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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Gamers Pet Peeves

I haven't done a gaming blog in a long time. But I have been gaming a lot over on EQ2, and since our guild has decreased in size due to everyone playing different games at the moment, those of us who are around have joined an alliance of other guilds to raid. It's a completely different experience for me, not knowing everyone well on the team, not knowing if I can trust them to play their role as I do the best I can with my own. It's like being a nervous virgin every raid night, not knowing if you're going to have a great experience and love sex, or if it's going to scar you the next time you find a willing partner.

 I'm going to readily admit that I'm a raiding snob. I can't help it. I was taught to raid with some of the best players. I was taught to put my all into it, to have fun, but to also improve myself. I was taught to kick pixellated ass, the tougher the better. And if you make the same damn mistakes because you're too lazy to care, you're going to chewed out, and not in the pleasurable way. Because your team relies on you. You have between ten and twenty five other people relying on your ability to work as a team in moments of stress.

I'm also a DPS whore. I don't care if I don't play a pure DPS class, I will do my job AND try to kick your ass in numbers. And nothing makes me more happy than to leave others who play the same class as I do in the dust. I'm a competitive bitch and I like it that way.

That said, there are a few things that make me want to turn my virtual daggers away from the boss we're killing and turn it on my raidmates. And with a bunch of people I don't know, I've noticed those tendencies seem to come out a little more often than normal. I've been fortunate enough to have my core group on hand to gripe with when we see piss poor stuff and wipe due to it. And I can't complain too much. It could always be worse. I could be not raiding. I could be dealing with an asshole raid leader. Hell, I could be Raid Leader myself.... *gulp*

But since this is my blog and I can get away with it, here is a list of gaming pet peeves that make me want to go virtually homicidal (where, by the way, it's actually legal in my game). I should also ammend that this raiding rant is NOT just for the new raiding folks. These are my pet peeves all the time. I'm just writing about them now because it all comes to the forefront whe dealing with a new situation.:


Not knowing how to play your class-
When you sign up to raid with other people, you are silently claiming that you know the class you play, and you play it well. You know what all of those little buttons do, you know how to assist the main tank, and you know what your role in a raid is. And if you don't know, you ask before the raid starts up, for clarification.

You DON'T target random mobs and shoot an arrow, causing 50 hungry looking monsters to descend upon us without knowledge, as the rest of us try to take down the two monsters that were pulled by the main tank. You DON'T let your group buddies die horrible agonizing deaths time and again because you're a healer and you HAVE to heal the main tank and only the main tank. Unless you are IN the main tank group, THAT'S NOT YOUR JOB! That's the other two healers jobs who are IN that group! On the flip side, for DPS folks, you DON'T target any mob in the fight that you please. this leads to anal bleeding (yours) which causes your death which makes me have to stop and Rez your ass, thus losing my DPS zone. You being an idiot should not have to make me deal with your inadequacy issues.

Don't talk to the new people as if they're idiots right off the bat-

Now I'll grant you that I and my fellow guides are new to this particular scene. But trust me when I say, after months of raiding in this setting, that in almost all cases, we probably know more about raiding and our roles in it than 90% of the raid force. Or for more general circumstances, if you're new to OUR raid force, the same applies. Do yourself a favor and don't send nasty grams our way, asking if we know what this buff or that buff does. Or ask us if we actually cast our procs that make you look good. Cause you're going to get sarcastic answers right back. If you actually ask me if I cast buff A I'm going to purposely look like a hillbilly, adopt bad grammar, and ask you "isn't that a tank thing? I'm just a lowly scout!" and the I'm going to watch you flip out. With popcorn.

Dumbass.

On the same note, don't act passive aggressive in group chat trying to make some of us look like idiots. Because we're not. And we may know some tricks up our sleeves that never occurred to you. And that main tank over there? Yeah, we've raided with him for years when he was a guildie of ours and he will (and did) tell you he would trust us to keep his ass alive better than anyone else on the team. Cause we've proven ourselves before. We might be new to THIS team, but we're not noobs.

Don't tell someone how to play their class when you don't play it either-

I think this one is pretty obvious. I don't tell a healer how to heal. I don't tell an assassin how to backstab. Don't tell me how to be a dirge if you're not raiding as a dirge. And don't tell me how to play my dirge when I'm above you by an average of 60k damage per fight and rezzing at the same time.

If you make a mistake and we wipe, that's ok. But not if it's the fourth time over the same damn mistake. Learn from your mistakes. We only have 3 hours to get through the raid and get phat loots.

Keep chatting for mid pulls-
Don't send me tells when we're in the middle of a boss fight unless it's an emergency. I don't care what song you're listening to. I don't care that you had a funny thought and wanted to share. I don't care that you want to know if I'm going to cast that awesome buff that makes you look like a god. You should know by now that I will cast it when the time is right and not on your say so. I don't care if you're on your fifth beer and you want me to know how freaking drunk you are. Trust me, I already know.

And if it's really important that I need to know how drunk you are, wait until the boss is down or we are.

Don't cast the same proc as I do five seconds after when it lasts for 17. We both hear when the other person casts it. Im paying attention to when you cast yours so that we get maximum usage out of the proc. Grant me the same respect. Otherwise it's totally pointless. And by the way, I can assure you that I am not the only to notice this situation. We've actually created a drinking game for every time it happens. Needless to say, each raid night finishes with us being pretty damn inebriated.





Now I love me some raiding, especially with good friends and competent raid leaders. And I will say that even though I have my peeves, I have been having a grand time. I've made some pretty cool new friends, I have my inside jokes with old friends, and I enjoy taking down a new boss with my team mates. Let's keep it up. Just stop sending me stupid tells when I'm trying to keep your ass alive, mmmkay? ;)


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