The 10th Hour 01.23.09: Top 10 Most Annoying Kinds of People You'll Run Into in the World of Warcraft

Posted by Derek Robbins on 01.23.2009

Dealing with people is something that's mandatory in the World of Warcraft, but who are the sorts of people you'll want to avoid? 411's Derek Robbins has you covered as he lists some people in the World of Warcraft you'll want to avoid like the plague.

Hello and Welcome to the 10th Hour! As always, there are a couple of tangents I would like to go off on before I continue this thing:

-So I've been watching The Office lately, seasons 2 and 3 to be exact. I never thought there would be a show that could measure up to Seinfeld in my eyes, but this one is really damn close. It is cleverly written, it has likable characters, and most importantly is funny as hell. I know that the show allegedly gets worse later on, but whatever. Seasons 2 and 3 are fantastic and I'm loving it very much.

-I've been playing a lot of Street Fighter II Turbo HD remix to get me even more excited for Street Fighter IV. I'm not terribly good (still!), but it's still helping me work the hype machine. There was a video released on Game Trailers recently that shows the Street Fighter IV characters and their fancy new English voices, and for the most part, I like them. There are some I disagree with – Chun-Li in particular – but when you have awesome voices like Sagat and Dan it really helps the overall package. I've heard a lot of people bash Dan's voice and I just don't get it. Dude sounds like a complete loser, isn't that the whole point? Come on guys, step your game up.

-The Arizona Cardinals have made it to the Super Bowl. I gave them respect in their opening round against the Falcons, no respect for them against the Panthers, and plenty for the matchup with the Eagles. I was correct in assuming that they weren't playing hard down the stretch because they pretty much had the division wrapped up with like five weeks to go. I just…I just don't know if I see them winning the Super Bowl though. I'd love to see Kurt Warner get another championship and I absolutely can't stand Pissburgh, but the Steelers are just damn good. I know the Cardinals beat up on the 3rd-rated defense in the NFL, but the Steelers are number one, so it's going to be a little different. Right now, I'm thinking Pissburgh will get their sixth title (which will infuriate me to no end, mostly due to the fact my Niners are a team that has five)…I hope I can be swayed into thinking otherwise though.

Reader Feedback

Last week I wrote about 10 things that I did not want to see this year. Let's see what you had to say about that, eh?

Rick L makes kind of an…ill-advised comment

The way things are going, people are going to get tired of the Guitar Hero series like people are getting tired of the Brawl series. Short and simple answer? They're not. Gamers are way too stuck on brand loyalty and throwing away their money stupidly in the sake of one name. Nobody makes decisions for themselves, they just put their little fanboy camp on one little name and feed it money like one of those really obese people on TV get bed-fed enough food to feed Ethiopia for a week.

Other commenters touched on this, but I feel like talking about it as well. The thing about the smash bros franchise is that they've released one game per console generation. That is not over-saturation. The fans of the game BEG for more, but they just get one. We most likely won't see another Smash Brothers on the wii. This is WAY different than Guitar Hero. The franchise releases like five games a year. Aren't Guitar Hero: Paramore and Guitar Hero: Crooning the Fifties on the way this year?

Also, for the most part, you're right. People stick with the brands they know. That's why there are so many sequels. People BUY stuff they can expect goodness from. If they liked God of War I, wouldn't they also like the sequel? It's not great, but that's just how it is. I'd LOVE for there to be more IPs but I just don't see that happening anytime soon. Sequels, shooters and casual games are what sell these days over here.

J-Bone is talking baseball

Great column.

I agree 100% with 2K9. The 2K series although looking nice has been complete and utter shit. Why is is that Sony can bust out The Show which is a billion times better than 2K will ever be? I'm a huge baseball guy and it pisses me off to no degree that all I have to play during baseball season is the 2K series.

Thank you for the kind words. Anyhow, we all know the main reason for this is because there is no cross-platform competition for the 2K series, so why would they put out a good product? I actually have never played The Show outside of the PSP and even there I didn't think it was all that great. Perhaps playing it on the PS3 would change my mind though. I really wish someone would just take MVP baseball, copy it, use better graphics, and release it. I know, I want them to rehash something. How crazy! Look, if any game deserves to be rehashed every year it's MVP 2005. It is, without a doubt, the finest baseball game ever. Not counting Baseball Mogul, but that's more of a sim than anything.

