Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

About debates and trolls

I'm an avid reader of the banhammer topic of the Elitist Jerks. This thread is the collection of the posts that people placed on various topics, but were removed by moderators for being bad ones. So it's a permanent moron topic featuring whiners, lolkids, boost-beggars and other M&S. One thing bugged me for long. The moderators often replied in a very unprofessional way like "piss off our site you fuck" or "you are a dumb dipshit" and such. I could not understand why they passed on the chance to educate the M&S instead of just making him go. I always thought that argument with people is good for itself, as it is a process of refining the "truth" that we all seek and none of us own.

My eyes were open by some pretty useless people from Wintergrasp. I met such people before but dismissed their actions as trolling: consciously telling wrong things just to annoy others. But now I approached people after WG to try to convince them that their (lack of) strategy is wrong and they should do better. Of course I was always ready to learn as they can have some good ideas (for example if there are few people in WG, catapult can be good to destroy a south tower as it doesn't need you to run around 10 more mins to find hordies to kill for promotion).

Well, I did not get any arguments. I got:
  • "I am right because I own": he expressed that he has more arena rating, better gear, more bosskills, more achievement points, cooler title, cooler mount, played longer or he is "well known" in the server, so he is right. These kind of people never bothered to actually tell what they are right in, they are just right.
  • "You are wrong because you suck": like above, but this time my idea is bad simply because of my lack of rating, gear, bosskills, achievement points, title, mount, playtime or popularity. Of course mentioning in what or why I am wrong in was always missing.
  • "itz a game lol": he expressed that the whole thing is irrelevant and I should not care. They never told why do they care to do it their way and why not try it differently if it doesn't matter anyway. Other versions: "geta life", "lol u need 2 get laid", "whysosrs" or the universal "lol".
  • "u r an ass": he expresses that I'm not nice enough with him or other cata-riders so my strategy therefore must be wrong.
  • /ignore
Their activity did not seem productive or useful. After all they did nothing to change my mind and convert me to their "strategy". If they would believe they are right, they would try.

The solution is the "winning the argument" social construct. In reality, there is nothing to "win" in an argument. You learn from your opponent and you teach him and in the process you both become more informed than before. There is no loot, no high scores to gain. In a very disproportional argument where one teaches the other completely, the less informed gains information while the more informed just wasted time, typical boosting. However in the social world "being right" is important as it creates respect among peers. If I was closer to the truth than you, then I will be viewed as "pro" while you are the "dumb". So if socials are involved in an argument, it's not about what is right, but about who is right.

This obviously destroys the point of the argument as the social will hide facts that interfere with "him being right", and also ready to make statements that he know to be wrong just to amuse less informed observers. Arguing with a social is waste of time.

How can one achieve progression then among socials? Only by social aggression. I claim that standing in defile is bad, and kick everyone from the raid who thinks differently. I will down LK and they will not. The constant failures (therefore having the negative social trait "loser") force them into obedience. That's what EJ do: their formulas work, so the EJ-compliant player will have better results than the ones who defied EJ rules. Soon the "non-EJ" player won't get into any decent guild forcing him to obey EJ without question.

Please note that "social aggression" is not real. I don't actually hurt him in reality as me calling him moron is just noise and if I choose to not be in the same group as him, I'm excluding myself just as much as him. So if I'm "the wrong", I'm not hurting anyone else but myself by excluding and alienating every capable people from my circles, locking myself into a group with fellow morons. So one can use "social aggression" without risks of harming innocent people.

No doubt that social aggression is sub-optimal to honest debate. The "wrong guy" is usually not completely wrong and the "right guy" is never completely right. There is always something to learn. Being the best among M&S doesn't make you good. Gladly, honest arguments happen on elite sites and among people who trust each other being rational. However the internet is not a good place for that. While there are guys who seek the truth like you, there are 100 "i am right n u r wrong" kiddies for every single one of them. So one who chooses to argue over the internet will simply wastes most of his time on lolkids without any effect.

