Let them play

In game communities there is a lot of judgement about how other people choose to play games.  The casuals deride the hardcore players as sweaty neckbeards with no life, and the hardcore players mock the filthy casuals and their lack of skills and dedication.

I got hit with a wave of this over the past few weeks as I have been carrying people through the Torghast dungeon in WOW.  Torghast drops important resources for crafting legendary gear and people want their shiny loot, so off to Torghast they go.  Even though most people seem to enjoy it, they often don't enjoy how challenging it can be.  They could practice harder and git gud, but many of them choose instead to pay me large sums of gold to beat the dungeon for them instead.

I have no problem with this.  

Partly this is because it is making me rich, naturally, but also I just don't see the issue.  It doesn't matter to me if they could get better by themselves or if they just can't do it.  It doesn't matter to me if they are doing easy content where they don't 'need' the legendary anyway.  They like playing the game, they want to get more powerful, and this content is being a struggle.  They would rather pay so that the experience they can have is one where some tough dwarf paladin tanks all the monsters while they shoot at them.  I would rather have the experience of having 50,000 more gold, and I don't mind being a tough dwarf paladin tanking all the monsters.

Everybody wins!

But people get really upset.  When they see my advertisements I get lots of hateful whispers with people yelling at me to get out of Looking For Group chat, or making unwarranted assumptions about my hygiene, age, marital status, and general attractiveness.

When I advertise in Torghast chat I get people yelling about how anyone who can't do the content themselves is garbage, and how they should never ever pay for a carry.  One conversation went something like this:

Me:  Selling Torghast carries for 50k gold.

Random person:  Anyone who can't do this themselves is awful.  They should quit WOW.  How can they be this bad?  If they need a carry, they should join my group, I will do it for free.  It is trivial!

I found it kind of funny.  Even if a weak player heard it, would they really want to join a group with an entitled asshat who is busy telling them how wretched they are?  Much better to pay 50,000 gold to run with someone who is helpful and non judgemental, I think.

I don't understand that desperate desire to trash talk people who play differently.  Their progress isn't affecting your progress, and if they can't do Torghast themselves they aren't going to be a high ranked player in any format.  All they are is just one more random person trying to make numbers go up and hopefully enjoying the process.  Just accept that one person's fun is not another person's fun and move on.

There is nothing to be gained by trying to push other people down to make yourself feel higher.  If you want to feel good, find a serious challenge, work hard, and overcome it.  Other people not required.

Except when those people are carrying you through dungeons for large sums of cash, I guess.  Those people you do need.