Steve307 talks Sony:

I don't think we'll see multiple versions of SF4. They'll nickel and dime us with DLC though, I guarantee it.

Little Big Planet was just one of many games that had shitty online upon launch. The Home beta and Grand Theft Auto 4 were also total conncetion nightmares at first.

I'm really looking forward to GH: Metallica, but after that, enough. And to the other commenter, GH: Pantera would not sell in numbers big enough to justify making the game. Sorry.

I sure would love a reason to turn my Wii on for the first time in months...

I wouldn't mind being nickel and dimed for that game. The little updates in a fighter can make all the difference, or so I think. There's no excuse for SF IV: Super Turbo Champion edition. Plus, who knows, maybe the DLC will include some SF III characters? I know a lot of SF fans were disappointed to see them just dropped.

Yeah, Sony has a horrid history with these titles having bad online at launch. They really just need to figure out a way to keep it up. Backup servers or something? I just hope that Killzone 2 runs smooth.

Looking for a reason to turn on your Wii? Play No More Heroes again! Imagine all the crazy amounts of fun that you could have! You could also wait patiently for Mad World, a game that will almost definitely delight you. It looks really good and it's from the nice people who brought you GOD HAND and VIEWTIFUL JOE. Can't go wrong with that.

All Around Wrestling Fan takes me to task on the Guitar Hero hatred:

The problem with your argument against releasing a bunch of GH games and DLC every year is that it's OPTIONAL to buy. Getting the extra stuff is not essential, in any way. I've got 56K and yeah, I'd love to be able to get a bunch of DLC, but I don't. I can see why them releasing so much shit every year would be frustrating but is that REALLY the worst thing that could happen in the video game industry?

I'm all for wanting an amazing, quality game that I know the people who made it put a lot of effort into, but who are we kidding? If you were a part of Activision, and part of the GH team and were told by your boss that you had to get that shit out PRONTO, would you whine and say you were worried it wouldn't be worthy of a release? Or would you say YES SIR and get it out. GH makes an insane amount of money, and if they can get away with releasing all those new games and DLC every year with the masses buying them, then good for them. I'm not going to fault them for wanting to make money, because it surely isn't unethical, and they're definitely not the first company in the world to mass produce and rake in the profits.

I'd rather have them release fewer games so it didn't burn such a hole in my pocket, but to have that be your #1 is just weird to me. I know it's your opinion and such but seriously. #1?

Happy sidenote: STREET FIGHTER IV! WHOO!

Yeah, the DLC is indeed optional. However, so is buying new track updates games every four or so months. I realize that some people would be left out – such as you – but I figure they could also release $20 track packs in the store for people who really want it. You know, so people with 56K connections aren't totally left in the dark.

I understand that it's not going to stop and has no reason to stop. The main purpose of the game industry is not to entertain us common folk. Oh yeah, a lot of us would like to imagine game companies want us to be happy, but in reality they just want to make money. Why should Guitar Hero just close shop and stop releasing games when they make so much money? They shouldn't. Hell, some of that money probably funnels into Blizzard's pockets and allows them to make my beloved Starcraft II. Though, you know, it IS very Activision of them to release the campaign in three different packs.

It's not killing the industry, it's just over-saturating a genre. I know I probably ranked it a little high, but I seriously hate that everywhere I turn I see another one. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I just don't want every other game to be a guitar-based rhythm title.

Also, FUCK YEAH SF IV! Glad you're with me on that one, man.

Rocksalt informs me on Sonic:

Derek, I did some digging on the 16-bit Sonic games. Did you know that only Sonic 1 was developed by Sonic Team? Sonic 2,3, and Knuckles were actually made by Sega Technical Institute, one of Sega's AMERICAN branches. So technically, Sonic Team hasn't made a good Sonic game since the FIRST one. Sonic Adventure was okay to me, but everything after that... ugh. Also, I want to like my Wii too, but I've been mainly playing Sonic 2,3 and Secret of Mana on it. Where are my GAMES Nintendo!?

I really, really like Sonic Adventure 2 though. That and Adventure 1 are the only two 3D Sonic games that I have gone back to beat multiple times. I will beat them again in the future, I even know that much. Sure, they were the harbingers of destruction, but I actually quite enjoyed them. If Sonic team could just make a new Sonic game like Sonic Adventure 2, I think I'd be quite happy.

