Playing a different game

We're so quick to ascribe the worst intentions to people, but is there another way to think about it?

This story is a life lesson, from the game World of Warcraft.

Warcraft was a huge addiction for me, and a good 6-7 years of my life were spent with it being one of my main hobbies. When my friend originally introduced me to the game, though, it looked incredibly corny.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, that’s my summon,” he said, referring to the large purple blob near his tiny gnome that was moving toward a monster. “He gets aggro and then the monsters hit it instead of me.”

“Looks like they want to hit you though…”

“What the… C’MON VOIDWALKER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”

“You’re getting wrecked…”

“C’MON VOIDWALKER!!!!!!”

[His gnome takes too many hits and dies]

“YOU SUCK VOIDWALKER!”

Needless to say, after seeing that introduction, it didn’t look like something I would spend most of the next several years on.

But some time later, a group of his work friends made a guild, and adventuring around in a fantasy world with a group sounded too appealing to miss out on. I just wasn’t going to use a Voidwalker.

In World of Warcraft, there were multiple types of servers in two main archetypes: PvE, or Player vs Environment servers, which didn’t allow players to randomly fight each other unless they chose to (these were also called “carebear servers” by the player base), and PvP servers, where players can fight each when they are out adventuring. “Ganking” was the term used when someone sneaks up on you while you’re out in the world, minding your own business, and beats you up.

Our group didn’t wanna be on a lame carebear server, of course, cuz we’re all like, y’know, totally hardcore gamers, so naturally we picked the PvP server and were off to the races. We were gonna gank so many people.

And oh boy, was it an amazing experience. Adventuring with friends, exploring the massive world, was the time of my life. I loved going around the cities, I loved completing the quests and getting new abilities, I loved exploring the dungeons and fighting giant bosses with my friends. It was the most amazing game I had ever played in my life to that point. All I needed to be happy was an internet connection, my computer, food and shelter, and my entire maslow’s hierarchy was complete.

One thing I didn’t like, though, was participating in the world PvP. I did it once and just ended up feeling bad. Ganking people just felt… Rude. And pointless. The game was actually a lot more zen than I originally thought it would be, you would go out questing and fighting monsters and picking up loot, getting into a flow state similar to sitting around pushing buttons on a slot machine, and when someone interrupted you by fighting you it was jarring and not particularly fun. You didn’t even get anything for ganking, just a tiny bit dopamine from “owning” some other player.

Occasionally, people wouldn’t just gank you, they would also do something called “corpse camping,” where they would gank you, wait for you to revive, and then gank you again, over and over.

It was annoying.

Generally, though, it was just a small part of the game, some mild annoyance that happened occasionally, and it was relatively easy to get over and move on. But one day, when I was out trying to gather some rare materials to level up my alchemy, a duo of players decided to grief me, killing my character over, and over, and over, making it impossible to get the materials and get on with my quest. And I got triggered.

I ranted to my Voidwalker hating friend about the situation. “These stupid losers have been camping me for an hour! I’m not even fighting back! What is wrong with them.”

“Ah that sucks, maybe do something else for a bit?”

But I didn’t want to do something else. I wanted to get those materials.

“It’s just so pathetic, you know? These stupid losers are just sitting around killing me over and over. What kind of horrible people would do something like that?”

My buddy could have tried to appease me and had a mutual crap-talking session that I was looking for, but instead he said something that stuck with me ever since.

“Eh, maybe it’s not like they’re bad people or anything. They’re just playing a different game than you are.”

He explained that we’re on a PvP server, and some people just start fights with guilds, and then maybe their guild buddies come defend them, and then it just escalates until there’s a big war that breaks out in the area. And that’s how they enjoy the game. That’s why some people join a PvP server instead of a PvE server.

It’s just a different game than the one I was trying to play at the time, which was collecting stuff for making potions. Their game was trying to start a war. Or, y’know, maybe not, maybe they were just beating me up because they could, like bullies in middle school. But that’s also just playing a different game - in fact, it’s the one that the guild originally thought we were going to be playing when we joined the PvP server in the first place - it just turned out to not be fun for us, and the “carebear” game turned out to be a lot more fun.

The lesson here applies to all sorts of things. It’s a way to not immediately assign malevolent intent and strong negative judgements on someone for their actions. And the most important thing it can help with is just being less angry, so it’s easier to think more rationally and move on rather than escalate the situation. To think, “well, dmaybe, they’re just playing a different game than I am.” To think, from their perspective, based on the rules of the game they are playing, what they’re doing is expected.

For a lot of people acting obnoxiously online, this is the case. That’s just how they do social media, arguing with random people. That’s their game.

Now, by no means does that mean they’re innocent - they might in fact be horrific people with terrible, evil intentions. And sometimes another way to be less mad is to yell and hoot and holler until the chemicals start dissipating and we can act more rationally. But usually that escalates the problem and makes us feel triggered and irritated for much longer than necessary. It’s just overall healthier to find some reason to keep playing the game you want to play, either by disengaging and moving on, or doing something else altogether.

Because sometimes, they aren’t bad people. Perhaps they’re just playing a different game.