4.2. To QQ or Not to QQ

A photography advertisement featuring
Annihilation's license plate

No Tolerance For Tantrums

It's a little known fact that a pair of capital letter Qs predates WoW.

Gamer rage is a staple in our community; we recognize it, are not surprised by it, and in the grungiest of circles, feed off of it. Extra-curricular sports had their share of kids stomping off the field, but always under the watchful eye of adults. Nearby parents and coaches curtailed unsportsmanlike behavior; gamers bore no such burden. The older, wiser versions of us rarely involved themselves in our video gaming hobbies. We were left to treat each other as we saw fit, a society based entirely on not sucking. And as our enemies lit up in flames, we punched the air and screamed in victory. Losing was no less emotional; many of us took it to a dark place. The keyboard graveyard is very real, a cardboard box full of cables and tragedy.

First Person Shooters were easier to digest. You could count on your loss being painless and quick -- all it took was one perfectly aimed shot to the head. A bad decision took you out of the round, but you were back and seeking revenge within minutes. The concept of failure had no time to sink in. By contrast, the beauty of a game like Warcraft II was in its slow, tortuous loss that you watched unfold over ten excruciating minutes. As you sat back helplessly while your village burned to the ground, all you could think about was how many bad decisions you'd made along the way, how much better the other guy was. It was a front row seat to the grand symphony of failure. At least the kids that played sports had someone waiting on the sidelines, ready with a pat on the back and a "you'll get 'em next time, champ." Our demise usually provoked a different sentiment -- the kind that ends peripherals.

Many players couldn't deal. Rather than being force-fed their failure, they opted to take control of their losing lives one last time. Before "DEFEAT" splashed up on the screen, players on the short end of a Warcraft II match would fire off a hot key combination: ALT+Q+Q, bailing them out before the jury read the verdict. This act came to be known as ragequitting, and those who partook were the subject of great ridicule. Winners saw through the veil of excuses, of claims to unfair advantages, of plastic keys flying out of keyboards, and saw their tears. Winners wanted nothing to do with such childlike behavior. With little tolerance for tantrums, the bullies of the playground soon wove the hot key combo into a taunt of their own. With their devilish grins, they typed:

"Quit whining and QQ already."

Eventually, the ragequitter and their hot key salvation became synonymous. The act of quitting in a rage equated to crying; to cry was to 'QQ'. Those who sought the thrill of competition loved nothing more than to stumble across a ragequitter. The bullies of our virtual playground taunted ragequitters relentlessly, as if taking on a personal challenge: watch how fast I can make this one fly off the handle. And as they poked and prodded the lion, watching as typed responses shifted from lowercase to uppercase, those gaming bullies would pull out their ace card, shutting crybabies down with a simple "QQ More"; it was our shorthand for why don't you go home and cry to your Mommy?

The same behavior driving us off the playground and into our antisocial gaming havens ended up being the very same behavior we adopted once hands rested squarely on the keyboard and mouse.

Take a guess which type of gamer this computer belongs to

What Change Tears Bring

The binary society of gamers, those who cried and those who taunted them, were easy to sort out. Raging was a stigma no gamer wanted to bear. Who in their right mind would actively seek out crucifixion? Crying, whining, complaining -- those of us with the scars of our former rage, those of us who knew better, maintained a healthy distance from those enabling behaviors. Many of us figured out the secret: there was nearly always a rational, logical explanation. It simply took effort to discover what that answer was. You need to improve your initial build strategy. You're spending too much time micromanaging peons and not enough time expanding your town. Back we went, trying again, practicing, refining, working through new solutions. With enough dedication, we'd emerge triumphant. The satisfaction came as a heavy relief, because it was less about being wronged, and more about being educated.

The sharpest of us continued down this path, applying the same logical rationale to every malfeasance threatening our place in gaming society. Meanwhile, rage took on new forms, breaking free from the muddy underbelly of IRC and QuakeWorld, making its way to the sunlight on gaming forums and communities...and Battle.net wasn't safe from this evolution.

