Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Chainwin and shame-lose

We've been struggling in WG with the morons, there are many losses.
Oct 31 Saturday seemed to be an ordinary day in Northrend. On weekend I often participate all battles. Log out after one, set the alarm clock and watch a movie, go to the park, clean the flat, read articles and so on. However Oct 31 wasn't ordinary. From 9 AM to 3 PM we won 4 defensive battles in a row. It was awesome! People followed the very simple strategy "be in a zerg, wipe horde, run South, destroy towers, run to the keep". There wasn't a single "lol itza game dun tell me what2 do" or rushing alone into the horde. Despite we still had 2-3 tenacity, we crushed them. We had all towers down in 8 minutes. The yards were clean from hordies, they came and died.

What happened? WGclean addon happened! Treeston/Stolenlegacy wrote it, it's still in very early phase (no UI, you have to write slash commands), but it's usable. On Friday and Saturday we were still mostly losing and I was busy typing "/wgclean ban [name] [reason]". The results were stunning. Not one went to sabotate us! About 1/4 of them put me on ignore, queued up some more, autokicked and left for good.

On the other hand 3/4 of them whispered on the second-third autokick and promised to be useful. And they were! It was stunning to see that the same guy who sent #@$#@$! class whispers in the morning asked for reinvite politely and behaved himself well in the afternoon.

Imagine a battle without lolkids, "i play 4 fun" scubs, cata-riding morons! That's what we had on Saturday. And steamrolling the horde that was used to victories. The game was like it's meant to be: competition between competent and motivated opponents.

Then on the 17:30 battle we lost. Badly. While dead, I bought up the map and saw 7 south-morons (people who can't understand that after the horde has sieges we must hold the keep, and leave the towers because we can't afford losing 1/3-1/4th of our forces. The outnumbering horde can defend the towers with 1/10 of their forces as the person in the vehicle can't fight back). I called out on their mistake and one of them replied "lol im fishing".

I just stood there devastated. The battle was lost, and not by M&S. It was my fault. For 20 minutes I was unable to recognize a fishing leech. I did not told once the South morons to stop being South morons. I spammed "all to the keep", but not once did I tell "arthasdklol leave WP and come in!" I enjoyed the game, was busy healing people, shooting goblin rockets and forgot what really make difference: removing M&S from the raid. Even an ideal hit on a siege and keeping 2-3 people alive is nothing compared the 2-3 more tenacity that our team would have if I kick 7 useless players. If 4 of them return promising to be useful, that's 4 more players!

The important thing is that the main counter-argument of socials (and fear of many rationals) is wrong. It's the "we must help them or they revolt". To have a revolution or even a riot, we need a group. Despite the M&S looks like one, it is not. While they demand solidarity from others they have none for each other. No M&S stands up for another. You can kick, exclude, abuse one and the others actually cheer on it. They are leeches and see other leeches as competitors. You can grind them down like dungeon mobs, pulling one pack at a time.

Irony: you tell the raiders the strat. There are 10 M&S saying "idc lol" (translation "I don't care and I laugh on you"). You pick one of them randomly, call him useless moron and kick him. He cries tyranny and abuse. What will the other 9 say? "idc lol".

Also, just a small part of them is hopeless, having anarchist tendencies and derive their self-esteem from disobedience to anyone. But majority of them - while lazy and dumb - want to be accepted by peers, and exclusion from their group has great punishment force on them, so we can force them to actually be useful.

Nico sent a joke. Using this addon may give you this title.

PS: Blizzard GM says: Kicking them is OK.
--------------------------

Appendix: basic usage for WGclean
Whenever a big "Clean WG" button appears, you can press it to kick a M&S. He will receive a message "WGclean: You have been kicked from WG for [reason], whisper [namelist] to discuss"
/wgclean trustadd player: adds a player as trusted. The addon will syncronize blacklist data with that player
/wgclean trustlist: lists trusted players
/wgclean trustdel player
/wgclean ban player reason: The addon will blacklist this player. Whenever he is a raid the "Clean WG" button appears.
/wgclean banlist: lists the blacklisted morons
/wgclean unban player: remove the player from the blacklist. This action do not re-invite him, you have to do it manually

71 comments:

Squishalot said...

Couple of points to note, Gevlon...

"About 1/4 of them put me on ignore, queued up some more, autokicked and left for good."

What you're saying here is that when they re-queued for WG, they were placed in your raid and auto-kicked by your addon, right? When you say they 'left for good', do you mean that they left WG, or that they stopped trying to enter your raid?

Also - once kicked from a raid, can you continue to operate in WG outside of a raid? If so, then you won't be able to stop the fishing people. If not, then Blizzard will probably come down on your addon. Keep us updated if you get a suspension for your actions, because it might impact others who try to use the addon.

Rohan said...

Out of curiosity, how do you guarantee that you are the leader of the raid, and have permission to kick other people?

Anonymous said...

