An unorthodox compliment, but woot!
This will be something of a dumb post involving me being happy over receiving a compliment. Nothing to see here.
For almost five years I've been playing World of Warcraft, for the last two years I've been part of my server's forum community. Not everyone who plays the game frequents the forums regularly, so there is a group of 'regulars', consisting primarily of the witty, the trolls, and what have you. I started off by wowing everyone with a character posting alt, then when my identity was exposed, I found a new niche as just me. Character or not, the respected trolls and regulars found me witty and funny. These aren't all wonderful people, but most of them are quite smart and very funny.
Several months ago, Blizzard's moderators became very heavy handed, so one of the trolls paid for a new, private board which many of us migrated to. We're not all friends there, but we share a twisted kind of camaraderie. Without non-trolls, we usually end up posting funny stuff, trying to out-humor one another, sometimes we have good intelligent discourse, but occasionally some amusing drama pops up. Recently, the arrogant leader of the server's most successful guild tried to flex his e-peen over something, and I made a calculated but cutting observation at how other good guild leaders aren't douches yet are successful. The guy just nerd raged and tried hard to debate and flame me, but was just a pathetic poster. Everyone else in the thread seemed to feel that I'd 'owned' him, and I didn't resort to name calling or anything, I just honestly debated my points and he couldn't react well. One guy I really respect intellectually said this:
The problem, friends, is that Inexs is a shitty forum poster. On other side of the ring is Shastblu, maker of Zodde, poster extraordinaire. Let me tell you a story... about ten or eleven months ago on the now-defunct PR forums, I made the mistake of calling Shast passive-aggressive in a private tell. Mother. Of. God. Shast served me a proper bitchslap. My next week was filled with nerdrage, trauma and angst. Since then, Shast has blossomed into a noteworthy forum assailant. So let's return our attention to Inexs, Representative of Resurrection. As accomplished as his guild is at killing internet monsters, Inexs is (let's be honest) a forum nobody. His comments to date summarize to "Resurrection's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and like I care what you think". Since page 5 he's tucked his tail between his legs. He presents himself as a motard, and this reflects on his guild. Personally I think he's doing his guild a disservice by even showing up here but if he's going to try to keep up with the champions, he ought to bring his A Game.
*He was joking about the angst, trauma and nerdrage bit.
The Shastblu he's talking about is me. For some reason, that made my day. It wasn't so much for this argument, because Inexs wasn't difficult to best, but alot of things he'd seen me do in the past. Even though it's about something not saintlike, being told by someone I respect that I'm one of the better debaters he's come across feels like one of the best compliments I've received about something I'm good at. The guy I quoted above isn't some basement dwelling teen - he's a 30 something father with a degree in engineering. I used to not be very skilled at such things(someone said I sucked at it at YSRMB, I honestly forget who), but existing around guys like that kind of sharpened me up and made my innate wit/humor/verbal skills come out. Even though most of them are a bunch of douchebags, I guess I owe them for that.
/end pathetic nerd rant