After my
recent rant in the "whatcha playin'" thread I started to think about a few PvP-related experiences that I've had in WoW. Maybe it's not so much that gamers have become pussies, maybe it's just the fact that games in general are more accessible to people who don't like to think. I'll cite a few examples.
A while back, when I was in my old guild, a few of us had planned to run Wailing Caverns and were waiting outside of Orgrimmar for a couple more to run with us. I was playing a rogue at the time...level 20 at the time. Two other guildies, a lv.22 pally and a lv.21 druid, and I were just chatting. Eventually, we decided to duel. It seemed like kind of a one-sided fight, since I was an exceedingly poorly equipped rogue facing two well-equipped (almost all rare items compared to my almost all common/uncommon gearing) players, but I was bored.
The pally beat me the first two times, but in that short gap I noticed that he used the exact same tactic every single time. The only reason he beat me on the third attempt was because he hit lay on hands. After having a group of 70s (this was pre-WotLK) laugh at him he decided to prove himself. He lost soundly to an under-geared leather-wearing rogue.
The druid was even easier. I destroyed him twice. He eventually started spamming entangling roots and hitting me with wrath and moonfire. He stopped dueling me when I nearly beat him by ripping him apart immediately when the duel started.
What does this prove, exactly? While they essentially used the same tactics over and over again I adapted to their techniques and effectively countered them (and then some, given the extreme difference in gear and slight level difference).
Another incident was a bit more recent. I was helping a few 60s sludge through the Hellfire Fortifications daily in Hellfire Peninsula when a lv.80 alliance rogue kept ganking them. The second I went to attack the druid attempted to run. I killed him each and every time, even on the rare occasion that he attempted to fight me. Perfect example of your average player: dominating when possible, running away from challenges. I despite people like that and wish they would give their computer a nice, long bath (preferably while it's on) to make the game fun and interesting for everyone else again (then again, Blizz would probably lose about 10 million players if that were to happen, so that might not be a good idea).
The most fun that I had with dueling was with Armegeddon. While he still has yet to learn how to fully counter my priest with his warrior (holy fire, shadow word: pain, devouring plague, psychic scream, power word: shield, mind blast, smite, etc etc, dead), he's developed a number of interesting tactics to inflict as much damage as possible. Similarly, I've been working on tactics to keep him further away from me. Since then, the two of us rolled up a couple of new characters -- a druid for me and a hunter for him -- and the opposite effect happened. He decimates me with ranged attacks, his pet nips at my paws, and I wind up dying a lot.
But, you know what? Even though the two of us consistently lose on a character, it's still fun! We're both learning new tactics, we're both learning about some of the strengths and weaknesses in the other players' classes, and we're learning the strengths and weaknesses in our own classes.
The first two people that I've dueled completely resisted this. Both of them were kids. If they couldn't win using the same tactic over and over again they weren't willing to play the game. Not surprisingly, rather than being sporting, they were sure to publicly say "lol" every time they defeated under-equipped and under-leveled characters. They sure as hell weren't laughing when I kicked their asses. Unsurprisingly, they were bleating "bs" when they faced someone who could think and not spam the same buttons sequence over and over again.
I know it's unfair to whine about kids being like that, but the more I play online games the more of a pattern I'm seeing. Kids today are pussies. I know that there are exceptions, but as time goes on I see more and more people just dropping from games. When I used to play Rocket Arena and various other Quake mods, people would rarely leave games in the middle. Unless there was an urgent calling or they were disconnected, almost everyone would play until the round change. While there was still smack talk, it was a lot more light-hearted and fun.
Last time I played on Xbox Live I found it hard to even finish a game because the opposing team would generally rage quit the second something bad happened to them. I've literally been in an attack and defend game on R6: Vegas and had three people drop the second we picked up their intelligence, even though their team killed the carrier before he even made it out of the enclosure. If they'd stayed they would have still had a very good opportunity to defend the intel, but since that one "bad thing" had happened they figured they'd drop to spare themselves the shame of losing. Unbelievable.
But anyway, I could go on forever with this. I mainly just wanted to drag this into its own thread, since it's something that I feel is a huge problem in online games today -- especially with consoles -- and because it's a good thing to vent about. So, go on, I'm curious to see what kind of experiences you guys have had.
