Bad players are not bad people

So being bored (as I often am), I decided that I should log onto my brother's vent to chat. However, instead of happily making small talk as I usually do with people in vent, I'm met by my brother's GM with extreme hostility. She started with name calling and insinuating that I am 12 years old which is rather peculiar as most people readily admit that they believe I'm older than my 23 year old brother in the sense that I'm significantly more mature and responsible than him. She is most transparent about her feelings as she believes that I think they're bad people because perhaps my brother tells them that I say this; but, this is simply not the case as I actually believe that they're bad players. There is a considerable difference in those two statements which ultimately became the grounds of a conversation I had with my brother shortly after in AIM.

Boomkin (11:58:11 PM): yo dude, that ivy comes off as REALLLL bitchy

Boomkin (11:58:16 PM): just letting you know

This is where I tried to let him know that I didn't appreciate the insults and vulgar insinuations emanating from his guild leader. Notice the subtle informality that indicates that I'm not trying to make a big deal of it, but rather simply trying to bring it to his attention in a joking manner.

The Stubborn One (11:58:23 PM): Not to me, or anyone else

Boomkin (11:58:33 PM): haha, well, from MY perspective, she does

The Stubborn One (11:58:46 PM): from MY perspective she doesn't

Boomkin (12:00:51 AM): you're biased!

Again, you can notice the subtle humor in my tone and written mannerisms. Case in point: the "haha" and exclamation point indicate a joking demeanor.

The Stubborn One (12:00:57 AM): am i?

The Stubborn One (12:01:02 AM): So are you

The Stubborn One (12:01:07 AM): You dislike my guild

The Stubborn One (12:01:12 AM): and she be the Gm of it

Boomkin (12:01:16 AM): i don't dislike them, i simply think they're bad

Boomkin (12:01:18 AM): which they are

The Stubborn One (12:01:24 AM): same thing

At this point, he mistakenly derives that being a bad player and a bad person are equivalent statements which I will try to debunk.

Boomkin (12:01:28 AM): no, there's a difference

The Stubborn One (12:01:35 AM): very small none the less

Boomkin (12:01:36 AM): a mature person could understand the difference

Boomkin (12:01:42 AM): no, quite a large difference

Boomkin (12:01:49 AM): just because they're terrible doesn't mean that i don't like them

Boomkin (12:01:56 AM): their performance does not directly affect me

Boomkin (12:02:01 AM): so i have no reason to dislike them

I point out that a mature person would understand the difference because I believe that a mature person is not interested in bickering or has the desire to prolong a contrived and fruitless argument. I also stipulate that I am untroubled by their dismal performance since it has no direct affect on me or my raiding endeavors. If their performance did play an important role in my success, then you can certainly bet that I would be most unsatisfied with them as they would be a hindrance to my goals.

The Stubborn One (12:02:11 AM): is that why you usually make janitor jokes about them

This "janitor jokes" is a reference to the one time that I inferred that one of his guild members was a janitor at a psychology ward because this particular guild member tried to argue inherently flawed pseudo psychological concepts with me. It turned out that I was right in my assumption and he actually was a janitor at a psych ward which had apparently given him the false authority that he had been portraying.

The Stubborn One (12:02:20 AM): or keep telling me to join a "Real" guild

The Stubborn One (12:02:26 AM): on a "Real" server

The Stubborn One (12:03:45 AM): notice the real

Boomkin (12:04:00 AM): because you're usually complaining about how you can't accomplish anything on your server

Boomkin (12:04:30 AM): the simple remedy to that situation is to move to a more skilled server where they can easily pug down the hardest content

I offered him a position in my guild out of sincere consideration for his self-efficacy and self-esteem because he is clearly missing an element which he deems important.

The Stubborn One (12:04:36 AM): because you keep mentioning how everything is easy mode on your server

The Stubborn One (12:04:53 AM): and i don't want to say my server is compleley crappy

Boomkin (12:05:04 AM): but you have trouble getting normal content down

Boomkin (12:05:07 AM): so it is crappy

Boomkin (12:05:12 AM): nazgel is one of the worst ranked servers

The Stubborn One (12:05:15 AM): Things are getting better

The Stubborn One (12:05:17 AM): 2nd

Boomkin (12:05:21 AM): it's suggested to "new" players

The Stubborn One (12:05:29 AM): we had alot of xfers

Boomkin (12:05:37 AM): because those people are smart

Boomkin (12:05:50 AM): nazgrel isn't an established server and any skill transfers away from it

The Stubborn One (12:06:23 AM): It'll get better in time

Boomkin (12:06:41 AM): if it follows its current trend, then it will only get worse

Boomkin (12:06:51 AM): and only a stubborn fool would stay on a doomed server

At this point in the argument, he would be foolish not to concede defeat as evidence of all of the rampant failure of his server is stated.

