PVP + in game funeral = ?

April 24, 2006 11:12 PM

In the World of Warcraft, Serenity Now - a hardcore Player-verus-Player (PvP) guild - attacked an in-game memorial service held by another guild for a guild member who passed away in real life. They made a video of the exploit, apparently for recruitment purposes. In their wake they left many questions...
posted by bigmusic (121 comments total)

Never seem to have that really big Pong paddle when you need it.
posted by buzzman at 11:26 PM on April 24, 2006

Sound like dicks to me.
posted by papakwanz at 11:32 PM on April 24, 2006

this is why web 3.0 needs a killer app.

And when I say killer app, I mean an app that kills someone over the internet.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:39 PM on April 24, 2006

Wow, and I thought the folks who bitch in obit threads here were dinks.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:41 PM on April 24, 2006

This story has been bouncing around the WoW-osphere for months.

There are many places in-game where enemy players cannot attack you, but apparently those places weren't good enough for this "memorial service". Additionally, thanks to the in-game language barrier, I can't imagine this sort of event not involving small skirmishes at the least.

Re: Memorial to Fayejin
$10 on somebody fucking with it.

mhm. predictable. Once somebody on my WoW server faked their death to see if people would care (they did not).
posted by mek at 11:50 PM on April 24, 2006

I've been searching to find a real obit for this lady and I can't seem to find it.
posted by bigmusic at 11:53 PM on April 24, 2006

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET--DAY

Jay and Bob stand across the street from a house. They check the address on the big ream of paper they're carrying, nod at each other, and cross the street.

INT. HOUSE--DAY

The doorbell rings. A MOTHER answers it to see Jay and Silent Bob standing in the doorway.

MOTHER
Can I help you?

JAY
Yes. Ma'am, Does--
(reading of paper)
William Dusky live here?

MOTHER
Yes. He's my son.

JAY
May we talk to him, please.

MOTHER
One moment.

She walks away. After a beat, a fifteen-year-old KID comes to the door.

KID
Yeah?

JAY
Yo--do you post as--
(reading off paper)
Magnolia-Fan on Movie Poop Shoot.com?

KID
Yeah.

JAY
And did you write "Fuck Jay and Silent
Bob. Fuck them up their stupid asses?

KID
Yeah, a while ago. So?

Jay and Bob nod at each other, then grab the KID, pull him outside, and start beating the shit out of him on his front lawn.
posted by frogan at 11:54 PM on April 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

IRL this is atrocious, but through the magic of the Internet it becomes amusing.
posted by Falconetti at 12:01 AM on April 25, 2006

Wow. A new contender for biggest buncha nerds ever...
posted by i_cola at 12:05 AM on April 25, 2006

mek nailed it - they could have held this in a non-contested zone where an attack would have been impossible, but for some reason they decided not to. The guild in question were undoubtedly a bunch of enormous horse cocks - they knew this was a memorial service and still wilfully disrupted it - but even if they hadn't, I'm sure someone would have. The two factions in WoW can't understand one another in-game. All their text chat appears as garbled nonsense to the other side. Add to this that not everyone reads the forums, or has any interest in doing so, and it was inevitable that they'd be attacked, if only by people who saw a big gathering of 'the enemy' and had no idea, or way to find out, what was happening.

Plus, the atmosphere on PvP servers and all the ways Blizzard designed the game to encourage senseless aggression, hate and malice between the arbitrarily-defined factions make this sort of thing inevitable. I wouldn't play WoW on a PvP server if you paid me - even if 99% of the population agreed to be mature and remember that the faction divide was completely artificial, and that the players on the other side of the divide were just like them, the gleefully-disruptive 1% (and it's always, always a lot more than that) would happily be able to ruin any large event they liked.
posted by terpsichoria at 12:15 AM on April 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

OMG! Someone in a video game killed someone else in a video game!

I'm surprised that this story has not been submitted before, since it has it's roots in Space War, Combat for the 2600, and Wizard of Wor. Aw, man, when I was younger I used to get so mad at the older kids at the arcade who would totally kill my guy in Wor when I was walking the maze in honor of this guy I knew that moved away. Apparently I should have sent it into the internet, 'cause they're really eating this stuff up.
posted by unixrat at 12:32 AM on April 25, 2006

This would never happen in City of Heroes.
posted by bardic at 12:50 AM on April 25, 2006

Yeah this so going to sound mean, but has anyone ever thought that maybe when you start having memorial services in a game that you might be taking the game a bit too seriously? And if these people cared about this person that passed away so much then maybe they should have, well I dunno, gone to a memorial service for them in real life instead of some kind of sham online piece of crap that makes them feel like they did something?

And yeah there are assholes on the net, imagine that.

Sounds like a non story to me.
posted by whirlwind29 at 1:03 AM on April 25, 2006

All their text chat appears as garbled nonsense to the other side.

And even more so to those of us who don't play the damn things.

Even so, they sound like ideal candidates for one of these places.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:07 AM on April 25, 2006

How many times do I have to tell you dimwitted niddering coistrels? Never put on the Ring of Conflict on the Astral Plane!
posted by loquacious at 1:07 AM on April 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

And if these people cared about this person that passed away so much then maybe they should have, well I dunno, gone to a memorial service for them in real life instead of some kind of sham online piece of crap that makes them feel like they did something?

I'm pretty sure every single member of that guild doesn't live on the same continent let alone in the same town.
posted by PenDevil at 1:12 AM on April 25, 2006

And if these people cared about this person that passed away so much then maybe they should have, well I dunno, gone to a memorial service for them in real life instead of some kind of sham online piece of crap that makes them feel like they did something?

