Last night when I was getting valor capped on Anslym I joined into a Zul’aman that was halfway through the trash between the bear boss and the dragonhawk boss. We ran into a little issue when the scout patted behind us and ran screaming like the little bitch he was to the drum to summon reinforcements. We killed him before he summoned the all four so we only had to kill two extra mobs. We did it, no one died, no big deal. We proceeded to the dragonhawk boss and downed him no issue whatsoever. As we were mounting up to do the sprint from dragonhawk platform to, up the stairs, and down to the lynx add. When a notification popped up on my screen. “A vote-kick has been initiated for Gnome warlock, reason being: bad bad bad bad.” The dragonhawk boss was flawless, it wasn’t breaking any records for time but we downed him in good time and we took notice of all the mechanics. I took a look at the warlocks gear, just from an aesthetic standpoint –not actually going up and inspecting them. She had some gear from the Zulroics and her other gear needed work, but we were all there at some point in our WoW careers. I stared at the “accept and decline” options till we got to the lake. I opted to hit decline, the vote kick failed and the warlock stayed with us till we downed the finally boss and she got her 140 valor points along with the rest of us.
You might be thinking, “aw how nice, you did a decent thing.” But the truth is it’s not just with not kicking people. Some people believe in the whole “If it’s red, it’s dead,” policy. I know how much of a nuisance it is to be in the “questing zone” and have someone drop out the blue and gank you and then proceed to camp you. It’s especially annoying when you’re trying to finish up some dailies before class or work and you can’t because you’re being camped. When I go in for the kill I always put myself in their perspective and think how I might be ruining their day. On the other hand, if they attack me first…. it’s on.
Back to the warlock, maybe it’s because I was once the person who needed to be carried, or maybe it’s something else entirely but when the occasion arises, I’m more than happy to carry someone provided they’re actually trying. Same goes for raiding and in-guild issues. I’m more than happy to pass on loot for someone who really needs it, I hope one day they can pay it forward for me. Which links back to karma-clysm. I didn’t kick the warlock for not being up to par because I was going to be running a zulroic on Chmelyk and I didn’t want to be kicked for being subpar and I didn’t. So long story short, the next time you’re presented with the vote kick option think about how you might be affecting someone’s day.
Do you believe in, in-game karma?
As always, thanks for reading.
-Anslym
I don’t necessarily believe in karma in WoW because I generally am fairly nice to people – and I still run into lots of jerks
That doesn’t change how I am though. I don’t kick people as long as they’re not rude and I can see they’re trying. Not unless for some reason them being there is causing the entire party/raid to fail. Which is seldom the case.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and if we kicked every player who’s not got all the gear they’ll never get the gear either. So yes, let’s not be too harsh, and allow people to be new. We all are/were at some point
yeah in some ways I do believe in in game Karma. I like to think that if I make a small sacrifice for someone, they’d make the same for me, or maybe for someone else entirely whom I meet later and does the same for me or that my nice gesture at least creates some “nice-ripples”. God knows WoW can need it ;P
I will rarely kick in heroics. If I do, they have to be spectacularly bad. I’m generally the muscle carrying the dps, so as long as they’re not failing to mechanics, I don’t care.
In a raiding situation I’m less patient. I’m a hardmode raider and so the margin for error is non-existent and generally everyone’s patience is about the same. (This applies to farm bosses only.)
The only time I have been voting to kick people lately is when they are a tank who is just not ready for a certain level of Experts yet. In Rift, we have Tier 1 Experts and Tier 2 Experts (which are the equivalent of non-Troll Heroics and Troll Heroics), which do come with certain requirements to be able to queue for them. The problem comes when people who meet the gear requirements don’t necessarily meet the player requirements.
The character looks fine, but the player isn’t quite ready for that higher notch of difficulty and it shows. I usually give them many opportunities to try and improve. I help out with strategies and show them where to stand or where to kite something. But if it’s just not coming together and they’re not showing that they can grasp the concepts of the instance, I will politely say “You know, I don’t feel you’re quite ready for the T2s yet. Thank you very much for trying.” Then, I will either initiate the kick or support it, when someone else does it.
I think if a kick is done for the right reasons, if you can say you did everything you could to improve the situation, and if it’s done diplomatically I see nothing wrong with it. Mind you, this is just kicking someone, in terms of performance. Voting to kick someone for personality issues with a whole different ball of wax.