Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Why tolerate elitist jerks in WoW?

Tobold wrote in a comment "There are no morons in WoW. There are only jerks who think that because they spent too much time with the game and now wear purple pixels and get high numbers on gearscore and damage meters, they now have the right to call other players morons. For Blizzard it is infinitely wiser and more profitable to kick out the jerks than to kick out the players with lower gearscore and damage meter position." Considering that a cloth geared, ungemmed warrior "tank" pays just as much as a Paragon or Method member, generates less server load, finds (and abuses) less bugs and usually acts less offensively towards other players ("1 g plox" is annoying, but not offensive) Tobold seems to be right.

Then comes the question: why do Blizzard keep these people? I mean they generate all that hard raid content that most customers don't use, only jerks. With the "last tier" design, the "fun ppl" don't go to raids even after it's outdated, as they farm their gear from badges. Also, Blizzard is tolerating damage meters (they could decrease communication load too if combat log would only show your actions and actions against you), they are tolerating kicking fellow players from 5-mans, they are tolerating (strike that, openly supporting) creating guilds that are exclusive by their very nature (no one invites everyone).

I also haven't heard of any player being even temporarily banned for insulting a fellow player for bad performance or calling him "idiot", "moron", "useless noob". They jump instantly for an n-word, a "faggot" or a "jew-boy", they would have to just ban a few people for being a jerk, and soon the internet would be all over it, communicating the new social norms in WoW. The "jerks" would leave soon leaving the "fun ppl" to play happily.

The question is not why Blizzard caters the morons. It's obvious: $15 x 1-2M. The question is why do they cater those who pay very little compared to the server load and grief they cause? Wouldn't the goblinish move would be to get rid of every means of belittling "players with less time" and banning all those players who would still try to do it?

To understand why Blizzard needs good players, we first have to answer the fundamental question: what is WoW's unique selling point? I mean there are similar games with similar graphics and less than 1/10th playerbase. There are not similar MMOs with different ideas, gameplay, ruleset and less than 1/50th playerbase. It's obvious that the color of the dragons or the name of the spells can't be responsible for these huge differences. Blizzard is selling something qualitatively different from competitors.

To find this "magic quality", all we have to do is listening to players. They very rarely roleplay, openly rejecting immersion to the gaming world. They never say "I go save the Ram'kahen from the evil Neferset and Al'akir", they say "I go grind some XP on my mage". The important word here is "on" as opposed to "as" or even "for". The characters are not avatars in a game world. The player don't think "when I play WoW, I am a mage in Azeroth". The player thinks "I own a mage in WoW". That's why they pointlessly gear alts: to have more "property". Since you can't really sell this property, the only option left is "social status symbol". But how?!

To understand it, you must also notice Blizzard's latest developments: via Armory you can see and show others your status property. You can RSS feed the latest status increases. Please note what RSS shows: achievements completed and items gained. Via real ID it's easier to link your property to your real self. Among the upcoming features there are facebook integration and other social media connections.

Blizzard recognized that being a gamer became a socially positive and relevant self-aspect. Ten years ago, one called himself a student and him playing wasn't relevant in social interactions. He may even be ashamed of it. Now being a gamer is a community-(and therefore self) defining trait. One calls himself a "gamer" the same way as he called himself a "basketball team member". He seeks other gamers to socialize with and openly talks about his gaming. Gaming became a source of pride, connection, self-determination.

However you can be "gamer" in every games, it's still not enough to explain WoW's stunning success. The final clue in the puzzle is: Blizzard is selling the illusion of you being a good gamer. Every single WoW player, even the most terrible failure who ever walked on Azeroth logs out with the stone-solid belief that he is a good gamer, he is an accepted and respected member of the gamer community, other gamers like him, respect and envy his achievements. Playing WoW makes the customers feel good about themselves, feel their ego and status elevated.

