Mad Rantz

In my last entry I suggested that the gaming world might be a better place if we simply removed the hardcore gamers from the gene pool. Let’s visit the wonderful world of hardcore gamer angst once again and see how our intrepid adventurers are surviving on server maintenance day.

Here we find the hardcore gamer hard at work trying to bring down the World of Warcraft forums with inane chatter while Blizzard performs its weekly scheduled server maintenance. This week is especially interesting in WoW-land because there is a reputed item duplication bug that Blizzard now has to track down and investigate, thus causing an extended downtime for the servers.

Now, let me try to set the picture for you here and make sure that you understand the context in which I am posting this picture. Every week when Blizzard performs the server maintenance, without exception, you will see umpteen thousand post on the WoW forums from the ne’er-do-well hardcore gamer asking when the servers will be back up.

Every. Single. Week.

This is due to the widely known, yet underreported iliveandbreathethis virus that afflicts untold numbers of hardcore gamers. The only known cure for these poor unfortunate souls is to allow them access to a public forum where they can pound unmercifully on their keyboards for hours on end in a vain attempt to convince Blizzard to “bring up the gawd-damned servers NOW or they will cancel their eight accounts!!!!1!!one!!”.

So, when Blizzard announces that there is going to now be *extended* downtime… well, let’s just say that it is not a pleasant day to be visiting the WoW forums and leave it at that, shall we?

Let’s take a look at some of the juiciest subjects on the forums in that picture. There are those that feel that the item duplication bug will cause a rollback of the servers, which would mean players losing untold hours worth of work (”no choice but to rollback”). Then there are those that think those people are idiots and should die a horrible death for even proposing that a rollback is imminent (”to the idiots saying rollback + rested exp”). Of course, there are the occasional clueless newbs who only wish that they could be as elite as the hardcore gamers who are chatting about a rollback (”whats rollback? can someone please tell me?”). And then you have your sleepy-eyed hardcore gamer who likely just woke up from a marathon 96-hour play session during which he did not move once from his chair, instead choosing to simply eat, drink, and shit where he sat while he simultaneously ran three different characters on three different computers. And then of course chose to post a whole new topic in the forums rather than fucking read the forums (”i just got on… what the heck is going on??”).

Then you have your plain and simple angry gamers. Life is not fair, and these folks pull no punches in making sure that Blizzard (and everyone else) fucking knows it (”fix the god damned servers”, “rollback?! … then rollback my money too !”, and “Blizzards Customer support…s nothing?”). And last, but not least for certain, you have the sad and lonely hardcore gamer who just wants everyone to get along (”i just want to play”).

Well, there you have it folks. It’s a sad day for gamers everywhere, or as we in the real world like to say, “It’s Tuesday”.

I don’t think I was ever a hardcore gamer. You know the type. They live and breathe one particular game at a time. They level to 999th on four different characters on four different computers simultaneously using macro hacks in an MMORPG. That type. I was never that type of gamer. I played a lot of games, but I don’t remember ever being incensed about a particular patch (read: bug fix) on a particular game for any reason whatsoever, unless maybe they simply broke the game. So, I’m having a hard time understanding some of the goings-on at the World of Warcraft forums.

The lastest update to World of Warcraft made an apparently nasty change to the game. There is a pet in the game called a Maine Coon. This is not a made-up animal, it is actually a cat that exists in our world. Apparently, Blizzard received some complaints about it being a racist name, I’m assuming because of the word coon. While it does strike me as very silly that a game company has to put up with complaints like these and have to subsequently make changes in order to make sure they don’t step on anyone’s toes, what strikes me as even more silly are the player reactions.

Based on some of these player’s reactions, you would think that Blizzard was killing puppies and feeding them to babies or something similarly vicious. The people who complain that Blizzard shouldn’t be wasting their time on such minor changes while other problems exist in the game might be warranted, at least to some degree. But the people who complain because now their pet is called a Black Tabby instead of a Maine Coon are just plain gawddamned ridiculous. The people who complain that Blizzard didn’t inform them in the patch notes that this change was going to occur should also be shot and fed to the puppies, which will later be fed to the babies, or something similarly vicious.

To these hardcore gamer folks - get a life. Truly. If this is all you have to complain about in life then you are sad sack, indeed.