Do you ever get the feeling that WoW is like some sort of purgatory? That you're trapped in an endless loop of hellish deviations intent on consuming the very soul from which all things good and pure spring forth from? That this game is indeed nothing but the true game which ends all games, and like Sisyphus or John Locke you'll be stuck pushing the boulder up the hill towards a higher level for the rest of your life?

And with, let's throw a little social philosophy in your faces.

Adoisin commented...

"I hate people telling me how to change my spec and how to play. I'm a mage who puts out between 2-3k dps, depending on how bad my lag may be at the time. Sure, I may not have the cookie cutter spec. But it's my game, I am paying for it, and I will play how I want. Want me to change? Fine. Start paying my fee and you can tell me how to play."

That's a very common feeling amongst players. I've heard that often while I was running my raiding guild, especially from new recruits. The best way I can go about explaining to people why we want them to change their spec, and why we are okay with asking is this:

Think of WoW as a social game above all else. Killing monsters, doing DPS, tanking, and healing are all learned behaviors that become easy after repetition, just like anything else in life. Handling boss strategies, leveling characters, and everything else in the game is nothing a well developed AI couldn't do. So what's special about the game? The game is a social game in which the real challenge lies in communicating and cooperating with other people in order to accomplish a common goal. In this regards there is no difference between WoW and any other cooperative team sport, like Baseball or Football (insert obligatory lol @ packers here).

As part of this social game, you sign a social contract with other players when you join up with them in a guild. This social contract is a metaphysical conception that basically says you all agree to play by and act under certain guidelines. For some guilds, those guidelines might mean no swearing in gchat and being really nice to everyone. For other guilds, those guidelines might mean speccing the way your class officer wants, showing up 15 minutes before raids, and farming 300g a day for consumables.

I've ran or been an officer in both types of guilds. Either one, the casual or the hard core guild, is a lot of fun for those members that enjoy the results of the social contract. And if a member doesn't enjoy those results, or thinks the guidelines set out by the social contract are making him have a bad time, then the member is free to leave and find another guild.

What it comes down to, is if you don't like the players or officers telling you to respec, then find another group that doesn't have those rules. It's not your fault that you don't like the guild's rules, and it's not the guild's fault or the fault of the other people that they want to enforce those rules. It's just a different style of socially playing the game.

And with 12 million people playing WoW, there are definitely some that agree with you no matter what you think. Find them and you'll be quite happy!

Seanfury asked...

"Will the Bone Witch's Fate Runes be usable in Icecrown Citadel?"

My guess is yes. They'll probably act just like the old flasks out in Blade's Edge Mountain. Although a disclaimer here is important in that we don't know for sure yet.

Endless asked...

"Did anybody in the EU get the free day they promised us? Looking into that tread, I'm not the only one who expected a free day and got ogre poo instead."

Check your transaction / billing history and see if you were credited a day yet. If you weren't, then Blizzard probably hasn't gotten to your account yet. It would be very bad of Blizzard to forget about giving out a promised free day.

Matthew asked...

"I'm a new level 80 warrior and when I open my character sheet and look at my damage, it's shown as red. All my other stats are green. Any idea what this means, and how I can fix it?"

If you're in defensive stance your damage will be reduced, and that reduction is highlighted in red via the character window. If you change to arms or zerker stance, it'll go back to green. You could also be specd into Titan's Grip.

Tags: arms-stance, ballanced-stance, beserker, beserker-stance, bone-witch, defensive-stance, eu, fate-runes, free-day, free-game-time, game-time, guild, guild-rules, icecrown-citadel, john-locke, locke, respec, rules, social, social-contract, warrior, zerker, zerker-stance

Filed under: The Queue