Wow, that's amazing though, I didn't even know that. Sonic Team's only 2D Sonic was the original? Well, that one is conveniently the worst of the bunch. It also happens to be the first. Still a pretty great game though. What Sega Technical Institute did with the next few Sonic games was amazing. They created one of the best 16-bit franchises of all time. It's a shame that Sonic team couldn't capitalize on that success. Do you know what the Sega Technical Institute guys are up to now? Maybe they could make a new one, eh?

As for the Wii, well, just wait for Mad World. I would suggest hacking the Wii because homebrew channel is pretty easy to put on the device, but…the legality of that is kind of dubious. I guess you also have Monster Hunter 3 to look forward to (which allegedly has great WiFi), as well as that as Deadly Creatures. Maybe the Wii could be an interesting console this year?



Top-10 Most Annoying Types of People You Can Meet on the World of Warcraft

This week I'm discussing people you meet on WoW that will most likely annoy the piss out of you. When you're reading this list, keep in mind how many people you know on WoW who fit the descriptions I give. Hell, think of any you may have fit into at some point (I've been a couple, sadly ;_;. NOBODY IS PERFECT!) I mean, I can't be the only person who runs into these things, can I? Maybe it's because I play Alliance. Also, conveniently enough, this is the first time I've ever written a 10th hour on a PC game. Isn't that something? Anyhow, let's get this ball rolling. You may also notice my usage of the word "guy" in the category description. It's kind of an homage to the Jim Rome show.

Also Ninjas are excluded from this list because everybody God damn hates them. Also, no trolls because sometimes trolls are pretty funny. Sue me.

10-) Leave Early Guy - We all know how long it can take to get an instance run together. You have to get your three DPS, which takes you about two seconds. After that, you have to make sure that you have a tank and healer on hand. Often times, there just isn't one around and you need to look for one. This can take a long time, but if you try hard enough you can eventually find one. I mean, after all, sometimes no healers or tanks are online in your guild. It's just something you have to deal with. So, you'd figure that this is something that people looking to do an instance run would have in mind.

Wrong. Often times, particularly in Pick Up Groups – henceforth referred to as PUG – you'll find that guy who leaves JUST as you pull the team together because you took so damn long to do it. Listen guy, I know that it took a long time, but the rest of us made time because we knew it would take way too long to get something rolling. Now you've just made things slightly more inconvenient for us! If you're a DPS, yeah, you're pretty easy to replace. If you're a healer or a tank though? Oh God. It's going to take ages to find someone to replace you. How could you leave us behind like that!

That's not even the worst part about this guy though. I would actually kind of like him if he always left before we got something going. You see, the other thing this guy does is leave mid instance, especially if the group just wiped. He has to go do something like eat or drive to the airport or something insane. Something you would think they wouldn't schedule so close to the instance run. When this happens, the group does one of two things. They either fall apart or they stand around in the instance, staring blankly, and typing in /1 "LF TANK 2 BOSSES CLEAR PLS HELP". It's super annoying. Look, if you're just going to bail because you have something planned in thirty minutes, here's a hint: Don't come.

Also, for those of you who leave after one wipe, have a little faith. Everybody wipes at least once at some point in their WoW life. If you don't, you're probably very lucky or playing on a private server of some sort. If you just say: "FUCK! WE WIPED! THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN FINISH THIS DUNGEON" you probably haven't played WoW very much. So here's a tip. Stick around for a while (an hour or two unless it's a particularly short instance) or just don't come.

- We should all get along. Like this!

9-) The guy who takes it way too seriously - I always seem to get at least one of these guys in a group of mine. They don't seem to grasp the concept that they're playing a game. I mean, sure, sometimes the game aspects of it are dubious at best, but when you boil it all down it is indeed a game. This guy doesn't seem to realize it. He takes every single wipe, every single pull, every single little bitty tiny detail way too seriously. It seems that his life revolves around WoW. He emerges from his basement for the occasional grocery store run – if he doesn't go, his Mom doesn't buy Sour Cream and Onion Lays – but other than that it's all WoW.

