Part 8 of the Summer of Warcraft series.
It has dawned on me, slowly but surely, that in order to continue playing as a priest, I’m going to have to join a guild and participate in group activities. As I mentioned in Part 7, this holds no appeal for me.
While I have enjoyed playing this game with my buddy and my brother-in-law (on two different servers) on occasion, the thought of joining a group of complete strangers online to coordinate a strategic gaming effort gives me flashbacks of the fresh hell that was online group projects in college. The crippled communication and anonymity of net relationships is just a breeding ground for stupidity. So, as a rule, I must be paid to politick online, especially after last night’s experience.
I met a mage – we’ll call him “Pabst” – outside the Silver Stream Mine in Loch Modan as I prepared to do some serious Kobold kicking. He was embroiled in a battle with a very lucky Kobold, so I blessed him and cursed the Kobold, a simple courtesy. He then asked if I needed help. He was what I call a “twitcher,” constantly moving around and typing in illegible pidgin – a tween poster child for Adderall. But I told him my quest objective and invited him to join me. Huge mistake.
Pabst’s idea of “helping” was to wait for me to draw an enemy, and then charge into the fray, enrage every surrounding enemy, randomly toss spells around and leave me to haplessly juggle my original target and my job, his defense. This twat thought that I, as a priest, should tank. After miraculously failing to get me killed, Pabst then began swiping my quest objectives even as he saw me heading to them. This may make for some good, old fashioned penis measuring among the offensive classes, but, in this situation, it was just pathetic. Blizzard hobbles the priesthood into irrelevance as it is. I don’t need my “friends” contributing to the problem.
So I ditched this liability and let him fend for his nutty self. I secured my objectives and then asked him if he completed his objectives, an unnecessary courtesy. He berated me for ignoring him and left the party. I wasn’t completely heartbroken.
But then, weirdness. As I traveled back to Thelsamar, the local burg, Pabst messaged me again: “listen u want to join my guild?”
Wow. I had to admire the balls on this guy. I responded, “I’m not on much, but sure.” That usually filters out the True Believers, as it did this time. Pabst then piously informed me that his clan was ” a leveling guild” and that I needed to be “on and committed.”
“It’s a video game, kid,” I responded. “‘Committed’ means ‘crazy’ in my book.” Boy, did that light his fingers on fire. Thank the gods for the ignore button.
Sorry, Pabst. You named your character after a beer. You twitched constantly with impatience. You were rude and annoying, and you played poorly. If you aren’t a “kid,” you are a manchild, and that’s even worse. But you’re hardly alone. This game attracts a certain kind of personality that sees leadership as domination, not inspiration, and delights in dominating behind a screen of anonymity. This type of personality is both the inspiration for and the creator of the stupid management essay and overly belligerent guild.
My buddy, the level 80 mage, finally lost his cool this weekend, complaining about the childishness and pettiness of his guild, but I don’t know how he put up with it this long. This is not what I call entertaining.
