The Daily Grind: Very superstitious?
Yesterday we had a look at an academic claim that MMO players are unwittingly using the scientific method. By carrying out experiments and recording results, they test out hypotheses about how the virtual world works. But there's another kind of behavior we encounter all too often in MMOs: superstition. Some players will swear blind that certain actions and events are causally linked, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Superstition takes many forms. There are some Giant Monster events in City of Heroes that are spawnable, and many more that arent. The developers have explained, long ago, which are which. Yet you will still find players claiming that some strange voodoo routine - run here, run there, clear these mobs out - causes a given event to spawn. We've seen it claimed that some costumes cause lag, and that there are special ways to increase the odds of a 'treat' when clicking on doors during Halloween. Then there are the personal superstitions, which we don't even try to justify: always carrying a Luck Charm salvage 'for luck', for example, or a Rabbit's Foot in World of Warcraft.
Are you MMO-superstitious? Do you have personal rituals or habits that don't make rational sense, but you do them anyway? What's the most out-there MMO superstition you've heard of?
