Raise your hand if you're sick of seeing posts about people sick about seeing posts about people sick of WoW and are quitting.
You can put your hands down now. I can't actually see you.
I can't quite remember the first angry ranting quitting WoW sucks post I saw. But it was not recent. It was not this year. Or last year. Or even the year before. Hm... angry quitters, as far as I can tell, seem to have been around since WoW began. I remember in vanilla when Blizzard was going through a series of much-needed class balancing and tuning patches, changes on a scale you'd normally expect for expansions, or that recent kerfuffel over aggro. Every single one of this patches was destroying WoW. Every class that had a patch was ruined. Every other class was ruined as well. They were dark times, a sure sign that WoW had fallen from the Golden Days of, let's say, two months before any given time.
My point is this: angry whiny veterans being angry and whiny about WoW are not new. Sometimes they have something worth saying. Sometimes they don't. But I am certain of one thing: they aren't going to stop any time soon, whether you scold them or not.
It's a bit of a mirror situation, I believe. The angry whiners write angry whiny posts and other angry and whiny people rally around them to be angrily whine. The loyalist tells them to shut up and quit if they're so angry and whiny, which in many cases they have done already, and a lot of other loyalists rally around expressing loyalty. It is ultimately just an arbitrary tribal activity. For the King! Or God! My God, to be specific, not yours, because my god is better than your god because mine is God! Also, shut up or be burned at the stake.
Yes, I am suggesting that people who criticize the endless angry whining are the same as the Spanish Inquisition, except more expected.
But dammit, what am I doing, except whining about the whining about whiners? Does that merely loop back around and put me on the enemy-of-enemy side and make me a whiner or am I a meta-whiner? I'm not sure I object to whining as a general principle, but maybe only in these specific cases. Except even then, I'm not sure I have a problem with the original whining, perhaps only the whining about whining. In that case, maybe it is the hypocrisy that bothers me? But who am I to criticize hypocrisy when I am so often myself? That would be hypocritical. About itself.
My head hurts now.
Showing posts with label forums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forums. Show all posts
Anonymity, Intelligent Posting, and Trolls
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Tuesday, July 6, 2010
RealID is the Star of David on the shoulder.
RealID is an Orwellian nightmare.
RealID is going to tear out your perfectly healthy appendix and eat it in front of your children.
Moving on from the trolling part... Or can I ever?
First off, I do believe that anonymity is somewhat of an enabler for assholishness. The guy who calls you a nigger cunt fag jew is probably not going to say that to your face. However he was still an asshole before he was able to be anonymously profane. Or as Chastity put it (omg what's his real name!?) It is a common misconception that trolling is caused by anonymity. It is not. It is caused by people being assholes. Anonymity removes some of the inhibitors which normally keep assholes in place. It's virtual booze, which explains all the anger and sadness. Some people are troll drunks.
With their push for real names, Blizzard seems to be trying to kill trolling and thereby encourage intelligent discussion. Bollocks! Intelligent discussion is not the opposite of trolling. Removing one does not cause the other, or the other way around. At times trolls can be part of intelligent discussion, forcing us to think a different way. This should be differentiated from trolling which takes the form of "I'm pretending to be stupid and you believed me, so I'm going to act superior." Sometimes I troll in real life, not to annoy (sometimes), but to force the person to more fully explain themselves, both to me and to themselves.
Even with no trolls, intelligent discussion is not guaranteed. Listen to the average conversation and you'll see what I mean. Trivial topics may be backed with some fact, but bring in politics and religion and facts, and intelligence, tend to go out the window. While WoW isn't religion or politics, it's a pretty good virtual equivalent. For some people they may even be more affected by the latest round of nerfs than the latest round of taxes. There won't be much intelligent discussion even with no trolls. I wish I could say better.
In fact it may be the complete opposite: anonymity may encourage intelligent posting. Imagine if your dissenting opinion of class balance, while correct, was able to be punished not with a flame war, but with something more real. Anonymity gives safety to dissenters. It gives freedom of speech, free from retaliation. Some misuse this to spread lies and hatred. Some use this to spread truth where it is unpopular. The first group can go fuck themselves, because they give ammunition to those who hate freedom, while the second group is one more line of defense against tyranny.
Of course that's a bit of an exaggeration, rather ridiculous, and I am sorry if anyone thinks I am putting anonymity on the WoW forums in the same league as protesters and dissenters who have spread freedom. They are in different leagues. But maybe they're playing the same game; like children in an alley compared to the World Cup. If no children played, we'd soon have no adults to play either. So while they are clearly different, they are also similar: freedom starts in the small places.
If Blizzard does truly wish to reduce trolling, flame wars, and spam, I'm with them on that. But let's find better ways. First off, a middle ground of anonymity. Use a single name across all characters, a name which is entirely unrelated to our battle.net ID or our real name. We could choose different characters to post with, but we'd still have the overall name displayed. This isn't perfect, but I think it's a much worse loss than real name display. Second, increase the pyramid of forum punishments for trolling, so that repeat offenders can eventually be banned from the game itself. We can still post anonymously, dissent safely, but we cannot so easily break rules and spread chaos.
But maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. Maybe this is just an elaborate plan to get me to stop posting on the forums without resulting in a "I've been banned" post, which would surely result in the loss of thousands of subscribers in protest. Instead I'll go on my own, but I'm still going to make my ban post.
I have been banned from the forums, if not by the letter, then by the unacceptable consequence.
I don't cherish my anonymity absolutely. This name has been in use by me, and as far as I've ever found, only me, for around 10 years. At my young age of 23 that's a very long time. I still hide behind this name, but at least my disguise is consistent. I don't always hide though. Sometimes I give my real name. But I give it when I wish to (or screw up my email), not by default to everyone. A few bloggers know it, a few players know it.
