The four types of gamers

I like and dislike the matter of fact that pugs are pugs. Those random groups are a bane, more than once, and can be a blessing for others who only want to do a quick heroic in a fast and clean way.
The bane, by the way, consists of the fact that those players are very honest - they do not feel the need of diplomatic answers, they do not think what other people may think and they do not care about the effect a kick can have on a player. Well, not everyone thinks that way, but a lot do.

This is a good occasion to study different types of gamers without having the need to sort out all the behavior people show when dealing with players they know. But it does not mean that there aren't players out there who do not hesitate to show their true side even when doing guild runs. Pugs are simply the best way as nobody there feels "being observed". It's not the zoo, it's the jungle. Welcome.

By studying those players I found out that there are four different major types of people. Not everyone fits well into one particular category, but it's fantastic how easy the world gets. Let's start with the first one:


The friendly incapable one
He does not know anything or has at least some weak points regarding his self-assurance. As he's smart enough to be away about this he tries to mask it with friendliness which works for a lot of other people. The friendly incapable one (called TFI) could be a good fella for drinking a beer with or having some nice party times, someone you suffer a hangout with or you can call at 4 o' clock in the morning asking for help regarding  a riddle out of a newspaper you're trying to solve.
TFIs do a lot of errors and they do often do not hesitate in admitting their errors. They have a internal "firmware" in their brains explaining recording the fact that they are no "progamers". This makes it difficult for them to blame others for their errors as they are aware of the fact that they do errors, too. This is why they want to be accepted - they attack with friendliness and win other gamers' hearts - motto: "If you cannot bet 'em on playing skill, beat 'em on social skill".

Strength: Social skills
Weakness: Gameplay related stuff, responsiveness, situational awareness (move-out-of-the-bad-stuff...- now)



The unfriendly capable one
Those gamers spend a lot of time on focusing on their class and class mechanics in general. He knows everything and if he does not know everything then only because it's being evaluated in his brain.
The unfriendly capable (TUC) does not do errors, but if they happen they know that they happened because someone else did not do his job well. If it will ever happen that a TUC did a clear error on his own then he's fast enough to blame others before they can blame him. The motto is "Yes, we blame" - the more often the better it is as everything else, from light glitches to severe wipes can now be reduced on other people's errors. TUCs never admit errors, but if they will ever have no other choice they can still leave the group without any word.
But not everyone is that evil, at least not in a superficial way. Some of them simply know everything better and they do not hesitate to correct everyone else, especially leaders of groups or raids.
And sometimes they want to hide their weakness in social skills by using smileys, which has the same result as if a soldier opens up a can by shooting at it. It ends in a mess and often has the opposite effect: people get even more offended.
TUC rarely share all their knowledge with others and provide only 90 % of what they know.

Strength: Game related stuff, very fast gamer who has no problems to adapt to specific situations
Weakness: Social skills.


The unfriendly incapable one
Those gamers, called "TUI", are a widespread species. They do a lot of errors and they do a lot of wipes. They know it, but have problems to admit it plus they're not good enough in accepting that which means they blame everyone else for their errors rather than admitting that he or she has contributed a good amount of "WTF" to the wipes that happened.
He often does not want to learn anything and if it happens, which are rare moments, then on his own, hidden from the view of others and possibly in random groups where nobody can see and point at him.
If you want to have fun, try to get two TUIs into the group. You will get a lot of whispers from both sides, that's for sure.

Strength: Good in deceiving himself.
Weakness: Social and gaming skills


The friendly capable one
TFCs are a myth, like Nessie, the Yeti and honest politicians. If you ever find one then nobody will believe you. And often a lot of them simply turn into TUCs as soon as the group wipes. Never try to befriend them, they are like gremlins: As soon as they get fed with love after a specific time they get evil and have no problems to kick you, their friend or their mum out of the group.
There are gamers that seem to have found a TFC, but this is kinda unbelievable and it still lacks proofs.

Strength: Social and gaming skills
Weakness: Practically non-existent.

Pandemonium

It happened to me to read some postings regarding the newest expansion Blizzard announced ("Mists of Pandaria"). So the thread derailed a little bit and they came up to talk about pandas and that pandas should have died long time ago for their way of living and because we are spending too much money on saving them.

This was thought-provoking. And it underlines they two main ways people think nowadays. But step by step.

First: To make it clear: There are two types of pandas - big and little ones. Let's discuss about the big ones. The cute ones, not the cat like ones (which are also cute, ok... ).

It is _not_ true that they only eat bamboo, while it's true that it's their main source. There are more than 20 bamboo species, so there is enough to eat for them (what they have to do, that's true).
The WWF used ice bears for publicity purposes and demonstrating how one particular species is endangered, which turned out to be not that true ;) Despite that Pandas are endangered, but not because of their low birthrate :) but also from the habitat loss they are suffering and some diseases they get by that loss, too (contact with new viruses from cats and dogs near the frontiers of their habitat).

A lot of money is invested to rescue Pandas, that's true. This makes some people angry.

We could say that the money would have been spent better for other things. And it's true that every day more than 30 (to more than 100) species exctinct every day. We could say "Well, why start with Pandas then?". Good question, I cannot give an answer to that. But that the protection of the environment would be difficult and expensive is well known. It's easy to kill life, it's expensive to save it - simple as that.

"Expensive" is, by the way, always a matter of perspective. For the scientists the LHC is important, for others too expensive. For some guys the space program is also too expensive. Or that it would be too expensive to help those guys where the uranium mining happens (they're mostly contaminated and when the mining finishes they leave the contaminated machines back for the people living there - '"take it, it's for free").
It might turn out that the extinction of life could be far more expensive than we can calculate now. Let's not forget that economists just have problems to really predict really well what will happen in the following year.

In the end we can decide: Start to re-invest money on earth or continue the earth fisting we call "progression". It's a free country, do what you want, but face the truth: Do not walk into the trap of the cognitive dissonance in which we try to base our decision of arguments we think could work (like "I had to by this phone because.. eh... it might be useful someday!"). Say like it is: I want to keep my luxury and have enough problems with my own life. But then life with the consequences.

If someone asks me what I think about all that I simply answer:

"Sadly human lives for too long so he can destroy the world and he lives too short for suffering the consequences. "