Mad Rantz

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.