What does it indicate about our society that we so often assume that people who wish to be anonymous must wish to do terrible things? Why do people so often defend intrusion with "well then don't do anything wrong"?
Good night, and good luck.
RealID is an Orwellian nightmare.
RealID is going to tear out your perfectly healthy appendix and eat it in front of your children.
Moving on from the trolling part... Or can I ever?
First off, I do believe that anonymity is somewhat of an enabler for assholishness. The guy who calls you a nigger cunt fag jew is probably not going to say that to your face. However he was still an asshole before he was able to be anonymously profane. Or as Chastity put it (omg what's his real name!?) It is a common misconception that trolling is caused by anonymity. It is not. It is caused by people being assholes. Anonymity removes some of the inhibitors which normally keep assholes in place. It's virtual booze, which explains all the anger and sadness. Some people are troll drunks.
With their push for real names, Blizzard seems to be trying to kill trolling and thereby encourage intelligent discussion. Bollocks! Intelligent discussion is not the opposite of trolling. Removing one does not cause the other, or the other way around. At times trolls can be part of intelligent discussion, forcing us to think a different way. This should be differentiated from trolling which takes the form of "I'm pretending to be stupid and you believed me, so I'm going to act superior." Sometimes I troll in real life, not to annoy (sometimes), but to force the person to more fully explain themselves, both to me and to themselves.
Even with no trolls, intelligent discussion is not guaranteed. Listen to the average conversation and you'll see what I mean. Trivial topics may be backed with some fact, but bring in politics and religion and facts, and intelligence, tend to go out the window. While WoW isn't religion or politics, it's a pretty good virtual equivalent. For some people they may even be more affected by the latest round of nerfs than the latest round of taxes. There won't be much intelligent discussion even with no trolls. I wish I could say better.
In fact it may be the complete opposite: anonymity may encourage intelligent posting. Imagine if your dissenting opinion of class balance, while correct, was able to be punished not with a flame war, but with something more real. Anonymity gives safety to dissenters. It gives freedom of speech, free from retaliation. Some misuse this to spread lies and hatred. Some use this to spread truth where it is unpopular. The first group can go fuck themselves, because they give ammunition to those who hate freedom, while the second group is one more line of defense against tyranny.
Of course that's a bit of an exaggeration, rather ridiculous, and I am sorry if anyone thinks I am putting anonymity on the WoW forums in the same league as protesters and dissenters who have spread freedom. They are in different leagues. But maybe they're playing the same game; like children in an alley compared to the World Cup. If no children played, we'd soon have no adults to play either. So while they are clearly different, they are also similar: freedom starts in the small places.
If Blizzard does truly wish to reduce trolling, flame wars, and spam, I'm with them on that. But let's find better ways. First off, a middle ground of anonymity. Use a single name across all characters, a name which is entirely unrelated to our battle.net ID or our real name. We could choose different characters to post with, but we'd still have the overall name displayed. This isn't perfect, but I think it's a much worse loss than real name display. Second, increase the pyramid of forum punishments for trolling, so that repeat offenders can eventually be banned from the game itself. We can still post anonymously, dissent safely, but we cannot so easily break rules and spread chaos.
But maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. Maybe this is just an elaborate plan to get me to stop posting on the forums without resulting in a "I've been banned" post, which would surely result in the loss of thousands of subscribers in protest. Instead I'll go on my own, but I'm still going to make my ban post.
I have been banned from the forums, if not by the letter, then by the unacceptable consequence.
I don't cherish my anonymity absolutely. This name has been in use by me, and as far as I've ever found, only me, for around 10 years. At my young age of 23 that's a very long time. I still hide behind this name, but at least my disguise is consistent. I don't always hide though. Sometimes I give my real name. But I give it when I wish to (or screw up my email), not by default to everyone. A few bloggers know it, a few players know it.
What does it indicate about our society that we so often assume that people who wish to be anonymous must wish to do terrible things? Why do people so often defend intrusion with "well then don't do anything wrong"?
Good night, and good luck.
Are trolls just bad at telling jokes?
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Friday, March 26, 2010
I have this whole post written up about wow.com and blog links and building up visitors. It's just about ready to go. Except for one slight problem: it's mostly intended as a joke, but instead it looks like a desperate plea for attention, randomly bashing Gnomeaggedon, wow.com, and Big Bear Butt guy. It looks like a gigantic troll.
How could I bash Gnomeaggedon? He's one of my top two gnomes! And Larisa. Third place is of course Millhouse Manastorm. But who would know this? It would be an inside joke told outside. Then there's wow.com. Why would I bash them? They've done nothing to hurt me or help me. But again, who would know? Rather than being intentional nonsense it would look like unintentional, and not so nice, nonsense. Finally druid guy, why would I attack him? I read his blog one day, looked nice, had a kitty drinking water. I can't remember why I didn't follow it. But who cares? I'm rambling...
Short version: post was supposed to be funny but wasn't because it would be hard to recognize that it wasn't just me being a total asshole.
As any DVD release will do, here is a special exclusive unseen deleted scene. Post. It's a bit old now, but it fits.
That last paragraph is edited. I thought the last line might have not been as funny as I thought, so away it went.
Or are we just bad at seeing jokes? [insert scientific-sounding psychology research]; Bullies don't interpret actions normally. They interpret as hostile what are neutral or humorous gestures, and respond as one does to hostility: by beating up little kids on the playground. Or that's just me. And bullies.