*shrug*

I don't play these online social games. To be honest, I don't understand their appeal. But if all of your social interactions with somebody are online, and you happen to live a fair way away from that person, then it seems perfectly fitting to have some form of online memorial for them.

Also, you seem to misunderstand the purpose of a memorial service. They really don't exist to service the needs of the dead. Those people are dead. Their function is to comfort the living. Given that, I don't really understand why you think that there's a heirarchy of value that we ascribe to the ways in which people seek to derive that comfort.

And yeah there are assholes on the net.

You don't say?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:14 AM on April 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

whirlwind, I assume the vast majority of these people only knew Fayejin through WoW, and were likely scattered across the US if not the world. Considering that the entire friendship between the dead girl and the memorial-goers was also a sham online piece of crap, as you put it, but likely involved more time spent communicating than an awful lot of in-person friendships do, what would you suggest as an appropriate venue for a memorial?

As I said earlier, this was a daft place to have the service - analogous to trying to hold a funeral in the middle of a crowded high street with a free cream pies stand nearby - but just going 'interaction on the internet isn't real, games are stupid, friendships and emotions only count if the people involved are no less than ten feet away from one another!' makes it look like your knee is jerking.

bardic, I don't know... CoX doesn't have the imposed language barrier that WoW does, but try taking forty villains to stand around talking in Warburg or Siren's Call and see how long it takes before a random hero crashes the party.
posted by terpsichoria at 1:15 AM on April 25, 2006

bardic: This would never happen in City of Heroes.

Word. Let me know if you ever want to start a Metafilter Supergroup. I'll make a character on your server.

/dork

Who am I kidding? I am never really going to close the dork tag.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:16 AM on April 25, 2006 [16 favorites]

Seems like the ambush party got the whole 'celebration of life, not a mourning' thing just right. I loved it when the characters of the people pretending to be fictional warriors pretending to be serious people in a world made for War Craft ran around blitzkrieged for a few seconds shocked, SHOCKED that anyone would or could think to attack them within that play world designed for their pretend wars during a supposed-to-be serious pretend event. That snake bit me! Good music too. Maybe Fayejin would have been proud, or at least had fun.
posted by airguitar at 1:41 AM on April 25, 2006

...and just at the end, his character runs up to the mauled corpse of Fayejin's character, who he initiated the group attack by killing first (where the character had ceremoniously been placed peering out into the water along the shores of the lake), his character genuflects and he says, "she loved fishing ... and snow ... and pvp." That's as heartfelt as can be.
posted by airguitar at 2:04 AM on April 25, 2006

"maybe they should have, well I dunno, gone to a memorial service for them in real life instead of some kind of sham online piece of crap that makes them feel like they did something?" I don't see how the funeral being virtual makes it any less real. That being said, they can't really be surprised when someone pisses on their pitty party.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 2:10 AM on April 25, 2006

(self conciously trying to keep armor from klinking while queing in the casket line)

(Whispers to large wolf-like creature next to me)
"Uh... she looks so natural... they really did a good job"
posted by hal9k at 2:20 AM on April 25, 2006

IRL this is atrocious, but through the magic of the Internet it becomes amusing.

Yes.
posted by beerbajay at 2:35 AM on April 25, 2006

Wow. Blood bath. Something disturbing about all those bodies on the beach.

I just joined WoW, and I'm starting to see how interesting it can be... via this video, I mean. I'm still fighting warthogs at the moment.

Fucking warthogs.
posted by brundlefly at 2:35 AM on April 25, 2006

Also, why is the OP in italics?
posted by brundlefly at 2:37 AM on April 25, 2006

I know a lot of people who play WoW, and really, they need to take their lives back from that game, or at least consider whether they really like what that game brings out in people. I personally hate the idea of any game that essentially forces you to join a gang and put up with teenage stupidity, drama, and pettiness if you want to advance your character.

Characters in WoW can max out at level 60 pretty quickly, and from that point can only "advance" in the game by getting better items, which inevitably means working with large guilds to take down the big bosses. Unfortunately, hardworking players cannot create items that rival these "bind on pickup" items, so that alone is a big F.U. to players who want to roleplay a profession and help to bring both creativity and valuable services to the game. For this reason alone, UO is far more interesting to me. You can actually change the world you live in.

WoW is geared towards hack'n'slash, endless grinding, PvPing, and, of course, hours and hours of running around, just trying to get from one place to another... it surprises me, frankly, that it's as popular as it is.

I love the idea of online social games. But this one?! Hah. What's there to recommend it? I'd rather be on Survivor. At least there, you can see firsthand which people are vacuous, meanspirited backstabbers.

Looking forward to the day Blizzard releases a good game again. I miss the days of Diablo...
posted by insomnia_lj at 3:35 AM on April 25, 2006

Well, if they'd just done this in Guild Wars, where a group of people can gather in areas of the world specifically instantiated for that group, this wouldn't have happened.
posted by brownpau at 3:41 AM on April 25, 2006

www.mydeathspace.com
posted by geekyguy at 3:45 AM on April 25, 2006

On the one hand I sympathize a little with the 'mourners' - when you spend thousands of hours playing any MMO with a group of people, you can get to be very close (I'm still in touch with most of my UO friends from '96).