---

My earliest memory of WoW outcry took place a few weeks after launch. It was a nightmare of playability that few younger gamers of today have had the luxury of experiencing. The first sign was the rubber banding. I would travel along the Mulgore plains as a level 4 tauren shaman, then be intermittently frozen as if Blizzard had pressed the pause button on a old VHS tape. The screen shook violently as it struggled to render forward movement, but the tauren only cycled through the animations of movement, never actually covering territory. Data packets flew out of gamers' computers at lightning speed, never completing the round trip. Blizzard's infrastructure buckled under the duress of millions of players demanding Azeroth. Minutes later, packets of data found their way back to our gaming rigs, WoW clients suddenly catching up by fast-forwarding the VHS tape, and my tauren shaman slingshotted across the plains. No player should have dealt with such torture. According to the rage that filled the forums, it appeared no player deserved to.

I can't even begin to imagine the horror of the Blizzard developers in those early weeks of Vanilla. A shattered vase can be glued back together, following the picture of the vase in your head. But what if there was never a 'fixed' state to begin with?

What frantic chaos took place behind the Blizzard curtain during those first several weeks? Around the clock meetings to share updates, walking through the laundry list of issues. Did the last workarounds take? How bad was the situation now? What more could be done? How much longer until the new servers arrive? How quickly can they be spun up? It is one thing to plug holes in a leaky boat, but how exactly does one surface a vessel that's already at the bottom of the ocean? I've been on the receiving end, albeit on a smaller scale. Launching a web application, only to see it buckle and collapse. Back in I went, cracking open code, staring at it for hours on end. The phone would ring endlessly, people dressed better than I wanted to know what was taking so long and where was the work they were promised. When were they to get the answers they deserved? I know the struggle, I've lived it.

Before WoW, there was nothing comparable. Nobody had done what Blizzard was attempting to do. Certainly, there were functional MMOs in place: EverQuest, Ultima Online, Meridian 59...these games inspired Blizzard and paved the road ultimately leading to WoW. But even the most rudimentary concepts, the ones we take for granted today, hadn't been attempted by any other game company -- if they had, their failure was disappointing enough to be forgettable. Seamless zone transitions without loading screens, instanced dungeons and raids, transport across continents via boat or airship, millions of concurrent online players...no other company could claim victory over all these features. It was through Blizzard's dedication to the quality of their game and the kinship to their community that the rules changed. Concepts that were once dismissed as technically impossible were magical realities in Azeroth.

So while the forums filled with entitled rage and hate, I stayed my hand. They were working on it. I wasn't going to be one of the QQers. How would my complaining help anything? And just as they had with the Diablo II launch, just as they had when cheating ran rampant in the first iteration of Battle.net, Blizzard owned their mistakes and fixed them. The QQers were none the wiser: the issue was far larger than they could comprehend. If they had taken it upon themselves to understand why the game was unplayable, they might have thought twice about drafting hate mail. The game eventually smoothed out; ironically, the crybabies were the first to claim it was due to their voices being heard...

...because as we all know, it is the tears of the marginalized that stabilize servers, rather than actual hard work.

Blizzard backpedals on their stance regarding
RealID and revealing players' Battle.net email
addresses in forum posts.

A Quixotic Quandary

It was happening even now. Blizzard's latest announcement turned attention to their upcoming Real ID system, a new way for us to communicate, both on the forums and in-game. It looked to be a convenient feature facilitating both inter- and intra-game communication. To be able to chat with someone in Diablo or Starcraft while playing World of Warcraft -- I had to admit it sounded very cool. But there was one fatal flaw with their proposal: the violation of privacy.

Real ID, as proposed, would force a user to reveal their email address on the forums. The theory went that if a player had less anonymity, they would be less likely to abuse and troll other players (or Blizzard themselves). They knew as well as we did that the bullying gamer mentality would thrive and prosper if not checked; it was a strategy in volatility management. By now we'd amassed a community 12 million strong; there simply wasn't enough time to police each and every player. How many times would they have to repeat themselves? No, it is actually not OK to threaten to rape and murder a Blizzard developer because you don't like the next round of Paladin changes. As the QQ runs long and deep, so too, does the vitriol and hate that feeds off it.

