Larísa wrote how much the game designers are abused, working lot of hours for low salary. She believes it's not fair and they deserve better. The games are becoming worse because these people are exhausted and losing their creativity.
I think modeling the 28th orc feet at 4 AM is exactly what they deserve. They are there because of their own bad choices. They ignore that the prices of jobs depend on supply and demand just as much as any other product. And in the gaming industry, there is huge oversupply. Since game creation is considered "creative and fun", lot of young programmer and computer artist want to get in. Lot of them are literally working for free to make games better (addon authors, machinimia artists, fansite webmasters), so why should the producers pay them better or give them better working conditions?
Their fate shows exactly what happens with someone who brings the concept "fun" into a market decision. When you choose a job you should only think about how much you'll give (working hours, travel, previous studies) and how much you'll get (salary, benefits, flexibility). If you add the unmeasurable "fun" into the decision, it will be all messed up and you'll end up doing something very much not fun: modeling the 28th orc feet at 4 AM.
In the game many commenters find the excuse "it's fun for him" to the M&S who does something very ineffectively or outright counter-effectively (catapult riding morons with tenacity in WG). The game would be a safe place to learn how to make decisions. If you do it wrong, you'll lose nothing but pixel gold or pixel items. But you should know that the same decision in real life would cost you very real money. Ignoring this fact in the spirit "itz justa game lol" will lead you to make stupid real world decisions like taking a game designer job for 30K instead of a bank job for 70K. "Fun" does not belong to any serious decisions.
Ignoring the market is common among players. There are too few tanks and healers, but they keep starting DPS because of whatever reasons. So tanks and healers get jobs easily, unless they suck to the point of uselessness, while a DPS can easily find himself in a long queue or without a raid spot. It does not mean that one cannot be a DPS, but he has to be aware of the huge competition, therefore harder time to get spots, higher performance demands. A tank with OK skills can keep his job, a 6K DPS can easily find himself benched.
Lot of real world people choose university/major the same way as a lolkid chooses his class in WoW: whatever they feel fun. They don't check how many job opportunities and how many unemployed are present in the field. They learn game development instead of industry robotics programming, despite the second gets jobs much more easier for much higher salaries.
The real world version of being unguilded and have to put up with /trade pugs is very much not fun. Maybe one could do a little practice in the safe world of games to learn the "skills" of finding a profession.
PS: Campitor in a comment gave a perfect example against the "fun is important in a job" people: the surfing instructor. If you hate surfing it's a terrible job. However if you love surfing you still won't have fun as you won't be surfing, you'll be teaching annoying and untalented people to surfing. Even if your job reminds your hobby, it is not a hobby, it's a job that you must do. Your hobby starts after the hours.
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Riddance (Solieva) of US Ragnaros found a wanding warlock with a beautiful name and obvious will to become better:
I think modeling the 28th orc feet at 4 AM is exactly what they deserve. They are there because of their own bad choices. They ignore that the prices of jobs depend on supply and demand just as much as any other product. And in the gaming industry, there is huge oversupply. Since game creation is considered "creative and fun", lot of young programmer and computer artist want to get in. Lot of them are literally working for free to make games better (addon authors, machinimia artists, fansite webmasters), so why should the producers pay them better or give them better working conditions?
Their fate shows exactly what happens with someone who brings the concept "fun" into a market decision. When you choose a job you should only think about how much you'll give (working hours, travel, previous studies) and how much you'll get (salary, benefits, flexibility). If you add the unmeasurable "fun" into the decision, it will be all messed up and you'll end up doing something very much not fun: modeling the 28th orc feet at 4 AM.
In the game many commenters find the excuse "it's fun for him" to the M&S who does something very ineffectively or outright counter-effectively (catapult riding morons with tenacity in WG). The game would be a safe place to learn how to make decisions. If you do it wrong, you'll lose nothing but pixel gold or pixel items. But you should know that the same decision in real life would cost you very real money. Ignoring this fact in the spirit "itz justa game lol" will lead you to make stupid real world decisions like taking a game designer job for 30K instead of a bank job for 70K. "Fun" does not belong to any serious decisions.
Ignoring the market is common among players. There are too few tanks and healers, but they keep starting DPS because of whatever reasons. So tanks and healers get jobs easily, unless they suck to the point of uselessness, while a DPS can easily find himself in a long queue or without a raid spot. It does not mean that one cannot be a DPS, but he has to be aware of the huge competition, therefore harder time to get spots, higher performance demands. A tank with OK skills can keep his job, a 6K DPS can easily find himself benched.
