The Pandas or The People

I mentioned my dislike for the golden lotus dailies a few times and even made a full post about it yesterday but I wonder where my dislike for them really comes from.

It is not like the quests are any different then other quests.  Kill 8 of these, go click on this, go use this item on 6 people, you know, the basics that every quest in every fantasy MMORPG ever.  So why do I dislike the golden lotus ones so much if they are no different than any other quest hub in the game.

At first look I would think it could be the number of quests.  You do one quest hub to get sent to another quest hub and then to a third quest hub.  It is like doing 3 sets of dailies for the reputation that one set of dailies give you anywhere else.  That could be it right?

I remember when I was trying to finish off all the achievements and the random nature of them and their three tier dailies were getting on my nerves.  All I needed were the achievements from the quest hub(s) at the setting sun garrison and I could not get sent there for the life of me.  I was already past exalted before I got there and got the quests from there that would allow me to get the achievement.  That could be it right?

Those sprites and the quests where you need to kill them can be a nightmare for most classes but no more than say, collecting goat steaks, or turtle meat.  While it was not a drop rate thing that made them annoying like those others it was the fact that if you close your eyes for a second you could have 6 of them on you and they all run in their own directions so AoEing them is not always an option but like anything else, you out gear it and/or learn how to pull one at a time if you have not out geared it.  Nothing different from adjusting to those charging goats that have killed so many.  But this could be it right?

Maybe where you start got to me on a subconscious level being you are basically at 0 neutral or a little above if you happened to run into the few quests they had to offer.  Not even friendly when you start off when the other faction of its like, a gear faction, the klaxxi you were honored when you started the grind when you hit 90 and that was even before the changes, now you will be well into revered when you hit 90.  Maybe it is this?

The 100 reputation, more with bonuses, per quest does seem like you are banging your head against the wall but there are a fair deal of quests there and it adds up.  Sure, I can get as much angler reputation in 3 quests and one tenth of the time spent doing them as I do with the lotus in one day, but I have no aversion to spending time and making an effort.  You are talking someone with more than 65 exalted reputation and many of them were gained before they became a joke to get like they are now.  But could it be this?

Maybe it is the time involved.  But when I did it on my main, which did not have that double reputation, I had every single faction to exalted in 3 weeks of release and I do not know about you but 3 weeks is not exactly what I call a long reputation grind.  Go get the reputation for something like the molten core and see how many weeks that takes even if it is super easy for any class in the game to do it, now that is long.  Golden lotus does not take a lot of time really and anyone that says it does is dead wrong.  Doesn't mean it isn't this right?

There are many things I might dislike about them but none of them are reasonable.  The quests are no different than any others.  All hubs have some annoying quests.  Random is random and while annoying, I will get my achievements sooner or later and I know that.  Reputation gains, and the grind involved, is fun for me, call me weird.  So why do I dislike them?

So why do I hate the golden lotus quests so much when I really have no reason to hate them, design wise that is.  I think it is the people that do them that annoy me the most.

Those dailies seem to be the dailies people do the most, outside of the tiller ones.  It seems being other factions are locked behind them everyone is doing them.  It could also be that because it is so close to the new home city people pop out and do those while waiting in queue for a random or just for some valor or something to do.  The requirement to do them, the fact there are a lot of them to do and they give you gold, valor, and lesser tokens, all that means lots of people doing them all the time.

The worst part is that with more people means more jerks.   Like one mage on my server who loves to grief everyone on my server when there is the quest to collect the barrels from the sprites.  When someone hits a sprite he runs over and grabs the barrel and laughs at them.  He keeps this up all day long.  My guess is he is trowing them away once he gets them which is what is allowing him to keep doing this.

He made such a big deal about doing it and saying how cool it is that he has created a following and now there are more people doing it.  If that happens to be the golden lotus daily of the day it is not even worth doing.  Him and his low life scum friends will make sure to screw everyone over and keep them from getting barrels.

