Before you judge.

This will be my first blog entry. I wanted to make it something tankadinish, but had this on my mind and wanted to vent. These are my thoughts in response to those who have felt the need to insult my own and others intelligence because they have seen the end game and others have not.

I have been playing multi-player interactive online games now for close to a decade. Starting on what were know as M.U.D.s (multi user dungeons) and ending up on wow I have experienced a wide range of play styles. I've had some of the best gear these games have had to offer, and some of the worst. I've seen what brings an individual or a guild success, as well as what causes frustration and failure. Overall, after everything I've seen there is one thing that stands out the most. That is the amount of effort required in order to do well.

The thing both love and hate about these games is that you do actually have to work at them in order to succeed. You can't just turn the game on, beat it in one long night and then be bored with it forever. Being a successful end-game raider requires dedication, passion, humility, and mostly.... time. Lots, and lots, of time.

I take a look back at the period in my life when I was doing end-game raiding on a M.U.D. called arctic. The one main difference I notice between then and now is how much effort I was putting into progressing in the game. I was playing pretty much 7 days a week and up to 10+ hours a day sometimes. This amount of effort brought me a reward. I was able to gear up my character with some of the best items available to my class (and the best weapon) in a game where you could loose several month's worth of gearing in an instant due to a death trap or getting jumped by other players and having your corpse looted. Getting and maintaining that level of gear was very, very hard but I did it. For over five years...

But then life started calling, and I started playing less and less. My level of skill didn't go down, but my ability to maintain my gear and my sanity in such a competitive environment simply was not enough to keep going. Eventually I stopped playing that game and since then have been raiding on and off with other games and guilds up until today.

The frustrating conclusion I have come to after thinking about all this is that I am really not much different of a player now as I was then, yet my progress in the game I have chosen to play is quite a bit less. I still have good reflexes as a tank. I still have a high level of awareness of what's around me. I still have a intense passion about playing well and my performance for the most part matches my passion. The problem is I don't have the time to stay for an extra clear of trash to try a boss again, or to gem/enchant my healing gear with the best stuff, or to get enough badges before 2.3 comes out to be the best tank I can be for ZA and the other content my guild will be doing.

Nothing has changed from my end game days and now except the amount of time I have to spend playing a video game. I am absolutely certain that given the same amount of time and motivation to progress I once had that I would be able to excel in a top end-competitive guild on a game as easy to understand and play compared to my previous one as wow. Yet somehow I am a noob, an idiot, or some other derogatory term because I haven't beaten all current endgame content... before everyone else for that matter.

It is just amazing how much stupidity goes into the boasting, mocking, and general foolishness some of the members of the world of warcraft community participate in. Guess what guys? You're not impressing anyone who isn't even more of a fool then yourself.