NIce result. Your final failure however, shows that one person unfortunately cannot enjoy the experience as the other players do. He must be watching carefully to pounce on any M&S and make sure that the main thrust of the battle is being followed. Which means that he must sacrifice his enjoyment of the game experience for the other players and the end result. Which is somewhat altruistic when you think about it.

Gevlon said...

@Thenoisyrogue: It doesn't have to be one people. As more and more use the addon the task of cleaning M&S distributes. Also, the M&S decrease over time as they either learn or leave. Soon there will be no one to watch out for.

@Rohan: the leader is the one who is first in the raid. So it comes down to "who click the accept button faster". However if you fly in, you increase your chances greatly as you have no loading screen. Also, our group all fly in, so the chances that one of us is leader is great.

@Squishalot: They stopped entering the raid. While they could still be leeching somewhere, their actions at least does not demoralize the others.

I can't imagine why would I get suspended for using a game feature in its intended way. When saronite bombs were used to break WG door, they suspended no one, simply changed the bombs. They suspended Ensidia since they used bombs to BUILD a platform (obviously bug). So they may change WG/TB to make the RL unable to kick people but they won't suspend anyone.

Treeston said...

#1: You can make a macro:
/click StaticPopup1Button1
and spam it as the last few seconds of WG timer are counting down. What this does is click the "Accept" button on the WG popup, almost guaranteeing you leader (especially if you are already in WG, skipping the loading screen).

#2: You forgot /wgclean trustdel player to remove them from the trust list. Also, trust list is synchronized guild-wide aswell.

Ephemeron said...

"So they may change WG/TB to make the RL unable to kick people"

They will. They won't do it now (because Wintergrasp is, in their minds, already obsolete), but definitely by the time 4.1 goes live.

Squishalot said...

@ Gevlon - the suspension point was only if the people were unable to participate / benefit from WG (in the form of marks, etc) if they were kicked out of the raid, because that clearly would be a bug - it should be obvious that a raid leader in WG should not be in a position to decide who can and cannot participate in WG.

It's hard to say precisely what Blizzard will suspend for. If I recall correctly, they suspended teams who used the Flower Power bug in Ulduar, despite spellsteal being a valid tool to use.

In relation to the point about being kicked out of WG, you stated in your post:

"Even an ideal hit on a siege and keeping 2-3 people alive is nothing compared the 2-3 more tenacity that our team would have if I kick 7 useless players."

Unfortunately, because they're not removed from WG entirely, you won't have that tenacity. You're relying on them feeling offended enough (and be arrogant enough to think they can) not to 'help' you take WG anymore. However, if they truly are leeches, they'll stay around for the WG marks and honor points.

Anonymous said...

you can macro it

/wgclean ban %t [reason here]

this will ban the guy who you are targetting.
just make macros for every reason you can have.

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon
Reading EULA (which you accept every patch) will show that Blizzard can actually ban anyone for whatever actions they don't like, as 'repeatedly casting flashy spells in crowded area' or 'griefing' (can't remember the exact words but those are close).

Visalyar said...

Interesting results, since our BG-premade is on vacation-status I´d propably have to transfer a toon to observe the results.

Its quite logic, that the RL has to be what he´s ment to be, a leader. So he has to keep an permanent eye on the map to find leeching M&S. I think this could get quite boring but is necessary as you´ve seen by the sneeky fishing M&S (and possibly some of his fellows).

A little hint here, if you have gatherer active in WG raid you can see farming leecher who also use gatherer. It doesn´t catch up 90 or 80% but we´ve found 2-4 leecher a battle in usual. (I men those who actually farm there during the battle fo the nitpickers)

Nice work there with the addon by the way.

Gevlon said...

@Squishalot: absolutely true. I rely only on that. However it works pretty well in practice. As I said 3/4 behaved himself and 1/4 left for good.

@Anonymous: practically yes, they can ban anyone, anytime. However it would be pretty bad PR to do so. We are using an INTENDED program feature. Every raid leader has the power to kick anyone from his raid. We are not kicking him from WG, just from the raid.

@Visalyar: the gatherer is a dubious thing. A completely legitimate player can also gather a node that was in his way. I mean we can let everyone to have 2-5 SECONDS slack.

Visalyar said...

@Gevlon:
me: "(I me{a}n those who actually farm there during the battle fo{r} the nitpickers)"
{okay bad usage of my keyboard}
you: "I mean we can let everyone to have 2-5 SECONDS slack."

Yes we go hand in hand there. But we have several farmers running WG during battle with gatherer raidmessages active (almost double M&S I´d call them) sending 10-12 notes per battle (thats a bit too mouch).

As always finding and idetifying M&S has no perfect way, you always have to go by the hints.

Energybomb said...

Aye, even I gather an odd node here and there. I actually havev a rule:
i) i always gather titanium. Sorry, but that's 20g right there
ii) if there is no serious time pressure, i gather rich saronites.
iii) i ignore simple saronites.

Realistically, i gather 1-2 veins per wintergrasp which is minimal slack. This isn't a big problem

Unknown said...

