Greedy Goblin

Monday, May 2, 2011

They just have different priorities

I hate to tell the obvious, and this is obvious. Or should be. Yet, the most common counter-argument when I point out something absolutely moronic is that the guy "just has different priorities" or "finds other things fun". While we all agree that someone is a moron if he can't reach his own priorities (for example want to raid but can't as he don't have gold for repairs), but if he has different priorities, he is immediately free from blame according to these commenters.

This isn't an argument. Actually it's a total misunderstanding of the post. It is obvious that the guy farming for rare minipet #187 has priorities on minipet collection. However I did not call his action (the farming) moronic. If the most effective (or only available) way to get minipet #187 is to farm them, then farming it is completely rational.

I call him a moron because of his priorities. Because he finds that fun. With an easily understandable example: if you find a guy jerking off to pictures of children, you don't find him disgusting (and in many countries a felon), because of his action. Actually his action is totally harmless. You resent him because his action revealed his sexual priority: he is a pedophile. If he would never do the action and just told you his priorities, you would still resent him.

So I resent and call moron or slacker those who:
  • Slackers: they want to reach things without paying/working for it. They are the leeches. Correction: I have no problem if they leech on worse morons. But if they try to leech on me (or any other non-M&S), forcing us to play negative-sum games just to protect ourselves, I will definitely won't like them and crush them whenever they get in my way.
  • Killers: they play negative-sum games just "for fun", not for prize. I'm annoyed by them as they cost me time and gold even when I win. The "ganker" who jumps on us doing TB dailies costs me 20-30 seconds until we clean up his dumb ass. I don't hate him because he want to take something from me, that would be goblinish. I hate him because he doesn't want to take anything from me. He can't get any reward killing me on the field (honor gain is negligable compared to other sources). Other example: guys who are clearly defeated in a BG but still don't give up, turtle up at their last base/flag and wast 10 more minutes of everyone without even attempting to turn the match. These people do it "for fun", their priority is to show themselves superior to peers in meaningless (non-rewarded) ways. I think they are a plague to the mankind and the World would be a better place without them.
  • Status symbol collectors: they collect items that are useless per se, just to have more than peers. It's a less destructive way of "being better than peers" than being a killer, but still pretty stupid. It's mostly stupid because the guy doesn't even shows his collection, as the real reason (being better than peers) is hidden in his psyche. He just experiences "fun" doing it, so he's doing it. The killer (while more destructive to others) is least honest to himself. Note: I'm not claiming that everyone with high achievement points are such. There are HM raiders who can't do more (as the raid is clear) so waste time with these while being in touch with others and the game they love (maybe trying out other activity would be better but that's debatable).
  • "I can't have it, no one shall has" guy. The one who demeans every success, every progression, every effort. The "lol no lifers" punk (who plays more than the no-lifers).
While you can obviously believe and stand up for the idea that "collecting status symbols is good", but "everyone has different priorities" is nihilism as it claims that every idea is equal and good.

Boal - Frostwolf (US) got the standard moron letter. I can't imagine that these things still exist. I mean glyphs are being sold for 2.5 years!

41 comments:

Andru said...

"While you can obviously believe and stand up for the idea that "collecting status symbols is good", but "everyone has different priorities" is nihilism as it claims that every idea is equal and good."'

I'm having issues with this statement. This is simply a strawman argument, combined with a slippery slope fallacy.

Not all priorities are equal and good, but some are more harmless than others. No one really cares that you colect minipets.

As for killers, you might have a point, but killers have a very precise use if they're properly led. But killer personalities are easy to avoid, at least in WoW. Don't get into conflict with them. There's very little parts in which you absolutely have to face off a killer.

Trying to impose your world view and putting yourself as the authority on what's right and wrong and thinking the world would be better off without them is just a biiiit too Orwellian for my tastes.

Feature said...

I don't understand the arbritary line that you draw between "stupid" and "not stupid". Assuming that you find making gold fun, what makes your pursuit of having as much pixelated gold as possible any more worthy than someone's pursuit of having as many pixelated pets as possible?

I have once again realised that having a purple protodrake is not worth the mind-numbingly boring task that is collecting brightly coloured eggs to me, but if someone else finds it fun, why should I care?

