A few weeks ago, a video game called “DragonKin The Banished came out. Me, my friend Jerry and our mutual friend Ben decided to buy and play this game together. For context, because this will become important later. I am on disability so I have time on my hands. Ben is currently looking for a new job. Whereas Jerry is marred with a 3 year old and full time job.
The game has some interesting mechanics, namely a shared city you can invite friends to. The more people you have playing in your city, the more that person benefits as your city levels up faster and gains new unlockables. Jerry wanted us to play in his city.
Jerry started playing the game two days before Ben and I. He was able to hit level 23 prior to Ben and I even starting the game (max level is 50). We found out quickly, enemies don’t scale to your level. So the highest level player is what levels enemies are. It actually ended up working in our favor. As Ben and I were able to catch up to Jerry’s level within an hour or two. We all played together a couple more hours and ended at around level 30.
Ben and I played the next day (Friday) while Jerry was at work. We got to around level 43 before ending the day. When Saturday rolled around, when Jerry saw what level we were he got pissed. Said he didn’t want to play with us because playing with people “20 level above him would be no fun”. I think it’s worth noting, expectations of leveling, how we would manage the city since it was Jerry’s city, advancing in the story quests (because at the time we didn’t realize when someone does a quest in a shared city it completes the quest for everyone in that instance).
Granted there were a lot of presumptions, but Ben and I figured it would just be an inverse of Thursday. Jerry leveled us up to his level. We assumed it wouldn’t be a big deal to do the same. Plus, everything I read, the majority of the game takes place after you hit max level in end game stuff. Had we known it would be an issue we would have made alternate characters or just not played at all. It took some messing with game mechanics because things aren’t immediately clear in this game. But Ben and I were able to find easy resolutions for this issue. You have slots for separate group instances in the city. We were able to make a seperate group for Ben and I so it would t affect Jerry’s quest progress anymore. We also leveled 2 alternate characters (within an hour using the power leveling technique) that were now Jerry’s level and we would have them be our exclusive group characters we would only play when all 3 of us were online. We told Jerry all this over our PlayStation group chat. But at this point he was offline and ignoring us.
We figured he would be upset for a couple days and then we’d all discuss it and everything would be fine. That was 2 weeks ago. He hasn’t said one word in group chat. He hasn’t logged on to PlayStation once (unless he’s appearing offline). Ben and I even sent him texts separately letting him know how sorry we were. That we didn’t mean to make him feel left out and we didn’t want a video game to come in between a 20 year friendship.
I was feeling pretty neutral about the entire situation and was just going to let him get over it in his own time. But after 1 week after the incident. I had my retina detach in my left eye. I had to have emergency surgery. I have several health issues and even a “routine” surgery can be life threatening. I let all the guys in our PS group chat know I was having surgery. Everyone sent their well wishes and asked for updates once I was out of surgery. Everyone except Jerry. That’s when I went from indifferent to livid. I think the whole situation is petty to begin with. A 44 year old man throwing a temper tantrum for not getting his way in a video game. That’s one thing, but when your friend has to suddenly deal with a serious health concern. You put your petty bs aside and address it.
Honestly, at this point, I don’t know what I’m going to do if he does finally reach back out. Is this person even really a friend? Before this, I would have said he’s one of my best friends. We’ve been through so much together. We’ve given to much to each other both monetarily and emotionally. I am at a loss of how this got so out of hand. Is this an overreaction or does he have a right to be as upset as he is. I’m genuinely not sure at this point. I can’t wrap my head around getting this upset over a game.
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