Obviously it can only be a false illusion as by definition half of the players are below average. Also, we often see not only "bit weak", but abysmally terrible players. How can Blizzard make them believe that they are not total failures in the game? That is the part where Blizzard can't live without good players. We serve two purposes:
  1. Open boosting. When a 5-man group completes, the flashing animation, the boss being dead, the loot, the points are for everyone. While we know that Arthasdklol was just a dead weight in the run, he won't know it. He will honestly believe that we won. If any of the boosters criticize him, he dismiss it with "no-life loser nerdraging". He will log out with the solid belief that he can complete a HC and just did it.
  2. Making the illusion that content is hard. If content is socially perceived trivial, it is no source of pride. There is no gamer community around easy flash games. No one would wear a T-shirt with Solitaire on it. The easy WotLK was a total disaster. In early WotLK Blizzard was boasting subscriber numbers over 10 million. Now they are proud to sell 4-5M Cataclysm. The problem with WotLK wasn't "easy", but "socially perceived easy". If someone completed a HC, he did not feel good about himself as he knew that his "friends" will just say "meh you grinded another HC so what". To create the social consensus that it's hard, the content must be hard for a time being. It is impossible without people who actually do that content. If no one does it, it's not "hard" but "socially irrelevant" (or bugged). The purpose of the good player is to complete the content uphill in the snow, to let the bad one believe that he is equally good when he completes it after 5 nerfs. Just check how many people wear kingslayer title who got it after 4.0.1! They make themselves believe that they did the same like those who got it without ICC buff.
WoW must have good players to continue to grow. That's why Blizzard keeps making hard content for us and tolerates us abusing the morons and slackers. They know that in the second they banned someone who called a moron moron, they would lose more than 100-200K customers ($1.5-3M/month). They are selling the lie that the M&S are equal to us. The M&S pay for the self-deception of "you are just as good as the Paragon members, just play less because you have real life". No one would pay for the illusion of "you are just as good as Arthasdklól".


PS: of course there are not just good players and M&S, there are casuals too, who just play for the content. But they are a minority and I doubt if Blizzard would be happy if they would only get the $15 of good players and casuals.


Aljabra in the guild found this perfect specimen:

This forum post arrived in comment by Zydell. Both the name of the poster and the post itself is "great".

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a thought, Gevlon. What if the average player in WoW really is well above average in terms of all computer gamers (including people who play facebook games, wii fit, etc.)?

Gevlon said...

@Spinks: that is possible, but then this effect should apply to WAR, Lotro and so on. There is no reason why an average WAR player would be (or perceived to be) worse "gamer" than facebook gamers.

Kelindria said...

I read Tobold's blog on this and it seemed to me that he believes that these abysmal don't exist or something. While there are a ton of players that mindlessly follow the raid leader and perform based on what they are told to do there is that 3rd group that can't even mindlessly perform. Unfortunately they are paying customers too.

The third group believes that they aren't bad when they clear 7/12 in icc with a 30% buff. The truth is the only reason they even get that far is there friend who boosts them through content by actually having slowed the blood beasts...

The reason the HC content is being nerfed is because the people who can finish heroics finished them a month ago and arthasdk would like to be raiding with his friends but corborus is to OP and gear is hard to get....

The reason most of us find buffing the morons through content alarming is that it completely disregards people who play the system to its best. It's almost the same as saying all dps who are below 6k dps will get a 100% damage buff when they enter a raid. Although the numbers are off quite a bit the idea is essentially the same.

Jumina said...

The fact supporting this theory is that no other MMO games like WAR, AoC or Aion have such end-game raiding content. When you see sites and information about WoW they are mostly about this content. Other games don't have it and they also don't have so much fan sites. And videos on youtube.

Camiel said...

The question is then, why would the jerks and the casuals want to play a game that supports M&S?

Apparently WoW manages to have the image of being a hard game, despit the M&S proving that is not so.

Carighan said...

It's interesting how in WoW "immersion" has completely taken the backseat compared to social interaction while gaming.

