I have been quite. Real life stuff – New guild with a non weekend raid schedule yeah!
But I want to talk about Ahats. Insert two ss’s after the A to get my drift, but as I am not sure what work filters consider to be a swear word I erred on the side of caution.
I did a 9 in a row heroic blitz over the weekend, by the time we had finished. Well I had finished – I was sore, tired and pee’d off.
I ended my run with one of our party members muted and blocked in chat because he was that annoying. He wasn’t a guildy but a ‘friend’ of someone else in the remaining guild members of the party. If it had been a pug I would have left it by about the third Instance in the nine, it took me to about the sixth to mute him, and the seventh to /ignore. He would go on and on about something in my playstyle, it wasn’t constructive feed back, my dps was awesome! so he wasn’t poking fun of my ability to play, but there was one thing he repeated over and over. Any method of approach in dealing with his comments didn’t work, reacting – not reacting – admonishing him – telling him to stop it – that the joke isn’t funny anymore – that I will block him if he continued. It never occurred to me to leave party, if it had been a pug I would have done it in a heartbeat.
If I had kicked up a stink and threatened to leave party I would have been the weak one for not being able to control the situation. I couldn’t appeal to my guildys for support because of their association with this person , and when I tried their response was simply. “Thats norm for such and such” and so because he was an Ahat I had to suck it up. I did, and it made me grouchy, and annoyed, and I will never group or party with him again.
In another case we were in a pug Hjyal run, consisting of people associated with members of our guild in some way and my connection keep embarrassingly crashing. So i pulled out of the raid. In that pug one of our guild members was subjected to annoying, and targeted abusive chat in vent, to the point where they allowed her access to a channel that some of them were talking in ( I’m not quite sure how they did it, but you can connect several users so you can talk in the same channel but only people you allow can hear, and to the rest of the raid they can see your mic on yellow, when they talk) and said some things that were not nice to say. This upset her, and apparently they apologised later and said that they were bored and picked a random target.
I don’t know what was said – but its not on. Its not a girl thing, its not adult / kid thing its about you do not have to put with crap in your recreation time. You may work with people you don’t like, or have to deal with unpleasant people all day, but the time that you chose to sit down for some fun, and recreation you should not have to deal with ahats. I’m not even talking about an abusive raid leader here, just people who go out of their way to make your own game/play miserable to sate some sick desire of their own.
In real life Id like to think I have a pretty good moral compass. If I was at a bar or a party and someone was annoying or abusing me I would walk away, leave, avoid, Smile and nod, and move on. My friends would not allow or support that persons actions, yet in a raid or guild environment something else keeps you there. The consequences of your standing up for your rights are higher.
I read an article where it said that the power of embarrassment is more powerful then Will. I didn’t leave the party because I was embarrassed that I was being targeted. Reacting so extremely would have only made the person behave worse, and they would have won by “Driving me to fury” I am an adult. I would not let someone abuse me so in real life, yet in the virtual world you can. How is that right?
Yes you can report them to a Gm, but sometimes I feel like that is also running home to tell mummy that the kids are teasing you, it would be embarrassing for mummy to come to school to tell the teacher that little bobby is calling you names.
So i Muted him, and /ignored. Did that fix the problem? – Probably not, but at least I had regained some control of the situation by not having to listen to him.
My principles may cost me, I mean it, I choose not to play with him agai, and I will call him on it if it ever arises and he ends up in a party or a pug.
Am I being over sensitive – perhaps – I can deal with ribbing, feedback, mucking round, playing , I don’t deal well with a consistent barrage – hence the blocking.
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Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog 
And right you are.
Personally I have a low tolerance for Ahats, I am not paying 15 a month to be harassed by someone that lives under the misconception of being superior to everyone else.
I tend to make fun of them, the more ridiculous you make them look the less likely they are to target you.
I give them a shot accross the bow and if they can’t behave then they end up on my ignore list right away. If they still keep on afterwards by proxy I tend to just leave after clearly stating why I am leaving.
I don’t have a problem sinking a pug or even a guilded instance run. If other people think that behaviour is normal or should be accepted then they need to learn to live with people leaving that don’t.