Revealing email addresses seemed like a reasonable solution; I was perfectly fine with it. I'm a firm believer in online transparency, and my reasoning is simple: I'm not ashamed of what I do online, and welcome the mockery of muggles who get a kick out of the Time Lost Proto-Drake story. If this change helps curb the QQing, all the better. Besides, if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem? It was probably best that I again refrained from joining in any QQ games, because this was my exact stance at the time Real ID was proposed. I wasn't in any position to speak about things I had little expertise in.

What I've come to understand since then is that people have a right to privacy. Whether you like it or not, everyone should be able to keep their online and real-life personas apart. Some people have no choice in the matter. It isn't their biases or hatreds we need to be concerned about, but those in close proximity to the person in question. What if a person's Battle.net email address is tied to their place of business, and that business engages with clients legally bound to extreme levels of secrecy? Surfacing a person's email address might jeopardize the person's livelihood. What if the person in question belongs to an LGBT guild, but hasn't yet revealed their sexual orientation to friends, family or employers in real-life...and are suddenly forced to do so? Had they even considered the millions of female gamers dealing with sexual harassment and abuse on a daily basis? Suddenly, an innocuous post on "What's the best gearing strategy for a Resto Druid in ICC?" has serious real life consequences. You may claim to not hold biases, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world lives in harmony.

Do these scenarios sound a bit far fetched? A year after Real ID was proposed by Blizzard, Google announced the exact same change to their authentication system. In an attempt to promote some sense of online civility, they tied Gmail, YouTube and Google+ together, revealing people's real names in the process. Guess what happened?

Long before Google embarked on a tragic road now referred to as the nymwars, Blizzard brought it to the table under the label of Real ID. As expected, the QQ that followed was a deluge not seen since Vanilla. The WoW community flooded Battle.net with their objections to Real ID exposing email addresses. And was it the earth-shattering volume of dissent that ultimately coerced Blizzard into backpedaling? Or was it the few insightful observations from privacy experts, the ones that understood the issue far better than the vast majority, that provided the necessary evidence to turn the Real ID ship around?

The most upsetting reality was the one in which I considered both outcomes: either Blizzard was making decisions on systems they didn't fully understand...or they were weighting importance by forum temperature rather than by careful analysis.

Until you actually try to acknowledge those who do not speak on the forums, for whatever reason they have, you will not understand.                                                                                                          - Tseric

3.28. Playing The "Game"

DoD defeats Flame Leviathan with two of the four
towers up, earning "Heroic: Orbital Devastation",
Ulduar

The Opposite of Winning

"Just got off the phone with the mechanic", I typed to Cheeseus, "Apparently it is some sort of gear that got worn down. Honda’s replacing the part but the entire transmission has to be rebuilt."

"Ugh" appeared in my Pidgin chat window a few moments later.

"Hey. No harm, no foul. They pick up the tab, I’m just glad that we caught this sooner rather than later. I have a rental to get me around in the meantime."

"How was the vac?"

"Fucking phenomenal. It felt like a two-weeker. And it looks like you got some work accomplished while I was gone, eh? That’s great to see."

Cheeseus was less than enthusiastic, "Eh, not much imo. Eighteen-thousand Runed Orbs dropped. Yogg to 13%."

I focused in on the positive, "I understand we have two more Fragments."

"That too," he replied, "but we should have downed Yogg."

