Thursday, October 1, 2009

Good Will

During my every morning routine visit to wow.com, something oddly unconventional caught my eye; Doing something nice for other players. Makes you think back and just how rare this sort of thing is in the modern World of Warcraft. Aye, it is not as bad as it first seems, but the simple truth is that large portion of players find it stimulating to jerk off at other people, safe behind the impenetrable shield of anonymity.

What is worse, it is everywhere; both general and trade channels, battlegrounds, raids, guilds, and even random people you meet outside an instance. The recent moments, for me personally was when I was waiting for a friend of mine to come out Caverns of Time, standing outside the instance where a friendly level 80 warlock threw "noob" at me for being below level 60.

Any of my readers happen to be working on a doctorate for psychology? I am pretty sure this sort of gratification disorder, the need to jump on other people for no good reason, other than that their moms held them too tight or not tight enough would just fascinate you shrink types.

But of course, after some reflection, we can gladly conclude that while their numbers are high, they do not make up the whole of the gamer population. There are lots of friendly and decent people around. True, I have to say that although I hold myself to this group, I do not practice the kind of open charity as the person described in the news post.

The reason for that is that while those of us, who enjoy helping others, do not do it very often or to total strangers only out of the goodness in our hearts, is that most newbies are not nearly as grateful for the help you offer. Several exemplary cases come to mind, one being that after you do help out, maybe pull extra mats from your bank and make some toys for someone, they tend to get too used to it.

The end result is that they continue to whisper you for more help; can you help me with this quest, where can I find A or C, and if you can loan them some more gold for a new piece of armor. That is just not right and incredibly infuriating. Another winning case is when you polite tell someone you cannot take them to your pug because of their shabby gear.

Aye, it does suck to be turned down but all willingness to give you tips and hints where to get better upgrades wash away when you start throwing "fuck you" and "shit yourself" at me for trying to help you. We have all been there, in that position. The difference is, we worked hard and got out of it, without the need for drama.

Some part of the problem itself, I believe is inherent in the game itself and what it represents. A common problem with kids these days is that they spend so much time online and in the virtual world that they totally lack social skills. They do not know how to communicate with the common bloke and the game itself promotes an environment where they do not even have to.

This is the big reason why I refuse to give into using much of the WoW slang that exists in the game, because it was invented by socially awkward 14 year olds. I choose to hold on to my persona and will not sink into the pit hole of lame idiots who hardly know how to spell xenophobe.

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