In the large picture, it isn't a surprise: Even back in the EQ1 days the common opinion was that slowly, MMOs will evolve into insanely elaborate "minigames" in a large social chatroom service.

And just like in chatrooms, if there's no inherently disagreeing "factions", it'd quickly be boring. :)

Aljabra said...

You made one mistake with the numbers. 4-5 millions of Cataclysm sales perfectly fit with more, than 10 million overall players, as more, than a half of the players are in China, and they only got WoTLK released recently. So, everyone, who's not playing on Chinese servers got a copy of Cataclysm.

Anonymous said...

I would definately buy a T-shirt with Solitaire on it!

- Ridderosti

Anonymous said...

Why do "elitist jerks" tolerate the tool that forces them to interact with "morons"?

Arthasloldk needs gearscore to feel successful in wow, to get gearscore he needs to run HC dungeons, he can't follow any kind of strategy, so he needs to be boosted until he outgears the content.
The question is why boost him? for 1 random HC I get 70 valor points, if it takes one hour to do it (not counting time in queue) i need to spend 10 hours boosting Arthasloldk or mrûnspellâßleñâmegûy to get the relic, and 20+ hours for the trinket.

Why are the decent players who boost so desperate for valor points? Even with a guild group 70 points is hardly worth it. Specially considering that the current tier of raiding is not very gear demanding.

Luck of the draw is from today buffed to 15%. This should put dungeons back to the wrath stage, and make it a grind where success is guaranteed, however it's still not worth the time to get the lousy 70 valor points. Maybe it will be when we get to the AoE everything stage that was 3.3, but not now.

Boosting is a lousy job, so why are people doing it when Blizzard is paying in peanuts?

Ðesolate said...

The whole WoW mercendising becomes more and more creepy. Well not that you can buy every thinkable fanitem, no a Themepark is planned in China http://joyland.ccjoy.com/main.html

It is based on SC and WoW, so pure Blizzard Products. If you think about the big Goldseller and Itemseller making pretty money, sponsored Guilds and Arena teams, live events and big cons. We are part of a Big structure. Even if we are just mere customers it is build around us. Every one feels that he takes part of the biggest MMO-Market currently available. And it keeps growing.

Leeho said...

I don't see how exactly time spent in a game goes for doing more damage. If "jerk" meets a moron in a game, it already means that both of them have the same level and more or less the same level of gear (yes, purples are better than blues, but it's not the matter of 50% damage done). Granted, jerk spent even less time working on this character, cause if you know game well, you level and obtain gear faster. Playing with one raiding character takes not so much time. Levelling alts, grinding achievements, raiding with pugs are way more timesink-y. So i just don't get that "you are no-lifer" attitude. It takes like 6 hours max to read EJ, set up proper interface and practice it on dummy to play on a level enough to not be called a moron by a stranger.

Inquisitor said...

People aspire to *be* Ensidia. If you kick them while they're down, you're kicking people right in the hopes and dreams (no matter how unrealistic said hopes and dreams are).

Without the tiny, but very visible, success stories, who would join the grind? (c.f. Modelling, pop music, Hollywood, football, etc.)

Inquisitor said...

Incidentally, a google image search for 'solitaire tshirt' tells you that we need a "Rule 34b: There is a tshirt of it."

Ulsaki said...

I can only speak for myself here, but I've never called anyone stupid because their gear doesn't have a purple name and their numbers are low. I called them stupid because they acted in a stupid way.

It's not based on numbers. It's very easy to tell a good player with low numbers apart from a bad player with higher numbers.

Tobald is completely wrong: there are many, many stupid people who play WoW. They are not stupid because they are bad players, they are stupid because they are stupid. Being a bad player is a symptom of that.

Many of the bad players I have seen in my guilds played far more than I did. They had all the time in the world to become better players, and they refused to even when they were told they were bad (e.g. your 2K DPS is not good enough for ICC). In several cases they even had months more raiding experience than me when I took a break, and I would still beat them.

