WoW! Amazing Thread!

[ALERT: This post contains some adult language. If you don’t like it, I hate you.]

As much as I dislike some of the random bitchy, not-helping posts that people put up on the official World of Warcraft forums (and that I’m not even at home, on a mini-vacation with a special friend)…

This thread has so much potential for greatness and it’s a shame Zarhym locked it.

The title of it is “if you only do 3k, 4k, 5k dps, don’t queue”.

Now, a majority of the posts within this delicious 4-page sandwich of a thread are of the “lol this is great” and “two thumbs up” variety. A few even went the distance to say “unless you pay for my subscription, don’t tell me how to play”. And of course, the GREATEST answer was…

If you suck at your class, don’t queue for heroics (I assume that’s what the OP means).  Plain and simple.  If you’ve leveled 84 times, you’re not a new player.  They’ve had 85 levels of time to learn how the class works, how to gear, how to play, how to stay out of the fire, etc.  I don’t think a player has to be a min-maxing stat-obsessive spreadsheet-analyzer, but at the same time I don’t think people should queue for heroics when they have no idea how to play their class.

On the flip side, I’ve grouped with epic-clad, enchanted, achievement-ridden people that can’t do 6k dps to save their life, and I’ve grouped with cheated-the-item-level-system players that can only just do 5k but know what to attack, how to interrupt, how to CC, pay attention, and try earnestly to do well.  Guess which one of these players I’d rather group with and will have infinitely more patience with?

The OP, while having atrocious grammar and spelling “everything” wrong, unfortunately has a great point that people end up ignoring due to the lack of being able to communicate!

I am also, as defined in this post (and our guild) as “that guy”. I’m the one who will kick a bad DPS in a heroic PUG. I am the guy who will belittle, mock, and scream in caps while 3 other guild members help (or if you’re my favorite feral druid ever, name being withheld, you are the guy who goes for it).

If you cannot pull minimum 5k DPS and be unable to perform the required tasks for an encounter or for trash, you should just get out. You are actually wasting my precious $15 a month. Yes, you are. Don’t say “well I don’t know how to play the game” or “I’m new”. If you are either of them, please use your powers to remember your previous 84 levels. You also can use something called “THE INTERNET”, which supposedly has knowledgeable sources everywhere. While you shouldn’t use Wiki to write a paper (or cite it directly), you can use Elitist Jerks or the MMO-Champion forums, or even the World of Warcraft forums to better yourself.

I firmly believe, especially as an educator, if you don’t put in the time to just learn how to do something at its minimal, you shouldn’t be doing it. If you can’t show that you want to be good at something, then don’t do it. You end up wasting not just the time of others, but your own! Anything can give you the keys, but you have to turn it.

To those who are complaining about the OP in this thread, especially this guy:

If low dps bugs you, don’t pug.  By using LFD, you’re acknowledging that you’ll take what you’re given and at least attempt to work with it.

Also, everyone seems so focused on dps.  Where’s the concern for damage mitigation?  I always see dps posting their numbers for dps, but rarely do I see numbers posted for who did the most interrupts, or who took the least damage.  As a healer, I could care less how much your crit was if you’re the guy who gets slammed on a blitz because you’re so focused on your rotation.

Well, first of friend, you’re in luck. If you were in a PUG where we needed a healer and you sucked? You’d get the same treatment. The fun thing is, at least for healing, it’s easier to measure when everyone is dead because you decided to not dispel! Or maybe even just not healing right at all! I’d argue it’s harder to learn how to heal through leveling, so if you’re going to cheat out the normal dungeon grind and go right for heroics through buying PvP blues? I’d punch you in the throat.

Also, I’m not acknowledging anything. I’m not saying “please give me a terrible (insert role here)”. I’m not saying I want the bottom of the barrel. Our guild alone has gotten so many compliments and praise and acknowledgement by the people we PUG we don’t suck at the game! Even when I DPS and I pull my ~10k sustained, a PUG’d healer was like “oh my god you guys are awesome”. If anything, I’d like to thank the failures of WoW for making me look fucking rad.

So yeah. This thread is great because it’s saying something about the general base player of this game— too lazy to learn, too quick to jump into harder content through heroics, and not ballsy enough to admit that it’s not my problem or my guild’s problem, or even the OP’s problem. It’s that guy who is pulling 3-5k DPS, expecting me to carry him literally through an entire instance.

You’re welcome.

A Letter to US-Ysera…

:|

(This letter contains a lot of profanity, because it’s 1000% required.)

tl;dr version— I HATE YOU YSERA ARARARARARARARARARARARRAR

Dear Ysera (US-PvE),

You know, we’ve had some really great times! When we first transferred to you, we had a very rad relationship! We could PUG the “nerfed” version of Black Temple, which was awesome, except a fucking awful protection warrior named Weg (who is still on Ysera as Tilo – troll hunter, and Eins – blood elf paladin; I think she’s still here… somewhere) screwed up our Illidan kills. We honestly don’t know why Moorecowbell (doesn’t play anymore, did keggers with his dog) liked you, but I guess we had to deal with it up until we couldn’t take it anymore.

