Instancing in WoW has always been a bit of a love hate relationship with me ever since I started running them back in BC. Sometimes its incredibly enjoyable, others you want to just log out for a month and see you feel after. For the past week or so while dealing with some personal issues IRL I have been working on my alliance guised hunter to keep my mind of things and over all its been a blast running instances I never did on Edy herself since I didn't have a need to bother with grouping until I hit Outland. Most of the groups I have gotten have been fairly efficient when we ran, not a lot of tanking over pulls or dps doing stupid things that killed us all, just calm easy runs with a few chats here and there. Even with the bad groups it wasn't anything that ruined the mood for me. If the group broke I just re-queued and hoped for better the next time. Today seemed to be the build up of all the bad groups I've missed so I could have back to back irritation as I made my rounds.
Now its not like any one thing is worth complaining about with most runs. Some were just groups that didn't have a shot to begin with but I will say that running heroic Halls of Reflection twice and not getting the first boss down on either go of it was not a good way to start out. The next run on Eddey (night elf hunter) was kinda like salt on the wound. Normally I can deal with bad groups and it was very obvious from the start this was a bad group as when I got in the healer promptly decided his was to go was better than the tank's so the tank and another party member who followed the priest died and the tank left soon after with the healer running ahead of him the whole time. That was, ok. That kind of thing is relatively normal these days though I am a firm believer in "follow the tank" as he is the one that gets beat on so that we may kill the baddies but what do I know? So the shammy and dps warrior who seemed to know each other talk it out and the warrior begins to tank as we wait for one in queue. Now I am not a tank nor do I profess to know how to tank other than the "oh shit" tanking I do as a hunter when things get bad or the aggro gets a little loose but I would assume if you are tanking multiple mobs as a warrior you would need to thunderstomp and the likes to get aggro so they don't go all over the place like marbles that have pointy things. I, as I have learned will be part of my job in the lower level dungeons, had to hunter-tank (not my favorite past time) nearly all but two of any given mob no matter what I did. Again this didn't bother me. What bothered me was in the middle of this chaos the damn shaman decided to inform me I was supposed to be survival and then went on to explain how he was right and I was wrong because he had an 80 hunter and that made him king genius.
[P] Shammy: You should be SV
[P] Eddey: I happen to like BM
[P] Shammy: but you get more dps as sv
[P] Shammy: i got a 80 hunter i would know
[P] Eddey: thats nice, I have an 80 hunter as well and have played all the trees. I find SV irritating and MM boring.
[P] Shammy: but sv is better
[P] Eddey: you play your way I play mine how about that?
[P] Shammy: geez guy no need to be mad
"No need to be mad," he said. Considering he was the lowest dps and I was at about 40+% of the damage done, was tanking, and doing what I was supposed to be doing in general I'd say I was pretty ripe to get mad. Don't get me wrong I have had plenty of people try and "tell" me how to do my hunter thing. Most I just let roll on by but this guy had to have picked the worst time to say something so stupid. I also might want to clarify that we were in Sunken Temple and in our damn 40s. There is very little difference in specs at those levels to be honest and God help me if I ran with tanking like that in a spec other than Beast Mastery.
I don't nor have I ever believed that somebody should be forced to play in a manner that they do not enjoy no matter how well or sub par something preforms. I have been blessed enough to run with people that are not obsessed with Elitest Jerks and crunching number, or just do whatever people say they should cause its the it thing. In general we play to have fun and perform where we should. When I switched to SV it was to help cause I didn't feel like feel like I was pulling my own weight at the time. I hated SV so I gave MM a shot and liked it better. When Cata hits I will most likely be raiding BM again depending on how I like it. Why? 'Cause I have a genuine love of the spec and how it works. Would I bitch at somebody in an instance because I think all hunters should be BM? Hell no. I even have guildies that raid BM right now and I am completely cool with that. Why? 'Cause its fun for them and when you play a game, damn it, that's what supposed to happen. We wouldn't have choices if we were supposed to do it one way.
As for the end of my run with that group, well things were pretty much ruined for me once that idiot started. We got a new tank but he was just as bad as the warrior and couldn't hold aggro. I snapped at him but apologized and left. It probably could have been a fun run too but I just couldn't get into it anymore. So next time you feel the need to give advice on spec and what not in a 5 man and you weren't asked to just stop, think about what you are about to say, then don't say it. Its a damn 5 man instance. Its not life or death. Its not 10 - 25 people running around in circles for hours. If its a random, these aren't people that logged on to the game to have you berate them for doing something in a manner that you wouldn't. Just shut up and play. Its more fun for us all that way.
Showing posts with label pug. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pug. Show all posts
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
You can P.U.G. with this or you can P.U.G. with that
So after a lot of trying to write a blog I figure "what the heck lets ramble and see what happens". So here's to the rambling.
