Moneybags Returns

Here’s something to share.

I’ve written previously about my (former, I guess) gamer buddy Mr. Moneybags. In Star Wars Galaxies, he was an obsessive collector and merchant. If I were a shrink, I’d probably think the dude probably has some level of OCD, given his fascination with collecting things; IRL he’s got a thriving business collecting and selling vintage toys and artifacts on E-Bay, and in virtual life (IVL?) he’s pretty good at working the auction house. In SWG, where you could have virtual buildings to display your goods, he built meticulous museums.

He started playing WoW before me, and was anxious to show me the ropes, but as I’ve written about myself, I’m one of those people who has to get in there and figure it out at my own pace. So I was the one who joined a large guild, and got him in as an officer, and then moved into a raid guild, where he didn’t follow. He’s a virtual merchant, I’m a virtual explorer.

The deal with Moneybags is that nobody tells him what to do. Certainly something I can relate to, but he takes it to some really uncooperative extremes. It got to the point where I wouldn’t do anything game-related with him because he would screw it up while barking (incorrect) orders. And then there would be a lot of tension and anger, and it was easier to just let him go do his whatever, at his own pace.

Moneybags never could find anybody to group with until the LFG system came on board, and then he started running around in heroics. Frequently, he would pop up in our chat channel complaining about extremely rude players who kicked him out of groups, or just left themselves. One memorable time, he got both the tank and the healer to log out of the game in disgust. Occasionally, someone would break through and explain to him some of the little game mechanics that could make his life a bit easier, but it was a struggle.

He quit over one of the holiday achievements that involved battlegrounds. Control freaks hate battlegrounds; the thought of losing in PVP is too degrading. And I’m tolerant to a degree, because some people just really don’t like the adrenalin, and there are plenty of other things for them to do. I’ve walked several people through that particular achievement myself, and have done it on six different characters.

Moneybags didn’t want a handholding, though, because that would just underline the fact that he wasn’t the all-knowing expert. He complained about the achievement, continuously and at length, and toward the end I said something like “look, I’m pretty good at getting these achievements, but I suck at listening to complaining.” And he didn’t ask “hey Darth Bunnywabbit, could you give me a hand if I promise not to be bossy and temperamental?” No, he quit the game – after blowing up at me and accusing me of being carried everywhere by my guild.

Which annoyed me, because I did the bloody achievement solo, every time.

He reappeared recently, just after the patch. He made sure to advise me that the game was being ruined, just like the NGE, and he was only reactivating his account because his wife asked him to, because she wanted some glyphs from his scribe, because he would never, ever enjoy a horrible, evil game such as this one. And after slinging some verbal abuse and wrath around, he vanished from the chat channel. Later dude. Sigh.