"Bad" is a valid style of play

Leeroy Jenkins doesn't conform to arbitrary standards.

I play this game.  I pay the same $15 that everyone else does.  I don't see why I should be expected to play the game in a way that the developers and community have arbitrarily deemed to be "good."

I'd like to bring to the community's attention several mechanics that prevent me from enjoying Cataclysm.

1.  I don't like the idea that there is a spell rotation

I play a warlock.  I, and many other warlocks, have been wanting green fire since vanilla.  Maybe since before the game came out, we wanted to be wizards who could throw green fireballs.  Now, finally, we have Fel Flame, and it is green.  So the way I want to play is to only use Fel Flame, and to shoot green fireballs like a machine gun until things catch on green fire and green burn to death, screaming.  I think Fel Flame is lots of fun.

But Blizzard says I'm not supposed to shoot green machine gun fire; there is a "rotation," which is a special order I am supposed to push buttons in, or else I am "bad" and the group I am in will "fail."  Why is this the right order to push the buttons?  Nobody knows.  I feel like I am playing "Simon."

Anyway, in the last expansion, there was a different order I was supposed to push the buttons in.  In the last expansion, the bad affliction warlocks liked to cast Soul Fire.  In this expansion, the bad affliction warlocks are the ones who don't like to cast Soul Fire.  How am I supposed to keep up with this?  I heard about this site for jerks I am supposed to go to, but I am not going to do that.  I am pretty sure it is a keylogger.

2. Grinding is not fun

Also, maybe I don't want to gem and enchant my gear.  Grinding for those things isn't worth the incremental upgrades to me, and I don't want to spend time grinding for those expensive ornaments.  This game is supposed to be fun, and I don't see why I should have to do anything in it that I don't enjoy in order to be deemed "good" or successful.

Anyway, why should my character look like a cheap dandy, bedecked in jeweled bling-bling and body-glitter?  Don't gems and enchantments exist for the purpose of giving players choices?  Why not support the choice for players to abstain from gems and enchantments?

And if I am not going to gem, I am certainly not going to grind rep or do daily quests.  I mean, seriously, what's with making me wear special reputation tabards?  I have my own tabard with a pink rabbit on it, and I want to wear that.  I am not going to wear Therazane's tabard because she is unattractive, and I don't believe in the things she stands for.  

And don't even get me started on flasks.  Has anyone ever enjoyed pointlessly grinding herbs?  Blizzard should remove herbalism and alchemy from the game and just increase everyone's base stats by 300.

3.  People should not be punished for playing with me because I do not conform to arbitrary standards of "good play."

As soon as I zone into a heroic, people do an inspect on me, see my empty gem sockets, and immediately try to vote-kick me.  But they can't because there's a cooldown on vote-kick.  So they call me names and curse at me to try to get me to leave the party (what is the deal with this game's community?)

When I don't leave, they pull trash monsters.  I try to target the ones the rest of the party isn't paying attention to, so all of them die at the same time and we can finish the dungeon faster.  But they just yell at me again for casting nothing but Fel Flame.

Sometimes they'll ask me to use Fear on one of the enemies.  When I tell them I do not use fear as a weapon because I am not a terrorist, they get angry at me.  I think some of the people who play this game are not very patriotic.

Also, Mages seem to think it's funny to cast that spell that makes one of the monsters look like a penguin or a monkey.  It was maybe cute once, but I am sick of it.  That spell heals the thing they cast it on to full health.  Why do group leaders tolerate this, but not the things I do?  It is probably because they are all in the same guild and are rude to people they get from the dungeon-finder.  But I say, if mages want to play with cute critters, they should buy companion pets.

The point is, I am willing to put the same time into running the dungeons as anyone else, and I pay the same subscription fee, so I should get the same rewards.  But the game punishes me for not wanting to push buttons in an arbitrary, designated order, and, further, because I play this way, the game punishes other people for playing with me.

As a result, I am very lonely.

Maybe the game should automatically analyze the way I am playing, and stack a buff on the group that allows us to clear heroic dungeons no matter what buttons I press.  They could call the buff "Independent Thinking" or "Creative Use of the Game Space."

4.  PvP needs a more level playing field

Since I have not been enjoying dungeons very much, some people suggested I should try PvP.  So I found a guy in Trade Chat who was willing to play with me, and we went into the arena.

People say it's easy to earn the weekly conquest cap, because you only have to win five games.  Win five games?  You might as well ask me to climb a mountain!  As soon as I zone into an arena match, the people on the other team kill me.  How is that fair?

Apparently, before I can get my "easy" five wins, I have to get special "pvp" gear in "battlegrounds," which will make me "resilient."  Why should that be?  Who says I'm not resilient enough already?  If I wasn't resilient, how could I have made it to level 85?  I died repeatedly to all the quests, which were grossly over-tuned, but then I found out I could get experience by doing archaeology in low level zones.  If that's not resilience and innovative problem-solving, I don't know what is!

Anyway, the battlegrounds are like another rep grind, except, apparently I don't have to actually be at the keyboard to do the grinding.  What is the point of this?  Instead of making me get this special gear, the game should compensate for the fact that I don't have "resilience" by giving me more health or making me do more damage.

Also, why do very high rated arena players get more conquest points than everyone else?  They're already killing everyone! Why do they need to have better gear than the rest of us on top of that?  If you ask me, you should get conquest points for losing games, and your cap should increase as the ratings get lower.  That way, it's like a built-in handicap to players who exploit overpowered mechanics, and a buff to players who play the game in the way that they enjoy.

Thanks.

/rant