Ok I vented some hate yesterday, but now I am at it again. This time I promise there won't be as much nerdrage however, as I just want to quitely contemplate over a relatively new phenomena we've been experiencing in WoW recently - the hobby ninja.
Now I'm not talking about regular ninjas. They've been around forever. Either it's a stupid person ninjaing something because he's not really sure of anything about the game, or either it's a spiteful person who does it just because he can, and only cares about himself. Generally, people either are ninjas or they're not. People either have a sense of decency and moral, even over the internets, or they don't. People don't generally jump from being nice to being ass wipes and back again.
This very thing is however what we've been seeing an increase of as of late. I am talking about the ones who need on items at the end of an instance and then leave, for the sole reason of being able to vendor or shard it for personal profit. Why do I think that these are hobby ninjas, and not just regular ninjas? Well they're just so god dang many of them! I seem to have one in every pug I do as of late. And I just don't want to believe that one fifth of the WoW population are douche bags (maybe I am being stupid again). I want to believe that ninjas used to be rare, and that something about the system make people go evil on eachother.
With the old system everyone could need on everything. That was both good and bad. That meant people who didn't really need an item could need on it, like say the warrior needing on the cloth shoes. Now the new system has changed that, but for good and bad as well. That means if some plate stuff drops only plate users can need on them. And if they do there is nothing you can do about it. Maybe it is this "nothing you can do about it" that seduces people into doing it. I'm no expert on the human mind so I don't know (wait a sec, that's not true. I have a degree in psychology!). But one other factor probably comes into play, namely the fact that so many people do it. It makes gentle, loving, caring (ok easy now) people like me want to be a ninja too.
Remember about the frost orbs? Some servers had the rule to need for them and some hadn't. My server hadn't. That meant I had to learn the hard way that some people simply did. And to not be left without any orbs I started needing on them as well, even when there where people in the party who still didn't. Hey I wasn't gonna be left out of the cake.
And now, when we're stuck with items that only some can need, and some do, I get that feeling of being left out again. And I want to punish those who take what's not rightfully theirs. But there is no real way of doing it. If I were to start needing on items, I wouldn't punish the douche bags, but the innocent by standers. Who then might turn into douche bags themselves. The douche baggeriness would spread like Corrupted Blood plague around the world!
My only comfort is that since most of the needers leave before the item is rolled for, they won't recieve it. I've tested this myself and that is how it works. It also seems like if you stay in the instance for the roll you have a higher chance of winning the roll than someone who's left (and who no longer can recieve the item anyway). But that is probably just my imagination.
Maybe one could think that there really isn't any point in whining about this. That whatever you're loosing is worth 25g at most, and you would just have a 20% chance of winning it the normal way anyway (assuming everyone could need on it, which rarely is the case). Well, it's a matter of money of course. Some people, like me, have pug runs as their main source of income (and that isn't much mind you)! Especially when Abyss Crystals are involved. And 20% chance is still infinite times better than 0% chance. But it is mostly a matter of common decency. We just did an instance together dude! We just cooperated to make something happen, to have a little fun and then you go and ruin it all like this? Don't you have any sense of ethics? Are we like computer players to you? Probably.
So what's the solution? I can really just see one as it is right now. Everyone should need on everything that drops. Some classes, like us cloth users, would have more competiton. On the other hand one could think that since that is so, Blizzard has designed for cloth items to have a higher drop chance. One could hope that the chance for certain items to drop is at least roughly correlated to the amount of cloth/leather/mail /plate users in the game. So if everyone just needed on everything they can in an instance, it would theorietically in the long run even out. It would basically revert back to the old, old days when the only roll options were need or pass. Another solution might be to be able to report the player, and if he gets enough votes he recieves a lfg-tool lockout of 48 hours or so, which would make him lose a frost emblem. That would be like the Vote to Kick system, but Vote for Ninja instead.
There are issues with these "solutions" of course. Plate items are for example generally worth more than cloth items. Some classes can use more weapons than others and so on. And if someone actually needs an item it would be hell to make sure no one else needs on it. Just like in the old days. And a vote system could be abused. Maybe people dislike someone for some other (bad) reason than being a ninja and decide to punish him by voting him as a ninja. Blizzard will most surely not look into every case to make sure there really was some ninjaing going on. But what else is there to do when the douche bags are becoming so common? When being a ninja has become something anyone could do. The possibility is there and there are no repercussions to their actions whatsoever. No wonder people get so tempted. It's like walking into a store and no one else is there. You quickly check for cameras and think "should I...?). I know you do. WoW has become lawless. Drastic situations require drastic measures!
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