Maybe we are bullies, seeing hostility where there is none. Then responding in turn, with real hostility. It doesn't help that text is ambiguous; you can put any face on the writer. Am I deep in thought? Smirking? Laughing? You don't know! Does that exclamation point mean I just shouted at you? If you can't see my face, you won't know exactly what I intended to say. Put the wrong face on me and the results could be disastrous, on a very very tiny scale.
People adapt to their environments. A mean place creates mean people. It isn't always permanent, but it happens. When we get used to everyone being a flame-baiting troll (or so we think), do we lose our ability to see the joke?
A joke is supposed to make us laugh. A troll is supposed to make us angry. A bad joke might make us angry.
No offense intended.
How could I bash Gnomeaggedon? He's one of my top two gnomes! And Larisa. Third place is of course Millhouse Manastorm. But who would know this? It would be an inside joke told outside. Then there's wow.com. Why would I bash them? They've done nothing to hurt me or help me. But again, who would know? Rather than being intentional nonsense it would look like unintentional, and not so nice, nonsense. Finally druid guy, why would I attack him? I read his blog one day, looked nice, had a kitty drinking water. I can't remember why I didn't follow it. But who cares? I'm rambling...
Short version: post was supposed to be funny but wasn't because it would be hard to recognize that it wasn't just me being a total asshole.
As any DVD release will do, here is a special exclusive unseen deleted scene. Post. It's a bit old now, but it fits.
I got banned from the official forums again. Again.
I tried to make a joke, which in retrospect was a bit lame. I claimed that the Infinite Dragonflight in CoT: Stratholme was actually Ensidia trying a new Lich King exploit. Like I said, a bit lame, and a bit late.
From my perspective, it's a harmless stupid joke. I could see an argument for it being spam, but in that case, I'd just delete it. This being in the mythical universe where I'm a forum mod.
Trolling and spamming are listed together, so it's hard to tell exactly what the problem was. Iapetes suggested it was trolling. Made no sense at all. Until he pointed out that it would rile up the extremists on the pro and anti-Ensidia sides. That wasn't my intention, but it certainly makes sense as something to take action to prevent.
This leads me to a question: Are trolling and joking the same thing? I say no, but in the right context, they lead to the same result: flame wars and stupidity.
In my family we sometimes tell Obama jokes, about he's going to kill our grandma or he's a socialist or whatever. They're jokes and we take them as such. I suppose they're not actually about him but about people who talk about him. Whatever they are, they start and stop at joke. Imagine if we said this at a rally either for or against him. "Obama wants to kill my grandma!" Suddenly it's not ironic. It's either a call for more people to join in with senseless screaming, or for people to rabidly attack me.
Or let's take another pair of contexts. I walk up to an Obama rally and ask one of the people "so how's that hopey changey thing workin' out for ya?" I'd look like a total asshole, wouldn't I? On the other hand, if I said it as a tea party rally, I'd just fit in and seem ironic and observant.
That last paragraph is edited. I thought the last line might have not been as funny as I thought, so away it went.
Or are we just bad at seeing jokes? [insert scientific-sounding psychology research]; Bullies don't interpret actions normally. They interpret as hostile what are neutral or humorous gestures, and respond as one does to hostility: by beating up little kids on the playground. Or that's just me. And bullies.
Maybe we are bullies, seeing hostility where there is none. Then responding in turn, with real hostility. It doesn't help that text is ambiguous; you can put any face on the writer. Am I deep in thought? Smirking? Laughing? You don't know! Does that exclamation point mean I just shouted at you? If you can't see my face, you won't know exactly what I intended to say. Put the wrong face on me and the results could be disastrous, on a very very tiny scale.
People adapt to their environments. A mean place creates mean people. It isn't always permanent, but it happens. When we get used to everyone being a flame-baiting troll (or so we think), do we lose our ability to see the joke?
A joke is supposed to make us laugh. A troll is supposed to make us angry. A bad joke might make us angry.
No offense intended.
I'm very sorry, Blizzard
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Saturday, November 7, 2009
In the future I will not attempt to bring up good ideas on the forums. If I have something to say, I will put it here or bury it in another thread. Which you will then delete. I will avoid disagreeing with you and voicing my disagreement. I will also have just lied; there's no way I'm going to start saying nothing.
Here's how it goes down: I see a thread about disenchanting. I post in in, responding to arguments with my own and being far more civil than most of the posters deserved. The only uncivil thing I said was early on that someone was terrible for complaining that enchanters are rich and they couldn't make any gold from inscription. Moving on.
That was the only DE thread I'd seen at the time. I decided to make one titled "Disenchanting is not a crafting profession." I don't recall any threads specifically about that; they all seemed to cover unfairness or compensation.
Or in the case of one thread I made a couple weeks ago, it being Communism. Maybe it was deleted or it fell off the forums, I can't find it anymore. I intended it as humor, and people seemed to recognize it as such for the most part; though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little bit serious. I reposted it on Driven Draenei if you care to read it. When I posted it, I didn't have that last line about lazy people and Obama; that's a Driven Draenei exclusive!
Getting back to my original topic, I didn't see my post as being spammy. There didn't appear to be many enchanting threads and I felt this one was sufficiently distinct. Apparently not. I was given a 24 hour ban for spamming, presumably because of that thread since it didn't have any specific posts linked. The last time I was banned I recall they showed exactly what post caused it (I still say it was only me repeating Blizzard's words).
My other reason for thinking that it was due to that thread is that it was moved to professions and then locked. After I looked back at the general forums to see if I'd missed a few enchanting threads (turns out I had or they'd popped up very recently), I saw my thread still there, which surprised me, with the little "this thread has been moved to a different forum" symbol (the green arrow).
