Why Premades are better without Screenshots

[Unobscured]

--------------

Edit to clarify: I am not writing this in defense of GO, and I'm not attempting to mount a high horse to preach about how you godless sodomites are terrible people for behaving as you do. I am attempting to get people to see things a different way.

--------------



So the steaming pile of crap that is the WoW forums has collected a great deal more excrement recently due to screenshots of the latest Gnomeregan Outriders game being posted by various people (whose guild was no doubt requested not to post screenshots). The three parties involved in this argument are those who think posting screenshots shouldn't be prohibited, those who think posting screenshots should be prohibited, and a great deal of people who don't care because they're either wasted (.05%) or pretending to be wasted (99.95%).



I'm posting this here because this forum just might be mature enough to handle an actual discussion, and because posting anything serious on the WoW forums just doesn't work.



Now if you read the title, you can guess that I'm someone who doesn't want screenshots posted after premades. So my first question to those who disagree with me is this: Why should they be posted?



What does anyone gain from posting screenshots? I would say 3-4 days of bragging rights... 6-7 days, if the other team complains or makes excuses.



That's pretty much it. Now, I understand that there are a few people who pretty much live off of bragging rights, and if they can't piss on the corpses of their enemies, they might as well commit suicide, but I would say that the vast majority of us can live without measuring the exact size of our epeens in front of everyone else.



To demonstrate why I think posting screenshots of games shouldn't be allowed, I'll bring up the GO vs RT games pre-3.2.



Those games were great. For a while, they were the main reason I logged on to WoW. It was good competition, and it was fun. We would play them week after week, and it never got any less fun. After the games, we told each other "GGs" on the forums, and even when Kiwid and Ohso and anyone else would argue endlessly during the week, the games were not used as leverage for arguments. You didn't have idiots pretending that winning one premade over another guild somehow made them gods worthy of praise by all. As a result, no one got butthurt, and you didn't see people quitting because they felt bad that they lost.



Now I get it. Pro-Screenshot people just don't care if people get butthurt and quit. Which leads to my next argument:



Twinking (in non-xp BGs) will die. New twinks are few, if any, these days. People are leaving, and they aren't being replaced. Pre-3.2 new twinks were making twinks all the time - they'd see twinks in games and many would want to join us. No one sees us any more, and no one joins us now. Do we really need to contribute to the people leaving by bragging about every little win? Yes, I get it, many of you don't care about the people that leave, they were whiners anyway... but they were warm bodies to fill games, and many of the people who have already left (for the same reasons) were also great players. And the people who wanted to hang out with those people might also quit the game. And before you know it, you're playing with yourself - something you're probably used to.



Now to counter the "OTHER BATTLEGROUPS POASTED SCREENSHOTS AND PREMADED JUST FINE" argument:



The people involved in those games were operating under the impression that the games were another method of bragging rights. There was drama after those games, no matter what you claim. Even native Nightfallers are intelligent enough to go back and see that. In fact, going back and looking at things, it seems that when the drama was high, a game didn't happen again immediately after. It appears that people got butthurt, even in battlegroups that regularly showed off and compared epeen size.



And as far as I can tell, none of those games occurred as regularly as the GO vs RT games. Not even close.



But go on. Continue to break the rules that GO discussed with your guild before the premade, and continue to whine and complain when GO doesn't want to play against you again. Please, brag and show off, and tell everyone how GO is a bunch of babies who get butthurt because they lose.



Because I, for one, could play RT every week. I wouldn't mind. They're good players, and each game has been different. It's never been boring or repetitive. Yes, the obvious argument to this is "BECAUSE U GUYS ARE BOTH TERRIBLE LOL." Once again, I don't care if you think we are. The games are still fun.



Alternatively, here's some advice:



If you really need to brag about your victories, get a flag of ownership.



Yes, that was TLR for most of you. No, I don't care.



Oh, and Har/Ohso, I'm back.

 

[elocon]

Removed on request from moderator

 

[Alteffour]

While, most of that is complete QQ, ill respond to a few things.





First off my stance on it is this: It is NOT the people posting the screens that are the problem...it is the people that get upset that they lost and are shown losing in a game on the internet (not real life) and cry about it on the forums that fuel the people posting these things.



Now, while I understand that maybe that shouldnt be a reason to support posting, it is the truth.



Secondly, the entire point of premades is competition. Would the olympics be good to watch if they gave everybody a gold medal? Would the NBA be good if there were no playoffs? While yes this is a game and not as serious as either of the above two events, this game DOES still fuel peoples competitive natures.



