Raining on your parade?

So far, this game has been relatively free of elitists - of those who make fun of those they believe to be lesser instead of helping them reach a higher level of play. GWG especially has been fairly calm [compared to GWO ].

Then I posted a R/W Axe build w/o an Elite [lol] I tried in Random Arena today in The Campfire forum, where I received some very negative posts, including these
About my build:About The Campfire forum:I personally find this game fascinating. The number of skill combinations is endless, and a recent Fansite Friday revealed that they plan to have over a thousand skills as this game progresses. I used to play TCGs a lot, and am amazed that this game actually has a metagame, where one must adapt to the builds currently in dominance. I hear that reconaisance [sp?] is important before Guild Battles in order to have the correct strategy and counters to opponents.

However, I am one of those casual gamers that GW claims to target. I don't have much time, considering my long-distance relationship, a part-time job, and soon, 15 units worth of schoolwork [and longer-distance relationship ]. I don't have a majority of skill points unlocked, so I like to experiment with what I have, and what better opportunity than this weekend's PvPX, where a good build will reward me with a good amount of faction without having to trouble the higher arenas.

I know elitists are inevitable, but why is a game for casual gamers so negative toward them? Is it that once they have reached the top, they forget who they once were? Could it be that power, even insubstantial, truly corrupts? Or is it just proof that man is evil? Are elitists as common in GW as compared to other games?

I apologize for a rant, but I hate for my and other people like me's experience in this great game be ruined by a few dark clouds in the sky.

I havent played much PvP yet but PvE has been extremely friendly pretty much all across the board. People answer questions you ask in the local chat almost right away, almost everyone will take the time to explain things to you if you need it.

The time spent in PvP I did find some people who thought they were "hardcore" but in my opinion it wasnt overpowering. I too am just a casual player my time available for the game spikes up and down week by week and I think you'll find that most people are like that too. There will always be snobby people in games because there will is always snobby people in real life. I wouldn't worry about it because most players arent like that.

The r/w topic has been discussed to death and yet neither side has convinced the other side. All it is proof of is that man does get fed up with making the same argument twenty million times.

You got flamed. Honestly, you probably didn't completely deserve it, but deal with it. The way you're responding to it is completely immature and shows that your enthusiasm is dampened too easily. People get sick of the seeing the same thing and correcting the same (possibly percieved) mistakes. I saw your build, and yes, it was pretty bad. Obviously, the quoted lines didn't add anything to the thread but give them a break, they're not payed to be nice to newer players.

High-level PvP is about competition and victory. Why are you surprised that PvPers malign you for posting an obviously inferior build?

I'll spell this out for you.

The build you posted was awful. It wasn't even the interesting variety of awful. Terrible Ranger/Warrior melee builds are posted in that forum every few days.

The subject has been beaten to death dozens of times over. Yet every few days, like clockwork, another Ranger/Warrior melee build pops up.

Hence, the general reaction to yet another post on that subject is 'you have go to be kidding me', or as Eonwe so eloquently put it 'why do we even bother?'

What you managed to do was stir up a topic that makes the scrubs go 'Oooh! I love my melee Ranger so much!' and makes the 'elitists' groan. There was never going to be a shred of useful build discussion in that thread, and everyone knew it.

Of course you decided to add a bit of fuel to the fire anyway:

So what exactly did you hope to accomplish by posting that thread? You didn't want criticism of your build, so, what, you just wanted all the other Ranger/Warriors to gather around so you could form a social circle?

You think that 'those who know what they are talking about' are going to be thrilled when you come into their forum, the one where new builds are dissected and criticized in one of the few serious wings of the site, and set up your own little 'criticism free happy scrub zone'?

Of course not.

This topic has been beaten to death. Use the search function. Love the search function. If you don't want to discuss your build, don't post it in *build discussion*. If you don't want to make your build better, there's nothing to discuss. It's that simple.

Peace,
-CxE

2 major problems are causing this.

1. What you are doing in creating your own build is being an individual. You are not following the herd aimlessly. Openly stating you are a casual player also bans you from ever possibly being one of the 733t, h4x0r, Uber Godly "I pwnz U n00b!1!!!" players. This pushes you further from the locker room nakid butt smacking banter.

You are an outsider. You are not interested in or, in some cases, able to conform and therefore deserve to be discriminated against with all the fervor a weak minded extremist can muster.