Now dear follower (all two of you still around) I have been far from inactive in game its just be more of a "what the heck do I have to write about?" kinda thing for me. There are new instances, big whoop. As fun as they are they aren't earth shattering enough to me to have my say about them. Its just something fresher to do. Then there is a new raid. That would be great to write about if I hadn't only been in there like 2 times (once pre-lord morwhatshisface nerf and one clear to Sarufang last week) and as such nothing really note worthy happened.
Edy has finally somewhat got back into her pvp action (if Wintergrasp can count as such) and upgraded some gear here and there. Ty has been somewhat placed on the shelf. Not so much out of a lack of wanting to place its just I don't do so well at focusing on more than one or two toons at a time. When I dedicate my time to something I tend to stick with it until I get what and where I wish to be. That said little Bell isn't so little anymore and as of the time I am typing this sitting at 78 and will hopefully be 80 relatively soonish.
Now this fact brings up something I actually DO wish to talk about. Random P.U.G.s. I detest them though not as much as I did when I simply had to rely on trade for my P.U.G.ing needs. People are just as quirky no matter what server you are on its just a matter of luck if you get the good ones, the interesting/entertaining ones, or the down right assholes. If I was a sociologist I would have some very interesting insight on the human nature when one is paired with folks they personally don't know as well as the I/me belief most P.U.G.gers seem to adapt as they run there groups. I have witnessed a trend in low (and I mean depressingly low) dps declaring that they know the only correct way to run something they are all but useless at in the first place. I have seen some of the worst tanking I have ever had the privilege to suffer through. I have also seen players go above and beyond the calls of gear and skill to do things as well. For example I ran with the holy grail of Death Knight tanks once and it turned into one of the most amazing speed runs I have ever been in. This also makes me realize just how little gear does to improve ones performance if one does not have the skills to use it. I have seen people come in with full tier 9 gear and put out dps lower than that of a fresh 80 still in greens and blues. Come on people there is just no way you should be lower than 2k dps on a boss if you have that crap on if you are even pressing buttons to attack. It boggles the mind how bad some of these people are. This also cemented my personal belief that gear score needs to go away period in the game since it is by no means a reflection of what a player is capable of yet it is sadly common to see somebody request some simple and easy heroic dungeon as that of heroic Utguard Keep and post a gear score of 2800+. That is just shear e-peen fluffage when you cant possibly have that kind of rating when you are doing that instance when you are able to get anything of any remote use out of it.
Now with that said I have also been guilty of looking at peoples gear and dps in randoms and comparing it to my own and I forget that people have to start out somewhere. Not too long ago a good friend of mine was voted out of a party for low dps in blues in something like Halls of Stone or regular Trial of the Champion where she could have gotten some gear and badges to improve on what she was doing (like the damn thing is set up to do). She was obviously hurt by this and understandably so. We as geared players tend to forget what it was like when we were getting our starter gear and learning the ropes all those months ago and are much more harsh than we should be on these players. That said, she was doing the correct amount of dps for her gear and spec unlike mister DK that was pulling 700 dps in 245 gear.
That said it will be interesting to see how the grouping system really effects the over all play of players in WoW. Yes it is relatively easy to get carried to awesome casual gear now but at the same time you get the full range of personalities and problems along the way that might make the moderately intelligent player better. Until that time though remember your manners and know your limits. Make your run as good as possible. Most of all have fun.
Lil' K.T. commands it.
Now dear follower (all two of you still around) I have been far from inactive in game its just be more of a "what the heck do I have to write about?" kinda thing for me. There are new instances, big whoop. As fun as they are they aren't earth shattering enough to me to have my say about them. Its just something fresher to do. Then there is a new raid. That would be great to write about if I hadn't only been in there like 2 times (once pre-lord morwhatshisface nerf and one clear to Sarufang last week) and as such nothing really note worthy happened.
Edy has finally somewhat got back into her pvp action (if Wintergrasp can count as such) and upgraded some gear here and there. Ty has been somewhat placed on the shelf. Not so much out of a lack of wanting to place its just I don't do so well at focusing on more than one or two toons at a time. When I dedicate my time to something I tend to stick with it until I get what and where I wish to be. That said little Bell isn't so little anymore and as of the time I am typing this sitting at 78 and will hopefully be 80 relatively soonish.