As far as I am concerned, ability of a raid leader to kick a member is nothing but default raid functionality. It really does not involve any exploits.

The case of obvious bugs is different. The fact that they are executeable by "wise use of game mechanics", e.g., spell stealing the immortality and infinite spell-power shield in Naxxramas, does not make them less of a bug.

Since they haven't really banned Gearscore yet (the usege of which can become extremely abusive in M&S vs M&S social status wars), I don't think they will ban this addon or users of it.

If the addon really becomes widespread outside Agamaggan and causes some noticeable QQ on Forums, then it's quite trivial to remove the kicking ability of a raid leader in certain auto-assembled raids.

Treeston said...

@Anonymous: You can actually keybind "ban target". Check the key binding menu.

Anonymous said...

Will I get put on your blacklist for stating I play this game or fun? You think it's ok for you to decide who gets to participate in WG battles and who doesn't? Just want to get that clear.

Anonymous said...

"@Anonymous: practically yes, they can ban anyone, anytime. However it would be pretty bad PR to do so. We are using an INTENDED program feature. Every raid leader has the power to kick anyone from his raid. We are not kicking him from WG, just from the raid."

You are also kicking him from the zone. How do you not know this.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: no, they stay in the zone, I sometimes get whisper from them "lol i can still leech"

@Previous anonymous: yes. You openly declare that you do not even try to win. The "i play 4 fun" kids cannot play with gamers who want to win. If one of us gets lead, we kick you. If one of you gets lead you kick us (or we leave as winning is impossible).

Visalyar said...

@Energybomb:
"Realistically, i gather 1-2 veins per wintergrasp which is minimal slack. This isn't a big problem"

Yes, thats okay (I´d even recommend that since ore is gold...). Even if you could be lucky and gather 4-6 but 10 and above I get the good old fuzzy feeling of a leecher.

"i) i always gather titanium. Sorry, but that's 20g right there
ii) if there is no serious time pressure, i gather rich saronites.
iii) i ignore simple saronites."
I´ll spread that one, gives some regulation to premade groups and keeps our designated RL from shouting.

Anonymous said...

"@Previous anonymous: yes. You openly declare that you do not even try to win. The "i play 4 fun" kids cannot play with gamers who want to win. If one of us gets lead, we kick you. If one of you gets lead you kick us (or we leave as winning is impossible)."

I play for fun, and I try to win. Why wouldn't I? I do a good job of it too, not that that has stopped you from kicking me before. Incidentally, when kicked from the raid you get booted to icecrown.

You think winning is impossible if someone other than you gets raid lead?

Anonymous said...

If the blacklist and trustlist are auto-synchronized, how does somebody get off the blacklist or trustlist of -everybody-? Removing somebody from one blacklist would just result in them being re-added to the blacklist during the next auto-sync, or is there something to prevent this?

Gevlon said...

@Previous anonymous: get over yourself. Simply approach one of the trustlisted people and tell you won't troll the chat again and do so. You'll be un-blacklisted. Also, don't miss Friday post

@Last Anonymous: date stops it. If you are blacklisted at 13:00, this data is distributed to everyone. Now you are unbanned at 15:30. Next sync the more recent data (the unban) beats the old data (ban).

Anonymous said...

"@Previous anonymous: get over yourself. Simply approach one of the trustlisted people and tell you won't troll the chat again and do so. You'll be un-blacklisted. Also, don't miss Friday post"

I would say it's you who has to get over yourself. I should not have to beg someone to be allowed into WG. I have never trolled WG raid chat (or any chat) and I never will. Just because you for some bizarre reason consider saying that trolling, does not mean I should be kicked. Your arrogance is astounding.

hamster said...

Just a note to the people who've said the M&S who are kicked can still leech honor:

This isn't entirey true. Since they aren't in the raid, they'll get zero HK's and be unable to complete the daily quests. So while they can still leech honor, they won't get that much and will probably leave.

Also, since most of the M&S are social, they'll feel bad not being in the raid. This will cause them to log out, and log onto their opposite faction alt, and then go unwittingly sabotage the other team.

Treeston said...

@Anonymous: Every ban entry consists of two values: a "banned" boolean flag and a UNIX timestamp of the update date. The most recent entry recieved will be applied on a sync.

Tonus said...

I think that what you are seeing is that many players give up when they see that M&S are ruining WG. They don't try to deal with the situation, they just shrug their shoulders and accept the loss. If another player comes along and shows that he is willing to do the work to make WG a success, they eventually join up.

Over time, I would bet that all but the most stupid of them will join you and follow your orders. People follow success.

Mnemonic said...

I understand your method in which to win WG, it is effective and it often must be done in order to make things happen.

Stalin's words, "To make an omelette you must break some eggs.."

But the philosophy of it all comes to this, unless you are pre-making those WG raids, the programming will automatically select a raid leader.

So yes you have the desire to win, the M&S have the desire to "pwn lol" but where in the situation under ethical and moral standards are you personally placed with the right and the power to determine who stays and who goes? This is keeping in mind with a Programming selected raid leader, not a pre-made raid.