The Stubborn One (12:07:04 AM): Its not doomed

The Stubborn One (12:07:17 AM): I am not a stubborn follow

The Stubborn One (12:07:26 AM): My guilds getting better

Boomkin (12:08:32 AM): from my investigation of it, it's pretty shitty

Boomkin (12:09:05 AM): more than 75% of the people in your guild that i have encountered have no idea how to play their class or specs correctly

Boomkin (12:09:14 AM): they often gem wrong, spec wrong, and glyph wrong

The Stubborn One (12:09:20 AM): that was when?

The Stubborn One (12:09:23 AM): back in april?

Boomkin (12:09:28 AM): and have generally weak strategies that are doomed to failure

Boomkin (12:09:38 AM): no, when i was in there the other day

Boomkin (12:09:52 AM): that DK of yours was completely wrong in his decisions

The Stubborn One (12:10:29 AM): which Dk we have alot

Boomkin (12:10:55 AM): if i armoried your DKs, i would probably see that all of them are wrong

The Stubborn One (12:11:06 AM): in your opinion

The Stubborn One (12:11:11 AM): doesn't make them wrong

Boomkin (12:11:28 AM): playing correctly isn't an opinion, it is a fact

The Stubborn One (12:11:42 AM): and whats correctly?

The Stubborn One (12:12:19 AM): I don't know anything about Dk DPS

The Stubborn One (12:12:21 AM): or tanking

Boomkin (12:12:29 AM): and i do, and that guy was wrong

The Stubborn One (12:12:52 AM): what if he wasn't

The Stubborn One (12:12:57 AM): and how do you know?

Boomkin (12:13:18 AM): i know because i actually research the class and pay attention to new methods

Boomkin (12:13:38 AM): i know because my guild is a top guild in the world and my server is a top server in the world

Boomkin (12:13:57 AM): my guild does all hard modes with ease because our players are good and know what they're doing

Boomkin (12:14:05 AM): can you say the same for your guild and its players?

Boomkin (12:14:23 AM): and until you can, then you would be a fool to not concede this argument

The Stubborn One (12:14:37 AM): I'm done with this argument

Boomkin (12:14:46 AM): so then you concede?

The Stubborn One (12:14:51 AM): This is you bashing my guild because we aren't Hard core.

The Stubborn One (12:14:59 AM): Because we don't do hours of research.

At this point, he blatantly admits that his players do not know what they're doing and that any semblance of knowledge, is in actuality, a series of mismatched ideas of concepts and any successes are based upon over-gearing content and mere luck.

The Stubborn One (12:15:10 AM): I do not.

The Stubborn One (12:15:16 AM): I exist

I honestly don't know why he thinks that if he is wrong that he will no longer exist. He has an odd outlook on existentialism to say the least.

Boomkin (12:15:17 AM): no, it's you arguing that you're not bad when you are

Boomkin (12:15:24 AM): i never said that you're bad people, just bad players

Boomkin (12:15:28 AM): you do not understand the difference

The Stubborn One (12:15:35 AM): and you wont drop it.

Boomkin (12:15:39 AM): if i said that you sucked at baseball, would you get so pissed?

Boomkin (12:15:48 AM): i mean, you're clearly not a professional baseball player

Boomkin (12:15:58 AM): the point is that you shouldn't argue or think i'm calling you guys bad people

Boomkin (12:16:07 AM): you're just bad players, and there's no reason to take offense to that

Boomkin (12:16:15 AM): you've never said that you're a progression based guild

I specify here that if he had actually been in a guild that deemed itself a progression guild, then he could easily and most deservingly take offense to me calling him and his guild bad players. However, his guild is definitely not playing to be one of the best, they're simply playing to enjoy the game and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. Although, he has no right to claim that he and his ragtag bunch of guild members are good players in the purest objective sense of the term.

The Stubborn One (12:16:16 AM): you make it look like that

Boomkin (12:16:24 AM): so there's no reason to take offense to being called bad at the game

The Stubborn One (12:16:31 AM): you make it look like bad player= bad person

The Stubborn One (12:16:48 AM): your tact needs work

I admit that I am not the most tactful person in the world, but I believe that I was tactful in my delivery of the statement that they are bad or rather in defending my point of it when my brother had brought it up to them as I would never outright call him and his entire guild bad unless provoked first.

Boomkin (12:16:53 AM): how do i make it look like that when i'm the one who has clearly laid out the formal logic of bad player =/= bad person

Boomkin (12:17:02 AM): you're simply following in the wake of my logic

The Stubborn One (12:17:11 AM): not really

Boomkin (12:17:16 AM): yes, most certainly

The Stubborn One (12:17:43 AM): whatever

The Stubborn One (12:17:45 AM): i am done.