That's why I have a strong deleting policy on the blog. It's my place and I don't need you to say "this all sucks". It does not mean that I believe in being perfect. I simply don't want your dismissive opinion here. If my ideas indeed suck, I hurt nobody by deleting your ideas but myself and my fanboys. Of course, simply by self-interest I keep intelligent comments that point out flaws in my ideas as I want to learn.

"Social aggression" has a trap: what if one wants to learn but too uninformed yet. For example the newbie, having his first time in WG, jumping on a catapult. If you find such newbie, you can easily mistake him for another M&S as "no one in his right mind would say or do that that". The hate against "elitists" come from these people who turn for good advice and get insults.

I'm sorry for these people, they do not get what they deserve. Not even from me. But you must understand that if I don't want to spend my whole life pointlessly arguing with strangers over the internet, I can't argue with you either, simply because from the limited information I have, I cannot tell that you are not one of the morons. I can only argue with people whose style and information value is high enough to prove themselves intelligent after 20 seconds of reading.

However, exactly because social aggression is harmless in reality, if you are victim of it, you are merely informed that you don't know things and it's time to ask, offer gold for information and read sites.


Tomorrow I set a very evil plan in motion. I will try to implement these ideas of social aggression to the place where I figured it out: Wintergrasp (and soon Tol Barad).

42 comments:

Xaxziminrax II said...

I am VERY interested in seeing how your trial of social aggression pan out. I hope you document it well.

Anonymous said...

if you are looking for a decent world PVP objective besides WG consider the gates of Zul'Grub.

a small group of pvpers could likely hold them for a significant amount of time. make sure you start a fair distance out.

with the ZG mount being eliminated soon there is also a constant stream of soloists on their way there. they likely are at least half decent players (it takes some skill to solo) which will make it an interesting endevour.

Squishalot said...

Gevlon: "I don't actually hurt him in reality as me calling him moron is just noise and if I choose to not be in the same group as him, I'm excluding myself just as much as him. So if I'm "the wrong", I'm not hurting anyone else but myself by excluding and alienating every capable people from my circles, locking myself into a group with fellow morons. So one can use "social aggression" without risks of harming innocent people."

Flawed argument. Excluding someone is not the same as excluding yourself from their company. Using the same argument, if I launch a DoS attack on your blog, I don't hurt you in reality as it's just noise, and I'm also excluding myself from your words of wisdom, so it's OK.

I'm surprised that you use siege / demolishers in WG defense, but thinking further, it can make sense for your server. On a more populated server, a more effective strategy is to get multiple catapults to down the south towers.

The advantage of catapults over siege is that they are faster to get and faster to move between locations, meaning that you spend less 'wasted' time moving from tower to tower, and can get back to the keep faster once your job is done. Alliance on my server take Westspark first, down west, south, then east towers, then drown the catapults and take SR on the way back to the keep to make room for siege in defense.

Foo said...

You are attempting to turn M&S with no understanding of what or why, into M&S iwith limited understanding of what and still no understanding of why.

I agree that you should meet a social problem with a social solution. You are choosing one that is proven to work - but work badly.

In essence you will be forming a 'gang', with you as its leader. Gangs can control areas - including Wintergrasp. Gangs are by nature irrational.

My understanding is that you would prefer to have/create rationals (or at least educated socials) rather than form and lead an irrational gang.

Keanne said...

Some people do take constructive critism well. When you told me to shoot the walls and not the Horde, I thanked you for the advice and now I shoot at the wall targeted by our team.

But I will agree that we are a small group with more then Honor Kills on our minds.

I also think it is because it is so late in the expansion that no one cares about the rewards offered by the vendors after winning WG. Everyone have their black mammoths, pvp heirlooms etc.

Visalyar said...

Expanding the M&S to EJ-Fanatic followers, who don´t understand the theorycrafting inside the EJ-posts shouldn´t be a new thing.
EJ refuses to educate M&S just inside their own name. "But you must understand that if I don't want to spend my whole life pointlessly arguing with strangers over the internet" exactly that´s the point.