This isn't a shot at you, but a question. Where do you get this kind of entitlement to determine where people go and what people do when they are simply playing the game as intended, just as you are? Albeit the way they are playing, their personal intentions are not the same as yours, and most usually for their own personal gain.

Many of those Catapulting-pwnlol M&S may be in WG for entirely different reasons, people who only pvp and are farming HK's. Sure it is frowned upon by many, but who are we to say its "the wrong way" or is "stupid and moronic."

What you are doing is trying to put a strangle-hold on other people's gameplay, people who don't play the same as you do. And I agree the catapulter's and sunken ring brawlers is a waste for those actually trying to accomplish the goal of the event, but it is still an intended function of the event, how the tide carves the coast and the battle turns is what it is, but unless you are pre-building a raid, you are not entitled to determine what those people in it should be doing.

Rather than making your cute little cool-kids club addon, I suggest you form your own raid and get things done, but I have a feeling that wont be the case, you are far too concerned with "destroying the M&S and ruining their gameplay." Which I would say is a futile effort.

sha said...

So the fisherman is leaching by being in the raid while he is fishing because he was in WG when it started. You kicked and put him on the ban list because he was, from your perspective, useless M&S.
Did you leave him on your ban list and expect him to beg to get off the banned list in the future? A person like that should be kicked from the current raid but why would you want him banned in future raids? It seems like a waste of both peoples time to have to go through the whisper process. He was just being a goblin maximizing his returns for his time.

Gevlon said...

@Mnemonic: many things in the game are randomly selected, like loot in the default loot system. Someone gets RL and from that point it is his raid. He declare aims and for the others it's his way or the highway. Next battle they get their chance to be RL. If I'm the RL, I'll kick the catapult riding lolkid. If he is the RL, it IS his right to say "lets build catatrain and make screenshotz lulz". I won't argue, I simply leave the battle.

@hamster, tonus: absolutely true

@kicked anonymous: You have equal chance to get RL and then kick me and declare "thiz raid iz 4 fun". But if I get the lead, you play properly and don't troll. Or you're out.

Anonymous said...

This addon is griefing, I plan on using it to ban rival guilds from wintergrasp on my home server, until it gets changed.

Healer24 said...

Gevlon wrote: "You openly declare that you do not even try to win. The "i play 4 fun" kids cannot play with gamers who want to win."

Just to nitpick a little bit here. I know what kind of person you're referring to when you say this. However, I should point out that we all play for fun or we would find some other game. The difference is that your fun revolves around winning, and anyone who's dragging you down is actively impeding your ability to have fun.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think you'd mind losing wintergrasp at all as long as it was a case where both sides were motivated and intelligent. The other side being superior doesn't matter as much as feeling like you should have won but were dragged down by morons who weren't even trying.

Visalyar said...

I don´t get the people who support the leeching waste-of-raidslots.
Aint it also your time? Aint it wasted if you join up WG and you get your usual loss?

Why do you support those who don´t want to listen and don´t want to do anything?
Do you actually invite these lolkids into your raids to make happy wiperaids?

I think not.
If you do, I´d be suprised to see someone who waste´s his time and gold in a new splendet way.

Anonymous said...

"@kicked anonymous: You have equal chance to get RL and then kick me and declare "thiz raid iz 4 fun". But if I get the lead, you play properly and don't troll. Or you're out."

Stop with the constant strawman arguements gevlon, you should be above that. I makes you look pathetic.

Do you really want WoW to be reduced to this petty pointless infighting? I have no desire to ban you, I want to win WG as much as you do. (despite what you keep saying on this blog). However I am not going to sacrifice mine or anyone elses enjoyment to do so. Everyone in there is paying the same amount to play this game. I'm not playing to grief people or feel superior like you do. You are a bully. You are griefing. You are out to ruin peoples gaming experience, just because you consider yourself above them.

Cyrell said...

What's to stop your addon becoming a way for people on some servers to create a "clique" of people they wish to play with? Everyone of Blizzard's customers pays the same amount of money every month to play this game, and neither you, nor anyone else out of those subscribers has the right to throw them out of a publicly joinable raid. If the mechanics of the game allow them to be there, you can't kick them out for playing badly. Allowing your addon would be a terrible business move by Blizzard and supporting this kind of segregation is not something I envision them doing.

Eenheid said...

I am confused why Gevlon seems to be not understanding or ignoring a point that many people are raising.
The point: Despite the ability to change the odds by flying in or making a “click button macro,” who is WG leader is meant to be random. Being RL is not a sign of your authority being approved, others submitting to your rule, or you being superior or having moral superiority in any way. What right do you have to impose your will on others, given that they have done nothing to accept your rule other than play the game?

