Human Nature to Find Them, It Is

Back in late 2006, when World of Warcraft had no expansions yet and the purples were harder to get, I entered Onyxia's Lair for the first time. And for the first time, I encountered some serious superstition in an MMO game.

For those less familiar with WoW, Onyxia's Lair is a small raid instance, which only boss is a black dragon called Onyxia. At 65% health she enters phase 2, in which she takes flight and hovers around the cavern until she's down to 40% health, when she lands again. (Note that I'm talking about the original instance I've played, not the revamped one in Wrath of the Lich King.)

In phase 2, Onyxia has a devastating AoE (area-of-effect) attack called Deep Breath that meant certain death for those being hit by it with full force. Onyxia uses the attack randomly, but the player base seemed to think otherwise and many theories spawned. I think the most popular ones were players not being enough spread out and the lack of DoTs (damage-over-time spells) on her. ("More dots, more dots, throw more dots!")

My guild wasn't one of the first ones to enter the place, and certainly not one to make new theories, but the existing ones had been inherited, and taught to the guild as tactics for the second phase. I questioned them, especially the need to spread out evenly around the cavern. After the first (failed) raid, I visited WoWWiki to confirm my suspicions. I told the guild leaders about the true mechanics I read about, but I was never listened.

We managed to down her eventually, even with the spreading, and it actually didn't take more than couple raids. Of course, you couldn't find me doing any spreading - I was at the side, making sure I wasn't being hit by the damn breath! But my point, which seems to require awfully lot of typing to get to, is the sentence I read in the Onyxia tactics article back then:"It is human nature to find patterns in randomness". (Seems to be still there, btw)

I like to quote the sentence whenever possible, and I've also taken it as some sort of guideline I reflect life upon. Its original meaning in the article is, of course, that it is easy draw conclusions through inductive reasoning:"(After a deep breath:) Last time, there were more dots on her than now, and she didn't use deep breath. Therefore, more dots must be thrown to prevent the deep breath!",  and it is very human to do so.

However, I've extended the meaning in two ways.

Firstly, I like to think that it is human nature to explain the apparent patterns found with some sort of artificial definition that removes the need to ponder the origins further - be it laziness or the difficulty to figure it out. Or the unbearable difficulty to accept the possibility there's no meaning, everything just is as it is, there's nothing beyond, it's all random. Also, that is how I see religions.

Secondly, I think it works the other way around, too. It is human nature to find the patterns, to search the reason. To ask why. How did this stuff happen, and where did it come from. To not be satisfied until everything is laid bare before you. And that is how I see science. You could ask religions the same questions, but I think you'll hit the brick wall quite soon there - the artificial definitions. To decide what is correct is yours to do. I won't wander further into that swamp, and frankly, I don't care.

And if you haven't yet realized where this blogs draws its name from, you're now being frowned upon. *frowns just in case*

Also, there's the thing that there might be no randomness at all. It all just might be unpredictable by human standards. So far, at least.


(Note how the little devil's color changes :D)