On the flip side of the coin, the mourners were idiots to hold any kind of a non-game session in PvP territory, and while Serenity Now may have been assholes they were assholes with a sense of humor. And good music.
posted by Ryvar at 3:50 AM on April 25, 2006

Oh wait, they had the memorial in PvP? Heh.
posted by brownpau at 4:18 AM on April 25, 2006

Ah, it's nice to see how (not very) far Warcraft has come. I still remember clicking furiously on that sheep to make the damn thing explode. Good times.

Surely this is simply the online version?
posted by slimepuppy at 4:19 AM on April 25, 2006

Yeah, the soundtrack was pretty great.
posted by Jimbob at 4:23 AM on April 25, 2006

I know. Next time I write a script where a funeral party is set upon by marauders, Scatman is getting top spot for their slaying music.
posted by Captaintripps at 4:38 AM on April 25, 2006

I personally hate the idea of any game that essentially forces you to join a gang and put up with teenage stupidity, drama, and pettiness if you want to advance your character.

WoW doesn't force that. There are plenty of guilds that have mature, clueful people in them, and many of these people even keep the game in perspective and don't devote their whole life to it.

And the fact that non-raiders get whomped in PvP at endgame is a good reason to make a 19 or (my favorite) 29 twink for the battlegrounds. I recently dinged 60 on my shammy. Ugh. I should have stayed at 59, the 50-59 WSG and AB crew on my server was just amazing.

And I saw this on #tapes last week. It's lame because a contested area is a stupid place for a memorial service - they had to know this could happen.

Also the movie itself is lame - there was a (I guess) crucial forum post they were highlighting that was entirely unreadable in the version I saw, and they committed the all-too-familiar WoW movie sin of showing wayyyyy too much footage of characters traveling. Okay. We get that you went from point A to point B. Watching you go is boring as hell.

You want to see some good WoW movies, check out the Stilsgins. (the link is to a funny movie with a story, one of the best I've ever seen, for whatever that is worth to you).
posted by beth at 4:42 AM on April 25, 2006

I'm still fighting warthogs at the moment.

They're called quillboar, noob.
posted by beth at 4:46 AM on April 25, 2006

MetaFilter: Who am I kidding? I am never really going to close the dork tag.
posted by cgc373 at 5:17 AM on April 25, 2006

They're called quillboar, noob.

It's spell n00b, n00b.

-- B1FF
posted by eriko at 5:29 AM on April 25, 2006

The community should police this. If it's a big enough public outrage, the entire server should team up and root out these guys; killing their characters, whatever.

And please, anyone complaining about the level of immersion and social interaction, take the week off from MeFi then. Like it hasn't been demonstrated thoroughly that mediated social interaction is still social interaction. I might've expected "OMG NERDS!" in 1997, but in an age when grandmas are online? Get off your high horse of "Oh, it's only internet."

And I'll see you in a week, if you make it that long.
posted by Eideteker at 6:03 AM on April 25, 2006

Heh ... it's just a game. Sounds like the folks hosting the memorial service got a little confused by the difference between RL and WoW.
posted by mygoditsbob at 6:06 AM on April 25, 2006

bardic, I don't know... CoX doesn't have the imposed language barrier that WoW does, but try taking forty villains to stand around talking in Warburg or Siren's Call and see how long it takes before a random hero crashes the party.

I can think of a few Stalker VGs who would love doing something like that to a group of heroes.
posted by keli at 6:14 AM on April 25, 2006

"And yeah there are assholes on the net."

Yeah, and you're one of 'em.

Eideteker's right— if this is a community concern, the community should hunt them down and kill them. That's the remedy available.
(Further, the music for the large part sucked ass. Scatman's a terrible bit of 90s novelty bullshit. And could we get a bit more of them running? Christ, learn to edit down that crap.)
posted by klangklangston at 6:15 AM on April 25, 2006

I've seen hundreds of posts debating this video in countless threads from various gaming forums, and the conclusions are always the same. The thing that you all are missing is that these players have basically taken it upon themselves to not only shell out a subscription fee for this poor excuse for a game - but they are now to the point where this is the height of their experience. Aside from the systematic instances and battlegrounds, raids are the glue of the social fabric and the only way to dynamically experience what is billed to you as "massively multiplayer". It's not a flaw of the users, it's a flaw of the design. Blizzard is lazy, the game is a treadmill, and the players have to not only create their own drama but act upon it to be truly satisfied with their experience. In that regard, I don't really think it's fair to criticize their integrity or mental abilities as if this relates to the real world whatsoever, like this post highlighted in their video:

"I hope azshira's dad dies of a heart attack, then at the funeral some guy runs in naked and pushes the coffin over and runs around slapping people screaming LOL OWNED, then releases a video of it"
posted by prostyle at 6:19 AM on April 25, 2006

Word. Let me know if you ever want to start a Metafilter Supergroup.

This could happen. And if it did, it would be on Victory.

PST ... I mean ... send me an email.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:27 AM on April 25, 2006

Wow. There are assholes in the internet. I never knew that.
posted by kalessin at 6:29 AM on April 25, 2006

I play WoW, and when this first came out did some digging to find out what was going on.

The player that the funeral was for had characters and friends on both side - Alliance and Horde. The ceremony was being held in a contested area so that members of both sides could attend.

That being said, the real problem was that they discussed it quite publically - understandable, wanting to get as many people that knew the player as possible. They basically set themselves up in a way that meant some gankers would show up to wreak havoc.
posted by mephron at 6:31 AM on April 25, 2006

For the non-WoW'ers, what is the significance of the character that keeps running down to the water on the beach? It seems like some important part of the story-line, but it is not clear why.

Also, what are the characters actually doing at the memorial? It looks like they're just standing around. Was someone making a speech or something?