Gevlon’s only response that might be considered an answer, “well when you are RL you can do it to me,” seems unsatisfying. The complainers dislike the idea of anyone imposing their will on everyone – they are not appeased by knowing that they could do it back. They think it is wrong for anyone to be doing this.
It seems like Gevlon’s only available response here is “Wrong? Morals? Idc about morality lol.” Gevlon isn’t interested in playing the morality game seriously, just like some of the ‘M&S’ aren’t interested in playing the Wintergrasp game seriously.

Gevlon said...

@Cyrell: EVERY raid make some kind of selection, even if it's just GS or "who are my friends". While I pay my $15, I am not entitled to be in YOUR raid. ICC is not yours but your ICC raid is yours. WG is not mine. The WG raid when I'm RL IS mine. Similarly: you have no less right to the quest mob as I have. But if I pulled it then it's mine and not yours unless I inv you to my party.

@Eenheid: the existence of a RL makes ORDER. The randomness of being RL creates EQUALITY. If you want to hold a catapult party, you'll have your chance and I have the option to leave. I simply offer a time split: now I'm RL it's my way, next time you are RL and it's in your way. Once everyone will have his way. Without order, there is anarchy. NO ONE can do what he wants as everyone else are entitled to double cross you.

Steve said...

Its quite logic, that the RL has to be what he´s ment to be, a leader. So he has to keep an permanent eye on the map to find leeching M&S. I think this could get quite boring but is necessary as you´ve seen by the sneeky fishing M&S (and possibly some of his fellows).

Unknown said...

In this case Gevlon is not even strawmanning, he is merely stating that a raid leader in current state of game can kick any raid member from a WG raid for any reason he choses to.

The same way any raid member can leave a raid for any reason.

It's all symmetrical.

And the "I pay the same subscribtion" is fail, since $15 < $15 * n, where n > 1. It does in no way imply that the other people can't kick you just because you don't want to win and play for whatever bizzarre interpretion of fun.

Soge said...

Gevlon is not stopping anyone from lolling around with a catapult. He is simply making a system where such stupid behavior (That should be universally accepted) is clearly and undeniably frowned upon. After you are kicked from the raid, you can keep doing that, and no one is stopping you from doing that.

It is like saying that a group getting All slots as sieges and making so that people can't build catapults is impending them from enjoying the game, and is griefing, and what makes you think you have the right to stop everyone from having their catapults and that you should be banned forever for even thinking of that. Such thinking is obviously COMPLETELY RETARDED, but too many are subscribing to that.

Glyph, the Architect said...

All this talk of morality. "It's wrong to remove someone from the raid because you interfere with their fun!"

Bring me to your ICC raid. I promise to bring my 100% D game. 400 dps autofollow all the way. I might even decide to pull threat and "accidentally" wipe us on occasion. You can't kick me from the raid when we fail to hit the enrage timer though. That would be ruining my fun!

The point is: True, it may be morally wrong to ruin someone else's fun. Look at it this way: By removing these people from the raid (and preventing them from having a negative impact on WG), Gevlon is ruining the fun of these 10 or so people. By leaving them in the raid (reducing tenacity and providing free HKs to the other side for promotion), the so called M&S who would have been kicked are now ruining the fun of everyone else in WG by refusing to help with executing battle strategy or do anything else that's useful while leeching free HKs and marks off the people actually trying to win.

Both sides in the "Who gets removed" dispute are morally grey. Both sides ruin other people's fun. The difference is that the Getting Kicked Out side is ruining a much larger number of peoples' fun, and they are getting nothing to show for it as well.

Anonymous said...

"And the "I pay the same subscribtion" is fail, since $15 < $15 * n, where n > 1. It does in no way imply that the other people can't kick you just because you don't want to win and play for whatever bizzarre interpretion of fun."

I have never said I don't want to win. I have said the opposite, several times. I am saying enjoying myself is not tied to winning. I don't need the sense of accomplishment from winning. This does not stop me from trying my hardest to win. I am not a 'lolkid' nor do I fool around in catapults.

This is not a 'bizarre interpretation of fun'. This is normal.

And no Gevlon, if you 'win' raid lead, it is not your raid. It's hilarious that you think that. You are doing nothing noble here, it's griefing, as done by many 'lolkids' before you. On being kicked from the raid, you are kicked out of wintergrasp. This will happen every time you get kicked.

Anonymous said...

Im wondering how a GM will respond to a ticket that says something along the line of [I am unable to join the raid group in WG every time I zone in I am auto removed.]

That is where you will get your answer I guess and based on how many people complain about it. If nobody does then it will stay Gevlongrasp

Anonymous said...

"I pay the same subscribtion" is fail, since $15 < $15 * n, where n > 1. It does in no way imply that the other people can't kick you just because you don't want to win and play for whatever bizzarre interpretion of fun.

Carl said...

I'm pretty sure the RL can assign someone else to take over his position just like in a regular raid. So if you have gained enough reputation among regulars, you can just ask to be promoted to RL everytime with the promise of leading them to victory.

Anonymous said...