I'm not going to try to argue any more that my thread wasn't spam. From Blizzard's perspective it might have appeared so and I can't do much about that. I am annoyed at how they handled it though. The ban seems entirely unjustified. There's a difference between posting something which happens to have been posted by others and actually spamming. The thread itself may be redundant, but the poster is not a spammer. If my thread had been deleted, I'd have not been as annoyed. Ideally it would have been deleted and I'd have gotten a message saying "please post in the currently existing threads." That would be completely reasonable.
I'm also confused as to why they would move and lock the thread. Moving it makes sense. Locking it makes sense. Both seems redundant.
When I was searching for the Communism thread I did find a similar post of mine about DE from about a month ago. Could it possibly be that two threads on the same subject in a month qualify, or three if you count the Communism one? I doubt that the moderators are digging through month-old post records. If you happen to care, here's the old post.
Giving General a last glance, it looks like all threads about enchanting are gone. I guess it would be tricky to pick just one to allow: "omg blizz y u delete my thread and not that 1!?!?!"
If you care to read the thread, I happened to have copied it just before posting since I know the forums sometimes eat posts if you take too long to write them. As a result, I had it saved. I posted it just before this so that it's not at the very front since people might be tired of hearing me talk about enchanting.
Here's how it goes down: I see a thread about disenchanting. I post in in, responding to arguments with my own and being far more civil than most of the posters deserved. The only uncivil thing I said was early on that someone was terrible for complaining that enchanters are rich and they couldn't make any gold from inscription. Moving on.
That was the only DE thread I'd seen at the time. I decided to make one titled "Disenchanting is not a crafting profession." I don't recall any threads specifically about that; they all seemed to cover unfairness or compensation.
Or in the case of one thread I made a couple weeks ago, it being Communism. Maybe it was deleted or it fell off the forums, I can't find it anymore. I intended it as humor, and people seemed to recognize it as such for the most part; though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little bit serious. I reposted it on Driven Draenei if you care to read it. When I posted it, I didn't have that last line about lazy people and Obama; that's a Driven Draenei exclusive!
Getting back to my original topic, I didn't see my post as being spammy. There didn't appear to be many enchanting threads and I felt this one was sufficiently distinct. Apparently not. I was given a 24 hour ban for spamming, presumably because of that thread since it didn't have any specific posts linked. The last time I was banned I recall they showed exactly what post caused it (I still say it was only me repeating Blizzard's words).
My other reason for thinking that it was due to that thread is that it was moved to professions and then locked. After I looked back at the general forums to see if I'd missed a few enchanting threads (turns out I had or they'd popped up very recently), I saw my thread still there, which surprised me, with the little "this thread has been moved to a different forum" symbol (the green arrow).
I'm not going to try to argue any more that my thread wasn't spam. From Blizzard's perspective it might have appeared so and I can't do much about that. I am annoyed at how they handled it though. The ban seems entirely unjustified. There's a difference between posting something which happens to have been posted by others and actually spamming. The thread itself may be redundant, but the poster is not a spammer. If my thread had been deleted, I'd have not been as annoyed. Ideally it would have been deleted and I'd have gotten a message saying "please post in the currently existing threads." That would be completely reasonable.
I'm also confused as to why they would move and lock the thread. Moving it makes sense. Locking it makes sense. Both seems redundant.
When I was searching for the Communism thread I did find a similar post of mine about DE from about a month ago. Could it possibly be that two threads on the same subject in a month qualify, or three if you count the Communism one? I doubt that the moderators are digging through month-old post records. If you happen to care, here's the old post.
Giving General a last glance, it looks like all threads about enchanting are gone. I guess it would be tricky to pick just one to allow: "omg blizz y u delete my thread and not that 1!?!?!"
If you care to read the thread, I happened to have copied it just before posting since I know the forums sometimes eat posts if you take too long to write them. As a result, I had it saved. I posted it just before this so that it's not at the very front since people might be tired of hearing me talk about enchanting.
Why are the CMs so feel goody?
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Friday, May 1, 2009
Over the last couple weeks I've noticed a lot of threads by CMs on the general forum which I can describe only as feel-good. They're kinda fluff things: guild traditions, favorite ruined city, having fun wiping, etc. I don't mind them, but they seem to have suddenly arrived in a high concentration and it's weirding me out a little.
Crygil: Which ruined city is your favorite? Granted the polls over time have mostly been little opinion "what's your favorite?" questions.
Zarhym: When a wipe feels so right...
Nethaera: Deserted Island: What do you take?
Crygil: How do you feel about Gnomes?
Nethaera: Travel Azeroth: What are your places to go?
Nethaera: Guild Traditions: What are yours?
Nethaera: New Player Advice: What's yours? This one is a little different than the rest, but still, this isn't exactly serious business stuff.
What's going on here? Maybe the CMs suddenly became very cheerful and outgoing and really love to talk with us. But that doesn't really seem new. I think this is a new tactic for information gathering. Ruined city? That's another way of seeing which content and lore people like the most. The wipe one is testing reactions to new content (a million flames would mean people aren't liking wiping much). Travel Azeroth? Clearly asking favorite zone and why. Guild traditions don't have immediate development value, but they help, along with the wipe thread, to figure out social patterns and how to work them in Blizzard's favor. Advice for a new players is a way to see what we hate or what doesn't work. If someone says "don't bother to train X spell" that suggests that X spell needs some work. If people keep saying "don't bother with X quest" well then X quest needs some fixing up.
Community building and customer research at the same time, those sneaky devils... I mean developers, not that I'm not calling the CMs devs.