Also:

And the fact that non-raiders get whomped in PvP at endgame is a good reason to make a 19 or (my favorite) 29 twink for the battlegrounds. I recently dinged 60 on my shammy. Ugh. I should have stayed at 59, the 50-59 WSG and AB crew on my server was just amazing.

What?
posted by Mid at 6:33 AM on April 25, 2006

This story has actually spawned some of the best meta-humor I've seen in a while. Threads upon threads of people being full of themselves over the imagined slight along with the myriad of other folks willing to mock them.

I was in tears last night reading another thread where two guys had gone through the trouble of pulling out all the ridiculous analogies being offered in the main argument thread over on Qt3. It's comedy gold.
posted by thanotopsis at 6:37 AM on April 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

I barely understood the video.

Why didn't the funeral party post guards?
posted by OmieWise at 6:41 AM on April 25, 2006

Why didn't the funeral party post guards?

They probably hoped it would be an inspiring and moving show of solidarity to honor the dead. You know -- everyone put down their weapons for the funeral, etc etc.

Then, y'know. Boom.
posted by verb at 6:44 AM on April 25, 2006

lol, but this is really old.
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:47 AM on April 25, 2006

What?

In the WoW endgame (life once you reach level 60), some people go on huge raids of 20 or 40 people into the more extensive dungeons, that drop really good loot. This loot is so powerful that they can completely crush players who *don't* do those kinds of raids when they meet them in the battlegrounds. There is much ongoing debate (read: shrill trolling and counter-trolling) on the WoW forums between these two types of players.

The battlegrounds are Warsong Gulch (WSG), Arathi Basin (AB), and Alterac Valley (AV), basically a set-aside area that is only for PvP matches between teams of up to 10, 15, and 40 respectively. There are separate level brackets for battleground queues - 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, with 60 being a bracket just to itself. Alterac Valley is the exception, and is for levels 51-60 only (and these all play together).

A twink is a character who is outfitted using the proceeds from a higher level character. It doesn't take too much work for even an average lvl 60 character to make enough money for a level 19 or 29 character to be decked out in the nicest possible gear used at that level. Basically a 19 or 29 twink is within the reach of even a casual player who doesn't go on big raids, whereas competing effectively in the battleground at level 60 is out of the reach of some people due to scheduling or desire to go on raids or availability of a suitable guild to go with on such raids.

And when I said "shammy" that's a reference to the fact that my character is of the Shaman class.

I hope this clarified a few things. There's more, but, well, this is getting long.
posted by beth at 6:50 AM on April 25, 2006

Mid, because I truly am really bored, here it is translated for the non-WoWers:

And the fact that non-raiders (players who don't want to join forty-person teams and repeatedly slog their way through dungeons that can take upwards of five hours to complete, when there's little further progress to be made in the game by any other means) get whomped in PvP (competitive player-versus-player combat) at endgame (the point where 40-person dungeons contain the only creatures worth fighting and treasure worth having) is a good reason to make a 19 or 29 twink (much less powerful character than one at the maximum level, to ensure a relatively even playing field in player-versus-player combat rather than a situation where characters played by people who don't want the time commitment of 40-person dungeons are matched up against characters which, while technically of the same maximum level, are armed with extremely powerful equipment which can only be obtained in said dungeons. However, these lower-level characters (level 19 or 29 in this case, as these levels are the upper end of the two lowest 'bands' for competitive play) are generally supplied with expensive equipment bought with the much larger gold reserves available to a player's main character, or 'twinked') for the battlegrounds (competitive arena zones).

I recently dinged (increased in level of power) 60 (the maximum level) on my shammy (shaman - one of nine character classes, each with their own ability sets). Ugh. I should have stayed at 59, the 50-59 (the last level band where players who aren't interested in 40-person raid content are on an equal competitive footing with those who are, as all such content takes place at the maximum level, 60) WSG (Warsong Gulch, one of the battleground arenas) and AB (Arathi Basin, another one) crew on my server was just amazing.

There you go, mid. But bear in mind that if you'd just gone 'what?' after a load of technical terms were used in a thread about, say, music or sport, you'd likely have been told to just go and look at Wikipedia. Do you not consider games serious enough that they can have their own technical terms?
posted by terpsichoria at 6:52 AM on April 25, 2006

THIS RAISES MANY QUESIONS!
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:52 AM on April 25, 2006

Oh bum, beaten to it!
posted by terpsichoria at 6:52 AM on April 25, 2006

Sorry.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:52 AM on April 25, 2006

Huh? No, I meant beth beat me to my enormous info-splurge.
posted by terpsichoria at 6:54 AM on April 25, 2006

I meant sorry about shouting.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:57 AM on April 25, 2006

The talking at cross-purposes, it burnsssss!
posted by terpsichoria at 6:59 AM on April 25, 2006

This would never happen in City of Heroes. I don't know about "never," but it would certainly be more unlikely.

WoW is geared towards hack'n'slash, endless grinding, PvPing, and, of course, hours and hours of running around, just trying to get from one place to another... it surprises me, frankly, that it's as popular as it is.

Thank you. Jesus Christ this is why I hate that game.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:05 AM on April 25, 2006

Thank you beth and terpsichoria for the explanations. But what is actually happening in the movie? I get the whole funeral-versus-raiders vibe, but, like it must be more complicated than that. For instance, for the raider crew to have "footage" of the funeral from before they arrived must mean that they had a spy (spies?) at the funeral. No?