Instead they whined about "who are you to say my DPS is too low?". If you cannot divide boss health by (enrage timer * number of damage dealers), and work out you need to at least achieve this to pull your weight, you are stupid. If you cannot grasp that you need to achieve this even when someone else has done the calculation for you, you are stupid.

It does not take much time to become good at WoW. If you have enough time to run a dungeon or raid, you have enough time to become a good player. Since we don't care about the skill level of players outside of dungeons/raids, this means that anyone you encounter in these environments has no excuse for not being a decent player, other than stupidity and laziness.

I've always found the accusations of elitism funny in WoW. Even when the minimum standards are completely objective such as DPS requirements to avoid enrage timers.

I find it particularly funny because no one in their right mind does this in the real world. I don't demand a license to practice medicine otherwise "you're being elitist", and similarly I demand that my doctor has high qualifications. I demand my electrician and plumbers are qualified. I expect the state to have a minimum standard for those allowed to drive a vehicle.

Almost every rational person on the planet (and even most stupid people) demand standards for performance. Why this only seems to be labelled as elitist in WoW is beyond me.

mystic said...

At the end of the day, Blizzard are running a business, they're in the business of making money and thuis will try and target the most people possible with their product. The simple fact is that the people with the most disposable income tend to be people with jobs, thus have less time to play so tend to be casual.

If you look at cost of development versus use, high end content would seem to be a waste of money; if only 1% of players ever got to see is then the majority of the target audience would never benefit form is (and a more likely to get bored and stop p(l)aying) and Blizzard either lose money, or don't make as much as they could.

Blizzard have been very clever in the way they've done things, the high end content is used as a flagship, almost an advert, it's the stuff that gets all of the attention on fansites so they use the hype to give people something to aim for. By slowly nerfing some of the content (or buffing casuals), it opens it up to more people thus keeps the subscriptions flowing in. By doing this they can allow the niche demographics (sorry, bit buisnessy), i.e. early adopters to be catered for - the harcore raiders, acheivement junkys, hardcore PvPers etc. but then also allow the mass market to follow and benefit from the same content

You need to remember WOW mimics reality in a lot of ways, idiots in the real world will still be idiots in WOW, some people in the real world are career oriented and live to work, others work to live, others are happy sitting in their concil house leeching benefits. This translates quite well to hardcore raiders, casuals, and slacker.

As someone who's been both a hardcore radier and (now) a casual over the years I can see things from both points of view. People need to stop worrying about other types of players getting pandered to by Blizzard and getting buffs and concentrate on why they play the game; to enjoy it - this is a different reason for everyone, for some it's aquiring purple shiny things, for others its the social aspect, for some it's amassing every pointless pet in the game - whatever, pick the reason why you want to play the game and focus on that, the glass doesn't always have to be half empty.

Krisps said...

I'm very suprised by Tobold's opinion that only time seperates the 5k and 5k dps, and not skill/intelligence.

Anonymous said...

BTW, Gevlon, Blizzard does ban for "idiot" and "moron". Having been on the receiving end of one of those warnings, (though not bans) I can attest to it.

However, the thing must be reported, and most idiots lack the patience to write a proper ticket. "WTF. I must write??? Ohnoes."

The rest of the post is spot-on, or close enough. I would like to add that Blizzard is also selling high-end game as hope: "Grind 1000 heroics and you'll be as good as Paragon!"

It's a bit different from your point, since some M&S would catch on that they're only able to kill bosses way after they've been killed by top-end.

It's good that Blizzard sells them this hope then. They don't tell them: "You will be able to kill this boss next content patch." They're actually telling them: "You'll be able to kill those bosses this patch!"

Squishalot said...

@ Aljabra - I know at least one person in real life who has an active WoW account who has not bought Cataclysm because she hasn't needed to - her top character has only just entered Northrend. So your conclusion isn't necessarily correct.

Riptor said...