I had only one run in with him.  That one time I attacked two and he took the barrels and then did the laugh emote at me.  I whispered him one word, jerk.  He responded, cry more baby.  I said, not crying, just pointing out you are a jerk.  He said F you, then whispered again, if you don't like it leave, then added a third whisper saying to I should go screw myself.  Finally I answered him back and said, if you get that upset because someone calls you a jerk maybe you should stop acting like one.  Needless to say he left me alone after that and went to try to annoy someone else.  Goes to show you that people like that can dish it out but can not take it.  All I did was call him a jerk and he freaked out.  Someone has issues wouldn't you say? 

The sad part is, most people will not defend themselves or keep their cool like I did.  A study of online interaction says that more often than not people take things like this personal.  It did not bother me because I am one of those people that just don't care, about anything really.  So it does not bother me like it does most.  See, I can be just as big a jerk as he is and I generally ignore people like him.  So he can not get to me but it does get to a lot of people.  I've heard three stories of people getting a warning because of language they used in whispers to him, yet strangely enough nothing has ever been done to him.  One person even server transferred off my server because of him.

The problem is that he is not a rarity.  He is just the one I mentioned.  There are dozens of people like him running around the golden lotus area, perhaps because it is so close to the main city, doing whatever they can to ruin everyone elses play time.

Other favorites of the area are the jerks like hunters with FD, paladins with bubble, night elves with shadowmeld, rogues with vanish, and many other aggro dump abilities that round up massive packs and look for unsuspecting victims to drop them all on and kill them.  Then they teabag the bodies and laugh at them.

Have the quest for the relic?  You are not getting it on my server.  There will always be someone standing there waiting for someone else to open it up so they can take it.  One guild mate had this happen 7 times in a row until he just gave up and came back a few hours later because people, usually the same people, grief the relic by standing on it and taking it from others over and over. Of course they do the point and laugh afterwards just to rub in how cool and awesome they are and you are just a nerd for playing a video game.  Not kidding with that comment.  One of those jerks said in trade something just like that when someone complained about the jerks in the lotus questing areas.  He said, you are just jealous because I am not some nerd like you, I play to have fun and keeping you from completing the quest is fun, go nerd rage elsewhere.  See, it makes him cool... to the people with brain damage maybe.

I've been lucky over all.  I've only had one run in with the barrel guy and I think I made him cry because I was so mean calling him a jerk.  I never had any relic issues and if someone drops a lot of mobs on me, as long as they are not tagged and I can tag them for myself, I say thank you for rounding them up for me.  But that does not change the fact I hate these people and my server is overflowing with them.  It seems like every third person is out to fuck everyone else over just for the fun of it.

Why do I hate the golden lotus?  Is it the pandas or the people?

Perhaps wanting to set that rogue pandas fur on fire while he is in a cage is misplaced anger.  And pretty darn mean.  It is not the golden lotus I dislike doing those quests because of, it is the player base that makes me hate doing them.

Once again, good game design is ruined by low life people and blizzards inaction to moderate their own community.  Amazing how people that went off on the jerks received warnings or bans but the jerks themselves didn't.  Even with my one and only interaction with one, I can tell you for sure they do get rude in their remarks.  Why did blizzard not ban them?

Blizzard could fix the problems there.  Tag the barrel for the person that hit the mob and made him drop it. Make the relic lootable for 30 seconds after it is opened by everyone, so no more having it stolen from under you.  Everyone likes to say that the bad community is not blizzards fault, but they are wrong.  Blizzard created these ways that the jerks use to harass people, that means it is blizzards fault.  Blizzard should know how people act better, they are not some rookie to the gaming industry.

On average people are scum and blizzard should know that by now.  Just look at the original LFR loot rules.  They were fine the way they were.  It was the massive collection of jerks that rolled on items they did not need that made the original system crap.  I saw nothing wrong with the loot system, if you need it you need it, if you want it but you do not need it, greed it.  Main spec is a need, offspec is a greed.  Standard rules of every raid ever in the history of the game.  Standard rules every decent person that plays the game follows without being told they need to.  Too bad the people that play the game are scum.  That is the reason the loot system had to change, not because it was bad but because the player base was horrible.

That is what it comes down to.  I do not hate the golden lotus quests because of the golden lotus, I hate them because of the people.

Too bad we can't lock those players in cages and set them on fire and their avatars would be gone forever, burnt away into ashes and blown away with the wind.  Yeah, they deserve it more than that poor panda did.