Pvp psychics

Let me set the scene first, I’m going to be using a World of Tanks example but I’m pretty sure this could apply to any pvp game . Me (Vk3601) and two other mediums tanks are protecting a valley leading to our base while our big guns are rolling on the other side of the map. A classic hold maneuver on our part while we bring all our strength on the other side.

Down the other side of the valley we spot a Kv5 (super resilient heavy tank) accompanied by 5 fast mediums. The forces in presence are thus, on our side three mediums laying in ambush plus an artillery in the back, on their side 6 tanks including a big one no one can damage except the artillery, a great force for quick base capture.  Our objective, hold down their force long enough to give time to the big boys to capture the enemy base.

Their mediums rush us hoping to speed past us, we spring the ambush and in a beautiful display of skill on our part we destroy all five mediums while the Kv5 is slowly mowing us down. When the last enemy medium falls, I’m left alone to stop the Kv5 from destroying our artillery. In my mind things are simple, I can’t really damage the Kv5 and if he destroy the artillery he can then destroy me at his leisure and capture our base. I need to make him fight me for as long as I can so either the artillery kills it or the other group captures the enemy base.

So I load explosive shell so I can at least annoy the Kv5 and start playing hide and seek moving away from the arty hoping he’ll take the bait and come for me. He doesn’t… he’s smart and knows I can’t do much so he heads straight for the arty. In the end we managed to kill it thanks to a lucky artillery shell.

The interesting part is that during the whole time there was someone on our side calling me all sorts of names because I didn’t go head to head with the Kv5. According to him I should have suicided myself to buy a few seconds and trying to buy time by playing hide and seek was cowardice (he used much more colorful terms).

My plan is better! Why can’t you see it!

I took some time setting up my example so you could follow my thought process during the whole fight. You read my explanation and you’re thinking it makes a lot of sense right? Then why did our Scott didn’t see it? Could it be because he’s dumb? Yes, possibly… the probabilities of him being dumb sure looks good. Then again, maybe he just had a better plan that I couldn’t see. Maybe I’m the one being dumb? Who knows???

See, what Scott forgot is that until proven otherwise people are not psychics in pvp games. I can’t possibly know you’re genius plan and you can’t know mine unless we speak to one another. Scott thought more time would be bought by going Kamikaze, I prefered to play on the Kv5 bloodlust.

The best part is how these pvp psychics get all worked up about it. I mean, the whole psychic phenomenon is present in pve too but in pvp games it gets way worse. People go insane about perceived mistakes from other players and forget than maybe if a strategy had been agreed upon before maybe… just maybe… things would have been smoother.

I have a simple advice to help keep our blood pressure down. Give them the benefit of the doubt. We might be psychics but they’re not and we can’t expect them to divine our genius plan. We will need to step down to their level and actually talk to them…

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The war is on!

I wanted to post something serious today about being accountable (Rhiily already did that), about how in the old days (Vanilla) we would know each other on the servers and how asses would be grouped together in some sort of guild for the “unguildables”.

Instead I am seething with rage at Sacred Plague. A guild lead obviously by a bunch of (if not a single) asses. When they attack Rhii, they attack me and I want to inflict on them all sorts of evils. I was raised at the WoW school of guild guerilla warfare and there will be payback.

First of, let’s study the enemy. Going over wow-rankings, wow armory, arena junkies a few things jumps out:
-Level 23 guild with a high membership. Lots of people in there.
-The average members stays guilded for 2 days…
-No notable progression in raid, 3 bosses down and all in the space of two weeks in march and then nothing.
-No guild pvp worthy of notice. Their biggest pvpers are doing it solo and most of them have left the guild already.

From this we can already get a good idea of what Sacred Plague is about. It’s a zerg guild, plain and simple. Zerg guild operates on the principle that the more people you are, the better you will do. They recruit everyone they can recruit and don’t care much for who they get.