Gamer Community... Nowadays every Scrub that has discovered Farmville calls himself a gamer. I am honestly glad Blizzard keeps WoW running by selling those "Gamer" Community Whores the idea that they are/will eventually become as good as the top tier Players.
Gaming seems to have become a Lifestyle Choice where it doesn't matter how good you are or noone aspires to become better because, hey, being a gamer does not automaticly make you a Nerd...
It's like our Raidleader said at the Start of Cata. Guys, now you seriously have to turn your Nerd on and accept the fact that there is something seriously wrong with you...

The "true" Gamers are a Subculture and will remain one even when around us there evolves a Gameing Lifestyle evolving around pixeled Chatroomes and Social interaction based Games.

Ðesolate said...

@Ridderosti(OT):
http://img203.imageshack.us/i/getcreationpreviewimage.png/
Will be available at Ðesolate-online-shipping.com (not serious)

@Flamething:
Saying someone is a moron / idiot / slacker / noob is free speech and it is your personal opinion. Blizzard will never be interestet to ban this.

Saying that you suck a bag of dicks or your mother had some relationship with any kind of animals is offensive and does not display your opinion in the way of free speech.

By the way a personal friend of mine got away in court saying to a policeman "I personally think you rape small children." who told him "I personally think you smoked grass." If he'd said "you rape small children" he would have been in serious trouble.

It is usually the choice words and the articualtion that makes the difference between ban and warning.

Ðesolate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Campitor said...

I think Blizzard tolerates and caters to elitist for economic reasons outside of normal game play. The elitist jerks do the theory crafting and min/maxing calculations for the M&S thereby educating those who want to be educated. Blizz does a lousy job of explaining their product's mechanics/formulas because they don't have to - the elites do it for them.
And the biggest reasons Blizz creates content for HC players is because these players will probably also do the most word of mouth advertising as well as publishing internet sites devoted to their games thereby creating free and valuable advertising for WoW that otherwise would have to be paid for by Blizzard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point).

Anonymous said...

@Riptor: "Gamer Community... Nowadays every Scrub that has discovered Farmville calls himself a gamer. I am honestly glad Blizzard keeps WoW running by selling those "Gamer" Community Whores the idea that they are/will eventually become as good as the top tier Players."


Actually, people play Farmville because they don't see it as a real game. Those are, most of time, mothers and fathers mocking their kids for playing every CoD or FIFA and silently agreeing that "paying games make you violent psychotic".

Ax said...

I agree with Riptor that even people who play farmville can consider themselves a "gamer". This isn't just a phenomenon in World of Warcraft however, it's just as prevalent in console gaming. There once was a time that "beating" a game meant you actually had more skill than the game could provide a challenge to test. That eventually evolved into games having an "end". Then the "end" became something that wasn't a reward for skill, but an expectation of playing a game.

I don't hold it against people for not having skills to play a game. For those people who want entertainment I think having an "easy" mode is fine. I do have a problem with those people leaching off of others who carry them to accomplish much of anything. That often goes both ways though. The needy person who can't do things by themselves who makes the skilled person feel very much needed and wanted.

I've come to understand that this is a fundamental driving force between MMOs now, and I've grown tired of them for this reason.

enlynn said...

@Desolate. Freedom of speech is a basic constitutional right for Americans that guarantees the government will not put you in jail for distributing information. This has nothing to do with what you want to type out in a public channel in a video game. It's Blizzard's servers, their Terms of Service, their End User License Agreement, their choice to ban someone for any reason. We are consumers in WoW, Blizzard is a business who can choose who it sells services to.

Back on topic: the top 1% is a minority indeed but I imagine that Blizzard understands how important they are to the MMO culture. There has to be an elite subset that is pretty hard to get into or there's no reason to spend all that time grinding at the bottom. Their fishbowl has to be big enough for everyone, basically.

Sthenno said...

