We're not traveling for Thanksgiving this year, partly due to work stuff and partly due to poor planning, so I have an entire long weekend of WoW fun to look forward to. Thanksgiving Day will be a day of sloth and gluttony with close friends, with possibly a little bit of WoW, but after that... Friday through Sunday = WoWfest 2007.
Some goals....
For my hunter... Rest. I'd run through Zul'Farrak with a full group if the opportunity presented itself, but it would be nice to let that blue bar of double xp goodness get a little longer first. (She did go through it with some guild folk this past week, but it was a run through by some higher level folks in the guild. I normally don't like to do this, but the quests are done now, I guess.)
For my mage... I'd like to get her to 40, buy her mount, and take her on some mining runs. Her jewelcrafting is at a standstill, and riding will be way more efficient than running for collecting lots of ore.
For my priest... She's now one level behind her partner character, my husband's warrior, so I'll spend a little time leveling her at least that far. She's well rested so it shouldn't take long.
For my paladin... She still hasn't run Ragefire yet, so it would be nice to get that done, even though there's little experience to be had in it at her level. After that, Wailing Caverns, and possibly Shadowfang, although all this will depend on my husband a bit. He doesn't have the same endurance for instances or tolerance for pugs that I do, so we'll just have to see how it goes.
My new computer, according to FedEx, should arrive on Saturday, too! I can't waaaait....
(Work has been a bit busy lately, hence the lack of posting. Doesn't my boss understand that I have terrible pug experiences to recap and poor etiquette to complain about?)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
State of the Main (and Alts!)
I managed to play quite a lot this weekend...
My hunter has hit 50! I finished off most of the available Hinterlands quests with a rogue friend from the guild. We each had a bunch of group quests we intended to pair up for, but then post-patch, many of them had the group label removed. We did them together anyway, and polished them off quite quickly. I've now wandered to Feralas where there are green quests galore, and I'm leveling up my leatherworking a bit. My friend and I will head into Zul'Farrak tonight.
I also played my mage a fair amount this weekend, and used up all the lovely double experience I'd accrued during her long rest. She completed Scarlet Monastery (with another frightening pug, but at this point, I think I'll spare you the tale), and most of Razorfen Downs. Still need to finish up the quests outside that instance.
My priest is 34ish, I think. Didn't play her much this weekend, but leveled up her tailoring such that she can now make stuff she can't wear yet. That's when I know it's time to slowly back away from the auction house... *cautiously steps back* No really, I had tons of silk on other characters, and together, they contributed toward the let's-move-on-to-mageweave-tailoring fund.
My paladin is at 20. Our paladin/shaman duo wreaked havoc on the harpies in the Barrens on Friday night. Steamrolled them! Bwahahaha, etc. We've yet to meet our match.
Onward!
My hunter has hit 50! I finished off most of the available Hinterlands quests with a rogue friend from the guild. We each had a bunch of group quests we intended to pair up for, but then post-patch, many of them had the group label removed. We did them together anyway, and polished them off quite quickly. I've now wandered to Feralas where there are green quests galore, and I'm leveling up my leatherworking a bit. My friend and I will head into Zul'Farrak tonight.
I also played my mage a fair amount this weekend, and used up all the lovely double experience I'd accrued during her long rest. She completed Scarlet Monastery (with another frightening pug, but at this point, I think I'll spare you the tale), and most of Razorfen Downs. Still need to finish up the quests outside that instance.
My priest is 34ish, I think. Didn't play her much this weekend, but leveled up her tailoring such that she can now make stuff she can't wear yet. That's when I know it's time to slowly back away from the auction house... *cautiously steps back* No really, I had tons of silk on other characters, and together, they contributed toward the let's-move-on-to-mageweave-tailoring fund.
My paladin is at 20. Our paladin/shaman duo wreaked havoc on the harpies in the Barrens on Friday night. Steamrolled them! Bwahahaha, etc. We've yet to meet our match.
Onward!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Pug Species #19: Runinicus treadmillia
Yes, time for another pickup group story. (I know, I know, I should probably rename this blog if I'm just going to blather on about pugs the whole time.) I encountered a new species of pug last night.