Now this fact brings up something I actually DO wish to talk about. Random P.U.G.s. I detest them though not as much as I did when I simply had to rely on trade for my P.U.G.ing needs. People are just as quirky no matter what server you are on its just a matter of luck if you get the good ones, the interesting/entertaining ones, or the down right assholes. If I was a sociologist I would have some very interesting insight on the human nature when one is paired with folks they personally don't know as well as the I/me belief most P.U.G.gers seem to adapt as they run there groups. I have witnessed a trend in low (and I mean depressingly low) dps declaring that they know the only correct way to run something they are all but useless at in the first place. I have seen some of the worst tanking I have ever had the privilege to suffer through. I have also seen players go above and beyond the calls of gear and skill to do things as well. For example I ran with the holy grail of Death Knight tanks once and it turned into one of the most amazing speed runs I have ever been in. This also makes me realize just how little gear does to improve ones performance if one does not have the skills to use it. I have seen people come in with full tier 9 gear and put out dps lower than that of a fresh 80 still in greens and blues. Come on people there is just no way you should be lower than 2k dps on a boss if you have that crap on if you are even pressing buttons to attack. It boggles the mind how bad some of these people are. This also cemented my personal belief that gear score needs to go away period in the game since it is by no means a reflection of what a player is capable of yet it is sadly common to see somebody request some simple and easy heroic dungeon as that of heroic Utguard Keep and post a gear score of 2800+. That is just shear e-peen fluffage when you cant possibly have that kind of rating when you are doing that instance when you are able to get anything of any remote use out of it.
Now with that said I have also been guilty of looking at peoples gear and dps in randoms and comparing it to my own and I forget that people have to start out somewhere. Not too long ago a good friend of mine was voted out of a party for low dps in blues in something like Halls of Stone or regular Trial of the Champion where she could have gotten some gear and badges to improve on what she was doing (like the damn thing is set up to do). She was obviously hurt by this and understandably so. We as geared players tend to forget what it was like when we were getting our starter gear and learning the ropes all those months ago and are much more harsh than we should be on these players. That said, she was doing the correct amount of dps for her gear and spec unlike mister DK that was pulling 700 dps in 245 gear.
That said it will be interesting to see how the grouping system really effects the over all play of players in WoW. Yes it is relatively easy to get carried to awesome casual gear now but at the same time you get the full range of personalities and problems along the way that might make the moderately intelligent player better. Until that time though remember your manners and know your limits. Make your run as good as possible. Most of all have fun.
Lil' K.T. commands it.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Da Voodoo Shuffle
What an interesting week it has been for me dear reader. Its not so much that anything good or bad happened its just an old spark of great fun has blazed up recently and by golly if Edy-bear ain't loving it.
For starters I didn't get to raid what I normally do in a given week simply because I was unable to log on on that Tuesday and as such missed some of my normal runs. Was this a problem? Not really. I have my own share to do now that my mother is a bit down for the moment so i kinda needed a day to get some of that stuff straight anyway. That said I did raid some. So was good, some f'n fantastic and some just down right horrible.
The Good:
Friday I ran 10 TOC with some friends and as usual it went really really well, damn boots still didn't drop but it was still a hoot of a time even if I didn't get any loots. We did have a shining moment on the northrend beasts when some well placed exploding raiders took two healers and all but 3 dps with them just as we killed acidmaw. This lead to the most impressive shaman healing I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing in the game as myself, my pally tank, and a mage were left for him to heal the entirety of the last boss phase after some poor charge escape failures. Stuff like that really is a blast when you down what you are after.
The down right horrible:
So the day before the 10 run a hand full of those same friends decided to get a 25 TOC off the ground and suggested I give it a shot with him. Now first off I havent been running 25 in a very long time for the mere fact i cant deal with all the damn lag i get in them with all the spells going off. This was something I worked out in Naxx but decided against it when I progressed into Ulduar just because "I" didnt want the headache and guilt of not so great performance. Most I ran with had no idea i was even having problems. Anyway I figure what the hell and go and over all did well. Dps was low but I assume that was from the lag getting in the way of the tight rotation I have to maintain in SV. But I wasnt the bottom of the charts either. So we blow though everything up Twins and things just kinda spiraled after we get to this and start wiping (we downed them and only 3 wipes on it but between this and what i am about to talk about people probably just didn't give a damn to finish anymore).
I've talked about my dislike of PuG etiquette when it comes to using vent and this night was the shinning example of how to piss off an entire raid all at once. We had a mage with us that for some reason had the overwhelming need to enforce the size of his e-peen to a raid of 20-something other people who could have given a rats ass one way or the other what this guy did out of game. This mage never shut up from the time he joined the raid to the time he was booted from the vent channel. The whole night was his D**k this and i f****d this girl cause i am mister big shot quarterback to butt sex with various people he knew in raid. I dont think the guy took a single damn breath to rest his voice from pull one to the end.
I'm not new to raiding in PuGs by any means so i have heard it all before but somethign about the fact he just never shut up seemed to grate on me. He capped it off with some racist comments during twins and I lost my shit flat out and just went at him in vent. I dont like doing this at all as i am just long for the ride and maybe some loots but damn being in a raid does not give you the reason to be an asshole when you talk just because you like the sound of your own damn voice.
