… and we’re back.

Few changes ’round here: site upgraded to WordPress 2.0 (die evil hackers and evil spammers and evil spamming hackers!) and latest version of K2. Miss a day, miss a lot of site fixes! Just like MMOGs, blog software is perpetually in beta, so there may be broken stuff. I’ll get ’round to it eventually. Just like devs.

This week’s project: a different kind of Look Back at the Year 2005, which I will call the Week of Fives. Each day, you will find a list of five persons, places or things from 2005 that I want to remember FOREVER. When I get to the end of my life, not only do I want to think “Man, I really squandered my time on Earth”, but also I want to remember that I squandered that time mostly in games. Then I’ll die without giving away my stuff. Ha!

Today, Five Hated Players on My Warcraft Server:

1. The “I’m the smartest person on the Realm Forums” guy. I’m sure you have one of these guys on your WoW-EQ-EQII-UO-GW-SWG-etc servers, too, so you know the type. He responds to absolutely every thread AND authors a billion others dealing with the same topics raised in the original threads. If only he could confine himself to one thread per day, how much easier our lives would be.

Anyways, my forum whore likes to trot out this little stat each time he gets pwned via realm forum: I’m probably the smartest person on these boards. Then he’ll cite all of his almost-complete education credits, which he would have completed except the schools (yes, that’s plural) fucked him over.

But that’s not all! I know this guy in game, too. (Lucky me) He monopolizes the general chat channel with his unsolicited wisdom and advice where he has almost-credentials too: I was in the top guild on this server (till it imploded from drama THAT HE CREATED), I’m in the new top guild on this server (currently in implosion mode from drama THAT HE CREATED) and I’ve killed every mob that’s ever been.

Please. Die. Now.

This has been my passive-aggressive strat for dealing with this hosebag: every day before raid time, I take him off my ignore list. I go about my business in Ironforge prepping for the raid. If I see even one line of text come from his character before I fly out or when I fly back post-raid, I /ignore him. Even one “lol”, /ignore. Zero tolerance. Almost every day, he sees on his own screen “FotonRogue is now ignoring you.” Drives him nuts.

Sometimes he’ll have his friend (yes, that’s singular) bitch at me about the daily /ignores, but I just /ignore him too … until the next day, when the /ignore dance begins anew.

2. The creepy perma-noob stalker. About a year ago, when my rogue was level 50-something, I was passing through Stormwind on my way to some place better and I ran into this level 5 near the griffin asking how to get to Westfall, the not-so-noob zone almost next door to Stormwind. In a rare lapse of judgment, I stopped and explained how to run there, how to get the flight path, how to USE THE GRIFF even.

What was I thinking? I obviously wasn’t thinking at all because he added me to his friends list (sans permission, although asking for permission is creepier, I think) and stalked me for months after that. I am not making this up.

“Want to make an alt and come play with me?” Me: ummm.
“Can you help me kill these bears in Darkshore?” (the not-so-noob Night Elf zone) Me: errr.
“Want to roll a Horde character and play over there?” Me: Not really.
“How about a night elf? Want to make a new night elf and play with me?” Me: …
“Foton, won’t you please come roleplay with me for a while? Please?” Me: what. the. fuck.
“I WONT BE TALKING TO U AGIN CUZ U R A ASS” Me: (thank god) Ok.
Next day … “Im sorry i yelled at u. Wnat to come play horde with me? My horde is level 10 now.” Me: (Fake AFK)

Many fake AFKs later, he stopped talking to me. God. Took him long enough.

3. The psycho would-be General Drakkisath killer. I know better than to join PUGs, ok? But I was working on getting my alt healer up to speed with keys, equipment, attunements, quests, bla bla, so I was working the Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS) PUGs. My raid guild doesn’t take too kindly to using guild resources or personnel to equip alts … which is a good policy that I support. So I was PUGging it.

Mostly PUGs work out if you’re choosy, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are nightmarish adventures that have DEATH and GRAVEYARD written all over them. This particular PUG, ultimately, had FAILURE and ACCOUNT SUSPENSION written on it.

UBRS. We begin. I think I even dragged a guildmate out there to open the door because we were that twink-a-licious, none of us had a key. Everything went well up until about … The Beast, which for you Warcraft noobs is near the end of the UBRS run. Without warning, our formerly level-headed PUG leader begins this rapid descent into madness. He started ALL CAPPING at people, calling us idiots (for no apparent reason either, no deaths, etc.), and dictating new loot rules. I suspected drunkeness or a change at the controls (imaginary brother, preteen friend).