I decided to take my mage out for some questing, and since my husband had decided to do something non-WoW for the evening, I looked to see if anyone was looking for a group for RFD. There was nobody, so I flipped through the other lists, Scarlet Monastery and some others, and didn't see anyone there looking for a group either. Oh well, I thought, and closed the LFG window. A few moments later, I got an invitation to a group. I declined, thinking it was a Level 1 Orc in Orgrimmar wanting to sell me some gold, but then clicked on their name, and they were a level 30-something rogue. Oops!
I sent them a note, and asked what instance they were doing, and they said Scarlet Monastery. I was the final addition to the group, and everyone else was already at the instance, so they were able to summon me. Sweet.
The rest of the group included two rogues, a paladin, and a priest. It was a just-run-in-and-fight kind of group, with no discussion before any pull. I assumed the paladin was tanking, but it was difficult to tell sometimes. There didn't seem to be an agreement about who was doing the pulling as we approached each battle either, so I just stood in the back, tabbed through the mobs to see who was taking the most damage, and targeted them for my spells. I improvised with the sheeping and polymorphed casters who were standing away from the centers of the battles. I also sheeped mobs that were after the priest when she drew aggro, if her fade was unsuccessful.
This all worked fine up until a point. We killed Loksey, but shortly after that, as the pulls got bigger and the monks hit harder, we found ourselves outmatched. As we entered a long hallway lined with monks, a combination of folks running too far ahead and being sneaked up on patrols resulted in our being attacked by about ten mobs. Wipe!
There were just a few respawns at the beginning of the instance, so we fought our way past them and finally hit the empty halls that we'd cleared earlier. We got to the same area where we'd wiped before, and wiped again instantly. "I think we need a new plan," I said, adding a smiley.
Again, body retrieval and running. As we were running through the halls, stuff was respawning behind us. We tried to move quickly, but found ourselves surrounded by angry monks at one point. We survived a rather large battle that drained all the mana users. The priest cast renews on everyone, and then she, the paladin, and I sat down to drink... while the rogues ran ahead into another battle. The paladin jumped up to join them as soon as he was finished drinking, and the priest and I sat there finishing our water. We hadn't even had a chance to rebuff everyone, I noticed. Nobody could hold still long enough! I asked everyone to please wait.
As we stood up, another respawn attacked the priest and I. =baa= "Hey guys, there's a really vicious sheep attacking us back here," I said. I saw the rogues' hit points getting lower and lower wherever they were fighting up ahead (with nobody to heal them). They managed to get back to us and help us safely kill the respawns that were cropping up again.
We continued along quickly as we could. I'm not sure what happened with the priest at this point, but she seemed to be lagging behind a bit. All through the instance, I tried to stick with her when she had to drink water, usually because I needed to drink, too, but also because when I'm the healer, I hate it when everyone runs off ahead. Anyway, as we got to the site where wipes #1 and 2 occurred, I noticed that the priest was way, way behind us. I asked if she was ok. "Respawns again," she said. "Wait up, guys," I said to the others, as they were about to go into the hallway with all the monks again.
I'm sure you know what happened next. They did not wait. They ran right into the same corner that they'd run into twice before, this time with no healer to back them up. They managed to just engage three mobs, and the four of us were able to finish them off. I said at this point that if we were not going back to help the healer, that I was done and leaving the group. (I didn't think there was any way we'd be completing the instance anyway, and it was pointless to continue without a priest given how much damage we were taking.) One of the rogues ran across the hall and engaged a group of mobs. "I guess we're done," I said, and started to run away to find a safe place to get out of combat so I could hearth out. "O sry" said the rogue (or should I say rouge). As I ran, I saw the rogues and the paladin die one by one, and then I saw the monks on my heels. I was clobbered within a few hits. I went back to retrieve my body in the instance, and again, respawns right in the front! Damn! So, we probably would have had to completely kill our way through the instance again if we wanted to keep going. I wished them the best of luck and left the party.
I swear, it was like running on a treadmill, we made so little progress in the instance, and moved so slowly that we were just barely ahead of the respawns. So, I pronounce this sad little species Runinicus treadmillia. I've encountered many a Runinicus before, but this was a whole new one for me.
===
I should note here that while the rogues were moderately annoying, the whole situation really didn't bother me that much, not compared to some of the other pugs I've run with. Maybe I'm mellowing out, getting used to the idea that dealing with clueless people is just part of pugging, that generally, people aren't paying attention to how their party members are doing in terms of mana/health or whether they're even in proximity of the group, ready to go, etc. Or maybe it was that I went into the instance very casually and I didn't have the specific goal of doing SM last night, so I wasn't disappointed about not finishing, in addition to all the rest. In any case, I got some nice experience from the run, so it wasn't a total loss.