Zerg guilds comes in two flavour. The first, the newbie guild, is simply someone who started a guild without any real plan or without any real idea of what he was doing. He saw the guild vendors and thought it would be cool to join up. They are usually pretty fun things as they tend to gather new players together and they get to explore and learn.

The second type is a lot darker and more evil­. Some zerg guilds are built with a very specific goal in mind, benefitting the leaders. They’re the WoW version of pyramid schemes or gold theft on a grand scale. Most of the time these guilds are used to build up resources for a few key members. Members are simply tools to be used. And with that kind of goal, you can guess what kind of individuals these guilds attract.

I also believe Sacred Plague falls into the second category. The lead members are definitively not newbie judging from their actions.  Also, looking at armory profiles of leaders and alts, I notice they are all decked out with the best enchants and gear for their levels.  I suspect Sacred Plague might be only a mean to finance a few characters but I’ll know more soon enough…

War is on!

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Raiding euphemisms

A while ago we had a discussion in Eff where we tried to list a few of the most frequent comments heard in raid chat and their real meaning. Lots of fun ensued and I thought I could share this list today with all of you simply because I’m curious to see if you’ve heard them, got some of your own of maybe even help a new raider get the hidden subtext used by our beloved raiders and raid leaders.

Ok, that was a nice try. Let’s do this again but this time…  That was awful… stop standing in fires you band of retarded monkeys.

I’m not going/I don’t want to point fingers here… Ok, we all know Bob messed up again bad but since we don’t want him to go all emo on him we’ll pretend this concerns everyone.

Try to be attentive to your surroundings. Stop… standing… in the effing fires!!!

Did anyone see who pulled? The hunter pet pulled again guys… sigh…

Please make sure your flasks are up. I see you without your flask. Yup, I mean you!

We’ll take a  break after this attempt. This is a train wreck and I need to go punch kittens.

I’m not angry but… I am so incredibly pissed at all of you right now!

Let’s get loot over with quickly so we can move on. Stop loot-whoring!

I need to talk to everyone before we start. I’m going to lay down the law and if you don’t shape up gkicks are incoming.

It would be nice if you could all hit up the dummies this week. Dps sucked… bad

What happened to the tanks there? Healers? Why the hell did you let the tank die?

 

And the list could go on forever… feel free to add to it!

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Gone for the weekend!

I’ll be gone this weekend to a strange place with little technology. It’s going to be awesome!

And now for all those living in Québec:

-Bonne St-Jean!

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Playing with non-native English speakers

Today I want to touch on a topic that has been the source of countless amusement but also some problems for me and other player for whom English is not our first language.  Since most of the gaming world happens in English or simply because we don’t have a choice, we come into frequent contact with people who are native English speakers.

Over the years I’ve seen a lot of different reactions from the english speakers when they realize we’re not english speakers. Discounting the juvenile insults which I assume does not represent the majority most people find it fun to see a different language and it’s more often than not a good way to start knowing people. Still, over time,  little misunderstandings will happen simply because we see different meanings in the same sentence. It gets lost in translation.

So, today this post if for the English speakers who sometimes… very rarely because they are awesome… forget they’re talking to someone who might not quite get the subtleties of their expressions. Here’s in bullet point format a few tips and facts about us.

• Beware obscure expressions. Chances are that if someone in the next state wouldn’t get what you’re saying, someone in another country will surely not.
• Sometimes, non-English speakers may come across as rude or cold in chat. It’s not because we are but simply because when speaking in another language you often want to keep it short so you don’t make a mistake.
• If you are unsure of what we just said, because we said something really weird trying to translate an expression, please ask us if you understood right.
• Don’t be a grammar nazi. Someone is making an effort trying to speak your language. You want to encourage him/her and being an elitist grammar nazi will not help. Condescending attitudes is the best way to make you look like an ass.
• Going back to the above point, don’t be a teacher unless asked to.
• For the TL:DR crowd, don’t assume we understood you, check with us if you didn’t understand what we just said, don’t be a condescending ass and everything will be fine.

 

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