The self inflicted torture of World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is not the same game we grew up with. It is a pale reminder of a pale reminder of what MMO's used to be. And even then it was a pale reminder. 

One thing has not changed. People have gotten ruder than they were about a year and a half ago. As if that was possible. You would think in this day and age of free raid loots and buffs for being bad players that the WoW community would somehow be enlightened. This is not the case. Now they just complain about more. They whine about more. They are usually more clueless and overall give an unpleasant experience. Some of them had never even heard of Leeroy Jenkins and asked me what that title was and where to get it. Yes I felt old and I felt like a WoW dinosaur.

Yet it is diving into this cesspool of PUGS and moronic raiders that somehow makes me feel the most at home. I actually like getting into it with these people. While the game brings a modicum of frustration it also fulfills the basic need of grouping and doing dungeons in a manner that I find the most satisfying after all these years. And it has grown into years now hasn't it? About 10 of them. Longer than I stayed in EQ1 so I guess that makes WoW the MMO I have played the most in my lifetime. Which is scary and cool all at once.

To share a story this weekend is to remember that in order to succeed at this game you have to throw good will, sharing and overall pleasantness out the window. People in WoW are in it for one thing and one thing only: themselves.

I now have 6 level 85's but cannot bring myself to push into Pandaria. I am more interested at this point in rounding out my account with an 85 of every class possible. I have some scattered about on the Horde side and some scattered about on the Alliance side but no matter what the side I am on always loses PVP. No matter the server or the battlegroup. 

The only classes to date I have NOT raided with are a druid and a warlock. In fact those are the only that are not 85. Unless of course you count the Monk which at this point I am working on. On the Horde side I have a Pandaren Tank Brewmaster. On the Alliance side I have a Pandaren Healer Monk. 


The story goes as follows while playing my 82 Paladin:

My 82 paladin is TOTALLY naked. I sold all his gear about a year ago to lump my gold for a server move. In order to gear up I decide to run some older Lich King Heroics. One to practice and one to just get some easy greens or blues.

First dungeon I get into some asshat starts complaining: "Just wondering why level 81+'s Q for Lich King heroics when the gear is better in Cata?"

Right away I'm thinking "wait what?" 

This guy is complaining about a 82 tank for his heroic when he has it easy? I'm TOTALLY baffled by this. Not only is the wait time for a tank about 15-20 minutes but no longer than a year ago people would love an 82 tank on their heroics to help them just blow through it. Then he got to the crux of the matter.

He starts bitching that he wont get full Justice Points. Says "it fucks us over for Justice Points" and in that regard I have no idea what he means. I have been out of the game so long that I am not even sure what he is talking about in terms of nerfed Justice Points.

It was a sad thing too. This group was good. The healer was dead on begging me to pull bigger and everyone was happy except this one guy. Constantly ragging me for being in a dungeon below my level. When all he had to do was use common sense and inspect me to see my green AH plate and mail I was wearing to tank in.

Finally I had had enough. Then I go: "You wanna know what really fucks you over? Being a asshole and whining about Justice Points when we could have easily run these all afternoon. Have a good day" 

I put him on ignore, pull two entire rooms and leave the group mid pull. I had mentioned I was going to do this to everyone else in the group but this individual of course. I got several "LOL's" later when we reformed but none of us know if he perished or not amid a sea of mobs. Much more fulfilling than just group kicking him in my opinion. 

I went on to hit 83 and get Northrend Dungeonmaster with that Paladin. Obviously not the first time for that achievement but I had to wonder what caused me to shelve him and not play him anymore so that he did NOT have that particular accomplishment.

Probably the players. Who knows.