wow weirdness

I agree. The times where I've been the very most stand apart elite at things at high levels was when I did it to my very own high standards in my very own way using my very own methods.

It's like growing yourself to be good at something. I became elite at a game I had played for over 10 years in about three weeks after a new expansion came out.

The thing is, when you're self taught, self motivated, and self improved on a very fundamental level you don't typically operate like other people. That's why you can outperform them.

When you're like this you actually know you're superior in your own way.

For instance, I was a healer in a video game and I did my rotations and I prided myself with the effectiveness of work.

What I liked to do when situations became dangerous in the game for 30-40 people and I was one of three or five people keeping them alive, is I found is I liked to find a quick strategy that I could repeat methodically in those critical moments, almost like playing an instrument, and without anyone really knowing how everyone would be alive after something that would have likely killed them. So in five or 10 minutes of my work I saved 40 people 4 hours of work.

To be THAT good at something often means you raise it like a baby.

For instance, I started my game character at level one. Using a shortcut in playstyle early on would mean that without thinking you would usually be forced to use that shortcut later on. Just like learning a powerful motorcycle properly for the first time, learn to go slow with limits effortlessly before trying to go fast.

So, Nobody was paying attention to me at all for the first week, but I got to the max level in my own way.

Then the expansion came out, and I did that. It took a week because the expansion was god awful, so it really was like going to college when you hated the whole experience because all the instructors were clickly and stupid and pompus at the same time, but I got through it.

Then I refined my craft naturally.

The thing is, as an independent learner, it is actually even easier to have a side gig. Like side business if you will.

But unlike the thinking that it takes time away from you, it actually gives  you more time. And you can use your independent decision making abilities to make a name for yourself in that way. (I basically started a crafting business where I'd craft desirable armors and competitively be a leader in my market)

And it also made me feel like I wasn't just "A professional Healer" because when I made 10,000 good armor that was very profitable and used widely by players and I got 300,000 gold for it; when my character would probabably have 10,000 gold total if I didn't have that profession, it made my perspective of my craft of healing when I did it seem more like a hobby and helped me take it less seriously.

But I had chosen a wow realm known for raiding, one because i'd never done it before, but also because I really wanted to be competitive. I knew I would be great at what I did and I wanted to know the output myself. And if I was around other kind people who also were great in their own way I felt we would in the very least enjoy our results.

But it did not turn out that way.

When I first  joined the voice chat for my guild that I had spent a week or two mastering myself for, people had just came back from "a raid" and I tried to wait for a good time to talk. Really, I wanted to get to know the vibe at first.

But nobody was hardly talking.

So I just decided to jump in and introduce myself.

"Hi. I started from scratch at level one to make sure I was the best at playing Resto Druid and I'm the best Resto Druid (healer, basically a doctor) that you will ever meet."

And I really knew that to be true. When I partied with completely random people as a sole healer I would get everyone through the content where everyone was satisfied over 90% of the time. And with a tank that was just as dynamic (one out of 50) the throughput would be 10 times any normal group.

But the "raid" guild. Who had 5 sets of 40 people that the did things with. Right then and there, they didn't give me the time of day AT ALL.

Partly, I think it's because they were exhausted for some reason. But honestly, if you get exhausted playing a game you're supposed to be good at most of the time and enjoy you're doing it wrong.

So, they had seemingly a brain power of 0.5 out of 10 and they needed to exert a brain power of 10 to even be authentic and respond in any way.

I made an effort to be a part of one of the 40 man raiding groups, but nobody would give me the time of day or anything.

And what didn't make sense of any of this was that the whole game was new, old formulas didn't even matter, so whatever formulas and strategies they were using for no matter how long had little influence on actual performance.

See, there has been a very seedy underbelly of that game that made it so "white centric" that it was ridiculous.

The storyline heroes were talking dragons that could look like humans and a well known time traveling midget. Everything else, everything that seemed "natural" was really cannon fodder seemingly with no lives or cultures of their own.

So white people who thought the game was balanced and representative and inclusive they thought those characters were somehow authentic and speaking for everybody.

I know it was a horrible obvious sham. It was made by the core group of white male minded designers that were stupid enough to get thrilled over story lines that had no substance.

I mean, I knew something was up with the game a long time ago.

When I was going to college at College of Marin at a club to introduce students to student services I met a woman who personality wise fit some rare mold. I said I played World of Warcraft and she was like "I do too." "They gave me a lifetime pass for the game so that I don't have to every pay for it."

