Illiteracy

I like World of Warcraft. The game is fun, involved, and addicting. It's not perfect, but nothing is.

I've always been obsessed with Paladins. As a kid, I pretended to be a holy warrior cleansing the world of secret evils. As a preteen, I still loved those knights in shining armor, and anything resembling them in a game got my strict attention. As a teenager, I played Diablo 2, almost strictly as a Paladin.

And then there's WoW.

Paladins in WoW have, for a while, been significantly handicapped compared to other options. What ability they had was spread too thin, and what customization they had was too weak to make much of anything viable. I still had fun as them, not that I played for terribly long before migrating for the fall to a land in the east, despite the obvious weaknesses.

Blizzard promised to fix the problem and they'd already done a bang up job with the Warlocks (who now only suffer from one not terribly major problem), Priests, Hunters, Warriors, Druids and so on.

Now the first part of Blizzard's fix for the Paladins has started in the testing area, where any players can see a beta version of upcoming changes, and let's see what the people have to say on the matter.

And I quote:
"im gonan quit my pally if they dont fix this"
"i dont know if u noticed this but... ur 'dmg tree' 31 talent its still a buff... not even a damage one"
"will not be playing my paladin much"

Jargon aside, I would like to highlight a few things here.

I left out the long, incomprehensible single paragraph epics that have flittered across the Blizzard Paladin Forum, but I think that these quotes illustrate two points.

1. People aren't happy.
2. They are also illiterate.

The incredibly lengths to which these people have gone to decimate the English language are obscene. I by no means claim to be perfect in all my grammar and spelling. However, I at least try and think about whether or not I spelt a some words correctly. Even now the possibility of a mispelling of "illiterate" gnaws in the back of my mind.

I can put up with a certain amount of grammatical stretching on the internet. I love proper punctuation, I love proper capitalization, but I can understand that for some people typing on an instant messenger or to a forum doesn't immediately place priority on such things. However, a complete disregard for proper communication is something I can not gaze upon without my brain screaming at me in pain.

Yeah, I'm a masochist, and the internet is my tool.

Preservation of our once noble language aside, I want to get a little more in depth with "People are unhappy" assertion. People are largely complaining, and people are also largely complaining about other people, and people are also complaining back. Very few people seem content.

Most of the complaining is directed at what is being called a pathetic excuse for a patch that hasn't even been finalized yet. There isn't any change someone isn't complaining about. However a few things struck me.

A post by a Blizzard Representative in the forum stated several important facts.

1. They are not ready to reveal everything yet.
2. The minor details are listed within said post.
3. The minor details are basically the content of the current test area patch notes.

So, from the horse's mouth, we have that we do not yet have the information as to what the major changes will be.

Now Blizzard, who did a bang up job of fixing every other class with only minor bits and pieces of problems here and there, are reacted to in one of the following ways.

1. They are called liars.
2. They are called lazy.
3. They are accused of hating Paladins.
4. The person claims that they are quitting the game.
5. The person claims that Blizzard doesn't listen to a thing the players say.
6. The person cites that Blizzard is too obsessed with the special system of combat for the Paladin.

I, perchance, have also spent some time in the Warlock forum. I noticed some similarities with regards to Blizzard's work being done on fixing one final problem with the Warlocks. The reactions to Blizzard's work and posts were along these lines.

1. They are called liars.
2. They are called lazy.
3. They are accused of hating Warlocks.
4. The person claims they are quitting the game.
5. The person claims that Blizzard doesn't listen to a thing the players say.
6. The person cites that Blizzard is too obsessed with the special system of combat for the Warlock.

Familiar?

My own experience with WoW was spent playing the game. I was never inclined to visit the forums for any reason, because I could just be playing the game. This experience seems to be similar for most players that I meet. The average and above average player does not spend their time in the forums, but actually playing the game.

From all this, I conclude the following:

1. The vast majority of people in the forums do not spend much time playing the game.
2. The vast majority of people in the forums are not good at the game.
3. The vast majority of people in the forums will call Blizzard lazy if they say nothing, and liars if they say anything but "We gave the Paladin a spell where he summons God, and wins."
4. The vast majority of people in the forums believe that Blizzard has no grasp of the game they made.
5. The vast majority of people in the forums complain regardless of what happens.

Having played the Paladin, my opinion is that the minor details that we have are very exciting, and definately worthwhile. For minor details, it's quite a bit of goodness. Not an exceptional amount, but a good bit. If that's just the minor details, the major ones should be super awesome.

If there really are no major details, I won't be too upset either. What Paladins are getting already is pretty good, although not on par with what the other classes recieved. The only thing that will bug me is the misrepresentation of what the Paladin would be recieving. However, as Blizzard has generally shown themselves to be excellent, I'm more than willing to forgive them that. Companies have done far worse to their game than marginal improvements (I feel for the loyal players of Final Fantasy and Star Wars: Galaxies).

So, in summary, the people of the Blizzard forums are an illiterate lot who are inherently distrustful of anything a competant authority says unless it is "We're about to make your life super easy" and would complain if they won a million dollars because it wasn't two.