Crygil: Which ruined city is your favorite? Granted the polls over time have mostly been little opinion "what's your favorite?" questions.
Zarhym: When a wipe feels so right...
Nethaera: Deserted Island: What do you take?
Crygil: How do you feel about Gnomes?
Nethaera: Travel Azeroth: What are your places to go?
Nethaera: Guild Traditions: What are yours?
Nethaera: New Player Advice: What's yours? This one is a little different than the rest, but still, this isn't exactly serious business stuff.
What's going on here? Maybe the CMs suddenly became very cheerful and outgoing and really love to talk with us. But that doesn't really seem new. I think this is a new tactic for information gathering. Ruined city? That's another way of seeing which content and lore people like the most. The wipe one is testing reactions to new content (a million flames would mean people aren't liking wiping much). Travel Azeroth? Clearly asking favorite zone and why. Guild traditions don't have immediate development value, but they help, along with the wipe thread, to figure out social patterns and how to work them in Blizzard's favor. Advice for a new players is a way to see what we hate or what doesn't work. If someone says "don't bother to train X spell" that suggests that X spell needs some work. If people keep saying "don't bother with X quest" well then X quest needs some fixing up.
Community building and customer research at the same time, those sneaky devils... I mean developers, not that I'm not calling the CMs devs.
I have internet arguments IRL
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Sunday, March 15, 2009
However they are purely for ironic purposes. Well, there were exceptions. I occasionally run into extremely stupid and/or stubborn people. Since internet arguments are characterized mostly by their extreme stupidity and inability to ever be resolved, I classify these arguments with stupid people in the Internet Argument IRL category.
Text is not very good for irony though. Guild chat, is text. So it's pretty clearly that guild chat is a poor place for irony except between individuals who would know each other well enough to decipher said irony.
Where was I? Oh yes. The forums are full of whining. Sometimes it is whining of such silliness that my brain hurts. Fortunately this whining tends to stay on the forums, except for during the occasional argument with my friend who has no concept of balance. How can I tell? Well he disagrees with me. What more objective measure can you possibly find? Now where did my point go?
Yes, so, forum arguments and whining, very stupid. They do not belong in guild chat. Guild chat is for socializing and advice and organizing groups. It is not for comments about Blizzard dumbing down an already easy game. It is especially not the place for saying "there dumbing down..." and failing to see the irony. I should do a word count on that: irony. Maybe I should check a dictionary as well since it's one of those words that I think we all forgot the meaning of. Eh, it's a blog, it's supposed to be fast and real and totally inaccurate; like Fox News except without a schedule.
As you probably guessed I had a terrible experience today with someone whining in guild chat. My reaction was similar to how I'd react on the forums, or IRL. Or anywhere, such as Imagination Land where I argue regularly with caricatures of people I dislike and then settle all our differences with hot cocoa and snowball fights. Unfortunately it happens in that order to we just end up sick from all the sugar and exercise and also very cold. This is why we get grumpy and argue so much.
Anyway, something about the patch download starting already, maybe that was supposed to mean that it's almost done. I didn't quite understand. By the end I said something like "for someone who complains about dumbing down, you don't make much sense." He called me a dipshit, ignored me, logged for a few minutes, and people told us to stop. I took a couple tries to suppress my need to respond and explain my position, since they were clearly lacking in the proper perspective: mine.
Sometimes I think getting gkicked might not be so bad. I mean sure I'd miss the raids, that I miss anyway. And I'd miss the groups that never form anyway because I prefer to go to LFG first and avoid complications with things like someone wanting to go, but only if someone else is going, and next thing I'm wondering if someone is offended because I didn't invite them just because they're also specced for tanking. How could I go without a certain female guildy constantly flaunting her girliness with disgustingly forced childish affection? What would I do not having a guild tag over my head, forcing me to hold my tongue when desiring to respond to idiots?
On the subject, why does Blizzard insist on blanket application of obscenity rules? Life would be much easier if I could use appropriately effective words for describing those who attempt to ruin my time in game.
I suppose there's a thrill to getting gkicked. It's a shock, like a bucket of cold water. It's not too pleasant, but as far as game experiences go, it's one of the most... oh what's the word? Real? Making-you-feel-it-y? Green text scrolls, scrolls, scrolls, and then there's that little message and then stop. Everything just goes still and you go "hm, well now what?" Being guildless can be a bit liberating, like your third "three strikes" violation: you're going away forever anyway, so you might as well make it worth it. It feels weird though running into former guildies. Then you start wondering, do they remember me, do they care, were they around when I got kicked? It's a bit like one of those friends that you somehow just drift away from without really being separated (I don't mean like someone moving away) and then you see them in a hall and wonder if you nod or wave or in any way acknowledge them as someone you know, or are they just another person to avoid running into, yet another obstacle to movement down the hall?
Hm. So yes. Don't whine about patch notes in gchat. Most of us have different professions, play different classes, we might not even be the same level or running the same content. In other words, we don't really care. I mean sure, some people care in the sense that they care about you as a guildy, but the specific issue? Half the people probably haven't seen the notes and wouldn't notice if you weren't babbling about it, which is and ironic accusation considering the wandering of this post.
Raiding Sunday through Tuesday, I'll try to be on, let's see if I get in. Why must Thaddius only drop the defense trinket in regular?
Text is not very good for irony though. Guild chat, is text. So it's pretty clearly that guild chat is a poor place for irony except between individuals who would know each other well enough to decipher said irony.
Where was I? Oh yes. The forums are full of whining. Sometimes it is whining of such silliness that my brain hurts. Fortunately this whining tends to stay on the forums, except for during the occasional argument with my friend who has no concept of balance. How can I tell? Well he disagrees with me. What more objective measure can you possibly find? Now where did my point go?