We started raiding for progression, adding people who we used to play with in Shenanigans (of Exodar, the mightiest guild ever during Burning Crusade) who transferred over. And for a while, it was pretty freaking great. We were actually doing stuff.

But of course, attendance issues would rear it’s ugly head over and over again. And because we did loot council with a revolving door of officers of people we assumed were highly moral and ethical and good people, things got fucked up in the process. It was getting harder to defend those who made the mistakes, and those who were just bad people who couldn’t raid worth a shit.

Over time, we met trolls who couldn’t back up any skill in the game. We met Australians— 3 out of 4 of them are really great, the other one used to be a Blood Elf priest before jumping on the somewhat recent Troll bandwagon. He was also really, really emo and sort of a dick. Some of our friends, after Lowered Expectations crashed into the dirt somewhere after Lich King became a cakewalk and a half, migrated to other guilds. Once again, these are friends who we played with since Burning Crusade. I would almost say “betrayal”, but god damnit, it was more of a disappointment (see cat face at the top of this post) than anything.

Even now, on Ysera, in the little guild called Lowered Expectations, we have a strong enough core to do probably everything in this game. But it took a long time to discover people’s true natures, intentions, and instabilities. I can’t blame everyone, to be honest, because the game is supposed to be fun. But I don’t understand the people who I really trusted for a good 4 to 5 years of my life decided to waste that relationship. It’s a distinct possibility that I think too highly of myself, but I don’t think that’s the case— I am not the perfect player, but I am damn sure I make every opportunity present for every person I play with.

Oh, wait. I’m sorry, Ysera! Let me tell you more about yourself. You are a dying server for the Horde. There are maybe one or two competitive guilds on the server that care to “compete”, but it’s truly a lost cause… being first on Ysera is sort of like being first in a city of 3 people competing for the “Most Worthless Competition” competition. The Horde, which used to hold 6-7 relatively competitive guilds, doesn’t have that cohesiveness anymore. And do not get me started on Tol Barad. Midwinter, probably the most defining guild on Ysera (Alliance side, though) can make Tol Barad explode with just one person present. I wish I was exaggerating.

(Oh yeah, and competition is stupid in a video game, unless you get mad sponsorship and money— in which case, props.)

And also, most of the Ysera PUGs I get in randoms? Ridiculously embarassing! A retribution paladin who pulled 4k on every boss. She may have been waiting for Crusader Strike to come on cooldown and not do anything else. And how about a priest in the guild “Team Cupcake”, who asked the tank if they ever had done it before and then fucking booked it when the tank said no. That’s perfectly fine, because it’s not like the expansion came out almost two weeks ago.

Ysera, if anything, I have to blame you for all of the problems we ended up having. When people stopped showing up for raids, from “taking a guild vacation that would eventually ruin a lot of people’s want to raid and/or exist in WoW” to “the officers all have a conspiracy against me” (which, to be frank, was probably true if you were one of the completely awful people we needed to find during moments of crisis), we only had a diluted and ineffective pool to draw from. Maybe it’s because there were so many people in guilds and all the “good” ones were spread out too thin. Maybe it’s because Ysera is also filled with douchebags, some of the populace being too stupid/too arrogant to join up with someone for 5 seconds to share credit on a quest mob. Never would I see the day where I’d want other guilds on my own faction, or other people, to fail.

Hate!

– Nazragor, “Because I hate everything”.

PS. Here’s a picture of a friendly ^_^ cat, because after this post, I needed something to make me go :| even further.

n_n

How I’d Like my Recruiting Post to Look Like…

AKA, "Dear douchebags..."

To all those who don’t use Trade as a guild recruitment tool,

Lowered Expectations is looking for a few good people whose IQs are higher than their character’s levels. We would like possible applicants to be haters, because it’s hard not to be given the quality of DERP that can be found on Ysera. Currently, we want people who can tank, heal, DPS, or cheerlead. If you’re not good at what you do, then don’t bother applying, because we will keep your awful application on file and use it as humor fodder in the future.

We’re looking to raid 3 times a week for maybe 3 hours, it just depends on who applies and who we like. We’re willing to actually work with odd schedules, because we think having fun in this game with really good players is better than sitting in a 25-man filled with idiots (see: Lowered Expectations in WotLK).

Send me a tell in-game, a mail in-game, or use our forums (http://loweredysera.guildlaunch.com).

Thanks, bitches.

– Nazragor/Kitts/Vulpix, GM of Lowered Expectations.