I have to admit at being taken completely by surprise by the negative reaction to my review of Garona’s rogue guide the other day. And at the beginning I felt vaguely uneasy: was I selling out? Did they have a point? But after a little introspection I was content in the knowledge that my motives were clear – someone had asked me to review something, I had accepted, found it to be good, and reported as such. So why such a hostile response, particularly from people who have been following me for quite a while and through some fairly messy situations?
Then I looked at the situation from a different angle; would I have read this guide, in other words paid for it, if Garona hadn’t put me up to it? I immediately knew that the answer would be in the negative. So why is that? It could have something to do with the very poor reputation of people trying to sell gold-making and levelling guides. We all know the immediate image that these conjure, and I am sure that reading this you already have certain websites in mind. Could these types of sites have poisoned the well so completely so as to spoil it for everyone else?
The answer is tied up with Gevlon’s post from yesterday titled, ‘The Smell of the M&S.’ In it he described a situation where someone applying for the guild gave off certain behavioural patterns of being a moron and a slacker, but on closer inspection, (due to Gevlon not being quite sure), he discovered that the person could well in fact be just the sort of player that he is always looking for. A lot of people give me grief for being a so called, “blind Gevlon supporter”, but the fact of the matter is that he has certain qualities that I hold highly in a person: he admits when he is wrong and is not afraid of doing so, he asks for help when he doesn’t know something, and he does his best to learn from his mistakes. This post was an excellent example of this in action.
Gevlon is discovering that people cannot be easily placed in one of two extremes, ie black and white. They are all made up of differing shades of grey and it is our responsibility to dig deeper and discover the true reality. What holds for people also holds for situations, as in Garona’s rogue raiding guide. We are clouded by our preconceptions and prejudices, and this can cause us to misread a situation, which could result in missed opportunity. Taking the time to dig deeper is taking power into our own hands. Instead of relying on what we have found in the past, or simply relying on what others opinions are, we make the effort to find out for ourselves. It is all too easy to just sit back and throw aspersions from within our nice safe bubble of experiences. Breaking out of that bubble is key to having your own power in life.
March 4, 2011 at 11:05 am
You can’t please everyone, but the people who are pleased make it all worthwhile
March 4, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I already said in your last post, you claim the review is honest and genuine, so I will chose to believe you. I still don’t like it because it feels like one of the many reviews that weren’t genuine, but I will choose to believe you and continue to follow.
As for you selling out, that was never my opinion. Also, there should be no confusion from your perspective. You yourself know if you did the review for free or not, so you also know if you sold out. Again, as I said, I chose to believe you, I’m just trying to say you should not be second guessing yourself because there is no reason to.
March 4, 2011 at 12:51 pm
You’re missing the point of my post. It’s not about me trying to defend myself or justify my actions. It’s the processes involved with making decisions that interests me.
March 4, 2011 at 11:05 pm
The interesting thing about this is that it means no good, honest review can be seen for what it is. Player cynicism wins out, keeping players away from useful resources like this guide. This reinforces the idea that they are vets who know their class completely; so why ask for help or advice or even ideas on playing inventively?
March 5, 2011 at 1:49 am
Another good perspective, as usual. You’re one of the few I would be surprised to learn had “sold out”, so I hadn’t even considered it. Which meant I read your review with an open mind. I was also kind of disgusted with the response to your review, but after reading your post today, I can understand it I guess.
My main is a warlock, but my alt rogue just hit 85, so I’m a perfect candidate for this kind of information. I can Google as well as anyone, but for $2, why bother wading through 5 years of content that is mostly outdated now? It was an easy sell for me, and I picked it up… as much as to support a good blogger as to get some information for myself.
My only complaint, one which I think helps to generate the ‘prejudice’ against guide sellers, is that the page where you buy the eBook has the typical pressure salesman approach… “not only do you get this already low-priced product, but also these 5 other great things, which by themselves would cost you thousands of dollars… and all this is yours for the low price of $1.99!” Obviously exaggerating and paraphrasing, but I hate that sales tactic.
Anyway, another good post today. Thanks Adam!
March 7, 2011 at 2:36 am
Yeah, I have to agree with you on that point about the salesman pitch of buy this and get 5 other products. It does tend to rub people up the wrong way and I tried not to mention it in my review for that reason.
March 5, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Our preconceptions define us as people,the more rigid those preconceptions are the less open we are to learn and grow.
As we go through life its easy to fall back on our years of life-experiance and “short-circuit” the learning process by tagging something as already learned therefore subject closed, here’s my pre-cooked reaction.It saves time in a busy world and in places where we are bombarded with people/stimulli, it allows us to ignore alot of input, allows us to streamline our life experiance and prioritize what we expend effort on.
Now , hands-up here, I havn’t read your review, but I think I be guilty of a knee-jerk reaction along the lines of “ffs this geezer taking the piss here, trying to sell me more shite”, but I’d base that reaction on having a long life experiance “drinking from the poisioned well”
Now, if you were giving me your opinion on something else, say, rating your new PC or a beer you like, I’d be less quick to react negativly because I not see the potential vested interest so quickly.
But, yes, halting that reflex for a moment and actually, really thinking and evaluating, is better, it allows new information in, and allows us to grow as people, its just very hard to do, and after all we react the way we do because it infers an advantage over acting differently, albeit a not always so obvious advantage.
You just pushed the wrong button with your first post, however, I think this post makes up for that transgression, gave me pause for thought anyways, cheers.
March 6, 2011 at 1:48 am
My comment to Gevlon’s post the other day came up right behind yours and we said more or less the same thing with reference to shades of grey. So it won’t come as any surprise that I read your review as it was intended – a review you were asked to do and you did.
Keep on doing what you do dude,as a previous commentator noted, you can’t please all of the people all of the time and it will probably surprise you what does and doesn’t please them.
March 7, 2011 at 2:34 am
Yeah, I saw that we posted almost exactly the same thing on that post at the same time. I can only assume that we are mind linked and I am now hoping that you are a hot 22 year old nymphomaniac and not the 41 year old family man that I assume you are.
March 7, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Dream on… I’m afraid I’m that 40 something family man you thought I’d be.
March 8, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I’d never expect you to ‘sell out’ or whatever the imaginary problem was. But this bit stuck out: “Gevlon is discovering that people cannot be easily placed in one of two extremes, ie black and white.” For someone who spends a whole lot of time attacking anyone in sight for being a “moron and slacker”, it sure took him a damn long time to figure this out. The fact that you pull this out as some sort of great quality doesn’t match well with your attempt to not be seen as a “blind Gevlon supporter.” As for admitting he’s wrong, have you not noticed his tendency to perpetually redefine what he’s doing or has done or intended to do, in order to claim everything went as intended and expected?