Forget Knowing The Fights, Link Your Achieve Plz!

Wolfshead at one point discussed his hatred for the WoW Achievement System. At the time it gave me some things to think about, but I had not completely formed a solid opinion of it…

Until today.

Up till just a few hours ago I was truly indifferent to the WoW achievement system. I didn’t loathe it or even like it, at times it seemed more annoying as it often took the form of in-game spam and useless pop-ups. Then the achievement system started being used by players as evidence of skill, much like this cult following of relying heavily on a player’s gearscore to determine their adequacy for raids. I cannot express my frustration and strong dislike of the WoW community using these “tools” to judge whether a player is worthy of a raid spot or even a simple group.

The problem is simply the lack of socialization. Forget your gearscore and the achievements you do or do not have, if you demonstrated that you were a good player in a group and can perform well in your role and listen to instructions, more than likely you made friends or at least made a reputation to get you future invites. Otherwise, as a stranger, people have nothing to go by anything but your gearscore and achievement. Sadly, people seem to not understand that even with all the gear and achievement “checking” that nowadays, you still have a very high chance of getting a very bad player on your hands.

It isn’t news that with WoTLK that WoW has been exponentially easier in order to appease a wider demographic, so getting all the badge gear is really not that much of an achievement. And consider this, what if you go into a raid with 9 other people and its a pretty well geared group with all very skilled players except for 1 person who not only has a good gearscore but performs badly and doesn’t do good dps/tanking/healing. Basically, because of the 9 other players pulling the slack of that 1 lacking player, he/she will essentially be “run through” the raid and get the achievement. So I ask people that rely so heavily on achievement links:

Does having a certain achievement truly demonstrate the player’s ability to perform in a certain raid?

Of course it doesn’t. Like I said, Joe the Paladin over there could have just been doing 2k dps the entire raid but no one ever bothered to replace him because the other players were performing so well it was barely affecting the raid as a whole. Bad players are run through raids all the time, so I implore future raid leaders to please consider this factor along with this next question:

Does not having an achievement truly demonstrate the player’s ability to perform in a certain raid?

Again, no. Let’s take myself for example. I’m geared enough to do the Icecrown Citadel dungeons but I am in a guild with a bunch of a friends and not a serious raiding guild, thus, I have to resort to pugging to get involved in any raiding action. Of course the problem is that a pug is a pug and therefore failure rates in raid dungeons are sky-high and as a result almost all my raid groups did not possess the dps to kill Saurfang, the last boss of ICC (well at least he was before the release of the newest boss additions). This results in me having an incomplete Icecrown Citadel 10-Man Achievement and because I’m one boss short I’m quickly dismissed when I offer to heal. What’s sort of funny and quite sad is that these groups will spend hours in the chat channels looking for a well-geared healer (don’t forget with the full achievement!) when they could have had a healer who not only was well-geared but knew all the fights.

Like I said, it all goes back to WoW players turning anti-social. Groups and raids these days have become all strictly business, rarely if ever do people bother to form friendships or get to know other players. If we did, however, players wouldn’t have to resort to ridiculously inaccurate sources such as gearscores and achievement links to make an overall judgement on your playing abilities. Is it just me or has these two constant requirements act as sort of in-game resume to whom we present the raid leaders who are essentially the “bosses”? When did playing a game that is suppose to be fun and relaxing become a job in disguise in which we must work hard in-game to qualify for experiencing content in a game that we pay $15 a month for?

Woes of a Female-Gamer

It’s been eight years since I’ve delved into the joys of gaming. There have been many bosses fought, people killed with headshots, bombs diffused, and other pleasures that I still can’t get enough. Even though there were many fond memories and a lot of friends made (that I still talk to and play with), it isn’t without it’s consequences.

So what’s it like being a female-gamer in a male-dominant gaming world?

It has it’s ups and downs. Sometimes being a female-gamer can have it’s perks, on a number of occasions I was very well-respected and highly admired by people who rarely came across a female-gamer, even more so if I was good at the game. Many clans and guilds that I had been a part of in the past sometimes were thrilled to have me because they were looking for a little diversity in a clan or guild that was mainly filled with males. In these circumstances, being a female-gamer was quite the advantage.

On the other hand, it can work completely against you as well. Thinking back in the last eight years, it all adds up into a bundle of frustration. When the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike was released almost ten years ago, this is when my brother started playing and I had slowly become immersed into online PC gaming. It’s not surprising to see a female-gamer once in a while playing Counter-Strike today, and though I’m not particularly fond of Girls of CS, I like to think they had at least broken the ice a little bit. In some ways, they proved that attractive, sexy, and beautiful women can be gamers as well, even in games least expected such as Counter-Strike, a game that was notorious for the stereotype that only ugly fat chicks play. This was something I had experienced first hand when playing Counter-Strike, and because I knew I certainly was not ugly or fat, it didn’t bother me much, if at all, what did bother me was why my appearance mattered so much whenever it was revealed I was a female. When is the last time you see people questioning a male’s appearance whenever he logs into a server? It’s okay if the male is ugly and fat and playing CS, but when it’s a female, she’s showered with insults and very inappropriate comments.

