While the title may be a bit deceiving, I feel that it, in a way pertains to what I'm about to talk about. Though i'd imagine that the fact that I'm actually blogging in this thing for the first time in years should probably come as a much larger shock to most...though I heavily doubt that there's anyone left to actually read this thing, so it's more a matter of getting things off of my chest that have been weighing there for several days.
I'm sure if there's anyone left reading this, I've told them that I've been heavily engrossed in Champions Online for the last couple of months. I've joined up with a pretty great supergroup and had a generally good time. Really that is until the other day when a great group of people put together a costume contest and really did a great job of organizing the chaos. Of course you're going to have people spouting off at the mouth about how they should have won, and how the judges were biased and so on and so forth. But I think what really bothers me is the elitism that sprang forth from the SG that i'm a part of concerning who the winners were. Which kind of lends to the topic of this post, anonymity and things that it spawns in normally decent people.
The problem with something such as a costume contest is that they are completely subjective. There are no hard and fast rules as to how and who people should win or lose. In this case, there's three judges, three different perspectives, and three different ideas of what they, personally, think is "best". Imagine trying to get those three perspectives in line with having to judge probably close to 70 different people's ideas of what they think is the "best costume". of course people are gonna get all hurt and angry over it. But, i think what bothers me is the reaction of some in my group. They decided, that since they didn't win, they were going to put on their own costume contest, by their rules, and basically find a way to make sure that they win. Unlike some of the other games, I haven't gotten close, personally, with but maybe a handful of people in the group. This perhaps may tint my opinion and experience a bit in this case, but I feel that it was utter arrogance on the SG's part to do this and has basically made me decide that I won't be participating in the group's Costume Contest.
It's funny to listen to someone 'take sides' in a video game, but i feel that our group is in the wrong and it's simple arrogance that is taking them further down the path. I've always felt that when it comes to SG's, Guilds, Kinships, or whatever the name for a group of people playing under one banner, the biggest downfall of them all is the arrogance and simple ballsiness that comes from the complete anonymity of the internet. This may sound like an incredibly fine point to be harping on, but truly there's a small feeling of betrayal and loss of respect with, what I should most probably call...a dick move.
Again, there's an incredible amount of effort that's put into running something like that, an incredible amount of patience to deal with the outburst and outcry of the people who didn't win that they have to deal with, not to mention the pure logistics of organizing things, gathering prizes, making sure everything's how you want to make it. There's going to be people claiming that they're playing favorites, and all sorts of arguments that makes even thinking about running a second one a living hell, I would imagine.
The problem is that the two groups are, or maybe were...not sure what the sentiments are like nowadays, close. I'm sure that after some of the things said that the relationship dynamic might change a bit. It's not my place, nor in my ability to say for sure. But again it seems to come down to pure arrogance. I can't abide by arrogance for too long. So what I guess I'm getting off my chest is that, once again, I'm starting to feel that discontent that always seems to come from getting involved with a large SG. This time though, I will not start up my own Supergroup like in CoH. If I leave it may well spell the end of my days playing CO. The last fall-out in CoH took me out of the game entirely for nine months, the second one driving me completely away from the game. As much as I don't want that to happen, I can't feel and deal with the type of situation that will possibly spring from events such as this. It's put me in something of a funk for the last couple of days, and I told myself a long time ago that things happening in a game wouldn't do that to me anymore. Good lord I hope I haven't put this blog in my forum profile somewhere.