Lot of real world people choose university/major the same way as a lolkid chooses his class in WoW: whatever they feel fun. They don't check how many job opportunities and how many unemployed are present in the field. They learn game development instead of industry robotics programming, despite the second gets jobs much more easier for much higher salaries.
The real world version of being unguilded and have to put up with /trade pugs is very much not fun. Maybe one could do a little practice in the safe world of games to learn the "skills" of finding a profession.
PS: Campitor in a comment gave a perfect example against the "fun is important in a job" people: the surfing instructor. If you hate surfing it's a terrible job. However if you love surfing you still won't have fun as you won't be surfing, you'll be teaching annoying and untalented people to surfing. Even if your job reminds your hobby, it is not a hobby, it's a job that you must do. Your hobby starts after the hours.
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Riddance (Solieva) of US Ragnaros found a wanding warlock with a beautiful name and obvious will to become better:
The issue doesn't seem to be that people factor "fun" into job decisions so much as the fact that they INCORRECTLY factor "fun" into it.
ReplyDeleteTaking a lower paying job that you actually have fun doing isn't bad at all, and while some people would rather make money, some people would be unhappy with an unfun job even if it pays more. The problem is that people incorrectly estimate how "fun" they'll find a job (or even what the job really involves), and make their decision based on their incorrect assumptions. How many game designers assume that they'll enjoy MAKING games just because they enjoy PLAYING games? If someone really enjoys modeling orc feet, then they WILL enjoy being a game designer...the problem is that most wannabe game designers don't think about modeling orc feet at all.
So,gevlon,you ignore the (heavily) increased productivity that comes from doing something that is genuinely interesting (at least to yourself),instead of stamping papers or doing something REALLY bland? (again,at least as far as YOU are concerned)
ReplyDeleteThat moron of the day picture is sad. It shows people berating someone for playing their class wrong. The very fact that he whispered(instead of saying "stfu scrub" in party chat, as most do) one of them to explain why he was doing it should have given the idea that he is likely new to the game or new to playing it in a group setting. We don't know that he is a true moron because he is trash talked rather than given a tip or two and a link to EJ. He said himself no one has ever complained before. So I assume he didn't know he was doing anything wrong. Explain it once, if he gets irate or refuses to learn then you have a genuine moron deserving of being berated. While the Lock's name is another example of mediocrity, the real morons here are the rest of the party for not being able to spot a new player.
ReplyDelete@anonymous
ReplyDeleteCheck his armory and you'll see he is wearing heirlooms. So he ain't new to the game nor to playing it in a group setting (as he was needing dungeon emblems to buy the heirlooms).
Though I wonder if you can call a 12-year old kid a moron. Given his nick and his guild name, I doubt he is an 'adult'.
Exactly what's the reason of picking the "unfun" job just to make more money? Of course noone would be fun/happy living poorly even when they do their favourite job. But on the other hand, after the point of living sparingly, more money will not make you happy either. So as long as they can support their life, picking the more-fun-less-money job is a completely rational choice. Of course if the job you like has really low salary, then the better choice would be to choose something you less-like that give higher salary (both fun and salary is on a scale from low to high, not binary so they should be able to find one), and let your dream job becomes a hobby :).
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDelete- you are just sad, a wanding warlock is a retard you don't need EJ to fucking realise wanding sucks since lvling at 20ish
+ stop defending lvl 80 morons, there is no genuine newbie at 80, he may not know all the tricks to do max DPS
@gevlon
a top DPSer is harder to replace then a raid healer or an OT, and bad DPS is the thing that makes a fight harder then it should be
I feel a little bit of sympathy for the MotD, because my main started out as a wand-wielding warlock (mind you, that was five years ago!).
ReplyDeleteThis links nicely to a topic of last week: is it OK that you have to use external sources to learn how to play the game?
E.g. when solo leveling, using a wand for a warlock is a viable (albeit perhaps not the most effective) strategy, both to save mana and for not pulling aggro of your Voidwalker. But once you make the step to team play, it is hard to let go of the old habits and discover different ways of playing your class. The game does not provide sufficient clues that you need to adapt your play style, so it is left to the player to experiment, consult web sites or listen to advice from fellow players (I feel sorry for the players who depend on the latter option!). I suppose for tank and healing classes this is more obvious, because they have to play differently solo and in a team by definition.
@on-topic: I agree with Brian that there is nothing wrong with chosing a job that is "fun". After all, the most important thing in life is to be happy right? Money is only a tool that facilitates acquiring happiness, but if a fun job gives it to you directly, all the better.
I guess people make the same error in job selection as in role selection in WoW: being a DPS sounds more fun than being a healer, until you hit the queues, just like being a game designer sounds like great fun, until you're assigned to make the Orc feet.