We had only been at it for several weeks, having trounced General Vezax on Mother's Day. After racing through Ulduar on cruise-control, it didn't surprise me to discover we'd hit a few speed-bumps near the end. Thinking back to the many weekends we poured into bosses like Kael'thas, Lady Vashj, Nefarian, Illidan...it was very clear in my mind that we were just getting our lumps as all raiding guilds did. Cheeseus of all people should have known where I was coming from, having doused himself in the Sunwell's waters. His disappointment was understandable. But was it warranted? We were moving through Ulduar at an excellent pace, far quicker than any raid in our history. That had to count for something, especially coming from a guild who prided itself on baby steps as quantifiable progress. But perhaps he, like some other players, were starting to see things differently -- the drastic shift in raid difficulty slowly permeating their rational thought, telling them to expect that bosses should just fall over dead after two or three attempts. I myself got bitten by these bugs in moments of haze, falsehoods eating deep into my subconscious like Yogg's own mad whisperings, telling us that we were failures by not killing a boss after only three weekends of work.

Or perhaps I just had a raid leader that was too much of a perfectionist.

"We'll get him soon enough. How's Eh Team coming along? You making any progress on hard modes yet?"

"Yeah, just Mimiron and Yogg left."

...left?

"You've cleared every hard mode in 10-Man except Mimi and Yogg?"

"Number one on Deathwing since the 9th of last month."

Cheeseus quoted from the bible of GuildOx, a website recently launched to track the progression of both the 10- and 25-man raiding guilds in WoW. I would've preferred to see us up at the top of the 25-man chart, but holding steady at the top of the 10-man chart was nothing to laugh at, either. I was pleasantly surprised to see us ahead of Enigma, but didn't think it would last too terribly long. As it turned out, The Eh Team allowed us to hold that spot throughout the majority of 3.1. I have to say, they were pretty proud of themselves. Perfectionist or not, Cheeseus knew what he wanted -- and he got it. If not in the 25-man, than by any other means necessary.

Mature and Sixfold (via Thirteenfold) shut down
their 100th match, earning "Mercilessly Dedicated",
Nagrand

Anger Management

In the evenings when we weren't working on Yogg-Saron, I decided to pour some more time into the Death Knight. In TBC and Vanilla, I felt stretched thin at times, not fully understanding the complexity of my main, not fully attuned to the class's nuances. With Kerulak the Shaman, I was ever striving to become a quality healer. In those days, there weren't too many guides to follow or Live Streams to learn from. By the time I had cut over to Zanjina the Shadow Priest in TBC, I had flushed one-and-a-half tiers of Shaman healing knowledge down the toilet, starting again from scratch with the troll's Shadow Word: Pain and the face-melting Mind Flay. Looking back, I felt I never really played the Shadow Priest to its greatest potential, spending many of my off-raid nights screwing around with alts. I told myself not to invest too heavily in a class I may have to bench to save my guild, so I became a jack-of-all-trades...and a master of none. Wrath gave me the opportunity to focus in on one class and grok it entirely, and so every waking moment in game was spent on Mature.

In order to exercise my Death Knight muscles, I dove into the undiscovered country of PvP. With the help of Sixfold, we spent many nights working away in arenas. I hadn't invested a lot of time in PvP (for reasons I hope are obvious by this point), but as part of the learning process, a little bit of tolerance and humility is called for. I admitted to Sixfold up front that I was shit behind the wheel, but his calm, laid-back manner put me at ease. This was just for fun, and we weren't here to prove anything to anyone. Outside of the scrutiny of a 25-Man raid which diligently analyzed combat logs and held people to their numbers, arenas offered up a chance to learn without punity. As long Sixfold and I didn't go up against any Paladins, nobody would be judging us.

Those arenas boiled my blood.

I walked away from those nights quaking in anger. On more than one occasion, I could hear Julie yell back at me from the other room to keep it down and watch the language. If the neighbors could hear me, they might fear for their lives at the obscenities that flowed from my computer room. It took every ounce of energy for me to stay calm, focused on my target, watching cast alerts coming in from Gladius, waiting to Mind Freeze, to Strangulate, to blow Empowered Rune Weapon and unleash everything I had before my target's healer regained control of herself. I'd smash my fist down on the desk, a child throwing a tantrum at the toy store. I hadn't been violent since my early Quake-playing days, but the keyboard graveyard welcomed me back like an old friend. Having left those days behind for World of Warcraft, the game had evolved me into a player of maturity and composure; the person who would lead the guild "by example" by doing what was right, making the hard decisions, biting his lip when appropriate and hoping...praying...that my good behavior rubbed off on the players who had been /ginvited.

