Shell, all professional and editor like, introduced us to Blog Azeroth. This week’s shared topic was all about reading something different for a change. Positive experiences in Pugs!
We have delved deep into the shadowy world of all manner of Pugs. We even have a whole feature dedicated to the extraordinary fail of some of these pick up groups.
In a previous piece I wrote, we established that when someone from the dread realm of Al’Akir is in our group, the frustration already commences even before the first pull. I know, now that I have done a few with my mini-mogs’ characters, my stomach churns when I see one of them.
We have painted a myriad of pictures portraying the doom and gloom and it seems from quite a few comments from readers detailing their own horror stories, it can safely be said pugs can be placed on the half empty side of the glass.
Now to try and be the Doctor of all feel good, happiness and bouncing bunnies. I declare “Yes! there are some positive groups out there.”
I read Vinnayo’s comment about him meeting up with some PVP comrades in random dungeons and having a jolly good time chatting about all things arena, ratings and other stuff that strikes the fear of Deathwing in me.
Also, Magevossie commented on the same piece that he was in pugs with some questionable warlock who was after him with a /spit macro, who tried to kick him but got his fel handed back to him as other randoms enjoyed someone being social.
I didn’t believe it. No Way can pugs be positive?
Not a chance, can’t be done or I just have shitty luck. Well the few I did before, pretty much scarred me and forced me into the dark corner of pugaphobia.
I decided to start again, from RFC upwards and onwards. First it was healing on my priest (who incidently, I should have named “Oopsthetankdied” – oh and it would have made it on the crap name of the week list) and then I dusted off the mage to blast things to bits. And yes, my pugaphobia waned, in Deadmines of all places!
I knew the run would be good when I saw a fellow dreamer! Yup, first time I ever encountered a server colleague since using the LFD tool. The run was most definitely not smooth. People leaving, afk leeching, one or two “huntards” but we eventually got to the Transformer thing and his goblin sidekick (I suck at names okay!) Then the healer had to relog and begged us not to kick him, so we didn’t instead we all /danced. Party chat was rolling on the screen, well not quite as colourful as TPS’s Guild chat but was quite something to see these days, other than “ffs wtf!? Kick him” or everyone’s favourite “GOGOGOGOGO”
The healer came back and after a few hiccups we eventually got to Van Cleef. No one had a nappy rash when we wiped, friendly advice was given to one of the newbie young ‘uns. The only thing is, and no I am really not exaggerating, Deadmines that day took longer than clearing Naxx but damn it’s fun when you eventually get a group that clicks.
Later on, my new addition to my friend list suggested we go binge on the seeds of corruption with our warlocks. We roped in some guildies each, but damn as per usual NO TANK! Bloody Bonzo was too busy documenting all his adventures and painting pretty pictures somewhere.
So eventually after the excruciatingly long 20 minute wait (Um, how long did it take us on Horde to find a full group pre Cross Realm days?) we got a tank. Poor guy’s health went up and down like a yo yo, turns out he was a very fresh 80 and was not defense capped. Now with two Destruction warlocks who had the God of RNG smiling on us, this must have been hell for him as it was for us, worse for our healer. But no we’re not from Al’Akir or one of the other annoying realms, we soldiered on and we eventually got to the last boss. The nice “fail” tank realised his “game time” was running out, and had to leave but not before he thanked us a couple of times for not kicking him and giving him a chance.
I am certainly not Miss Positive (hence my main is a warlock!) but the lesson in positivity I learnt is; if the group does seem like fail, give it a chance, kick the trash talking twits, guide the inexperienced, take a guildie or friend, yes it may take longer than Naxx but surprise…you may actually have some fun!
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Wall of text incoming…
Reading on here and on the official forums about everyone’s bad experiences with PUGs, I think I must be pretty lucky with them. I’ve come across a few nubs of course, and I did get a bit of verbal (or should that be typed?) GBH from someone from the infamous Al’Akir realm during a PoS run once, but on the whole things have been OK for me. I’ve just done a marathon hc spam to gear my shammy up, and I only got one /w about my crap DPS, and when I explained I’d just dinged 80 he replied ‘Oh, OK, np’ and that was that.