In the case of the moron of the day I'm actually with "Anonymous". It's not the lock who is the real moron here. Sadly enough the anonymity of the LFD tool encourages moronic behavior. I dare say that back in the days when you grouped with people on your server, it would have been way more likely that someone would have tried to guide this new player. These days it just doen't happen.
ReplyDeleteAnd @Anonymous: you do know that you can choose an identity without setting up a Google account? You jcan jsut post as "Name" and pick whatever name you like. It really makes it easier to handle the comment section compared to if you have to discuss with 5 copies of Anonymous, who you don't know if it's the same person or not.
I don't see what's wrong with game developers making the working conditions better. People are more productive when the working conditions are better. When they are forced to grind out that 28th Orc foot the quality can't help but go down.
ReplyDeleteAnd we can't all become bankers. We wouldn't have the best video games if they all took bank jobs.
The bank job was a particularly poor choice as an example. The game industry pays far better than the banking industry, especially for beginning employees.
ReplyDeleteYou also mentioned entry level jobs. There are many jobs (frequently described a "partner-track" jobs ) where the entry level job is quite demanding with not impressive pay. But the partners do very, very well. It's then an individual taste as to their risk tolerance and time horizon.
It also matters whether you have the "Silicon Valley" mindset. Where in fact real life failures are expected.
But the stock options from one success more than make up for a few losses. Accepting a low wage job in a visible company may be a good long term career move even if theshort term is not pleasant.
During my latest 1-80 run on a new character I met up with plenty of wanding locks. It seems to be a very widespread problem. Instead of berating the lock or ignoring the problem I made a macro. "warlock instead of wanding you should cast spells to do more damage. If you run out of mana use life tap and I will heal you".
ReplyDeleteI think the problem stems from the disconnect between solo and group play. Wanding is fine when solo and lifetap is usually detrimental since low level life restoration is poor.
The macro explains how group play is different than solo play (Healer will heal after lifetap) and is easy enough to implement and easier than insulting someone.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI had a look at the moron's armory page. He's in heirlooms - so not exactly a new player. Leastways not new enough to not figure out that a lock should stop wanding long before level 46.
You forget that there's limited time given to anyone for their live, and if they are doing something that is not fun for half of their lifetime, what for do they need money? You may say that you can minimize time spent to getting money, but here solutions are not so easy and straight. On most of high paid jobs you can not choose to work less hours in a week, or take longer breaks, even if you have enough money. It's the same in real life as in game, you will not find hardcore guild with 1/7 raiding schedule. If you want to be a high paid programmer, you need to spend 40 hours at work, take only short breaks, and constantly educate yourself in your free time, otherwise you will fall behind others and your salary will fall too. And there are no part-time jobs in banks, even for programmers. Besides, as it's not mindless grinding, you'd better like what you do, otherwise you will not be good enough in that. So really there are only two ways to minimize your time at work. One is freelance or part time job, and there are not many high paid jobs amongst them. Second is dropping your job after you make enough savings. Not sounds realistic at all, mainly because you don't know for sure what is enough.
ReplyDeleteSo for most people it's in fact more smart to take fun job, that to spend half of their life grinding for nothing but food and shelter.
The same is true about playing dps class. What for would you play the game in a style you doesn't consider fun, really? For pixels?
I totally agree with the Anonymous above. By sending a /w to the other guy instead of the classic "lol watevs", he has clearly shown interest in understanding why he was criticized.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't seem fair to assault him like that.
Sorry for my English, I hope you get my point.
If a guild is popular for being "fun", but also treats its members poorly, you'll get exactly what you deserve when recruiting. A lot of talent will avoid you while the just-want-to-have-fun gamer boys will be queuing up for invites. I imagine this sort of attrition based death march guild makes end game progress, but it can't be that pretty or successful in the long run.
ReplyDeleteThe argument of supply and demand is valid for people who decide to take this study path rather than another.
ReplyDeleteIt becomes invalid though, when talking about abuse at workplace. There are laws that exist (maybe not in all countries) meant to protect employees from demands of an employer, which could be detrimental to the employee's health or to the employee's income.
One example I know of: an employer of a retirement home demanding nurses to come and work just 10 minutes (for a couple of insulin injections) on the middle of a Sunday. If they refused, he wanted them to resign (not even fire them since firing costs money). With your logic of supply and demand, you would probably argue that the nurses should resign. Except that the market is distorted by not enough credits for hiring nurses even though there is a ultra-high demand for nurses. And at 50+ years old, the nurses worry about the discrimination towards older workers and the potential big impact on their pension.
