A Little Pain with my Pleasure

[fusional]

So what's the proper perspective?

depends on the example and the context. he referenced raiding history, so i explained why it matters in a specific context.

the proper perspective for that example, then, would be similar raiding experiences. but when one person has done something the other person hasn't, and the one person references what they've done as context for an argument- if the other person hasn't done the same thing or something similar it's quite foolish for them to comment unless their comments are purely hypothetical, and are labeled as such. and better yet- if they don't share the same experience or understanding, they should say as much and ask about it before commenting further.

because what good does it do to blindly argue something you haven't experienced and don't understand? based on what, exactly? based on what you heard someone else say (who also likely lacks experience and understanding)?

because that sums up about 90% of the anti-WoW and/or anti-hardcore comments on this forum.

and furthermore, you people are confusing opinion with perspective. they're not the same.

let's say you have an object. two people are viewing this same object, but one from further away. the person closest to the object picks it up, analyzes it, then tries to describe it. the person further away disagrees, describes it differently no matter what the first person says as he holds it in his hands.

so as you can see, perspective INFLUENCES opinion, but it isn't opinion. the person holding the object may incorrectly describe it, sure. his opinion of whether it has this or that quality may be wrong, sure. but by having a better perspective than the person further away, he is in a better position to have a more accurate opinion of it.

kind of like a guy stargazing with the naked eye trying to tell us what venus looks like, vs. a guy with a high-powered telescope.

and too often in history the guy with the telescope sees his descriptions of venus rejected by those looking on with a naked eye.

who would you rather ask about relativity? someone with a master's degree in physics, or someone who thumbed through a few pages in The Universe in a Nutshell? who has the better perspective? and which perspective has a higher likelihood of greater accuracy (in relation to opinion)?

If I had tried to state my opinion on what I think should be done about Ifrit nails, then my perspective would be pretty useless. I don't though, and likewise, you don't post in the lore threads (for example).

a great example, and entirely true. just as i'd be quick to throw my hat in on a conversation about pro football, but i wouldn't meddle in a discussion about hockey. it's about knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.

but people dying doesn't make them experts on the subject in a videogame, as it's not the same simply by virtue of the fact that we all die in the game at some point. if a casual player were to try some extraordinarily difficult solo leve, and die to it over and over and over again for several hours a day for days straight until they finally figure their own strategy with no outside help, no guides, just their own wits and button pressing skills- then yes, it would compare to my death experiences in progression content, and yes they would have similar perspective to me on the issue.

but that's not really the case, is it? how much of the population do you think shares the sort of experience i have with new content every patch? so then do we really have the same perspective?

not at all.

and yet, i have also experienced nearly all of the casual content in this game.

do you see where i'm going with this?

It is possible for two people to exchange dialogue about an idea even if their notions/perspectives are different. It will only result in a pointless back-and-forth if neither person can admit the validity of the other's perspective.

it is, yes. but if you'll notice, it's exceedingly common for more casual players in this forum to overstep their boundaries and try to act as expert witnesses about things they have little to no experience in. so it isn't just that their notions/perspectives are different. attempting to say the two perspectives are equivalent in that case simply because both parties *have* their own perspective is ridiculous.

i'm fine with admitting the validity of someone's perspective as long as their perspective is actually valid. it does happen sometimes. just... rarely. maybe it would happen more often if the forum didn't have such an ugly knee-jerk reaction any time you bring up warcraft or endgame.

An intelligent response to the thread could have been:

i absolutely agree, that would have been a good (and/or better) way to respond to the thread. but, as you can see, people on this forum can very easily annoy me when they talk about things they don't really understand :3