Yes, so, forum arguments and whining, very stupid. They do not belong in guild chat. Guild chat is for socializing and advice and organizing groups. It is not for comments about Blizzard dumbing down an already easy game. It is especially not the place for saying "there dumbing down..." and failing to see the irony. I should do a word count on that: irony. Maybe I should check a dictionary as well since it's one of those words that I think we all forgot the meaning of. Eh, it's a blog, it's supposed to be fast and real and totally inaccurate; like Fox News except without a schedule.
As you probably guessed I had a terrible experience today with someone whining in guild chat. My reaction was similar to how I'd react on the forums, or IRL. Or anywhere, such as Imagination Land where I argue regularly with caricatures of people I dislike and then settle all our differences with hot cocoa and snowball fights. Unfortunately it happens in that order to we just end up sick from all the sugar and exercise and also very cold. This is why we get grumpy and argue so much.
Anyway, something about the patch download starting already, maybe that was supposed to mean that it's almost done. I didn't quite understand. By the end I said something like "for someone who complains about dumbing down, you don't make much sense." He called me a dipshit, ignored me, logged for a few minutes, and people told us to stop. I took a couple tries to suppress my need to respond and explain my position, since they were clearly lacking in the proper perspective: mine.
Sometimes I think getting gkicked might not be so bad. I mean sure I'd miss the raids, that I miss anyway. And I'd miss the groups that never form anyway because I prefer to go to LFG first and avoid complications with things like someone wanting to go, but only if someone else is going, and next thing I'm wondering if someone is offended because I didn't invite them just because they're also specced for tanking. How could I go without a certain female guildy constantly flaunting her girliness with disgustingly forced childish affection? What would I do not having a guild tag over my head, forcing me to hold my tongue when desiring to respond to idiots?
On the subject, why does Blizzard insist on blanket application of obscenity rules? Life would be much easier if I could use appropriately effective words for describing those who attempt to ruin my time in game.
I suppose there's a thrill to getting gkicked. It's a shock, like a bucket of cold water. It's not too pleasant, but as far as game experiences go, it's one of the most... oh what's the word? Real? Making-you-feel-it-y? Green text scrolls, scrolls, scrolls, and then there's that little message and then stop. Everything just goes still and you go "hm, well now what?" Being guildless can be a bit liberating, like your third "three strikes" violation: you're going away forever anyway, so you might as well make it worth it. It feels weird though running into former guildies. Then you start wondering, do they remember me, do they care, were they around when I got kicked? It's a bit like one of those friends that you somehow just drift away from without really being separated (I don't mean like someone moving away) and then you see them in a hall and wonder if you nod or wave or in any way acknowledge them as someone you know, or are they just another person to avoid running into, yet another obstacle to movement down the hall?
Hm. So yes. Don't whine about patch notes in gchat. Most of us have different professions, play different classes, we might not even be the same level or running the same content. In other words, we don't really care. I mean sure, some people care in the sense that they care about you as a guildy, but the specific issue? Half the people probably haven't seen the notes and wouldn't notice if you weren't babbling about it, which is and ironic accusation considering the wandering of this post.
Raiding Sunday through Tuesday, I'll try to be on, let's see if I get in. Why must Thaddius only drop the defense trinket in regular?
Did the forums get more elitist?
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Sunday, February 1, 2009
Maybe it's rose-colored goggles, but it seems like the forums have gotten worse since WotLK.
BC brought us the arena elitists. Say anything: "lol @ ur rating." But honestly, they almost had a point. Sure arenas were horribly unbalanced and generally awful (I say "were" because I've done none in WotLK so I can't honestly say "are"), but there was some slight correlation between skill/knowledge and arena ratings.
WotLK has brought us... just general assholes. There's nothing even specific. Well, in general it's something about raids being too easy. This will lead to a tangent later on. In the meantime, why?
I think it's because raids really are a bit easier now. With the exception of Razuvious, none of them really demand a certain class. This isn't actually easier, it's just more accessible. Consumables are lower than ever: oils and stones are gone, self weapon buffs are good now.* Again, accessibility: you don't have to play so long to prepare for raids. Fights seem tuned a bit easier than I remember from Karazhan, though I wonder how much of that was due to fights like Moroes having unreasonable expectations, such as priests keeping up a shackle and hunters not going afk with autoshot.
What happens when you make content easier? More people clear it. If your ego is based on a sense of virtual superiority, this is bad. BAD. The reaction is not surprising in this context: people lash out when their superiority is threatened. Yell at Blizzard: "How dare you let... let... those noobs! In my instance! The nerve! Why am I not obviously better than everyone else!?" Remember recolored tier sets for PvP? Repeat, except bigger.
I think what really makes it funny is that the raids actually aren't easier. The major challenges just became optional, in other words, stopped giving gear. Achievements don't give gear (I'm excluding Sarth bonus gear because I don't like facts which do not support my claims), but they're where you'll find the hard stuff. The new approach to gear is strange. It seems that everyone gets it now. Before you blame it on noobs and their sense of entitlement, it's the self-declared good players who are confused at the lack of gear rewards for their superiority. "I am awesome, why do I not get to one-shot people because of this?"
However...
I've also noticed a very annoying trend of bad players claiming to be casuals. Casual is not bad. Bad is not casual. Casual is hard to define, but let's go with something related to play time or the relative priority/importance of WoW in one's life. Bad is... bad. The hunter that uses strength gear is bad. The paladin with spirit gems is bad, well, maybe not as much as the hunter. Spirit is a deceptive stat if you don't read too closely the little "while casting vs. while not casting." Really, it's annoying to see people be stupid and then claim that they're casuals so they don't have time to figure these things out. Min-maxing and basic class knowledge are very different.