The single rule of "Supply and demand" is an utopia. The real world needs safeguards.
@Brian
ReplyDeleteFun is an unmeasurable quantity, you can not say how much it is worth in money. Replacing money, with something unmeasurable is bound to lead to problems. There is the whole expectation thing as you point out. But the problem is much larger, there is perception thats a part of it aswell. As a game designer you are one of the game testers aswell. Thats one of the "fun" bits in general. However, after having spent months modelling orc feet, and then going in game to see them obscured by grass all the time is probably give you a blow to your ego. In fact chances are that you'll be so fed up with the particular game you're playing you won't enjoy it at all. And since you gave up something tangible like money. You'll have to assess if the gains are worth the cost. And that assessment might just come out differently a few years later.
So not only are people factoring fun into it with the wrong expectations, they're also opening themselves up for dissapointment later on because they're priorities may have changed.
@Topaz,
Fun doesn't increase productivity one bit, being motivated does. Fun helps in being and staying motivated so it does have some influence on productivity, however productivity is hard capped. And if you can be motivated in another way you'll not increase your productivity per hour if your work happens to give you pleasure aswell. In the end "fun" may be of influence on your productivity but only to the point where your boss doesn't have to spend the same amount of resources on you specifically to recieve the same productivity that he does for others, he can do with less. That is not a choice that a goblin would make. Translated, you will do the same work for less pay and with fewer breaks as your co-workers. ( Who incidently all get those breaks and that higher pay )
You're not helping yourself in any way if you percieve your job as being fun.
I can't believe anyone can defend a wanding lock once it has life tap. Stop doing that. Stop breeding lazy people!
ReplyDeleteThe lock could just put some curse or corruption or spam shadowbolt but instead decided to not give a shit about anything, send its minion and wand.
Taht lock doen't need any help or theorycrafting time, but he needs is a big kick in its ass.
Gevlon, I do not understand your point in choosing career.
ReplyDeleteBecause it is only logical, that it is impossible to do job, which makes the annoying part of one's life not compensated by satisfying part.
Seriously, what's wrong with you guys making long justifications for a "wanding lock" at 42 ?
ReplyDeleteRe: MotD - If a healer in a previous dungeon has abused him for using life tap, I don't think it's any surprise that he's trying to conserve mana. There may be other factors at play here.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, I thought the 'withhhh' second speaker was the moron, for not realising that low level locks will use Imps over Voidwalkers or Succubi in dungeons, seeing as he hasn't got his Felguard yet.
Regarding the main post, I don't see it as a problem. Some people are content to work for lower salaries. Not everyone wants the stress of being an investment banker. I think you've said it before - you're happy earning less than a banker does, because you have less stress than they do. To the investment bankers of the world, you're the DPS that chose the 'fun' way out. It's all relative.
I think you're also forgetting the prestige or reputation involved with working for Blizzard. Blizzard is held in high regard among the gaming industry, a handful of years spent working there could be all your resume needs to get working somewhere else (potentially for more). The in-game analogy would be being a member of EJ but not a part of their core raiding group but using your guild's reputation to get into any pug you want.
ReplyDelete> Ignoring the market is common among players. There are too few tanks
ReplyDelete> and healers, but they keep starting DPS because of whatever reasons.
> So tanks and healers get jobs easily, unless they suck to the point
> of uselessness, while a DPS can easily find himself in a long queue
> or without a raid spot.
This is completely wrong. There is no oversupply of tank spots in
raids, only in 5 mans.
If you want to raud you should play heal or DD. Playing a tank because
it has the shortest LFD queues just means you took a bad payed lowly
job with a very bad chance of progression.
"Do a job you love and never work another day in your life"...sounds nice until you speak to those doing the "fun" job. Every job no matter how fun gets dull with repetition when the money aspect is introduced. Let's say you are a surfing instructor because you love surfing. You get to surf all day - how can that be unfun? Well to make money you need to deal with people and that part of the job can be unfun. Every job comes with a suck factor. Although I don't advocate taking a job you hate, I do recommend studying the demand, salary, and breakthrough cost of any career before jumping in. If a "fun" job can't put food on the table it is actually harmful. But doing a job you hate can cause a lot of stress and also have a negative impact on your life. What is needed is a middle ground which is very possible attain - a job which pays well and is moderately satisfying.
ReplyDeleteAnd fun should never be a factor in how hard you work or how motivated you are. If you justify being lazy by the job suck factor you are making an important but self defeating life style choice. As you indulge your laziness you are reinforcing the lazy schema in your brain. Before you know it that laziness will creep into other parts of your life and possibly your future "fun" career. Regardless if you sweep floors or photograph beautiful nude models all day - you should train yourself to put your best effort out always - that will serve you very well in the long run.
