Monday, August 2, 2010

I'm Working on my Backhand

Puggers will sometimes make a comment that throws you for a loop.

This morning, I was fishing in the Dalaran Pool, having a beer with Marcia Chase, waiting for the LFD tool to do its work.  Dal was about as peaceful as it was going to get, given that it was 5 in the morning; there were only a few shouts here and there from people asking for alchemy work, and I'd turned off Trade Chat a long time ago.  (Yes, Cassandri, I know I'm a bad man for doing that.)

Suddenly the LFD screen spat out that it was ready, about 5 minutes early.  I quickly vendored the flotsam I'd accumulated, reset my Seal of Command and Blessing of Might, cleared my screen of junk, made sure I was out of Crusader Aura, and ported in.

Utgarde Pinnacle was the destination.  I surveyed my puggees, and discovered that three of them were from the same guild from another server.  Sometimes that's good, sometimes not, but I shrugged, dispensed Blessings, and got ready for the fight.  The tank asked if anyone needed any achievements, which I thought was a nice touch.  He still intended to engage all the bosses --he needed Emblems-- but he said that this will be a quick run without any achievements required.

We started down that initial hallway and made it to the outer passage before I realized something was wrong.  The Judgements were simply not showing up.  I grumbled, thinking that I'd missed the Seal of Command, but sure enough it was there.  Then what...

Oh crap.  I was still equipped with a fishing rod.

I corrected that in mid-pull, and apologized to the group.  "That's good to know," the tank replied, "as I was doing more DPS than you.  For a minute there I was thinking we'd picked up a fail DPS."

If a toon could flush, Quint would have done it, but I kept my mouth shut.  It was my mistake, so I deserved the ribbing I got.

The rest of the pug went well enough, and I got my DPS into it's usual mid-3000 range for UP.  The guildies in the group kidded back and forth with each other, so this felt like a comfortable enough run.  Ymrion was dispatched, and the guildies asked if I was interested in a Pit of Saron run.

"Hey, any chance to see if that hilt will drop is fine with me."

"I'm convinced it's a myth," the tank said.

We ported in to PoS, and the run went fairly well --except for the unhappy convergence of two drakes and another group of trash at the same time, that is.  Sometime right before Ick and Crick, the tank said, "You know, Q, you're a pretty decent guy given the server you're from."

I knew our Trade Chat was bad, but I was surprised.  "A-52's supposed rep again?" I asked.

"Oh, it's not supposed.  Just about every pugger from that server has been a dick."  He then described in detail several escapades where A-52 people behaved like complete jerks in pugs.

I realize he meant it as a compliment, especially when after we finished PoS and I had to leave, he had some genuinely nice parting words.  However, the implied sound of "well, at least you're not a dick" bothered me.  Talk about your backhanded compliments.

For all of those people who say "it doesn't matter, you'll never see this person again," as an excuse when you behave badly in a pug, well here's a newsflash:  people remember you.  People remember the server you're from, or the guild you're part of, and they'll associate that bad behavior with everyone else from that server/guild.  Given the number of bad experiences that the tank and his guildmates had with A-52 puggers, it's a miracle I wasn't booted at earliest opportunity.  Why waste time when most of the people you run into from A-52 are jerks?

Now, that said, have you gotten any backhanded compliments in the game?  Been stereotyped in one way or another?  How did you break the mold?  Maybe the question should be 'Did you break the mold?'  Did you do something unexpected?

6 comments:

  1. Old GM told me during my trial "you're the best girl player we've had in the guild".

    Or words to that effect. He really did mean it as a compliment too.

    I don't blame you for turning off Trade Chat - actually if you don't use it - I recommend it! Sanity > Missed Trade Opportunities.

    A52 isn't your first server, though. How do you think the players compare to those on previous servers you've been on?

    I know that I have opinions about a lot of the Bloodlust servers. And I think Caelestraez has a huge proportion of idiots (Lath is convinced) which makes me a bit sad because my Shaman lived there for almost a year at the start of Wrath and I met lots of great people.

    But I do agree the Caelestraez players that seem to come through the Dungeon Finder are pretty horrid.

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  2. @Cassandri: you're the best girl player we've had in the guild

    Um, yeah. If nothing else, LFD equalizes things, because you never know who is on the other side of the toon until you hear them on Vent. Then you'll discover that BullKillYou the male Tauren Warrior is run by a woman named Brittany.

    Well, comparing Stormscale to A-52 is apples and oranges, because of the PvP vs. PvE server differences. The reputation that the Alliance had on Stormscale was that they were a population of gankers, not so much the Horde. I couldn't really tell you that much that was different in the LFD tool between the two servers, because I only started running heroics in earnest once I migrated to A-52. However, Barrens Chat was still lively on Stormscale whereas on A-52 it is pretty dead.

    Now, A-52 vs. Ysera and/or Moonrunner... I can tell there's a definite improvement in the Trade Chat between the former and the latter two. I haven't needed to turn off trade chat in Ysera and Moonrunner yet, and I'm hoping to keep that going. The LFD tool will still spit out asshats in Ysera, as both I and Soul can attest. (See his recent post for plenty of details about his latest failpug adventure in H-HoR.) Ol' Balthan isn't high enough level in Moonrunner to try out LFD yet, but my guess is that it'll be comparable to Ysera.

    Hmm... I guess I ought to create a Horde toon on Ysera and Moonrunner to check out Barrens Chat.

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  3. I can't say that I've been subjected to (unfair) stereotypes based on my guild/server, but I WILL tell you that I get slightly worried when I see pugmates from certain servers in my group. More often than not they turn out horrible and the stereotype lives on, but when I do get someone who does well and isn't an ass, I remember thinking, "Wow, they're from (server) and they're good/polite!"

    I would never go so far as to do the whole "hey, at least you're not a dick" type comment though.

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  4. I can't say I've been subjected to this kind of thing, but I've noticed the fact that there seems to be a bunch of idiots playing over on Thrall server.

    What I have been on the receiving end of though is class prejudice. Especially when gearing a new charcter up... and especially when that new character is a Death Knight... and especially when that Death Knight is a tank.

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  5. @Anea: Yeah, I was kind of surprised. I'd wondered why other pugs gave me the cold shoulder --you can almost feel it-- until about halfway through an instance, and now I know why.

    @Soul: You know, the Retardin that Tomakan encountered was from Thrall. I just never put two and two together.

    You've got more than one DK around? I figure I won't see other new DKs in action until I get close to Outland, so I won't know what to compare it to.

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  6. I've been on both PVE and PVP servers and not really noticed a difference in player ability... or in trade chat? Sounds like you have?

    BTW this came up on my play list and made me think of this article. 5 minutes of backhand compliments:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84EoBQfdrb0
    (Flight on the Conchords in their appearence on the David Letterman show)

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