Apparently, there is a cadre of WoW players who do not want to play the game.
I'm not talking about people who have gotten jaded and bored and are just waiting for the Next Thing to come along, whether it's a content patch, the expansion, or a completely new game. I'm talking about the people who want everything handed to them ... money, mobs, and mayhem.
Players begging for money has been a constant irritant in MMORPGs since MMORPGs came out. This goes back to my days of playing Diablo II, when you'd get people wanting other players to hand them stuff for free, just because they asked for it. However, what is changing in WoW, apparently, is the scale of the begs. Gone are the days of "can you spare some coin?" or similar open-ended begs, which were bad enough. And it's not just my level 70s who are getting this either; I am consistently amazed at the begs my Draenei hunter is getting in her 20s and now that she is entering her 30s. She's gotten several tells begging for cash -- and not just small pocket change, but specific and sometimes large amounts. The other day, a level 26 hunter sent her a direct tell asking her to give him 10 gold. By level 26, I had over 150g in the bank from mining and skinning; I told him to go earn it himself and put him on ignore.
I suppose I should expect it, but while I am grinding reputation in lower level zones, I am having to fend off numerous begs for what basically amounts to power leveling -- people wanting me to kill monsters way too high for them to kill on their own. I'm not talking about the scenario where I have to kill a named creature for a reputation quest, see that there are others nearby, and offer to take them along on it. I'm talking about tells from people who want me to run them through several quests that are red-con to them ("kan u kill X and XX and XXX 4 me?", even though X, XX, and XXX are all in completely different parts of the zone). Even when I am relatively polite and tell them I am busy and can't help them, this usually results in a stream of snotty vituperation, like I'd just told them I wouldn't take their deathly ill grandmother to the hospital, even though it was on my way. Usually I just tell them they need to wait until they're the appropriate level for it, and put them on /ignore.
Yesterday, while on my hunter who has the ghost saber see-through cat pet, I got a tell from a level 15 hunter in Westfall who wanted to know where I got the pet. I told him I got it from the ruins in northern Darkshore, and he asked me to take him there so he could get one too.
For those who are not familiar with the ghost saber, it's not an easy pet to get. It's not just a matter of finding and taming one; it's semi-spawned. You have to go into the Mathystra Ruins up in extreme northern Darkshore, which is crawling with level 18-20 naga, and find little Cat Figurines in the ruins. Whatever pet you have, you will have to abandon as soon as you get it to spawn. Opening the Cat Figurine has a small chance of spawning a level 20 Ghost Saber; I've gotten it in as few as 2 figurines, and had to open as many as 12, and they are not easy to find. Once it spawns, you have only a couple moments to abandon your old pet, set down a freezing trap, and start taming the ghost saber. Then you have to start fighting with it immediately to get it up to loyalty level 2, because it has a nasty habit of randomly dropping dead until it gets to loyalty level 2.
I should have just said, "You're level 15 and five levels too low to get the pet anyway", but instead, I said, "It's a ghost saber. Look it up on the Internet and it will tell you everything you need to know how to find and tame one."
The response? "i cant i dont know how"
That's when I just said something like "I'm sorry but that will take too long" and just hopped a bird to Stormwind. I'm sorry, but if you can play WoW, you can use Google.
The worst lately has been people begging for others to rush them through instances. This is a problem I see far more on my 70s, but I see it all the time in cities. I realize that it's not always easy to get together a level appropriate group, but why this expectation that the only way to do low level instances is to beg for a rush? Some do offer payment, but usually very little and certainly not enough to make it worth my time, unless I know the person and have some investment in them as a friend.
But it's not just the begging. It's the abuse when you say no. It's gotten to the point that if someone begs me for something, I just put them straight on my /ignore list and don't even dignify the question with a response, just because in too many cases, it means I have to deal with someone who thinks that your time, your money, and your effort is their right to take, just because they Want It.