I hope you're not implying that rolling a tank/healer is better than rolling into dps because you can get into raids faster.
ReplyDeleteThe point of wow is different to everyone. For some it's a timesink - no raiding required, you can just talk in /trade, or farm herbs. For others it's something else.
But lets discuss those who want to raid. Maybe they want to sink time by raiding, or maybe they want to have fun, it does not matter.
If they want to "raid" period, than sure fastest way to get there is as a tank/healer. If they want to "raid" to time-sink, than raiding as a dps is as efficient as raiding as a tank, as "raiding" is secondary to time-sinking, so waiting in trade for a pug is fine.
If they want to "raid" to have "fun", than tanking/healing are more stressful roles (because unlike sometimes having a bad day and doing 500 dps less than normal, isn't as bad as failing while tanking). And stressful roles are not "fun" ... neither are stressful jobs, no one says I want to have a stressful job. People take stressful jobs to make money. So those who want to "raid" (for no other purpose but to be "raiding"), yes tanking/healing is a better option.
While on the topic of why people tank/heal. Some people just want to feel useful. Tanking/healing makes people feel useful, because than DPS doesn't have to sit in queue for 2 hours, because of them, somehow dps gets "helped" by tanks/healers. You know it's true that healers/tanks will claim they are boosting DPS.
I say it's a folly in game-design. "Game" should be made fun for all roles. Tanking/Healing isn't as fun as DPS, and most people will agree. (it isn't even more challenging, if you consider trying to be best dps on server, for example). The game, WoW, could have been designed so that tanks/healers aren't needed, but only benefited from.
Just to illustrate the point, there have been video's of hunters tanking icc 25 murrogar with their pet... Kiting can be used to control the boss. There are many more fun and challenging ways to design encounters, than have a single tank, getting beaten into the face by a boss while standing in one place the entire encounter.
@Frech Guy,
ReplyDeleteThat makes no sense at all. You can't give an example of the government distorting a market and then use it as an example of how supply and demand fails.
@everyone talking about how you should love your job:
ReplyDeleteAlmost any professional well paying job will eventually get boring, and become "just a job."
So you might as well either find one that pays a lot, or gives you a lot of vacation time. Looking for one that is "fun" but has poor pay/benefits is stupid.
@gevlon: I would disagree that it's easier to keep your job as a tank or healer. DPS have a long que, but you have to really really fail to get booted from the group as a dps. Whereas, if a tank or healer gets wife aggro for one second, all of a sudden there is a wipe and immediate vote to kick. DPS might have a long que, but it's a much easier job.
I'd take a "fun" working environment over sucking corporate %@#$ any day.
ReplyDeleteBut if money is the ultimate goal of life and DPS is the ultimate goal of a lock then isn't spending a single second in WoW more Moronic and Slackish than using a wand as a lock?
Perhaps the M&S are too busy having "fun" BECAUSE they ignore your pleas to be "efficient" while wasting time i.e. playing a game.
But then again what do I know I just designed the 29th Orc feet of the day and I am now slacking off on the net... my job allows that:)
Gevlon wrote: "...decisions like taking a game designer job for 30K instead of a bank job for 70K. "Fun" does not belong to any serious decisions."
ReplyDeleteOne thing to keep in mind is that everything should undergo a cost/benefit analysis. You seem to understand this, but you ignore the fact that someone else may place a different priority on things. It appears that you think getting the most money from your job is the thing you should worry about. Maybe for you that is true.
To give a counter example imagine that I currently make 3 times as much money as I actually need to live in the manner I desire. Someone then offers me a job that pays half as much as my previous job (which is still more money than I need) but I know that I will enjoy the work far more. I would have to do an internal cost/benefit analysis to decide which job I would prefer. Should I go with more money or more job satisfaction?
My point is that what you derisively label "fun" might in fact be very important to someone else. After all, much of your life is spent at work. I'll just leave you with something I once heard about job success: "Success is loving what you do so much that you'd do it for free but doing it so well that people pay you to do it."
I think the surfing instructor is a perfect example of fun in a job. If a person likes surfing AND likes teaching surfing, surf instructing is perfect. However, if he loves surfing and hates teaching (or just hates people), then yes a surf instructor won't have fun.
ReplyDeleteLately I am not into playing WoW unless it involves helping my newbie friends learn how to play better. Same concept.
Gevlon, you're making a very simple error. You're assuming that money or wow gold has intrinsic value, when instead it only has value in that you can use it as a means to get those things you desire. Not recognizing this leads you to ignore half of the equation when doing your cost/benefit analyses.
