The MMO "Elitist" culture, or how I became a "Baddie". (WoW)

[Chazwozel]

Since the other one got locked. Here... Chaz free discussion...

So since everyone thinks I say nothing negative about WoW, I am going to post something that has been on my mind lately. It came to the front just a few days ago after some questionable heroic dungeon runs that left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. While this is mostly about WoW, it would be interesting to hear other peoples stories involving this shift and if such have appeared in other MMOs. I don't have enough end game experience in most of the other MMOs out right now to really know.

So a few days ago I am running the new heroic dungeon added for 3.2 on one of my alts, a rogue with a few blues (good gear) and purples (great gear). I had done the place before on her without a hitch, even ended up finishing out the achievement on that run, but I ran into a problem that really pushed what I hate about WoW, the "elitist" community and the nature of dungeons and raids on my server.

We start the first fight, and the two other DPS vastly outgear me. They are both in purples attained from Ulduar. This is normally not a problem as long as I pull my weight. On the first boss alone I worked hard to keep the shaman interrupted, stunned when I could, basically rather then just concentrating on pure DPS I concentrated on making life easier for the tank and healer. I died at one point thanks to my own mistake of moving the wrong way out of a whirlwind from the warrior boss, but I quickly ran back and into the fight without missing a beat. I was greeted with one of the DPS posting the "damage meters". "Karon, were you even playing? Your DPS sucks ass." came one of the epiced out DPS. The other DPS soon joined in, "You are a baddie", the tank had to come out and defend me but I just stayed silent, I was not going to deal with people like that.

I took a step back and considered what was going on. I had fought to do my part, I didn't wait for a ress and instead ran back so I could continue helping, and didn't actually do horrible DPS based on my gear level, but since the other two DPS vaslty outgeared me and did much more DPS, I was now a "Baddie" AKA "A bad player". I stood back and thought back to how people ask for groups on my server now, mostly raids.

"LFM Naxx10. WoWHeroes 2300+ GEARED RUN, KICK BADDIES. PST Stats/Score/Achievement"

For those not in the know, Naxx10 is probably the lowest raid you can do at 80. What is that asking above? WoWHeroes is a "Gear Score" website that takes all your gear and gives it a rating. 2300+ is Ulduar quality gear meaning there is little reason to even run Naxx, but if you don't have gear HIGHER then Naxx, they don't want to take you. Asking for Achievement means they want you to post that you have done the instance, so new players need not apply. What do they consider a "baddie"? Anyone that does not know the ins and out of every fight and makes a mistake because no one ever explains it to them and thus they are instantly kicked out, that is, if they even make it into the raid at all.

This is the culture I feel has take over way more of the end game these days. In order to get the gear and learn the raids, you need to already have the gear and already know the raids, because no one will take you otherwise. You can look for a guild willing to run with you, but they will most likely tell you to bring one character and one character only, so that leaves you alts out in the cold (As my guild has done to me). Has it really gotten so bad that heroics, extremely easy instances, are now going to start requiring WoWHeroes?

"LFM Chain Heroics, GEARED GROUP, No Baddies. WoWHeroes Score will be checked."

Oh... No wonder one of the most popular WoW websites is called "Elitist Jerks"

Really, as much as I love the game, the community of "Elitists" are probably going to be what ends up pushing me out. They have been around for a long time but it only feels worst and worst this time around. I am very glad I am not a new player because I probably would hate WoW if I started it right now.

_________________
Orc Hunter 80, Blood Elf Paladin 80, Orc Rogue 80, Troll Shaman 80, Blood Elf Death Knight 80, Undead Mage 73.

Report this post To thank for the message of the author: ScytheRexx

 

[blotsfan]

But I don't play World of Warcraft! I have a life!

 

[Hailey Knight]

Hey, this is a Chaz-free topic, so we can say whatever we want and he can't respond!

 

[Gusto]

But back on topic.

Yeah I don't play WoW anymore and this is pretty much why. My favourite part of the game became leveling because I couldn't stand te endgame bullshit. And eventually I realized tat there was no other point to leveling.

I can honestly state that I retired a complete and total noob, but at least I had hours of fun at the time, and I have some decent memories.

 

[Chazwozel]

Hey, this is a Chaz-free topic, so we can say whatever we want and he can't respond!