Now, many a lot of these are young kids. And it's a kid's job to see how much they can get out of adults. But I fear that many of them don't have the excuse of extreme youth -- just of an belief of entitlement. Because "I want" and "you have" means that by right, they can demand it and abuse you for not handing it over.
Play the game yourself. That's what you bought it for, and that is what someone is paying subscription fees for you to do.
I'm not talking about people who have gotten jaded and bored and are just waiting for the Next Thing to come along, whether it's a content patch, the expansion, or a completely new game. I'm talking about the people who want everything handed to them ... money, mobs, and mayhem.
Players begging for money has been a constant irritant in MMORPGs since MMORPGs came out. This goes back to my days of playing Diablo II, when you'd get people wanting other players to hand them stuff for free, just because they asked for it. However, what is changing in WoW, apparently, is the scale of the begs. Gone are the days of "can you spare some coin?" or similar open-ended begs, which were bad enough. And it's not just my level 70s who are getting this either; I am consistently amazed at the begs my Draenei hunter is getting in her 20s and now that she is entering her 30s. She's gotten several tells begging for cash -- and not just small pocket change, but specific and sometimes large amounts. The other day, a level 26 hunter sent her a direct tell asking her to give him 10 gold. By level 26, I had over 150g in the bank from mining and skinning; I told him to go earn it himself and put him on ignore.
I suppose I should expect it, but while I am grinding reputation in lower level zones, I am having to fend off numerous begs for what basically amounts to power leveling -- people wanting me to kill monsters way too high for them to kill on their own. I'm not talking about the scenario where I have to kill a named creature for a reputation quest, see that there are others nearby, and offer to take them along on it. I'm talking about tells from people who want me to run them through several quests that are red-con to them ("kan u kill X and XX and XXX 4 me?", even though X, XX, and XXX are all in completely different parts of the zone). Even when I am relatively polite and tell them I am busy and can't help them, this usually results in a stream of snotty vituperation, like I'd just told them I wouldn't take their deathly ill grandmother to the hospital, even though it was on my way. Usually I just tell them they need to wait until they're the appropriate level for it, and put them on /ignore.
Yesterday, while on my hunter who has the ghost saber see-through cat pet, I got a tell from a level 15 hunter in Westfall who wanted to know where I got the pet. I told him I got it from the ruins in northern Darkshore, and he asked me to take him there so he could get one too.
For those who are not familiar with the ghost saber, it's not an easy pet to get. It's not just a matter of finding and taming one; it's semi-spawned. You have to go into the Mathystra Ruins up in extreme northern Darkshore, which is crawling with level 18-20 naga, and find little Cat Figurines in the ruins. Whatever pet you have, you will have to abandon as soon as you get it to spawn. Opening the Cat Figurine has a small chance of spawning a level 20 Ghost Saber; I've gotten it in as few as 2 figurines, and had to open as many as 12, and they are not easy to find. Once it spawns, you have only a couple moments to abandon your old pet, set down a freezing trap, and start taming the ghost saber. Then you have to start fighting with it immediately to get it up to loyalty level 2, because it has a nasty habit of randomly dropping dead until it gets to loyalty level 2.
I should have just said, "You're level 15 and five levels too low to get the pet anyway", but instead, I said, "It's a ghost saber. Look it up on the Internet and it will tell you everything you need to know how to find and tame one."
The response? "i cant i dont know how"
That's when I just said something like "I'm sorry but that will take too long" and just hopped a bird to Stormwind. I'm sorry, but if you can play WoW, you can use Google.
The worst lately has been people begging for others to rush them through instances. This is a problem I see far more on my 70s, but I see it all the time in cities. I realize that it's not always easy to get together a level appropriate group, but why this expectation that the only way to do low level instances is to beg for a rush? Some do offer payment, but usually very little and certainly not enough to make it worth my time, unless I know the person and have some investment in them as a friend.
