Dopo la partita dell'Italia in TV non avevo un cazzo da fare, così ho vagabondato per il forum US in preda alla frenzy per la ricerca di plausibili leaked 1.9 patch notes , e invece ho trovato questo:
E' in pratica l'analisi di un player che ha finalmente raggiunto il rank 14 sul suo server, e poi si è guardato alle spalle per vedere che cosa si era lasciato dietro... Abbastanza lucido ma altrettanto sconcertante direi!As of November 15th, 2005, I have successfully attained the rank of Grand Marshal (rank 14) on my Alliance Paladin. I have been PVPing, first part time then full time, since the honor system came out. I ramped up the amount of participation I had in the system as my rank advanced. I did stall at Knight-Captain (rank 8) for about six weeks after the battlegrounds came out as I focused more on Alterac Valley than the more honor rewarding Warsong Gulch.
It took a lot of things to get where I am. It took the cooperation of a good group, the understanding of players who were willing to scale back their earnings to allow me to surpass them, and the understanding / support of my guild. I would be the 'success story' of the PVP / Honor system it seems.
I can unequivocally state that I will never participate in the Honor system ever again. Even if the expansion does not reward former rank 14 players with the level 70 rewards, I will not compete to achieve new versions of the gear I have gained. The system itself is flawed, and in my opinion it is best if people do not get involved in it in. If I had known the real investment needed to advance when I started, I never would have gotten into it.
It is easy to sit back and criticize the choices that GM/HW characters have made when they talk about how much they have had to work to get where they are. The most common statement that the uninformed make is ‘it was your choice, and you should have just stopped,’ or some iteration thereof. I can state that it is not that easy.
There is something called the ‘Dollar Auction’ (sometimes called an ‘American Auction’), commonly used by charities, where when auctioning off an item (or, originally, simply a dollar bill) that the second place bidder must also pay what they bid, but do not receive anything in return. It is extremely common in auctions such as this for bidding to reach a rather silly level (an example is $20 for a standard $1 bill) due to whoever is currently in second place now having invested too much to lose what they are putting down on the table without getting something back. Psychological phenomena prevents the average human being from walking away when there is still a chance of receive some return on investment. Companies around the world continue to pour millions into failing divisions and projects due to the same psychological hurdle.
The honor system plays off this same affect, leaving those who don’t achieve the GM/HW titles with, literally, hundreds of man hours invested with no return. The frustration that this can cause leads to people pushing harder than is healthy to finally get something out of the system. This is where we hear the stories of people sleeping 4-5 hours a day, and then spending all day in the system taking breaks only to eat and use the restroom. Beyond even that, you have people who have their characters played in shifts so that they can have some semblance of a life.
I know people who have spent vacation days from their real life job in an effort to push hard for a next rank or complete the final weeks of the rank 13 to rank 14 transition. I have done it myself, taking four days off of work (November 7 – 10, 2005), so that I could guarantee myself the extra points so that I did not have to continue competing the week of November 15 - 21, 2005.
Even on a ‘soft’ server like Argent Dawn, where the competition is nowhere near as steep as the PVP servers such as Blackrock, Shattered Hand, or Archimonde, those that have achieved rank 14 have at times succumbed to exhaustion, psychological burnout, and general malaise in regards to the game. The system creates a burnout or shell shock affect in the players that participate in it, causing them to cut back on or cease playing the game entirely. In effect, this system can cost Blizzard customers just as constant overtime can cost a company an employee. Anecdotally, many different players on the Blizzard forums report that the rank 14s on their servers all but vanish after achieving their ranks.
There are many achievement oriented people that play MMORPGs, and that is precisely who the Honor system is attempting to hook into participating. Just as the game itself is potentially psychologically addicting (just like a gambler’s addiction, which is very real), the Honor system is even more so. The need to get to that next hurdle or accomplishment to prove to oneself that one is progressing can be extremely strong. This type of compulsion will not show up in everyone, but that is simply due to the fact that every person is different. What affects one person mentally is not guaranteed to work on another. This can lead to decisions that adversely affect the self, just like a gambling addict that sells his car for money to take to a casino.
In summary, I find that the Honor system is not something that is either healthy or constructive. Blizzard has created a system that people can abuse themselves with, and should make changes to it so that the intensive, consecutive time requirements currently in the system are no longer the case. This would be both to show care for their PVP oriented populace, and to retain the customers that often quit after either finishing or no longer wishing to participate in the system. Compete at your own risk.
Pensateci prima di intraprendere la lunga grindata all'honor system...
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