The 4 types of M&S reply only leave the third type up for some arguments. As I´ve already posted I´m actually researching this debates in detail.

Type one and two is (funny fact) usually a EJ-Fanatic or a PvP-lucky faceroller.

Those who are successful on their own or by taking advices already know the right thing or go for /ignore, because they "don't want to spend my whole life pointlessly arguing with strangers over the internet" possibly thei´re just fed up with doing something productive while others run around just banging their heads on walls.
At this point type four would eventually listen to you if they wouldn´t be already fed up about the never changing M&S-loltrain.

That´s the picture I´ve got over the years.

chewy said...

The problem I've observed with EJ, not regularly, just occasionally, is that because they have run the gauntlet and been accepted, some of their contributors go unchallenged even when their advice or observations are flawed. Sometimes a check and balance is required from the none elite. There's an old oriental saying which goes along the lines of "a wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer".

On a purely logical level I agree that "..calling him a moron is just noise.." and it doesn't actually hurt him but often in real life the "calling" is a precursor to physical harm as the situation escalates, therefore, it is no surprise that people will act in a defense way to such language. If the real objective is mutual learning then conceding to some social etiquette is useful.

Kring said...

It could also be that the EJ moderators are socials. And it's their "payment" to humiliate others. Power to use and abuse is appealing for many. I don't see why EJ moderators automatically are rational, unemotinal people. That's just your assumption, that they are one of your kind, right?

And when I compare EJ with pages like tankspot or maintankadin I have some doubt that their policy is really helping their page. For me, these other pages result in a higher amount of information gained per second read then EJ although they contain the occasional "slackery" question.

Your plan of social aggression might even drive the good social players out and keep the "it's just a game" one in. I think that's what's happening with EJ at some level.

Drathas said...

I ran into the same problem when I was organizing Wintergrasp before the queue system was in place. I just made a macro that I sent via raid warning every 5 or so minutes outlining a few of the basic principles like ranged kill cannons, melee protect them, don't use catapults, kill NPC's to get promoted faster. It was really easy to kick the LOLkids who spammed raid chat and ready checks, the people who were uninformed and wanted to learn sent me a tell asking why I had those strategies. After about a week of this the Alliance on my server started winning almost all the WG's people were sending me tells saying 20 minutes until WG, are you going to start a raid? Then when I leveled an alt for pvp, I joined a raid and someone was using the same macro I had used earlier. There is hope.

Adnade said...

I'm not sure you understand what EJ stands for and what their purpose is. Those people that you see in the Banhammer are just trash, they are not desired on those forums, nor welcomed.

Gevlon said...

@Squishalot: by a DOS attack you force third parties to not access my site. The proper analogy would be demanding your readers to install an addon that blocks my site and not serve readers who don't have the addon. This way readers must choose between the sites but they can make a choice.

@Foo: obviously I prefer rationals. But the M&S is an obstacle that must be handled some way.

@Chewy: in real life attacks are heavily punished and rare. How many times YOU were attacked by criminals? The link you mention is merely another ape-subroutine.

@Kring: information quantity =! information quality.

Visalyar said...

EJ stands for the nerdish outcast of WoW who are fascinated by getting deep under the surface of the ingame mechanics. It appreciates theorycrafters and experienced gamers who can debate without simple argument killers and can provite fact over feeling. (Logs screens, etc.)

EJ fanatics (short explaining my own thoughts, sorry for semi-OT) instead believe that all they have to do is follow their leader because they don´t want or can´t crush the numbers upon the game based formulas and don´t get that all theorycrafting is always "theoretic". They pretend, that all the guides that are produced on EJ as a sinde-effect, are "holy" and should not be questioned.
EJ themselves always pretend that every outcome of theorycrafting should be judged by calculating and simulating the single case and not in general.

@Adnade: I think you are right that the Bannhammer-Failures don´t belong there. Just because argumenting with scrubs who don´t even get simple mathematic or "fact over feelings" is a huge waste of time. I can´t judge EJ for this behaviour either anyone of us should.
I´m studying in electronics and we also don´t care about the gabbish speek of any electrican who thinks he "feels like shit"... ...that would cripple almost every R&D-department.