The main reason that most people want the results known is because a large amount of players are highly interested (for a variety of personal reasons) to know what the proverbial pecking order is guild wise.



Now, tbh I dont really enjoy a lot of certain peoples trolling attempts and flaming (and that does extend to a handful of native NF players as well as newer xfers from a variety of BGs) But it is a fact of life and something you or I cannot control. You can either ignore their attempts, or attempt (which is what they want) to get back at them with some clever retort. In fact this thread is exactly the sort of thing they would want you to do in response to them.





I submit that at the very least we start seeing results. At least results would give competitive people what they want (info on whos hot and whos not) while not showing individual stats or times to make QQers feel bad (that 3-0 loss in 10 mins RT had was a pretty nasty screen no doubt) seems like a legit compromise to me.

And as far as I can tell, none of those games occurred as regularly as the GO vs RT games. Not even close.

I dont know what the actual number of games and the length of time GO vs RT ran was before 3.2, I only saw it once a week post 3.2 while I was in RT. What I can tell you is that even though you guys would like to think you have some superior quantity (and quantity has always been NFs argument, never ever quality) of games, I would like to say that while I was in Cyclone I played Premades at least once a week (usually a series of games vs a guild) unless a GM or something was out of town and one couldnt be schedualed. I know that BL ran premades for an extended period of time, and while yes, BL did die off, there are a number of reasons this can be linked to, none of which are really "because somebody took screens and we got our feelings hurt" I know that there was a direct corolation to Cyclone premades slowing down and WotLK coming out due to a variety of factors including new twink brackets (a lot of people leveled to play 59s/60s/69s at that point) and a giant drop in players when instant exorcism hit the bracket which most bgs felt. I know that there were never gaps in premades at least on our guilds end due to screen shots being posted or epeen flexing of any kind.





As to complete garbage:

Twinking (in non-xp BGs) will die.

You highly overestimate the importance of GO premading. Now, I respect a lot of the players in GO, and I commend them on being an active premade guild. But GO not premading vs guilds other than RT is NOT going to kill the bracket.



Do you even realize what a small % of the twinks in NF activly premade or even want to premade or even care or know what premading is? Id even go so far as to say that a lot of people dont care now even more because wsg is twink vs twink anyways. (yes I know that premades are on another level beyond even the twink pug bgs)

but they were warm bodies to fill games, and many of the people who have already left (for the same reasons) were also great players.

The majority of people that have left for the reasons you claim are NF carebears, there are very few players outside of NF that feel the way you do. They might have been good players at one point, but they were clearly only looking for a reason to quit anyways.









Now look, I am sorry that a group of casual gamers has been forced by blizzard to take in a large group of competitive gamers. But that is unfortunatly for pre 3.2 NF players the state of things. There are two ways you can deal with this. Get over it, or quit. While I personally would think it sucks if you quit, I have to tell you that a lot of people will either not care one bit, or be happy that you are gone.





Then again, I DO have a flag of ownership (got lucky on one of my sons packs of wow cards!) and do occasionally slap it on somebody (mostly people that emote me) when I kill them. So maybe im the type of person you dont like anyways.

 

[Ishh]

Pro-screenshot vs contra-screenshot is not the issue as far as I know, it's Natives vs Immigrants. The immigrants obviously want to prove they're better than the natives. Suck it up, let them post screenshots - lose, lose some more, and get better.



The rule you're desperate to keep just makes it easier for the trolls, if you guys wouldn't act so butthurt about it they'd have stopped already. At the end of the day their battlegroup failed and yours didn't.

 

[Alteffour]

Pro-screenshot vs contra-screenshot is not the issue as far as I know, it's Natives vs Immigrants.

The argument IS xfers vs natives, but the subject is not. The issue just so happens to fall along those lines.

 

[Unobscured]

Mis-read the post, IMO. Maybe I didn't write it clear enough, but you were not responding to the intention of the post, you responded to individual quotes.

First off my stance on it is this: It is NOT the people posting the screens that are the problem...it is the people that get upset that they lost and are shown losing in a game on the internet (not real life) and cry about it on the forums that fuel the people posting these things.



Now, while I understand that maybe that shouldnt be a reason to support posting, it is the truth.

This is the exact attitude that causes all this crap. If for no other reasons, the point here is that the rules of the game clearly stated no screenshots. It was agreed to by both teams. If you can't follow simple rules, don't expect a rematch.

