"buff me XXX plz"
gets you ignored.
"excuse me, would you mind casting XXX on me please?"
gets you buffed.
But the lazy communication is just one symptom.
It just feels like peoples ingame behaviour is getting
less mature, less polite, more selfish, more brat-ish,
and conversations ingame are starting to sound more
like the level of dialogue that goes on over at the PvP boards.
My (somewhat rhetorical) question was,
is the player population getting stupider?
are there more of "that kind" of players than there used to be?
or are there just less of the older / more mature crowd?
and if either, why?
I think there has been a culture shift,
and I believe that moves Funcom have made are to blame.
I feel they need to do more to attract (back) more mature players.
How to do that is up for debate.
And of course I neglected earlier to attach the disclaimer
that 'age' and 'maturity level' are not always parallel.
However for the purposes of the post, I think defining
what I'm objecting to as the behaviour of 8-13 year olds
can quite easily be understood, even if you're of that age.