Anyway guy was booted from vent as his racist spouting got worse and I even found out later the raid leader had long decided to not give the guy loot before he even went that far (which i would have loved to see but nothing even came up he could have used anyway and the one that did he lost.).
At least i got a one hand axe out of the hell night...
The f'n fantastic:
So my guild set foot into Ulduar for the first time as a guild Saturday and you could almost feel the nerves radiating off everyone present. None of us that had been in the raid before really knew how to explain Flame Levi as most of us hadn't done all the vehicle types yet (personally only ever done the bikes) so that lead to a wipe and 'reset' and a ton of funny yelling from one particular guildie that made this the single funnest time I have ever set foot in ulduar. I mean how can you not enjoy the sound of a grown man squealing "get awaaaaaay dont chase meeeeeee" over vent every time Flame Levu targeted him?
We managed to two shot Razorscale and X-T after and I have to admit I was pleased and proud of our newer raiders and it shows hope for our future in guild progression.
Other stuff:
Other than the prior I have been loving my shammy rather hard of late. She is enhancement and ripping things limb from limb with all her shamanistic rage.
Here we see Ms. Raspee (if you're nasty) basking in the glow of victory over a particularly nasty group of alliance rare elites that roam the vast Barrens. The was a lot of mace to face action and fiery totem goodness she just had to share with them.
Anyway thats enough out of me for now. Toodies.
For starters I didn't get to raid what I normally do in a given week simply because I was unable to log on on that Tuesday and as such missed some of my normal runs. Was this a problem? Not really. I have my own share to do now that my mother is a bit down for the moment so i kinda needed a day to get some of that stuff straight anyway. That said I did raid some. So was good, some f'n fantastic and some just down right horrible.
The Good:
Friday I ran 10 TOC with some friends and as usual it went really really well, damn boots still didn't drop but it was still a hoot of a time even if I didn't get any loots. We did have a shining moment on the northrend beasts when some well placed exploding raiders took two healers and all but 3 dps with them just as we killed acidmaw. This lead to the most impressive shaman healing I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing in the game as myself, my pally tank, and a mage were left for him to heal the entirety of the last boss phase after some poor charge escape failures. Stuff like that really is a blast when you down what you are after.
The down right horrible:
So the day before the 10 run a hand full of those same friends decided to get a 25 TOC off the ground and suggested I give it a shot with him. Now first off I havent been running 25 in a very long time for the mere fact i cant deal with all the damn lag i get in them with all the spells going off. This was something I worked out in Naxx but decided against it when I progressed into Ulduar just because "I" didnt want the headache and guilt of not so great performance. Most I ran with had no idea i was even having problems. Anyway I figure what the hell and go and over all did well. Dps was low but I assume that was from the lag getting in the way of the tight rotation I have to maintain in SV. But I wasnt the bottom of the charts either. So we blow though everything up Twins and things just kinda spiraled after we get to this and start wiping (we downed them and only 3 wipes on it but between this and what i am about to talk about people probably just didn't give a damn to finish anymore).
I've talked about my dislike of PuG etiquette when it comes to using vent and this night was the shinning example of how to piss off an entire raid all at once. We had a mage with us that for some reason had the overwhelming need to enforce the size of his e-peen to a raid of 20-something other people who could have given a rats ass one way or the other what this guy did out of game. This mage never shut up from the time he joined the raid to the time he was booted from the vent channel. The whole night was his D**k this and i f****d this girl cause i am mister big shot quarterback to butt sex with various people he knew in raid. I dont think the guy took a single damn breath to rest his voice from pull one to the end.
I'm not new to raiding in PuGs by any means so i have heard it all before but somethign about the fact he just never shut up seemed to grate on me. He capped it off with some racist comments during twins and I lost my shit flat out and just went at him in vent. I dont like doing this at all as i am just long for the ride and maybe some loots but damn being in a raid does not give you the reason to be an asshole when you talk just because you like the sound of your own damn voice.
Anyway guy was booted from vent as his racist spouting got worse and I even found out later the raid leader had long decided to not give the guy loot before he even went that far (which i would have loved to see but nothing even came up he could have used anyway and the one that did he lost.).
At least i got a one hand axe out of the hell night...
The f'n fantastic:
So my guild set foot into Ulduar for the first time as a guild Saturday and you could almost feel the nerves radiating off everyone present. None of us that had been in the raid before really knew how to explain Flame Levi as most of us hadn't done all the vehicle types yet (personally only ever done the bikes) so that lead to a wipe and 'reset' and a ton of funny yelling from one particular guildie that made this the single funnest time I have ever set foot in ulduar. I mean how can you not enjoy the sound of a grown man squealing "get awaaaaaay dont chase meeeeeee" over vent every time Flame Levu targeted him?