Secondly, the entire point of premades is competition. Would the olympics be good to watch if they gave everybody a gold medal? Would the NBA be good if there were no playoffs? While yes this is a game and not as serious as either of the above two events, this game DOES still fuel peoples competitive natures.

Your argument assumes that screenshots are needed to fuel competition. Like I pointed out, GO vs RT was highly competitive. Screenshots were not needed, drama was not needed.

The main reason that most people want the results known is because a large amount of players are highly interested (for a variety of personal reasons) to know what the proverbial pecking order is guild wise.

And this is important why?

I submit that at the very least we start seeing results. At least results would give competitive people what they want (info on whos hot and whos not) while not showing individual stats or times to make QQers feel bad (that 3-0 loss in 10 mins RT had was a pretty nasty screen no doubt) seems like a legit compromise to me.

Personally I would not object to this, mainly because results will likely come out through various other means anyway (word of mouth followed by posting).

I dont know what the actual number of games and the length of time GO vs RT ran was before 3.2, I only saw it once a week post 3.2 while I was in RT. What I can tell you is that even though you guys would like to think you have some superior quantity (and quantity has always been NFs argument, never ever quality) of games, I would like to say that while I was in Cyclone I played Premades at least once a week (usually a series of games vs a guild) unless a GM or something was out of town and one couldnt be schedualed. I know that BL ran premades for an extended period of time, and while yes, BL did die off, there are a number of reasons this can be linked to, none of which are really "because somebody took screens and we got our feelings hurt" I know that there was a direct corolation to Cyclone premades slowing down and WotLK coming out due to a variety of factors including new twink brackets (a lot of people leveled to play 59s/60s/69s at that point) and a giant drop in players when instant exorcism hit the bracket which most bgs felt. I know that there were never gaps in premades at least on our guilds end due to screen shots being posted or epeen flexing of any kind.

Possibly true, I can grant you that. However, coming from 19s that also did premades with a great deal of bragging and whining, I can assure you that the drama and fallout has destroyed guild premades in many cases.

You highly overestimate the importance of GO premading. Now, I respect a lot of the players in GO, and I commend them on being an active premade guild. But GO not premading vs guilds other than RT is NOT going to kill the bracket.



Do you even realize what a small % of the twinks in NF activly premade or even want to premade or even care or know what premading is? Id even go so far as to say that a lot of people dont care now even more because wsg is twink vs twink anyways. (yes I know that premades are on another level beyond even the twink pug bgs)

You definitely missed the boat here. I said twinking in non-xp BGs will die because it will die, not because GO stopping premades will end it. I'm sorry to inform you of this, but twinking is going to die. It's simple math: People are leaving twinking, slowly but surely, and no one is replacing them. I still give twinking a long time before it dies, but it has an expiration date. My suggestion was merely to stop the flaming and dramamongering so we don't kill it prematurely.

The majority of people that have left for the reasons you claim are NF carebears, there are very few players outside of NF that feel the way you do. They might have been good players at one point, but they were clearly only looking for a reason to quit anyways.

I love how you say this like all the "carebears" just happened to pick one of the Nightfall servers to join when they started the game. Did you think that maybe those "carebears" didn't join your premades because of the epeen flexing?

Now look, I am sorry that a group of casual gamers has been forced by blizzard to take in a large group of competitive gamers. But that is unfortunatly for pre 3.2 NF players the state of things. There are two ways you can deal with this. Get over it, or quit. While I personally would think it sucks if you quit, I have to tell you that a lot of people will either not care one bit, or be happy that you are gone.

Yes, people won't care one bit if we were to leave. I understand that completely, and I definitely see the "get over it or quit" message spat all over the WoW forums. What I'm saying here is that we need to lose that attitude, or at least keep it in check, because if people choose the 'quit' option, then 39 twinking will die out even faster.

Then again, I DO have a flag of ownership (got lucky on one of my sons packs of wow cards!) and do occasionally slap it on somebody (mostly people that emote me) when I kill them. So maybe im the type of person you dont like anyways.

I never mentioned that I like or dislike people who do this. I hardly hold it against anyone personally, and I certainly don't take it personally when I lose. I get competitive just like everyone else, and I've even teabagged the corpses of some <Hero> members back in the day.

 

[Alteffour]

I responded to individual quotes because that is what you wrote? If what you wrote wasnt what you intended then maybe it needs a re-write. I do grant you that sometimes tone and inflection are very hard to get across via the internet.





