Interesting How That Works
As you may have noticed, I’m actually pretty fine with the direction of Mists of Pandaria, pandas in general, and sort of feeding off of the entirely ridiculous vocal reactions against the expansion. Kind of like the opposite of the following Nietzsche quote:
“In every party there is one who through his all too credulous avowal of the party’s principles incites the others to apostasy.”
-Nietzsche, Human, all too Human
In other words, when you come across people who are so vehemently opposed to something (for seemingly irrational reasons), I for one have a subconscious tendency to moderate the behavior by adopting the opposite reaction. For example, I consider myself fairly liberal, but occasionally when I read some of the absurdly reactionary bullshit of other liberals, I suddenly find myself on the other side of the aisle. There is a story about how a police officer shot a dog, and it was presented to me as “If you aren’t upset, you aren’t paying attention. I don’t want my tax dollars supporting this:” followed by a picture of the officer and the dog. Queue a /facepalm.
That being said, after watching the latest episode of Legendary on Tankspot/Gamebreaker.tv, I finally got to see how Mists of Pandaria was actually introduced at BlizzCon. The following Youtube of the actual event is perhaps the most painful thing I have ever seen:
Instead of watching the whole thing, you can skip to 2:30 when it really gets painfully overdone.
Guys, it’s just possible that the curious race we’re going to meet in this mystic land, may just teach us a thing or two about who we are, and why we fight.
I think I hurt the muscles in my neck from having cringed so goddamn hard at the above quote. If anyone’s reaction against Mist of Pandaria is based on having watched that video, you have my full blessings to have gone (and continuing to go) ape-shit over the internet.
I am still fine with the expansion, for the record, but it was clear from the video and overall presentation on how cognizant Blizzard was that people would be upset about a “direction shift.” And in being cognizant of possible negative reactions, Blizzard legitimized them. I believe the expansion would have gone over a lot better if they did not draw so much of a contrast between what came before and what was on the horizon. Don’t remind people of all the outlandish sequel escalation that they have experienced over the last 5-6 years, especially when said escalation had definitive bad guys on the box.
And more importantly, if the Horde/Alliance war is going to heat up, put that in the goddamn teaser trailer. As in, Theramore in flames, Alliance soldiers on the march, something, anything. We know Pandaria will be turned into a fantasy Vietnam, with two superpowers parachuting in to bring a little heat to the otherwise Cold War. The whole Horde and Alliance war is amazingly keyed up, and gets the blood pumping in a way fairly unique in the history of opposing faction gameplay – that linked thread is 177 pages long with ~4000 posts. Put that front and center, and you’d likely find people more amicable to the idea of pandas being srs bsns.
Posted on October 31, 2011, in WoW and tagged BlizzCon, Mists of Pandaria. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
In An Age 
You’re a critical mind. You like to point out why somebody is wrong. If I had made posts about how much I love Panadas you would have felt a need to tell me that Pandas really aren’t that great, because e.g. some people quit due to them.
It’s not bad to always argue against others – I did that a lot some ten years ago. But one has to be careful to not come across as the guy who always argues against, no matter what is said. One way to achieve this is by focusing on “on the one hand – on the other hand” style of arguing.
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Adding to this, it sometimes feels like this: one makes four assertions. (1), (2), (3), (4) and you seem to be looking only where you can disagree. Now, let’s assume you find some good arguments why (4) is not entirely correct.
Instead of writing “I agree with (1-3), but I disagree with (4), because..”, you usually skip the first part and end up with “I disagree, because (4)…”. This is not only not the best way to find “the truth”, but it’s also annoying for the one who wrote (1-4) originally.
That having said, most people make this mistake, including me.
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Actually, no, although I like how you (perhaps unintentionally?) tried to box me in a “have you quit beating your wife yet?” sort of way; I cannot disagree with you without appearing to be disagreeable.
If you supported pandas, I would not have argued against you. If you simply didn’t like pandas, as was my own initial reaction, I would not have argued against you. Strong negative reactions however, such as rage-quitting hours after just posting “I’m staying in WoW,” warrant closer scrutiny. Not to show how wrong they are, but to legitimately ascertain if they may, in fact, be correct.
As far as arguments go, it is not about pointing out why someone is wrong as it is identifying areas of improvement. I do this as part of my job: revising and streamlining instructions, training procedures; interpreting rules based on justifications and logical extensions of precedence; and so on. I probably missed my calling as a paralegal, honestly. In college I would volunteer to review rough drafts of English and Philosophy papers. This sort of thing is fun for me.
Maybe that is basically what you were saying, but the nuance is important. To me, anyway. A safety inspector likes pointing out mistakes. So does a lawyer. So does a cynical asshole. The difference in motives is an important distinction, even if the enjoyment is the same.
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Actually, no, although I like how you (perhaps unintentionally?) tried to box me in a “have you quit beating your wife yet?” sort of way
That certainly wasn’t my intention ;).
What I wrote down is my opinion on how you (but not only you!) sometimes come across and what can be done about it without becomeing a yes-man.
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Well, gee whiz, thank you for letting me have my own opinion on the internet and carrying your blessing, sir! Appart from your condescending attitude, I do agree that most of the vocal reactions are indeed funny (especially to a man, who stopped playing half a year ago).
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