We managed to two shot Razorscale and X-T after and I have to admit I was pleased and proud of our newer raiders and it shows hope for our future in guild progression.
Other stuff:
Other than the prior I have been loving my shammy rather hard of late. She is enhancement and ripping things limb from limb with all her shamanistic rage.
Here we see Ms. Raspee (if you're nasty) basking in the glow of victory over a particularly nasty group of alliance rare elites that roam the vast Barrens. The was a lot of mace to face action and fiery totem goodness she just had to share with them.
Anyway thats enough out of me for now. Toodies.
Friday, July 17, 2009
P.U.G: Experiments In Socailizing
I've done my fair share of raiding in pick up groups and its always a crap shoot. Sometimes they are fantastic people (rare but it happens) and others they are a nightmare. The nightmare groups come in a variety of forms ranging from people not having the slightest clue what they are doing in the raid or on the toon they are playing to simple asshole-ish actions by various members of the raid. Any soul that has PUGed knows its a risk and sometimes you just have to know your limits and cut your losses.
Today was not a day to cut my loses as I did pick up a nice ring and some shoulders to play around with (that I doubt i will ever use but again they are to play with and nobody else wanted them). The raid itself was almost completely PUG with a few members knowing each other and the run itself was pretty drama free in terms of the group itself as all players were up to snuff and very pacient as we trucked along to down KT. So why have I made a post about PUGing if everything went so well? Well its the social part of the PUG that was my issue with the run and it wasn't so much fustration with the raid itself but more of one with the guys running it and the vent they used. The leads were nice enough guys and perhaps that was a bit of the problem.
I made the mistake of raiding with a headache but I was all by myself today and planned to take full advantage of that fact so I sucked it up and ran my run. Now my problem with the socail in this group was the constant chatter of a lower leveled guildy of the raid leads butting into our raid chanel and never shutting his trap the entire run. Now let me break this down for you valued reader (i know somebdoy has to read this stuff). First as we all log into vent the gemtleman welcomes himself into the channel and procceds to not do this only once but under several different names as to cause painfully loud feedback to all those in the channel. This contnued for a while and at the time it at least seemed like this was a consern to the raid leads as they quicky began to try and figure out which people where his (hard to do because many people do not use the name of the toon they are playing in vent so its kinda hard to know who the hell is who). They failed to shut him out but he left on his own taking the loud noises with him and all was fine for a while. As we got further in he did feel the need to return and give updates on his progress to 80 though only 2 people in the vent actually would have even cared enough to want to know how he was doing. Again though this was irriating it was not a huge problem. His activity really picked up however when another fairly annoying gent joined our raid to replace someone and began to chat with the guy and brag about how far he was in ulduar as we ran into problems with trash in arachnid wing. Now as the late mention warrior was a pain to listen to at least he was IN the raid and some of the time the things out of his mouth actually pretanded to the situation at had the other "genius" began making his own quips in random areas and sometimes in areas were he seriously could have messed us up.
Now this is by no means the first time I have had to deal with this but the guy was REALLY loud and with my headache getting worse from hours of sitting in this raid it really began to grate on my nerves. By the time we reached Sath and get ready to pull he even starts yelling in vent he wasn't ready almost confusing the entire raid. I am sorry but if about 85% of the raid dont know each other's voices it becomes hard enough to tell wahts going on without some ass adding to the complexity of the situation by throwing a new unknown person into the mix in which you have no idea who he is. We then have a bit of troiuble with people dying on the frozen bastard of a dragon and though I can not say for certain if he was at fault I am sure it didn't help with people's focus during the fight.
Nerd rage began to kick in on KT and the warrior semi flashing the raid with his e-peen also pushes my last nerve as we wipe twice on KT before downing him tearing down raid members ired from the long haul for mistakse that can happen when you are tired and a little too focused to get done and yelling at our melee for being frozen when the majority of our dps was melee (not smart for KT but I was not the one in charge). I have to comend them for not freezing him along with each other with that kind of crowding. This is not the end of the problems with the vent durning the fight. Not only is the warrior basically taking over the vent bossing people around but he and the raid leads began talking about the more random things when vent should be clear so we can cut down on ussless deaths. That at the end of the day was about my breaking point and raises a intersting question for a PUGer.
