Tag Archives: PUG
Age and maturity: the blurred line
With my recent gold cap escapades I’ve probably had a few more random whispers each day than usual. I make it a point to always give my time readily in answering any questions or comments random people have.
It’s not really a hassle and I actually enjoy helping people. One thing it has done lately though is given me a lot to think about when it comes to the types of people we share our gaming experience with.
When someone young whispers me for gold making advice I’ve noticed a disturbingly similar trend in how the conversations tend to go. Usually something like this:
[Person] What’s the best way to make gold? got any tips for me?
[Saate] Actually you’re in luck! I’ve written an entire guide on it that you can read. It covers a lot of the principles and guidelines I use to make my gold. You should go have a read.
**2-3 Minutes Later**
[Person] That’s too much to read. Can’t you just tell me what to buy?
I’ve seen it so many times that I should be used to it yet it still surprises me every time. It’s got me thinking a lot lately about our education system. About how it seems kids are taught to remember and regurgitate (it’s how you pass a test!) without actually learning critical thinking. Is this something independant of education that you either have or don’t have the ability to do?
It’s also interesting to note that within World of Warcraft we have no way of gauging the age or maturity level of a person until after we’ve interacted with them. This I think is the source of a lot of the conflict in the game. I wonder how many arguments have been had between people in pugs and trade chat where age wasn’t even considered?
A 13 year old child is generally going to react differently to conflict than a 23 year or 33 year old will. In real life we mitigate this by maintaining a peer group of people at our own age and maturity level. Anyone falling outside of this is simply filtered out and their opinions are certainly considered to be of less consequence.
In WoW we don’t have that luxury. We treat everyone as being part of our peer group until experience proves it to be otherwise. Is that guy begging you for gold just a real-life-loser, or is he just a 10 year old behaving as expected?
I’d be interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on this topic!
Zevia: Must Go Faster!
Hey folks, Zevia here. Most people have become pretty impatient when it comes to heroic farming at this point, and if you’re the tank, you may find yourself feeling constantly pressured to pick up the pace.
For your viewing pleasure, I’ve included an example of how to chain pull through a heroic with some on-the-fly commentary. It does assume you know the basics of tanking and mostly just touches on a few tips to keep in mind to help you move from one group to the next at a pace that’s good for the group.
The group in this video is simply a random PuG, not guildmates or anybody I knew beforehand, so rest assured that your average group should be capable of moving through most heroics at this pace if you push them to. Let me know what you think!