Here is what I find fun at the moment:
- Raiding with my guild
- Blowing stuff up in Fallout III (yes I'm behind the times)
- Learning to play guitar
Is any of these activities inherently better than any of the others?

Eaten by a Grue said...

I do find some irony here. Gevlon, you play World of Warcraft for entertainment. In real life terms, this is the WoW equivalent of collecting minipets. You gain bosskills, achievements, pixel gold, all in the end useless when you quit your gaming activity, and everyone quits eventually.

A rational observer would say that you are a moron who is wasting his time - if you wanted entertainment, you could easily engage in activities which benefit your real life while entertaining you.

Maybe we should leave people's fun-time goals alone, and just pursue our own, and not pass so much judgment in this area.

Squishalot said...

For some reason, I had an intuition feeling that I was going to need to respond to this at some point this week.

The most common argument against the sparklepony is that the 'moron' is paying real money for pixels. As Eaten by a Grue points out - that's exactly what the real world sees about you! To the non-gamer, you are simply another moron (like the other 11 million) who pays a monthly fee for pixels with no real value!

Everyone's priorities are different. The idea that your priorities are somehow more superior to the people whom you would call 'morons' can only be validated philosophically in terms of 'good' or 'bad', which you haven't done.

For example:

Slackers: you say that it's ok if they slack on worse morons. That is just like saying "the pedophile is ok as long as he jerks off on pictures of others, not my kids". For you to be consistent, you should have a problem with them full stop, not 'only when it bothers you'. Your point, as it stands, is meaningless.

Killers: Annoying you doesn't make someone a moron (objectively, in and of itself). You claim he doesn't want to take something from you. Wrong - he does! He wants to take your time away from you! Bad Gevlon for not recognising the trolls of WoW! Your point is meaningless.

Status symbol collectors: Everything in WoW is useless, per se. They're meaningless pixels that belong to Blizzard - they don't even belong to you. Your point is meaningless.

"I can't have it" guy: "I can't bring myself to spend time pursuing achievements or pets, therefore, I will decree such behaviour as moronic" guy fits this description as well.

If something is moronic, it should be objectively moronic to all people. The problem is, all of your 'moronic' activities either have non-moronic motives, or can equally be applied to yourself. Who, therefore, is the moron here?

Wyrmrider said...

"meaningless (non-rewarded)"

I know you don't believe that the worth of an in-game activity is measured by how many shinies it awards, so perhaps you should rephrase.

Anonymous said...

Re "and crush them whenever they get in my way." - this is not EVE, it is a PvE game with anonymous alts and griefing prohibited. How can you even mildly annoy someone in WoW, let alone "crush" them?

A lot of people are leaving WoW these days. If you eBay your account, pets and achievement points will be worth more than raid kills. An Armani War Bear or even netherwing mount is worth a lot more in the marketplace than a LK with 0% kill. In a month or two and certainly by fall nobody will care about Nef kills or gear. Perhaps not to you but to enough people, pets and mounts do matter, With the possible exception of AQ 40 and MC, unlike pets/mounts, old raid conquests quickly do not matter.

Odies said...

I think this post is hypocritical.

Gevlon started this guild to prove that you did could raid high level content without a strict raiding guild format.

He has proven his point - it has now become a social guild as he is paying others to gain guild achiements - a purely social activity to show off how great the guild is!

Gevlon seems to have fallen of the rails.....

Anonymous said...

The killer gets something: skill.
To test your 1vs1 fighting skills you can do duels, but thats a very controlled and limited environment. Using all the avallable means to win if frowned upon and you hardly get jumped by onother person in fight.

Pilgaard said...

"I think they [killers] are a plague to the mankind and the World would be a better place without them."

Hypothetically speaking, would the world have been a better place from a nazists perspective, had the jews, gypsies etc. never existed, meaning that the nazis would not have had anyone to blame?

Your passion is bashing M&S (incl. killers). What if there were no M&S? (Or is it on purpose, that only the killers are a plague to mankind?)

KhasDylar said...