I decided to take my mage out for some questing, and since my husband had decided to do something non-WoW for the evening, I looked to see if anyone was looking for a group for RFD. There was nobody, so I flipped through the other lists, Scarlet Monastery and some others, and didn't see anyone there looking for a group either. Oh well, I thought, and closed the LFG window. A few moments later, I got an invitation to a group. I declined, thinking it was a Level 1 Orc in Orgrimmar wanting to sell me some gold, but then clicked on their name, and they were a level 30-something rogue. Oops!
I sent them a note, and asked what instance they were doing, and they said Scarlet Monastery. I was the final addition to the group, and everyone else was already at the instance, so they were able to summon me. Sweet.
The rest of the group included two rogues, a paladin, and a priest. It was a just-run-in-and-fight kind of group, with no discussion before any pull. I assumed the paladin was tanking, but it was difficult to tell sometimes. There didn't seem to be an agreement about who was doing the pulling as we approached each battle either, so I just stood in the back, tabbed through the mobs to see who was taking the most damage, and targeted them for my spells. I improvised with the sheeping and polymorphed casters who were standing away from the centers of the battles. I also sheeped mobs that were after the priest when she drew aggro, if her fade was unsuccessful.
This all worked fine up until a point. We killed Loksey, but shortly after that, as the pulls got bigger and the monks hit harder, we found ourselves outmatched. As we entered a long hallway lined with monks, a combination of folks running too far ahead and being sneaked up on patrols resulted in our being attacked by about ten mobs. Wipe!
There were just a few respawns at the beginning of the instance, so we fought our way past them and finally hit the empty halls that we'd cleared earlier. We got to the same area where we'd wiped before, and wiped again instantly. "I think we need a new plan," I said, adding a smiley.
Again, body retrieval and running. As we were running through the halls, stuff was respawning behind us. We tried to move quickly, but found ourselves surrounded by angry monks at one point. We survived a rather large battle that drained all the mana users. The priest cast renews on everyone, and then she, the paladin, and I sat down to drink... while the rogues ran ahead into another battle. The paladin jumped up to join them as soon as he was finished drinking, and the priest and I sat there finishing our water. We hadn't even had a chance to rebuff everyone, I noticed. Nobody could hold still long enough! I asked everyone to please wait.
As we stood up, another respawn attacked the priest and I. =baa= "Hey guys, there's a really vicious sheep attacking us back here," I said. I saw the rogues' hit points getting lower and lower wherever they were fighting up ahead (with nobody to heal them). They managed to get back to us and help us safely kill the respawns that were cropping up again.
We continued along quickly as we could. I'm not sure what happened with the priest at this point, but she seemed to be lagging behind a bit. All through the instance, I tried to stick with her when she had to drink water, usually because I needed to drink, too, but also because when I'm the healer, I hate it when everyone runs off ahead. Anyway, as we got to the site where wipes #1 and 2 occurred, I noticed that the priest was way, way behind us. I asked if she was ok. "Respawns again," she said. "Wait up, guys," I said to the others, as they were about to go into the hallway with all the monks again.
I'm sure you know what happened next. They did not wait. They ran right into the same corner that they'd run into twice before, this time with no healer to back them up. They managed to just engage three mobs, and the four of us were able to finish them off. I said at this point that if we were not going back to help the healer, that I was done and leaving the group. (I didn't think there was any way we'd be completing the instance anyway, and it was pointless to continue without a priest given how much damage we were taking.) One of the rogues ran across the hall and engaged a group of mobs. "I guess we're done," I said, and started to run away to find a safe place to get out of combat so I could hearth out. "O sry" said the rogue (or should I say rouge). As I ran, I saw the rogues and the paladin die one by one, and then I saw the monks on my heels. I was clobbered within a few hits. I went back to retrieve my body in the instance, and again, respawns right in the front! Damn! So, we probably would have had to completely kill our way through the instance again if we wanted to keep going. I wished them the best of luck and left the party.
