WOTBB 32 – Attitudes

Original date of blog: July 1st, 2015

One of the things irking me about the game and everything connected to it lately, is attitude. There’s all kinds of attitudes, and all kinds of attitudes that irk me. And I’m not sure what changed; the attitude, or my tolerance level for it. It could be a bit of both.

In game, there’s a lack of general manners that I find more than a little annoying, and frankly, very rude. It’s why I wrote the Tankiquette I mentioned last blog. And though I can’t expect everyone to uphold it, I’ve come to point where I simply don’t tolerate bad manners anymore.

I can understand calling your team noob – up to a level. If they’re being generally useless or are camping all over the place, I can understand it. If that happens and I die, I just say ‘team, wtf?!’ and then I go look at people individually. And if someone is being particularly useless, I tell them that. But I’ve stopped with the naming and shaming. I don’t even call them noobs anymore.

Well, to my platoon mate in private chat and/or on teamspeak, sure, but I no longer cuss at them. Because I don’t know what’s behind their way of playing. They could be stock, they could have high ping, they could just not have a clue about the game. Whatever the reason, who am I to judge them? And calling them names will just make them feel bad, and sink me to a level I really don’t want to be at.

A few days ago, I was platooning with Great White Shark. We had some terrible losses, and we were both getting frustrated. He came to the point where we started a match and he told the other team before the game even started that they should F themselves. That was a really big no-no for me. They hadn’t done anything wrong, and had done absolutely nothing to deserve that. So I told him off for that, and made it clear that if he did something like that again, I’d leave him.

He apologised, and behaved afterwards, but I did realise that for me, that works. And I’ll do it again, if my platoon mate is showing himself to be an arse. I don’t care about stats, I don’t care if we win or lose as long as we try our best and have fun. But I do care about manners. I don’t like to be cussed at, and I seriously doubt anyone else does. So, if you platoon with me, you can cuss about the team and whatever all you want in private chat and/or on teamspeak, but you will behave in public and set a good example for the team, or the platoon is over.

It might be a bit extreme, but the thing is, cussing, the naming and shaming, it ruins the game and the atmosphere. It’s just a game, and it should be fun for everyone. People getting too frustrated, should just take a deep breath and count to ten. I know that I for one play worse and worse the more frustrated I become, and I can’t imagine that being different for others.

But that’s not the only attitude to irk me, of course. Just the biggest one. In our clan chat and on the WotB Facebook groups, lots of battle reports and results get shared. Games that they’re proud of, of Ace tanker badges, awesome damage, Ras, Pools, Kolobanovs, etc. All things to be proud of to be sure, but lately the tone has changed.

With some people, it’s gone from ‘omg, look what I did’ to ‘omg, look at how noob the rest is compared to me’. It’s a completely different tone, and it comes across as very arrogant and very demeaning towards the rest. Especially when it’s games against people I know and respect, it hits a nerve with me. Anyone can have bad battles or bad days.

There’s a big difference between being proud of yourself for something amazing you managed to do, and talking down on other people because they didn’t do the same. And I hope to whatever deity you believe in that I will never get like that. I already know I can come across as arrogant without meaning to, and I try and watch my words to make sure people get things in the way I mean them, but I never want to degrade other people. It’s not my style and I would hate myself for it.

I’m not entirely sure what to do about it though inside the clan-chat though, aside from mentioning it here and hoping people recognize their own behaviour and change it. It’s not technically something for me to address, but I wonder if they realise how conceited it makes them look.

With the people from Facebook it’s easier – I just don’t comment, and I don’t like the post. It’s actually a reason I veto’d someone from joining the clan. I don’t want that kind of attitude in my clan. And I kind of hate that it’s crawled into it somehow.

A few days ago, I posted a collage on the Blitz forum to show off me completing all the TD-lines (something I’ll write about next blog entry). I commented on needing a new goal now, and got offered one: getting married and having kids. This cracked me up, but someone else took it entirely different and basically chewed the guy out for being a sexist.

I responded to that – seeing as the chewing out was far ruder than the comment about marriage could ever be, even if the guy had meant it seriously (I’m still convinced it was a secret proposal because he was impressed by my awesomeness 😉 ). The reply was that he might have overreacted and that he was sorry for maybe overreacting. Not an apology for his rudeness or anything.

I should have let it go then. But manners are my hang-up, and I didn’t. No one’s perfect, after all, and least of all me. Thing is though, if I’m not offended at the joke made at my expense, why should he be? And at the same time, am I right to try and correct behaviour I find bad when I don’t know if the person it’s directed to has a problem with it? Doesn’t that make me just as bad?

In the end, I did apologise for not letting it go sooner, after the guy that made the joke stepped in. He was right to do so, especially considering the insult was directed at him, and not me. I’ll try and be more careful in the future, think things through more, but it’s a slippery slope. If it happened again, it’s likely I would go down the same path, but I probably would make myself let it go sooner. I hope.

Of course, it’s not all bad. There’s good attitudes as well. There’s the people that make me laugh a lot, the dry humour, the trolling, the spamming. The people that let me rant when I need to, that understand my frustrations perfectly. I need all those things, to be able to enjoy the game, and the whole clan-business, and to keep going.

And then there’s this; yesterday, I was feeling a little depressed because reasons, and one of the guys from the clan went out of his way to make me smile so I wouldn’t go to bed feeling sad. The video he linked me to definitely made me laugh, but the fact that he made such an effort to make me feel better was just the sweetest thing ever and did much more than the video ever could. Thanks, hun. ❤ You know who you are.

Battles fought: 7,574
Winrate: 64.42%
Average damage: 1,587