Now to re-respond: (to individual stuff, hope thats cool ;p )

This is the exact attitude that causes all this crap. This is akin to a rapist blaming the woman for wearing tight clothing. If for no other reasons, the point here is that the rules of the game clearly stated no screenshots. It was agreed to by both teams. If you can't follow simple rules, don't expect a rematch.

I dont condone the people doing the trolling, I am merely stating the facts of how the wow forums work. If there were a better way to stop them then id be all for it, however that is not the case. The only hope you have is to stop feeding the trolls, only way, I am sorry.

Your argument assumes that screenshots are needed to fuel competition. Like I pointed out, GO vs RT was highly competitive. Screenshots were not needed, drama was not needed.

I am not positive how things were pre 3.2 with you guys...But for the time I was in RT and we played vs go things on the RT end were not very competitive at all outside of a very small portion of the people who played in the 10s. Furthermore, just because GO and RT have found a way to get their competitive fix, doesnt mean that everybody finds it competitive to keep it that way. You also didnt really address my comparison to the Olympics and the NBA. While yes it is silly to think of wow on exactly similar terms, there is still the fact that if there is no reward, no bragging rights, then there is not fuel for the competition. I think this leads right into what I saw with RT while I was there. People will try even harder if they know that people are going to find out if they win or lose.



I had a talk with Brumble in fact that I will equate here. I posted a screen randomly of him and Cantoin losing a 2v2 match to me and somebody (dont rembmer exactly who, id have to go back and look) to show my UI. While brumble didnt care that I posted it, he asked why and we talked about how its totally cool to post screens, but that I needed to be aware that he would try just that much harder to beat me in the future so I couldnt post further screens of him losing to me. That is the difference. That little extra effort to avoid losing and to get that feeling of the win is why screens or at least results are important to a lot of people. The competitive edge is there I suppose for GO vs RT, but is it there as much? Hard to say. It might be for you, but what about the other 19 players involved?

And this is important why?

Again, knowing the pecking order of guild skill level brings out the best in some people. Knowing you are going to be playing the best a lot of times brings out the best in yourself. I know for certain at least in arenas I am much more alert and keen if I am playing people from Pro and Classy Pizza than if I am playing vs people from other not-as-arena-skilled guilds.

You definitely missed the boat here. I said twinking in non-xp BGs will die because it will die, not because GO stopping premades will end it.

I might have mis-interpreted your point on that. However I still think you overestimate the timeline twinking has. You also dont know what the future has in store for both the game and twinking. Could be that cata would have killed it anyways...could be that Cata will see a big emergence of new twinks...who knows...could be the game just gets unpopular anyways or that a newer better game comes out that people switch to. Dont worry so much about the future, just focus on the here and now imo.

I love how you say this like all the "carebears" just happened to pick one of the Nightfall servers to join when they started the game. Did you think that maybe those "carebears" didn't join your premades because of the epeen flexing?

You misunderstand. I dont just mean GO when I say carebears, I mean the majority of the battlegroup developed into a big carebear community. That includes GO, WWD, a lot of RT, WO and beyond. Dont you find it odd that your BG is the only BG that developed this way? For whatever reasons NF became a major carebear battlegroup that was more worried about other peoples feelings than actually playing the game. Yes you can point out a lot of reasons now about how "well everybody xfered here and blah blah blah" yes NF did a good job of keeping activity up. Maybe it was the carebear attitude that allowed for this. Or maybe it just happened to be the luck of the draw on the time and place blizz did 3.2 for. If 3.0 or 2.3 had done what 3.2 did, then you might have seen BL or Cyclone as the new home of Twinks.

What I'm saying here is that we need to lose that attitude, or at least keep it in check, because if people choose the 'quit' option, then 39 twinking will die out even faster.

I can understand why you feel this way (certainly NF players have seen a loss of their own players due to this) but I dont know that its very accurate as it relates to everybody beyond NF natives. I know a lot of casual twinks that have been playing forever and continue to play as casual players. What they do different than NF natives is that they dont care what some Troll says on the forums about them.

and I certainly don't take it personally when I lose.

You guys seem to be taking it very personally that NNC posted a screen of you losing. If they would have posted a screen of you guys winning I wonder if the response honestly would be the same?

 

[Unobscured]

I'll respond in full when I have time, I have to get to class for now. But I think this warrants an immediate response:

You guys seem to be taking it very personally that NNC posted a screen of you losing. If they would have posted a screen of you guys winning I wonder if the response honestly would be the same?