ReplyDeleteConsider, if I decide that my goal is to maximize the happiness in my life then I must judge every activity along two measures. First, how much it affects my happiness. Second, how much money I get out of it, and the rate at which I can convert that money to happiness. If I ignore the intrinsic happiness of the task itself and only look at the money received, I very likely won't be able to reach maximal happiness.
Choosing to work a job you enjoy (or at least can tolerate) for a lower salary instead of a job you hate with a higher salary is a rational choice.
It's not necessarily a black/white issue regarding job satisfaction. Maybe there are people working jobs that are wonderfully rewarding and super fun every single second of the day, that pay a remarkably high salary. Maybe there are jobs that pay poorly and make the workers suffer miserably the whole time. I've never actually heard of either job. IMO, most professionals do something that they enjoy (or that brings them some level of personal satisfaction) but they also understand that there will be stress and that it isn't always fun.
ReplyDeleteThat's not much different than a lot of things that we do while growing up. Maintaining a home, starting a family, raising kids, etc. All can be fun and fulfilling at times, and crazy and stressful at others.
I think this might be more an issue of job expectations and taking context into account. Maybe that guy who is making 3D orc feet at 4AM for peanuts actually enjoys his job most of the time.
Salary > job satisfaction
ReplyDeleteIs that what I'm supposed to take away from this posting?
Oversimplied on my part? Probably.
Looking at the list of members in the MotD "guild" leads me to believe that ALL of the members are his own characters.
ReplyDeleteEvery single one of them has the exact same type of name.
@Zenga:
ReplyDeleteWhile it is true this can't be the lock's first character, but with the current speed of levelling now I believe it is quite possible to have a couple characters fully levelled before actually grasping all the mechanics of the game. Does this make said person a moron? maybe.
@nehunter:
I'm sad?...says "NeHunter". That should be the end of needing to say anything to you but consider this:
1) Just as I didn't check his armory, neither did you. He hit level 30 over a year ago, and just hit level 40 a month ago and has only gone 6 levels in a month.
-now does this mean he has been away from the game for a long time and is trying to relearn it? or does it mean he spends all of his time on his 80 and is in fact a moron for not knowing the very basics of current casters?
2)There are plenty of genuine level 80 newbys out there. Levelling time is a fraction of what it was in vanilla, and there is also no need to group up to get to max level anymore. Though you may perceive me as defending a level 80 player, I'm defending(not really defending, moreso playing devil's advocate) a level 46 warlock who hasn't played this character to any degree in over a year and may be a newby to current caster class mechanics. Yes i know wanding has been out of favor a long time, so dont try and be "cute" and call me on that.
All of that said, he may genuinely be the biggest moron on the planet, but because no one was willing to say something like what is in the macro posted by Format, and instead laughed at him and posted what he privately said in whisper, his reaction is expected. We will never know if he was actually a moron because the other morons in the group didn't give him one opportunity to better himself, they just laughed and made fun. Laughing at someone for wanding doesn't help them to learn what they should be doing instead...refusal to improve when given the information is what makes the moron.
@Larisa
Thank you for sharing, I had incorrectly assumed it would require a URL(due to its title) without clicking on it to see...that will be my "slow" moment of the day.
Hey, a useful public service from the daily fail: Since I'm on aggramar, I can proactively ignore yodaone now to keep him out of my LFD groups and not have to to it reactively.
ReplyDelete@Jack
ReplyDeleteThis could be true, though he has oddly split them in rank levels if that is the case. I think what you have here is a bunch of school kids that know each other making a guild, or a "social trade chat levelling guild". The naming conventions fit these two explanations as well. The sad part is the more I see, the more I am leaning towards him being a moron without giving him a chance to prove otherwise, so my initial assessment of the MotD pic as sad is still true, but in a different context. All of the participants are morons for their various reasons.
On the subject of the wanding warlock:
ReplyDeleteThere was an interesting discussion in the blog Slactivist a while back. When people are confronted with evidence of an error in thinking, there are two ways they can go. The "good" path is to humbly acknowledge the error and try to correct it. The "bad" path is to get defensive and come up with justifications for the erroneous behavior.
Unfortunately, the typical human response to go down the "bad" path, like this lock did. It takes a lot of care to effectively criticize people and push them down the "good" path. As a manager, I've had training in this, and I still see people get defensive most of the time.
Being able to take (and give) criticism well is an extremely valuable skill. Too bad most people don't have it.
Gevlon you seem to have missed several important facts in your argument.