I find the game itself boring (I usually end up dancing around stupidly whenever I play), but the weird sociology aspects are fascinating.
posted by Mid at 7:12 AM on April 25, 2006

No doubt. I quit playing Runequest after I realized that spending three hours mining in order to smith something was just as menial as having a minimum wage job and there was no way that I wanted to deal with the hassle. It's like people enjoy being eSerfs.
posted by klangklangston at 7:15 AM on April 25, 2006

Certainly an interesting strategy. If the purpose of the online game is to allow people to act out fantasies and alternate lives, then it certainly seems reasonable that there would be bad guys. Sounds like this whole event made things more exciting, with only hurt feelings as an outcome. Much better than offline drama, if you ask me.
posted by VulcanMike at 7:15 AM on April 25, 2006

To some extent I agree with you, MM - I'm left with extremely fond memories of WoW from playing 1-60 as effectively a two-player co-op game with my partner, which was amazing fun, then giving up when it became apparent I was supposed to do the same instances over and over to get slightly higher stats. I've tried to recapture the experience recently, but not really with any success, so I can only imagine how tedious it must seem to anyone who's effectively playing alone and relying on the quality and consistency of random players they meet.

Then again, if anything I thought City of Heroes/Villains suffered from exactly the same things, but worse - at least the zones in WoW look different from one another, and after the eight hundredth identical door mission even the costume creation stuff wasn't enough to keep my attention. I really don't think MMOs are for me.

(on preview, I'm with you on the sociological stuff being fascinating, mid - these days I'm really interested in WoW without particularly wanting to actually play it. And sorry if I sounded snippy at the end of the other post - I just re-read it and it sort of does, and I didn't mean it to.)
posted by terpsichoria at 7:18 AM on April 25, 2006

Leeeroy Jenkinnnns!!
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 7:27 AM on April 25, 2006

Scatman John was actually pretty interesting. He had a stutter, and is now dead.
posted by beerbajay at 7:35 AM on April 25, 2006

I bet the departed player got a huge kick out of the proceedings, watching from Above.

I also hope this video went viral in Heaven and garnered a few WoW converts. When St. Peter sits fuming at Authentication delays, Bliz better watch out!!
posted by anser at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2006

First you have to get back at PvP, it is a moral imperative.
posted by 6am at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2006

I know a lot of people who play WoW, and really, they need to take their lives back from that game, or at least consider whether they really like what that game brings out in people. I personally hate the idea of any game that essentially forces you to join a gang and put up with teenage stupidity, drama, and pettiness if you want to advance your character.

A couple things to respond to your point:

1) It's quite possible to play a game like WoW and still have a life. I go to work, spend time with my wife and family, eat dinner, do my household stuff, and then instead of vegging in front of the teeve from 9:00-11:00 (or 12:00) I play WoW. I suspect that most WoW players are more like me than the stereotype of the "Always on" gamer.


2) The stuff you reference is only a factor of the game if you allow it to be. I am in a guild of intelligent, sensible adults and never have to put up with any "teenage stupidity, drama, [OR] pettiness" in order to do anything.

This OPP is discussing somehting that happened on a PVP server, which is a minority server type that caters to people who thrive on "teenage stupidity, drama, and pettiness," but on most servers (and in most of these online games) the player who wishes to have a quality experience that is almost 100% idiot free is able to do so.

I've been playing MMORPGs since EQ, and I've always been able to easily insulate myself from jerks/idiots when I make the effort. This has led me to suspect that people who have endless problems with jerks online are somehow inviting it (if only through their refusal to apply a filter to who they associate with online).
posted by illovich at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2006

As more and more gamers remember/realize that most other people in online games are shitcocks, I hope to see more games in the mode of Oblivion, where I have recently spent at least 72 hours wandering about having a great time.

Interactions between people in MMOs seem to have progressed to an almost scriped level, one that could be pretty easily optioned in to a game. I could see an Oblivion Mod come out that recreates pointless chat-spamming, random jerks that steal your kills, and massive hooting raids of Jenkinsian proportions.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:38 AM on April 25, 2006

But would it happen in City of Villains?

[inser ric romero photo here] "Teenage video game players may not respects things like virtual funerals. Movie at 9."
posted by skallas at 7:42 AM on April 25, 2006

That's weird. I've never heard of Scatman John, heard his music, or seen a picture of him - but that WP pic is exactly how I pictured him in my mind. Freaky.
posted by Ryvar at 7:42 AM on April 25, 2006

Is this something you would need to not have a life to know about?
posted by blue_beetle at 7:42 AM on April 25, 2006

My son showed me the funeral video and the Leeroy Jenkins video a few weeks ago. He showed me the Angry Gamer (the Halo Online player) video and the video of the guy who gets filmed by his little sister while he's masturbating to WoW (heee) - my son's my go-to guy for videos of this caliber. The funeral is confusing to someone who doesn't understand what's going on. Like mid, I too am wondering why the one guy keeps going down to the water. What the hell is he doing? Someone 'splain this please.
posted by iconomy at 7:44 AM on April 25, 2006

why is the OP in italics?

It's a quoted paragraph from the last link.
posted by mediareport at 7:44 AM on April 25, 2006

I'll go ahead and let my nerd-flag fly--haven't played Wow, but I do enjoy me some City of Heroes. It's generally considered a "lighter" MMO experience, perhaps because you really don't have all that gear/stuff to worry about. And in IMO, the sword-n-sorcery genre brings out a type of gamer who wants a more immersive "role-play" experience.

But there are plenty of idjits in CoH. Some dude was chatting in Broadcast recently about European history. Wrongly. Everyone told him to shut up. He wouldn't. I really wish he had been in a PvP zone.

