The View From Down Here

A Sense of Entitlement

It’s happening more and more, and I can’t help but be irritated by it as time goes on. I’m in the Ironforge Auction House, or in Dalaran running errands, and before too long, I get a whisper:

“hey m8, wanna run Naxx 10?”

As a matter of fact, I don’t. One of Namthe’s rules for a stress-free life at the moment is:

• Namthe does not run Naxxramas. At all.

This is mostly due to the fact that after running it so much pre-ulduar, I don’t want to see it again. In addition, it’s an ugly, ugly dungeon that really feels like more could have been done to it to bring it up to date when it was re-released.

Inevitably I turn to my approacher, and notice that invariably he has me targeted- he’s inspecting me. Nothing wrong with that in itself – I’ve often been known to inspect other players to see what they’re wearing. However, more than that, I’m being vetted.

Most of what I’m wearing these days is i226; I don’t (ordinarily) wear gear with an ilevel below 213. This appears to make me ideal for their purposes, being both (apparently) available and ridiculously outgearing the content they want me to run. Invariably the person approaching me is wearing a mix of i187 and 200 blues and maybe a couple of Heroic epics.

If I’m feeling curious, I’ll reply, along the lines of “I have all the gear I could possibly want from Naxx, plus 350 badges. What could I possibly want from there?” The answer is always “Badges, for gems or frozen orbs,” like they didn’t bother to read the question in the first place.

What I find more surprising is that often these people aren’t even looking in LFG for a tank; they’ve spotted me and real soon now they’ll find another eight people to fill in their dream run. I suppose that what I’m really wondering is this – why do people I’ve never met have this strange idea that I might be willing to run a dungeon that I quite obviously massively outgear for them?