ReplyDeleteFirst employee rights are important for the long term growth of the economy. Young software engineers (outside the game industry as well) are often abused by employers who take advantage of their enthusiasm. They work long hours for low pay. When they get older (mid thirties early forties) when they have families and are unable to do many hours of unpaid overtime many of them find it harder to get jobs in the industry. This leads to the 'crisis' of students not taking computer science as a subject. Why would anyone want to work in an idustry thats treats people so badly?
Also (wow specific) choosing dps is often a sensible role. I noticed that you rarely tank. While tanks can easily get into 5 man groups it is the hardest class to get into guilds with.
@Jack
ReplyDeleteAll 15 of them? Are you suggesting he has 2 accounts based on that there are a lot of characters with silly names in his guild?
For a blog read by a bunch of supposedly economicaly genre savvy people you sure don't seem to understand what value is. One of the first principles of economics I learned in college was that people value things differently and as a result face trade-offs.
ReplyDeleteIf all jobs were equally terrible than salary would be the determiner. Any rational person can see this is not the case, so through a careful calculus a person balances salary vs. work environment. It should be noted that other factors come in play here (length of commute, will I have to relocate, do I even speak the local language, ect.)
For every person that balance will come out differently. Gevlon, you're seeing the world as black and white which I think is below our level of thinking.
Just a general comment about morons and slackers. While I agree that most wow players fit into one of those catagories, remember that in some cases kids play the game that are too young to even have the ability to take them above moron-hood.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is 8 and likes to run around on my 80 killing stuff. I never let her play by herself exactly because of some peoples comments. Of course she never raids and rarely even chats with anyone, but I don't think she'd be deserving of ridicule. I could imagine a 10 or 12 year old that could gear up enough get into higher content, but not grasp the intricicies enough to be a good player.
I have a very low tolerance for M&S, especially in end-game content. However, I usually temper my criticism a bit when I remember that I don't really know which catagory they fit into.
I'm a bit of a hardcore cynic when it comes to the words "happy" and "fun". They are fleeting impressions, not states of being.
ReplyDeleteYou can no more have a "fun" job than you can have an "exciting" job.
What you can have is a job (or career) that "fits". Good fit comes about in knowing yourself and what you like/dislike, what you're good at/bad at, and understanding as much about the reality of a job as you can.
Gevlon, I'm very interested in hearing what you think about the majority of commenters defending most of your "morons" and attacking your supposed right-minded Goblins who call them out.
The opinion certainly seems to weigh in favor of the morons being treated unfairly.
@Bristal
ReplyDeleteHonestly I think the reason why the morons get defended is because it seems part of the time(today for instance)the moron is not quite so clear cut. In this case the alleged moron had the following offenses:
1)stupid name
2)wanding in group play
3)rage-quit when called out.
now the reason for the defenses:
1)no defense to stupid name.
2)he may need to be explained to why wanding is bad in group play. He says himself no one else has complained before, and the game certainly doesn't tell you(if it did, life-tap would replace the 'shoot' spell and locks would get a stat-stick/relic type slot from then on).
3)he rage-quit because the others made fun of him, not because they were trying to help him, they weren't. They provoked that reaction.
I think Gevlon just has a lack of good submissions at the moment because quite honestly I don't believe this was a good one. This was more of an example of someone trying to force a submission so they could be seen on Gevlon's blog. For this to truly have been a moron post then someone should have offered information, doesn't have to be polite, but no need to be rude either, no emotion is needed. If Yodaone had still reacted in the same manner then by all means he would be a moron and you wouldn't have many of us defending him.
You are right though, I would like to hear Gevlon's opinion on the lack of quality moron submissions lately(and defense of those posted), because frankly, the ones that are making it are lacking an intelligent submitter who can properly draw out the "moron" in our specimen.
All of that said, wait until Cata, and the new heroics with the LFD tool. I think we will see some very good MotD posts.
While I think that factoring the level of competition is necessary, I don't agree with completely discarding the "fun" factor. People are great only when they put passion into what they're doing, otherwise the specific job is just a boring grind.
ReplyDeleteCampitor's example is a logical fallacy. Fun is actually important in a job. Liking to surf is different than liking to teach surfing. For the former, you can choose to become a surfing champion (in case that such prized competitions exist and you're good enough) or just do surfing as a hobby; for the latter you just become a surfing instructor.
As for the MOTD: Yes, he's an utter moron, there should be no doubt about it, despite what others have said. Why? See the list of reasons below:
- level 80 (for sure I know that from 1 to 80, you never use the wand as a warlock)
- a veteran (heirlooms)
- refuses to take advice/learn
- takes obvious jokes seriously (this rather implies the lack of socializing skills)
- bad spelling
@flare
ReplyDeleteat some point in life, everyone will get to hear the all to important and character building words 'you lost bobby. you're a loser' in one form or another.
trying to protect people against that leads to them not being able to filter information out of all kinds of criticism.