2. Even if you keep your mouth shut from now on, you will not escape this treatment. Due to A-Net's farming nerfs it is unlikely that playing a few hours a week will ever net you anything close to black dyed 15k or Fissure, a maxed out Crystaline and maxed out Shadow. (I think that combo would run you about 1.5-2 mill with the fissure, maybe more). You will therefore look different, (liek teh stpuid n00b lolz!!1!). And again, my second paragraph will apply.

Good luck my friend. I'm in the same boat as you.

One more thing though. I looked at the build you posted. Honestly, it was pretty bad... Keep reading and keep trying though, you'll come up with something!

PS: You now owe me Slade, I'm gonna take some SERIOUS flame off yer behind for this post... =)

"So what exactly did you hope to accomplish by posting that thread? You didn't want criticism of your build, so, what, you just wanted all the other Ranger/Warriors to gather around so you could form a social circle?"

If that was his purpose, what is wrong with it? Nothing the matter with that in a social game on a board where people socialise.

You can tell someone thier build stinks without being mean, and if it is that bad and overdone just ignore it. Pretty easy to do and is generally a nice thing.

Though I would also add that the original poster didn't seem to handle criticism too well and posted on a board that was inviting such a thing. Also easy to ignore.

I just don't see enough for either side to get too worked up over it.

Most people post on campfire because they desire criticism, a good deal of the OPs in there ask for it, and subsequently thank those who ripped into their ideas. They don't do this because they're humble people (well maybe they are), they do it because taking criticism makes them better players.

Amen. I don't recall ever getting a build of mine trashed by the more experienced guys before, but I know I've posted some n00b builds there in the past, and looking back, I can't believe how bad those builds are compared to what I can put together now. lol.

Many very peaceful things are used for horrendous purposes... The most notable being dynamite... the name of dynamite's inventor is now the highest award a person can receive globally for working towards peace, yet without dynamite we'd never have had nuclear weaponry... or probably even effective bullets.

The game may have been "meant" for casual gamers, but admit it, it's addictive to the point of being hazardous to your health... combine that with the crowd drawn in from counterstrike and other such high-aggression/low-tolerance games and you have this result.

Myself, I've found that once I had found a reasonable group of people to work with (my guild and my PvP regular friends) the most I've had to put up with is a few retards spamming racism or F*U* in local chat...

I love this game... too much... I can't wait for Black and White 2 to be released so I can stop this game for a while and possibly regain some of my savagely sacrificed health.

Hehe, funny thread. I'm afraid elitists appear in all games and this one is no different. Getting more vocal in their 'closed shopness' though...

Regular forum readers see trash builds like that about every time they look at The Campfire. Seeing the same garbage day in and day out is what causes the brutal responses from the "elitists." If you'd just search in there a bit you'd probably see some other thread with practically the same bad build being owned by the "elitists" and you'd think twice about repeating someone else's mistake.

Oh, and by the way: R/W is inferior to W/Anything in melee. Stop trying to say otherwise.

Ah, the militant scrub! What a rare breed you are! Yes, despite being terrible at the game you can still look down upon others because of - wait for it - your *creativity*.

Because, you know, it isn't like those good builds that people copy were ever invented by someone. Or refined by someone. Or had a whole lot more creative energy than you can even imagine pumped into them.


Where the hell have you been? We openly mock people with that stuff as well.

"Oh my god guys, he has a Chaos Axe, everyone run!"


He's being incredibly foolish. He posted it in build *discussion*. Just taking a casual look at the contents of the forum would give him a very good idea of what sorts of discussion take place there. If you're going to post a build there, it's going to get ripped apart and its parts laid bare for everyone to see. Or, in this case, was so bad that it wasn't even worth analyzing, and the forumites made it abundantly clear that was the case.

If he didn't want that to happen to his build he needed to post in a different forum, or not at all.


Why do people insist on quoting my posts in their entirity, when it is abundantly clear that they never bothered to even read them in the first place?


What, praytell, was there to criticize? The build he posted was dogshit, and a constructive list of everything wrong with that build would take far more effort than it deserved. The only advice worth giving was 'this build is terrible. Go read this forum and others some more, go work on your build a bit, and come back when you have something useful to say'.

Or, and I'm not trying to justify this response as much as explain it, they simply respond with their own version of 'would you people please stop posting the exact same bad builds over and over again? I'm getting tired of wading through it'.


Not only was there no discussion in that thread, but there was zero potential for discussion. None. Nothing to discuss. In fact the only person who did try to help at all was attacked for it by the OP. If you try and sell trash as gold to a bunch of people who know better, they're going to call you on it, and let you have it. This should surprise no one.

Peace,
-CxE

If there was no discussion possible then why did you reply?