@Anrdu - Gevlon almost always tries to put himself into authority and as the examples say, he's more times successful, than not. Of course, noone can or should tell people, what is good or bad according to their tastes, as tastes are a very personal thing and very subjective and should not be governed from 'above' - this is not the point of todays post either. Preferring to collect pets above gearing up for raiding (meaning: looking for a raider guild / putting time into raiding, making some effort, etc.), while someone claims, he/she wants to raid, but can't from some outside reason - now, that's moronic and can be judged by objective viewpoints.

@Feature - something is stupid or not stupid depending if it fits the goals, you sat yourself. If you set yourself the goal to collect every single minipet in the game in the least time and you put a lot of effort into that goal - that's not moronic. Okay, for Gevlon, who doesn't like mounts and companion pets, this could still be stupid, but I say, as long as you make steps for your own goals, it's okay. If you say "I want to kill Cho'gall" and you are still running around transformed into a bunny and cry on the shoulders of your "friends" (beware: the skulls on Heaving Plates of Protection can bite!), that you don't have the opportunity to kill even Halfus - now, that's what I call moronic and stupid.
Collecting pixel gold is not pointless, unless you use that gold or just set yourself the goal to reach gold cap. Of course, collecting gold just to have more gold is moronic and as such, is pointless - Gevlon funds his projects with his gold and as so, he uses it for his own goals.
You ask why should you care about someone finds it fun to collect bright eggs? Imagine that you are a raider in a social guild and every single raid is canceled for a week because of the Noblegarden event, 'cause some of your friends "need" to collect some eggs: how would you feel yourself?

@Grue - deriving your claims it would be also pointless for some "rational observer" to play football: some people are running around for a ball, just to when they reach it, kick it away - isn't that pointless and as such moronic and stupid? Yet, playing football is a valid and accepted way to spend your free time and playing WoW is not - according to "rational observers". Gevlon is not speaking about fun time goals; he's speaking about to lie to yourself about your fun time goals or working against a group for some wrongly derived fun factor.

Dalrian said...

I agree with the biggest part of your post, but the part about "killers" interests me.

I read and post quite a lot in the blizzard PvP forums, where these complaints pop up once in a while as well, but I have never seen a PvP orientated player make a post like that.

In the case, the problem really is that players have different interests. I'm an active PvPer, and you are an active PvEer, and that's where the difference is.

I play PvP because I like it, not to obtain gear, and not even merely for the rating. Why I like it, is something I can't explain, but I guess you can't explain why you prefer stabbing dragons above PvP either. It's just something you do, and which you cannot explain.

So where you see someone who kills you in TB as a griefer, and as an annoying moron, I see him as someone who enjoys World PvP. World PvP has been pretty much dead since flying mounts came into the game, but with the release of TB there is finally some action again. TB is a PvP area, and if you don't like it, then it's not your place for questing. It's not like you need to do those dailies in order to succeed in PvE.

So in the end I think that this has everything to do with different interests. You like PvE and quests, we like PvP, and that's why we try to kill you, and hope for a good fight in return. That player you killed after he tried attacking you, didn't think "oh no, I died, now peers will think I'm stupid", but he thought "wow, that was a good fight. Let's find someone else to fight now". Or at least that's what I would think.

Maybe some of these players are actually M&S, but as a PvPer I love doing some world PvP, especially since I know quite a few people on my realm, which makes killing them even more interesting.

Anonymous said...

There are quite some inconsistencies here. First of all in all your discussions I never found a consistent definition on what is a “good way” of spending time in wow. The reason is very obvious in my view: If one is honest, than the game by itself is a waist of time. One can obviously claim that leading a guild or a raid helps in developing leadership skills or similar things. In my view though this experiences can be made in real life with a higher benefit to effort/risk rate just because the benefit is real. By organizing for example as a middle school student a party for your co-students the effort is time wise not much higher than if you run a guild and the expenses are maybe covert by your school. The benefit though is much higher as in addition to your learning how to organize and lead, other people enjoying this party and you may gain some “real money” income if you performed well. In addition you also gain something useful for your CV (a friend of mine for example was admitted to a very good college because of him having been student representative and such things).
So to me spending much time for anything in the games is generally speaking of no or lower benefit to any person than spending it wisely in RL. By this it should be clear that “x is moron but y is not because collecting pets ore achievement points is more moron than collecting in game money” is just window-dressing as both should know that spending time in the virtual world is a bit moronic. There is nothing you can buy with achievement points and in my view there is nothing significant you can by with gold in wow either*.
The only thing you ever can get is either just clearing your mind from a stressful day - For this purpose what you do is insignificant – or you get some kind of acknowledgment for how well you spent your time. (Being first to kill bosses or being the first to get achievements)
Another mistake of yours in this (and other) blogs is to neglect all mounts and similar rewards as something only dumb people want because it is of no use. In real-life stupid status symbols like cars can actually help you to get the better looking woman - to use a terrible stereotype witch is anyways true -
To conclude: Your initial theory about M&S taking raiding as an example is nice, but extending this to what everybody is doing in-game and how a pet farmer is more moron than someone who uses wow as a economy simulator is not feasible.

