Revive & Rejuvenate: How to Tell If You're an Asshat

Friday, 28 May 2010

How to Tell If You're an Asshat

A "community" is a group of beings that share the same living space. As part of the community of Azeroth, we share our world with others. The community is further segmented into guilds and friendship groups, but we all have to interact with them at some point.

You know who I'm talking about, right? They come in all shapes and sizes, races and classes - the Asshats of Azeroth.

A few bloggers have already commented in response to Wolfshead's article that slams Blizzard for creating a soulless world focused on soloing, that has led to the demise of community in WoW. I have to say I agree with some of the points he makes. Blizzard has, accidentally or otherwise, removed a lot of the things that forced us to be social while playing WoW.

Gordon of We Fly Spitfires also wrote an article about this topic, and he says that it is not totally Blizzard's fault. From the article:

... at the end of the day though I believe that we, the players, are ultimately at fault for this lack of community spirit and not Blizzard. Their the gods who have provided us with an amazing virtual world to inhabit and we’re the spoilt children who have tarnished it with anarchy. We’re lost our senses of camaraderie and community and instead reserve our good behavior for our cliques, our guilds, and chosen to completely ignore our social responsibilities outside them.

It's true that the players make the community, and some of those players choose to behave in a way that makes interacting with the general community unattractive.

I like to think that the Asshats are the vocal minority. But the numbers of them are growing every day.

Here are a few tips to help you recognise if you're becoming an Asshat:

You become a known name on /2. People say hello to you when you make your first /2 chat of the day.

Upon zoning into an instance, you don't say hello but instead ask immediately for kings. You open a trade window with the mage and stand there until they give you strudel (mmm, strudel).

If you're not buffed right away, you add "ffs" to your demands.

If you're the tank, you aim to finish the run as quickly as possible. The healer doesn't need mana! She's a tree, ffs.

In random pugs, you complain about the fail <class> (especially if they've just dinged and are in greens/blues).

You whine long and hard about the other <class> getting the loot, either in party/raid chat, or in whispers to your mate who's an officer.

You organise a run of the raid weekly, [Noth the Plaguebringer must die], asking for 5k GS and the [Fall of Naxxramas] ach, pst.

At the end of the run you drop group immediately. Why bother saying thanks, you're never going to see those noobs again anyway.

and lastly,

while questing, if you see some sucker clearing mobs up to a named mob, you rush in to tag it first, ignoring any group invitations from the noob. Bonus points if you laugh as you ride away.

If you've noticed any of these traits in your guildies or worse, in yourself, make sure to get help right away! Only together can we stamp out the plague of Asshattery sweeping across Azeroth!

Please comment and add any traits you've noticed...

* Image at the top is from http://www.40kradio.com/archives/594

... at the end of the day though I believe that we, the players, are ultimately at fault for this lack of community spirit and not Blizzard. Their the gods who have provided us with an amazing virtual world to inhabit and we’re the spoilt children who have tarnished it with anarchy. We’re lost our senses of camaraderie and community and instead reserve our good behavior for our cliques, our guilds, and chosen to completely ignore our social responsibilities outside them.

You become a known name on /2. People say hello to you when you make your first /2 chat of the day.

Upon zoning into an instance, you don't say hello but instead ask immediately for kings. You open a trade window with the mage and stand there until they give you strudel (mmm, strudel).

If you're not buffed right away, you add "ffs" to your demands.

If you're the tank, you aim to finish the run as quickly as possible. The healer doesn't need mana! She's a tree, ffs.

In random pugs, you complain about the fail <class> (especially if they've just dinged and are in greens/blues).

You whine long and hard about the other <class> getting the loot, either in party/raid chat, or in whispers to your mate who's an officer.

You organise a run of the raid weekly, [Noth the Plaguebringer must die], asking for 5k GS and the [Fall of Naxxramas] ach, pst.

At the end of the run you drop group immediately. Why bother saying thanks, you're never going to see those noobs again anyway.

and lastly,

while questing, if you see some sucker clearing mobs up to a named mob, you rush in to tag it first, ignoring any group invitations from the noob. Bonus points if you laugh as you ride away.