All of that went out the door with arenas.

Through all the cursing and temper tantrums, Sixfold laughed and laughed. He took it all in stride, and never once was critical of my behavior, never once judged me for those wildly inappropriate bouts of fury and rage. Each time, he had new suggestions, new things for me to try, always encouraging, always educating. It didn't matter how frustrated or pissed-off I got, Sixfold was ready to jump into an arena and give it another go. I had to hand it to him. If I took nothing away from my terrible, horrible Death Knight play in those arenas, at least I got some solid reinforcement on how I needed to carry myself in the mentor department. Try to be tolerant. Don't take things so seriously. Patience is a virtue. You’ll get what you want with hard work and diligence. After preaching these edicts to the raiders for so long, it was important to get the sermon myself...

...just as it was important to get a break from being a Guild Leader...even if it was just for a few hours in Blade's Edge Arena.

Mature and Ben (via Fluffykitten)
rock out a perfect win against the Alliance,
Eye of the Storm

Winning Friends and Influencing People

When I wasn't in an arena with Sixfold or scouring Northrend for rares to complete Frostbitten, I forced myself into Battlegrounds. Other than the practice that Six and I got in The Ruins of Lordaeron or the Dalaran Sewers, the only other viable option for me to improve was to augment my PvP gear. PvPing by oneself was utter torture. I covered my hand with burning, melted plastic as a child...the result of a failed experiment to play with matches...and it hurt less than PvPing with a group of strangers who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. So I sought to find people in the guild to group with to help take the edge off -- a salve to apply to the face after dragging a cheese-grater across it. Neps was very often one of those players, but when the opportunity arose, I would do my best to group with Ben.

Ben was a fantastic PvPer, and a hoot to group with. As much shit as I gave him for missing raid signups and unleashing drunken tirades in Vent, he was a rock star player killer. He held no particular loyalty for any one class, he'd bring whatever you wanted to the gunfight: Scruffiebear the Druid, Flufflykitten the Hunter...he had nearly every tool at his disposal. We spent many evenings in those BGs, tearing up Eye of the Storm, fighting off the Alliance rush at Lumber Mill. And it was in those many evenings of PvP that I got my opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Just as there were two sides to World of Warcraft; two worlds I was force-feeding myself to know and understand -- there were two sides to the guild leadership game. That most basic of sides that everyone is exposed to, the one where "Guild Leader" is proudly attached to your in-game character, where the longevity of a guild mate is only a single button-press away, and you wield otherworldly like power in dictating how much to tax the serfs. And then, there is the other side of the picture, the part that isn't so blatantly in-your-face, by title or by forum administration privileges.

The game where you convince players to do what you want.

Once I had picked my battle and decided which players were worth the effort to pour energy into, the strategy shifted to winning them over. Ben had been giving Cheeseus grief in raids, his impulsive and brash attitude providing an steady stream of complaints to my IM window. But he was also popular, well-played, and good friends with one of my trusted officers, Neps. Therefore, I reasoned logically, he was worth the effort. So when I wasn't helping him cut down a Night Elf flag runner in the Gulch, I'd carry on a casual conversation with him about the 25-Man. I reminded him of the ropes, of what my expectations were of him in regards to the roster. We may not say it all the time, but you're vitally important. All you need to do is text me if you're going to be late, it's absolutely no problem at all. You are an essential part of the 25-Man progression team. What can I do to make things easier for you? Would it help if I shot you a reminder in-game every time I post the raid schedule? It's really no trouble, if it means I get the best Shadow Priest in the guild, I’d be happy to help you with some reminders. My tactic was simple: get him on my side, remind him how important he is, make him feel like I'm bending over backwards to facilitate his schedule and his needs.

If Mr. Carnegie was right, when it came time for Ben to meet my needs, maybe...just maybe...he'd switch off of Hodir and on to the NPCs as directed.