Casual players, I'm sorry that bad people are trying to hide among you.
For the good of everyone, new players should not be allowed to post on the forums, at least until they've played for a month. For them, it saves them the terribleness of the forums and the assholes within. For other people, it acts as a filtering system. Sometimes I see a 'stupid' question and think: "Is that person an idiot or are they just making the same mistakes I made early on?" If we kept out the new people we could be certain that only true idiots were posting stupidly.
To compensate for the loss of community support for new players (please bear with me, I am trying just as hard to not laugh), add official, Blizzard-created basic starting guides. Maybe the tips do this, I turned them off a long time ago. It wouldn't be too complex, just things like useful stats, groups roles, and the concept of aggro. If someone could figure out a non-condescending way to say it, include something like "think things over and see what you can figure out for yourself." For example: think about strength vs. AP. Hm, strength gives AP, but strength is affected by divine strength and blessing of kings. However I'm leveling so I'm not likely to see either talent. I'll go with whichever I see more of, with a 1:2 ratio.
Or there could be a newb-only forum, just for new people, with a few Blizzard-approved posters. They'd be like the greens (MVPs), but more useful.
I wish people were a bit less afraid in-game. I love giving people advice. It makes me feel all warm and superior inside. Why do people so rarely ask questions? At most: "what does this boss do?" Rarely do I see people ask others of the same class for advice when they clearly need it. Slightly less rarely do I see people offer advice, and that's including rude criticism as advice.
* I played my warlock a little bit and was trying to figure out a demo spec for leveling, since I like the bit of durability, especially being on a PvP server, I want to minimize my risk of sudden death. I ended up staring at the wowhead calculator trying to figure out why master conjuror was my only choice. Then I looked up firestones and spellstones and... wow. They don't suck anymore! I still don't know if the talent is good, but at least the conjured items are useful.
Today I showed a shaman earthliving weapon. He was using flametongue. The death rate dropped a bit after that. His spec was very strange: enough resto to DPS badly and enough elemental to heal badly. I didn't get the point. Perhaps I should have helped, after that little bit about why don't we help each other.
In unrelated news, I got annoyed at a warlock who didn't have shards to summon me back to an instance. Why did I leave? I needed to go buy ankhs.
BC brought us the arena elitists. Say anything: "lol @ ur rating." But honestly, they almost had a point. Sure arenas were horribly unbalanced and generally awful (I say "were" because I've done none in WotLK so I can't honestly say "are"), but there was some slight correlation between skill/knowledge and arena ratings.
WotLK has brought us... just general assholes. There's nothing even specific. Well, in general it's something about raids being too easy. This will lead to a tangent later on. In the meantime, why?
I think it's because raids really are a bit easier now. With the exception of Razuvious, none of them really demand a certain class. This isn't actually easier, it's just more accessible. Consumables are lower than ever: oils and stones are gone, self weapon buffs are good now.* Again, accessibility: you don't have to play so long to prepare for raids. Fights seem tuned a bit easier than I remember from Karazhan, though I wonder how much of that was due to fights like Moroes having unreasonable expectations, such as priests keeping up a shackle and hunters not going afk with autoshot.
What happens when you make content easier? More people clear it. If your ego is based on a sense of virtual superiority, this is bad. BAD. The reaction is not surprising in this context: people lash out when their superiority is threatened. Yell at Blizzard: "How dare you let... let... those noobs! In my instance! The nerve! Why am I not obviously better than everyone else!?" Remember recolored tier sets for PvP? Repeat, except bigger.
I think what really makes it funny is that the raids actually aren't easier. The major challenges just became optional, in other words, stopped giving gear. Achievements don't give gear (I'm excluding Sarth bonus gear because I don't like facts which do not support my claims), but they're where you'll find the hard stuff. The new approach to gear is strange. It seems that everyone gets it now. Before you blame it on noobs and their sense of entitlement, it's the self-declared good players who are confused at the lack of gear rewards for their superiority. "I am awesome, why do I not get to one-shot people because of this?"
However...
I've also noticed a very annoying trend of bad players claiming to be casuals. Casual is not bad. Bad is not casual. Casual is hard to define, but let's go with something related to play time or the relative priority/importance of WoW in one's life. Bad is... bad. The hunter that uses strength gear is bad. The paladin with spirit gems is bad, well, maybe not as much as the hunter. Spirit is a deceptive stat if you don't read too closely the little "while casting vs. while not casting." Really, it's annoying to see people be stupid and then claim that they're casuals so they don't have time to figure these things out. Min-maxing and basic class knowledge are very different.
Casual players, I'm sorry that bad people are trying to hide among you.
For the good of everyone, new players should not be allowed to post on the forums, at least until they've played for a month. For them, it saves them the terribleness of the forums and the assholes within. For other people, it acts as a filtering system. Sometimes I see a 'stupid' question and think: "Is that person an idiot or are they just making the same mistakes I made early on?" If we kept out the new people we could be certain that only true idiots were posting stupidly.
To compensate for the loss of community support for new players (please bear with me, I am trying just as hard to not laugh), add official, Blizzard-created basic starting guides. Maybe the tips do this, I turned them off a long time ago. It wouldn't be too complex, just things like useful stats, groups roles, and the concept of aggro. If someone could figure out a non-condescending way to say it, include something like "think things over and see what you can figure out for yourself." For example: think about strength vs. AP. Hm, strength gives AP, but strength is affected by divine strength and blessing of kings. However I'm leveling so I'm not likely to see either talent. I'll go with whichever I see more of, with a 1:2 ratio.
