Conq
Guest
There is a lot of chatter about whether or not twinking will die in legion, some think it is about to come alive like it never has, some think it is about to crumble before our very eyes, while some reserve judgement, and others plan in anticipation of various outcomes. We cannot know for sure what will happen however these are my words, so I shall share my thoughts within them.
Our bracket is not at risk, I draw a serious distinction between the playstyle, the bracket, and the community, one that once said is fairly self-explanatory. What is truly at risk is our community, and our play style. At this point a key component of what defines our play style, and even to an extent our community - gear - is on track to losing nearly all relevance.
This has left our community and our play style in the depths of an identity crisis, how are we to define ourselves once that which we hold most dear as twinks is stripped from our hands, and save for transmogrification, mostly just worthy of being vendor trash, or sitting in the bank collecting pixel dust? Items we have looked at for years, spent countless hours earning, cherished as novelty, the very things that made us so unique.
Well in this time of identity crisis I find myself looking to the past, to try and find some semblance of what could provide us with meaning in this time of great change, and for me - I found it. Some may not think it so simple as I, some may not be able to bear the loss of their gear and so they will leave, no longer maintaining what they perceived as their identity. For me, someone who has experienced twinking through all its stages, I look at the great ruin migration, I look at a time where people came together of their own accord, for the sake of our play styles survival, when we could have just let it die, we said no, we rerolled new twinks, we transferred our old ones, and we turned our experience off.
The underlying theme here is organization, not because of one individual, or a few pioneers but because in a time of need we came together and organized. This already saved our play style once, not only did we all come together to ensure our survival but we continued to organize to this day, through guilds, countless premades, tournaments, and seasons, I would argue that our ability to organize is in large part something that has started to define us since that migration.
Now while organization has become a part of what it means to be a twink as a playstyle, and it is something that I believe will gain prominence in legion, whether it be the things I listed above, or running 5 mans, our community is terrified that it itself is falling apart, many are leaving, the end of an era has been hailed, so once more I look back to the past and ask myself, what is it that makes us a community, what makes us more than just individuals playing in a bracket, where do we come together - if not in the mind, than in the physical realm? And once again I see organization, I see 30-60 core 19s watching Hunnybuns, or Blackout giving speeches, I see others listening to Pizza and Kancer discuss what they could have done better in PuGs, or watching saxxon play blackjack because why not?
So what is it that makes us a community? I think in a tangible sense it is the Streamers that we love to watch, it is the events that inspire competition and a sense of comradery, it is the curse chats we use to remain in constant contact, and the forums we use as a platform for debate, joking around, or even for the most serious of matters in twinkdom.
So I say NO, our community...our playstyle, it IS NOT dying, it simply is in the process of redefining itself once more. So I urge the readers, the community, my friends, to do as I did, look back at what has been, and ask yourself what could be. We have been here once before in essence during the segregation and we turned dirt to gold, are we going to throw away all we have built the past few years, achieving heights not even the billionaires at blizzard who scoff at us thought possible? Or are we going to embrace what made us stronger than they could have imagined the last time they tried to tear us down? While I can try and clear the way with my words and actions for a brighter twink future, I cannot make you walk that path if you don’t want to, so ask yourself, is twinking just gear, or is it something more than pixels? Is it the relationships we’ve formed, the battles we’ve fought? Or is it just items dropped from a mob, or fished up in a pool? Only you as an individual can answer that question.
To those who see it the way I do, my suggestions are simple. Start streaming, add your stream to the XpOff list, create a guild in anticipation of Legion, continuing or start wargaming, participate in events, other brackets should take the example of 19s and create their own mass community text chats, make posts like this, discuss and plan for the future of Legion, revive a bracket and gain a foothold before the onslaught. If we stick together as a community - our play style, our community, and our bracket can reach heights that even now after all this, we simply cannot imagine. Thanks for reading ^.^
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw
Our bracket is not at risk, I draw a serious distinction between the playstyle, the bracket, and the community, one that once said is fairly self-explanatory. What is truly at risk is our community, and our play style. At this point a key component of what defines our play style, and even to an extent our community - gear - is on track to losing nearly all relevance.
This has left our community and our play style in the depths of an identity crisis, how are we to define ourselves once that which we hold most dear as twinks is stripped from our hands, and save for transmogrification, mostly just worthy of being vendor trash, or sitting in the bank collecting pixel dust? Items we have looked at for years, spent countless hours earning, cherished as novelty, the very things that made us so unique.
Well in this time of identity crisis I find myself looking to the past, to try and find some semblance of what could provide us with meaning in this time of great change, and for me - I found it. Some may not think it so simple as I, some may not be able to bear the loss of their gear and so they will leave, no longer maintaining what they perceived as their identity. For me, someone who has experienced twinking through all its stages, I look at the great ruin migration, I look at a time where people came together of their own accord, for the sake of our play styles survival, when we could have just let it die, we said no, we rerolled new twinks, we transferred our old ones, and we turned our experience off.
The underlying theme here is organization, not because of one individual, or a few pioneers but because in a time of need we came together and organized. This already saved our play style once, not only did we all come together to ensure our survival but we continued to organize to this day, through guilds, countless premades, tournaments, and seasons, I would argue that our ability to organize is in large part something that has started to define us since that migration.
Now while organization has become a part of what it means to be a twink as a playstyle, and it is something that I believe will gain prominence in legion, whether it be the things I listed above, or running 5 mans, our community is terrified that it itself is falling apart, many are leaving, the end of an era has been hailed, so once more I look back to the past and ask myself, what is it that makes us a community, what makes us more than just individuals playing in a bracket, where do we come together - if not in the mind, than in the physical realm? And once again I see organization, I see 30-60 core 19s watching Hunnybuns, or Blackout giving speeches, I see others listening to Pizza and Kancer discuss what they could have done better in PuGs, or watching saxxon play blackjack because why not?
So what is it that makes us a community? I think in a tangible sense it is the Streamers that we love to watch, it is the events that inspire competition and a sense of comradery, it is the curse chats we use to remain in constant contact, and the forums we use as a platform for debate, joking around, or even for the most serious of matters in twinkdom.
So I say NO, our community...our playstyle, it IS NOT dying, it simply is in the process of redefining itself once more. So I urge the readers, the community, my friends, to do as I did, look back at what has been, and ask yourself what could be. We have been here once before in essence during the segregation and we turned dirt to gold, are we going to throw away all we have built the past few years, achieving heights not even the billionaires at blizzard who scoff at us thought possible? Or are we going to embrace what made us stronger than they could have imagined the last time they tried to tear us down? While I can try and clear the way with my words and actions for a brighter twink future, I cannot make you walk that path if you don’t want to, so ask yourself, is twinking just gear, or is it something more than pixels? Is it the relationships we’ve formed, the battles we’ve fought? Or is it just items dropped from a mob, or fished up in a pool? Only you as an individual can answer that question.
To those who see it the way I do, my suggestions are simple. Start streaming, add your stream to the XpOff list, create a guild in anticipation of Legion, continuing or start wargaming, participate in events, other brackets should take the example of 19s and create their own mass community text chats, make posts like this, discuss and plan for the future of Legion, revive a bracket and gain a foothold before the onslaught. If we stick together as a community - our play style, our community, and our bracket can reach heights that even now after all this, we simply cannot imagine. Thanks for reading ^.^
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw
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