Reflections From The Pond

I was debating whether I should title this post the more catchy “How To Get Four Achievements On A Single Raid Boss”, but I settled for a slightly down-toned variety.

The well known quote of “Standing on the shoulders of giants” refers to how you can make intellectual progress by using the understanding gained by notable thinkers who have gone before you, to how much farther you can actually see from a slightly elevated position.

In WoW, most of us are standing on the shoulders of someone, perhaps not giants but gnomes, dwarves or maybe orcs. Very very few of us set out into the world intent on discovering it all ourselves (at least not after the first toon levelled to 80 :P).

We seek out information about where Mankrik’s wife can be found (yes, even I have done that quest on a lowbie Horde alt) instead of scouring the Barrens on our own and we happily use knowledge gathered by others to further our own understanding of the world and our abilities.

There is not that many of us that run into a new dungeon totally oblivious to what may come. Instead, we prefer to study videos made by those who really did go in not knowing what to expect and we read up on encounters and what information has leaked from various sources before we even enter the big ugly mofo’s lair.

When we see the big dragon lying asleep, curled up on the floor of her cave, we know that she has a nasty breath and a tail that will swipe if we come too close, we know she will fly up after a while and breathe lethal fire down upon us and we know her eggs had better be left untouched or we may regret it.

We have an inkling of what to expect and we work out a way to get what we want, sometimes by slavishly following someone else’s tactics, sometimes by tweaking those tacticts to suit our own group and abilities.

We are standing on the shoulders of gnomes, elves and orcs. We use the knowledge and information and tactics and understandings gained by the people who have gone before us.

Nothing wrong with this of course.

I don’t need to prove the Pythagorean Theorem myself before I use it – I can see the proof and understand it and gladly use it.

If I am going kayaking a weekend I want to know beforehand how to get up again in case the kayak does a flip and I get submerged, I don’t want to work it out on my own hanging upside down in the water.

If I am going to be part of an attempt to do the Assembly of Iron the hard mode way, ie killing Steelbreaker last, I want to know what I should look out for and how I should try to react to the various bad things coming my way.

(Now, those of you who know me know that I’ve usually been very keen on wanting to experience new dungeon and raid content fresh, of not knowing what to expect when I entered, of finding out myself why doing certain things are good and some are bad.

I have been very stubborn about this, but lately I have somwhat reluctantly acknowledged the fact that information does not always diminish the joy of the play.

Because while there are thrills and joys to be found in exploring and discovering things, there are also thrills and joys to be found in the execution of things, of having a theoretical if not yet practical knowledge of the steps of the dance and how to follow in your partner’s lead.

And, of course, the fact that most people I run with would already have a good knowledge of the fights and me refusing to listen did only leave me the noob might have had something to do with my changing my views on this as well :P)

This possibility to stand on other people’s shoulders is also why a generally bewildered and somewhat bedraggled raider like me can snag four achievements in a single boss kill. I was standing on the shoulders of both the people I’ve raided with before and the people I was raiding with that night as I went from doing 10mans the normal way to 25mans hard modes without going through any intermittent stages.

It makes me feel grateful and indebted and humble – regardless if you’re doing the social variety or the more hardcore one raiding really is a team effort and I hope that I can pay it back and that someday someone else will be standing on my shoulders.

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