The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Shatter - Stress Management
by Vonya
Sooner than I expected, here’s the guest post from Shatter.
There’s a possibility I may murder him in the near future, so this may be his last post. <3
As always, look below the cut for more!
stress [stres] –noun
1. importance or significance attached to a thing; emphasis: to lay stress upon good manners.
2. emphasis in the form of prominent relative loudness of a syllable or a word as a result of special effort in utterance.
3. accent or emphasis on syllables in a metrical pattern; beat.
4. emphasis in melody, rhythm, etc.; beat.
5. the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain.
It’s something that we all deal with, and is probably why most of us picked up World of Warcraft in the first place. To me, “stress” is not really a feeling itself, but something that accents everything we say and do. It either pulls us down in collusion with depression, or it causes us to become easily irritated and short, by way of anger. In either case, stress is a very real thing that can cause us to act in ways we never would have thought possible until it has happened. It is almost palpable; it is a feeling that pressures your eyes and pulls at your heart. You carry it around with you like an itchy sweater, and eventually the frustration of its scratchy presence causes you to snap.
In the World of Warcraft, there are stressors that we must deal with that sadly mimic those of real life. There is a need for a constant flow of money, be it for consumbles in a raid, an epic flying mount, or increasing professions. There is a need for companionship, hence the “Massive Multi-” at the start of MMORPG. There are “sports” such as raiding or PVP and then there are people who we simply will not like. These factors, though not the only ones, have the potential to turn otherwise benevolent situations into rather trying ones. With the slip of the tongue or perhaps saying something at just the wrong time, we can break the stress-threshold of a friend or acquintance and in an instant, find ourselves dealing with a different person.
So what should we do?
The first thing that comes to my mind is to leave the situation entirely. Calmer heads prevail, and it’s usually better to avoid prolonging the situation, where a minor sprain may become a break or tear in an otherwise good relationship. The problem with this is naturally paranoia, in which the absence of reassurance can lead any of the involved parties to act rashly rather than wait out the momentary recess.
During a raid this weekend, a friend of mine snapped at someone else in the raid. The person who was attacked was constantly whining about this or that, but the reaction from my friend also could have been much less volatile. It’s a situation like that, which shows tension, that I would say both parties simply need to avoid each other. That does not only mean that my friend should not speak to the other, but the other also should refrain from speaking as well. Silence is golden, and very few people will wish to steal that away if you know how much it’s needed at the moment.
An example of what happens when a situation like that occurs and it is exacerbated?
I was in a guild many months ago that raided fairly normally. Actually, wow… it’s almost been a year since I joined it. Anyway, there was a newer member who rubbed me the wrong way. Rather than confront him about it, I decided to mind my own business and did my own thing; however, he continued to try and engage me in conversation. Eventually, I snapped at him and it led to a lot of drama down the road. The most important thing to remember, I think, is that confrontation is not what you want to encourage when you and this person are not good friends. It is easier to amputate a vestigal growth than it is to treat it for infection, I believe.
But we should not all be ticking-stress-bombs waiting to be set off. Some of the things I personally advocate if you feel the stress is getting to you too much in WoW, is to take a break from the game and take a walk outside. Sometimes getting fresh air will keep you from feeling cornered and under the grind of someone else’s heel. Also, watching television might help so long as you don’t let your mind dwell on whatever your stressor is. Listen to music, engage in auto-erotic asphyxiation, or read a book. I don’t know, but stop doing whatever is stressing you. The longer you avoid thought on it, the sooner it will become calloused and heal over. If you love raiding but your raid team is stressing you out, take a break from it just so you can keep from burning out. It is much harder to recover from burn out, than it is simply to reduce the levels of stress you are experiencing.
Also important is knowing when someone is showing signs of being stressed, and that if they do snap at you, it isn’t something to end your relationship over. One thing that I have noticed with an alarmingly high rate in WoW, is that people do not want to forgive each other. This leads to drama, which turns guilds into cliquish squads that eventually bring everyone into a stress-filled war-zone, and is really selfish and unnecessary. I’ve had my quarrels with people, but when it starts to impact your guild performance: “I won’t raid with ___, I won’t help ___, I hope ___ dies,” it does create a dangerous situation. Turning the other cheek may be the best way to handle a situation, if not only for you, then for your guild in general.
And in closing, an exceptional way to relieve yourself of stress is to remind Ego that Spirit is a better stat than mp5. I have discovered that transferring your evil karma to someone else, is almost as good as simply doing good things. At the very least, it’s more fun to watch.