When exactly is a PUG a BAD PUG? Its very obvious when the group cant even get in the door without about 10 wipes on trash in the first room or numbers look WAY to low for the people there or your raid lead is wearing greens, but is it a BAD run when you have this kind of organization issues in raid communications? Yes we had a good group of people in the PUG but we even had issues with buffing because people couldn't even hear what others needed as the vent was practically unuseable the majority of the run for useless chatter. The run itself ran probably about 2 hours longer than it would have with clear channels and communication as many wipes probably could have been avoided. For all the chatter going on I would have been about as well off not in the vent at all rather than getting irriated at the loud nonsense asaulting my ears. Even without the headache I would have seriously thought about leaving the PUG even though thing were still going fairly well. Had the group be a slight bit worse or not done as well in the early wings I dont think I would have been alone in wanting to get out at that point. Its a bit irresponsible to not control your raid's communication channels like that. Its irritating enough to deal with overly chatty raid members as is when they talk about random things in important areas but to have a guildy disrepect the raid itself because he couldnt "go" is way worse. WoW is a socail game. I might be thinking a bit much of the people that play but at some point you have to realize there are things you should and shouldnt do social situations. Perhaps i just expect too much from people. After all most act like this in there everyday life its just a bit more over the top in the virtual world I suppose.
Today was not a day to cut my loses as I did pick up a nice ring and some shoulders to play around with (that I doubt i will ever use but again they are to play with and nobody else wanted them). The raid itself was almost completely PUG with a few members knowing each other and the run itself was pretty drama free in terms of the group itself as all players were up to snuff and very pacient as we trucked along to down KT. So why have I made a post about PUGing if everything went so well? Well its the social part of the PUG that was my issue with the run and it wasn't so much fustration with the raid itself but more of one with the guys running it and the vent they used. The leads were nice enough guys and perhaps that was a bit of the problem.
I made the mistake of raiding with a headache but I was all by myself today and planned to take full advantage of that fact so I sucked it up and ran my run. Now my problem with the socail in this group was the constant chatter of a lower leveled guildy of the raid leads butting into our raid chanel and never shutting his trap the entire run. Now let me break this down for you valued reader (i know somebdoy has to read this stuff). First as we all log into vent the gemtleman welcomes himself into the channel and procceds to not do this only once but under several different names as to cause painfully loud feedback to all those in the channel. This contnued for a while and at the time it at least seemed like this was a consern to the raid leads as they quicky began to try and figure out which people where his (hard to do because many people do not use the name of the toon they are playing in vent so its kinda hard to know who the hell is who). They failed to shut him out but he left on his own taking the loud noises with him and all was fine for a while. As we got further in he did feel the need to return and give updates on his progress to 80 though only 2 people in the vent actually would have even cared enough to want to know how he was doing. Again though this was irriating it was not a huge problem. His activity really picked up however when another fairly annoying gent joined our raid to replace someone and began to chat with the guy and brag about how far he was in ulduar as we ran into problems with trash in arachnid wing. Now as the late mention warrior was a pain to listen to at least he was IN the raid and some of the time the things out of his mouth actually pretanded to the situation at had the other "genius" began making his own quips in random areas and sometimes in areas were he seriously could have messed us up.
Now this is by no means the first time I have had to deal with this but the guy was REALLY loud and with my headache getting worse from hours of sitting in this raid it really began to grate on my nerves. By the time we reached Sath and get ready to pull he even starts yelling in vent he wasn't ready almost confusing the entire raid. I am sorry but if about 85% of the raid dont know each other's voices it becomes hard enough to tell wahts going on without some ass adding to the complexity of the situation by throwing a new unknown person into the mix in which you have no idea who he is. We then have a bit of troiuble with people dying on the frozen bastard of a dragon and though I can not say for certain if he was at fault I am sure it didn't help with people's focus during the fight.
Nerd rage began to kick in on KT and the warrior semi flashing the raid with his e-peen also pushes my last nerve as we wipe twice on KT before downing him tearing down raid members ired from the long haul for mistakse that can happen when you are tired and a little too focused to get done and yelling at our melee for being frozen when the majority of our dps was melee (not smart for KT but I was not the one in charge). I have to comend them for not freezing him along with each other with that kind of crowding. This is not the end of the problems with the vent durning the fight. Not only is the warrior basically taking over the vent bossing people around but he and the raid leads began talking about the more random things when vent should be clear so we can cut down on ussless deaths. That at the end of the day was about my breaking point and raises a intersting question for a PUGer.
When exactly is a PUG a BAD PUG? Its very obvious when the group cant even get in the door without about 10 wipes on trash in the first room or numbers look WAY to low for the people there or your raid lead is wearing greens, but is it a BAD run when you have this kind of organization issues in raid communications? Yes we had a good group of people in the PUG but we even had issues with buffing because people couldn't even hear what others needed as the vent was practically unuseable the majority of the run for useless chatter. The run itself ran probably about 2 hours longer than it would have with clear channels and communication as many wipes probably could have been avoided. For all the chatter going on I would have been about as well off not in the vent at all rather than getting irriated at the loud nonsense asaulting my ears. Even without the headache I would have seriously thought about leaving the PUG even though thing were still going fairly well. Had the group be a slight bit worse or not done as well in the early wings I dont think I would have been alone in wanting to get out at that point. Its a bit irresponsible to not control your raid's communication channels like that. Its irritating enough to deal with overly chatty raid members as is when they talk about random things in important areas but to have a guildy disrepect the raid itself because he couldnt "go" is way worse. WoW is a socail game. I might be thinking a bit much of the people that play but at some point you have to realize there are things you should and shouldnt do social situations. Perhaps i just expect too much from people. After all most act like this in there everyday life its just a bit more over the top in the virtual world I suppose.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Trust
Ok now that I most mentally awake and a little less pissy (still pissy but thats my natural state) I was sitting here thinking about something as I watched Project Lore and thought about me and a few guildies start into achievements in heroics last night as well as my Naxx run this week. Something clicked with me as something that is partly missing from WoW of late and thats the trust factor.
