Yeah, Right...

Courtesy of Facebook.

Pretty sure people know my opinion on this one.

Riddle Me This One, Batman...

Why on earth is this the case?

Finnish Hearthstone Tournament isn't Accepting Female Entries

It's not like there are any physical differences at play here; it's HearthStone, not the Ironman Triathlon.

It's Never Boring Around Here

I wasn't exactly planning on making a second post today, but there's currently a bit of an internet kerfuffle going on right now concerning some commentary that Rob Pardo, Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard, made at a recent MIT Media Lab talk. While he made some references to emphasizing fun and gameplay over narrative during the talk, the most interesting comments happened afterward.

Todd Harper, writing an opinion piece for Polygon, covers the questions and answers he had with Rob Pardo that touched on how Blizzard portrays women:

His subsequent list of justifications, reasons and examples became increasingly problematic. Pardo argued that Blizzard works primarily in sci-fi and fantasy because they're "kids at heart," reinforcing the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed:

"We're not trying to bring in serious stuff, or socially relevant stuff, or actively trying to preach for diversity or do things like that," he said. His example of a place where Blizzard struggles is portrayal of women.

Pardo notes that "because most of our developers are guys who grew up reading comics books," Blizzard games often present women characters as a sexualized comic book ideal that "is offensive to, I think, some women."*

There's a bit more there --particularly about Nintendo and their Tomodachi Life issues-- so if you want to follow the link below and read the article, go ahead.

Aside from the issue where it seems that Blizzard is all but saying they're not that interested in appealing to women, one of the problems with Pardo's statement is their belief that because they don't intend to write about real world issues their game has no effect. But unless you live in a bubble, everything has an impact on the wider world.

I've told my kids time and again that when they wear their school t-shirts and jackets out and about, people are judging their school based on their actions. It is most definitely not fair to judge an entire diverse community based on the actions of a few, but nevertheless it happens all the time. That's the entire point behind the term "represent" as in "Represent your school". If you act like an ass, you taint everyone with your behavior. But if you act responsibly, people will think more highly of your organization.

The same thing happens with Blizzard and WoW. For all their words, Blizzard demonstrates with their actions that they don't value very highly a substantial portion of their player base.

But the thing is, their representation issues are so easily fixed, it's not even funny.

Looking at Heroes of the Storm, for example, you could easily replace the Priest with Tyrande and the Paladin with Lady Liadrin, and you'd then have 4 of the 9 WoW characters as women.

Want to (partially) fix the lack of female faction leaders in WoW? Swap out Lor'themar for Lady Liadrin. Hell, until Mists dropped, I'd wager that most people thought she was the faction leader anyway. You could also make Moira the head of the Council of Three Hammers.

And before any lore nuts go ballistic over my suggestions, remember that Pardo also said that Blizzard emphasized "fun and gameplay" over "narrative".** Given the lack of emphasis on story and their total control over the content, there's no reason why they can't simply tweak this via a novel.

***

As I mentioned earlier, all this has stirred up a huge hornets nest in the WoW blogosphere.***

Kurn and Rades each have a take on the issue. Cynwise cancelled his WoW account.

And I can't help but think this is another black eye in Blizzard's direction when the company is having retention issues.

Maybe this won't have much of an impact with WoW, but the company can ill afford to piss off a not so insignificant amount of their player base. I doubt there will be a boycott of Blizzard, but what I do think is that some people who were considering taking a break from WoW might decide to pull the trigger now.

And really, if you feel shunted off to the side, why continue to spend money on the game?

It will prove interesting to see what happens next.





*From Erasing your audience isn't 'fun': The false choice between diversity and enjoyment by Todd Harper.

**Which kind of explains why they're not bothering to go back and fix major continuity issues in WoW.

***As of this moment, WoW Insider has been completely silent on this.

(EtA: At 7 PM EST, WoW Insider had this post by Matt Rossi on diversity.)

One Person's Trash is Another Person's... Trash Mob

One drawback of random queues for content is that you run into people with differing viewpoints.  No, I'm not talking political or sports views --although I was once in a SWTOR Flashpoint where an argument broke out over American football-- but rather different approaches to the content should be run.

I say "drawback" because one of the big sources of instance/BG drama is that clash of viewpoints.  Failpugs are full of tanks who bypass bosses, healers who refuse to heal people who make mistakes, and DPS who decide they know how to pull properly.  But in a basic sense, what you might be looking for in group content might be completely different than everyone else, and when you feel like you're being dismissed/ignored that can cause significant drama.