What's to stop your addon becoming a way for people on some servers to create a "clique" of people they wish to play with? Everyone of Blizzard's customers pays the same amount of money every month to play this game, and neither you, nor anyone else out of those subscribers has the right to throw them out of a publicly joinable raid. If the mechanics of the game allow them to be there, you can't kick them out for playing badly. Allowing your addon would be a terrible business move by Blizzard and supporting this kind of segregation is not something I envision them doing.

Anonymous said...

the things here is as follows: If you queue up in LFD, if you join the bg queue, if you join the WG queue, that means that you will get paired with random people, and you'll have to make the best out of it.

You can't remove people from a bg, and while you can remove them from an instance, you do need enough support from the group for a vote-kick. If the BG is horrid, or the instance group is horrid and the rest won't support you, you can leave. Or, well, you can try to verbally bully the people you deem to be wrong out of the bg/instance, but that won't always work.

Joining a WG raid as it is now is like joining a BG or an instance. It's meant to work just as LFD and BG queues do, and while it's technically possible for the WG raid leader to kick people, I don't think they're supposed to, and Blizzard does frown on people who do something that is possible on a technicality.

On another issue: I've been reading you for quite some time, Gevlon, because while I often disagreed with you, I found a lot of stuff you did interesting and even admirable (blue raids, for example). However, now that you have a large audience, it really feels like this has gone to your head. What you're doing here really is essentially bullying.

I'd recommend contacting Blizzard and asking them if this kind of add-on is ok with them.

Vesoom said...

I have to say that I was skeptical whether this idea would work or not. I'm rather excited today to see Gevlon applying his rational goblin principle to lead/control the M&S. What a great example to show that M&S are not motivated by the same things as most of us, like winning WG when its up, but they are motivated by purely social ideas. AND that they can be lead/controlled by someone that understands these ideas and how to use them. After looking at the screen shot I would say that 4 defenses in a row has been quite rare/never happened (since those statistics began) on that server, excellent statistical evidence for Gevlon's case.

P.S. @ the arguement that you should not kick people that are fishing because they are using WG as intended. I highly doubt that Blizzard intended a battleground to be used for fishing to the detriment of the players that are there to win. Pretty sure the "intended" usage of a BG is to win.

Phelps said...

What's to stop your addon becoming a way for people on some servers to create a "clique" of people they wish to play with?

What makes you think that an addon is needed to make cliques?

Hell, that's pretty much the definition of a guild. Is there some reason that you think Blizzard is against the idea of guilds?

Coeur-de-fer said...

Absolutely precious. All of this "I shouldn't have to [...]" and "I should be able to [...]" nonsense, and without anything to back it up. The moralizing tripe doesn't lend you any credibility. The simple fact of the matter is that some forms of "fun" are mutually exclusive, as Glyph's post nicely illustrates. None of these forms are objectively better than any other, and trying to argue such is idiotic. What possible reason can there be to yield to the competition, and grant them their fun at your expense? Do you feel obliged to take the 400 dps autofollow waste of space to ICC for fear of denying him his fun? No? Then do you consider yourself an ego-maniacal griefer? After all, he pays his $15 just like you. Isn't he entitled to his fun, whatever that may be?

Sorry, "WG isnt instance lol" isn't an argument. There are no special rules dictating how and why a raid leader is permitted to kick a given raid member, either inside or outside of an instance. The "house rules" to which you and your friends subscribe mean absolutely nothing until Blizzard sees fit to make such a distinction. The random selection of the leader is immaterial; the selected leader can kick at his discretion, at the risk of retribution in the future when he is not the leader. The fact that the selection process can be skewed in your favor is likewise inconsequential, as there's nothing stopping anyone else from taking the same steps to increase their odds as well. You don't want to go to the trouble? Feel "I shouldn't have to"? Congratulations on your entitlement complex.

latusthegoat said...

One thing which the opponents to this addon are apparently missing:

Everyone can form their own raid. Gevlon can form his because there are people who support it. If a banned player wants to get all the other banned players into a raid and be social together in WG, nobody is going to stop them. WG FUNCTIONS out of multiple raid groups.

Nikodhemus said...

Using this add-on seems to be a gray area in the Blizzard Agreement, giving the power to not only kick people you don't care for but being able to ban them from an area completely seems to be stretching the policies a bit. I'm going to avoid using this, though I'm glad you had success, Gevlon!

Wilson said...

@Vesoom -

Then why are there fish there? If Blizz doesn't want me to fish during a battle, why don't they temporarily remove them?

Denethal said...

The only reason people are objecting this addon is simple:

They are now suddenly responsible for their own actions.

It's that innate fear of actually being punished for presenting a bloating retarded behavior that you can get away with everywhere else in this game. The worst thing they've faced so far is an /ignore or maybe a kick from that LFG group you're running around like a buffoon in.

I'm actually tempted to resubscribe to WoW again, just because of this addon. It would be nice to actually have a chance at winning, since you now can actually breathe and focus on what you are doing and not be annoyed about other peoples idiotic behavior.

Gevlon said...

