Online Brow-beating

One thing became apparent to me very quickly when I first started online socialization: There is a ton of electronic brow-beating.

People are very quick to bully and brow-beat you. My experiences from the World of Warcraft (which is where a majority of my online interaction takes place) have taught me this. This is a fantasy game, set in the same vein as Lord of the Rings. Users create a character, whether it be a warrior, wizard, healer, thief, etc. The charatcer I created is a Paladin, a mix between a plate-armour wearing warrior and the titular healing class, the priest. I quickly learned this was a mistake.

A quick side note about the World of Warcraft: The game is broken up into two factions, the Alliance (comprised of humans, dwarves, elves and gnomes) and the Horde (comprised of Orcs, Trolls, Undead, corrupted elves, and a race of walking bulls known as Tauren). There are two ways to play the game. Players can band together and storm dungeons run by computer controlled monsters. The other way is to band together and fight other enemy faction players in various battlegrounds. These battlegrounds could be classic king-of-the-hill or capture-the-flag battles, or players could enter a pictched battle of 40 vs 40. There were also specialized arena battles of teams of 5 and under.

Anyways, about 3 months or so into my Paladin's career, I was constantly hounded for not strictly healing. More and more, people would not invite me into their group unless I strictly healed. I was not a strict healing class. The Paladin's healing powers were easily bested by a dedicated healer class like the priest. The other mixed classes, such as the shape-shifting Druid and totem dropping Shaman were also superior healers compared to us. Nevertheless, people demaded I strictly start healing or they would spread the word that "Assilius is a shitty player and an even shitter team player". My best friend, who also created a Paladin like me, was much more outspoken and succeeded in blacklisting himself for his refusal to be pigeon-holed into one role. As a result, he had to spend money to change his name and switch to a different "realm", another copy of the World of Warcraft with a different population of people.

This amazed and appalled me all at once. People have online reputations? People who simply play a game online still have to be careful or subservient enough otherwise they can get a bad rap?

What's even more appalling is how little there can be done. Online intimidation and threats can only be reprimanded if the individual's personal health and well-being is involved in most cases. This means that online "bullies" can often brow-beat and terroize at their will and leisure.

What can be done to stop this?