I'm raiding again. Yay.

We got a 25 raid boss. The first one in Bastion of Twilight, the guy who hangs out with a bunch of drakes. So I am happier. The guild leader, who also likes 25s, decided to schedule one to see what would happen. There are a few guildies who have been overplaying the difficulty of Cataclysm encounters and predicting that all the other guildies are too inept to handle them, and there has been much talk of weeding out the baddies, and benching them, and requiring everyone to do hours of preliminary study, and of machismo. But when we actually got inside, good gamers turned out to be good gamers.

One of these days I’m going to do a blog rant about terminology that needs to exist for virtual interactions, such as “people who overestimate difficulty in order to inflate their authority/machismo/competence” – this has been occurring a lot.

I am pretty much surrounded by angst. The player caterwauling has gotten so bad there have even been Blizzard posts today regretting the fact healers are getting blamed for everything that goes wrong, and contemplating fixes of the looking for group system to eliminate some of the griefing and exploiting players have already figured out how to do. Impatient players hate the wait. Good players hate being yoked to bads; bads hate elitists telling them how to play. Griefers do things like sign up as tank/heals when not equipped for it, just because it’s a shorter wait, or kick people for flimsy reasons. Entitled players think their invested time should allow them to have the experience they want, on demand.

I’ve mentioned my own brief excursion into bad behavior, when I deliberately wasted some peoples’ time because they were talking hater talk, but that was responsive bad behavior. I don’t think I’ve initiated any, although I have walked out for various reasons, some trivial. For example, if some underperformer starts getting condescending, or if performance is so subpar that I can tell nothing’s going to happen, plus I’ll probably get raged at if I start pointing out deficiencies. On the other hand, if people are civil and are earnestly trying, I’ll hang in there for many attempts trying to get them through it, which is not always possible. I spent about an hour last weekend trying to carry an undergeared tank through the cyclone boss in Vortex – it didn’t work, and after the tank and 2 of the dps left, we got some more experienced people who breezed through it. Amazing how a personnel change can shift things from night to day.

Some of the posts have blamed the playerbase, noting correctly that other games require a whole lot more effort for a whole lot less reward, and people gladly and cooperatively plug away towards the prize. At times it does seem like you’re surrounded by grown-up versions of every toddler who ever pitched a fit while you were trying to eat in a restaurant or watch a movie.

Mr. Moneybags came back. I haven’t spoken to him (except once, when he was on a new alt and I hadn’t realized it was him yet). I’ve realized I have a very low tolerance for emo behavior, and until I learn how to conduct myself in a way that makes them run when they smell me coming, I’m trying to avoid acknowledging them. That hasn’t stopped him from raging, complaining, accusing me of getting carried by my guild or speculating that the people who keep abandoning him in pugs are doing so because they are trying to farm loot.

I’ve even gotten into a mixup with my former guildleader, who took offense to my posting something about how he used to yell at players for screwing up on their first attempt, confusing them with people who had been present at a previous successful attempt.

I’ve even been wondering if this particular game has jumped the shark. From a solo standpoint, it’s much better, with the revamped quests and graphics. However, I’m surrounded by bad behavior. I think the creeps have realized Blizzard is deliberately trying to make them obsolete, and are hollering back as loud as possible.

I’ve also been wondering if I need to find different people. My guildies aren’t bad for a randomly picked crew from my random server, and I like the tabard, and the guild is up to level 9, and since we started doing 25s again I have hope for the future. Still, sometimes I have fantasies about finding some mature-acting players that don’t talk trash or have tantrums. Or even about logging out of this ridiculous yet addictive game and doing something productive.

The 25 raids are fun though. Fast paced and complicated like the dungeons. More of that tonight. I’m looking forward to it.