GIFT meets heirloom gear; tragedy ensues

I am one of those players that the new speed-leveling system was made for: for almost the entirety of my WoW-playing time I was a single-character player, because I haaaaaated leveling. I haaaaaated grinding things more than once. I haaaaaated having to spread my real time and fake money around to more than one place. For example’s sake: I rolled a bloofadin when BC launched entirely because my real server wasn’t up yet and I wanted to see the new pretty zones; she didn’t hit level cap until ICC in WOTLK. Seriously.

By this point the entirety of my RL friends and family had decided to fuck the Alliance and play exclusively Horde, which meant my life as a die-hard Alliance fangirl was incredibly sad and lonely because logging onto a level 28 undead priest just was not that much fun. However, I discovered that OMG leveling still took way too goddamn long. The same quests in the same places in the same way over and over and over and graaargh kill me. It’s odd: I will grind anything once. ANYTHING. I did the chains for the Scholo and Searing Gorge keys. I had every damn tailoring and cooking recipe ever, including Dirge’s Kickin’ Chimaerok Chops. But the very second I had to duplicate effort, no matter how originally enjoyable the task, my inherent middleclass whitegirl laziness won out and I completely shut down.

Even the original heirloom shoulders weren’t fast enough; questing through the same crap all the time was so tedious, even with the bonus, that I stayed a single-character player, my hordeside alt just to hang out occasionally with family. They’d all moved hordeways by late BC, so my predisposition against doing anything more than once was seriously hindering my binary socialtime.

So, hallelujah: Cataclysm and guild perks! 45% increased exp from monsters and quests! Also, goblins are completely amazing! Suddenly my horde server is completely full, as in I have rolled one of everything and they are all at various stages on the level ladder. And besides, I don’t have to do quests again if I don’t want to — I can level entirely though LFD, which is awesome!

Unfortunately, there is one problem, and that problem is this: every asshole in the world has had that exact same idea.

John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

I have no idea what has happened to manners, politeness, or even just keeping your mouth shut if you don’t have anything nice to say, but oh my god I can say with the certainty born of personal experience that LFD at every bracket is an absolute cesspit of the filth of humanity. Just for example’s sake, here is a brief rundown of the fail to which I have been subjected recently via the rock stars of LFD:

1. innumerable gender- and/or sexuality-based slurs
2. seriously stark raving political bullshit
3. stark raving political bullshit delightfully mixed with gender- and/or sexuality-based slurs
4. votekicked on my tiny priest because I can’t save people who refuse to get out of bad
5. demands of my LEVEL 19 beartank to pull faster, because Mr. Hunter’s in a hurry (“u pull to slow im in a hurry,” seriously)
6. votekicked on my tiny rogue because I politely asked the tankadin to put on righteous fury
7. a hunter who rolled need on absolutely everything, “2 sell 4 moneys lol its not epix”
8. constant misuse of apostrophes, making me weep tears of blood
9. requests to spam damage meters after every pull, resulting in a votekick of my level 28 mage for “suckass deeps”
10. dps who pull constantly, regardless of requests from the tank or healer
11. a spat degenerating into racial slurs between a healer and a tank over who wins the blame game for a wipe in the ScarMo Cathedral

Once upon a time, if you wanted a group and didn’t have friends or a guild or guild friends to help you with it, you sucked up on trade chat in Ironforge until enough folks were available to join you. And you behaved yourself as you would being introduced to any group of strangers, because if you ever wanted to PVP or change guilds or god forbid look for a pug of any variety, these same people would know if you were a dick and they would SHUN THEE, AS THOU MUST BE SHUNNED.

But now, with cross-server LFD, nobody cares how their behavior reflects upon themselves, their guild, or even their basic humanity. I dread seeing other people pop up in full heirlooms, because whether or not the majority of them ARE douchebags, it’s a lot easier to remember the ones that suck; the abusive, know-it-all assholes are way more memorable than the ones who are just silent through the whole run. Even more than a player with heirlooms, though, I dread seeing one without — not because I don’t want to play with new players, because I actually really do; I mean, unless I’m leveling a priest again, I certainly don’t know what I’m doing — but because the odds are good that there will be at least one immature assbasket who gives the poor new guy shit for not already knowing everything about fucking everything at level 40. Those poor people.

It’s so strange. It’s like the general daily misogyny of online gaming has been mixed into a slurry of absolutely zero consequences, creating a delicious cocktail of holy jesus fuckballs christ what the shit was that. I know I am speaking as a horrified mom when I say this, but every time I get blindsided by something so ridiculously, offensively over-the-top in LFD, my first thought is always, always, “my god, where are their parents?” The second thought is even sadder: “my god, do they act like this in person?”

However, I must admit that sometimes the cesspit of humanity is merely hilariously fail. Case in point, my tiny rogue in Ramparts asks if the healer is okay, since the tank got absolutely zero heals during a boss fight. Like, I had to bandage him zero heals. Immediately after comes the following response:

The best part is that this is a terrible score.

And those amazing moments kind of make it all worthwhile.

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