Kring said...

That's what I meant. Tankspot and Maintankadin are two pages which have, in my opinion, a higher information quality then EJ and they have less aggressive moderation. The dungheap shows that their moderation doesn't keep these people away. They just clean it up. The question is how many valuable contributors they scared off.

That's why I think your Wintergrasp experiment will fail.

Anonymous said...

I think it is being forgotten that these people are being treated as such by the moderators because they broke the rules that they were forced to read when signing up to the site.

The majority of the moderators, it seems, start to use these rather abrupt comments after having already handled several other posts, and so they probably are just fed up of having to deal with this kind of behaviour and become quite rude (obviously this is not a trait desired but they are human, this is what we do). Furthermore, these moderators have been in their positions for a long time. They will be able to tell when someone is beyond help.

Adnade said...

Visalyar: Spot on. EJ has no intention or interest in educating the masses or helping them improve. It's not the purpose of the website. The only thing EJ is interested in is the in depth exploration of game mechanics.

I personally believe the moderators are too nice, actually, considering the level of stupid some of the people who get banned display.

The EJ fanatics you speak of are just irrelevant drones, most of them end up in the banhammer when they post, it's an irrelevant category of people.

@Kring
Neither of those two websites come even close to the actual info that EJ regulars submit. Despite the fact most competent EJ posters retreated from the EJ public forums in the safeheaven that EJB is, there are still more than enough active theorycrafters that do the job.

Kring said...

> Spot on. EJ has no intention or interest in educating the masses or
> helping them improve. It's not the purpose of the website. The only
> thing EJ is interested in is the in depth exploration of game mechanics.

> Despite the fact most competent EJ posters retreated from the EJ
> public forums in the safeheaven that EJB is, there are still more
> than enough active theorycrafters that do the job.

Then why do they have the official forum and why do they invest the
huge work of moderating them if most valuable posters are in the closed
forum and they don't want to help?

Campitor said...

Let me start by quoting Einstein: "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

The M&S are M&S because they are unwilling to learn - no amount of goading will teach them otherwise. Even if their actions will cause their eventual demise they will continue with that behavior. Intelligent change requires introspection, analysis, and the courage to admit they could be wrong, things which they are unwilling to do which makes them unteachable.

There are people who appear to be M&S but are not - they only lack knowledge and only need a teacher or guide to help them. I think these are the people who Gevlon is trying to reach. The dustbin of history is littered with cultures and civilizations who failed to adapt to changes and dissappeared or were engulfed by another society. So obstinance in the face of reality/knowledge is nothing new.

Gevlon is trying to courageously seek the truth in the face of violent opposition - I applaud him for his attempts. But there are just so many who will never want to learn even if it will make their life better. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying. Because in out attempts we will reach the individual who does want to learn and change, and in the effort discover other ideas that make the expenditure worth it.

Visalyar said...

@Adnade: Yes the fanatics are of totally non interest for EJ.
But they are an interesting speciem of M&S (I´ll sort in most of the other theocrafting Guides-fanatics in this term...). The casual unsuccesfull M&S can be taken by their lacking success or by their destructive behaviour.

The EJ-Fanatics, usually are in some part of the game, pretty successful (not talking about the leading 0,5% of all wow-gamers but the 10-20% of the server) just by adopting high quality information what fits for ~80% performance.

In that case you´ve got to get them in their missing ~20%. You´ve got to get their mistakes or missing knowlege to prove them wrong or that they´re simply drones.

Yes, nobody wants to educate the masses, but everyone complains about less success by the random M&S factor (I know this factor is non existent in raiding an may be partial avoidet by premade groups im BG´s). But we still got WG (less of an interest since WotLK is quite outdated already) and Tol Barad coming up.

The question is how to eliminate the random M&S factor. Gevlon stated two ways in his Blog already (one the post today)
a) educate them an get them to reason (debate)
b) get them leave the area by social aggression (kicking the noobs out by words) EJmod-inspired

I´m very interested if he´ll be able to drive them out.