For the time that I've been premading with GO, we have won the majority of our games, even when factoring out the games with RT. We have not posted screenshots or even results of these wins. We ask the teams we play to extend the same courtesy to us.



When NNC posted their screenshot, it was akin to shooting someone who wasn't holding a gun. Naturally, we will react.

 

[elocon]

If you dont try write this in defence, I surggest you try write a new post in the twinkinfo travern and also make it more non specific cuase if you did see my post it sounds more like you lost in a premade and complain over that the winners have bad sportsmanship than acctualy make people see it in a diffrent way.



Some players gonna post screenshots of games or internal victorys and you cant really stop them from doing it.

 

[Strydar]

This is the exact attitude that causes all this crap. This is akin to a rapist blaming the woman for wearing tight clothing. If for no other reasons, the point here is that the rules of the game clearly stated no screenshots. It was agreed to by both teams. If you can't follow simple rules, don't expect a rematch.

This, sir, is an atrocious analogy. Though I agree that I think posting screen shots accomplishes very little and is usually done by tweens and teens, I suspect - based on your shitty analogy - that you share attributes with those who post screen shots. Grow up, suck it up and pound their asses next time. It's that simple - well that and just quit reading forums and spend your time playing the game... that's more fun anyway.



This QQ nonsense does nothing but promote being flamed and sounds strikingly similar to people crying about twinks playing in their brackets...

 

[Unobscured]

This, sir, is an atrocious analogy. Though I agree that I think posting screen shots accomplishes very little and is usually done by tweens and teens, I suspect - based on your shitty analogy - that you share attributes with those who post screen shots. Grow up, suck it up and pound their asses next time. It's that simple - well that and just quit reading forums and spend your time playing the game... that's more fun anyway.



This QQ nonsense does nothing but promote being flamed and sounds strikingly similar to people crying about twinks playing in their brackets...

You are right, this analogy was poor, and I had intended to delete it in my edit.

If you dont try write this in defence, I surggest you try write a new post in the twinkinfo travern and also make it more non specific cuase if you did see my post it sounds more like you lost in a premade and complain over that the winners have bad sportsmanship than acctualy make people see it in a diffrent way.



Some players gonna post screenshots of games or internal victorys and you cant really stop them from doing it.

I don't care who won or lost. I wasn't even in those games. I haven't even been online (more than a random game or two) for the past 3 or 4 weeks. There is no personal or guild pride that I need to defend here.



The terms of the game were set before the game started. NNC broke those terms. When GO pointed it out, people complained the the terms were no good, and that GO was just QQing about losing.



All my OP was about was defending the terms and laying out the reasoning for the terms. If you're not going to respond to those arguments, you may as well go on the WoW forums and socialize with the trolls.

 

[elocon]

No, you may as well go on the WoW forums and socialize with the trolls, its obviously you that got the problem and not me/us.

 

[Unobscured]

Sorry, you lost me.

 

[elocon]

Well nvm then just gonna repost my first post: Just move on, instead of QQing on twinkinfo.

 

[Alteffour]

The terms of the game were set before the game started. NNC broke those terms. When GO pointed it out,

I will comment on this real quick.



First, I agree that it sucks that NNC broke the agreed upon rule. For that they were wrong, regardless of if the rule was stupid or not. The obvious response for GO is to simply not play them again. Responding to it on the forums is a sure way to keep fanning the flames.



However, GO was also at fault for believing anything that Phauren might have told them. Agreeing to do something with Phauren is tbh inviting trouble upon yourself. Do your homework in the first place and you could probably avoid situations like this in the future.

 

[Pers]

The whole point of a premade is to pwn your enemy and prove how much better you are. Screenshots will help prove your point because now your entire twink community will know how uber your guild is.

 

[Powerglove]

first off my stance on it is this: It is not the people posting the screens that are the problem...it is the people that get upset that they lost and are shown losing in a game on the internet (not real life) and cry about it on the forums that fuel the people posting these things.

^



if you have a problem with trolls on the wow forums, dont visit the wow forums maybe? the people complaining about screenshots are too worried about how they're viewed by people they dont like.

 

[Alteffour]

holy shit powerglove and I agree on something!

 

[Phauren]

I like how you run your mouth about me Soul, makes me all gooey inside.

 

[Phauren]

Also I think I shall be writing Drayner an email since the mods seem to have allowed such blatant breaking of rules. You shouldn't flame people its just not nice Sir Soul