@Denethal: winning is not something we get, it's something we take by effort. We finally fought the good fight, decided to kick morons. If you want to join back, you'd be welcome.

@Wilson: /dance emote is working in the platform of the Lich King during the hard mode encounter. It does not mean you should /dance during LK HM.

Vesoom said...

@Wilson,

"Then why are there fish there? If Blizz doesn't want me to fish during a battle, why don't they temporarily remove them?"

Indeed. And the ability to kick people out of your raid for any or no reason is there as well. If one is intended by virtue of its existence then so is the other.

You are welcome to fish during battle if you also accept that the RL is free to kick you for doing so. Sounds fair all around, and you'll probably get away with it most of the time.

Also, I'm in complete agreement with Glyph and Coeur-de-fer about mutually exclusive fun, although they said it much better than I could.

Soge said...

I really hope people are trolling here, since the prevalent argument misses the fact that, when you get kicked from Wintergrasp's raid, you don't need to leave Wintergrasp. The guy will keep sucking Tenacy up until he leaves THE MAP.

Indeed, it is possible to simply enter WG near the end of the battle and get your marks, regardless of marks or no.

Wilson said...

@Gevlon

If I invite someone to an ICC raid and they /dance instead of fighting, then I have every right to un-invite them.

Nobody invites anyone to Wintergrasp, however. Calling the two equivalent is silly.

Visalyar said...

@Wilson:
"Nobody invites anyone to Wintergrasp, however. Calling the two equivalent is silly."

Nobody denied fishing in BGs was leeching. Calling the two equivalent is absolutly right.

Kurt said...

@Wilson and @one of the anonymous's

"
Nobody invites anyone to Wintergrasp, however. Calling the two equivalent is silly."

Historically, you had to manually invite ppl to wintergrasp raid. Putting you in the raid automatically is a recent thing. Blizzard, when making this change, left in the ability of the raid leader to kick, which you don't have in BG's. Therefore, they are indeed equivalent, via Blizzard's clearly intentional design. You are free to say that they "shouldn't" be equivalent, but the fact is that they currently ARE equivalent, the raids function the same once formed.


"Joining a WG raid as it is now is like joining a BG or an instance. It's meant to work just as LFD and BG queues do, and while it's technically possible for the WG raid leader to kick people, I don't think they're supposed to,"

As I mentioned above, the WG raid functionality is currently on it's 2nd or 3rd iteration. Saying that it's meant to work differently than it currently does is either deceptive or naive. Whichever it is, you're wrong.

Cyrell said...

A lot of you are really missing the point. Perhaps I'm not making myself clear enough. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a raid leader, even in WG or future Tol Barad, making sure his/her team is competent enough to complete the Battleground objectives.

What I'm complaining about is the slippery slope effect this kind of addon has. You might be using it to make playable WG raids now, but I'm sure someone very soon will be using it to lock out anyone they don't like from WG raids, by going there early, spamming macros to get RL and then taking over. If you check the Beta you know that they are limiting the amount of players that can join Tol Barad. It will become even easier for griefer and troublemaker guilds to shut down content that should be available to everyone.

The addon gives you too much power and automates things that are obviously the relics of an outdated raid system brought over from EQ. And as others have pointed out, after the first few complaints, most likely the way these "public" raids work will be changed.

And finally, WG is not an instance. You should still realize that whether or not you kick someone from your raid or not makes not much difference if they decide to grief you back by simply coming back to WG, killing guards to get to pilot rank and then fooling around with catapults all day long. In fact, if I was on your server I'd probably do this with my guild just to screw up YOUR WG experience. Who are you to stop me playing the game how I want to, after all?

Anonymous said...

@"Where do you get this kind of entitlement to determine where people go and what people do when they are simply playing the game as intended, just as you are?"

"Entitlement" is a terrible word choice for this statement. "Entitlement" is represented by the "i pay my $15 a month just like u lol" and the other well established standard quotes of that type.

Leadership is not gained via sense of entitlement. It is gained through initiative -- the initiative to take action and make order from chaos. It is gained through confidence -- the confidence to believe that you can guide a group to execute a strategy that has a higher chance of winning than everyone doing their own thing. It is gained through respect -- the respect that is earned (or lost) based on the performance of each and every group that chooses to follow your leadership. Leadership doesn't require a raid leader position or the assistance of an addon, it simply requires these 3 things. Being raid leader and having the addon are simply additional tools, and as someone already mentioned, if your peers respect you and have confidence in your ability to lead, there is a chance regulars may fork over the raid leader spot in order to facilitate a win.

Gevlon has made his goal clear -- to win WG despite leeching M&S. He has also put forth the intellectual effort to design a tool to help him achieve this goal. Every single member of the raid has the option to choose whether or not they wish to accept his leadership and whether or not their goals align with his.

If Gevlon's strategy of kicking every loling M&S in order to coerce them into cooperation doesn't produce desirable results (aka WG wins) for the raid, people have no obligation to stay.