PS: The example of the paedophile is stupid as by him cliquing on the paedophile web page gives the cliques witch helps them to get publicity witch in turn gives them incentive to do awful things to children once again. Therefore going to this pages and jerking off is harmful.
Collecting pets in wow is not.

* I am having a doubt here that you are actually buying with gold other people’s time and commitment to be the guild master of a well know and successful guild witch is actually better than having a violet proto-drake as a druid; And all this with money witch is actually coming in just with the cash flow guild perk. One would have to comment on this smart move in a separate post

Nerdrager said...

The moron of the day isn't entirely wrong on this matter; 2,5 years ago the glyph market was different (high volume-low margin market) from what it is today (lower volume-higher margin).
Deep undercutting makes less sense than in the past unless you're trying to drive away people from the market, but 60g is still too high to achieve that since it's well above the material costs even if you use the ink trader instead of milling cheaper herbs.
Selling at lower prices won't make big differences in the amount of glyphs you sell unless I greatly understimate the amount of people rerolling on a new realm without lvl 80s to support them and 65g is too much anyway for the average low level player who can't be bothered by some copper mining and struggles with riding skills and training costs.

Anyway I sell enough glyphs for my needs and a volume increase would just mean more time spent milling/crafting/reposting.

I'm enjoying the glyph market a lot more than during wrath and the book of glyph mastery prices are an incredible entry barrier (that won't last for long I'm sure, blizzard will make it easier) on top of the months of daily researches you have to do in order to have all the recipes.

TLDR the moron of the day is dumb because he decided to write the letter instead of quietly undercutting, but might be right on the glyph market.

Anonymous said...

Killers: they play negative-sum games just "for fun", not for prize.

The prize is progression in skill. You don't hunt for those who are no match. You hunt for those matches where you only win closely or lose as you can learn from those and get better.

Anonymous said...

If you hate killers so much, doesn't it seem odd to start the whole ganking project? IIRC you started that to prove a point. How is that any more rational than ganking random people in TB to prove that you are l33t or whatever?

vicart said...

Hmm I'm unsure what I think of this, I usually agree with you're take on the m&s however; by collecting mini pets they are working toward an achievement, by paying for shadowmourne, you as a guild are working toward the achievement as a collective, the only difference is how valuable that acheivment is to the player, and in fact your achievement is a more "social" one as it's done as a collective where the person who collects mini pets (however lame you might think the achievement is) gains this acheivement alone, and cannot show it off as no one actually cares. this is surely a less social mentality?

Anonymous said...

As every activity in WoW changes some meaningless bits somewhere, it's all the same. You are playing it for fun, so you want to maximise your fun. If this is by killing other players, collecting minipets or getting boss kills, who cares.

However, if you get fun out of owning minipets, it would be moronic to farm them if you could just buy them much cheaper in the AH. But if you get fun by farming them, then farm them.

Anonymous said...

I don't think your masturbation example is very apt. Actually, I would find a guy jerking off to child porn extremely abhorrent. His action is not at all harmless, as many children are taken advantage of and abused by punks like him.

Middleton said...

First your pedophile example is wrong. While masturbating to child porn may not be as terrible as raping a child, it is not victimless. Both because that person is driving himself further into this behavior, and creating more demand for the material.