While clearly there are morons who play WoW (with millions of people this in inevitable) I don't really think that is the point of Tobold's post. Nor do I think his post is aimed at members of Paragon. Members of Paragon don't spend their time in message boards or trade chat insulting people with lower gearscore than them - they spend their time downing bosses.

This post opens with the observation that nearly everyone thinks they are pretty good but in reality there must be a bunch of people who aren't that good. Given that this is true, we actually have no reason to equate the "elitist jerks" who insult people who are "worse" than them with actual good players.

In fact, I think it is the opposite. In general, if I see someone claiming that other guess - on the balance of probability -that person is a relatively bad player.

Why do I think this way? It's simply because a person who blames himself for every loss and always thinks about what *he* has to do better next time tends to learn faster than a person who blames other people for his losses and says it's bad luck he has to play with these morons.

It's also because my experience lines up with this observation. If you are playing a dungeon and a dps leaves because the group "sucks" then you get a new dps, it usually gets easier after that. The person who complains about other people is complaining that other people aren't carrying them - he is used to being carried.

I'm not trying to say that if you complain about morons you are bad. Everyone has had occasion to complain about an obvious moron at some point. And I won't overgeneralize by saying that because things *tend* to be one way that they *are* that way all the time. But the best players I know spend more time apologizing for how badly they are playing than complaining that other people are playing badly.

WoW does need good players to maintain it's level of success, but it doesn't actually need jerks for anything.

Honors Code said...

"as by definition half of the players are below average."

Actually, assuming a nominal bell curve distribution of population, more than half the players would be below average.

Angry Gamer said...

Gevlon,

your quote has great meaning:
"Blizzard is selling the illusion of you being a good gamer"


WHO exactly is being sold this illusion Gev? WHO exactly WANTS to be considered GOOD (or even superior)? People who constantly brag about being in the top 10% of wowprogress guild rankings perhaps?

In the states we used to have this radio show called lake woebegon. In the intro of this radio show set in this fictional town always said:"all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average,""all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average,"

Which is obviously impossible. BUT THAT'S THE POINT. Everyone WANTS to be GREAT. Not everyone is. And even people who think they are great top 10% player may not be as "good" as they think they are.

Blizzard sells games... these games provide SOMETHING that enables them to get revenue from it. In WOW it seems Blizzard gets a lot of revenue from simple human Vanity.

In fact there is a term for this the Lake Wobegon Effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

So the goblin fell for a marketing gambit after all.

Andrei said...

@Gevlon While I agree with your point that Blizzard is doing a good job of balancing needs of different player segments (read skill level) I think you are completely missing Tobold's point. He isn't talking about elitist jerks or top 1% of player base. He is talking about a broader segment of just jerks or goblins like you. Players who are not really pushing game limits and whose sense of accomplishment and self-worth can come only from comparison to and often abuse of "lesser" players or M&S as you prefer to call them.

WoW must have good players to continue to grow. That's why Blizzard keeps making hard content for us and tolerates us abusing the morons and slackers.

The problem here is that you are also sold on the illusion that you are a good player. You are even proud to be in 16K-17K ranked guild though you prefer to sugar coat it with top 10% talk. The segment of players that Tobold is calling jerks in his post are mediocre at best pampered by Blizzard to match their skill level the same way Blizzard is pampering "morons" in your speak.

Anonymous said...

@Ðesolate

The difference is, it's Blizzard's product and your misunderstanding of what the law considers "free speech" has nothing to do with anything. When it comes down to it, they can ban you for whatever they want. If a GM having a bad day gets a complaint that you called little Johnny a moron, you can be banned if that's what he decides to do.

Anyways regarding the artice- I think Tobold is operating on the opinion that the truly BAD players are in as much of a minority (if not more so) than the high end raiders when compared to the average player so they are not who he's talking about. Honestly you can catch someone playing poorly in a pug and think he's a mouth breather when really he's a decent player when he wants to try.. he's just on the phone or watching TV, or drunk off his ass at the moment.

