Thursday, February 15, 2007

Night Elves, or "The Dumbest Race"

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a night elf. I like night elves. I have friends who are night elves. But something about this race draws a sliver of people that aren't so much mean or vicious or cruel as just . . . well, dumb. My brother said some people play night elves because they want to be like Legolas. His wife said it was because all the elf girls are the most attractive.

Let's call it the "Legolas Syndrome." New players buy Warcraft, say "Oooh! Night Elves!" and make it their first character. Not evil, per se. You have to start somewhere.

The problem is when these same people get in your way. For instance, today I was doing a quest that another guy was obviously doing too. I was lvl 18, he was lvl 17, and we were both tough enough to do the quest on our own if we laboriously killed off the furbolgs one by one. So I offered to group with him and gave him an invite.

He joined me without saying a word, and helped me kill the baddie that came after I opened up my bowl of cleansing on the camp. Then I waited for him to do the same, which called the boss a second time (this was necessary). He never said a word this whole time, mind you, and the quest item appeared in a little basket by the fire as soon as the baddie appeared, right? And instead of helping me finish off Mr. Big and Bad, this idiot goes after the basket (which I haven't even touched, even though I had time to) and LETS ME DIE! I start running away, and this guy gets up to lay the final stroke on Mr. Big and Bad JUST as Mr. Big and Bad kills me.

And I wanted to strangle him. Instead, I ran back to my body, checked to make sure I got the quest done, asked him if he'd gotten it done, but he didn't say anything except "help," so I killed the thing that was killing him and left the group since it was obvious that he'd finished the quest, because I died while he was finishing the quest.

I was really annoyed.

My husband says I'm too nice. I think I am. Anyone else would have told that guy off, but I just ran back to town and got on here to rant. So. Rant, rant, rant.

There, I feel better.

7 comments:

  1. Rule of Thumb: Don't group with unknowns unless said unknown can communicate intelligibly with you. This is why I will never again group with Lucien (for example). Check out the COA blog for some comments about group play. I expect other people to adhere to these same terms of courtesy and when they do not, I may help them finish the quest (since I promised to do so) but I will NOT help them with any future quests. It isn't being "mean", it's just being sensible. Help the true noobs (who just don't know what they're doing) but don't waste your time helping the ungrateful. (I call them opportunists).

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.S. I actually find stupidity and rudeness to be equally distributed among the races. People are just rude and dumb. I've had the LEAST luck with dwarves (but we all know that) and more negative than positive experiences with humans. Never grouped with a gnome. But Night Elves have generally been pretty helpful. I suppose if a person can find their way from Darnassus to Stormwind they're at least more on top of the game than 95% of the players I see.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some random guy begged me for help the other day finishing a quest. I'd done it before and he couldn't find where to turn it in (hopelessly confused), so I took him to it even though I was on my way to finish another quest (a date with a big, ugly Murloc).

    Then he begged me to help him gather the materials for the rest of the quest and I should have said no. I SHOULD have. But I thought I should at least take him to the third turn-in spot, since he'd never be able to find it on his own (the second one had been pretty easy, but the third was a little harder), and ended up spending two hours hunting down Moonstalker respawns on Valentines Day when I'd just popped on for a few minutes to kill a murloc.

    And he was kind of whiny when I tried to weasel my way out of it (he even had a friend helping him, and I'd shown him everything he needed to do), which did NOT increase my sympathy toward him at all. I was relieved when I managed to get away.

    I really am a sucker, aren't I? I need to toughen up.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Um... yep. That story pretty much has "sucker" written all over it. It was the quest with the drunken gnome, right? Buzzbox 427 or something like that?

    ReplyDelete
  5. P.S. - Next time tell them "Check thottbot.com" and sign off. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. *slaps hand against forehead*

    Yeah, it was the buzzbox. He even went "aw, man" when I finally insisted on leaving so I could unload the dishwasher. He did say "thx" but . . . well, let's just say he picked up better shoes than I had from something I killed (not even a quest creature), and I was too nice to ask for them b/c I'd been letting him free-loot the whole time. Even though I was 6 levels higher and really would have liked the shoes.

    I feel so used. *sigh* But I'm not going to dwell. Really.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh my... ^_^* I'm sorry. When I ran into my first case of meany-headness/stupidity on my own (I usually have a tough, heroic man there to save me - my sweet, darling husband), I pulled my internet cable out of my computer. I figured a good disconnect was in order. I know... that's pitiful, but it worked and I saved myself from a major headache! :)

    (PS: I have the most bad luck with dwarves too-- and I'm not just saying that because I'm a night elf either ^_^*)

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.