You wish. I won't respond to the topic at hand; any digs at me are free flaming game. :toocool:

 

[Hailey Knight]

Damn.

Anyway, I've never reached endgame in any capacity. When I had regular WoW, I didn't make it to 60 before BC. I made it to 70 just as Lich King came out. I may make it to 80 before the next expansion just because of my fiance. I do see the crappy messages and I'm unsure if we'll progress much in endgame besides doing 5-man heroics. We apparently have a couple people wanting to bring us into an endgame raiding guild, but I'm not sure I care to do so.

 

[Raemon777]

Despite making it to 80 fairly quickly I am still a noob by any meaningful standard. I'm really frustrated that a lot of the coolest content is in dungeons, and I'd love to be able to explore them with people who aren't familiar with them and make mistakes and learn from them and figure out the puzzle elements on my own (or with people who also have not figured it out yet) but there's always someone who already knows it by heart and explains everything beforehand. It makes me sad.

 

[Shannow]

I leave work to go to the gym, and come back to this!? Damn, but read that over, that shit was getting hilarious!

 

[Rob King]

Despite making it to 80 fairly quickly I am still a noob by any meaningful standard. I'm really frustrated that a lot of the coolest content is in dungeons, and I'd love to be able to explore them with people who aren't familiar with them and make mistakes and learn from them and figure out the puzzle elements on my own (or with people who also have not figured it out yet) but there's always someone who already knows it by heart and explains everything beforehand. It makes me sad.

This.

I loved when I was pretty early in the game and my brother and I were both noobs. He would grind, while I explored and read up on the mythos of the area/characters/world, completing most quests, and reading the text in each. When I explained it to him, he loved it, but wasn't interested in learning it himself.

Eventually he surpassed me (because he was grinding while I was reading quest logs), and started pushing me through instances and quests at a rate I didn't like. I liked it enough to keep playing with him, because I didn't want to fall TOO Far behind. But I did miss leisurely* wandering around the world in awe.


* - As leisurely as one can on a PvP server where you're outnumbered by several orders of magnitude.

 

[AngelofBitterness]

This kind of crap occurs everywhere. People who do anything long enough to know it inside out tend to always look down on others who try to reach the same goal but aren't there yet. It's sad and pathetic because those same people were once like that as well.

But it's also in branches like art - I've met my fair share of "artsy" people who thought their farts smelled like roses and who thought their view of life was better than that of others.

Last week, a woman was here at work (I'm a graphic designer in a printing office) to make sure her design was properly printed. She had put her hair in a kind of mohawk, wearing designer glasses, weird earrings, colourful clothes, etc. She looked like she was a reject from a mix of 80's movies. Instead of telling the printers "more magenta" or "more cyan" she went "no no, I want that image to jump out, grab you!" and when we told her that increasing the strength of the colours would affect all the other colours outside the picture too, she got moody and when we dared to point out that the fault was in her design because she should have made the colours stand out in the design itself, she acted as if she couldn't possible have made such a mistake, being such a great designer as she was. When we suggested altering the design, she refused.

I guess people reach a certain level within their range of interest where they feel they have earned the right to look down on those who haven't yet. Sadly enough, many of these are badly mistaken and aren't anywhere near as good as their ego tells them. As someone who has also studied to be a hardware specialist, I've seen WAY too many "professionals" giving wrong and bad advice to customers (like: 'no no, don't use Vista! Use Windows XP 64bit! Runs much better!' :eyeroll: ).

 

[EsteBeatDown]

As someone who has also studied to be a hardware specialist, I've seen WAY too many "professionals" giving wrong and bad advice to customers (like: 'no no, don't use Vista! Use Windows XP 64bit! Runs much better!' :eyeroll: ).

You had me up until this point.

 

[AngelofBitterness]

As someone who has also studied to be a hardware specialist, I've seen WAY too many "professionals" giving wrong and bad advice to customers (like: 'no no, don't use Vista! Use Windows XP 64bit! Runs much better!' :eyeroll: ).

You had me up until this point.

Seriously? Don't tell me you're part of the uninformed crew who would recommend Windows XP 64 despite it having tons of driver issues. Half our work software won't even receive support when running on that OS and most companies have stopped supported it on the whole so you won't even get updated drivers or drivers for new hardware. Creative drivers never even left beta before they pulled the plug!