This isn't a new revelation.  I've been in instances where the tank decided his version of "fun" was to chain pull the entire first area in Halls of Lightning, expecting the healer to keep him upright.*  The completionist vs. the minimalist clash is often found in instances such as SWTOR's Taral V or WoW's revamped 5-man Zul'Aman/Zul'Gurub.

But this clash of views took on a whole new meaning in an Alterac Valley run the other day.

I'm used to the arguments about Blue vs. Green in Strand of the Ancients and Gold Mine vs. Blacksmith vs. Lumber Mill in Arathi Basin, but the fight that broke out in BG chat in AV was a new one on me.

Prior to the other night, I'd only been in one so-called "bridge stomp" in AV.  For the uninitiated, a bridge stomp is a strategy where almost the entire Alliance gathers behind the bridge to Dun Baldur, allowing the Horde to kill off Belinda and sack Stonehearth Bunker and Icewing Bunker.  The Alliance then rains down hell on the bridge, which in theory will kill off Horde at a far greater rate than the Alliance defenders.  If everything goes according to plan, the Alliance wins a war of attrition and earns a ton of HKs.

As a Rogue, I'm kind of superfluous to the bridge stomp itself --I'd get killed too quickly to help the plate wearers defend the bridge-- so I and a few other stealthies basically peel away some of the Horde attackers by forcing them to constantly retake their own towers and the Coldtooth Mine.

The first bridge stomp I'd been in, the guild behind it had opened up their Vent channel and had set up a raid group specifically for the attack, which made perfect sense.  They also had complete buy-in from the rest of the AV team, because the sheer number of HKs also meant that we were able to summon Ivus, which is something that most people had never seen.**  Therefore, when I'd ported into an AV run and the people there started chanting "War!!!", I kind of had an idea what was up.

But not everyone appreciated having their AV run turn into a bridge stomp, and said so loudly on BG chat.

"I don't want my BG hijacked by some lame-ass premade," groused one DK.

Another player added that these players "...didn't know how to play AV," among other (more colorful) things.

"You're all a bunch of little kids!" said a third.

The bridge stomp team kept mocking the detractors and egging them on, causing a dramatic escalation in hostilities.

"Yep, we don't let anyone older than 14 in the guild!"

"Whoops, I just grew a pube!"

And things kind of went downhill from there.

I tried to ignore the fight as best as possible and kept to just annoying the Horde side, even when the anti-stomp crowd started taking other graveyards, loudly announcing their intention to disrupt the bridge stomp plan.

Just how many adults are actually in this BG anyway? I thought.

After about close to 1/2 hour, the anti-stomp crowd began to drop, firing off a few obscene parting shots along the way.

A lot of this fight could have been avoided by the bridge stomp team behaving maturely.  Announcing intentions prior to the start of AV, and even organizing things via Vent would have gone a long way toward keeping things civil.  That said, once the bridge stomp team began, the people who expected the "15 minute zerg" AV threw a tantrum and behaved no better.  Each side wanted their way, victory be damned. The fact that we won was superfluous by the end, because I was sick of everybody's behavior.  The parent in me wanted to send everybody into time out for a good long time, because you can bet that if I found out my kids were behaving like that, a time out would be the least of their worries.

I felt bad for the Horde, because they probably had no idea what the hell the Alliance was doing with half doing one thing and half doing another.  But if nothing else, the Horde were the ones who actually behaved like adults; they tried to win as best they could.

*And chewing him out when he wasn't able to.

**Watching Ivus whallop a Horde tank certainly made my night.

Language and Respect

Back in the Wrath days, I was once in a Nexus run that I regretted finishing.

Not that the group wasn’t skilled, or even that one player played in an asinine manner, but of what was said in party chat.

You see, the group had three members of the same guild in it, and they kept peppering party chat with references to how the trash mobs and bosses wanted a piece of their ‘puss-say’.  The Druid tank in particular kept up a stream of ‘puss-say’ talk, all the while keeping his toon on the move and tanking each group in succession.  As the instance progressed, their descriptions became more explicit, and the greater my disgust grew.

I may not show it when I write here on the blog, but I have a temper.  (I’m a redhead, what did you expect?)  Typically I keep it in check, and when it does flare up I usually dip into my pool of obscenities to fling a few good barbs at the offenders.  It's been a long time since nerd ragers in an instance or a BG bothered me, but these three clowns did.  I don’t know whether it was the extremely juvenile nature of the thing or that it was incredibly demeaning to women, but before we had even finished with Telestra, my fingers were twitching.  My desire to reach through the screen and smack them good reached a breaking point by the time we reached Alexstrasza.  As the tank pulled the Malygos-dominated dragon, my mouse hovered over the ‘Leave Group’ selection.  All I had to do was click it and get away from these jerks.