You couldn't ignore the thread and let it pass, or better yet lets someone with more patience than you point out the short comings of the build so that a newer player would learn.

No matter what you hear it's possible to avoid posting on every thread you're an expert on.

Two points:
1. Do not post in build discussion if you can't handle criticism. If the criticism is out of line, PM a mod or one of the forum regulars and ask why your post got such a harsh reception.
Most likely you A) Posted a bad build or B) Posted a bad build that's been posted before.

2. If you're new, start by asking questions. If you show you want to learn and improve it will encourage other people to give you constructive advice. If you only come with your "great build that rocks", you line yourself up nicely to be knocked down. The same goes on any forum- if you're new, take the time to learn the basics, or ask someone who's familiar what's going on.

Those are absolutes.
As a mod, threads which do not contribute to the discussion on the forums will be closed or deleted. And if you have a problem with that, bring it up with the individual mods or find an existing post in our Site Feedback forum.

Why do people try to argue with Ensign....?

You can't win an argument because hes always right.

I'd argue with Ensign, but not about GW or anything numbers-related.

To the OP:
If a bunch of players flamed it, there's a damn good reason why. In this case, it was really bad. Ranger Expertise + Warrior energy attacks + spread attribute points = bad build. R/W or W/R tends to be worse off then just running a pure warrior.

They're pretty rough on the builds discussion, and for a good reason too: if you're posting a build there for critique, you should probably expect it to be turned inside out, torn apart, pureed, and handed back to you. In this case, though, they booted it out the window, which pretty much means there was nothing good to hand back to you.

Simply because it won a few times in random Arenas means pretty much jack squat; with the randomness and the massive influx of PvP this weekend, you're looking at a lot of bad players out there. Do Team Arenas, Guild battles or Tombs battles (if you can even get into them) and see how effective your build becomes then.

IMO on these boards a person shouldnt be trashed for posting a build. Leave that to crap to... the OTHER GW forum. Here ppl should act respectful & polite. Just my opinion...prolly get flamed for it eh?

you tellin us to be polite??? considerate??? YOu miserable bastard! you asking us to THINK???? STFU!!!!



thinking is for noobs

That's the truth.

While I think it's good to have things critiqued and argued, it is possible to do it kindly. After all, sometimes people are new at build creation and, on a first attempt, it's possible that they make mistakes.

That said, OP, you sort of asked for it by some of the things you said. I agree with the ones who said that the best way to approach a new build (at least to you) is to ask questions and *gasps* use the search key to see if it's been discussed before. Only after doing those things would it be adviseable to post your build. Then put on your Fissure armor and get ready for the ride.

Having one's ideas taken apart and analyzed, however, shouldn't give people the right to be abusive either. It's astonishing to me how plain downright mean others can be. Analysis doesn't require ugliness.

Incipit: I consider the OP extremely silly for posting a second time to defend a horrible build. The following is not written in his defence.

Corpus: I don't envy the PvP elite. My guild is ranked 40-60, so I consider myself something more than decent, but frankly, I never felt the unexplicable urge to bash on others the way some people do. There's a silent truth in
net-gaming: pro players are (or should be) not only a lot better than the average, but helpful and nice to other less experienced fellas or to the newcomers. They should "embrace the new blood" in a sense. They're pro, they're the best players a community has to offer, who's supposed to be nice other than them?

While this happens often elsewhere, the GWguru elitist community is, respectfully speaking, made of graduated arrogants full of their own crap. Apart from some of them who contributed heavily to the forum and to the common knowledge of the game (Ensign, Sarus, Scaphism, Rex to name some of them) the scene is somewhat sad. Hell, the FPS community, where competition sky-rockets, looks like a league of british gentlemen compared to this.
The OP's build is awful, everyone who usually plays in Tombs knows it. So what? He's a casual gamer? I know many casual gamers, people have different lives and spare time. He didn't use the search button? Why, do some Idiot Savants use it when they post pointless rants repeated over and over? I could quote hundreds of unnecessary posts from the supposedly elitist branch of the forum.

Threads of enthusiastic people who reached the HoH for the first time were often spoiled by answers like "so what? maybe the time was right and you didnt fight any good team to get there, it's possible to hold the hall with 4 henchies at the right time. any noob can do it". Now, that's the way to make the community grow and welcome the new players!
Oh and let me guess. My post will probably be ripped apart and dissected by some of you who have way too much time to waste on forums. I already see the usual replies "this is useless, a rant over a rant over a rant", or "the guy called it upon him". Like I give a hoot. We could argue over the grass' colour for months, e-fights are lame.