 

[DarkAudit]

As someone who has also studied to be a hardware specialist, I've seen WAY too many "professionals" giving wrong and bad advice to customers (like: 'no no, don't use Vista! Use Windows XP 64bit! Runs much better!' :eyeroll: ).

You had me up until this point.

Seriously? Don't tell me you're part of the uninformed crew who would recommend Windows XP 64 despite it having tons of driver issues. Half our work software won't even receive support when running on that OS and most companies have stopped supported it on the whole so you won't even get updated drivers or drivers for new hardware. Creative drivers never even left beta before they pulled the plug!

Creative is a bad example. It was nearly a year after Vista released that their Vista drivers for the X-Fi series left beta. Still no real open source drivers for the Linux community. They blame others for the failings of their 64-bit Vista drivers.

 

[Shakey]

There still isn't any need to use XP over Vista unless you have less than 2gig ram.

 

[Rob King]

There still isn't any need to use XP over Vista unless you have less than 2gig ram.

Or unless you like to use computers that don't make you want to defenestrate it and yourself every ten minutes.

 

[Icarus]

There still isn't any need to use XP over Vista unless you have less than 2gig ram.

*EDIT whoops misread your post*

If it's just office software, of course there's no need to switch to Vista. Heck, Windows Me will do most of the job just as well. Windows XP will run most recent software just as fine, but you won't get much if any performance advantage over Vista (with some exceptions of course).

Modern games actually run slightly worse in Windows XP because drivers are geared towards Vista not to mention that graphics cards released in the past few years were designed for Vista (DX10) - and that goes for a lot of hardware actually. The Intel I7 CPUs perform better in Vista due to it having much better multi-core code (after all, XP was built before 64bit CPUs even existed - let alone modern quad cores). XP is very primitive and incompetent in handling multi-core CPUs with a lot of instability in games that use multiple cores. When using Vista instead, you often get 20-30% increase in performance (and even more) because of this.

In the end, companies know fully well that Windows 7 will be the next big OS and that Vista is nearly identical in terms of drivers so why would they invest more time in a dying OS. If you don't have Vista yet, it's a smart move to get Windows 7 which is now being sold very cheaply (I got my copy for $70).

-- Wed Aug 19, 2009 3:07 pm --

Creative is a bad example. It was nearly a year after Vista released that their Vista drivers for the X-Fi series left beta. Still no real open source drivers for the Linux community. They blame others for the failings of their 64-bit Vista drivers.

It's not like Creative is the only one - Logitech and other big companies have followed suit with at least some of their hardware. HP doesn't even have Windows XP 64 drivers for at least some of their new PCs (which I found out the hard way when they decided to upgrade a brand new PC to XP 64).

Windows XP 64 is a dead end, full stop. Only a fool would recommend it over Vista (unless it was free), which will inevitably lead to Windows 7.

 

[ScytheRexx]

This thread sure has had an interesting life.

I personally use Windows XP 64bit, not had any problems with it. I skipped Vista due to an issue I had a year or so ago, but I am excited for Windows 7.

 

[SpecialKO]

For my part, I use OSX.

The elitist attitude in endgame raiders is pretty irritating. On Moonrunner, it's particularly bad among the folks doing PUG OS25/VoA25 runs. I actually think OS/VoA is part of the problem because I've noticed that since its easy to get high-level gear quickly through those instances, the people in them tend to be both pretty bad players for their gear level and also the loudest about doing gear-checks.

That's why I like my guild; anyone can join as long as they're not dicks, you can have any number of alts, we don't gear check, we just expect you to be able to play your class/raid role by the time you start raiding. I think we would have liked the guy quoted in OP, that sort of thing is exactly what we want our raiders to do.

 

I have an admission.


Last night I reactivated my WoW account. I didn't get to play because I was patching, but I paid for it. :slap:

 

[Bellygrub]

I have an admission.
Last night I reactivated my WoW account. I didn't get to play because I was patching, but I paid for it. :slap:

I re-upped last week after not having played since January. It must be something in the air aranoid:

 

[TNM]

I quit WoW Because of the endgame bs. I can't sit around waiting on people to get a raid together, even in a clan, then wipe, then half the people have to take a smoke break, etc. That and all the "Sorry your gear is too sad to come on this raid." How in the hell was I suppose to get better gear if I can't go on any raids? Save up 10k and buy certain items but still not be able to join up. Leveling another character is too painful (damn having to walk everywhere again). I enjoyed most of WoW up until the end. Now with the recent update it basically adds new levels. Ok, reach that then more of the same. It would be great if Blizz added some content for casual players that can't devote the entire weekend to a endgame area.