I remember a long time ago when I had joined a server and the people playing found out I was a female, they were in total shock and in denial. That is, until I made the mistake of using the in-game voice and the entire server proceeded to get me to leave by having all players focusing on killing me till I became frustrated enough to leave. Sadly it did go to that point. Especially in Counter-Strike, teams never wanted female ringers to fill in scrim slots because they automatically assumed female gamers sucked, which isn’t true, we’re just never given a chance because of our gender.

It’s truly unsettling that males have the luxury to play their online games for all its intent and purpose, which is to kick back and have fun, relieve a little stress, relax, and have a good time, whereas females get the complete opposite. Whenever we want to kick back and have fun, we’re disgraced, humiliated, verbally harassed (often sexually), and worse. Gaming would often no longer be our safe haven to just have fun, we’re splatted with a multitude of other problems just because we’ve seemingly made the mistake of encroaching on male territory.

In my experience there are three types of male-gamers that female-gamers are likely to encounter:

• Male-gamers that seek to humiliate and insult female-gamers as well as other methods of verbal harassment.
• Male-gamers that often take an irrational and inappropriate romantic interest in female-gamers that often makes playing uncomfortable and awkward.
• Male-gamers that are indifferent to the presence of female-gamers and treat them as equals.

The first category we have already previously spoken of, the second category is perhaps the most agonizing of them all as they are the most common. Revealing that you are a female-gamer can often bring you into this type of trouble all too easily. This problem has mostly occurred in MMORPGs, and I guess in some aspects, says a lot about the genre. When males are playing a game its still just a game, but it seems that whenever they encounter a female the game is no longer a game, it’s a dating service and women are treated as products. An example would be when I was once asked to resurrect someone who was asking to be revived in common chat in Perfect World International. I invited this person into my group, buffed them to help them survive in the future, and also helped them complete a quest they were having trouble with. Before you know it the guy says, “So what’s your name sweetheart?” and the following conversation is just a list of demands asking for my age, location, picture, and all other unnecessary information I’m expected to give someone that I haven’t even spoken to for more than ten minutes. It’s quite infuriating to know that I’m treated so differently and can’t be left alone to just enjoy the game I’m playing. This is just one of the many examples and the others are far worse.

I rant about this because I’m at a loss, it has been eight years and the pattern has yet to change. Friends you meet you online tend to be males and they tend to not stay as “friends” for very long, but they strive to be something more even though they don’t know a thing about you. Because of all this nonsense, I have since been reluctant to make male friends in any game that I play in fear of being treated differently because I’m a girl. I would like if males starting treating their counter-parts with respect and stop treating them differently but instead to treat them as equals or human beings. It makes my blood absolutely boil when males give themselves the right to call me sweetheart, babe, baby, sweetie, and all these little pet names they assign to me. If I wanted to meet someone romantically, what makes guys think that I’d ever play a game in order to pursue something like that? I play a game for a fun. That’s it, ’nuff said. Leave me the hell alone.

Solutions

When I express to people about my grief on the subject, I get a lot of the same answers from different people. Many of them include rolling male characters, pretending you’re a guy, tell them you have a boyfriend or you’re married and you’re not interested or tell them you’re a lesbian (if you aren’t). Anyone see something similar in all these suggestions? They all require to change something about you, and it’s absurd. We shouldn’t have to change anything about ourselves because we haven’t done anything wrong. Besides, if we really have to go to such extents to change ourselves in order to be comfortable in the games we play, then why play the game at all? Games are supposed to be our little havens that we can sit back and enjoy and just be ourselves, it defeats the purpose if we have to go out of the way to roll characters of a different gender or take the time to role-play ourselves as males or otherwise.

If you tell them you’re married you’re labeled as a lost cause, whereas if you tell them you have a boyfriend they see you as fair game because you haven’t sealed the deal. On numerous occasions I used the “boyfriend card” only to be later asked that I leave my boyfriend for someone I don’t know that lives hundreds or thousands of miles away because “I’m just what they’ve been looking for.” Yes, you can take this moment to laugh now.

Telling them you’re a lesbian can completely backfire on you on so many obvious levels and pretending you’re a guy is quite the chore because at times you forget you’re pretending and slip up. The only real solution that I have seen work is quite simple.

Tell them to fuck the hell off.

I’m 100% serious. Get fierce, bring out the inner bitchy of the bitchiest in you and unleash that can of worms like you’ve never done it before. Tell them how you really and truly feel, feel no remorse because they will try to make you feel guilty. It’s a game, these are people you don’t know, burn in-game bridges if you have to, do what you have to do to make sure someone isn’t making you uncomfortable. Tell them what they’re doing is inappropriate and unfair and hopefully in the future won’t do the same to other females they may encounter. If they keep harassing you, block them if your game has that feature. If you come across a male-gamer that insults you and tries to humiliate you, just ignore them because you know what they are saying is not true and they’re just being jerks. Keep your head high and show them that you can play just like anyone else!

PC Game Review: Ether Saga Online

My review for Ether Saga Online can be found on Default Prime here.