But whether I realized it was a futile gesture, that the instance was almost over, or that I wanted the Badges of Triumph more than anything else, I stayed.

I want to say that I said something to them and forced them to kick me --that I stood up on principle-- but this one time I can’t.  I’ve spoken up in party chat before, defended people who did no wrong in spite of what the other party member said, and I’ve called people out for mean and spiteful stuff.  But I’m not proud of that moment in The Nexus, and I’m sure it will continue eat at me for a good long while.

Fast forward a year and a half later, and I found myself in Eye of the Storm on one of my Paladins (I can’t remember which).  A few of us were holding down the Draenei Ruins, and when the last toon --a Death Knight-- got smacked by my Hammer of Wrath, the Rogue turned to me and said “You really raped that guy!”

My mouth opened and closed.  I knew all too well what he was saying, and I thought about ignoring him.  Or leaving.  Or something. 

But I remembered The Nexus.

“I didn’t,” I finally replied.

“Oh, I saw that hammer come down and he dropped!”

“No.  I didn’t rape him.”

“It’s just a saying.  Lol.”

I ground my teeth.  No matter what I said, to him ‘rape’ = ‘pwn’ and that was that.  Never mind what ‘rape’ really means.  Never mind that you might actually be talking to someone who knows a rape victim –or is a victim themselves.  Or that your borderline misogynistic behavior paints all of us gamers in a bad light.

Words have power, and some words shouldn’t be used lightly.  They don’t make you awesomely badass, they make you sound like a five year old who overheard a few naughty words and is testing their limit.

And you’re older than that, right?

Whispers in the Dark

Have you ever had that feeling where people are talking about you behind your back?  Perhaps you developed that sense in middle school, when rumors could sweep through your classmates before you even knew what happened.  Or maybe you were clueless then, but in office politics you have to keep an ear to the ground, lest you be swept aside by some conniving young punk a few cubicles down.

In real life, that feeling is often accompanied by the looks you get from others while they're huddled together.  WoW, however, doesn't have that visual cue.  You have to rely upon actions or words instead.

Before you ask, I don't intend to talk about guild drama.  There's enough posts out there on the subject by other bloggers that you don't need me to chime in.  And to be honest, I avoid guild drama like the plague.  Sure, I like to know the whys behind a move within the guild, but that doesn't mean I want to inject myself into the drama.

What I meant was in relation to instances.  In raids, you have Vent (or equivalents), but not in a regular old 5-man pug.  Maybe in a heroic Northrend instance you expect silence, but in the lower level instances you expect people to talk, to say they need to drink, and to discuss strategy.  Unless the entire group is composed of people at the high end of the level range, you simply aren't OP enough to wing it.  And if people start doing some bizarre behavior, you can bet that there's some discussion going on behind the scenes.

Take a recent experience in Maraudon, for example.  Thankfully, Blizz cut Maraudon into chunks for LFD, which makes it easier to run.  This particular run was the Orange Crystals wing, which ends at Razorlash, and the party consisted of three guildies from another server (tank, healer, and hunter DPS), a lock, and Tomakan (me).

The first sign of trouble was when the lock and hunter died a couple of trash pulls in.  From what I could tell, the hunter pulled aggro on some of the mob, and that subsection of the mob killed both of them.  I kept expecting the Warrior tank to yank the mob back, but he instead he pressed on.  I rezzed the lock, the healer rezzed the hunter, and the two guildies ran on to catch up with the tank while the lock and I drank.

I expected something to be said in party chat by then, but it was eerily silent.

We got to the oozes and dispatched them without much issue.  The tank headed left to the next trash, and I engaged just as I realized that there was nobody else behind us.

The other three had engaged the oozes on the right instead.

By the time we got back to the others and finished off the oozes, the lock had died again.  The healer rezzed the lock and then ran on ahead with the rest while the lock and I drank.  I don't know what was going on in the lock's head, but I was detecting a pattern.  The healer was behaving more like DPS, and I was spending some of my mana keeping both myself and the tank upright.  I checked the roles, and yeah, the healer wasn't me.

What was more worrisome was that the tank seemed blissfully unconcerned about trying to pull back aggro when someone else acquired it.  I know all about the "you yank it, you tank it" concept, but this was different.  At one point, I got aggro and I popped Hand of Salvation and stopped hitting, but I kept aggro.  I bubbled, and I still kept aggro.  Standing there in the middle of the mob with nowhere to go and waiting for my threat to go down was an exercise in frustration, especially when the hunter was also pulling aggro, the tank seemed to be on auto attack, and the healer was jumping around and popping Holy Nova.

