CAREBEARS IN BARNYLAND
Date: June 1st, 2000 @ 09:14
Why, as gamers, do we need to constantly engage in a testosterone-fuelled battle to prove our “street cred”? Will we be looked down upon if we’re not seen to be engaging in “eXTReMe gAmIng”? Some would have you believe that their characters never die, they never miss, and they’re never defeated. They simply OWN YOU. You don’t play the “real” game. You go to Trammel to play in “Barneyland” UO. You log on to Thistledown to play “Carebear” AC. Wimp. After all, there’s only one way to play these games, and you, by god, aren’t cutting the mustard. You’re playing the wrong way. Pansy.
“Hey, it’s just the lingo!” “I didn’t make it up, I just say it because that’s what everyone else calls it.”
Just because it’s in wide use doesn’t make an insulting term any more acceptable.
You know, in this country, there was a time when it was perfectly acceptable to refer to anyone with African anscestry a “nigger”. In the some circles, it still is. Fortunately, times change, and so do people.
In AC, “Carebear” assumes that there are simply no challenges on any server other than Darktide. The same applies to EQ’s regular servers. It’s a supposition that is, at best, uninformed. More often, it’s willfully ignorant and it ensures that nobody will take you seriously except people who already agree with you. Do those who have fun playing on a regular server threaten the power structure of those who would demean them as “carebears”? If not, then what’s the point of all the bluster from the 10% of the community who plays on Darktide? If they don’t want the 90% describing Darktide as a land of idiot d3wd PKs (and I’m not saying they are), the first step toward that is not to treat the majority like they play a no-challenge game filled with ponies, daisys, and cotton candy.
Competition and challenge exists for the people who play the regular servers, it’s just channeled differently. There’s always competition when people compete for the same resources, be it in the real world or simulated worlds.
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