I implore anyone reading this post to take note of yourselves when arguing to make sure that you always do it with a sound mind and the utmost rationality. It is important not to let raw emotion seethe throughout your being or you may lose control of yourself and do something foolish. I also implore you to always make concessions in order to work toward a common goal with the ultimate goal of cooperation in sight otherwise mistakes could be made that could have been easily mitigated or avoided all together. If we lacked our rationality, we would wholly relinquish that which innately grants us our humanity and, we become wild things.

Chaos

The word of today is chaos! Chaos or entropy is responsible for change; and therein lies the problem as change can lead to uncertainty and doubt. However, change isn't always as dark and sinister as people fear it to be. Within change, there lies a certain unequivocal brilliance which has the potential for amelioration.

If I had to describe today's raid with one word, I believe that chaos would most certainly fit. We began our raid with the undoubtedly most chaotic encounter in the game currently which definitely lead to some major stress for some of our guild members. The Faction Champions fight in Trial of the Crusader (heroic version) is somewhat based upon a PvP experience in that you're fighting various classes that mimic the roles that are normally found in an arena team. This fight demands an intense focus on spacial and situational awareness in that you must be able to pick up and run away at a moment's notice (in order to elude death) and that you may be expected to crowd control a certain NPC that is running around frantically attacking a random person every few seconds.

This type of situation most always leads to high stress as does its in-game counterpart, arena PvP. I find that arena PvP can make people, who are normally highly cohesive and affable toward each other, into bickering and insulting jerks. Frustration (occurs in a situation in which the pursuit of goals is thwarted) plays a key role in the degradation of group cohesiveness because the sheer failure rate within PvP is high; a typical good arena team has a win to lose ratio of approximately 5:4. Pressure is another key factor leading to dissent and erosion of cohesion in groups; when someone is expected to behave in a certain way or perform a particular function and that task is unmet, pressure is the immediate outcome. Conflict tends to arise when frustration and pressure are abundant. It is usually the stress response which causes the conflict between team members as common stress responses elicit maladaptive coping behavior responses that include lashing out, blaming others, and learned helplessness (passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events). However, I find that stress acts as a great motivator in that it will force a person to attempt to do anything possible to alleviate the build up of pressure. Although stress is excellent at accomplishing a difficult goal, its continual presence may also be responsible for burnout; burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and lowered self-efficacy) occurs when stress is chronic. Burnout is terrible for a guild as it often leads to absenteeism and reduced performance. Therefore, it is important to ensure that periods of stress are broken up by interjections of unbridled fun and light-heartedness otherwise the immense buildup of stress would undoubtedly foster burnout of the highest degree.

The culmination of this chaotic raid night was in one of our highly valuable officers relieving his position. I believe that this happened due to his health as leading the raids would often leave him raging to an apex of seething physiological responses which elicit heart obliteration. This news is quite upsetting as this particular officer is a favorite of mine and very well respected; his attention to detail, superb raid awareness, knowledge, and brilliant ability are not matched by anyone else in the guild.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

The phrase of today is self fulfilling prophecy! I had one of the worst raiding experiences of my raiding career tonight and I blame it entirely upon the very negative attitude that was highly prevalent in vent. I believe this negativity had given the raiders low self-efficacy which lead to horribly dismal performances. It's one thing to tell someone that they did something wrong, but it's completely unnecessary to berate them incessantly in front of everyone. If someone makes a mistake, I'm sure they already feel embarrassed and terrible about it already without some hypocrite calling them a "fucking retarded moron who is terrible." It really isn't necessary for all these meaningless insults to fly around vent and I believe that this beratement obliterated everyone's focus which lead to all these wipes. Only helpful criticism should be shared in public channels in order to avoid the soul-crushing defeat that I am sure all of our raiders faced tonight. The officers in the guild (one in particular) lack discipline and should try to restrain themselves from uttering such abysmal abuse. If the officers were able to dispense constructive criticism and proper encouragement, I have no doubt that we would have defeated Yogg + 1 with no issues. What officers should keep in mind is that self-efficacy is very fragile and easily eroded.

Now, on to the raid; every single attempt had a mistake in it which inevitably lead to a wipe each time. The most unbelievable part of this was that the people who were making these constant mistakes are the ones who normally expose, embarrass, and humiliate people for making the same exact mistakes.

Let the Boomkinning commence!

Well, you guys, I've been talking about starting a blog for a while and have finally reached a point where I was bored enough to write it. This means that all you e-stalkers can have a meaning in life once again; really, come on! Since I don't claim to be the definitive authority on all that is Boomkin, I've decided that this blog will mainly be about my experiences in the World of Warcraft rather than a technical blog entirely dedicated to the full analysis and discussion on how to boom(kin).

So, without further ado; leave them alone, you jerks! LET THE BLOGGING BEGIN! RARRRGH!