Anyways, off to fight evil.
posted by bardic at 7:49 AM on April 25, 2006

video of the guy who gets filmed by his little sister while he's masturbating to WoW (heee)

thanks, iconomy. That's one thing on teh internets that I had not seen yet.
posted by jsavimbi at 7:51 AM on April 25, 2006

This was probably the most interesting thing to happen to a lot of those folks in months.

I can understand the hurt feelings, but you know, PvP and all that...
posted by mkultra at 7:55 AM on April 25, 2006

Gotta admit, reading this thread(And learning far more about WoW than I ever wanted to) has kinda diffused my tongue-clucking indignation.

The fact that the memorial people paid a subscription fee to, um, stand in freakin' line kinda bothered anyway.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:58 AM on April 25, 2006

For the uninitiated, it should be pointed out that the outraged players really don't have a leg to stand on. They're in a PvP environment -- a server where players from the opposing faction can bother them -- by choice. It could easily have been avoided by simply choosing to play on the large number of servers where the game mechanics prevent interruptions this from happening.

These players chose to play the game on a server where the "protected from assaults by assholes" rule is suspended. I don't think they should be surprised that they were assaulted by assholes.
posted by majick at 7:58 AM on April 25, 2006

he's masturbating to WoW

I have not seen this, but wouldn't it be more likely that he was just masturbating while playing WoW, not to it?
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:10 AM on April 25, 2006

As more and more gamers remember/realize that most other people in online games are shitcocks, I hope to see more games in the mode of Oblivion, where I have recently spent at least 72 hours wandering about having a great time.

Make mine 105 hours having a great time.

Even in a virtual world, where there are real life people, there will be real life assholes. I don't play games to experience that. I play games to get away from that.

wThat said, the idiots who were holding a "funeral" with no sentries in a PVP area should've seen it coming. It's no surprise that real life grief transported to a virtual realm should've experienced the diabolic mischief Serenity Now brought down, and which was totally appropriate for a virtual, PVP world. Their exploitation of the willed naivete of the grievers is kind of amusing.
posted by MasonDixon at 8:15 AM on April 25, 2006

So if your character dies, do you have to start over again from scratch?
posted by jeffmik at 8:18 AM on April 25, 2006

Oh, those wacky Nihilists
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:18 AM on April 25, 2006

That Leeeeroy Jekinnnnnnns! clip is hysterical.
posted by papercake at 8:21 AM on April 25, 2006

"Scatman John was actually pretty interesting. He had a stutter, and is now dead."

That he had a stutter and is now dead are the most interesting things about Scatman John.
posted by klangklangston at 8:23 AM on April 25, 2006

I have not seen this, but wouldn't it be more likely that he was just masturbating while playing WoW, not to it?

sonofsamiam, it looks like he's just logged into WoW and he's sitting and watching a girl in a bikini. I don't think he's actually playing - his hands are otherwise occupied. See it here. I think it's actually safe for work, meaning you can't see any weiner bits. I think. It goes by kinda fast.
posted by iconomy at 8:25 AM on April 25, 2006

terpsichoria - Villains intro'ed the "Newspaper Missions" so not everyone is on the same page anymore (in that game anyway) and you can get a lot more missions. When I play Villains (and I dont have the time anymore to play daily) I can almost count on seeing a new tileset. I'm just waiting for them to *remember* that CoH is THERE. The fact that the game has been languishing, capped out at 50 for so long, drives me crazy.

I prefer Heroes to Villains, but they are both more pick-up-and-play games than WoW. All that damn griffin flying to get to different places -- which is cool until about the fifth time and then I'm ready to BE there and DO whatever it is I came to do. Maybe I'm weird though -- I really dislike wandering about aimlessly, which is what drove me bananas about both SWG and WoW. I have limited time to indulge this habit, so I want all of it to count.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:29 AM on April 25, 2006

that girl is going to play that video at every family reuinion from now on.
posted by jsavimbi at 8:38 AM on April 25, 2006

I watched the video. I laughed.

iconomy: Thanks for the link. "At least I have chicken." Lollerskates.
posted by cribcage at 8:42 AM on April 25, 2006

What the hell is he doing? Someone 'splain this please.

Download the original file, there's a button at the top-right corner on the Goolge Video page. It's a clearer copy.

At the edge of the lake is a character in a blue dress facing the lake. I'm guessing this is--or represents--the character of the faithfully departed.

The character going back and forth to the lake, the one who arrives on scene first, is an advance man. When he first appears, he goes to the character by the lake, pays his respects and joins the other mourners in line, "Nice day for a funeral service," "Yeah, you could say that."

This is spliced with scenes of the mauraders on their way to the funeral, "I ain't no god-damned son of bitch, you better think about it baby..."

When the gang makes it to the funeral, the advance man returns to the lake (begin Scatman) and kills the character in the blue dress. He kills the character of the faithfully departed in front of her assembled mourners. This begins the ambush.

Quickly thereafter, all the characters of the mourning party have been killed, save for one giant surrounded by three or four enemies, (look for the green vs. red titles).

As this last survivor is being finished off, the advance man retuns to the lake again, genuflects beside the corpse of the character in the blue dress and says, "she loved fishing ... and snow ... and pvp."