Squishalot said...

@ Honors Code: "Actually, assuming a nominal bell curve distribution of population, more than half the players would be below average."

Fail. A normal distribution (traditional bell curve) has median = mean, and therefore, the original statement was correct.

A bell curve where more than half of players are below average would be right skewed, with extreme values on the above-average side that weight the average above the median.

Kelindria said...

It's hard really to quantify just how much these top elitist players actually benefit the majority of the player base.

I can say for certain quite a bit of my performance is directly related to the work done by top guilds in clearing content before I can reach it. I have never entered a raid thinking to myself what does this Boss do. They're videos and details on abilities that make no boss a surprise unless I am being lazy which returns you with a hefty repair bill.

As for the percieved above average it really is pointless unless you have proof that you are performing at a level required to accomplish your goals. For me I constantly trying to find proof that I am doing good enough to clear the content I want to clear. Obviously dps related and death/damage that is your fault are the main considerations for me as to whether I am above average enough to complete the encounter. If it isn't me it is the people around me which need to improve or need to be removed. M&S are simply the need to be removed category. Unsucessful social guilds fail because they don't believe these people need to be removed or improve. They expect YOU to help them...ie carry them. You can only carry so far. The majority of social guild will be stuck on Atramedes for the next 6 months because you just can't out gear this guy.

Anonymous said...

Everybody likes to think that they are the good players. Blizzard gives them plenty of small triumphs for them to remember, and they'll easily forget their numerous wipes. Just notice that virtually all of the playerbase is unhappy about the terrible players in LFD, but this seems to require yet another invisible mass of even worse players below them. The obvious solution is that people think of themselves as good players, and whenever they make a mistake they either blame it on someone else or forgets it when they complete their next dungeon. (I think this is called confirmation bias.) They don't take half as kindly to other people's faults, though, so you end up with far too many players thinking of themselves as good. (Similar in a way to how something like 80% of drivers believe themselves to be in the top 10% or whatever the numbers were.) These players naturally think of themselves as perfectly capable of raiding - once they have the time and gear and a good guild/group, of course.

Townes said...

I don't mind elitists, and I don't mind players who are much better or much worse than I am. I just don't see any reason not to be polite. I see no reason to call anyone names.

I think I've read an argument here along the lines that this is being assertive and showing others that you don't have to boost players who don't perform well. I think you can do the same by just saying no to the players who perform badly. You can exclude them from your play circle without calling them "M&S". It's simple enough for an adult to say, you need more situational awareness before you're ready for this raid, or you need higher dps, or whatever. Those who care and are capable will improve, the others won't, and that's that. Anything else is drama, from my point of view.

Anonymous said...

Blizzard seems to be continually positioning themselves as a social services company (ie facebook) rather than a gaming company.

Blizzard now sees the market value that facebook would command if they ever went public with their compnay - and they want a part of that.

Noting that facebook has no game behind it whatsoever (mini app games (farmville) being a secondary tier of content produced with minimal effort), there can be an argument made that blizzard indeed does not need highly specialized gamers who tax blizzards resources, they need more drooling M&S who as long as they beat the top content (farmville) are happy as heck!

Just a thought... it may be a day late and a dollar short, but just a thought.

Nice blog btw - it is one of 2 gaming blogs that I still read. I am not currently MMO gaming, although have enjoyed both EVE Online and WOW.

Anonymous said...

PS on my previous comment on Blizzard trying to position into a social services company..

if they successfully do this, sure they may lose some $15 subs from the serious players, however that loss will be minimal next to their gain of market value as can be seen with the popularity of facebook.

Part of this strategy would at some point include a reduction of the subscription cost, but higher end profit and marketablity.

I cant wait to see how many more M&S flood the game once the WOW movie releases, and they may be the 1st culling of those that expect less...

It is a tricky and gamey (pardon the pun) stunt to pull off, but if they do, the market value of Blizzard would certainly skyrocket.

Just a thought :)