I am an elite MMORPG player and I am super cool too

[Don]

I see this kind of post on the Net a lot, and yes on the Internet people can say anything but I'm talking about the case where you can definitely verify the guy is really an elite MMORPG player (but not necessarily the super cool part). According to them beyond having all the women they want and getting 7 salary figures, they're also responsible adults that raise a family, have a normal job, and probably only plays the game 2 hours a night. Who are you kidding here? If you are truly one of the top MMORPG players, you usually fit the 'loser' profile. You didn't get there playing 2 hours a night. Maybe you only play 2 hours a night after you've beaten the expansion, but until then you're probably playing 15 hours a day and most likely ruining your life to get that kind of playing time.

I know a lot such players from EQ and the guys who play the best tends to also play the most, and they're almost invariably:

1. Independent wealthy (lucky those guys, if you believe them).
2. Unemployed, disabled, or working on a job where you don't actually have to show up (virtual, government stuff, whatever).
3. Live in Europe where the government pays for all this stuff.

Even on fairly casual MMORPG like WoW, you're not going to get to the top by just playing casually. It might not be like EQ where you need guys on a 24/7 shift but you sure won't get anywhere playing 2 hours a day, at least not very quickly. I realize this is the Internet, but you have to be pretty out there to tell people that you live a fulfilling and normal life considered by societal norms when your /played time is 500 days. Now, I don't mean that if you have that kind of play time you're automatically a loser, but there is no way society will think you're a cool guy for that, and I'm pretty sure I have that kind of play time on MMORPGs. I tend to think of MMORPG as a dedicated hobby, but there's no way I am crazy enough to believe it is considered a cool thing by the norm.

[Shrinweck]

Like most things you can't just pick it up and be world class. Sure there are some smart motherfuckers and other outliers who can take to things quickly but we're talking about people who would be relatively wasted on casual gaming environments and would probably be the type to not put much time into it. Surely these people would have enough self esteem to not go around bragging. We're talking the bored 11-14 year olds that are establishing their personality traits on the Internet to see which ones end up suiting them. Most of them hopefully won't grow up to be the unequivocal douche bags they think they aren't.

I knew kids who would talk shit like this in real life in middle school. These were the bullies that had nothing to back it up, not even the true bullies who would actually fuck you up if you tried to fuck with them (edit: I guess they're the same, they were just big enough to hit back). I had encounters with both. The people who can't back it up are the vocal assholes you catch in the general channel on Rift or forums testing out how big they can make people believe their e-penis is.

When I was playing Aion non-stop and was arguably really good, I was hitting hourly numbers like that and I consider myself a pretty damn good gamer. I had an injury and a bit of a social life that mostly just exacerbated the injury to the point where I had to go home to the parents for a month where I basically just ate, slept, and Aion'd all day and night and still wasn't top tier in anything but PvE, which I basically always tend to excel at.

[Don]

I am not talking about the guy who just claim they're good or whatever. I am talking about guys I actually meet online and know that they're good and I know they're on ALL the time. For example one of the guys who run the #2 guild in EQ for the last 5 years has like 1200 days /played, and I know when I played he was always on. He was apparently independently wealthy, and certainly his playing hour suggested he was not working for sure. He is not only a great player but he's also a great guild leader and that's much harder than being good at the game. And there was nothing 'easy' about the way he played this game. He took it very seriously and complained to me when his guildies aren't doing as expected, and so on. He admits he plays the game too much but says there isn't a better game to play so why not? I don't think he even post on any EQ boards since he's way too busy with the game already.

Yet it seems like most such people who play comparable hours at the game becomes Joe Casual when they go to the board. You too can be awesome at EQ or any MMORPG for 2 hours a day. Don't mind the fact that guy has a 4 digit /played time. It's almost like if they admit the fact that they are good at these games because they play a ton it'd somehow diminish their skills, since we clearly are supposed to believe most top players are just born to be good at that way. I mean you wouldn't be surprised if you find out the top Street Fighter guy plays thousands of hours to hone in his game, and yet we're supposed to believe a far more time-consuming game can be mastered by anybody in 3 easy steps? Sure there must be some guy who are just born to be awesome, but those guys are the exceptions. Now obviously these guys do have talent too, since it's not like every person who can play 15 hours a day becomes a top MMORPG player, but you certainly won't become one if you're casual unless you're just being dragged through the content.

It's actually kind of funny if you think about it. If you say I spent 10000 hours on MMORPG most people will probably have a 'loser' reaction to you, but if you wasted 10000 hours on online dating sites, watching TV, or message boards that probably won't draw the same kind of reaction even though it's just as pathetic as playing a MMORPG.

[Shrinweck]

Ahh, okay. Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah, it's all the same shit. The sports junkie thinks they're better than the video game junkie but they start listing off stats and acronyms and other things and they sound just as crazy as the video game guy. There are certain things with different stigmas but if you're pouring thousands of hours over the years into something you're geeking out the same as anyone else. Every single person that crazy about a hobby merits the same looks of disgust from the people who don't know what they're talking about... it's just some stuff is easier to target.