Greedy Goblin

Monday, March 14, 2011

Open letter to the M&S

Dear player,

You got the link of this page from some "elitist jerk" who mocked your performance and may have votekicked you. The purpose of this page is to explain why he (and many like him) did not want to play with you.

You most probably say "i play 4 fun" and don't understand why anyone cares for your interrupt count or DPS or gems in your gear or the fact that you pulled 4 packs at the door and wiped. After all it's a game and you had fun. Why didn't "elitist" have?

"Fun" is very personal and very different for different people. Just think about that having sex with a guy looks disgusting to a heterosexual man, but it's considered fun by most women and gays. The same applies to playing games.

The "elitist" derive their fun from overcoming challenges like raid bosses or high level arena opponents. They play the other aspects of the game (leveling, 5-mans, Baradin Hold) as a tool to get gear, reputation, points, whatever. They expect the runs be smooth, fast and free of chit-chat. They consider these aspects of the game "the grind", boring tasks that need to be done to be able to raid.

Everything that make the runs problematic or slow is therefore annoying to them. When you damage half as much as him, he thinks "the run would be 5 mins faster if that noob would carry his weight". When you try to join a Baradin Hold pug and he sees no gems on your gear, he says "the lazy punk can't do his job and we may wipe, another 10 mins lost.

You are right that WoW is a game, and everyone plays the way he wants. But it applies to the "elitist" too! If he wants to play with similar "elitists", and not with "fun ppl" like you, he can. He also pays $15.

So, simply for the good of all, keep away from the "elitists"! Join a "fun guild", many are advertised on trade chat and play with them. If you don't play with "elitists", they can't be jerk with you!

Have fun!


PS: if you are an "elitist", make a macro from the link of this post and spam it to "fun ppl" whenever they choose to "play the way they want" in your pug.

18 comments:

Squishalot said...

Gevlon: "from some "elitist jerk" who mocked your performance"

He's not necessarily elitist, he's just a jerk.

I would suggest changing it from 'mocked' to 'criticised' or other similar word. People who mock and put down others deserve to get grouped with M&S.

chewy said...

I entirely agree with the sentiment in your post but the logic could be reversed. Equally the M&S could argue that the elitists should play in their own guild and not bother them in PUGs.

The system is wrong allowing mixed abilities and motivations to play together.

zenga said...

Do you expect the fun / m&s to actually bother visiting the provided url? If they do bother, read the article and understand it, they are most likely not m&s but wrongly schooled players.

sw0rdfish said...

I like most of what you post, and understand your view points, but everything you say here applies exactly opposite to you 'elitist' if we're in a PuG together, and I'm a "fun" player, I have the same right to doing that dungeon my way, as you do your way.

If you are running the show, then 100% you do what you want.

If it's a RDF group, then you play the hand you're dealt.

Right?

Vinnz said...

My prediction: only your faithful readers will read your letter.

Why would anyone (and especially a sub-par player) launch a browser and look for the address that another player (and especially an elitist jerk) has posted before kicking them out?

Any suggestion to ensure that my prediction is wrong ?

Anti said...

lets ignore the fact "fun people" arent ever going to read your blog.

segregation is easier if enforced by the ones who want the segregation to occur.

there werent any "black only" signs in south africa.

you tell the "fun people" to form guilds and stop pugging. you want them to enforce the segregation.

perhaps the elitists need to stop pugging. or at least stop expecting to find worthy players in their pugs.

perhaps a more enlightened post might be targeted at elitists. about how spending a few minutes a day on an alt running a huge spam invite guild may be a way to channel all the M&S on your server into one huge guild and so remove as many as possible from the other decent guilds.

a well run mega guild might be a great recruitment / training resource for the better guilds of the server.

Mhorgrim said...

Your right about gearing and such, having your shit together for any raid. However, Mocking someone's performance because they are noobsters trying to learn is counter productive. PuGs are just that...my question is, why hold PuG Raids at all? Go get with a guild that has the troops to do guild functions. I don't find Elitists bad folk for the record. But to gripe about puggers....really? Most are not serious raiders from the get go. Most have rarely worked otgether when folks need to know how eachother operates. Personally, were I a serious raider, to which I'm not, I would be after only guild memebr runs. PuGs don't make sense at all for what your asking them to do.

Anonymous said...

"Elitists" are already not pugging at all or pug only if there is no other choice.

bLYEA said...

Dear GG,
I'm surprised an elightened player such as yourself would fail to see that this works both ways. Stay out of pugs or become a M&S yourself and embrace others trying to have fun instead of deriding them.
Blyea

Unknown said...