How can you tell who this guy is? He gets mad at every little thing that goes wrong. Let's say you are running with an in-experienced tank. This guy is just trying to get some practice in before he tries his hand at raiding. Now, your "too serious" guy is your healer. Now, the tank accidentally let one of the mobs slip by and kill one of your partners. The group wins the pull anyhow because outside of that one mob, the tank had the situation pretty much in-control.

Still though, the healer remembers it. The tank will probably say something like: "Dude, sorry about that hunter. I didn't see that one." The hunter will be okay with it because let's face it, he's lucky to be in a group. Who fucking wants a hunter around? The healer though will be all: "You SHOULD be sorry! We're lucky that we even made it out of this mess! If you can't even hold simple mobs like that, what prayer do we have against the boss?" The tank will apologize and the group will move on. No matter what you do, good or bad, the too serious guy will never be pleased and find some way to criticize you.

Oh, and God forbid you wipe. Imagine the shit you'll hear then. He'll be like: "THERE WERE PEOPLE ALL OVER ME, WHAT THE FUCK BRO!?" I mean, look, stuff like that happens. Even the world's greatest tanks have off-days. People mess up, but in too serious guy's mind, everyone should be totally perfect. He also cracks on the Damage Per Second guys for not pulling their own weight. The only one who is doing perfect in this instance is him. That doesn't explain why he's always out of mana ridiculously early, but whatever.

This guy just needs to calm down, get outside, and learn how to deal with normal people. If he did that, maybe, maaaaaaybe he would be tolerable. Until then, just back off and remember not everybody is comprised of mechanized parts!



8-) The Playa - This is not to be confused with the White Knight. We'll get to him later. Have you ever played a female character or had a vaguely female name and not revealed your true gender blatantly by saying: "I am a boy."? Congratulations, you've probably dealt with this guy. He'll try to hit on you because he thinks he's super smooth and attempt to find a way into your cyber pants. He will try his damndest to have his avatar do the deed with yours.

This is pretty much like a WoW-version of Howard Wollowitz from The Big Bang Theory. Oh, he's a horrendous nerd and has about no chance with most any normal woman, but he hits on all of them like there's no tomorrow. He doesn't only hit on them though, he just goes over the top to the point of making the woman feel awkward. There are people on the World of Warcraft who are actually like that! If you create a female Night Elf, Draenei, or Blood Elf…just be ready for it.

I have a story involving one actually. I was playing my Human female mage named Ashelia (if you WoW vault it, she's only level 19. I kind of gave up on her) and I was in a Dead Mines group with this one guy. The dungeon run went pretty well so I treated him pretty nicely. I guess he misconstrued this as me hitting on him, because the next thing I knew he was pulling out the asterisk-laced actions over whisper. I was like: "whoa, whoa, whoa", what are you doing? He then explained to me that I was the most beautiful being in the land and there weren't many girls like me out there where he lived.

I then told him that I was a boy. He did not message me back or even tell me that he was sorry. I mean, sure, dude probably thought I was coming onto him because I complimented his tanking skills on a fairly low level dungeon, but come on. Seriously? I guess it's my bad for creating a female avatar, but the first thing I think when I play WoW is: "Everyone is male unless they send pictures proving otherwise." And even THEN I am skeptical. These guys are just creepy and kind of weird.

Interestingly enough, their creepy ways have got to work in some fashion. If they were not working, there would not be more people emulating these crazy maneuvers. So somewhere, some poor girl guy led this "playa" on and taught him that this was an effective way to go after the opposite sex. He thinks that making awkward moves at female avatars and sweet talking them until their ears bleed actually work. I'm not sure how many of these guys actually exist, but if you meet one you will quickly wish you hadn't.

Find some porn or something, okay? Maybe you're cool when you're not all horned up.

- Bronze Mustache, this picture is not him, is one of the more interesting stories out there regarding someone of this ilk. He actually, err, scored a girl though. So, google it. Makes for a good read.

7-) Drama Guy - Every single guild has one of these guys. I don't care if you say that you have a drama free guild, there is most likely someone in there that will stir up the shit. The thing with Drama guy is that he is never happy when things are pleasant. If the guild is peaceful and happy, he will choose that precise moment to pick a fight with someone. Either that or he will bitch about something that doesn't really need bitching about and the whole guild will proceed to argue to him about it. I mean, some people think it's just conversation, but you can tell the drama guy is taking it seriously because he'll type in all caps and log off. He'll then log back on shortly after for some attention because he feels bad for stirring up shit.