I don't know what they were standing in line for, maybe a head count. It wasn't moving like a procession. But maybe it was still early.
posted by airguitar at 8:44 AM on April 25, 2006

Thank you, airguitar. Oh, the humanity!
posted by iconomy at 8:53 AM on April 25, 2006

All thanks to the pioneering real world efforts of Fred Phelps. Well done.
posted by boo_radley at 8:55 AM on April 25, 2006

Reminded me of The Godfather.
posted by airguitar at 8:56 AM on April 25, 2006

Beautiful. Thank you airg.
posted by Mid at 9:04 AM on April 25, 2006

hard fucking core, man.
I couldn't really tell what the frak was going on, but there were lots of corpses all over the place.

It's disrespectful, but shouldn't there be a guild of vigilantes who could return the favor on this group?

thanks for reaffirming my sense of what a MMORPG would be like, if I experienced it first-hand, though.

maybe it's just a lesson to leave the real world out of the fantasy world.
posted by Busithoth at 9:07 AM on April 25, 2006

This was, in a way, a conflict between the truly optimistic (oh, no one will attack us in a PvP contested area, after discussing this in public), vs the pragmatic (maybe we should post a HELLUVA lotta guards around here, considering we are talking about this in public).
posted by eurasian at 9:12 AM on April 25, 2006

First of all, ROFL to frogan.
Secondly, this doesn't seem much different than GodHatesFags.

That is all, good day!
posted by mrzer0 at 9:14 AM on April 25, 2006

So if your character dies, do you have to start over again from scratch?
posted by jeffmik

No. Most MMORPGs and similar games require you to pour several hundred on up to a few thousand hours into the game to completely max out every aspect of your character. Permadeath would severely limit the playerbase (although I think Diablo 2 has some seperate servers for this). EVE Online has a system where you purchase 'clones' for your character with ingame currency, and if your character is killed ingame you awake in the clone's body. Better clones preserve more (or all) of your skills and cost more. That's about the closest example I can think of.
posted by Ryvar at 9:35 AM on April 25, 2006

Would I have to be a total loser to understand this post?
posted by xmutex at 9:43 AM on April 25, 2006

I don't know, xmutex - what are you afraid of losing?
posted by terpsichoria at 10:00 AM on April 25, 2006

I've recommended Oblivion to a lot of people who hate MMORPGs because of the MM. Brilliant idea up there for a mod, robocop is bleeding...

Metafilter: Would I have to be a total loser to understand this post?
posted by gnomeloaf at 10:04 AM on April 25, 2006

Would I have to be a total loser to understand this post?

Yes, and have no life outside of WOW or have very limited human interaction.
posted by whirlwind29 at 10:10 AM on April 25, 2006

I think the entire thing is fascinating and crazy. I don't play these games as I see them as nothing but a waste of time but they are interesting case studies.

It's like some crazy experiment where Aliens have dropped off nerds on another planet, given them immortality and weapons, and then observe them. Exposing a dormant base natural behavior and social order.

Real Humans at war, throughout history to present, are certainly not above attacking eachother during religious observance or funerals. With that in mind; from a tactical POV - attacking the funeral was brilliant.

Here is what is interesting though: Due to the unique nature of the online game it was a GIANT strategic mistake. From a larger strategic POV these guys that did it are now going to be targets from all quarters. Likely their days are numbered.
posted by tkchrist at 10:11 AM on April 25, 2006

In WoW, you don't suffer any in-game penalties for being killed by other players, tkchrist, and most of the people on the server seem to be indifferent to what took place. There's really no accountability in these games, so you're free to be as sociopathic as you please, provided you do so within the boundaries of the EULA. If there has ever been a time in MMOG history when the 'bad guys' were chased out of the game for doing something that didn't break the rules, I'm not familiar with it.

Online games aren't good places for people who'd like to retain their faith in humanity. Not coincidentally, the 'humanity' represented in these games seems to consist exclusively of adolescent boys with inferority complexes and older nerds who have never abandoned that mindset.

And Curt Schilling.
posted by Makoto at 10:24 AM on April 25, 2006

I doubt it, tkchrist. While I think a lot of people with perspective appreciate the humor and irony inherent in the situation, the real obsessives and sociopaths are going to be behind them 100% just for the sheer anti-social element. It's those people, the ones who play 16 hours every single day (like I did in the beta) that will be signing up with Serenity Now in droves. They'll have their pick of the finest fighters in the realm, literally. In fact, the whole 'fuck off we don't accept applications from noobs' note in the stickied FAQ on their guild forums regarding this incident suggests that this is already the case.

I don't think their days are numbered, but I have a feeling this is going to draw flocks of the extremely anti-social and immature to the Illidan server. Had I continued playing WOW past the beta, I might consider a move to a different server right about now.

If there has ever been a time in MMOG history when the 'bad guys' were chased out of the game for doing something that didn't break the rules, I'm not familiar with it.

Certain of the anti-PK guilds in early UO *more* than held their own on various servers. Atlantic was always a deathtrap, but elsewhere being a serial playerkiller could get really rough, especially after accelerated stat loss for reds went in.
posted by Ryvar at 10:28 AM on April 25, 2006

These aren't the biggest nerds ever. Those nerds are yet to come. The biggest nerds ever will be the ones who perform a filk based on this event. Then their successors will be those who mash that filk up with Elton John's "Candle in the Wind".


But these nerds have certainly set a bar that will be difficult for all of nerdom to ever reach.
posted by nyxxxx at 11:16 AM on April 25, 2006

This story has actually spawned some of the best meta-humor I've seen in a while. Threads upon threads of people being full of themselves over the imagined slight along with the myriad of other folks willing to mock them.