Somehow, we made it to the end and defeated Razorlash.  I was typing in my standard "thanks for the group" when the tank and hunter ran onward, obviously going to Celebras.  Whatever, I thought, and followed along.  I could use the extra XP, after all.

Well, Celebras wasn't the end.  The tank and his guildies kept going, and it was obvious by now that they wanted to take out Theradras herself.  I hadn't signed on for this, and the only time party chat was used was when the lock died for the third time and the healer said "I'm not rezzing you any more."

"Send me a heal now and then," the lock replied.

I grimaced and kept going.  I could have taken the easy way out and dropped, but I wasn't going to leave the lock alone with these clowns.  Besides, their asshatery hadn't really risen to my "I'm dropping group" threshold.  The mobs got tougher, and they started getting silence effects.  The way the healer was jumping around and attacking meant he was well within range for being silenced, and I knew it was a matter of time before the mobs got big enough for us to wipe.  Right at a choke point that happened; the tank pulled two groups, and about 20 seconds later that was that.

Almost immediately the three guildies dropped.

Maybe they just did it on a spur of the moment, but to the lock and myself it sure felt like they were leading us on until we both bit it.

"They had to be on Vent together," I told the lock.

"How so?"

"There was no way they were working all this without there being a chat going.  And since nobody paused to type, they had to be on Vent."

"I think they had it out for me.  The priest hardly healed me at all."

"He hardly healed anybody.  I was healing the tank as much as he was."

"Crap."

I now know why some people cringe when they see several people from the same guild in a LFD pug.  If they're talking on Vent, doing their own thing, then they're not really participating in the group.  This ain't exactly a formula for success, especially when you're one of the people being ignored.

How do you fix it?  Be more open.  Don't play like this is a private club.  If it were, you wouldn't need extra puggees, right?  On the flip side, don't ding and drop.  People hate that, and it gives your guild and your server a bad name.

In short, don't make a pug run into all about you.  It's a team, remember?

Hai! I can haz tankz?

So... I got woken up this morning by my boyfriend's 22 month old daughter. I'm sicker than hell and she has been sick, but my boyfriend has been up and down all night tending to her, so I got up to let him sleep...

I have her in my lap as I queue up for a random dungeon. Surprisingly, I get an instant queue pop - usually for a healer, its about a 2 or 3 minute wait. I see that I got ToC. "Cool... I haven't done this one in a while..." I thought to myself.

We start the jousting event and everything seems to be going ok... After the jousting BS, we stand there buffing and we notice that the guy who queued as tank is still in his fury gear and fury spec. We ask him, "hey, you know you're tanking, right?" He said, "yeah I know". He charges in (still in fury everything) and I can't keep him alive... Of course, we all die... as we're running back, he swears he has tanked as fury before. We were all like "sure you have..." The pally in the group leaves and we requeue... what does the warrior do? Queues as tank again. WTF. I just stated "Thanks for the facepalm moment... I don't have time to debate whether or not you can tank this as fury because you already failed once. Adios"

Really? C'mon... I know there are some stupid people out there... but seriously... And people are wondering why I may take a WoW break... /facepalm.

Failpugs and You - How You Can Cope

I was a bad boy last night.

I'd logged in to take care of some odds and ends, and queued up for the daily random 5-man.  The destination?  Azjol-Nerub.

The tank started on it as soon as we ported in.  "All noobs leave now!" he said, heading down the path.

You have got to be kidding me, I thought.  This is freaking A-N, for pete's sake, and he was going to be an ass over this?

Nobody responded to his comment, but naturally he'd already run ahead before the rest of us could buff him.  He'd already engaged the first bit of trash, but he oriented himself in such a way that it was hard to get behind him so I wouldn't pull aggro.  It didn't matter anyway, since he had difficulty holding aggro with the casters nearby.  Trash disposed of, he turned to me.  "Surprised you haven't left yet," he said.

An evil thought entered my head as I stared at the screen.  Oh, he wants to play, does he?  Then let's play.

"Gee," I replied as he pulled the first Watcher to him, "and I was just about to ask if you wanted to do Watch Him Die."

"Yeah yeah!" said the healer.  "Let's do the achieve!  gogogogo!"

I looked at the health bar of the first Watcher.  "Too late," I said, dangling the lure over the edge.  If I played this right, "No-Noob" would take the bait and do something stupid rather than actually think through the suggestion.

My prayers were rewarded by the WoW gods.  The tank whirled and headed for the first boss.  "No it isn't!" he declared.