Just repeat that every day. The drama guy in my current guild always seems to have a beef with someone. For instance, he was leveling a new character and felt it was necessary to say: "DING 2! Ding 3" in the guild chat. For those of you who have played WoW, you know damn well how quick the path to level 3 takes. Nobody wished him congratulations though. I mean, sure, at Ding 2 some people were all: "lol OMG GRATZ" but after that it was pretty much met with silence. So, what does drama guy do? He bitches about how nobody will congratulate them and how everyone hates them.

Drama guy will also threaten to leave WoW all the time due to some grievance with some character. They're always making up new feuds with new people and it's really quite annoying. I'll get back to drama guy in my guild. Last week he was having an argument with someone over the movie Wall-E. I know, it's silly, but hear me out. Anyhow, drama guy didn't much care for the movie. He said that it was too pretentious for him. Non-drama guy said something like maybe it's a taste issue, and the dude just went off! It was insane. I've never seen such an elongated, capitalized rant about a Disney movie before! It was something else. Anyhow, the guild master told him to shut the fuck up and he threatened to leave the guild and quit WoW. Of course, not wanting to seem like a jerk, everyone tells him no and why they want him to stay.

You notice something about drama guy? He creates drama to draw attention to himself because he doesn't have any qualities that draw people to him otherwise. The obvious answer to drama guy is to kick him out. There are two problems with that strategy go. First of all, someone is going to replace drama guy as the new drama guy. There's always someone waiting in the wings, especially in a bigger guild. Yeah, I guess if you're playing a smaller guild that's less of a problem, but that leads to my second point. Drama guy almost always plays a vital role in your guild as either a healer or a tank or something that's not too easy to replace. So even if you want to kick him out, sometimes for the guild's sake it's just not the right thing to do.

It's maddening, but drama guy will always be around and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. There's always a chance that you're drama guy and don't know it. If you are…I both hate and envy you. Envy because I could probably get kicked out of my guild and nobody would care, hah hah.



6-) Join my guild guy - If you've played WoW for more than twenty minutes, you've probably been to one of the major cities. Invariably, you'll see the trade channel filled with people wanting you to join their guilds. Now, look, I don't mind advertising for guilds and what not. I mean, if you don't, how will people know you're out there? The thing is though, the guy who is trying to recruit very seldom has prejiduce about who joins. They'll just say "All welcome!" They also feel the need to repost this every four damn minutes to make sure not a single low-level hunter out there missed out on their super important guild invite.

Look, not every guild out there is immediately going to have a reputation and get a line of people out to join them. This sort of thing is built up over time. My general guild building philosophy is that you should build a guild around people you know and expand from there. The Guild recruitment guy doesn't care about finding the right people, they just want to find people. This can create problems. Often times, you can get guilds full of multiple drama guys, too serious guys, or just people who plain damn suck. I assume they have the all-welcome banner out there because they're lonely and not playing with anyone they know.

That's fine. I'm okay with occasional advertisements, you gotta do what you have to do. The thing is, this guy often goes too far. The other day, I was questing around and minding my own business. I really wanted to get some money for my epic flying mount. The next thing I know, I see a message that says so-and-so is trying to invite you to a guild but you're already in one. The next thing I know, he messages me and tells me that his group needs high-level players interested in raids and asked me to leave my guild to join their cause. I said: "No thank you, but I appreciate the offer." It was already weird enough at that point, but I wasn't going to be rude. He then proceeded to message me and tell me all the neat stuff about his guild. Like it has a site! I eventually had to block him – something I never do.

So again, I don't mind if you advertise your guild. You gotta start somewhere. I do mind you pestering me to join if I am already in a guild and I also mind you spamming the trade chat with information about your super awesome guild. I know that super respected guilds aren't built over-night, but I'm also fairly sure that those same guilds didn't stoop to such levels to get your members. Advertise once an hour at most and you should have people in no time.

- We can't all have awesome guilds like this. Great job by the artist "Genzoman" here.

