Dear Matty: For Better or Worse Edition

Zombies just trying to get along...

Dear Matty:
Oh, I may need to stop writing you and contact a divorce lawyer. I can't believe I am saying this, but my husband and I just had the biggest fight over WoW. You're probably thinking, "He's playing too much?" or "He was being transmogged by a hot BELF?" but no - we fought over his attitude towards...gear. I had just come off a bad LFR where a mage needed on the chest token I needed (he/she already had it) and when I asked, please if I could have it, he/she said "After this...." I knew immediately this player was a liar. I have had so much trouble getting gear for this one character, and it was really starting to get me down. As I was making cheeseburgers, and relating this sad tale, needing a little "there there dear," he told me about the time he needed on a tanking shield for his shaman for transmog...I blew up. I gasped. I almost started crying. I told him I did not think that was cool, at all.  He folded his arms, and harrumphed, and said, (bellowed to my ears) "It's my time, it's my money, and I will play the game the way I WANT TO." I was shaking mad. That's when the conversation deteriorated from simply talking about gear to me calling him a 'ninja' and him calling me a 'dungeon snob.' When cooler heads prevailed (mine) I further investigated what he had actually done and he had asked the DPS Warrior if he could need on the shield, too, since he wanted it for transmog. Fair enough. But what he didn't get was me telling him it would still be an asshat move if he needed on it when the tank needed it more. He did not agree, back to his refrain, "MYMONEYMYGAME.' I tried to explain to him that at lower levels, transmog runs and requests are fine, but I felt that when players are trying to gear up to maybe raid or do more end-game content, to please make sure he wasn't taking a healing mace or tanking shield just because it thought it looked cool when another player needs it more. I warned him he will indeed be thought of as a ninja. His point was that transmog is just as much a valid part of the game as any other activity, and it is indeed, his time, and money, and if Blizzard has that in the game, he has every right to get gear for transmog, too. I totally see his point, but am now wondering if this brings up a bigger issue: whose game is it, anyway?

Dungeon-Snob Druid

PS We used to play together when I was learning the game, but he's right: running dungeons with him does kind of irritate me.

And the cheeseburgers were overdone.

Dear Snob:
Allow me to access my shaman's intuition for a moment, but I do not think the argument was truly about the ethics or social courtesies of Azeroth, but perhaps the health of your own hearthstone. It sounds like he may be feeling that when you play, and don't hang out with him in Azeroth, you don't have the right to question his play style, any more than he should question yours. This has got to be one of the more sticky-wickets of WoW. (Hey! New guild name idea: Sticky Wickets) There are couples who met in Azeroth, and easily transitioned to playing together after dating or marriage. There are probably even more couples, however, who drifted apart in Azeroth, and found that separating the gold from the fishfeasts in the guildbank was more tricky, and needed an army of goblin family court lawyers. My advice to you is to consider what is most important here: Do you love him? Of course you do. Can you change him? No. Find what you like to do outside of Azeroth, and perhaps...never speak of this again.

As far as the gear, the need/greed, and transmog issue goes -- you have given me a lot to think about Snob, I mean really - unless you are in a social contract with a raid team or a guild run in a dungeon, or doing PvP, all's fair in love and gear--it hurts, it sucks, but that's the world we live in, in three dimensions and in two. If he is a good man, with a good heart, that is the greatest treasure of them all. And then go do a mog run with him, before a BELF steals him away.


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