[split] Stormrage Lurker Guild Discussion - Formerly known as Cat Beta

[Treesh]

This site is more than a collection of people who play the same game. It is a collection of above average people who share gaming as a hobby, who take gaming seriously and are willing to take the time and trouble to analyzing and understanding the games they play. But above and beyond that, it is a site of people who are willing to discuss many topics, rationally and for the most part politely.

Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, perhaps it is a change in the people, but there was a time when you could spot a Lurker because s/he was doing strange things, trying strange tactics, and playing with strange builds, all out of curiosity. Now, there is no noticeable difference between a Lurker and any other player. That's not bad, that's not good, it's just changed. Some regret the change. I do. But the way others play has no bearing on how I play. And that seems to have been lost in the fury.

It's been a little while since I played on Terenas, but it was still the case over there when I was that we did do things differently, just to see. No one refused to take my then rather odd holy DPS priest on a run. In fact, I was even allowed to actually DPS on her rather than heal. =) We undermanned the dungeons (before BOAs came out, before we were overleveled/overgeared for that particular dungeon), used not exactly typical tanks (shaman tanks even after TBC came out, warlock pet tanks, hunter pet tanks, rogue tanks, hell I even priest tanked some runs), didn't use exploits, and basically just tried to see how much was possible to do in the game, even doing the min/max stuff with characters to see if the theoretical best and practical best matched up. All of those nitpicky things that makes a Lurker a lurker. There just weren't many write ups of it on the forums. This is why I said the guilds and the forums were separated rather than divorced. The ideals are still there, still being put into play, but in game rather than the forums.

Edit: And about the fighting over who the true lurkers would be, well, there was a bit of that when D2 was king too. If you weren't here for the D1 days and actively posting, you weren't a true lurker. And I hate to admit it, but I do kind of feel that way still. The LL has changed, its members have changed, hopefully some growth has occurred, but I still don't consider myself a true Lurker really. I agree with the gaming ideals that the site has always stood for, but I'm still not an actual Lurker because I don't sit down to write up my talent trees on my oddball chars, I didn't chronicle (in great detail) my skilless zon that I made so long ago. I'll talk about them to folks, try to give little tips about what I knew, but full, detailed reports always have bugged me. You have to put in every single little detail and I don't put that level of detail in my notes. That's what always annoyed me about the science labs. You have to keep track of -everything- to make sure it doesn't affect the results, to make sure someone can completely recreate your experiment. It's asking a level of perfection from me that I just can't do. Still got As on the labs, but it definitely showed me that, while I enjoy research and experimentation, I can't do the explanations and write-ups properly for other folks to see. It's the same about my games. I really dig into the ones I like, mention stuff in that I notice that doesn't follow the norm, but doing a full on write-up just doesn't happen.