The ALL CAPPING got louder and more ridiculous. Some of the groupmembers tried to reason with him or figure out what the hell his problem was, other than rapid-onset insanity, but I figured the only cure for this prick was going to be a quick trip to the graveyard. And as FotonAltHealer, I was in a position to do so.

He died. He screamed at me. I told him to play nice or no rezz for him. He refused and started to run back to the zone. Whatever. The rest of us continued with the killing. He arrived back in the zone and changed the loot to Master Looting, which gave him True Ultimate Looting Power. Ya, we were fucked.

He pulled the next set of trash mobs and died. Seriously, how hard is “no heals for you” to understand? Seems pretty straightforward. I told him to make someone else leader or no rezz for him. He refused, ran, arrived back in zone.

He knew, and I knew, hell we all knew, that if the Master Looter dies during a boss fight, the loot becomes free for all … meaning no loot for him and we can divvy up the booty however we please. And he knew, I knew, hell we all knew, that he was going to die on the final boss fight. It was within my power and I had demonstrated, amply, my willingness to use my power for evil.

That’s when he lost it. I’m a little bitch. I’m a cock-sucking crack-smoking sonuvabitch. I’m the worst bla bla bla ever in the history of bla bla bla asshole on the face of the bla bla bla … zzzzzzzz.

Hey, I’d heard it all before many times, but I’d had about enough of this little Napoleon and bid that PUG fucking adieu. I hearthed, I apologized for bailing and I reported that asshole. First time in ten years that I reported a player but I wanted that prick suspended. Gone. On Vacation. Touching his monkey. Whatever he wanted to do with his free time, but he wasn’t going to be doing it in Warcraft for a few days.

Of course you never hear the results when you /report someone, but he was offline for a week. When he returned, I asked if he enjoyed his vacation. He was not amused.

4. The human virus. Member of the Drama Whores in #5, this chick is a fucking human virus. (pun!) Bad enough that we had to read her INANE chat text and listen to her DRONING voice in Vent for hours during raids, but she was arguably the worst healer in a raiding guild EVER. Here’s the kicker: her guild thought she was one of the best EVER. Incredible skill on this girl! Single-handedly healing whole raids with autoheal mods! Deserves any piece of loot that can be thrown at her!

Ya.

Let’s just say, if it didn’t involve talking about her naughty bits, she wasn’t interested in participating in any meaningful way. Her husband, also in the Drama Whores, apparently didn’t have a problem with that either, which is why we gave him the nickname: Cuckold. You get the idea now.

Since her guild thought she was just golly the bestest ever, they would have her take newer guildmates and guild friends under her care to show them the ropes. (pun!) Invariably and without fail, these newer mates (male and female) would start to screw up and fuck off during raids. It was as if some Stupid Virus was mysteriously infecting anyone that came in contact with Mrs. Cuckold.

Further evidence: once, Mr. and Mrs. Cuckold went on a week vacation away from Warcraft and our raids. Everyone’s performance, attention and ATTITUDE improved 100 percent. An entire week of pleasurable raiding. They rushed back for Friday’s raid, everything goes to hell: people can’t be bothered to rebuff, rezz, tank, pay attention, or LISTEN to instructions.

Human Virus. There is no cure.

5. The drama whore guild that used to be our raid allies until even we couldn’t take their shit anymore. I don’t have the time today to outline all the shit that went down with this … later this month, I’ll write it up in a miniseries entitled: The Fall of Saigon. Look forward to it! It ends similarly.

All the reasons I hate these morons will become more clear, but mostly I am a hater because they just won’t let it go. It’s over, it’s been over, it was over before it was over, but they will not let it go. Probably they can’t find “closure” or whatever their problem is, because I refuse to respond, interact or react in their direction.

They’ve hurled snowballs at me in the Ironforge bank, they’ve /ruded, they’ve /lol’d, they’ve /tell FotonRogue whatever-new-swear they learned on the bus. Some of them /wave and /greet, too. No matter, all of them receive the same response: none.

I’m not bitter. I’m just done with them.

Here’s to 2006 and the new friends, enemies and /ignores the year will bring!