I'm an old-style elitist

| Friday, March 5, 2010
Back in the day, way back, long before my time, nobility was the big thing. Bloodlines were serious business. These days, I laugh at people who think who their parents were is something special. But back in the time of kings and princes and titles, you were a noble or you weren't. It wasn't earned or granted or even luck. You just were or were not.

This is the kind of elitist I am. I'm a tank and therefore I am better than other people. This privileged position allows me to mock anyone I feel like, except for other tanks of better lineage. By that I mean, from better guilds. Unless they're total asshats, in which case, I declare war, marry his daughter, kill their sons, and then burn down their castle while they're trapped inside. I try to be nice, but I can be spiteful. I'm pretty sure I just described the Nexus War.

Also I've been playing since vanilla, so I can trace my lineage back pretty far.

The other type of elitists are the capitalists, the landowners or merchants with their money and property and silly ideas of being anything more than peasants who don't know their place. These are of course the people who use gearscore and DPS meters. Ha. The peasants think their silly numbers make them worth something! Oh they amuse me.

If these capitalists attempt to take over society, I'll do what any sensible person does: start a socialist revolution, then betray its ideals in order to grab personal power. Have I mentioned that I once did an analysis of Stalin's leadership skills? Big surprise: he was terrible. That was a fun presentation. I didn't stand out all that much, since someone else did Martha Stewart.

But yes, by this analogy I will become a healer, intended to spread the heals and keep the group alive. Instead I'll be spiteful and let anyone die who I don't like. Before long the meters people will come in and remove me. But I'll be back. The nobility never go away forever.

And there we have it: a projected personal WoW story as symbol for Russian history.

10 comments:

Copperbird said...

Do you think the masses are intending to sieze the means of production and all tank everything themselves?

I hadn't thought of it quite like that, but I do feel kind of odd at the notion that the brave new world of cataclysm is one where any dps warrior can just grab a shield and tank an instance. You think, "OK, does that mean any prot warrior can pick up a 2 hander and do decent dps in an instance?" and you know before you've even finished typing it that the answer will be no.

Shintar said...

I just wanted to say that this post made me laugh out loud. XD

Micah said...

The comparison of DPS to peasants is unfortunately fairly accurate. Our fortunes are completely tied to a guy who was placed in power by a higher authority (the queue) and who may or may not be a total jackoff. Roughly half the Violet Hold runs I've been on have ended with the healer criticizing the tank, the tank afk'ing, and the group wiping. Of course the peasants are the ones who suffer during these power struggles.

Jawgone said...

Seems to me that Blizzard could create a 'tank bot' that is driven by a character. This bot would have all the abilities of a tank and a certain level of stats for a particual dungeon. One DPS could drive the tank bot and still roll on drops for their class. Throw in a healer bot as well and add some random malfunction (hey it's made by goblins afterall!) and the problem is solved.

Keredria said...

Hmmm interesting. Except that you started with a fundamental mistruth. "I'm a tank and therefore I am better than other people"?

Replace the word tank with healer and now we have a true base from which we can start a real discussion. ;)

Anonymous said...

Seems to me that Blizzard could create a 'tank bot' that is driven by a character. This bot would have all the abilities of a tank and a certain level of stats for a particual dungeon. One DPS could drive the tank bot and still roll on drops for their class. Throw in a healer bot as well and add some random malfunction (hey it's made by goblins afterall!) and the problem is solved.

So, Guild Wars?

Kamiken said...

"Replace the word tank with healer and now we have a true base from which we can start a real discussion. ;)"

Problem being some tanks don't need a healer to get through heroics and can basically solo these instances. The basic function of these healers is to keep the dps alive for when they stand in fires, top off the tank between pulls, and keep the group alive when said tank gets bored and wants to see if the healer is awake and pulls half the instance in 1 pull.

Basically in this function the healer is the tank's right hand man/woman and has the ability to punish the peasants just as well as the tank has the power to punish these peasants.

Snoop101 said...

I actually agree with this. To me a Tank is someone who is a leader and has been doing this for years. I look up to good tanks as a healer. Sad part is that Blizz made getting tank gear to easy for dps hybrid classes and it makes having tanks at 80 who have no idea.

In your world Blizz would be like the genie in a bottle and would say to some peasant "ok you only got one wish what would that be?". The peasant would say I "want to have the best armor and a nice big sword". And poof the genie would grant this. "But wait I also want to know how to use all this stuff". Genie says "oh sorry only one wish".

jeffo said...

I knew someone who worked for Martha Stewart and I think she would tell you there wasn't much difference between Stewart and Stalin.

Klepsacovic said...

@Stabs: It was TBC when hybrids seized the means of production (DPS).

@Shintar: I hope you weren't at work.

@Micah: Serve your lords unquestioningly and be grateful that we can no longer execute you at will!

@Jawgone: I wonder if I could get some DPS bots, and if they'd still try to pull.

@Keredria: Healers are more like the religious elite.

@Anonymous: The horror...

@Kamiken: This fits well with healers being the clergy.

@Snoop101: I would agree, except that I've really not seen this in practice. DPS just seem to not get the idea of queueing as tanks or getting tanking gear. I suspect they are stupid.

@jeffo: Heh, exactly!

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