I swear, it was like running on a treadmill, we made so little progress in the instance, and moved so slowly that we were just barely ahead of the respawns. So, I pronounce this sad little species Runinicus treadmillia. I've encountered many a Runinicus before, but this was a whole new one for me.
===
I should note here that while the rogues were moderately annoying, the whole situation really didn't bother me that much, not compared to some of the other pugs I've run with. Maybe I'm mellowing out, getting used to the idea that dealing with clueless people is just part of pugging, that generally, people aren't paying attention to how their party members are doing in terms of mana/health or whether they're even in proximity of the group, ready to go, etc. Or maybe it was that I went into the instance very casually and I didn't have the specific goal of doing SM last night, so I wasn't disappointed about not finishing, in addition to all the rest. In any case, I got some nice experience from the run, so it wasn't a total loss.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Aggro in Ulda
I played my hunter all weekend, soaking up the last of the delicious double experience I'd saved up with her. I had a couple things to do in Uldaman still, since my last pug there was unable to complete it, so I put my name on the LFG list first thing on Saturday.
I got an invite after an hour or so, and joined a group consisting of a mage and another hunter. I recognized the other hunter -- we had quested together briefly in Stranglethorn a while back. I don't remember which quest specifically, but it was one where we had to kill a bunch of trolls, and we got our butts kicked. We'd send our cats in, and within moments, we'd be stormed by angry mobs that had been standing just around the corner where we couldn't see, I guessed. After a final suicide run to retrieve our bodies, we fled the scene, getting chased by a pack of gorillas as we tried to get to safer ground. I thought it was completely hilarious at the time.
So, recalling that fondly (unsuccessful though it was), I was looking forward to this Ulda run. When I joined, that made the group two hunters and a mage, so as far as I was concerned, as soon as we picked up a tank and healer, we'd be ready to go. Moments later, the hunter invited another mage. Hmm. I supposed my cat could tank, but I'd never be the first to suggest it. I just made my way toward the summoning stone and thought I'd wait to see what happened.
It seemed like it took a very long time to get a fifth. I think this is in part because we somehow were no longer on the LFG list for Ulda, and when I suggested that the hunter advertise in the LFG channel, he said he didn't know how. Instead, I think he just started looking for folks in the right level range and whispering to them. Must have been successful, because we finally got a fifth, a druid, who greeted us by saying, "Um, guys, I can tank or heal, but not both." Yeahh....
I seriously considered dropping from the group so they could find a fifth that would be more appropriate, but since it had taken us so long to get five together, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. At least if I stayed we'd all be playing instead of waiting, and if it was clear it wasn't going to work, we'd just call it quits. One of the mages pointed out that we should have pretty good DPS and crowd control capabilities, so as long as we communicated well, we should be fine. (I liked her!) I suggested that the leader (the other hunter) mark the pulls so we'd all know what was what. This ended up not happening.
Instead, it was decided that the other hunter and I would have our cats each tank a different mob to split up the aggro. So, at the beginning of each pull (some of these with six mobs ready to charge us), the plan was that we'd each mark a mob with our hunter's mark, signifying we were ready. Then, we'd release the cats and ideally, the DPS could focus on the two marked mobs first. In theory, this probably could have worked. The problem, however, was that the other hunter was specced Marksmanship, not Beast Mastery, so this meant that he was doing a lot more damage than his cat. He possibly could have compensated for this by delaying his fire and letting the cat build up some aggro, but he didn't make an attempt to do this at all. Each pull went like this:
1) He'd put up his hunter's mark, and then I'd put up mine. We'd both send our cats in.
2) I'd wait a few moments for my cat to growl before shooting. He would start shooting immediately, sometimes before his cat even got to the mob.
3) My cat would effectively tank its assigned mob. He would pull aggro on his mob and usually most of the others in the area, and they would come rushing over to our party.
4) My cat and I would kill the one mob I'd marked, and then I'd hurry my cat back to try to help sort out the chaos in the area where we were standing.
5) Lather, rinse, retrieve corpses, repeat.
The mages did try to sheep whenever they could, but mostly it was futile. At one point I asked the other hunter if he was using multi-shot, given that he was pulling so many mobs to the group on every single pull. He said he wasn't, so it just must have been due to poor decisions in timing/choosing his other shots. One of the mages finally asked to be leader so that she could mark a few mobs for sheeping. This helped quite a lot, but I swear, this other hunter pulled every single mob that my cat wasn't tanking on every single pull. It was unbelievable.