I must admit, Gevlon, I'm a little confused. I thought you originally said that M&S were more than just bad players, they were bad people. If this is the case, even if they chose to visit the URL given to them, an unlikely possibility, what's the chance that they'll read all of it, much less take the message to heart?

I always thought you said the M&S could not be fixed, only avoided. If that's the case, why have a post trying to tell them what to do?

mystic said...

I agree with the sentiment of this post, but not the application; if someone is elitist then by definition they aren't going to associate with the peasantry (like me) who are casuals, as Anti pointed out above. That said, being casual and playing the game for fun is most definately not the same as slacking; at the end of the day there's another 4 (or 9) people in your PUG and you should do your best to make sure you're not wasting their time. On the same token, it's really not on for some idiot who thiks their great (but invariably aren't) to waste 9 peoples time while they chew someone out for being a noob, constuctive, helpful, critisism, yes. Pointless abuse, no.

If you're not able to raid with like minded 'elitists' then you're not in a position to be elitist, you'll have to PUG like the res of us and deal with the challenges that holds

Anonymous said...

I think its a great idea. Of course, you wont reach the lost causes (did you spot the tautology here? some of the other commenters made this error), but all the people inbetween M&S and thinking individuals will be given a chance to realize that there is more to gaming (and life, while we are at it, but maybe one should not aim this high) than just fooling around mindlessly.

(Insert the music from a random patriotic and testosterone overloaded war movie here and read on.)

If we dont reach those guys, the others will, since they are much louder. Recruit the ones with a future, to combat the endless waves of idiots. Fight the fight!

*grabs gun and runs into enemy fire*

Gevlon said...

@Daniel: M&S won't read it. Actually the title should be "Open letter to young people who were called M&S but not yet hopelessly lost"

Choky Heimlich said...

Dear Gevlon,
I support your ideal of not playing against the M&S, and your efforts to remove them from your gaming experience.

However, I believe this another futile effort made in a useless war against them. You can make any and every point, strong, sensible, factual, regardless of any water your points hold, and many of them do.

It is not going to change anything. You can insult, ridicule and belittle them, even try to teach them, yet because of their attitudes and/or level of intelligence it will not matter. They will tell you where to go or ignore and continue to do what is "fun" for them.

I also do believe that total removal of M&S from the game would be a very large negative impact on those of us who play the game for the challenge or a "purpose" if we can call it that, everyone has their own aims in the game.

Without M&S you wouldn't have people buying in the AH, or paying you to run them through things. Without their mindless buying and selling things at stupid prices the market would be more stable, but those trying to make gold wouldn't be able to profit from stupidity.

You can consider it a caste system, elite and M&S need each other to survive, the only issue with the system is that the M&S has to be in the presence of the elite sometimes and it is quite distasteful to see them.

Anonymous said...

If an "elitist" can't find a group of people of his own caliber instead of pugging, then he deserves to play with M&S.. the dungeon finder is not for you!

Anonymous said...

If an elitist is running dungeons for the lousy reward of 70 valor points then he is doing something wrong.

If a random HC takes 1hour then it takes more than 20 hours to grind a trinket. Im pretty sure grinding Tol Barad rep is a lot faster. and grinding gold to buy one in the AH is certainly better. The gear from valor points is not an improvement big enough to justify the extremely long grind for them.

If you simply raid 10 more hours rather than grind 5mans for 20 you should get a better gear reward with any raid guild.

For those who don't have abyss crystal enchants on weapons grinding gold for that is beyond any doubt a much better way to improve gear.

I think doing the daily is a social thing, people do it because it feels like an opportunity to get some "free" valor points, that is lost if not used every day.
Some may feel like it is expected of them. And it's something "everybody" do.

Let the socials have that, as they like boosting M&S.

PS: I'm only saying it's pointless when you no longer need the gear that drops there, and only do it for valor points.

Anonymous said...

First off, if someone who you don't know posts a URL in a game and you go to that URL, especially if you use Internet Explorer or even Windows, then you have far bigger problems and issues than anything that will ever happen to you in WoW. Quit playing the game and go read about internet security and scams.

This post was well reasoned and logical. But of course the commenters were correct that anybody who should link this post should never encounter anyone who should receive the link.

Casual player said...

So you're saying it's fine to treat random players like they're npc's purely there to support your own needs. The dungeon must be run like a time trial and no pleasantries may be exchanged. That's why I've given up on random dungeons.