TF2 fills my gaming need now and a one time $9 price is much more economical. :humph:

 

[Shakey]

I've never been on a raid, I figure being on dialup I wouldn't be very useful. The heroics I have done I haven't run into it though. I'm on Moonguard, which is a RP server, so that could be why. I'm working on leveling my druid right now though, so I haven't tried the new dungeons. Some of the most fun I have are with groups that don't care how well it goes and just enjoy themselves. I'd rather die 3-4 times and have fun instead of having a quick run where no one says a word.

 

[ScytheRexx]

I'd rather die 3-4 times and have fun instead of having a quick run where no one says a word.

This is how I like to run also. One of my friends is notorious for actually trying to make fights harder then they need to be. We will be fighting like 5 elites and suddenly he runs in and fears them all over the place, sometimes pulling another 3-4 elites that I have to grab on my tanking paladin. Most of the time we succeed, but a few times we wipe, and we don't care.

Some people take it way to seriously though. I don't know if I posted this in the other thread, but I was once in a VoA PuG that after a single wipe, a dozen people dropped from the group yelling out how much everyone ELSE sucks. No patience in some players. We ended up replacing all of them with random DPS and proceeded to kill both bosses without breaking a sweat.

 

[Shegokigo]

Ok, reach that then more of the same. It would be great if Blizz added some content for casual players that can't devote the entire weekend to a endgame area.

You mean like 5mans, achievements, and 10man versions of the 25man instances?

 

[Raemon777]

I think Blizzard has tried their hardest to make the endgame casual accessible. The problem is inherent in a multiplayer community that big. I haven't run into the "you suck newb" problem (I'm on a RP server, not sure how much that helps) but I actually AM pretty hard on myself for not being good enough to hold my own. Getting in (even on a 5 man) in the DPS slot is hard because that's what everyone wants, and my tanking skills are mediocre at best, and the only way to practice tanking is by, well, tanking, which means I'm practicing using other peoples' time, dollars and gold.

And again, my biggest beef is not being able to experience even the 5 man instances in a casual, experimental way, because everyone already knows them.

 

[Shannow]

Raiding from the bar adds so much to end game.

-- Wed Aug 19, 2009 12:42 pm --

also...30% through 77 now, about to gain another 7 or 8 %

 

[Idocreating]

The problem is this mindset comes from experience.

I've only had a few occasions, but stupid and terrible people who cannot play there class that well and will make you wonder how the smeg they got to level 80 will quickly frustrate many people. They will want to avoid playing with bad players, so they will judge people based on their gear as most gear requires some skill to get (Not all though, some geared people are phenomanally stupid compared to someone who just hit 80) in order to avoid them.

Of course, this isn't the best system but it's the only one people have to help filter out bad players from their group. It's a part of WoW that really needs some form of improvement, like a feedback system perhaps.

 

[Vrii]

Well, I may have something of a different perspective on this, given that I'm guild leader and raid leader for a reasonably successful raid guild, but let me chime in anyway.

First of all, with regards to gear and achievements: they're the only way to reasonably judge before starting a run whether someone is likely to be able to contribute at all. If they're full-epic and have the achieve for clearing the instance or raid, you can expect them to pull their weight. If they're in blues and have never finished it, it's a crapshoot. And given that I'm on a roleplay server (Moon Guard as well), the average player you can pick up is bad. AFK every 5 minutes, no idea how to play their class, inability to follow simple directions, etc. So yeah, if we're looking to add someone to a moderately challenging run I'm a little bit elitist about it.

Talking about applicants to the guild, the standards are even higher. Every person in the guild is representing all of us in every run they go on. We pride ourselves on being skilled players as well as decent people, and our reputation on the server is good because of it. Nobody gets an invite without proving themselves on at least one raid with us, and we'll turn them down if their performance isn't good enough. Maybe that's elitist, but it reduces the stress on the rest of us, and that goes for runs outside the guild as well.

