Real life is not WoW

| Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Behavior in WoW is much different than that of real life, maming it impossible to accurately assess a person's RL quality and worth through WoW quality and worth. Different worlds.

Would you think for a moment that in real life I wear dresses and randomly burst into song? That's what I do in this other world. In the real world, I do things like wear pants, write a blog, and cook.

But some people persist in the notion that virtual world behavior is an accurate reflection of real life. It's not entirely unfounded: at the extremes I think you'll find that assholes are assholes and fire-standing idiots walk in traffic and that calm and steady raid leader is the best manager ever. But you might also find that the calm steady raid leader is actually barely holding himself together in real life and the fire-standing idiot is distracted by thoughts of his incredibly important and profitable job.

It's virtual phrenology.

I want to prove the socials that the M&S is not "unlucky", not "beginner", not "victim of things beyond their control". They are lazy, stupid people because they choose to be one. They are not bad players in a video game, they are scum people in the real world. They deserve no help, no sympathy, no understanding. They deserve exactly what my other project give them: pwnage!


But of course he knows that RL and WoW are different.
But there are friendly, helpful people who prefer "being with friends" over "being with competent people", despite their "friends" are just pixels on a screen without any living connection.


But such lashing out at others seems par for the course for individuals who believe "I deserve more than others". These are the ones who have claimed ninjaing is okay because everyone else is stupid. I love extremists.

What a Wonderful World

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice argument you make here Klep, it boils down to "Gevlon is wrong because I say so"

Gevlon doesn't provide any evidence either, but at least he provides an interesting and sensible narrative underlying his claims.

Obviously, providing a few examples of people who are complete morons in WoW yet important and successful people IRL is insufficient to disprove a generalization such as the one Gevlon made with any statistical meaning...but you can't even do that. You can't provide even ONE example of such a person--or if you can, you just didn't bother to. Either way, this post of yours was useless garbage, just like the rest of your attempts to hate on G-boy.

cmill said...

yes, real life is not wow... not by a long shot.

however just because you wear a dress and sing and dance in game and not real life doesn't mean that some of your personality doesn't come through.

There are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part a jerk in wow is a jerk in real life. Someone who is lazy in game, will probably be lazy in real life too.

However, I would say that in game amplifies real life personalities. For example, the lazy person may be just a little bit lazy in real life, but when he gets in the game hes extremely lazy and doesn't care. The Jerk who cut you off in traffic may be the one who ninjas that mount and yells at everyone.

Just my 2 cents.

Anonymous said...

Basically, if there's someone who dies in a fire and his response to advice about it is "dud its just a game," thus belittling the effort his groupmates have put into the game, then frankly he is likely not anyone you'd want to work with in real life, either.

Hana said...

There's a stereotype that people who type like "lol u suk" are a bunch of kids and teenagers, but oddly enough one of those people who type so horribly is my 30+ coworker. (I'll say I was surprised as all heck when I first met him on WoW.)

He's well spoken and does not come off as a drooling idiot IRL, and yet in game I can't stand reading his text. What you see in game could definitely be different from what's on the other side of the screen.

Klepsacovic said...

@Anonymous: That's not even close to the argument. You have a strange method of boiling.
Just one example is sufficient to disprove a generalization. Hana was nice enough to provide one. I was afraid I'd have to start hacking accounts to find RL indetities and then steal their tax information.

I have a suggestion for you: go read Gevlon's blog, find my comments there, and see if I go there calling his posts garbage. Read his comments here and see if he calls my posts garbage. You won't find either of us doing that. I can't speak for his motives, but I believe that you shouldn't go to someone's blog talking shit. Make your own if you want to do that.

@cmill: I completely: RL personality does bleed through a lot. However that doesn't account for perceptions of the game. Someone who thinks of it as "just a game" might be very hard working at their job, but would consider it laziness to put a great deal of effort into a game.

@Anonymous2: Degrading others is bad, definitely.

@Hana: Cool story, sis. No really, fits perfectly.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon admits (like ALL NEGATIVE BLOGGERS DO) that he does not high-level raid.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with the consistant negative attitude these bloggers have, and their ability to see the worst in people (and thereby always finding it).

No doubt it's just a staggeringly consistant coincidence.

Klepsacovic said...