I don’t roll with people that don’t have at least some common sense. Ahat behaviour is not acceptable… a group that tolerates ahats is akin to watching someone mug someone else and encouraging it rather than doing something about it.
Don’t support Ahats and don’t feed the trolls.
I would have just left any group that was tolerating someone’s bad behavior like that. Especially with the excuse “that’s just the way they are”. If they can’t or won’t exert any sort of pressure on their friend to cut it out, that’s not a situation you need to be in. I wouldn’t make a huge stink or storm out over it, but I definitely wouldn’t stick around for it. The fact that your guildies put you in a situation they were either unable or unwilling to control eliminates any need to feel an obligation to remain with the group on your part.
I have a very effective way to get rid of Ahats without “to leave party I would have been the weak one for not being able to control the situation”.
When he start his bulls…, first I ask him to focus on the instance and cut everything else.
Secondly I tell that only noob casuals chat nonsense, good players focus on faster and more effective pulls, just consider the “only the raid leader speaks on vent” rule on serious raid groups.
At third I simply say “sorry, I won’t waste my time with unfocused casuals, pls kick this guy or I leave”. And if they don’t kick, I do leave.
The pont is that I did not leave because I couldn’t handle his “jokes”, I left because he was a “joking kiddie” and not a “serious player”
I’m of the mindset “Guild First”. These are the guys you’re running with. These are the guys that you need to gel with; even if you don’t like them or necessarily even get along.
It’s my opinion that your guildmates should have asked him to stop. Like I said, “Guild First”.
What you described in which people were talking while only specific people can hear is called a Binding. Ventrilo uses them to set up advanced functions that are applied as needed, particularly with a push of a button. Back in my old raid I had one because I was a member of the loot council. We’d be able to discuss within Vent the merits of giving loot to one person over another (whether it was a bigger upgrade, newer members versus older members, and so on) without the rest of the raid hearing. It made things easier because people wouldn’t interrupt and we could do the talk instantaneously without having to wait for people to type out their replies (which I did for a while before I learned what a Binding was).
In order to create a binding, select the name you want it applied to (for example, if you use multiple names in Ventrilo) then hit the “->” button to the right of the Bindings drop-down menu. This should open the “Setup Bindings” window. Click “New,” give the binding a name, and hit “OK.” Select the “Add” button from the bottom and a new window opens up. Select the “PTT Advanced” (Push to Talk) and then the empty space below. Press the key that you’ll be using for this option. Select “User-to-User (U2U)” from this new window and then enter the names of the people you want to talk to. If you’re currently logged into the server you’ll be using this on and the people are on it as well, you can select their names instead. Click “OK” and you’re done!
I also used this back when the significant other and I were living apart but still raiding together. Oh, the fun you can have!
And asshattery runs rampant online where anonymity keeps a lot of the backlash from personal life. It’s irksome and I hate it, but it happens. And I’m so brutally honest that I have no problem voicing my complaints — especially if I’m supposed to be in some sort of leadership position in that situation. It doesn’t fly on my watch, thank-you-very-much.
And the need to tolerate it is higher in a raiding/guild environment because you rely on those people. In a raid, it’s twenty-five people and losing one person can cause problems, so the need to grin and bear it exists. In a guild, you’re dealing with the same people day after day after day, and most likely for months to come. It’s almost the difference between a social setting and having to deal with that in the workplace; what you’d tolerate in a work situation is much higher than social due to the social and economic pressures that exist.
cheers guys – I like Gevlons approach in that if they aren’t being serious enough to leave on that that basis – I am hoping that I never put myself in that sort of situation again, as being ‘forced’ to grin and bear it was worse then the actual action. ta cynra for the vent info
you can always play politics and do things like stop healing the Asshat that is contantly harassing or ninaing your needs. This works great as you always have to save mana for the good players , then you don’t have to rez the asshat as your out of time , yes playing politics with healing can make the asshat even madder hit ignore and silence and no heal on them at once
ooooooo what a feeling to seeing em die so often till they get the message ,( and leave) as I’ve encountered lvl 80 players who must have bought the account from someone cause they don’t even know enough to not hit a sheep or a sap when tanking , like that is deadmines stuff