Now is there anything in paticular I want to address which trust in WoW? Not really this is more of an observation. Trust amongst people you run with is something that just happens as you keep playing with them whether it be pvp or pve. The more you are with a player the more you learn how they react to certain things. I mentioned this before in my "why I am BM" post in reference to my tanks and healers in guild. They have been running with me almost as long as I have been playing this game and it shows cause in the never fail oh crap moment I already know how they will react and vice versa. This makes communication much easier and its also easier to deal with new guys to the guild or pug memebers cause in general no matter what happens at least we dont have to worry about what the people we trust will do as we will all adjust accordingly. Now moving outside of the guild we get into PUG land and in general there is no trust in that vast barren wasteland. You could get a seasoned pro that is well aware of how to handle themselves in a group situation, or you could get the lone gunner that is determed to one man everything (even seen a healer do this before) and ignore the rest of the party and then my favorite the guy that you would swear brought his account or stole a friend's cause he has no damn idea what anything does on his toon or in the run. Trust is still a factor in said situation whether you realize it or not.
If you are in a group you have a certain amount of expectation of how your group memebers are to behave. Mind you, its not like we go in a PUG expecting people that are the top of the top but you do expect say a hunter (can your comments on huntards I've heard and seen them all) to lets say understand his pet is not tank and can kill you all so he should be in control of said pet, or another example, a DK on dps should know better than to be death gripping a tanks pull if the tank didnt tell them too and of course he shouldnt be in frost presense if he isnt the tank. Little things about a class you should have learned by now. This might be asking too much though so a player may have to adjust accordingly to deal with this and if you are in a group with other compitant players they will "trust" you to at least have the since to do the same and not add to the problem at least. Its not on the same level as say what I have built with my M.A.S. family but it is there wheither you notice it or not and its very clear when there are issues with trust in a PUG member as well as sometimes someone that was doing well decides to save the day and start doing the exact same thing as the person causing the problem. Runs like that really make you apreciate that trust with people you know a lot more I can tell ya.
Now getting back to my Naxx run I have developed a similar trust core with another guild I have pugged with a few times in the past. Now being a hunter I automatically get the short end of the trust stick as many before me have burned bridges for the class long before I ever picked up a bow so we I am brought into a PUG I am very much on my toes and hopefully on my A-game so there isnt an issue with them ever having a reason to point a finger at the "huntard". So running with this particular was a bit stressful the first time. I was asked to by a guildie (who was dced not long after leaving me to fend alone) and I had never been in Naxx old world or new then I was asked to do all the hunt-tanking things first go cause the original hunter had to leave. I apparently did well enough to gain their trust as well because scene then they have actively asked me to run various things and openly back my skills. Its a nice feeling to make that kind of empression on people you dont know that well.
Now gaining trust is not an easy mission to do. For instance as I told you before my play style is built on flexiblity so I can help keep the healer safe from stray mobs /adds in fights until a tank can get to them or I can kill or kite the thing to the tank. That is incredibly hard to do with a running healer especially when the healer runs away from me and the tank in panic. I had a priest in my guild at one point and this was a huge problem with me and him. Priest X squishy + running away fromt he people that can save him = dead. I tried to build up that trust with him but it never quite gelled unfortunately though he was starting to get used to it before he parted ways with us but to his defense he didn't have any experience prior to 80 of instance healing really so he was still learning everything as opposed to Eus and Ruhtra which had other members with an understanding of hunter play similar to myself, in fact I learned from them in the first place.
One last thing I wanna say about trust goes back to the guild I run Naxx with. They have a druid healer and I have grown to trust him to be my partner in my hunt-tanking parts like kiting the adds on Gluth and tanking the back on the 4 horsemen. I know unless everything else has gone to hell I will not die and he knows when I am kiting there will never be a zombie on him longer than it takes me to target and pull it off. Its a nice relationship and I really saw how much I trusted him when we had to switch healers for one of the many wipes on the horsemen we had this time. We only had 2 heals, both trees, and a shammy trying to off heal in the front and it was not working and once the other tree got in the back with me I saw why. He was a good healer and all but when the pressure was on he just couldnt keep up and actually gave up healing the back killing us both and wiping the group. I dont think I would ever want to have a situation where he was solo healing myself and himself again for that and i was more than pleased when he refused to go back to the back with me again and I got my favorite tree back again. I dunno it just interesting to sit and think about how you trust people in a video game you have never met before in general. Maybe I just pay too much attention to human interaction :).
