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The Soapbox: The best complaint is an empty seat
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. This is a public service announcement for you. Yes, you, with the post open for the message board and your finger hovering over the "post" button. I can't see what you've got written there, but I'm willing to bet some form of "turning the game into World of Warcraft" is there if you're posting about another game. Or possibly FarmVille. Hopefully I'm getting warm. Look, the point is that I now you're about to post this hateful diatribe about threatening to leave. But I've got a better suggestion for you. How about you delete that post, unsubscribe, and then head outside for a walk with some friends. Play a different game, maybe an offline one, for a couple of days. Don't whine and just leave.
Global Chat: September 26-October 2, 2011
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! We're all about crafting and complaining in this week's Global Chat -- hopefully not at the same time, though. Follow along after the jump to see some of what our readers had to say this week, and pitch in on a conversation you may have missed!
Behind the Mask: The perfect ten
I neglected to mention a few weeks ago (two weeks ago, actually) a very important event: Behind the Mask had its one year anniversary in the end of March, and I intended to do something special. Although we could do something boring like recap the journey of my first year of Champions Online or something, that doesn't really sound like much fun to me. I've had some good times playing CO since I started writing for Massively, but CO is a themepark, so my summary would be something like, "I roleplayed a lot." Sure, I have a few high-level characters, but I probably wouldn't have had as much fun playing CO if not for roleplaying and the social landscape of the game. If you're a long-time reader of this column, you know I complain a lot about Champions. In some respects, that shows I'm invested in the game, and I really care about whether it succeeds. On the other hand, it also means that sometimes my column carries some bias. In true Behind the Mask-fashion, here is the real summary of my last year of playing CO. If you read my rants about roleplayers, this should be familiar ground.
Scattered Shots: Hunter problems and predictions
Scattered Shots is for hunters. 'Nuff said on that topic. The Freezing Trap David was stuck in last week also wore off a little bit, thanks to Daniel, permitting him to write once more without his fingers snapping off from the cold.In the wake of the recent confusion regarding Scare Beast, once again some hunters have gotten to complaining a lot about the state of their class. While on one hand, there are certainly problematic issues hunters are having, it's really not fair to say that the class is broken. It isn't -- being a hunter is more fun than its ever been, and it looks like this class will only get better in the future.Nonetheless, looking at the problems we do have might give us a clearer sense of where we're going in the future. With more and more information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King, and especially since Blizzard started asking for feedback from hunters, it's worthwhile to have a look at what holes do exist for our class, and how future changes might seek to plug them up.
WoW is a game -- you're supposed to enjoy it
In the battleground matches I've played lately, it seems that somehow the number of people complaining and whining has decreased, even though our faction seems to be losing just as much as before. Instead, the Alliance players I fight with seem almost depressed, as if every match is a torture to them -- they don't shower blame on other people, but instead say things like, "I have a dream that one day we might win a BG," or "Golly, this is horrible, I hate Alliance PvP." They have their heart set on a particular PvP reward, and as soon as they have enough honor or marks, they will heartily abandon their fellow teammates to the sad task of losing to the Horde day in and day out.It's true that losing isn't fun, and whatever the reasons our side seems to be losing all the time seem quite outside of our control. That's hard no matter which faction you're in. But there is a thing we've all heard about growing up called "good sportsmanship." When we play competitive games with each other, the idea is that we're supposed to enjoy the actual playing of the game more than the winning or the losing. Indeed, as with anything in life, if you get too attached to the outcome of a particular endeavor, you are less likely to do well than one who plays for the love of the game itself.I've been thinking about this lately because I myself don't want to log on to WoW only to feel like the game is like banging my head against the wall. It has helped a great deal to realize that whatever rewards we get are more like milestones along the path, not really an end in themselves. After all, if I play, it should be because I truly enjoy playing, not because I absolutely must posses some item that will be out of date in a few months no matter what I do. This realization has enabled me to pace myself, so that I don't allow long losing streaks to carry on for hours and ruin a good part of my day. If I'm losing a lot, I can stop and do other things, then come back to it another time with an entirely fresh set of allies and opponents -- and more importantly, a fresh desire to do my best and improve my skills. WoW is supposed to be fun; but if it isn't fun for you anymore -- whatever the reason -- then it's time to either change your approach or do something else.
Does Blizzard Oil the Squeaky Wheel?
I have played Warriors as my mains since the day the game was released, back when their abilities were seriously bugged. Execute would drain your rage whether it hit or not, our chance to hit was calculated incorrectly, et cetera. The boards were flooded with "Fix Wars" posts, and Blizzard fixed us, albeit slowly. It seems to me that there will always be those who are not content with their class, and if they complain loudly enough, things get fixed. The polite requests get lost in the wash.As I was trolling the WoW forums, I came across this thread. The thread quickly spirals out of focus, but there was an interesting discussion going on in the first few pages. Does Blizz give preference to the forum loudmouths, and if so, is that a bad thing?