I began to follow but got caught in a web, requiring the mage to zap me free.  Two fewer DPS in the fight was even better than I hoped for.  By the time I arrived and took my position on the last boss, the tank and one of the DPS had already wiped.

Almost immediately, the tank dropped.

Scratch one obnoxious, overbearing tank before he caused even more trouble.  I hope he liked the debuff, too.

The reason why I related that story is because the level of asshatery in random 5-mans seems to be rising lately.  I don't even need to bring it up in guild chat; others have noticed it too.  One guildee has gotten so disgusted with it that he refuses to run pugs at all, and several others will only go with fellow guildees; no random characters, period.  Speculation has wandered from the end of the school year to the Cataclysm blues to the BP oil spill (okay, I made that last one up).  Whatever the source of the recent spate of pugfail, I've begun picking and choosing some passive-aggressive resistance.  If I can get away with it --and it won't harm the rest of the group too much-- I wait for an opening and use a bit of reverse psychology on the offending party. 

Sometimes it works, sometimes it goes completely over their heads.  I'd rather not say something like "Hey Jerk, why don't you leave before we kick you out?" but instead manipulate the person into bad decisions.  It's much more fun that way.

Good bye Area 52. I'm going old school.

So I was going to try to keep from writing about this, but writing is a good catharsis for me...

The first thing I will say is that I really believe now that 90% of people aren't who they seem to be. When you play this game, you form friendships with people... whether its intentional or not. It just happens because of the social aspect of this game. You spend hours each night with these people so that you can kill a douchelord who likes to spit up ooze on you, throw beach balls into your face, or bombs all over the room and blow you off the platform.

Maybe its a personality flaw of mine... I hate to think its a flaw, but maybe it really is... I have faith in people - regardless of all the shit I've been through in my life. I placed faith in a group of people and thought of them as friends. I did a lot for the guild and these people... yet a couple of them found it to be fun to pin something all on me and then portray me as the bad guy.

I found out that these people were saying that I did nothing at all for the guild - I only did what I did because I was told to do it which is the complete opposite of what actually happened. Everything I did was done on my own time at my own will. I also found out that they said they only kept me in the guild because I was just a "hot voice in vent".

Just to give you an idea of what I did for this guild - I created the banner for the guild website, I created the guild application, I kept tabs on the guild bank - I could recite to you from memory what was in that bank and who took out what or deposited what, not to mention I sank about 3k gold to help start that guild bank. I also talked to recruits because a couple of officers didn't want to saying that "they aren't a people person". Whenever someone had a problem they came to me. If someone got GKicked, that person messaged me and I had to play Public Relations. I've even had other officers/GMs of other guilds come to me with a complaint. Not to mention that if the GM/Raid leader wasn't online at raid time, I started the raid group and had to make the decision on who to take to raid and who to sit out... and I did my absolute best while in raid.

Thankfully, a few people stuck up for me and had my back - regardless of their personal feelings for me, they found it childish and ridiculous. To those few, I thank and will always be grateful.

Because of the drama and amount of hurt they caused me, I'm leaving Area 52. Now, I know that regardless of where you go, drama happens... It will always happen because of the number of people who come in contact with each other... but I just can't stay on Area 52 because of transpired... what this drama entailed (I didn't go into the "meat" of this drama), and the people involved... Unfortunately, I'll never be able to escape what happened because of these people.

I'm going to Tichondrius. I'm going old school. Tichondrius is a PVP server that has been around since the first day. I'll be joining my brother's guild, Blur. They are the #3 guild on the server and are currently working on killing Lich King Hardmode in 25man. Right now, I'm not geared to join in on their Hardmode runs, but I am able to run with their alts (who are nearly as geared as my priest) to get gear and clear content I have yet to see.

Well, anyway... I guess my only advice is to keep your eyes open... It doesn't matter how comfortable you get with a group of people or how good of friends they seem, there is always the possibility that they'll turn on you whenever they feel convenient or even funny.

To my friends staying on Area 52 - I wish you all good luck and I'll see you around.

To the people who talked shit about me - I hope you grow up and see the error of your ways. You lost a friend - the kind of friend that is rare. Its sad that you got your jollies off by listening to my voice in vent... its sad that you disregarded the fact that I'm a real person... a person who would have done anything for you as a friend and anything for the guild.

ZOMG I CAN DO 28K DPS ON AOE TRASH I'M BETTER THAN YOU!

Ok, so this past week we had a new Boomkin join our guild. His gear was good, and at first he didn't really say a lot. Which I could understand since he was new to the guild and I guess getting a feel for who we are.