Or there could be a newb-only forum, just for new people, with a few Blizzard-approved posters. They'd be like the greens (MVPs), but more useful.
I wish people were a bit less afraid in-game. I love giving people advice. It makes me feel all warm and superior inside. Why do people so rarely ask questions? At most: "what does this boss do?" Rarely do I see people ask others of the same class for advice when they clearly need it. Slightly less rarely do I see people offer advice, and that's including rude criticism as advice.
* I played my warlock a little bit and was trying to figure out a demo spec for leveling, since I like the bit of durability, especially being on a PvP server, I want to minimize my risk of sudden death. I ended up staring at the wowhead calculator trying to figure out why master conjuror was my only choice. Then I looked up firestones and spellstones and... wow. They don't suck anymore! I still don't know if the talent is good, but at least the conjured items are useful.
Today I showed a shaman earthliving weapon. He was using flametongue. The death rate dropped a bit after that. His spec was very strange: enough resto to DPS badly and enough elemental to heal badly. I didn't get the point. Perhaps I should have helped, after that little bit about why don't we help each other.
In unrelated news, I got annoyed at a warlock who didn't have shards to summon me back to an instance. Why did I leave? I needed to go buy ankhs.
On Whining
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Thursday, August 21, 2008
It really is annoying how the slightest change to anything causes whining on the forums. It would be nice if people were more calm and reasonable, or at least didn't feel like their individual whine (which is not a unique or beautiful snowflake) is worthy of a separate thread. Besides, it's beta, things change. It seems silly to spam "time to reroll" or "Kalgan hates us" when nothing is anywhere close to done.
But, it's beta, things change. This is the best time to get changes and also the best time to guide (reverse or encourage) changes. If we get nerfed now it is best to express problems with it now, rather than waiting. While I realize that we don't know how things will play out at 80, it seems safer to be overpowered while leveling (who cares?) and then get nerfed at 80 rather than waiting to then to get much-needed buffs.
I hate the spam, but I don't want a repeat of the 6-10-6 seconds CS. If only there was a middle ground, like a lot of threads with calm discussion and reasonable arguments.
But, it's beta, things change. This is the best time to get changes and also the best time to guide (reverse or encourage) changes. If we get nerfed now it is best to express problems with it now, rather than waiting. While I realize that we don't know how things will play out at 80, it seems safer to be overpowered while leveling (who cares?) and then get nerfed at 80 rather than waiting to then to get much-needed buffs.
I hate the spam, but I don't want a repeat of the 6-10-6 seconds CS. If only there was a middle ground, like a lot of threads with calm discussion and reasonable arguments.
Doom and gloom and terrible things too!
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Friday, July 18, 2008
From what I can tell, beta patch notes are out. As usual, people are getting emo about them. Why overreact to what will not be finalized for months? We don't even know that this is everything, I'm certain it isn't.
I do think we should look at new talents and spells, compare them to other classes, as see where we seem to end up. This is, after all, the time to look at balance. But we should realize that this is also the time of change, probably rapid change. I predict new patch notes (with significant changes, I don't mean a handful of bug fixes), within two weeks.
Perhaps I have rose-colored goggles. Perhaps many people have smeared brown goggles. We are accepted, even desired in raids. Holy is diminishing, but in its current healbot form, it should be diminished. Holy warrior and healbot do not mix. Until holy is reworked to be more active than hiding in the back casting two heals, it should be bad enough that no one is ever pressured to spec in it. Protection is far better than is was. It actually tanks. Our greatest strength may be trash and 'gimmicks', but what is a gimmick? Why is a dozen murlocs a gimmick but a slow-hitting mob not? It's all just a matter of what we are used to, what we've been told is normal. I look forward to the day when single-mob bosses are a gimmick and in their place are ten thousand NPCs running amok. Ret isn't shitty DPS anymore and it brings some nice buffs. JoW is definitely underrated.
We've been buffed, massively. Why would it not happen again? Prot definitely needs reworking. I don't consider it a real tanking tree/class anymore, just a massive bandaid. It works, but it's sure not pretty. From the sound of it, Blizzard plans to make it more interactive. Who knows, maybe someday holy tree spells will stop being our bread and butter for aggro.
Be happy, God dammit!
I do think we should look at new talents and spells, compare them to other classes, as see where we seem to end up. This is, after all, the time to look at balance. But we should realize that this is also the time of change, probably rapid change. I predict new patch notes (with significant changes, I don't mean a handful of bug fixes), within two weeks.
Perhaps I have rose-colored goggles. Perhaps many people have smeared brown goggles. We are accepted, even desired in raids. Holy is diminishing, but in its current healbot form, it should be diminished. Holy warrior and healbot do not mix. Until holy is reworked to be more active than hiding in the back casting two heals, it should be bad enough that no one is ever pressured to spec in it. Protection is far better than is was. It actually tanks. Our greatest strength may be trash and 'gimmicks', but what is a gimmick? Why is a dozen murlocs a gimmick but a slow-hitting mob not? It's all just a matter of what we are used to, what we've been told is normal. I look forward to the day when single-mob bosses are a gimmick and in their place are ten thousand NPCs running amok. Ret isn't shitty DPS anymore and it brings some nice buffs. JoW is definitely underrated.
We've been buffed, massively. Why would it not happen again? Prot definitely needs reworking. I don't consider it a real tanking tree/class anymore, just a massive bandaid. It works, but it's sure not pretty. From the sound of it, Blizzard plans to make it more interactive. Who knows, maybe someday holy tree spells will stop being our bread and butter for aggro.
Be happy, God dammit!
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