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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   593 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 17, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The PirateSoftware drama was entertaining and I think tells us something about prosociality: the same ego that can lead someone to rise to the top can make them bad at cooperation and detrimental to a group as a whole. I mean, his ego literally prevented him from saving lives or amending his behavior. In hardcore WoW at least.

From Asmon's breakdown video, it looked like Thor did nothing wrong, and the accusations to the contrary were groundless. They messed up the engagement, the raid leader called "run", Thor ran, then the leader tried to un-call "run" while the tank screwed up his positioning and pulled an additional pack. I know little of WoW, but from the analysis, it looked like Thor more or less played it straight, while the people accusing him bore the large majority of the responsibility for the clown-show resulting.

From what I can tell, Asmon’s take is the sole outlier among the big streamers. Pirate’s fault isn’t that he bore a disproportionate amount of the blame for the raid breakdown — that goes to whoever accidentally pulled the mob(s). His fault is more complex. Whenever a “run” command is called, the players whose class have utility in obstructing mobs are supposed to use their abilities to do so, and then continue to run. Pirate did not do this. He played unskillfully. Yet even this isn’t the fault. He told the group that he lacked mana when he had enough to use a spell, and even hovered his mouse over the “mana gem” but refused to click it so as to pretend he didn’t have mana. Yet even this isn’t his fault. His fault is that after making these errors, he refused to give a trivial “my bad, I panicked and ran”. It’s perfectly acceptable to play poorly in WoW provided that you apologize for your mishap. His worst technical mishap wasn’t pushing the wrong button but doing something called “roaching” where you save yourself to help the group; this technical mishap is also forgivable. His unforgivable sin is being unrepentant in his error and showing some sociopathy in concealing how he could help the group. The other players confessed their errors.

It’s like a relic of the old Internet Hate Machine, all because someone failed to give a sincere apology.

Your analysis seems to match up with the Onlyfangs guild leader's breakdown, which I've just been sampling. Most interesting, and a neat toy example of politics at play. Now I'm wondering if streamer solidarity is why Asmon gave such a positive take.

I read this site and often have a tentative familiarity with the topic at the beginning of a set of comments, then get to the point slowly, as I keep reading, where I am just seeing words, stories and events that seem to have occurred somewhere outside my ken, like big events that everybody dreamed the same night except me. Odd, isn't it, really, in the end, these forums--like listening to people behind you on a bus.

Some background: KnowYourMeme

Piratesoftware, a prominent streamer, participated in a World of Warcraft Hardcore raid that went bad and resulted in two of his guild-mates getting their characters perma-killed. People blamed him running away without supporting the other players for the bad result, and the internet commenced to arguing over whether he could have done something different that would have resulted in the two making it out alive, or whether he did nothing wrong. Prominent streamer Asmongold (notably a veteran WoW player himself) did a hour-plus video breakdown, and his assessment was that Piratesoftware bore no significant responsibility for the bad outcome, as all the serious mistakes were made by others.

This has been your entirely useless information for the day.

I didn’t know WoW had permadeath. Ironically this sounds a lot like the kind of discourse that goes on in military circles after a special forces raid goes particularly bad.

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