Xenxu said...

Gevlon, this is the one post that finally made me force the link to your blog upon my guild.

The Banhammer is a medieval teaching method being used in 2010 gaming forum.

As you all know in Ancient Rome, they would throw those they deemed failures to the lions (the M&S of the day). This eliminated that problem person, gave pleasure to the elite, and made example for the others : don't do this thing that he did!

Banhammer is the same thing, minus the bloodshed.
It eliminates the problem : Moron isn't there anymore to cause problem.

It gives pleasure to the elite: we can all laugh at how dumb that guy is.

It says :this thing that moron did was bad, don't do it.

The last one is the key, it is how they teach. Everyone on this blog saying they need to be more rational and/or otherwise more socially nice to these people is an example of hand-holding. They want the morons to be taught nicely and in effect have their hand held.

But that is counter productive. If they were to hold the hands of all the morons they bash in the Banhammer, the amount of M&S would skyrocket. They would see it is ok to be a moron, and they will still get carried. This way there is real fear of Banhammer. I have made all of two posts on EJ (reader for many years) and both of them were extremely well thought out and very specific theory ideas that were tested very acutely before posting (both on the effect of Destro Warlock auto-crit from Imp firebolt for those who care).

So, if Gevlon goes on some very hard social agression WG scheme, M&S should go down, because they

1.) Be taught to not do the stupid things they were doing
2.) Other and silent M&S will be taught and fearful of doing the stupid things that others were doing.

Is it the best way to teach? No? Does it get the job done? Yes.

And that's all that matters.

Anonymous said...

@Kring
I feel the same way about EJ. Their enforcement of strict rules hinders fruitfull discussion. I sure as hell won't post there ever again, it's rude just in another sense.
I just go there when there's some usfull number crunching, i'll derive my own conlusions from it.

@Gevlon
If you're want to educate others, you have to stand the heat. I'd like to point out Day[9] to you. He's an (ex-) Starcraft pro and does top end analysis of ScII on his dailys (http://www.day9tv.blip.tv/). I often use his approach when i'm educating people in wow. :)

I think good discussions only emerge when everyone abandons their holier than thou attitude and is willing to ackowledge the fact that they actually still can learn a lot from others.

Btw, i like your blog and the comments. Did you consider opening up a discussion forum?

Tonus said...

I agree with this post. One aim of "social aggression" is to find out how much you are willing to allow the aggressor to get away with, so that he can continue to push you.

The EJ staff do not want this kind of person on their site. Nor do they want people who feel entitled to ignore the rules that are pretty clear and straightforward. They do not really owe those people any courtesy or consideration, because those people have shown them none. It is like someone who ignores the numerous and large "NO SMOKING" signs in your home and lights up. Why would you reason with him? You are better off simply demanding that he leave, and if it hurts his feelings, too bad.

Anonymous said...

re "In a very disproportional argument where one teaches the other completely, the less informed gains information while the more informed just wasted time, typical boosting."

Intent matters. If I educate someone because they deserve it or it is my moral obligation, that is the evil altruism. If I educate the same person for my benefit, say because they could save my life some day or you (initially) need 25 decent people to do a 25 person raid, then it is not altruism, it is investment. Same person. same education.

Similarly, if you start to educate/boost 100 players and for 95 it is only boosting, then boosting the 95 are just the market research cost to find the 5. Unless you are a social, the injustice of the benefits the 95 receive do not bother you; they were just a cost of doing business.

Michael Young said...

This is exactly why I don't have a blog myself, and also why I only very rarely comment on the blogs I read. There's just no percentage in letting someone know I disagree with them. Read his arguments and clarify my own position in my mind, yes, but try to convince him he's mistaken, no.

Squishalot said...

@ Gevlon: "by a DOS attack you force third parties to not access my site."

By ejecting sub-performing members of your raid, you're forcing other raid members to not 'enjoy' the ejected person's company. It is no different.

Ax said...

