a nice way to do this.

But, I can ignore these people (just like I do in real life), try to be cool myself, and eventually find cool people I gel with. Just like real life. That, and hope that those who are toxic eventually learn social skills.

Hey, one can dream?

I should declare that while I have had disagreements with your politics, I always find you a fascinating sociologist.

[Buster's Uncle]

Deep insights into the nature of certain sorts of online communities, absolutely, and interesting.

[Green1]

Yeah, there's a lot of great sociology lessons in gaming.

One guy I like is Nicky Yee. He did a lot of really interesting sociological profiles of Everquest and World of Warcraft gamers.

Shame his talents are now probably spent at Ubisoft probably trying to condition gamers to buy loot boxes. But hey, why else would you hire a sociologist but to find out why/how gamers spend money. (Which I have my theories on as well and Yee really did not go over in his doctoral work)

[Buster's Uncle]

Omitted it or was wrong?

[Green1]

Omitted it or was wrong?

Omitted it. Or at least did not go over it. I am sure it was one of the first questions UbiSoft asked him.

Both World of Warcraft and Everquest DID have people spend big bucks, but the way they spent it was against the Terms of Service of those games. Things like character buying, gold buying, leveling services, etc. It happened a lot, but it was considered impolite to talk about in game. Very hush-hush. Particularly when GMs could be looking at chat logs.

Of course nowadays, most MMOs have some system where you just buy it from Blizzard, SOE, or whoever in the form of level boosts, gems, what have you.