5-) White Knight - This guy is something wacky. Everyone has probably dealt with one of these guys in a chat room or something, it's not a WoW exclusive phenomenon. Still though, that doesn't change the fact that they are pretty damn annoying. They are kind of like the playa, but not as over-the-top about it. They are a bit more subtle.

You see, how they befriend "women" is by defending them to no end. If someone insults a female character, they will go all out trying to insult the other person and call them every name in the book. Afterwards, the white knight will try to tell you that they are sorry for how rude the offending party is. They will often whisper the female player at random times to see how they are doing and try to act like a nice guy, but if someone says ANYTHING about her he's all over that person.

The thing is, the white knight thinks that he is being a subtle creature. That nobody can see his master plan. The thing is though, EVERYBODY knows what's going on. Behind his back, people are whispering how the white knight is going all out for that "girl". This will only make them target that girl more! I mean, look, you're more than welcome to hit on "girls" I imagine, but dude…there's got to be a better way than defending against every minor offense don't you imagine?

Of course, speaking on the white knight, I obviously would have had to deal with one. So surprise, surprise…let's talk about Ashelia again! That poor girl, she gets so much crap =\. Anyhow, on a different dead mines run than the playa instance, a couple of the other party members were cursing and all of a sudden the White Knight was yelling something to the effect that it was very rude to do around a lady. I kind of laughed because I assumed he was kidding, but when he whispered to me to confirm that I was alright I kind of knew what was up. Hell, once I even accidentally encountered a patrol – I wasn't paying attention – and people were kind of upset at me. Hey, you know, it happens to everyone. The White Knight guy just tells them to lay off and that it was a simple mistake. Uhm. Okay?

I log off after the instance run and log on the next day. He whispers me right away, wished me well and says that he misses me. He misses me. Dude, we only ran DM together. He proceeds to brag about how he leveled up and wanted to talk my ear off. I had to reveal my true gender to him and at that point he just kind of laid off. INTERESTING. You know, Ashelia was a very unlucky character. I had to deal with two of the guys on my list in two Deadmines runs? That's uh…weird. No wonder I quit leveling her.

- Not to be confused with White Knight Chronicles

4-) The guy who is always like NERF X - This guy may not seem that annoying to most of you, but hear me out. There's almost always someone on a server or a guild that is not pleased with his class. Yeah, some classes are not the most ideal, but to be totally blunt for the most part WoW's classes are fairly balanced. The person who is not pleased though, instead of trying to find better gear or get better at playing their class, will shout that every class other than their own should be nerfed and their own should receive a buff.

For those who are not privy to WoW lingo, nerfing means to be made weaker. He wants everything to be weaker so his class can be stronger. The thing is though, more often than not the guy who shouts this is not really that good and could make some improvements instead of whining about the superiority of others. Sometimes, yeah, a class could use a nice nerf to give other classes an edge, but most of the time – in my mind at least – things are pretty equal. A good healer is a good healer regardless of class. A good DPS is a good DPS. Period. I mean, yeah, some have advantages over others but if you find a good, geared player he's good.

I used to be one of these guys though. That's right, I used to complain and moan how hunters got the short end of the stick. I just assumed everybody was out to get them because most hunters were stupid. I mean, dude, they call them huntards for a reason. (I don't play hunter anymore if you're wondering.) The thing is though, I used to not be very good and I didn't even know it. BM Hunters are pretty good for Arena teams but I could almost never keep an arena team going and lost all the time. I just blamed it on the superiority of every other class. I learned shortly that the class wasn't the problem. It was me. I needed to get better at the hunter if I wanted any respect as far as raiding and arenas and what not were concerned.

So I would practice. This is how I know nerf guy is often not that good. There are exceptions. I have seen legitimately good players complain about how some classes are way over-powered. Those guys are okay because they know they're good and they want something different. The other ones? Not so much. To me, it seems like they try to blame everyone but themselves for their less than impressive ability in combat.

I know because I was once that guy. I have seen the light!

- OMG NERF LOCKS

3-) WoW sucks guy - One of my least favorite things to do is play a game with someone and then have them proclaim that they didn't like it anyhow. Unless it's their first time, this raises the question as to why they were even playing it in the first place? I seem to see this sort of guy in WoW every so often. He will explain how he doesn't like the game very much but will play it anyhow. When people ask him why he goes on about it, he'll just say something like "I'm bored".