Last night in raid, we found quickly that it was a mistake to invite him. I should've known that someone with a gearscore as high as his that is unguilded is so for a certain reason, but we gave him a shot.

Now what I want to know is how someone who was able to get the gear he as not know what LoS means or not know to stop DPS when he pulls aggro off a mob the tank is not on... Not to mention why someone like this feels the need to whisper people asking for a mage table or tell them how to play their class.

After globally muting him in Vent, we continued our run. We get to Rotface and we decide to go ahead and take a 5 min break to wait for our Sated Debuff to wear off. What does this boomkin do? Hearths and goes to Orgrimmar... We didn't have a warlock in the raid last night so we couldn't summon him back.. /facepalm

He then asked us for a summon. Uhm... no lock.. so what does he do? Starts spamming trade for a mage portal.. instead of you know... taking the zep to Borean Tundra and flying over to ICC. No, I guess that would be easy... so we booted him from the raid and from the guild... and OF COURSE, I get the whisper from him asking why he was booted. It was explained to him that he was annoying everyone when whispering them about how to play their characters, how when a tank was trying to LoS a mob (scientist), he would start dpsing it and keeping the mob from coming around the corner... AND how when he pulled aggro on a mob the tank wasn't targeting, he wouldn't stop dps. Me and the other healer purposefully let him die because he continued to do so and I was sick of seeing the aggro indicator come up on his name.

It was then he decided to call Nate a little bitch and that he was the best player in our guild. No, sorry... when you do 6k dps on a boss and NEVER switched to adds when you're supposed to, have no situational awareness, and consistently annoy the piss out of everyone in the raid, you're not the best player in the guild. No one gives a fuck if you can do 28k DPS on AOE trash when you die 30 seconds into a pull.

I swear I'm a magnet for retards. This is why I added the question "Do you have Downs?" to our guild application.

Drop Drip Drop

I may not like it, but I've gotten used to people porting in, seeing the instance and/or gear scores, and dropping.  Heck, I've kind of gotten used to people dropping after a wipe -Halls of Reflection will do that to you- or even after a boss.  When someone actually apologizes and leaves, I consider it a victory for civility.

But if there's one thing I'll never get used to, it's when people drop in the middle of a pull.

What sort of person does this, anyway?

I know that others have written about it -Darth Solo, Vidyala, and Tam, among others- but the lack of respect for your fellow player is just ridiculous.  We're paying for the privilege to operate in an MMO world, and as much as some people fly solo (guilty as charged) you still have to interact with people to play the game.  People will talk to you; you can be an ass and ignore them, but the courteous thing to do is reply, even if you're not interested in what they're saying.

What got me all worked up about this?  I got queued up for two 5-man runs today: Halls of Reflection and Forge of Souls.  Both of them had instances wherein someone dropped mid-pull.  In Halls of Reflection, it was the Healer midway through the waves of trash between the first and second bosses.  Naturally, when the Healer goes in that place, the tank almost immediately bites it, and so does everyone else.  The second one, in Forge of Souls, the Boomkin warlock died right after pulling aggro on the trash in the run-up to the Bronjahm.  Rather than wait for a rez or releasing and running back, he just dropped.

Now, in both cases, there was no lasting damage.  We had delays in the runs, but that was it.  But the lack of courtesy -especially in the HoR run- really got under my skin.  Just like what the warrior DPS in an Utgarde Pinnacle run last night told the rest of us:  he was abused by the tank in the previous 5-man he was on because he was pulling so low a DPS.  I mean, he's a new 80, and instead of trying to tank Heroics he's trying to DPS them to pick up gear to improve his DPS.  What more could you want?

I'm aware of the general consensus out there in the blogosphere that the LFD tool has enabled or exacerbated this sort of boorish behavior, but my contention is that even without the tool the MMO community has been gradually moving in this direction anyway.  The MMO world is a reflection of society -a geeky segment of society, no doubt- and it was only a matter of time before the lack of civility out there in our society found its way into all aspects of WoW.  Even I got tired of Trade Chat and dropped it from my channels, and that's saying a lot.  I used to think that if these people who are spamming trade chat were forced to say that out loud in a public gathering, they'd shut their mouths a bit more often.  Sadly, I think that won't deter a lot of these people.

What I'm afraid of is that the boorish behavior in MMOs is now becoming the norm, and people like me who want some courtesy among strangers are now on the sideline.

Arena.. schmarena

So... I lost my 2s partner when Soul left.. I was quite sad because we were actually starting to do well and I had no doubt in my mind we'd be hitting at least 1800 soon. /sigh.