Also you can call pet and achievement hunters morons, but you have to accept that this is an opinion. As others have said everything in the game is equally pointless in the real world, the only value is one's personal entertainment.

scotth said...

I guess I am confused as to why participating in Tol Barad is a good priority (as long as the player does what you want them to), but collecting mini pets is a bad priority. I don't see either one as being different, both are essentially time sinks in a video game.

Smitty said...

I think your goal first level 25 guild falls into the catagory "Status symbol collectors". In your terms of definition to be a M&S I cannot find any reason to reach GL 25 - I don't know any benefit beside the status in terms of other players reputation and "admiration". Beside this I think defeating a (heroic) boss (probably in blue/green) is a kind of status collection as well. The more and stronger bosses killed in low equip the biger the status ... What unifies all players like you, me and all other M&S is, we are siting in front of a monitor and want to get entertained.

I am entertained on the way to reach my thousands of thousands of kills, but on this way it is counterproductive to win TB as fast as possible - I prefer a full 30min fight and a lot of zerg. In this terms every player who tries to win fast is a M&S in your definition, because he takes my time waiting in the TB queue with the risk not to get a slot in the TB raid.

Grim said...

"guys who are clearly defeated in a BG but still don't give up, turtle up at their last base/flag and wast 10 more minutes of everyone without even attempting to turn the match"

http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5363

Me said...

As long as you realize that your whole blog would be consisered moronic to those who work in the financial sector, day traders, soldiers and anyone who does daily what you do in a video game.

Gevlon said...

@people who say "you pay for guild acheivements" http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-be-awesome.html

@others: there will be a post on Wednesday.

Deadly Kwob said...

You say "nihilism" like it's a bad thing. In this case, I think it's the proper attitude to have. After all, everything we do in World of Warcraft IS ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Let go of this crazy notion that there are "useful" and "useless" ways to PLAY. Accept that World of Warcraft is entertainment, and as long as you're having fun it's good. I found that this attitude helps me better enjoy the game, and not get so stressed if I don't "progress."

Unless, as seems to be the case, you find it "fun" to believe yourself better than other people. In that case, carry on, I guess. Just realize that, by thinking that playing games better somehow makes you superior, you're just as much a M&S as the rest of us.

Coralina said...

I like a lot of the posts I read on this blog.

However I feel that this one article has gone into "pot and kettle" territory!

I don't think people that invest large amounts of time in an MMORPG should really start identifying activities in the game and rating them in terms of how moronic they are.

Raiding for purple pixels is incredibly moronic as they are replaced every 4 months and just cannot justify the time investment. Sure for the worse players (leeches) in a raid team it can be fun to raid, if like me you were one of the better players (the boosters) it is an exercise in stress and frustration just to keep up with the never ending gear race. Moronic period.

Gold gathering is another moronic activity - it's value eroded by inflation and even the most intelligent players with the highest gold/hour ratio are morons. I hate gold buyers but the currency conversion from real world to virtual currency is laughable so I can't really argue with their logic. I spend five hours grinding gold and they spend an hour longer in work doing overtime to pay for gold and then they can spend the other four hours in the pub laughing at me. Who is moron there?

As others have said, it doesn't matter how you play the game, it is ultimately a complete and utter waste of time which IMO offers very poor value compared to RL activities. Hence why I quit hardcore raiding and started playing casually - I only played the game during those brief periods of time that were too short to do anything of value in the real world. In short I spent my "junk" time on the game.

Sheldon said...

As far as "Why be awesome" goes, you still have shown no evidence that all your "awesomeness" is doing anything to attract people to your guild. According to the armory, you've gained some and you've lost some and you're pretty much the same size as when you started. So I'd say the people questioning your motive for continuing to pay for guild achievements are raising a valid point.

sha said...

You setup a guild that did exactly what you call the killers actions M&S. If you got ganked by that guild, then you would say they need to be destroyed and fall into m&s.

Excluding yourself from a group behavior you call bad because you did it for a reason is exactly what m&s do.

Cyrell said...

Victimless crime? Where did the pictures come from then? Random image generator?

Yaggle said...

