Originally, I was going to center this post around PVP players. However, the more I thought about the topic, the more I realized that there was no way to write about just PVP players without going into tangents on other players in the World of Warcraft. So I decided to revise the topic to players that I’ve encountered in the game. By no means is this article a pervasive psychological study of players in World of Warcraft. Instead, it’s my own observations of the different people I’ve met or have watched on a stream.
First, I think it’s good to talk about my own personality in relation to World of Warcraft. I’m a heavy alt-a-holic and someone who primarily focuses on PVE content. I started back in Wrath of the Lich King with a tauren hunter since a friend of mine was playing a paladin. My thought back in the day was to have a ranged fighter type to back his melee oriented class. I started on a PVP server, Ner’Zhul and didn’t know much about that style of play for a while. I struggled initially in learning the hunter class (and it definitely was harder back then), which ended up frustrating me. In turn, I ended up creating a mage and druid, then later everything except a paladin (since that was my friend’s main). Outside of the hunter and death knight, I never reached level 80 on my alts on that server since I ended up quitting just before Cataclysm came out.
When Cataclysm came out, I decided to switch to a PVE server (which unfortunately was on an Oceanic realm as one of my friends supposedly was playing on there). Eventually, I transported my hunter there and ended up with 10 level 85 alts, most of whom I ended up gearing up with the first iteration of LFR. The switch to a pure PVE server allowed me to focus more on the content as opposed to constantly watching my back. However, I think my gaming style is the result of my personality type and what I seek in games.
I think of myself as someone who focuses more on goals in a game and personal achievements as opposed to pushing for world first. I like attempting to max out as much as I can the aspects I enjoy such as LFR, Pet Battles, leveling, etc. to really partake in content that fits my play style. Although I enjoy the social aspects of gaming, I am a loner for the most part in the game since I realize that people may not share my preference for a certain activity most of the time. In a way my gaming preference matches me a professional level too. Although I can deal with people at a job, I feel far more effective in general when I’m doing things at my pace on my own.
Another thing about me is that when I do have a goal in mind, I like to hit it hard. For instance, when I level or want to gear, I really want to focus on that aspect for as much as I can. It can get mentally taxing at times but once I get in that mood, I find the activity to go by pretty fast. The hardest part is just switching into that mode since it’s a major commitment.
When it comes to other players, I wanted to talk about aspects like higher end PVPers. I have a few friends who almost exclusively PVP. The ones who exclusively PVP strike me as people who enjoy the dynamic style of PVP, especially in arenas and BGs. The really high end PVPers have an additional competitive streak in them where they focus on a single class and attempt to master everything about that class to eventually become number one with that toon. They tend to have better overall reflexives and I suspect that when/if they do try another class, their abilities end up being mapped in a way that matches what their main class does sine their memory muscle most likely is embedded with that one class.
However, I did notice that a lot of PVPers really are bad at PVE. And it’s not really difficult PVE but things like questing. The PVP players I’ve seen on stream quite often will admit to having attention deficit disorder, which does surprise me. It feels as though they need that instant gratification and constant, in-your-face action. So questing and level pose immense difficulties for PVP players as they lack the attention span and focus necessary to really handle that type of activity. For instance, I remember when Swifty first started leveling a death knight, he had immense problems just getting through the starting zone. It was pretty embarrassing to say the least watching him since doing the quests just requires a little reading. Then you have someone like Reckful who leveled his druid through just mindlessly grinding away at killing monkeys because he hates questing. Those who level just do it through instance grinding. I’ve been slightly suspicious about this aspect and believe that these players instance grind to avoid world PVP. At any rate, it’s funny too because to me both ends of the spectrum are grindy.
But I think that a lot of people who enjoy high end PVP are those that focus more on the competitive aspects. Gear to them functions more as a badge of honor as opposed to the end in itself. Either that or gear just exist to get you to the next door opening to meet your goals for hitting the high end PVP content. In any case, their personalities demand for themselves to be the best at what they do.
Then there are those who enjoy world PVP. I consider these people the trouble makers. I find these people to be constantly looking for victims. In some ways, I feel that these people have a lot of mental issues, especially those that camp people for hours upon hours on end. In some cases, camping might be the result of getting revenge. However, the ones that just hover or actively seek to cause people grief are the ones that probably need to see a psychologist. Now, I’ve also heard about groups of gankers. These people remind me more of gangs. Considering that the game does promote gang violence and racism (don’t you dare lie to yourself about this either!), it’s easy to see how perhaps people who were predisposed to gang violence or are/were in gangs, might end up utilizing this aspects to satisfy those dark desires. To me this is probably some of the darkest aspects of the game with regards to the player base.
Moving on, I want to return to the world of PVE and talk about high end PVE players (i.e. heroic raiders). From what I’ve seen from streams, the one common thing I’ve noticed is that outside of having that competitive streak to them, none of the high end PVE players ever look happy. I feel like I’m watching a nazi internment camp whenever I watch high end PVE players. There is a lot of stress because one fuck up will cause raid wipes. And you can see those happen for hours maybe even days. When a group beats a boss, it rarely feels like a real triumphant moment. Instead, it feels like a “glad that piece of shit is over; oh well, I guess we get to do it again in a week. People can’t fuck up now!” When I watch high end PVP players, they look like they’re having fun in their activities, even if they’re doing something competitive. But not in the case of PVE.
But when it comes to raiding in general, one thing I have heard is that there’s a certain level of camaraderie in raiding compared to something like LFR, which is what I suspect most raiders dislike about LFR the most. In between the wipes, you have a lot of interesting conversations that go on, especially when it comes to more friendly/social guilds. I think when you have raiders that fit this mode, the idea of raiding ends up becoming a lot more fun, despite the fact that you’re constantly dying.
Then you get some of the quieter players. I consider myself quiet but not entirely anti-social in the game. There are some people who just never respond no matter what. When I see people in my guild like this, I tend to shun them since they really aren’t fun to be around no serve any purpose outside of just getting the benefits of being part of a level 25 guild. Many won’t even do things like LFR, scenarios nor heroics. The ones I’ve seen doing this end up just getting their gear from valor points and quartermasters, grinding out every point via daily quests. Although there’s no real right nor wrong way to play, it kinda makes me sad with regards to these players since it feels that they’re missing out on a huge chunk of the game as a result of their reluctance to interact with others.
Beyond these types there’s also newer vs veteran players. One thing I’ve noticed about veteran players is that some are pretty crusty about things. It feels that because they’ve played the game for so long, they have a certain entitled viewpoint on the game. Not all of them but the ones I’ve heard grumble all the time. However, I feel that some of these players probably just have been at this game for too long and need to take a break to gain a fresh perspective.
New players really vary as each expansion and patches had changed the game in so many different ways. So the later you end into the game, the less you could see the evolution of how the game was designed. Although it can be argued that the game has become simplified over time, I think newer players, depending on the expansion where they started, no matter what will miss out on some aspect of content. This is a terrible flaw that came in Cataclysm where just way too much had been thrown out the window. So now, there’s real way to compare the game unless you go to a private server.