Well, last night before resets, I was asked to do some 2s. I said sure, might as well at least get my 10 games in for the points since I only have 1 upgrade left before I need ratings.

Now, this person plays a hunter... Hunter/Priest? I really couldn't see it working very well, but what the hell, I wanted my points. First map is Nagrand Arena. YAY! This is probably one of my favorite arena maps. We go in and I tried to live as long as I could, but my partner just didn't have the burst to dps down 2 plate wearers.

Second map is Ring of Valor. Not really my favorite, but it doesn't bother me. Both DPS focus on me.. Not really something I'm a stranger to since most people tend to want to pick on the priest... Except I don't think they were prepared for a priest with 1334 Resilience and just under 30k HP. I lived forever it seemed, however my partner just lacked the burst to kill either one of them. /sigh.

Right as I queued for the next match, he says to me in vent, "Are you ready to give up? Cause I am". I was like, uhh no, I'd like to just get the 10 games in. So we go into the third match. The same problem... I live live live live no one can kill me, however my partner's dps wasn't enough. He managed to get the rogue down and almost had the other guy dead as I died... but it really seemed that once I died, he just sort of gave up. MEH.

Fourth game... Dalaran Arena.. one of my least favorites but hey, whatever, I go with what I get. We're up against a resto druid and a ret pally. Ok, I figured this was probably going to be a difficult team for us because my partner lacked the burst to kill the druid and his sustained dps wasn't going to kill the pally. I gave it my all though.. I kept him alive although he was being focused. For the most part, I was left alone running around keeping my partner alive. I knew this team wasn't very versed in Arenas because I was allowed to heal at my heart's desire. Regardless of this, my partner emo-spiraled because I guess he realized how bad he really was and just left the game. Yes. He left the arena mid-battle. I was left alone in there. I left the game, asked in vent if he's just going to give up when it gets rough, and he replies with "yeah". Well eff you too. I logged out of vent and out of WoW.

I'm a pretty patient person... and I think Soul knows this since our first week or so in Arena was rough, but we still had fun. Our 2nd week, we started winning games and we were having a great time... I came from a 2k rated 2s team on my old server, so I do know a bit about it. This isn't to say that I think I'm some sort of pro and I'm this god's gift to arena. I don't believe that at all... but I do believe that to get to a rating like that, you can't just give up. We may not have had the best comp for 2s, but who cares? If you try and do your homework, we may have been able to get some wins in.

This person has pissed me off to no-end a few times before last night. I don't hold grudges.. pretty much just say "Hey you prick, you pissed me off. Don't fucking do it again". Then I just move on. I've done that on 2 recent occasions already... Should I do it again? Probably. Will I? Doubtful. Why is this time different? Because its a trend with him... it doesn't go his way, he'll emo-nerd-rage. Will I keep raiding with him? Yeah, I want to raid... and I won't let personal feelings get in the way of that... but will I continue to do things outside of that with this person? No.. probably not... at least not voluntarily.

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot...

So... the past couple of days were spent queuing up for random heroics. For the most part, I could care less what someone's gear score is in a heroic, but there really should be a limit. The other day, a guildie and I got stuck in a random heroic with a tank with a 2400 gear score. They politely stated in party chat that they literally just hit 80.

I give most people a chance. IMO, skill > gear for the most part... Well... I really should rethink that a little. There was no way in hell I should have stayed in that group. I was pulling healing aggro off this pally... well EVERYONE was pulling aggro off of him. I give him credit though.. he tried... but everyone in the group out geared him by at least 3k gear score...

I understand that after you ding 80, you wanna jump into heroics... but really... shouldn't ya just run some Normal Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning to pick up some gear first? Or maybe queue up as a DPS and roll on tank gear... I guess that just requires too much logic.

I seem to forget that logic doesn't factor much in this game anymore.. if its logical then that would just be too easy. Lets just eff it up for some other people because I want to do it my way and my way only.

/facepalm

Anatomy of a Fail

I don't often leave an instance in progress.

Now, I do have limits, but I can tolerate quite a bit. Holding my nose while finishing the run is more like it, and if the offending party is on my server, they immediately go in my Ignore pile. I have been known to report real abuse -like racial epithets- as well.

Today's run in Ahna'khet, however, set a new standard for inanity. I port in and start doing the usual blessings. Also, as seems to be traditional, two people immediately drop. (What, The Old Kingdom not quick enough for you to get your Frost badges?) I, the tank and a DPS hung around waiting for the replacements to pop in, and we're immediately joined by a Holy Spec Pally and a Warlock.

