Pon tu tote de mana.

A few posts back, I wrote five things I hate/love about playing. Typically, I find the word "hate" a bit too strong for most analysis, because it's a bit hyperbolic. One thing I do think, wish, hope, whatever, is that we humans were freer of racism. We all know not to feed the trolls, and I would imagine that trolls are a worldwide issue. But this blog is not the place to start politicizing or proselytizing. I don't want to give the hate-trolls more energy or power. I will just do my part to fight it, on my own time.


Today for example, Zep was in a dungeon group and politely asked the dwarf shaman to drop his mana totem instead of the healing one. After five requests, he finally told me that he didn't speak English, only Spanish, and was sorry. Fortunately, my Spanish-speaking friend was playing and graciously translated for me. I made an English/Spanish macro for future use.


Now, wait...he was sorry?  I only speak one limited language, a confusing one at that, and for the love of measurements, don't even use the metric system on a regular basis. I should be apologizing to him. 


Now here's the thing: the player was probably hesitant to tell me that because he didn't want to be exposed as 'less' somehow. There is so much quick name-calling and racism, that he has probably been burned before. In fact, doing battleground after battleground this holiday weekend found not just me, but other player friends, standing by Drek, and losing the fight because no other players would make a move. Our conjecture is that they don't want to be called out in raid chat. I am somewhat ashamed of myself because after watching Matty in her resto battle gear get pummeled to death by a Horde player, an Alliance rogue whispered her telling her she was "fail."


"Fail? I am in here as a healer, I have no defenses, no attack powers, and am not fail." I let the battleground know that healers are not "fail" because they get killed. He thought I was in DPS mode. Yes, indeed, standing there and being slaughtered would have been bad if I had been in DPS spec. And, to be fair, I would have not have informed the battleground in raid chat about his actions or questioning if he had not insisted that I was bad after explaining the situation. That is when my patience ran out. I told this battleground this is why Alliance doesn't bring enough healers to battlegrounds, and was serenaded with "World's Smallest Violin Being Played." I went into the last battle, healed my heartsong out, and we won. He did apologize, but only after the raid chat was informed. 


I am ashamed because I announced his actions, and tried to educate the other players. He is probably just a kid; however, I still wonder if these big Internet "games" are aiding and abetting a generation of trolls, and lessening our humanity. 


But, that finger-wagging gets no one anywhere.


I feel bad for calling out the rogue on that one. I don't want to become the thing I hate, the nerd-raging, name-calling, number-counting dweeb. I just want to have fun, and I want you all to, too.




Theme song: 

Qué Onda Guero/Beck