But it's not just the begging. It's the abuse when you say no. It's gotten to the point that if someone begs me for something, I just put them straight on my /ignore list and don't even dignify the question with a response, just because in too many cases, it means I have to deal with someone who thinks that your time, your money, and your effort is their right to take, just because they Want It.
Now, many a lot of these are young kids. And it's a kid's job to see how much they can get out of adults. But I fear that many of them don't have the excuse of extreme youth -- just of an belief of entitlement. Because "I want" and "you have" means that by right, they can demand it and abuse you for not handing it over.
Play the game yourself. That's what you bought it for, and that is what someone is paying subscription fees for you to do.
9 comments:
I aboslutely agree. It seems as soon as I hit 70, any time I am in Orgrimmar I have to deal with 2 or 3 tell requests to run someone through SFK or RFC for free. Even get requests to run them through multiple times just to grind it.
Just play the game! You don't need everything all at once, and you're missing a lot of fun and content by getting rushed.
By the way, good work on the blog and the podcast. I think you have a great perspective for us "grown up" gamers. Thanks!
If it's a good time for me to go AFK, then I'll open a trade window with the gold beggar and put 100 gold in the window, but not click confirm trade. Then I'll wander away to make lunch and check in every now and then to see how long they sit there.
Ugh... I also put the random beggars on ignore without saying a word to them.
We've occasionally had people join our guild with the same attitude. From the start, they ask for money to train, mats to level their professions, items to complete quests (particularly the Tanaris cooking quest), and if they come to a mob that looks at all tough, they ask someone to come kill it for them. Why are these people even in the game? It doesn't seem like they want to play it. (These people never last long in our guild, thankfully.)
(I'm another fan of the blog and the podcast! /hi !)
A good way to avoid that is press /DND you wont even see their message and they get a message saying something to the effect of XXXX does not wish to be disturbed
Amen! Although I haven't been getting as many of these lately (good thing too as i'm more likely to be begging myself after getting my epic flying mount).
Not more than a couple of months ago I had to dump my ignore list because I was maxed out.
I wonder if there's some population effect with this. I know it happens- I'm not disbelieving you- but it almost never happens to me. I play horde on a medium pop server with a very high alliance/horde ratio (last time I checked it was 80/20). I wonder if the larger population servers have more of this effect? It seems like as more people join, more beggars would join but your chances of being targeted would go down because of all the other targets... Maybe higher pop servers attract a higher proportion of this behavior, or somehow encourage it? Maybe something to do with the economy?
I've been getting these kind of requests since hitting 30, I think. Guild mates just told me "welcome to the club," the first time I had someone whisper me for gold.
In some ways the whispers for quest help can be just as annoying, especially if the person is (or pretends to be) a moron. I am highly suspicious of people, and I always wonder if someone is purposefully trying to waste my time. However, I have helped these random people who whisper me, just once or twice. Most recently I was in Dun Morogh for the Lunar Festival coin-giver, and a level 10 gnome warrior whispered me for help with the warrior quest. He said the mob he needed to kill was stuck on the roof of a building and he could not get it unstuck or kill it. I could have just told him to file a ticket for a GM, but I went with him to the location and sure enough, the mob was stuck. I one-shotted it for him and he looted and was happy. Made me feel good too.
In our guild, we've had an increasing problem with lower levels begging for runs and money for their mounts. I just tell them, "Hey, when I was your level, I wasn't in a guild and I had the money and I got to 70 all by myself. It is possible." I just can't believe it. I still don't have over 400g at any given time and the majority of that is won/lost in kara and za on repair bills, pots, ect...I don't have all this extra to share with you because you're too lazy to do it yourself!! Sigh...thanks, I needed to let that out.
Just an FYI on the Ghost Saber pet... it will die before loyalty level 2 mainly because it is on a timer still from the quest for how long it is spawned for. However, you only have to rez the pet and it will be fine and never die suddenly again.
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