I was in tears last night reading another thread where two guys had gone through the trouble of pulling out all the ridiculous analogies being offered in the main argument thread over on Qt3. It's comedy gold.
posted by thanotopsis at 6:37 AM PST on April 25

Heh, the comedy gold link is the funniest thing i've read in a while. Thanks.
posted by the cuban at 11:27 AM on April 25, 2006

I have not seen this, but wouldn't it be more likely that he was just masturbating while playing WoW, not to it?

Have you ever seen a female Night Elf dance?
posted by greasy_skillet at 11:31 AM on April 25, 2006

Maybe they were corporate raiders.
posted by showmethecalvino at 12:30 PM on April 25, 2006

Would I have to be a total loser to understand this post?

Yes, and have no life outside of WOW or have very limited human interaction.
posted by whirlwind29 at 10:10 AM PST on April 25 [!]

That's odd. I've never played WoW and never intend to. I also enjoy quite a lot of human interaction, both in my work and in my personal life. Yet I understood and enjoyed this post.

But it's probably easier for you not too think too hard about that.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:58 PM on April 25, 2006

greasy_skillet asks Have you ever seen a female Night Elf dance?

Uh...you ever seen a real woman dance?!

w00t!!!111oneoneone. Sorry...to easy.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:01 PM on April 25, 2006

Yeah, Milton, you well 0wned him.

Would I have to be a total loser to understand this post?

I wish people wouldn't elevate their own pointless waste of free time above someone else's pointless waste of free time in order to claim some sort of superiority owing to not being a nerd or "having a life" or something equally daft. What's so great about what you do with your life?
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 3:23 PM on April 25, 2006

...the real obsessives and sociopaths are going to be behind them 100% just for the sheer anti-social element. It's those people, the ones who play 16 hours every single day (like I did in the beta) that will be signing up with Serenity Now in droves.

Anti-social joiners. That's interesting. I would think people would want to take them down to get a name for themselves. I guess not.

Somebody should write a book about this phenomena.
posted by tkchrist at 4:43 PM on April 25, 2006

Actually, the fun nerd question is, who are the bigger nerds? The nerds that play WoW or the nerds that watch videos of other people playing WoW and then write about it?
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:59 PM on April 25, 2006

ArmyOfKittens: I think you meant to say pwned.

terpsichoria: You really think PVP servers are that bad? I'm on one and while I have the occasional run in (and sometimes death) with the opposing side I wouldn't have it any other way. This is supposed to be a war, right?

illovich: Mostly the same question. I don't see much drama happening cross-faction. Sure you can kill one another and maybe even get some rivalries going, but it's not like you can really communicate. I'd say most of the pettiness, drama, and general annoyances come with dealing with members of the same faction and the whole guild phenomenon.

Ninja looting, guild drama, guild farmer spam, and so on happen on every server, not just the pvp ones.
posted by ODiV at 7:12 PM on April 25, 2006

looks like the serenity now website's been hacked.
posted by jcruelty at 10:22 PM on April 25, 2006

Doubly hilarious.
posted by Ryvar at 11:30 PM on April 25, 2006

ODiV - I spent some time on a PvP server when a bunch of friends from my old RP server moved there, and yeah, they drive me insane. I really, really don't like the way your ability to make any progress can be dictated by the whims of the power-levelled thirteen-year-old who happens to be wandering by and in a malicious mood. Particularly given that L60 is really the only point at which skill comes into the one-on-one world PvP equation at all - before that, a few levels and the associated increase in resists etc seems to make far more difference than any amount of strategic savvy or quick reflexes, which made it feel as if the game might as well just compare the levels of any two players who meet, and kill anyone lower by more than three. I know it can't possibly be as bad for everyone as it seemed to me during the time I played there, but I honestly did see an awful lot of corpsecamping, pointless raids that achieved nothing except preventing the hated other faction from turning quests in, high-levels picking on low-levels for no reason other than to inconvenience them and so on. I really do think a lot of it comes down to the faction divide and language barrier, too - the whole game seems intentionally designed to help players forget the other faction are real people trying to enjoy themselves as well, and therefore justify all sorts of petty crap.

Then again, I'm hopelessly non-competitive, so I probably genuinely don't get it, and I don't want to come across as if I'm making value judgments about PvP when other people absolutely love it - I really don't get much satisfaction from 'beating' someone else. If WoW had a combat system like Devil May Cry 3 or Virtua Fighter 4 - one I could learn, and get really good at through practice rather than levelling, and one in which everyone's character was on a level playing field - I'd probably have enjoyed PvP a lot more. It was galling - in a game that already makes the player walk for hours and wait for public transport - to be forced to plod even further just because some passerby with ten levels on me was feeling combative.

In the end, for me, the World of Warcraft PvP experience could be perfectly emulated by a mod which occasionally and randomly spawned a L60 elite mob on top of you for no reason. It may be supposed to be a war, but first and foremost it's supposed to be a game, and for me player-versus-player combat in a stats-and-levelling-based RPG just didn't work.

Although I do like the Battlegrounds.
posted by terpsichoria at 12:06 AM on April 26, 2006

Maybe they would have been better off running IIS.

Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) mod_throttle/3.1.2 DAV/1.0.3 mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a PHP/4.4.2 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7e
posted by skallas at 8:47 AM on April 26, 2006

Ten to one it was the DAV mod that killed them, skallas. In case you weren't already aware it's an extension for integration with FrontPage that allows you to map folders on your website directly to folders on your Windows desktop for drag&drop functionality. It has a long history of being incredibly insecure, and was in fact the way I lost my first (and only) RedHat box when I was just discovering *nix as a teenager.
posted by Ryvar at 12:18 AM on April 27, 2006