Very much agree with you Visalyar. As many, I've followed EJ forums for information for quite a while, but over time I noticed that probably only 10% (or less) of the people really crunch numbers, or get into the deep theory of mechanics. Well over half of the people simply ride on the coat tails of those theory crafters.

It becomes a sort of circular reinforcement. One person states a theory, then everyone else accepts that even though only one person ever did the math. Each time people ask questions, it is reinforced by people who accept the first theory as fact. Then (regular non EJ) people assume it must be right because "everyone" says it is.

Coincidentally, I came to understand life is similar, especially in respects to science. Someone claims something as truth, and you ask them to prove it and they can't. It's true however, because "experts" say it is so. Never questioning anything is a dangerous and frequent way of thinking.

Outside of EJ itself, they are often exalted as the one true way. I've come to think that much of the legend of EJ is due to people wanting them to always be true so they have another avenue to chastise others for being "wrong" with their spec and such.

Gevlon said...

@Squishalot: no, because they can leave my raid and join the kicked person. In a DOS attack they can't make a choice

@Ax: usually the initial statement is good enough for average followers (just like the 400 years old Newton-mechanics is good enough to ordinary guys, despite QM is here for 100 years). In EJ, also with science you can challenge the consensus if has proper data. Of course "i feel itz not ok lol" does not fly.

Duskstorm said...

Soon the "non-EJ" player won't get into any decent guild forcing him to obey EJ without question.

This attitude actually annoys me. Have you read the mindless QQ'ing on mmo-champion and the wow forums from people who claim that the new talent trees fail to give them "choice?" "LOL none of the talents increase my damage!! U said u were giving us choice wtf blizz?"

Elitist Jerks has one fault -- it puts every player in a vacuum and tries to improve them individually based on limited metrics.

For example, if you have a 10 man group, you basically choose between using two or three healers. If your DPS classes gimp their survivability in the name of "moar damage," often times you really will need a third healer. If the group goes for survivability above min/max damage, it's possible to switch to two healers. Then the raid's DPS increases substantially, even though individual DPS slightly decreased.

But people really do stick to EJ like it's the Gospel Truth of Raiding. When taken to the extreme, you'll see perfectly good upgrades being sharded because they're not "best in slot." You'll see people min maxing damage on a survival fight, and failing to survive. I know someone who had an encountered an opposing faction player of the same class/spec as him create a level 1 character on HIS faction just to tell him that he gemmed his off spec wrong.

Xenxu said...

@dusk

The misuse of tool or information is not the creator's fault.

In this case there is no reprecussions for EJ to have people use its info poorly because those players do not raid/play with them.

In the real world the above is still true (not creator's fault) but there are incentives to prevent the misuse of your product, i.e. gun makers preventing misuse of guns to improve the image of guns to sell more.

In your example of 3 healers to 2 healers with survival DPS, the same concepts and practices that EJ uses and are "misused" by your example come into play. If the group simply applies the EJ principles (the play to win, goblin, etc.) then they will arrive at the optimal conclusion. Which is more DPS? Which is more likely to succeed?

Shannon Fowler said...

I don't really suggest 'Social Aggression' as a corrective tool.

You'll only ever get three uses out of it: Entertainment; the idiot will feel 'pwned' and finally shut up; or he'll become aggressive to the point where you can report him. They're never going to believe - or let others think - that they could possibly be wrong. The behavior will continue, if only out of spite for being embarrassed by you.

My favorite example of such is back from when heroic Shadow Labyrinth was difficult. I effectively told a dps in a manner he could comprehend that it was his own damned fault he kept dying. He immediately became abusive. This was back when I bothered to warn people, so I told him he could shut up or I'd report him. The response was, of course, 'LOL I DARE YOU TOP REPORT ME NOTHN WILL HAPPEN YOU *obscenity'. So I did, put him on ignore, and went on my merry way.

The next day I got a whisper from a low level alt screaming 'WHY YOU GET ME BANNED'. I reminded him that not only had he been abusive over his own mistakes, he'd dared me to report him. Instead of some lightbulb flicking on, his response was 'WHATEVER YOU *obscenity* NOOB UR STILL A TERRIBL HEALER L2PLAY'. At which point it was time to write another ticket ;)

Anonymous said...