October 23rd, 2007
Good thoughts, Shatter. I know I feel stressed often while playing: So much to do, so little time. (Having 4 level 70s and 6 other lower levels is kinda dumb, now that I think of it…)
I’m a snapper, unfortunately. Instead of walking away from a situation, I bitch about it (out loud). Somehow, I need to find the happy medium between sounding condescending when I provide constructive criticism (I don’t intend to sound that way, honest!) and sounding totally rude and obnoxious.
(And I totally cracked up at the last paragraph!)
October 23rd, 2007
Number 1 reason for being stressed in the game: being a guild/raid leader or high ranking officer in a guild that is actually trying to progress through new content.
That was one of the reasons I left my old guild. And I totally understand the frustrations of the leaders in my new guild when we hit the occasional road block. And not having to deal with every single little criticism from people in the raid, not having to plan and coordinate a raid - so much less stress.
I guess I’m looking at this as stress for the leadership, but really that’s where most of the stress lies. When you are just a member of a guild, you have to deal mostly with the stress of your own performance. Player X’s actions may screw you up, but it’s not really your responsibility to correct that. When you are leading a raid, you have to deal with the stress of 25 peoples’ performances. Ugh.
This actually reminds me of Apathy’s post linked here. People that complain about someone on a raid, or about the strategy of the raid - have you ever actually tried to lead a raid before?
October 23rd, 2007
“engage in auto-erotic asphyxiation”
Good post but this sealed the deal!
You’re 100% right you play a game to not be stressed remember that people!
October 24th, 2007
“I’ve had my quarrels with people, but when it starts to impact your guild performance: “I won’t raid with ___, I won’t help ___, I hope ___ dies,” it does create a dangerous situation. Turning the other cheek may be the best way to handle a situation, if not only for you, then for your guild in general.”
If that happens your most likely better off finding a new place to call home, because it rarely gets fixed and often causes one of you to stop getting a raid spot. I use to know a healer that refused to heal the MT because of something silly and was quickly removed for someone who would.
P.S - Ego check your email please.
October 26th, 2007
In large part this is a great post, definitely makes up for the lack of Ego. However, I’d have to say my own experience is that the first thing to do when I find a person rubbing me the wrong way is identify if its something that can be worked out at all. If it can then as soon as I’m sure I’m able to communicate rationally about it I send them a tell and try to get the dialogue going. The corollary to this is as soon as I’m sure the dialogue isn’t going anywhere productive I respectfully cut it off.
An example if I might. I run regularly with a rogue in my guild who’s gear is way beyond anybody else in the guild. He’s a 375 LW and has a fetish for purple patterns and we’re only getting rolling in Kara. Anyhow, he puts out way higher DPS than any of the other damage classes I run with regularly and he’s a bit antsy so aggro was a constant struggle and his cockiness made me start to really loathe him. I ended up having a few chats with him about where my threat gen was at, assured him it was something I was constantly working on improving but that to a large extent I was gear limited. There was definitely conflict, but ultimately we run even more together and have turned what was a contentious, stressful relationship into something verging on friendship but definitely full of mutual trust and respect.
The final thing I always remind people of is that even on vent or TS you’re missing almost 80% of the message the other person is sending. Humans are hugely non-verbal communicators, with all of the non-verbal stuff being tone and emotion. This is why flame wars happen in email, but rarely at a party. Its a lot harder to misinterpret a sarcastic joke when the person is standing in front of you than when they say something in /g and forget to append a smiley.
October 27th, 2007
Thanks for covering for Ego, great post
For me, it is really taking my real life stress into the game that can make me snap at people. Most of the little issues that happen everyday in wow I tend to ignore and accept that playing with real people means you get the jerks along with the good guys. However, when I log in and I had a bad day is when my inner bitch can get easily released so what I do is I just try to keep to myself, on those days it is my time to farm, solo quest or level a lowbie. It does not always work, specially if I am raiding or I get into issues or questions with guildies.
After that I agree that issues must be dealt with, but I try to do it when I am not stressed. Recently I had an issue about raid spots with a couple of guys. We are running Kara now mainly as a way to gear new recruits that will help us with progress. A couple of members were moaning very loudly because they did not get into the raid that night. Those people joined us about 2 months ago in blues and greens and today are showing mostly epic gear. I really had had a bad day so I choose to ignore it and wait until the following day. Then I could have a civilized conversation about how raid leaders make decisions with the guild interest and fairness in mind and that meant not everyone was going to be 100% happy every time, and how they did need to learn to live with it as public whinning and moaning about it would not be welcome.
Well, it is not much different from real life stress handling I guess, my magic recipe is deep breath, count up to 100 and, if I am stressed, sleep on it and only then deal with it
BTW shatter, fully agree on spirit > mp5 *hides*
October 27th, 2007
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