If his leadership proves unsuccessful, every single person in the raid can voluntarily drop the raid and reform under another leader if another might be willing to take on that responsibility.

Keep in mind, a group executing even a weak (but not counterproductive) strategy will be stronger than a group with no strategy at all. Because of this, people are nearly always willing to accept leadership that produces desirable results.

Anyone who can't accept these concepts is most likely just arguing out of jealousy because he or she lacks some combination of the initiative, confidence, and respect from peers to be a leader.

Gevlon said...

@Cyrell: no one does it as simply no one sees it. Your guildmates would quickly get bored since "itz no fun" to just stand around in a catapult for half an hour.

Talarian said...

I tend to find myself pretty split down the middle when it comes to Gevlon's tactics and ideas, but this one is, frankly, brilliant.

Eventually I see Blizzard implementing something closer to the LFD system where people can vote to kick in random PvP raid groups. If and when Blizzard does that, folks will have their fairness and built in checks and balances around the reins of power in a random PvP raid. Until then? The only way to remove people who aren't contributing positively is the RL kicking them. The fact that he got someone to build a social rating addon to do so is immaterial considering the current toolset Blizzard provides.

Ygg said...

I do not believe this addon is currently being used to abuse and/or grief players (despite not having attended a WG with it active); I think it gives players the chance to play the game in a - for WoW - unique way in a PuG context: with a clear strategy stated that all follow in order to win; this could be an eye-opener for the "M&S" when they "magically" win battle after battle.

Of course individual freedom is precious, but too few remember the condition that it should not harm others; refusing to cooperate in a group where the outcome of a battle relies heavily on team play is directly harming the other players. That is no excuse for revenge, but the most simple and logical solution is to simply exclude those players from the group that do not wish to play as part of a group.

If, in the future, this addon would be used by others to grief and exclude players based on other reasons that lack of intelligent/cooperative play, then that would be an interesting development that I don't see as only negative. It would, for one thing, introduce a harsher and more crude kind of situation in-game than what the designers seem to have in mind for WoW and that I think is lacking. However, it could also, of course, be used to destroy the structure of a WG encounter. However I think it's very hard to prevent destructive behaviour in any other way than letting the persons involved in it understand that it isn't constructive.

Visalyar said...

@Talarian: A little advice here, join rndm BGs only in premade groups. You can easyly vote player AFK and get them to at least farm HKs or they´ll be kicked in 5 minutes (I think it was round about 2 minutes after the big debuff version).

You need 3 votes to get someone "pig"-marked

Visalyar said...

Oh and I forgot the classic noobfilter in rndm BGs (unhappy it does not work in WG)

"/e has voted you AFK please enter "/afk revote" to receive Honor."

got me 500+ tickets by this during BC and some happy GM-Mails (yes they laughed about the tickets).

Squishalot said...

@ Ygg: "However I think it's very hard to prevent destructive behaviour in any other way than letting the persons involved in it understand that it isn't constructive."

You mean, the best way to prevent leeching is to let them understand it's not constructive?

This addon doesn't help to do that. As such, other people on the server will inevitably get the addon and the raid leadership at some point, and kick Gevlon and Co. out, just for the 'fun' of it. Or if not that specifically, then other examples of destructive behaviour, on any server.

Ygg said...

@Squishalot:
No, I mean people using the addon to arbitrarily kick others will be prevented by them realising it's not constructive (of course this does not cover all cases). I wouldn't say leeching falls into that category.

Anonymous said...

No matter what was or will be mentioned the facts remain obvious:

- The best time investment in WG is to achieve victory.

- There are people "logically unable" to effectively contribute to victory, which pretty much makes a "-" (minus)

- Gevlon creates tool and community to counter the mentally unable creating an enviourment I would like to refer as "+". This enviourment properly contributes to victory: best time investment of WG.

- You (most likely) wisht to get a + rather than a - right?

Yes I am talking like a robot and I am not ashamed of it. So if you are a representive of "logically unable"

Anonymous said...

Anonymous says:

"You are doing nothing noble here, it's griefing, as done by many 'lolkids' before you."

How is kicking somebody from the group griefing? It doesn't prevent participation in Wintergrasp. Your inability to explain this point exposes the weakness of your argument.

Anonymous said...

I do not quite understand the "leeching" concept - Blizzard could trivially prevent people from fishing, or herbing or mining, so it is, as they say, "working as intended"

I do not see how the person with the gathering profession will be overly bothered by the loss of some, but not all, honor if they are removed from the raid. A gatherer who desires gold and disdains honor would regard trying to win WG as moronic. And according to their beliefs it would be. They probably would not care about what the lolpvpkids are doing, but it probably would be in their interest to use the addon or something similar to kick from the raid anyone they could. PvP victories are pretty irrelevant to a PvE player, especially in what is essentially a PvE game; and making the raid less attractive would tend to reduce gatherer competition.

WG will have significance for another month. In that time, a minmax PvPer will want to use your addon to kick the nonconformists and a gatherer will want to use it to kick everyone.