Hey, it's fine if you think that the World of Warcraft sucks. A LOT of people do. Hell, a lot of people have led me to believe that WoW is not a game, That said, the way you prove that you don't like something is by not playing it. Let's say a wrestling fan likes WWE but dislike TNA. Is that wrestling fan going to watch TNA? No, because he doesn't like it. Why would you subject yourself to something that brings you displeasure? This guy doesn't seem to care and wants to let everyone know how he feels.

There's also another form of this guy. It's the person who will get on and talk about how much better things were in the old days. How one gold meant the world at the time and not everyone was running around with thousands. How people would look up to people with epic mounts as though they were Gods. He'll then mourn that the game has turned into some casual bonanza. I mean, look, I'll admit that the game is much more accessible now than it was back then. It's not like I prefer one version of WoW over the other, but even if I did, I probably wouldn't hop on WoW and let everyone know my distaste for it. In fact, it shows something else.

If you're paying Blizzard for the ability to hop on the World of Warcraft, you're showing them that you support what they're doing. Unless you don't play the game and un-subscribe, you're really telling Blizzard the same thing that the millions of fans are: "That you approve". Yeah, sure, it may be cool to hop onto a server and totally pan a game that you once loved, but what does that really accomplish? Some may call this trolling, but in my opinion I think it's more often some guy trying to establish the size of his e-peen by expressing his preference in superior games.

WoW talk doesn't have to be limited to WoW. I'm all for talking about other games. For instance, I'm renown for not talking about the game that much and instead talking about old Nicktoons (I think I set the record for number of times mentioning Doug) and other video games. That's because the people in my guild, outside of drama guy of course, are people I would consider friends. I want to talk to them! I can like one game and still like another. I just don't see what the point is to come on and go all: "Hey, I like (insert MMO) here. It's way better than WoW, it sucks now. Well bye guys." It just comes off as attention whoring and lame to me.

Long story short, if you dislike WoW just don't play. Talk about your hatred of it in a forum or something. Just don't bring your hatred to the game world itself. It just seems pointless to me.

- Well, okay, that sucks.

2-) Run me through/Give me gold guy - Allow me to start this out by saying that if I have a friend that is new to WoW, I will give him gold and run him through stuff. I want them to catch up with me and raid or do heroic instances with me as soon as possible. It's a bit of a drag, but really. If it takes me like twenty minutes to run them through an instance, it's not a big deal. I have nothing against people who mooch off their friends, because odds are the person being mooched off of wants it.

That said, the people who will get over trade channel and spam their desires for free money is pretty annoying. Look, I was a low level at one point. I know that at a point money can be kind of hard to come by, the thing is, as you level more opportunities to make money will fall your way. You need to understand that! Begging for money makes you seem lazy. Look, I loathe grinding as much as the next guy, but the thing is I actually worked for what I have. Just because you don't have someone to walk you through doesn't mean it should be handed to you!

I'm fine if a guildie does it. We're in a guild together, I mean, we got to have each other's back, ya know? If some un-related guy just messages me out of the blue and asks if I can spare a couple of gold, it just screams pathetic to me. You mean you don't know a single person on the server who can lend you a couple of G for something real quick? Well, uh, okay. I've been reported, well that's what they said at least, for refusing to give a guy money and acting rude about it. Sure, I hired his hooker but man, she was a lousy cyber I mean, look, at least try to start up a conversation. Just be all: "Heeey, what's up?" and then maybe twenty minutes down the road ask for money. I wouldn't give it to you, but I'd be less offended than a random plea for gold. I have sympathy for people in the real world without money, but WoW is totally different.

There's also the guy who wants you to run him through instances. Obviously, again, if a guildie wants me to take him through an instance and I'm not doing anything I will. It's a very effective way to level a toon. That said, if someone is un-guilded and begging for a run-through of an instance, odds are they don't have a ton of WoW experience and need to learn how to play their characters before someone runs them through. Early instances are good for learning how to play your toons. Having someone run you through them, unless you're an experienced player, ruins that.

