roncli.com blog: Rant: 'Net Drama!

Over the past couple of months, I've been playing a good amount of World of Warcraft. In fact, it's eaten up a ton of my time. The good news is that Kathy's into it, too, so I have someone I enjoy playing with.

We joined a guild on the server we're on that had about 30 people - small by WoW standards. The guild master invited me in once after I had resurrected him at random. He was looking for mature players (ie: players that simply have to yell, use caps, or type every word with at least one number in it, a la l33t sp33k), and so I figured this would be a nice, fun, laid back guild where I could find other people to quest with.

Not so fast, this is the Internet we're talking about here.

I've experienced this with Trax in Space, the D3TL, and Achaea, the three main things on the Internet that I've really grown attached to before World of Warcraft, so I really shouldn't have expected WoW to be any different. Surprise, it's not.

Only three months into existance, "T3h drama" has reared its ugly head. Perhaps it happens because everyone's playing behind a monitor instead of face to face, but people just seem to get pissed off at everyone for little or no reason. The GM is at odds with one of his officers because apparently said officer ignores his polymorph marks in parties. The officer counters, saying that the GM is a terrible leader. A second officer leaves because the GM left during the middle of a party where he promised to help get her an item. All after everyone's all stressed out over Real Life issues and decides to take it out on each other in the game.

The Internet's really become a bastion for those who want do things that are immoral, but would never be brave enough to do it in a public setting. I can't help but wonder if this attitude has extended to the 'Net Drama I'm seeing. I've started to take such drama with a grain of salt, and in this case I've decided to play from the sidelines and see how it pans out. There's no reason pouring your heart into something that's just going to stress you out if you get involved, like it has already happened to those in the game that just let too much stress get to them.

Chill out, it's only a game.

Labels: Drama, Editorials, Gaming, World of Warcraft

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