Not doing high-end raiding might make him more likely to run into idiots, thereby skewing the information he has to work with when forming opinions, but... but. Well.

He does an alternative sort of high-end raiding through the Undergeared project. I can't say if its as hard as say, ICC hardmodes, but I wouldn't quickly reject it as "not high end raiding".

The category of "negative bloggers" seems rather vague. Making up categories, and then claiming they overlap with other categories, isn't a very good foundation for creating opinions.

Gauss said...

I tend to agree because Gevlon doesn't raid with an upper tier it skews his opinion.

But the most important thing it is an online game and people make the choice of who they wish to be, which of course can skew any results if we had any.

Chris and Cathy said...

The handful of people I have gotten to know on a real life level, chatting on the phone about family etc bring me a clearer view of them. Mothers, fathers, motorcycle enthusiasts, government workers, paramedics, daycare providers...people from all walks of life.

Many people are slow to let you get a glimpse into their real lives and perhaps show a hard surface in the game initially.

I keep those people I enjoy spending time with in the game close to me and don't bother too much about anyone else.

Anonymous said...

I *could* have name-dropped all the other non-HM raider blogs whose posts I read are skewed hard towards the negative (ie. complaining about players they met today, complaining about Blizzard's strategies, complaining about in-game systems, complaining about another blogger's latest posts, etc)... but that would be free marketing.

I chose to remain vague, and accept all the disaproval that entails, until I deem them worthy of word-of-mouth-generated page hits.

Gevlon said...

Game is not IRL in a sense that "gaming skill" like knowing that "talented mana burn is better on LDW than mind flay" is not related to be good doctor or idiot.

But in the game we do several NON-game activities like talking to other PEOPLE. So I'm completely sure that Hana is wrong. The "lol u suk" guy is an idiot. Maybe his RL coworkers learned to handle it, or the boss forces him to behave like an intelligent person.

Also I don't high-end raid purposefully and that will be a topic of my post next week.

Klepsacovic said...

Are they people we're talking with or just pixels? You seem to have gone back and forth. Also you appear to have just claimed that someone's direct experience is wrong because it doesn't fit your preconceive notions of human behavior.

Campitor said...

I think gaming is like alcohol as far as personality is concerned. Alcohol is drug that lowers your inhibition threshold which in turn causes you to do and say things you normally wouldn't do or say when sober. Gaming is the same way - the anonimonity allows you to act in way that you wouldn't otherwise under "normal" circumstances. In both circumstances the person cannot really deny that those actions, thoughts, or words aren't really what they feel; it's just being distorted/ecouraged by the medium (alcohol or gaming).

I'm pretty sure that if there were no consequences in real life to behaving like you do in a game, people would act more like jerks or those ventrilo screaming monkeys.

Kind of hard to be a ninja looting a-hole in real life when someone can sue you, get you fired, or beat you till you piss blood.

Anonymous said...

---

But there are friendly, helpful people who prefer "being with friends" over "being with competent people", despite their "friends" are just pixels on a screen without any living connection.

---

That, is just plain stupid. No other way to phrase it. It boils down again to completely neglecting the social aspect of playing multiplayer games. Of course they are 'just pixels'. As their virtual representation. Driving those pixels are people. People who you can know personally, and with whom you can have real life connections.

And equating "friends" to "incompetent people" (he gives the choice - either you're with friends, or you're with competent people) is again showing that he simply doesn't understand the social and emotional layer of games.

Ratshag said...

"Virtual phrenology" - nice description.

Ya look at a guild like The Purge, and, well, we's casual ta the point of being dang near somnambulents. We bang about fer a couple hours every Thursday, mebbe kill sumthin', mebbe not. Other than me, nobody brings flasks or reads strats. Standing in the fire tends ta be optional. I sure Gevlon would consider us M&S, and feel comfortable calling our RL avatars scum and retards and other lovely names.

'Cept of course I's known these RL avatars IRL, some fer nearly three decades. They's mostly successful lawyers and doctors and engineers (successful as in six-figure salaries, published books, tenure, corner offices, that sorta foolery), what generally spends they's time on careers and families and other hobbies, then pops inta Azeroth fer just a few hours ta relaxifies. They just ain't that interested in doin' chores and homework fer a video game. Me, they keep around fer amusements.

If ya thinks ya know a bugger's real life just from how he raids, then you is a fool.

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