It seems to me that those people (yes they are people too) that do silly things in wow tend not to do them on purpose. Even though i believe there are less competent people in this game , also people that learn a little slower ,the amount of "m&s" is just so overwhelming that one has to begin to wonder : are people really that slacky or is there something else , something embeded in the game itself , that prevents people from clearly distinguish right and wrong game wise.
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me that even though your intentions are good Gevlon, they are for the best part overstated. Take this poor warlock for isntance. Wanding as a warlock is not good. even Blizz devs themselves call wands statsticks. But wanding doesnt happen the same way as autoswinging , meaning he had to press his shoot button.Now that sounds to me as if he tried , to the best of his abilities , to be as productive as anyone else.he didnt want to just stand idle, he did something.he didnt run into the fire , he didnt talk to hellscream to turn the buff off(just an example of a few " murky situations" ive encountered) he tried to do damage. his way is bad i know , but its better then doing nothing and waaaaaaaaaaay better then dying to void zones, whirlwinds and whatnot.
I have to agree with larisa and many others : it's so easy to say HA HA MORON MORON.let me see you convert a moron into a good player. Theres an idea for your next project Gevlon , find the moroniest of morons and get him to become(or not) a good player. Id like to see the outcome of such effort. I strongly believe half, if not more of the people you tagged here as M&S, really arent that.
This seems more than a little hypocritical since Gevlon has previously said he'd rather take a massive decrease in pay over taking a job where he would be forced to manage idiots. The issue is less the inclusion of fun as a factor than an accurate estimate of fun beforehand.
ReplyDeleteDPS has longer queues, but you have to be really atrocious and slamming into enrage timers to be kicked as one, especially in 5-mans. Once you get a few bosses into a pug, people loathe to kick players because nobody wants to join a partially cleared one and miss out on badges, which makes replacements harder than relative population would indicate. If your tank or healers blow, you're probably not getting past the first boss compared to a mix of good and crap dps.
I don't think money is the object of life. Happiness research has shown indeed that money is not a factor after one has enough. If one does not have enough - indeed, find another job, even though it is less fun.
ReplyDeleteI have the feeling however that Gevlon is here talking about the (male?) biological perspective, not the economic or the logical perspective.
Basic biology dictates that an organism should get enough resources to survive and to have enough resources for one's offspring (good education, etc.)
For both sexes, however, especially when young adults, a job should provide enough free time and energy (a rotten job saps your energy and leaves you at home for the TV, and can take 60 hours or more every week even though it officially only takes 40) to give them opportunity to hunt for suitable mates.
For men, in any case, it DOES help if the job pays well; all other things (looks, intelligence, sense of humor) being equal, at least a portion of girls would prefer the driver of the alfa romeo over the person driving a bike (the portion preferring the poor male over the rich male could exist, but would be smaller). Males seem to find looks much more important than money in a girl, so it makes more sense for men to find jobs with relatively less leisure, less fun and more salary (so more time to make oneself rich), and for women to find jobs with more leisure (so more time for the 'hunt' and for making oneself beautiful; it takes time to select and buy all those shoes ;) ).
In any case in the Netherlands, research has shown that men on average often have jobs in which they work more hours, have less fun, but earn more than women (who work less hours, have more fun, but earn less).
I would therefore agree with Gevlon that one could argue that money and leisure time can be more important than fun; however, that leisure (and certainly money) are not 'goals in themselves'; a young unmarried person working 100 hours a week hoping to pick up a gold-digger when he is 55 may not always be rational.
It is possible if rare to do something you love and make a lot of money. I contract as a programmer and I program at home for fun.. I enjoy both.
ReplyDeleteI stopped post here a while back, but Gevlen is 100% right about the oversupply of game designers and so forth. Actually, good artists and programmers are rare. Testers, designers, etc, are a dime a dozen. I looked at getting into the gaming industry a while back but concluded it was almost impossible now with so many kids paying 20k+ a year for 'gaming university', then work for free or essentially free in the hope of 'making it big'.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many real world issues that need real problems. I'm now doing programming for a healthcare company and making good money, and this is just the start. I plan to make 6 figures after 5 years (this is the industry average).
Essentially, any M&S job is low pay and too much competition. Find jobs that weed out the M&S. My job is tough, it takes all sorts of combinations of skills, many years of experience. I finally found a good niche for me after many M&S jobs.