“That was our bar/club/place…”

Some recent drunken conversations coupled with facebook status updates made me facepalm.  Allow me to explain why and how this eventually ties into WoW.

The update in question was from a fairly attractive friend of mine who is still of an age (late teens early 20s) to find nightclubs exciting and “the place to be.”  The text itself was:

“[Person] had so much fun omg. We totally run that [Place]!!!”

This person is the stereotypical “clubber” in that her hair is always dyed, she has no pictures without makeup, and she wears hot’n’sexy ™ outfits everywhere, be it a family function, school or in fact the nightlife scene.  Enjoy your youth, sure.  I loved going dancing as well, and I realize I also made this mistake.  The mistake, of course, is thinking we were important.  Or rather, thinking we were more important than others.

There were a couple clubs I used to frequent religiously [before WoW stole my soul] when I was younger.  For those in Toronto, you may recognize names like the Drink (today’s crappy Guvernment), Meow, Plastique and then smaller more eccentric places like Menage’s “Way Back Wednesdays” or more recently (who am I kidding this was probably 6-7 years ago) Blvd Lounge’s opening.  I loved them.  I loved dancing, I love drinking, I loved partying with strangers every time I went out and being best of friends for that night.  I loved my group of friends I went out with.  And all throughout this time, I was always convinced that the party wasn’t happening until I got there.  Until my group got there.  We drank the most!  We danced the hardest and best!  We engaged people who were at the bar to come to the floor!  We convinced non drinkers to come to the bar!  We danced on the speakers, on the stage, on the window… whatever applied.  We were like, oh my god, totally the life of those parties. 

Yeah… well, no, we weren’t.  We were the life of the party for OUR GROUP OF PEOPLE, and every part of that group (mostly) was equally responsible for being the life of OUR party.  Sure, there were nights when we could claim we got the dance floor going when it was particularly slow, or nights when we got a huge group of strangers to all drink together for a while (the bartenders sure were happy), but we in no way determined the success of the night for the whole place.  Back then, though, we were sure we did.  We arrived late, like royalty, and we had that air of awesome – simply, we oozed cool and confidence.

Now we’re older and we laugh at those dumb notions.  We look at the “younger” kids (ok, I’m 27, so it’s not that I don’t get the urge nor never go out clubbing anymore, it’s just that I no longer think it’s omg the fing awesome!!!) and smile when we see them carry themselves as if they in fact ran this place and determined whether it was a party or not.  In time, they’ll understand they were insignificant but simply a part of the larger picture.  Or they won’t, and they’ll be the old people who tell you about the good old days and you’ll here stories that will make you roll your eyes because you’ll know they’re horribly exaggerated.

Latus, wtf has this got to do with WoW?  I know you’ll link it to raids, but isn’t that obvious?

Huzzah, my perceptive friend!  Yes I will link it to raiders!  But to make sure nobody from my guild thinks I’m insulting them, I’m not! Woot!  I thought of this post a few weeks ago after a horrible horrible pug on Coilfang with my Druid and then observed further pugs.  This is a general bunch of observations I’d like to make:

There is always a player who thinks he runs the raid.  Without him, nobody would be able to do anything!  This is sometimes the actual raid leader, usually not.
If it wasn’t for me, that club would be empty and dead!

There are always a few players who think that without their dps, the fights wouldn’t be completed successfully.
If it wasn’t for me and my friends busting our moves, nobody would dance!

There are always players who look back on a raid run and are convinced that they were the sole reason it succeeded (if it fails, it’s everyone else’s fault).
When I walked in to that club, everyone knew the party was really starting now!

 

Didn’t you basically say the same thing 3 times?

Yeah.

 

So what’s the point?

Nobody is special in a raid group.  Not the one who gives the strats, not the one who tanks, not the one who heals, not the one who damages, not the one who kites, not the one who calls things out.  Not one of you is special.  You might be better at a specific job than most other players, but if you were not there, the result would be the same!

I do most raid leading for my Druid raiding.  Oh but wait, if I don’t do it, someone else will!  People accept me doing it because they know I’ve seen the fights on Latus.  If I wasn’t there, they’d simply read the strategy and go with that.

It’s a game!  Not rocket science! Except Gunship.  It has rockets.

I tank on Cowtch.  I have a lot of health.  I’m a very good tank.  SO ARE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF OTHER PLAYERS!

I do good dps on Latus.  SO DO MILLIONS OF OTHER PLAYERS, PROBABLY BETTER THAN ME!

I heal well on Cowtch. So do hundreds of thousands of other healers!

This relates to a post I made long, long ago, about not thinking you’re the star of the raid.  In essence, that post was made because I wanted to talk about avoiding drama due to feeling unappreciated.  This post here because I wanted to address the issue of people thinking they’re awesome. 

Are you awesome?

Yes?  Great! Congratulations! Nobody cares in the end and it doesn’t matter.  But keep on being awesome, it’s better than sucking.

No?  Well that sucks.  Nobody cares in the end and it doesn’t matter.  But try and change things up and be more awesome, nobody likes to suck.

Whether you’re awesome or not, the raid will succeed with or without you if it is meant to succeed.  You are only part of the bigger picture, a small part of it.  1/25th or 1/10th, to be precise.

What about Travolta?

Ok, he really did own the club.  That’s an exception.