I've been cheating on Peashooter lately. I know, I know, it sounds terrible... but I've been leveling up some alts. I've observed that the player attitudes during the leveling game seem totally different than in the progression end-game. How?
Leveling
By the very nature of where your character is, you're still leveling up with respect to skills, talents, gear and experience (for both new levels and actually how to play the class). Who should reasonably expect that your play mechanics are fine-tuned during the leveling process? That's why you're leveling and questing to learn those very mechanics.
End-Game Progression
However, once you've hit 85 and learned all the goodies your class trainer has, you should have a very good idea on how all of your abilities work and should be accomplished with fulfilling your character's role in an instance or raid. Obviously, a freshly minted 85 is not ready for heroics and gear does factor, but as far as how to play? That should be mastered by now.
Leetist Jerks
Then you meet one of the "leets". For me, they've been the result of the random instance queues. All they do is point out how sub-par your DPS is or make fun of your tanking gear selection or tell you "lern to healz". I loathe these folks -- their misuse of English for chat-speek wrankles my nerves on top of the sheer obnoxiousness they exude for claiming to be right and insisting all others are noobs. These players think they are top dog and can do no wrong. I want to strangle them -- not for being top in abilities, but for being ass hats.
What's the difference between the terms?
A "newbie" is forgiven mistakes because they are an honest to goodness new player -- whether to the game or just to that class and/or role combination. A "noob" is a player that is just screwing up in the insulter's view. A "nub" is chat-speeek insult for noob.
Why does this chafe me?
Name calling accomplishes nothing except raising blood pressure. If a leetist has a legitimate issue with a player, then educate them. Ridicule accomplishes nothing. Explain why what they did was poor and how to do it better next time. It makes you come off so much better and helps that player correct a bad habit.
Story Time
I was DPSing as an enhancement shaman at level 59 in Hellfire's Ramparts. Three of us actually say "Hi" in party chat, and I let everyone know that I'm still playing around with abilities and combos but that I'm on an alt character. No further chatter until we get to the final boss fight and my shammie died. No biggie. Then we have this jewel of a chat exchange:
HEAL: Sorry, Sham. Rez inc.
TANK: dont. he's a nub.
TANK: only did 500 dps in BoA gear. lolz.
TANK: ltp dude.
Are you friggin kidding me? That does nothing but piss me off! It doesn't offer any insights into how I can improve, or do better, or anything other than drop an insult and then leave group. What made this more frustrating was that I indicated I was learning and experimenting, and we had the whole instance run to make adjustments to my spell/ability usage. Our healer felt the same way.
HEAL: Dickheads! How about offering feedback instead of insults?
Yay! A like-minded soul!
Paying it Forward
On Peashooter, I don't claim to be the hunter expert. I'm not even in the top 1000. However, I am accomplished in my class and I do have a great command on the abilities Hunters have and what they can do with those abilities. When I see a Hunter wailing away on something with his melee weapon, I'll stop and offer suggestions. When I see a Hunter pulling sub-par DPS, I'll offer recommendations. Note -- these are offers! Not "you suck, do it this way". Most players are open for suggestions to improve their game. But at the same time, nobody wants to be called out negatively.
And, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as noobishness under level 85. Any character from 1 to 84 is simply a newbie learning to play their class. That's kinda the point of leveling, ain't it?
Leveling
By the very nature of where your character is, you're still leveling up with respect to skills, talents, gear and experience (for both new levels and actually how to play the class). Who should reasonably expect that your play mechanics are fine-tuned during the leveling process? That's why you're leveling and questing to learn those very mechanics.
End-Game Progression
However, once you've hit 85 and learned all the goodies your class trainer has, you should have a very good idea on how all of your abilities work and should be accomplished with fulfilling your character's role in an instance or raid. Obviously, a freshly minted 85 is not ready for heroics and gear does factor, but as far as how to play? That should be mastered by now.
Leetist Jerks
Then you meet one of the "leets". For me, they've been the result of the random instance queues. All they do is point out how sub-par your DPS is or make fun of your tanking gear selection or tell you "lern to healz". I loathe these folks -- their misuse of English for chat-speek wrankles my nerves on top of the sheer obnoxiousness they exude for claiming to be right and insisting all others are noobs. These players think they are top dog and can do no wrong. I want to strangle them -- not for being top in abilities, but for being ass hats.
What's the difference between the terms?
A "newbie" is forgiven mistakes because they are an honest to goodness new player -- whether to the game or just to that class and/or role combination. A "noob" is a player that is just screwing up in the insulter's view. A "nub" is chat-speeek insult for noob.
Why does this chafe me?
Name calling accomplishes nothing except raising blood pressure. If a leetist has a legitimate issue with a player, then educate them. Ridicule accomplishes nothing. Explain why what they did was poor and how to do it better next time. It makes you come off so much better and helps that player correct a bad habit.
Story Time
I was DPSing as an enhancement shaman at level 59 in Hellfire's Ramparts. Three of us actually say "Hi" in party chat, and I let everyone know that I'm still playing around with abilities and combos but that I'm on an alt character. No further chatter until we get to the final boss fight and my shammie died. No biggie. Then we have this jewel of a chat exchange:
HEAL: Sorry, Sham. Rez inc.
TANK: dont. he's a nub.
TANK: only did 500 dps in BoA gear. lolz.
TANK: ltp dude.
Are you friggin kidding me? That does nothing but piss me off! It doesn't offer any insights into how I can improve, or do better, or anything other than drop an insult and then leave group. What made this more frustrating was that I indicated I was learning and experimenting, and we had the whole instance run to make adjustments to my spell/ability usage. Our healer felt the same way.
HEAL: Dickheads! How about offering feedback instead of insults?
Yay! A like-minded soul!
Paying it Forward
On Peashooter, I don't claim to be the hunter expert. I'm not even in the top 1000. However, I am accomplished in my class and I do have a great command on the abilities Hunters have and what they can do with those abilities. When I see a Hunter wailing away on something with his melee weapon, I'll stop and offer suggestions. When I see a Hunter pulling sub-par DPS, I'll offer recommendations. Note -- these are offers! Not "you suck, do it this way". Most players are open for suggestions to improve their game. But at the same time, nobody wants to be called out negatively.
And, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as noobishness under level 85. Any character from 1 to 84 is simply a newbie learning to play their class. That's kinda the point of leveling, ain't it?