Now I'll pretend for a moment I'm part of the elitist club and write a golden rule myself:

If you feel like you can't help treating a poster like a pile of shit, just don't post, it's really that easy.

Quoted and underlined for emphasis and for truth.

Please don't quote an entire post only to add one line of commentary. If you want to highlight one portion of a previous post, pull out just that portion so no one has to spend time reading through the same post twice.
-Scaphism

Slade xTekno,

Its the internet - don't expect any less. Honestly you got off light. I am not saying its right but gaming internet communities have been around long enough that unless this is the first time you ever logged on the web you should have seen it comming. =\

I post in reply to the Original Poster of this thread:

Aye, just take it easy.
If you read the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effect People" by Sean Covey before,
Habit 1: Be Proactive

"Be Pro-active instead of Re-active"

If you feel not happy, sad, or even angry when you see something negative targeted towards you, that is because you choosed to 're-act' in that way.

Take an example of
- a bottle of water
- a bottle of coke

If you shake both bottles violently, and then you compare the results:
- water: still remain calm as before, maybe just a few bubbles but they dissapear quickly
- coke: lots of bubbles, as if like wanting to burst out from the bottle


So, here's what you can do, don't re-act, be pro-act.

The next time you post a new build in these forums, criticism, flames, insults is expected.

So, what you can do is, look at things from an optimistic point of view, think positively.

Or you can just ignore their flames and insults all together, and if there are any constructive critism, take a read, then go back to your drawing table, and perhaps redesign your build.

"Don't Worry, Be Happy."
- Bob Marley

Cheers mate.

I dunno about you, but casual gamers don't usually post a lot on "guru" forums. Slade's tag is Ministry of Knowledge. Come on, I don't buy it for a second that he's a casual gamer if he posts here so often. Why would he spend more time on forums than in game? Wait, don't answer that...

To be fair Slade, you were treated like crap for that build you posted. Keep in mind though that Eonwe's an asshole by nature. Even his guildmates have attested to that in the past

Most of the people who really get flamed think they're right and refuse to believe anything else. For example that guy who is convinced gladiators defense is a good reason why other warriors shouldn't use frenzy.

I think it's probably years of dealing with idiots from online games.

You can only take so much stupidity before you give up on explaining to them why they are wrong knowing that they will simply ignore you.

Harder to do than it seems, apparently.

My first impressions of this forum were very poor. The level of condescention and arrogance on display was staggering. However, despite the fact that many of the posters seem to have the social graces of a pack of hyenas, there is a wealth of information here that makes wading through the bullshit worth the time.

Absolutely true on all points.

However, I do agree with the poster who said that the "professionals", the ostensible top tier players, should show a bit more restraint in their criticisms of newer players or players experimenting. After all, even professionals were once "noobs". That said, it's symptomatic of the way -most- professional "sportsmen/women" are in our society. Look at the childish arrogant dopes who play any professional sport. Those are the role models for others, sad to say. As with any group, however, there are both nice guys/gals and jerks. If one can look beyond the insults (on the negative side) or the strokes (on the positive side), there is indeed a wealth of information. That's why the search button is imperative and is a good "defense" against being ripped a new one.

Just be glad you didnt post it on The Guild Hall, there you would have been slaughtered. Be glad for small mercies

I'm trying to picture the young John McEnroe as a forumite.

That's just....scary.

It's not just today's sports "heroes" that are this way. They've been around forever, huh? Luckily, there are good decent sorts out there too. I always think of the Cardinals' Kurt Warner as a prime example of that.

VERY true.

I was trying hard to not post in this thread but unfortunately I failed.

Believe it or not Nash and Eonwe are both very nice people. I play with Eonwe nearly everyday and I wouldn't be exaggerating at all if I told you he was the best warrior in iQ and probably one of the best in the game. I think some of the people that have played with us in arena can attest to the fact that we aren't as immature and snobbish as might come across on the boards.

Beleive it or not Nash and Eonwe both used to post very helpful replies to nearly everyone that asked questions on guru. Unfortunately, somewhere between the 100 and 150th ranger/warrior post they simply lost it and decided "why bother attempting to teach people when 90% of people don't want to learn." It doesn't feel good to spend 15-30 minutes carefully responding to someone's build as to why what they are running is no good only to have them respond "STFU you noob I know what I'm doing I wtfpwn noobs in random arena." When 90% of the time you try to help someone they respond NOT by arguing their case logically and soundly but by saying "I know this build is the best because I THINK it is" you are very quickly going to stop helping people and start flaming people when they do make those types of posts.

