First hand account: AQ & Medivh
by Josh Owens 
Jan 20th 2006 at 11:00AM
AFK Gamer has posted about his first hand experience with the on-going war efforts on
the Medivh server. He goes in-depth with screenshots on how players were acting. He also talks about how the GMs were
handling the whole situation. Good stuff. Be sure to check out his follow-up and his flickr pools.Do you think Blizzard will wise up and put some measure in to prevent issues like the Medivh server had, for future world events?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris Gardner Jan 20th 2006 11:44AM
My email to the blog poster:
"I wanted to comment on your posts about attending AQ. I play on Medivh. I've been playing on there since the first day the game came out. Your posts pretty much exemplified the attitude of people who attended that night who honestly DIDN'T CARE.
Medivh players spent many, many hours working to complete the AQ event. It was perhaps the best collaboration and organization on a Wow server since, well... ever. We were very excitied to come down to the final stretch well in the lead. We had people ready to fraps and take screenshots for every other realm. And then hundreds of you guys created alts on the server and pretty much ruined it.
Do you realize, by doing what you did, you actually prevented people who worked on the event from being there at the end? That people were stuck in queues over an hour because of your actions? I saw characters named "Icrashmedivh" and "Aqueueforyou". How was this not griefing our realm?
I've read the arguments that "everyone pays $15 a month so they should get to see the content". Well, guess what? We also pay $15 a month, and some of us never got to the content because of your actions. DO YOU THINK THAT'S FAIR?
You say you've been playing MMOs for 10 years. Then you should know what a "first" is. Many people don't get to experience a first because they're not part of elaborate raiding guilds. An event like this is a rarity, where thousands of people get to experience a first without being part of the raiding set. Instead, thousands of players who didn't put any time into opening AQ at all had to ruin it.
For this and other reasons, we're not ringing the gong to official open the AQ door on Sunday. We're going to wait until you guys dissipate, or do it an awkward late night hour. You're pretty much ticked off an entire realm, and people will think twice before working together again if this is the reaction."
Ryan Jan 20th 2006 12:01PM
Good call Chris. I'm on the Eldre'Thalas server and we are no where near completion yet but I can understand your frustration. You are not the only person who thinks that way.
L'Emmerdeur Jan 20th 2006 1:48PM
I think Blizzard should go further with their reactions to the Lvl 1 alt griefers. If they have obvious names like "Icrashmedivh" and "Aqueueforyou", they should have their accounts canceled. I never thought I'd see behavior more disruptive than farming for real-world cash, but this takes the cake.
It also proves to me that there are an unusually large number of very disturbed, very spoiled, very ill-mannered high schoolers playing this game, and that parents in the U.S. should re-introduce corporal punishment into their daily routines.
I SO wish they would start an adults-only server with age verification.
Aarin Jan 20th 2006 3:16PM
Are you really complaining that there are people that use the internet are idiots? Wow. Get used to it. The whole Internet civility thing went out the window a decade ago and more.
Yes, the stupid names of icrashmedvih should be punished, but you cant serious think that this will be the last of this, do you? As more and more people gain access to the internet (or as WoW passes 5 million users), the average idiot quotient skyrockets, and with the ability to be mostly anonymous just magnifies the whole effect. Like it or not, there was nothing at all preventing people from creating characters on Medivh, or another other server. That changes the way that game is currently marketed and played.
There was a time when firewalls were rare. Where once could connect to, say a SysV system at berkeley.edu, login in the guest account and leave messages for the users which were often answered. Does this sound completely alien? It should.
The world is full of freaks. The larger the distribution, the more idiots get included, and this ruins things for everyone. Spam on USENET became spam email. Macro viruses run amuck, holes are exploited. This new aspect of society is going through growing pains, sort of like the Wild West. We have bastions of civility because there is the occasional strong-man who can keep order, but these islands are surrounded and dwarfed by lawlessness. This does not change the fact that huge majority of people are not fools, idiots, bigots and harassers (something I ..mostly believe about the playing population of WoW..)
I commend Medivh on the effort, while most servers are still below 50%. What an amazing task. Yes, I believe that people were willing to take screenshots and capture movies for the rest of us not on Medvih. But to cave in to such acts merely encourages the fools to think they have power in their envy and jealousy. People haven?t stopped sending or reading email because there is a lot of spam-you deal with it and move on. It is understandable that people are pissed, and also understandable that the gong will be rung when nobody knows, fine. But to let the immature idiots set the agenda means you play their game.
Blizzard should have done something about this. They must have had some advanced warning, and could have been proactive, such as cutting off login for those lower than 20 for a week beforehand or some such thing. If blame belongs anywhere, it belongs with Blizzard, as they let chaos ensue. Medivh was a focal point for abuse and well in front of the race, and nothing was done to prevent the sort of actions which were guaranteed to happen. Pissing off an entire realm? Again, understandable. Just direct that rage at the correct target. You are painting with an awfully wide brush.
(My apologies for the jumpy nature of this post, I am writing and posting during a thrilling meeting, and just do not have the ability to go through and proof-read/re-write right now.. Please take the sentiment and not the specifics.).
Sammy Brence Jan 20th 2006 3:29PM
Im on Icecrown, currently ranked 7th last i looked. But I do think Blizzard needs to remove all the newly created lvl 1-5 toons on the medivh server that was created just for the event. There has got to be a better way to manage server populations.
Mike Jan 20th 2006 10:20PM
"As more and more people gain access to the internet (or as WoW passes 5 million users), the average idiot quotient skyrockets, and with the ability to be mostly anonymous just magnifies the whole effect."
Of course you are all aware of John Gabriel's Greater Internet F$%^wad Theory...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
sorethumbz Jan 20th 2006 10:20PM
Well first off I do feel bad for every one that worked so hard and a bunch of alts. had to come and ruin it but i think that it is stupid to blame the problems on high schoolers as one person said seeing as im a highschooler and none of my friends did anything like that or even thought of it i personally think its the people that are still living with their parents and have no life.