I don't really understand the pedophile argument. Why don't I like a pedophile? Because he hurts children. If he whacks off but hurts nobody, I don't dislike him, unless I have children. Then I would consider him dangerous because of his condition because I want to protect my children. If it is guaranteed he hurts nobody, I don't care what he whacks off to, why would I? These people who collect mini-pets, or huntards like me who collect combat pets, their activity does not harm or threaten anybody, does it? I understand the other arguments, about people who try to kill you, or hold you back in your instance, they all are wasting your time. I never cared or was jealous of anybody because they had mini-pets, and only rarely was jealous of somebody with special hunter pet. Maybe he had Krush tamed, and I like the color green a lot so I am a little bit jealous. I certainly do not think they are better than me, I only wish my devilsaur was green, too, even though I know it serves the same purpose. That makes me a bit of a moron. I can tell myself ten times a day that white is just as good as green. The real test comes when I get the green one, and am I more happy? No. So you do us all a good service by pointing out when we are morons. It's good medicine to be found on Greedy Goblin.

Miloh said...

You call the guy farming for a minipet a moron; I would consider anyone who does TB dailies morons by your own logic.

How is doing the same easy quests over and over fun? How can you justify these repeated, boring actions as a 'priority'?

And no, the resistance trinket is insufficient justification; such an argument falls within the purview of 'gear>skill'.

But hey, everyone who plays this game is a moron:
-AH profiteers only gain virtual currency that is intrinsically worthless.
-Raiders simply engage in the same scripted encounters over and over.
-Arena players should go play a different game, one that has better balance and less bugs.

Anonymous said...

Part of being a Goblin is being social when you are better than others. That's the argument that every Goblin turns to when they reach high enough. Gevlon just went that same route.

Anonymous said...

I always wanted to ask what you think about art and artists. Art, is in a practical sense, useless and in many cases it becomes profitable only long after the artists death. Yet many art peaces (be they literature, music,sculpture or whatever) require some extraordinary skill. So how do you consider art?

Anonymous said...

I PvP. I do not PvP RBGs or arena, because I am on a backwater PvE realm and do not have a fixed schedule that I can work around; IE I might play for an hour at 4:00 one day and 2 hours at 7:00 the next. I enjoy battlegrounds, though, and getting more skilled/geared. I do go after gear because of an inherent lack of other progression, as well as the fact that in pvp there is no such undergeared project; gear really does effect the outcome. I do not share the same goals as you; I do not find PvE fun. I also enjoy winning; so I play a healer not a 'more fun' DD. I am actively trying to reroll on a better PvP server, but my main priority is not an arena team or RBG team, but just to have fun PvPing and working towards winning/gear.

Stubborn said...

Gev, you've changed my mind about you over the past few months, and I'm usually a stubborn (no pun intended) jerk about mind changing, so that's no small feat. I have to say, though, that while I agree with 87.5 percent of your post today (3 of 4 and half of the other), I think it's dangerous to make assumptions about why people collect object X in a game. If they're doing it for the reason you imply, then I agree with your point; however, without evidence, laying a blanket statement down that everyone is doing it for that reason seems an overreach. Some people are just what I'd call "completionists," and want to get things done, regardless of the time it takes to farm or the like. Raid bosses are not really any different, actually, especially at the rate that gear is being replaced by better gear.

Unless of course you raid because you want to get it done, to complete the content the game provided; in that case, you, too, are a completionist (as am I), and then we're in good company.

I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty "what type of philosophical fallacy" is this stuff; I have a feeling you knew and meant what you said, I'm just surprised as I've gotten used to your blunt directness usually backed up by evidence or logic, and this one seems unusually devoid of either.

I enjoyed the rest of the post, though, especially the "killer" portion; having leveled "with friends" over and over on PvP servers (my fault for having stupid friends), I've certainly procured a disdain for griefers.

Anonymous said...

It is like you are unable to understand that fun is subjective and are drawing an arbitrary line 'this is fun/this is not' and expect that it applies universally. Your analogy is extreme hyperbole. To anyone who is a non-gamer there is no difference between you and a mini-pet collector. You are both the scum of the earth, regardless. Your point of view makes about as much sense as that.

Anonymous said...

