The School of Hard Knocks In Session

Sometimes, I enjoy watching the optimism of youth. Y’know, when I’ll warn someone in game to watch him or herself (and their virtual money) around the server jagoff and youth will tell me that I “just don’t know the server jagoff, he really is a nice person and a good player.” Or, that “Server jagoff USED to be a jagoff but now he’s changed.”

Ya. I love optimism like that because it means they’re about to get a lesson from the school of hard knocks.

Like this lesson. Remember several months ago I told you about the World of Warcraft rogue that stole the bank from the Unguildables guild? (Parts I and II) Briefly, this rogue kept applying to join our guild and we kept denying him, so he formed his own guild out of the server’s unguildable players — those prone to drama or ninja’ing — then he did a late-night server transfer with the guild bank and told the Unguildables he had cut a deal with my guild for all of the them to join all of us in happy raid land.

I may have also told you (maybe I didn’t though), he returned to our server on a level one noobie rogue WITH THE SAME NAME as his thief character and was chatting it up with the crowd in Ironforge.

This is how that night went down. A few of us are sitting around in Ironforge after the night’s 40-man raid, marveling that our guild can kill anything with some of the “talent” we have, and I see in /say his noobie rogue chatting with a couple of our guild (ALLEGEDLY) female players. Let’s say his rogue is named Beneful.

Me: /officer wtf. is that fucking beneful?
Officer channel: He transferred. Remember?? He stole that guild bank.
Me: /officer Well I’m looking right at him in Ironforge. Who the fuck else would name their character with that dumass name?
Officer channel: Wow. That’s ballsy.
Me: (to one of the females chatting with him) Is that fucking beneful?
Her: teehee ya. He made a level 1 to chat with people. He’s lonely on his new server.
Me thinks: Musta run out of money.

Ordinarily, in this situation I’d be on high alert to carefully scour any rogue applicant to keep his thieving ass out of the guild, but as we hadn’t tagged a new rogue since 2005, high alert seemed unwarranted.

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Communication Breakdown

Miss me? I know, I know, but I’m swamped with post-holiday ACTUAL PAID WORK this week, plus, I’m still addressing (i.e. scratching my forehead while furrowing my brow) the overheating issues with my gaming computer.

I think the heat thing is solved — it damn well better be or I know a computer nerd who’s gonna get sand kicked into his face — the ACTUAL PAID WORK thing will take some time, however.

To reward you for checking up on me and asking after my health (I’m fine, thanks!), I’ll relate a quick anecdote from Lord of the Rings Online last week.

I’m in this PUG (the dreaded Pick Up Group) to kill this elite boss in Garth Agarwen — Ivar. In the group is a level 39 hunter. I think he was a hunter, he didn’t really do anything as I recall. Anyways, as soon as he joined, he’s all full of advice cuz he knows it all.

One thing he didn’t know was how to get to Garth Agarwen on his own. So I showed him how to arrive safely at the zone-in, using one of those kinda exploit-y shortcuts. After zoning in, TWENTY minutes after everyone else arrived, he started up with his unsolicited advice again. Oh how I hated him.

He never set traps for huge trash pulls, never helped out the minstrels (the LOTRO main healers), never used assist to DPS the mob everyone else was focusing on. Three things he did do all the time, however: 1. He’d hit the crowd-controlled mobs much to our lore-master’s chagrin, 2. He’d run ahead into the next room and train the resting group with his aggro shit and 3. He knew what the rest of us were doing wrong.

So we were close to Ivar’s room and someone had a few hints and tips for the encounter — naturally, the hunter knew better, even though, I will remind you, HE HAD NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE. We finished the last trash clear before Ivar, the minstrels were recovering power (that’s mana in LOTRO), etc. and hunter-tool runs into Ivar’s room and starts the encounter. So much for the last-minute strategy talk.

We wiped, of course. We run back and the group is yelling at the hunter for running in early. He denies it. Also, we don’t know what we’re doing. And we should shut up.

Ok, that’s when I’d had enough of his bullshit. Which is what I said. “I’ve had about enough of your bullshit and I’ll pay real money for you to shut up.”

He turned his character around to face me, with his back to Ivar’s room and asked me what the hell was my problem. I was about to say, “you’re my problem” but before I could, the idiot accidentally backs into Ivar’s room and starts the encounter again. Heh, he tried to run back out before Ivar would notice, but Ivar’s no fool — /begin encounter.

Graveyard visit #2.

I asked him if he was going to deny starting the encounter that time too. All he said was, “cya fuckface” and then he left.

Since he chose the singular “fuckface” rather than the plural “fuckfaces”, I assumed he meant me. Which I don’t have a problem with.

What I do have a problem with, what concerns me, is the “cya” part.

Why in the world would he think I’d want to see him again?