(Note, I did download AuldLangSyne, and while it isn't quite what I expected, it is kind of cool. Whenever you apply notes to another player, it includes them when you hover your pointer over them. So, in this case, hovering over the other hunter would make it say:
HisName
Level 43 Blood Elf Hunter
Moron
It made me smile every time.)
We wiped only once, but like I said, those poor mages had to collect their bodies many times during the instance. It was taking us long enough, too, that those retrieving their bodies had respawns to deal with, so the whole group had to go back to help at one point. The mage who was leading us showed us the back way in to speed up later body retrievals, but I was beginning to doubt our ability to handle the final boss, given the way things had gone up to that point.
We made it to the final room, and the mage now in charge suggested that the other hunter have his cat tank the boss while mine took care of all the adds. Seriously? I whispered her and said I thought my cat might be able to hold aggro better on the boss. I told her I was worried about the other hunter's cat doing any major tanking because the other hunter had pulled aggro to himself on every single pull. "Hold up," she said, and whispered a thanks for the suggestion. The way she said it, I thought she might be discounting the idea at first, but then she reversed her orders. My cat would tank the boss, and the other hunter would take care of the other stuff. Whew.
It was really a very close fight, but we brought down Archaedas in one attempt. It was awesome... my cat managed to hold his attention through lots of growling and some well timed intimidations. Both the druid and I kept her healed enough that she was still there at the end of the fight. She was down to 10% of her hit points as Archaedas fell, and I was down to less than half of mine thanks to some roaming adds I happened to engage during the fight. One person died (either a mage or the druid -- can't remember now), so ... not too bad. Way better than I was expecting.
Archaedas dropped the Stoneslayer, and again, in this group, everyone was rolling greed on bind-on-pickups whether they planned to use the items or not. I really prefer to pass on BoPs unless I plan to use them, but I finally said, "what the heck" and rolled greed and won it. I didn't feel too badly about it since it's doubtful that anyone other than the other hunter or I could use it, and the other hunter had just won Grimlok's Charge earlier (in a roll that I passed on).
Anyway, it makes total sense to me why that hunter and I had such problems in Stranglethorn Vale before. It's also becoming clearer to me why hunters have such a reputation for not knowing how to play their class. Seems like I've run into so many clueless ones recently.
(My hunter is now at 47! Whee!)
I got an invite after an hour or so, and joined a group consisting of a mage and another hunter. I recognized the other hunter -- we had quested together briefly in Stranglethorn a while back. I don't remember which quest specifically, but it was one where we had to kill a bunch of trolls, and we got our butts kicked. We'd send our cats in, and within moments, we'd be stormed by angry mobs that had been standing just around the corner where we couldn't see, I guessed. After a final suicide run to retrieve our bodies, we fled the scene, getting chased by a pack of gorillas as we tried to get to safer ground. I thought it was completely hilarious at the time.
So, recalling that fondly (unsuccessful though it was), I was looking forward to this Ulda run. When I joined, that made the group two hunters and a mage, so as far as I was concerned, as soon as we picked up a tank and healer, we'd be ready to go. Moments later, the hunter invited another mage. Hmm. I supposed my cat could tank, but I'd never be the first to suggest it. I just made my way toward the summoning stone and thought I'd wait to see what happened.
It seemed like it took a very long time to get a fifth. I think this is in part because we somehow were no longer on the LFG list for Ulda, and when I suggested that the hunter advertise in the LFG channel, he said he didn't know how. Instead, I think he just started looking for folks in the right level range and whispering to them. Must have been successful, because we finally got a fifth, a druid, who greeted us by saying, "Um, guys, I can tank or heal, but not both." Yeahh....
I seriously considered dropping from the group so they could find a fifth that would be more appropriate, but since it had taken us so long to get five together, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. At least if I stayed we'd all be playing instead of waiting, and if it was clear it wasn't going to work, we'd just call it quits. One of the mages pointed out that we should have pretty good DPS and crowd control capabilities, so as long as we communicated well, we should be fine. (I liked her!) I suggested that the leader (the other hunter) mark the pulls so we'd all know what was what. This ended up not happening.