What? And she didn't even sound normal. She had some sort of weird pretentious air where she was really good at making smart white guys feel especially smart and dumb white guys feel special regardless of seeming dumb. Something weird like that.

Even after that God Aweful expansion (see, I had gotten off of a psych med that was bad for my health and I needed to replace it with Something that was good for my health so I was using the game as a replacement).

And it literally worked. Having a social activity where you spend energy and are good at something and you become a better person at it (what sterotypical people call " a job ") was literally doing a good job a filling the gap of the damned medication.

But the whole trick of replacing a bad lifestyle habit with a good one is progressively good validation.

And after three weeks when I learned that all my skills at the game would not amount to anything worthwhile. I quit. I should have.

I tried Minecraft for a week, but when you start from square zero it's hard to be able to plan and adapt up with the same success.

And the interesting thing about any group that is secretly, what could could call bigoted weather they know it or not or has some superficial view of what success it that ostracizes others to give a false sense of superiority

... is when you're so naturally good that you know they're so naturally bad...

just simply not offering your services INEVITABLY means that they're going to implode

it's actually the most compassionate thing, because they deserve it.

in all honesty, at the time, they probably didn't notice me at all.

And that's how it should be.

I dropped into WoW Dragon flight to see what became of it shortly after I stopped, maybe a month or two afterward. And it was such a ghost town it was scary.

To go from a thriving environment with new players exploring themselves, not just limited to the town, but flying down to take place in random events.

To having 1 person. 1 person!!! standing where 10,000 people use  to be in one months time, it was inhumane.

See, a game is considered dead when there is no life.

But what bothers me more for some reason is when I see someone clinging onto life with no real life around.

One human being playing a character just standing there with 10,000 artificial characters that look like them but not real at all.

See, if you try to get human interaction from robots it just gets creepy, so naturally there is a separation.

The only thing that makes sense when it's that creepy and sparse of life is maybe it's good for people in the military. You know, to have personal downtime with something kind that crosses borders.

But that's how ugly Wow got.

And joy be loved, I tried to bring my life to it again.

Once when Classic was being embraced (the original gamestyle that was authentic) I joined.

But I chose a "role playing" realm.

And I don't roleplay.

So what does the game do, it tries to compensate.

See, originally, the game at times got so crowded they decided to make more space for people virtually on top of each other.

Plenty of people in the first realm, plenty in the second. Both groups are there. Looks natural but it's not.

But for whatever reason the people managing wow favored certain groups to be among the "favored" vertical realities of wow and others to be among the more "sparse" realities of wow.

In that role playing realm, where I was obviously popular, I remember seeing one player in 4 hours of playtime. Her name happened to be Joanofarc.

But I just walked by, because I don't even really roleplay.

But knew, and could tell, I could almost even hear the roar of the crowd, that while I saw Nobody playing around me, there were countless people enjoying themselves.

It was like I was some weird freak circus animal meant to give people permission to others to be themselves and have fun just by me choosing to do that myself.

Occasionally I would walk into Orgrimmar to like 40 somewhat high level players just standing there. Some moving. But all just standing there. No discernable socialization that would include me available to me at all.

Eventually I got fed up and targeted myself to join a "newbie friendly" realm.

And it was great. Being around people who are fresh to the game makes one feel like those possibilities they enjoyed from the past could be fresh for ones self too.

But the social clickiness was there too.

One time, south of Orgimmar, I saw seemingly competent player just simply appear out of nowhere in front of me.

I think there was a glitch in the system where important people were treated special but this special person wasn't able to "uprealm" themselves like they normally could.

And this player started jumping. Just simply jumping in place.

And I thought "Ah ha. She is trying to get to the important reality and that's how she does it usually. She jumps. But right now it's not working for whatever reason. Maybe because I was watching.

I do not know how deep the rabit hole goes. I do know that the culture that contributed wow before that time was so bad, called a frat boy culture, that one girl commited suicide because of it. I also know that if you look at the original creators of the original wow that they look as diverse and authentic as the game they created. And when you look at the creators after that they seemed very pale white.

Hell, I remember about a year or two ago a new set of people were given permission to work on the game or something. worker types.

And I looked at the photo of them all, and they almost all looked bleeched.

And me, while looking at the picture, me just mentally giving them permission to be their authentic natural in real life races, slightly made their skins darker on the spot. I am not joking to you I literally witnessed it.

I hope it's nothing like that anymore.

But obviously if your naturally ethnicity is being held back because of an employer, something is seriously wrong.