Glotan, i was very interested to see you say ""I am right because I own": he expressed that he has more arena rating, better gear, more bosskills, more achievement points, cooler title, cooler mount, played longer or he is "well known" in the server, so he is right. These kind of people never bothered to actually tell what they are right in, they are just right." and to watch you slate this argument. It is the very same one you presented me with when we discussed WG. You said, and i quote, "you have 0/12 ICC and have never won an arena match. you suck worse than i imagined". Can you explain the difference? For the record, that alt had dinged 80 about 3 days before.

I think your WG tactics are sound, but the way you present them is terrible, you have no leadership skills. As a result, people ignore you. Instead of advice, you give (angry/rude) orders. And since none of us chose you to be the leader, people wont listen to orders. If you gave advice, politely, and said WHY the advice should be followed, maybe (just maybe!) people would follow it! Educate people! Give them a sense of the overarching strategy of the place, don't bark short orders and then abuse them if they fail.

Instead, what people see is "Arthasdk get out of the cata you useless retard". You come across like every other angry kid that you see in battlegrounds. If you have to resort to insults, you are not doing it right. If you want to take on the mantle of leadership, do it properly. You cant just use the stick (i would say you cant use it at all in a WG situation), so try the carrot as well. If this means praise, so be it.


You say you are open to advice and suggestions? Well i politely gave you valid advice about how to present your ideas, and your response? "piss off noob".

As I said before, your tactics are sound, you just need to learn how to present them properly. By going into WG with the attitude that people are 'M&S' and socials, you automatically turn (or at least appear) arrogant. This, in turn, makes people ignore you.

I can see why you wouldn't want this on your blog, but i am only hoping to encourage discussion.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: I never said I'm perfect. I was upset and saw another 0/12 noob doing nonsense. And what do you mean by "praising"? "ArthasDK, you pwn in that catapult but please try it on foot where you have tenacity?"

It's not my job to be everyone's mum and give kisses. If they want to suck, so be it. I won't force myself to be nice with morons for 100+ honor points, especially as everyone gets it.

Anonymous said...

No, i dont mean that at all. I mean "Good job holding SR, now send as many sieges as you can from there to attack the east, we'll keep them occupied this side".

Tell him why sieges are not a good idea, in some situations, they are. They are quick, they give a ranged ability to some classes that dont have any. The clouds tend to keep people away from areas. They have their uses, i don't use them.

Your current tactic is: If the social succeeds, bark next order. If they fail, berate them for it (sometimes while smugly declaring you succeeded in the task you set for yourself)

YOU want to take on this leadership role, so why don't you try to do it in a successful way? As it is, you berate people who are not doing what you want, don't offer help, and then post angry tirades about it on here. The Glotan I see in WG is very different from the Gevlon i see posting on here.

You called me useless after that match, after booting me from the raid. As it happened, I was the sole defender of the only siege that succeeded in breaking down a wall. You had no way to judge my performance, yet you berated me anyway because I dared to say you had the wrong approach. To top it all off, you whispered me to gloat about the fact you ejected me from the raid, twice.

As it happens, I tend to follow your orders because they normally follow what I would be doing anyway. Maybe half the people in WG are sheep who need someone to guide them, but without improving your leadership skills, you are not that person.

Don't mother them, lead them, if that is what you want to do. Arthasdk might be a 13 year old playing a game before his homework, or he might be a professional playing the game after a day at work. Either way, they dont need to see your insults, and they will look down on you for them.

Bristal said...

"It's not my job to be everyone's mum and give kisses. If they want to suck, so be it. I won't force myself to be nice with morons for 100+ honor points, especially as everyone gets it."

Being able to teach, and being a good teacher, requires earning "respect" from those you are teaching. Other than in the military, where respect of teachers (superiors) is presumed, your anti-social attitude is not going to accomplish that.