Now is there anything in paticular I want to address which trust in WoW? Not really this is more of an observation. Trust amongst people you run with is something that just happens as you keep playing with them whether it be pvp or pve. The more you are with a player the more you learn how they react to certain things. I mentioned this before in my "why I am BM" post in reference to my tanks and healers in guild. They have been running with me almost as long as I have been playing this game and it shows cause in the never fail oh crap moment I already know how they will react and vice versa. This makes communication much easier and its also easier to deal with new guys to the guild or pug memebers cause in general no matter what happens at least we dont have to worry about what the people we trust will do as we will all adjust accordingly. Now moving outside of the guild we get into PUG land and in general there is no trust in that vast barren wasteland. You could get a seasoned pro that is well aware of how to handle themselves in a group situation, or you could get the lone gunner that is determed to one man everything (even seen a healer do this before) and ignore the rest of the party and then my favorite the guy that you would swear brought his account or stole a friend's cause he has no damn idea what anything does on his toon or in the run. Trust is still a factor in said situation whether you realize it or not.
If you are in a group you have a certain amount of expectation of how your group memebers are to behave. Mind you, its not like we go in a PUG expecting people that are the top of the top but you do expect say a hunter (can your comments on huntards I've heard and seen them all) to lets say understand his pet is not tank and can kill you all so he should be in control of said pet, or another example, a DK on dps should know better than to be death gripping a tanks pull if the tank didnt tell them too and of course he shouldnt be in frost presense if he isnt the tank. Little things about a class you should have learned by now. This might be asking too much though so a player may have to adjust accordingly to deal with this and if you are in a group with other compitant players they will "trust" you to at least have the since to do the same and not add to the problem at least. Its not on the same level as say what I have built with my M.A.S. family but it is there wheither you notice it or not and its very clear when there are issues with trust in a PUG member as well as sometimes someone that was doing well decides to save the day and start doing the exact same thing as the person causing the problem. Runs like that really make you apreciate that trust with people you know a lot more I can tell ya.
Now getting back to my Naxx run I have developed a similar trust core with another guild I have pugged with a few times in the past. Now being a hunter I automatically get the short end of the trust stick as many before me have burned bridges for the class long before I ever picked up a bow so we I am brought into a PUG I am very much on my toes and hopefully on my A-game so there isnt an issue with them ever having a reason to point a finger at the "huntard". So running with this particular was a bit stressful the first time. I was asked to by a guildie (who was dced not long after leaving me to fend alone) and I had never been in Naxx old world or new then I was asked to do all the hunt-tanking things first go cause the original hunter had to leave. I apparently did well enough to gain their trust as well because scene then they have actively asked me to run various things and openly back my skills. Its a nice feeling to make that kind of empression on people you dont know that well.
Now gaining trust is not an easy mission to do. For instance as I told you before my play style is built on flexiblity so I can help keep the healer safe from stray mobs /adds in fights until a tank can get to them or I can kill or kite the thing to the tank. That is incredibly hard to do with a running healer especially when the healer runs away from me and the tank in panic. I had a priest in my guild at one point and this was a huge problem with me and him. Priest X squishy + running away fromt he people that can save him = dead. I tried to build up that trust with him but it never quite gelled unfortunately though he was starting to get used to it before he parted ways with us but to his defense he didn't have any experience prior to 80 of instance healing really so he was still learning everything as opposed to Eus and Ruhtra which had other members with an understanding of hunter play similar to myself, in fact I learned from them in the first place.
One last thing I wanna say about trust goes back to the guild I run Naxx with. They have a druid healer and I have grown to trust him to be my partner in my hunt-tanking parts like kiting the adds on Gluth and tanking the back on the 4 horsemen. I know unless everything else has gone to hell I will not die and he knows when I am kiting there will never be a zombie on him longer than it takes me to target and pull it off. Its a nice relationship and I really saw how much I trusted him when we had to switch healers for one of the many wipes on the horsemen we had this time. We only had 2 heals, both trees, and a shammy trying to off heal in the front and it was not working and once the other tree got in the back with me I saw why. He was a good healer and all but when the pressure was on he just couldnt keep up and actually gave up healing the back killing us both and wiping the group. I dont think I would ever want to have a situation where he was solo healing myself and himself again for that and i was more than pleased when he refused to go back to the back with me again and I got my favorite tree back again. I dunno it just interesting to sit and think about how you trust people in a video game you have never met before in general. Maybe I just pay too much attention to human interaction :).
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