Even if one were to concede your point that PvE raiding is "better" than collecting minipets, is it significantly better? As @scotth, ME, anonymous et al said, would many of the billions of the people on the planet who don't play MMOs see much difference between an adult playing for minipets or HM raids? There difference between $100 and $200 may be large to the person who has $100, but not to millionaires.

I think nearly everyone would say that someone who collects pets for 39 hours a month and spends an extra hour at work/school is doing much better with their life than someone who spends 40 hours a month on realm first heroic clears. The difference between being in the top 0.01% of WoW players or the bottom .01% is trivial relative to working a bit hard at work/school/with your kids.

Jackthepsychomaniac said...

I think I understand what Gevlon meant, altough it's a very subjective post and he tries to put his belief as the right choice.

Gevlon believe that collecting vanity items in WoW is moronic.

That's not necessarily true. Gathering them for Social Status is stupid. That is an ape subroutine. Being better than others trough material items. Plague of our society.

However, gathering stuff in the game to gather as much achievement points as possible, not for the points, but aiming for 100% game completion (altough it's hard, some may want to see as much of the game as possible, and this includes doing Loremaster) is a goal many serious players may have. I have had that goal when i played WoW, got a violet Protodrake, altough I never use it, did alot of quests in zone to see the quests. Not for other people, but for my own enjoyment.

And yet, I was a good rogue that didn't fail in raids/dungeons.

""
While you can obviously believe and stand up for the idea that "collecting status symbols is good", but "everyone has different priorities" is nihilism as it claims that every idea is equal and good.""

In the end, all ideas are equal and good, since they are man made, they will return to nothing as if nothing happened. The ideas exist for but a fleeting moment and won't affect the huge universe we live in. So yeah, to an extent nihilism is realistic. Nothing will matter once the Earth has been reduced to ashes by the sun in some billion years.

HOWEVER. If we zoom in on our time and current state of society, then not all ideas are better and good. Some methods are better to reach goals, some methods are NECESSARY and OBLIGATORY to reach goals.

Now, how can we define a pointless goal? Something that is useless to society has a whole? Society is not objectivist, so they carry uselessness. Then again, individuals care only for their (group's?) own gain. In politics, they think about how promises affect them, not the whole country.
So individuals themselve accept the useless people and carry them. As long as that exists, there will be useless goals. Then again, these useless goals create a need for products we can sell them so we become rich at their expense.

And uselessness won't matter in the end. I don't have an answer.
My point is, do what you enjoy doing, if you don't like morons, then stay away from them, and try to live a good life. It's too short to keep worrying about idiots doing useless crap. I see them everyday and I want to rip my hair off, but what do you want... I walk away. Teachers are uncapable of correctly managing their kids. They use old techniques, aren't capable to objectively judge someone's capacities... This guy has friend in the asperger (intelling autists) group? Let's talk to him like he's a low functioning autistic person. So yeah. Live a good life and run away from idiots.

martina said...

I like these comments better than the post itself. Most of the people feel the need to explain to Gevlon that fun is arbitrary, to defend what he called morons etc...

Why?

Squishalot said...

@ martina: Because we're attempting to change Gevlon into something that better suits our wants. He's capable of producing some very good articles and generating some good insights. This post isn't representative of that. The criticism is intended to encourage him to start producing good insights again.

Anonymous said...

"'So in the end I think that this has everything to do with different interests. You like PvE and quests, we like PvP, and that's why we try to kill you, and hope for a good fight in return. That player you killed after he tried attacking you, didn't think "oh no, I died, now peers will think I'm stupid", but he thought "wow, that was a good fight. Let's find someone else to fight now". Or at least that's what I would think."

You must be one in a million who plays in TB like that.

Too many people in TB do a 2v1, or attack you while you are in your PvE gear doing the quests, or waiting on the bridge and death gripping you into the horde NPCs. That has nothing to do with a fair fight, which is why its not skill-based.

A PvP player with skill would not bother to engage to such low behavior. If all you care for is a fair fight, you can go to arena (world PvP arena allows 1v1, or you can queue for arena).

World PvP was and is still dead, as its only played when the scales are unfair. If you want competitive PvP, you play arena, RBG, BG, TB. City offense/defense is the only other form on world pvp in existence, and its also rather lame. I take I don't have to mention the camping on raid entrances?