I played softball when I was just a little mandy. I was in right field, and I wasn't particularly good, but I had a blast playing. Some how I came out of it with a few championship trophies and a lot of great memories. At the conclusion of each of our games we would line up as a team and slap hands with the opposition. "Good game. Good Game. Good Game. Good Game. Good Game." I'm sure that a number of you have had similar experiences. We were taught to be good sports when we won and when we lost.

The fascinating part of an esport is that we are not face to face. Rather than bringing out our magnanimous natures, we tend to get cranky in the wake of a loss, and sometimes even after a victory. Karelle of Hydraxis admitted in the general forums the he is a poor loser. He felt he was unjustly beaten by a team that overgeared him and was insulted when the team leader whispered "good game." Rather than repeating the greeting, the original poster /spit on the victor.

Yesterday I posted a video of myself, Zach, and Mandy's boyfriend going up against a mage, priest, and druid combination. Today's video of Friday's matches includes the three of us going up against the "Druid Trifecta." That's one druid of each class: a moonkin, a feral, and a resto.

We don't have a very hard time with this one, and we get them down without much trouble. The only real iffy point comes towards the end where I have to dodge away and get some bandages going on for myself, which isn't really a bad thing.

Regarding the clicking that I'm doing, it's there for two reasons. First, to show you more clearly what skills and combinations I'm using. Secondly, I often times click to offset my keyboard use. Think of it this way: I have five or six skills that I'm using my main fingers for, and I have those skills planned out. I can position the mouse over the seventh skill I'll eventually use to make it easy to use when the time comes.

Many Alliance players have this impression that the Horde is constantly united, more cooperative, and generally understands how to play better than the Alliance does. Whether this is true or not is not something I myself can speak for, though I have heard my Horde friends say they have just as many clueless PvP people as the Alliance does.

So perhaps both factions can relate to Mendax's complaint that so many people seem to go into the battlegrounds with no idea how to win, and somehow fail to learn how, even in spite of playing a great deal and getting a lot of good gear. Their tendency is just to go in and lose over and over again, repeating the same old proven-to-fail methods for various reasons: possibly because they don't know anything better, possibly because they don't care anymore, and possibly because they've already identified themselves, their faction, or everyone else in their faction as born losers.

In any case, Mendax thinks that Blizzard should make the battlegrounds themselves reward you for better play, so that the game mechanics themselves encourage you to play in such a way that you're more likely to actually win. First of all, they could provide more honor for kills near contested objectives (such as flags or towers), and secondly, they could deny all bonus honor if you lose. His first idea quite interesting -- I like the possibility that the reward system of the battlegrounds could somehow teach you to play better in itself, if that's really possible. However, while I can understand his reasoning in removing all bonus honor gain for losing teams, I think this would just make the "losers" stop queueing up altogether. We might be happy to get rid of whiners, complainers and all them, but in the end would the increase the waiting time in between battles be worth it? And in any case, would the "losers" really go away, or would they just look for ways to get around the system?