The other way teaching works, is if the students are self-motivated (paying tuition, knowing a degree follows your teaching, etc.), or come to you independently, thus you have a good reputation for having information they need.

Earning respect is of course a social undertaking. Even if you know what you are doing (in your opinion), if you're an asshat to people (especially in a recreational endeavor) they are not going to listen to you.

You may claim that you approach people neutrally, or even "nicely" to suggest what they should do, but your admitted attitude as above belies that.

So, I have to doubt the whole premise of your post in which "I tried to tell them how to do it better, but they just ignore me or tell me to shut up." So they must all be total idiots and the only way to approach them (get my way) is with aggression.

You have decided to become a bully.

Duskstorm said...

@Xenxu - my beef isn't with EJ per se, but with the insistence on following it's class/spec guides exactly. You cannot debate most raiders about this; there is one and only one "best" spec/rotation/BIS list per individual. Any deviation is cause for ridicule (or gkick).

Xenxu said...

@anon

0/12 can be evidence of somebody's credibility, but not of an argument's validity.

Gevlon said...

@Bristal: they should be self-motivated, as victory provides them extra honor, VoA access and even the social "fun" of "we pwnd the hord lol".

If they follow one leader because they respect him (and not because they know they need a strategy), I despise them and I prefer to gain their "respect" the bully way and not the "I kiss your butt until you like me enough to do something that is good for YOU".

@Anonymous: Yes, I kicked you and sorry for missing one of the standard social replies from the list. Fixed

Xenxu said...

@dusk

not in our guild. if you have a reason to do something not normal, then go for it.

Going frost(mage) because "its more deeps lol" - no.

Going frost because "it will give us more snares and control and allow more damage from other casters and less raid damage" - yes.

Yes, most people are sheep: don't play with them!

Anonymous said...

Positive reinforcement means you're actually paying attention to the state of the game and how capable people are of achieving the things you ask. Barking orders makes you a petulant child that expects things to materialize out of thin air if they pound their fists and cry loud enough. People that open the minimap and find something to deflect blame from themselves is hardly a new concept in WoW and they get justifiably ignored.

Also, the point is that berating people to bully them over the internet doesn't really work, only children and manchildren respond to that.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: if they wouldn't be children/manchildren, then there wouldn't be any problems with them anyway.

Anonymous said...

You ignored many of my previous comments Gevlon. Besides, it's obvious your approach does not work, kicking everyone that disagrees with you won't work either.

For the record, I never said anything on the lines of "I play4 fun rofl", I said that playing for fun and winning are not mutually exclusive. I would suggest anyone that plays wow and doesn't have a good time doing so needs to reevaluate things.

You have made me out to be some sort of 'lolkid' whereas (as I said) I was doing a very good job. You kicked me anyway, of course, so it's not about winning WG: it's about your power trip.

Anonymous said...

The idea that you have to win something to be having fun that the other anon mentioned has been very weird to me in the context of WG as well. Tenacity was never meant as a replacement for extra players, just something to help keep the lower populated side from being utterly crushed, and isn't planned to make a return in Tol Barad (they're opting for 1:1 population ratio gating).

For winning to mean something (as far as winning in a videogame can mean anything, anyway) it has to be perfectly balanced so that win/loss is determined purely by the capability of the player. WoW's never really pretended to be, especially in WG. The closest its tried is arena, but that still isn't as balanced as games like Starcraft 2, Team Fortress 2, or Street Fighter 4 where all the gamers that take competition seriously have gone.

Even with rated BGs, I'm expecting the rating system to be be similar to starcraft which attempts to match you with opponents that would reach about a 50% win rate, so you'd only be having "fun" half the time, an abysmal ratio. You'd be better off grinding on trivial mobs so you could "win" all the time. If you can't enjoy playing the game for the sake of itself, you're basically doomed in PvP.

FoF said...

What I am still curious about your justification in saying people who are based on claims that they are better (arena, X/X Current raid tier, etc etc) and then using those justifications yourself. Do you realize that this is hypocrisy and just not care because you believe you are singularly above this?