Oho! Another Pally. The early morning runs have a plethora of Druids and Shamans, but few Priests or Pallys as healers. The Old Kingdom isn't a great instance for a Pally to heal, but it can be done. I ping the Pally to ask if he wanted Blessing of Kings or another one.

"KINGS IS GOOD"

Okay, fine.

"I'M HIGH"

Oh oh.

Well, I thought, as long as he actually pays attention, I'll be okay with that. About half the time such announcements are all BS anyway, so I decided to ignore ol' smokey.

So, everybody is squared away and we start the run. The first trash pull seems to be going okay.

"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY LIKE A RECORD"

Crapola.

"I LIKE BIG BUTTZ AND I CANNOT LIE"

The trash pull ends, and we're moving forward. Nobody took any significant damage, so we hit the next couple of pulls and the only thing out of the ordinary is....

"HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME"

"TELL ME DID WIND SWEEP U OFFA YR FEET"

This is starting to get really annoying. I'm beginning to think this guy really is high. I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this for upwards of the next half hour.

We get down the stairs to the pulls before the first boss. The tank pulls one of the mobs to him; I wait, rush in, and start hitting things. The previous pull I came close to yanking threat away from the tank, so I'm watching threat closely.

"A FRIEND WITH WEED IS A FRIEND INDEED"

Yeah, whatever. Then I hear the telltale boom of someone acquiring threat. Sonofa... I was WATCHING my threat!

I look over at the meter and I discover that no, I hadn't pulled threat. Then what...

I start getting hit from behind by another trash mob with the magical "On You!" message suddenly appearing on my screen.

"U NO THAT U GOT WHAT I NEED"

The Pally goes running by me from behind.

The tank hollers "WTF!"

I immediately die, followed almost as immediately by the tank and the Lock.

From my vantage point, I can finally see what's going on. The Pally Healer is bopping around to his own weird internal beat, throwing an occasional heal, and in general wandering all over the room, picking up the threat from everything nearby.

I release and start running back, and the Pally Healer drops group.

That's it, I've had enough. I drop group too. "Steamed" was not how I'd describe myself at this moment; more like "a towering inferno of fury."

WoW may be a game, but getting high and running instances isn't going to let everyone else share the love.

WTH

The pursuit of Frosties has hit a new low.

I logged in for my lunchtime run, and the LFD tool spat out Utgarde Pinnacle. This should work out, I thought. I'll end up with six Emblems of Triumph, and I'll be that much closer to getting another heirloom piece for my mage.

We did the entire Pinnacle in 10 minutes. Tops.

The tank ported in, began running, and didn't stop. He just skipped right on by the first two bosses and most of the trash, and would have probably avoided Skadi too if he could have managed it. He then hot footed it straight up to Ymrion and, with the rest of us following, we downed him in record time.

Frosties gained, people began splitting even before the loot was divvied up.

And not a word was said. Not a single word. Except for the facepalm that another party member got because he aggroed some extra trash going down the stairs.

Sheesh.

Brain... Hurts...

Today, Quintalan has met the enemy, and it is us.*

I had a bunch of good 5-man runs this morning, so when I took a late lunch I figured I'd squeeze in an extra 5-man PuG. Out pops Halls of Lightning, and I figure that'd work; it typically takes 1/2 hour to get the run in, and that'll fit perfectly into my lunchtime.

What I failed to accommodate for was a tank running absolutely wild. You know those entrance passages that have the General wandering around in them? He pulled. And pulled. And pulled. He almost literally pulled everything in that area -including the General- together at once.

I died. The mage died. We both ran back in to help finish the job before everyone else wiped.

We get to the second boss, and we lose the mage again. Because the tank keeps pushing forward, the healer and I can't rez the mage until there's a slight gap in the trash. We then proceed to have a full party wipe twice on said trash.

Somehow we survive the third boss, but then the mage, DK and I wipe twice on trash again. By this time, the mage had had it, and split. The replacement pops on in the middle of the fight and dies. He leaves. We get another replacement, who's spending the entire last part of the run saying stuff like "OMG!" in the party chat.

By this time I'm cursing heavily under my breath, but I want to finish this; we're so close. Then I get a glimpse of who the tank is: he starts talking about his World Cultures teacher, which means he's in high school, and he's probably on spring break.

/FACEPALM

We zap Loken, and I get the hell out of Dodge.

As I got up to get some ibuprofen, I kept thinking to myself, "Six Emblems of Triumph weren't worth this.**"



*Yes, I paraphrased the old Pogo comic strip.

**Four Badges from the run itself and two from the FLG tool.