As was once quoted somewhere on this board "Don't argue with idiots. They bring you to their level and beat you with experience."

The fact of the matter is guildwarsguru is an established community where many many people (not just the moderators) have put a lot of time into it to make it what it is. When you come to these boards you are effectively stepping into someone else's house and this is a house where we embrace constructive arguments between intelligent critical thinkers and those looking to learn from those arguments.

There are countless examples of topics where people post "inferior" builds or skills and are NOT flamed for it because they are clearly here to learn why a certain build or skill is not good. They are not here to proclaim to the world against all logical reason why they think their R/W is the darnest greatest thing since sliced bread and will lash out illogically against anyone who attempts to point out to them why their build well .... sucks.

It's a sad fact that for every experienced intelligent poster turned "elitist" there are 10 stubborn and ignorant members that refuse to better themselves or rationally discuss anything. In the end we end up with a forums where I use the search button to search for posts by people like Ensign, Zrave, Scaphism and the small handful of people that actually contirbute to the pool of guildwars knowledge that have made guru what it is.

actually (thank deity of choice) a large number of the elitests posting here are visitors from The Guild Hall

i visit their *outhouse* forum now and then and come back after washing my keyboard

Best quotes of the thread. For every "bad" post, there are hundreds of good, constructive, helpful posts. Believe me when I tell you that I understand the frustration with endless repetition on the same topics/builds. At the same time, what might be old hat to some, is new material for others.

Now in my 21st year of teaching, I try to remember my 8 year old students whenever I find myself forced to reply to the ten-thousandth request for a word when they're reading: I grit my teeth, smile and tell them gently what it is....though my smile could possibly be construed as gnashing of teeth.

OK, let's do a run down on these so horrible posts I made...

Was I being rude? Yes.
Was I also making a point? Yes, again.

This is exactly my point. Turns out you were just like all those others.

This is me trying to be helpful and nice. I even gave you a good Axe build. Note how you ignored all my input because you want to play your "cool" R/W. No wonder noone posts constructive input. You said you wanted it, but then you just ignore it. This has happened a million times before, so people who actually know something about the game become bitter and post rude and sometimes non-constructive input. People like you made us into what we are.

The point of a build discussion is to discuss builds. Now, you might think this includes posting yet another crappy build so other scrubs can come pat you on the back, but this just clutters up the forum and is derogatory to serious build strategy discussion. So, if you feel the need to share your trash builds with other scrubs, do it elsewhere.

This Thread and This Thread and soon this thread, comined with Your Thread and about 1000 other R/W threads before you got here is what is causing people to go off on such short fuses. R/W is practically the most beaten to death topic on these boards, with so many threads arguing the same points back and forth that it is a little bit annoyingto have to explain why R/Ws suck to each and every newcomer, especially when you know that they wont understand, they will defend their R/W, and then the R/W supporters crew will come and turn it into another 10 pages of pointless debate.

You want to know why R/Ws suck? Go read those threads. Cus I guarentee you after all those threads (especially mine ) no one is in the mood for more R/W debate.

I hope you can see, that after so much debate, so many times proving the same points over and over and over and debunking the same points over and over and over that some people just have lose it when another comes along after the dust has settled on the last thread and says "hey lok what an awesome R/W I have!"

is the only natural response

Not only that, he also posted an awful and clearly unfinished build. It didn't have an elite, and it used Power Attack on a Ranger primary. Really, what's the point?

Idiots just cant handle the fact the some stuff they pump out is just plain dumb, and then anyone with common sense who criticizes them is labeled as an eliteist, good o'l guru.

Oh, and just to let you know while your spamming those energy skills over and over you could be using adren skills with energy while your adren is charing up, its the same situation warrior primaries are always spamming attacks like your "cool looking-and-thats-about-it" r/w except the warrior primares have 16 in axe while your r/w has 12.

oh and the w primaries also have 13 armor penetration.

Is this really about "elitists" or do you just not want to face the fact that your build is inefficient.

I read what Slade wrote. He was being very responsive to the people who were on topic.

The topic was pretty much about Axe R/Ws and Nash goes off and posts a W/mo build >.>

I'm wondering why this guy bothered making a full topic in reply to 3-4 flames.

I have had a chance to read the original posts and have had a few PMs from the OP. I think that his true intent was to get some advice. As I said earlier: Though the R/W (or whatever the build might be) is "old news" to some people, it -isn't- to others. Perhaps his post there was a bit over the top but the responses weren't constructive either. Perhaps more helpful advice would have been to post links to some of the other discussions of the build.

I'm sure that, in retrospect, things on both sides could have been worded differently.