The Decline and Fall of the Empire

It’s a good title. Taken of course from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire but still, it conveys the sense that something doth smell most foul in the state of Denmark.

Titles are important. Labeling has become such a negative thing but I say if we don’t mark our passage through events then we have no reference points. I only say this because it seems relevant to what I see in-game, at least recently. The infrastructure of many raiding guilds and established raids is crumbling. I don’t know what life is like on other servers but Feathermoon seems to be showing signs of wear and tear.

I’ve heard of the disbanding of several world leading raiding guilds – even more are closing down around me. I’m sure pre-TBC the same happened but then I was insulated from the changes due to my membership in a quiet little casual guild. I’m still there but even we are feeling the effects of boredom, routine, grinding etc.

I’ve been challenging myself to find alternatives to being bored, leveling several alts at once etc. I’ve seen others do this as well. I know of at least 3 players who are taking multi-boxing to new limits – mostly they are shaman with 5 accts – running around with extremely similar names vivsi, vivsa, vivsw etc. It’s impressive and just a little crazy, which only makes it more impressive. But aside from that I’ve also noticed a sharp decline in quality of players, but that might be elitism on my part.

I pug a lot of instances when I’m leveling. When I was first leveling up I didn’t notice quality so much but I do remember what it was like – it wasn’t THAT long ago. Lately I’m surrounded by people who not only don’t know their classes (not uncommon) but refuse to listen, even to gentle advice. And I do mean gentle. I’ve been around long enough to know how not to rub the fur the wrong way – but man, what a mess I’ve seen. Tanks that won’t listen to the correct pull order even after wiping 3-4 times, gearing selections for hunters, stuff like that. The other day, I ran across a hunter wearing green cloth …. Come on folks, there’s plenty of gear out there that you don’t have to be running around in another classes clothes.

But again, that’s me and I’ve been somewhat spoiled since I started taking raiding more seriously. I’m used to tanks that can perform outright miracles, holding aggro on 5 mobs, pally tanks that can sweep up 30 mobs at once and simply laugh as they kill themselves hitting him, healers that can single-handedly bring a T6 tank from 2 hp to full health, etc. Yes there are a lot of great players, and sooo many people who want to be great but are missing the basics. I just wanna help ‘em all, ya know? Then again, there’re plenty of people who think they are God’s gift and make pugging even harder. I’ve seen a lot of this recently as well.

There’s a great lesson there for anyone looking. I ran with a geared MM hunter the other day. He was mid-60s and kept reminding the group that he had to go to Black Temple soon (presumably on an alt). But his style of play in a 5-man was terrible. He tried to tank everything in the Mana Tombs, leaving our tank – nice player but still learning – with the unhappy job of trying to keep up and control errant mobs. As luck would have it we had another hunter in the group – slightly lower in gear, less confident in his abilities, but thankfully quieter … or so I thought. Some friends and I run pre-BC raids on Sat nights, BWL, MC etc. We take everyone on a pug basis and use our own well geared tanks, healers and DPS for key spots and to lead the group. The lower hunter found us, we pugged him in (since I was on the same character presumably he noticed me), and he was as obnoxious as the other we’d been with earlier in the day. I think he figured since my toon was lower than his I must not be as good as he was.

Constantly questioning why we did things one way vs another, clearly had never been to any raids before, complaining about loot rules – (open loot by class, legendaries reserved for those working the quest chains) yelling and QQing because he lost a roll to a higher player etc. I put him on the ban list. Maybe I was wrong to do so, maybe I should have at least offered to help him out, quietly spoken to him or something.

But, to me anyway, it seemed pretty evident I was one of the 4 ppl leading a 40-man raid, helping to explain fights, pulls etc. My thought is that if you can’t even take the time to show common courtesy, then you’re probably not worth my time/effort. I don’t ask for a lot, you don’t have to be in epics, or even blues, maybe you don’t know your class well. Heck, I play one of almost every class and I’m ALWAYS learning about them, but one thing I need – I need good manners. The rest is gravy. But then again, I’m probably being elitist.

I saw him the next day too – he was in LFG, lvl 65 looking for a higher level raid. By the way, on the miniscule chance the player I’m talking about is reading this, the offer of help stands. I may not be the best on the server, but I know enough to pass along to those willing to learn.