 

[Shegokigo]

It's part elitest, part intelligence and part less stress.

I think the problem here Vrii, is people stuck at the "end" of the casual experience of WoW and wanting to move up to the "elite" part of WoW and running into issues.

 

[SpecialKO]

Maybe it's just the server population making the difference, but my guild doesn't mind too much whether you've run the place before as long as you listen to directions. We'll prefer the guy who has run it before, but people have to learn somehow.

Moonrunner is a little funny. We have so many people who gear up on OS/VoA exclusively that a guy decked out in ilvl226 is just as likely to be a n00b in Naxx as a guy in ilvl186, and I'll take a guy in 186 who listens over a douche who geared up to 226 without ever setting foot in Naxx but doesn't listen to people because his gear is so l33t.

 

[Vrii]

Oh, I absolutely agree that attitude trumps gear, and that gets taken into account with people applying to the guild. When you're just looking to fill a couple spots on a run, though, you don't really get a chance to judge that.

And Shego, I see what you mean, but I'm not sure it's that hard if you go about it right. Maybe it's different on other servers, but on mine there are a fair number of guilds who look for people who can and will regularly sub in to fill out their raids. They obviously aren't the best of the best, but it'd likely be a good way to get into raids, get some gear, and work towards catching the eye of a better guild, if that's what people want.

On the other hand, if you're just looking to pug the raids with no commitment...well, that involves running with the people who don't have a guild to run with. And for the most part, it's because they're socially retarded or terrible at the game. A lot of times both.

 

[Chibibar]

This is the reason why I quit WoW. I can't stand the raid group attitudes toward lower gear folks. People raid to GET gear. How can you be gear if you are not allow in raid?

I play some DDO and loving it cause I met some people that are more easy going (I'm sure there are some on WoW too) when it comes to raid.

This is my take on the matter.

As long you do your job and the party is alive, then I don't care the numbers. If a rogue made the life of the tank and healer easier, then you are doing a good job.

 

[Shannow]

Woot, almost 78! Should ding my end of work!

 

[nufan]

For the OP.
I've had pretty much the same thing happen to me. No matter where you go eventually that attitude will come up, just a matter of time.

Also, recently delt with some BS during a guild run of an instance. I backed off and haven't used the character since. think i will break him out today and see what's up.

Gear and gear score drive a lot of people.

I can agree with Shego's point of making the transition from casual to 'elite' being an issue. People want to raid but they don't want to pwnz0rs it. Each guild I have been in it has always been about the next thing, which is fine for them. They have played for years and years they don't care about story or the fun, they just want to be the best on the server.
I got tired of that and went back and leveled different classes and such. I have too many alts lots of alts and i like playing them all. Just depends on my mood. I had to find a way to make the game fun again, and I found what works for me.

 

[Idocreating]

It would be great if Blizz added some content for casual players that can't devote the entire weekend to a endgame area.

I challenge you to find another MMO in the style of WoW that has a more casual friendly endgame. You won't find one, Blizzard has made it a goal to try make it easier for casual players to raid, they just didn't count on the playerbase being idiots when it came to getting members for a simple Naxx 10 pug.

Speaking from the perspective of a former hardcore raider, Blizzard never really seemed to understand that the problem with the raids was never the difficulty with them, it was the time commitment and that a lot of players, for whatever reason, would not be able to put aside a few hours on a certain night for uninterupted gaming.

This is at least one of the good things about that latest collessum raid in 3.2, it's just boss fights and you can easily swap people in and out with little fuss if someone has to go. Unfortunately i left WoW a few months ago as Blizzard has turned the game into a snoozefest for me in it's casual push. It's too damn easy. None of the bosses in Ulduar gave me the same kind of cheer as anything in the previous expansion because it took just a few attempts to get it right, the sense of an epic accomplishment in downing a raid boss and getting a rare shiny bit of shiny gear has been diluted in the casual push.

Granted, the increased amount of gear going around was always a fair thing, but it doesn't stop it feeling less cool. I was more miffed by the realisation that i would never spend a few weeks trying to crack a boss, we'd get it in a few attempts. Combined with a bunch of other issues, that's why i quit.

Improving the game for casuals is always a good thing. Dumbing it down so thickos can play it will only lead to it's demise.