I personally think that the serious lack of social interaction in PUGs – especially at level 80, I find there seems to be a bit more in the way of chatting in lower level dungeons, especially long ones like Stratholme and BRD – makes me appreciate good PUGs even more. I did HoL hc on the aforementioned shammy with 4 guys who were all from the same guild on another realm. I was in Elemental spec, but the healer kept dying and so I was whacking out emergency Chain Heals like no tomorrow to keep the tank and the other two DPS up. At the end they all thanked me very nicely for saving their arses and told me I was a pro healer. That made my night, really.
One of my best PUGs ever happened just a couple of weeks ago. I was on my little shammy again for a Mount Hyjal raid as a healer, and the run, which began about midnight and lasted maybe an hour and a half at the most, was so smooth I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was going to be good when – shock horror! – no one actually started the event until everyone was actually inside the instance! No idiots yelling ‘GOGOGOGO’, no nerdraging, no loot drama and nobody screaming ‘REZ PL0X!’ (which is my absolute pet hate as a healer. Especially the ones who actually whisper me personally for a ress. I will ress you in my own time, thank you. I can see perfectly well that you’re dead. If I am not ressing, it is because I either have no mana, am still in combat or you are out of my range or LoS. You don’t like it, release and corpse run like I had to!)
TL,DR version: Yes, good and even awesome PUGs do exist. I take screenies of them now for posterity’s sake.
I salute your courage for doing so many pugs *salutes* ( also glad Oopsthetankdied wasn’t healing Weasel heroics, repair bills suck. Nec would have billed you
).
Completely agree with you on the time element though. You can charge through something with a good group and no chat and get your shinies (all fast and efficient) where the game and the objective are the be all and end all.
Or you can take your time with good company, either old friends or ones you just met on the pug, where interacting with people is the main objective. Where you don’t care if you didn’t get the “Purple pants of awesomesauce” since you didn’t get to the last boss.
MMO’s should be more about people. Personally I’d rather do a 5 hour UK run, with folk I enjoy the company of, than a 20 minute rush with the “Gogogo” crowd. When you start thinking more about gear than people, and when you only see the other party members as a way to get your gear, then it’s time to quit
its not my fault I’m a huntard…..wait you were talking about me right?
seriously tho ive had some really good pugs. i must be lucky, not had anyone shout at me or call me a noob, well not on my druid anyway. I found that the best pugs are from guild groups who need an extra dps or heals etc from the pug system and end up with moi
always time for a chat and a /dance.
Speaking for myself, I’ve had not too many bad pugs. Yesterday daily random (heroic HoL) was a funny one though. We had a DK tank who “spammed” to macros at start: first one about him being dyslectic, so he has problems reading and writing in chat. The second one about him being new to tanking. For me this is always more fun, instead of just running with the group and trying to do as much damage as possible while doing a small heal now and then, you know you will have to be healing a lot more and have to take care of the DPS. We didn’t do too bad, except for the furry warrior getting aggro all the time because of charging in and starting to cleave groups before the tank was even near (too bad I let him die a few times…). So now we had (according to the warrior) a bad tank AND a bad healer. The “kick from group”-popup came up, initiated by the warrior, asking to remove the DK but fortunately the other players didn’t want to kick him too. We came to the last room before Loken, with all those 3-mob packs. The mage accidentally pulled two more packs, and the DK had to tank 9 mobs of a sudden instead of the 3 expected ones. The warrior, mage and spriest started AOE’ing the mobs, and ofcourse all died. The DK and me succeeded in killing all 9 mobs together. I complimented the DK in chat with this, and the warrior was quiet all the sudden. Loken was no problem, and we disbanded with at least two people having had fun. I even think the DK felt much better and confident after the run…