I naturally assume people who get on the trade channel and beg for a run-through don't have that experience. I want them to go through the same craaaazy experiences that I did. I know it seems lame for me to wish people to experience something in a fictional game, but dude! That's the whole thing! I like that people will offer gold for run throughs, but often times they are pretty small amounts of gold they are offering making it not worth it for the higher level. If you want to do it, it's fine. I would just say keep it in the guild, and if you absolutely can't, don't broadcast over trade channel a billion times hoping someone will eventually do it.

God, I wish I could leave trade channel sometimes.

- You'll probably face this guy at some point.

1-) Grrl Gamer - I think I should clarify something before I continue writing this entry. I don't mean I dislike girls who play WoW. If you play WoW and happen to be a female, that's cool. Just don't make it the selling point of your personality. Just act like any other person would and don't blatantly advertise your gender. I mean, I don't go out and go: "Heeeey ladies, I'm a pretty cool dude here. That's right. I'm a dude." It's just, bleah.

These girl gamers astound me, because I honestly think they are less about the actual gaming experience and more about getting attention of some sort. Let's say you're having a normal conversation with someone on WoW and they slip in the word "boyfriend". If this takes place in the general chat, people will immediately hop on that word and ask the person if they are a girl. They make it seem like it's just a natural thing coming from their keyboard, but you can tell they put it in there on purpose. They wanted you to see that they were a female.

They know what they're doing darn well, because women get very special treatment from WoW. Maybe it's just the server I'm playing on, but if someone flat out goes: "I AM A WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR" they will receive a lot of attention and all of a sudden be amazingly popular. People will doubt their sex until they see a picture or something, but they will attest to being female and have all the boys swooning around her, hoping to get into her cyber pantaloons.

In my current guild, I have someone that fits this description perfectly. There was a conversation going on in guild chat – I feel the need to mention now that my guild comprises a few others as well and even has its own little separate channel so all of the different guilds can converge – and all of a sudden this girl totally "accidentally" mentioned that she was female. We were talking about movies at the time, I think. Conversation, literally, slid to a halt and people started going like: "WHAT!? A GIRL!? On WOW!?!?!" And then there was some sort of huge argument over her gender in there and her reluctance to show pictures. It was…kind of weird. Is it really that shocking that a female plays? I mean really? It has like 10 million subscribers, you would have to assume that a girl plays at some point

I've had experiences with female WoW players that are positive though. They don't go flaunting their gender about and I only really found out what was up through ventrillo. They just want to play the game like anybody else and that's how it should be. You shouldn't put your status as a girl as your first and foremost personality trait, that's annoying. It should just be "gamer" not "girl gamer". Simple as that.

Then again, maybe I am just jealous of all the attention they receive? Doh ho ho…aww….

- You should just be like me and create female avatars for the attention! Duh!

Thank you for reading. As always, I appreciate your feedback as I feel it helps me become a better writer. Positive or negative, what you say is read and considered. If you wish to comment, you may do so below or you can send me an e-mail at [e-mail] Whichever you prefer.

Well that's it for this week. Before I go, let's see what's going on around 411mania's game section shall we?

Here is the second part of the 411mania game awards. You can find a link to the first part there. I voted in here but forgot to give my blurbs. Sorry guys!

Jordan "The Ogre" Williams writes Working Title

John De Large writes What I Hate About You

Theo Fraser writes The Nintendophiles

Chris Vicari writes The PC-Spotlight

Greg Bruno hosts a What IF showdown between Joe Roche, himself, and me. 360 writer v. PS3 writer v…er…what if and girl gamer writer? Very wanted.

Tommy Coloma writes the Release List. Hey Tommy, just so you know, I'm importing the Haruhi game. I loved that series, can't wait for the new one. I have really poor taste in anime though, because I'm also watching ToraDora. Bleah.

Jacob Lopez hosts a Fact or Fiction between Adam Larck and Jeffrey Harris

Trace Aber writes Living Live

Rod Oracheski writes Achievement Unlocked

Joe Roche writes The Full-Circle 360 news report

Vincent Chiucchi writes The Select and Start News Report. He also writes The Hall of Shame. Pretty sure this is last week's, but here it is anyhow.

I write B3yond the Report

AJ and Mike Minotti voice the Exploding Barrel Podcast. They reveal their games of the year.

I think that covers everyone. If I forgot ya, I'm sorry.

That's it. I'm out

'til the crossroads

Screenshots
All 9 The 10th Hour Screenshots