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I have an anecdote to relate sort of in response.
Our group of 25 raiders in a semi-serious Classic WoW guild had been together over a year (maybe 2?), through TBC into WotLK. In that time, we'd been raiding 4-8h a week, every week through progressively harder challenges, building up a lot of camaraderie. There were 3 women on the team. Let's call them:
end of a long session of raiding already an hour past the usual quitting time. Yogg-Saron, zero light (hard mode). It's near 11PM PST, pushing 2AM for the east coasters, on a work night.
Our group has nearly got it down, but the fight is difficult and takes a long time for each attempt - probably 10 minutes or something, + ~5m to get run back and get ready after each try. There's an easy mechanic at the start where there's a big floating AoE that everyone is supposed to avoid, and screwing it up means the attempt is almost guaranteed to fail. People are tired and making mistakes, especially Bubbles, but not exclusively her. The raid leader makes a call: next person to screw up that mechanic gets benched for the night. This is harsh, but understandable. No one vocally disagrees, at any rate.
Of course, Bubbles is the next one to screw up. True to his word, the raid lead kicks Bubbles from the group (she's still listening in discord), and apologizes but explains it's just for tonight. Get some sleep, etc. Buttercup twists the knife with some sharp comments "fucking FINALLY", "should have done that 45 minutes ago". Blossom sticks up for Bubbles. "yo, chill" "just a game", "let's calm down", etc. Buttercup more than happy to double down and fight : "bro she's literally keyboard turning, shut the fuck up".
Somewhere in the middle of Buttercup and Blossom going at each other, Bubbles leaves the channel, leaves the guild. leaves discord, and doesn't play again.
It would have been better if it'd happened differently, but I think Bubbles is better off. I know I found it really freeing when I realized the competitive and performance-focused environment of WoW wasn't for me and started playing other games.
Yes. Classic WoW has a lot of dynamics to it that keep people playing against their will, sort of. In some real sense, your guild has invested in you, and your character, by taking you along, giving you loot and such, so you feel like you owe them your participation, so that your friends can get their rewards too, and your group can keep progressing.
Probably better for Bubbles long term, but it was shitty the way it went down that night. She probably cried. Like getting dumped by your long term friend group and finding out half of them never liked you and were talking about you behind your back
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It's interesting that Blossom manages to be everyone's friend while being a highly skilled (I assume that's what "absolute gamer" means) player who gets held back by others, assumedly.
But at the same time it makes sense that the dead average player becomes abusive.
What is "keyboard turning"?
What did you cognize and conclude after being part of that group?
Yeah, Blossom was a unicorn. It's pretty rare to find someone with that combination of personality and skill. She lived somewhere exotic IIRC, like Hawaii or Alaska or something, so her internet wasn't amazing, and Classic WoW was one of the few games that was forgiving enough of network latency.
I cut Buttercup some slack because she had a tough job IRL (nurse, I think), and playing a healer in game is suffering, as you desperately try and keep people alive through their own mistakes, gradually failing at it. And yeah, maybe some insecurity
This incident was probably the inflection point in my enthusiasm for Classic. I stuck it out a while longer out of loyalty to the group, and we eventually cleared Lich King 25 heroic, widely considered the point at which you have beat the game, then quit. It was that, and other similar incidents, that made me realize the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. The game mechanics naturally led to that sort of conflict, and it just didn't have to be that way. I didn't have to play that kind of game. Would be better if I didn't. Is better now that I don't.
The juice not being worth the squeeze: That's the main idea I was left with after trying a couple of MMOs long ago. Addictive, takes a lot of time, and for what? What are you left with? You've passed a lot of time, somewhat in the manner of a rat pushing an irregular reinforcement lever for pellets, sometimes it felt fun or exciting, sometimes it was just a grind, and then what? If you got lasting friendships out of it, that's probably a good justification, but if not... ×_×
I guess it depends on what the opportunity cost is. Some people just need escapism for a few hours per day/week, at that time in their life. There's no guarantee that some other hobby would be more rewarding or meaningful for a tired body. But personally I try to cultivate long term reductions in stress and long term happiness. If the activity is only ephemerally satisfying and has a long term cost, I probably don't do it. It can be a lonelier path to tread though. Or a less crowded path, to put a positive spin on it, lol.
Either it's just an age and life phase thing, or the internet/gaming is less conducive to friendship building compared to when I was a teenager. Hm.
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You can turn your character with A and D, or you can do it with your mouse. Mouse is much, much faster and more precise. It's easier to dodge mechanics and have better awareness if you use your mouse.
A some people (usually beginners) also click on their abilities instead of using hotkeys. So their mouse is too busy to focus on turning.
It's a sign of not playing in an optimal way.
Lol. Sounds a bit painful.
This makes me think that groups should be more sorted by skill. I remember being in a team vs team game clan that was more "social" and carried a few horrendous players. It affected my enjoyment.
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