Instead, it was decided that the other hunter and I would have our cats each tank a different mob to split up the aggro. So, at the beginning of each pull (some of these with six mobs ready to charge us), the plan was that we'd each mark a mob with our hunter's mark, signifying we were ready. Then, we'd release the cats and ideally, the DPS could focus on the two marked mobs first. In theory, this probably could have worked. The problem, however, was that the other hunter was specced Marksmanship, not Beast Mastery, so this meant that he was doing a lot more damage than his cat. He possibly could have compensated for this by delaying his fire and letting the cat build up some aggro, but he didn't make an attempt to do this at all. Each pull went like this:
1) He'd put up his hunter's mark, and then I'd put up mine. We'd both send our cats in.
2) I'd wait a few moments for my cat to growl before shooting. He would start shooting immediately, sometimes before his cat even got to the mob.
3) My cat would effectively tank its assigned mob. He would pull aggro on his mob and usually most of the others in the area, and they would come rushing over to our party.
4) My cat and I would kill the one mob I'd marked, and then I'd hurry my cat back to try to help sort out the chaos in the area where we were standing.
5) Lather, rinse, retrieve corpses, repeat.
The mages did try to sheep whenever they could, but mostly it was futile. At one point I asked the other hunter if he was using multi-shot, given that he was pulling so many mobs to the group on every single pull. He said he wasn't, so it just must have been due to poor decisions in timing/choosing his other shots. One of the mages finally asked to be leader so that she could mark a few mobs for sheeping. This helped quite a lot, but I swear, this other hunter pulled every single mob that my cat wasn't tanking on every single pull. It was unbelievable.
(Note, I did download AuldLangSyne, and while it isn't quite what I expected, it is kind of cool. Whenever you apply notes to another player, it includes them when you hover your pointer over them. So, in this case, hovering over the other hunter would make it say:
HisName
Level 43 Blood Elf Hunter
Moron
It made me smile every time.)
We wiped only once, but like I said, those poor mages had to collect their bodies many times during the instance. It was taking us long enough, too, that those retrieving their bodies had respawns to deal with, so the whole group had to go back to help at one point. The mage who was leading us showed us the back way in to speed up later body retrievals, but I was beginning to doubt our ability to handle the final boss, given the way things had gone up to that point.
We made it to the final room, and the mage now in charge suggested that the other hunter have his cat tank the boss while mine took care of all the adds. Seriously? I whispered her and said I thought my cat might be able to hold aggro better on the boss. I told her I was worried about the other hunter's cat doing any major tanking because the other hunter had pulled aggro to himself on every single pull. "Hold up," she said, and whispered a thanks for the suggestion. The way she said it, I thought she might be discounting the idea at first, but then she reversed her orders. My cat would tank the boss, and the other hunter would take care of the other stuff. Whew.
It was really a very close fight, but we brought down Archaedas in one attempt. It was awesome... my cat managed to hold his attention through lots of growling and some well timed intimidations. Both the druid and I kept her healed enough that she was still there at the end of the fight. She was down to 10% of her hit points as Archaedas fell, and I was down to less than half of mine thanks to some roaming adds I happened to engage during the fight. One person died (either a mage or the druid -- can't remember now), so ... not too bad. Way better than I was expecting.
Archaedas dropped the Stoneslayer, and again, in this group, everyone was rolling greed on bind-on-pickups whether they planned to use the items or not. I really prefer to pass on BoPs unless I plan to use them, but I finally said, "what the heck" and rolled greed and won it. I didn't feel too badly about it since it's doubtful that anyone other than the other hunter or I could use it, and the other hunter had just won Grimlok's Charge earlier (in a roll that I passed on).
Anyway, it makes total sense to me why that hunter and I had such problems in Stranglethorn Vale before. It's also becoming clearer to me why hunters have such a reputation for not knowing how to play their class. Seems like I've run into so many clueless ones recently.
(My hunter is now at 47! Whee!)
Friday, November 9, 2007
The Do-Not-Party List
Last night, while questing around Desolace with my priest, I got two unsolicited tells from a certain jerky paladin whose name is on my Do-Not-Party list. The first time he just said, "RFK?" The second time, just "SM library." Of course, I recognized the name immediately and turned him down. In each case, I thanked him for asking, as I always do, and wished him luck. I really was busy questing with my husband's warrior toon, but after my last experience with him, there is absolutely no way I would have joined his party even if I had the time to spare.
After his second tell, I was browsing my blacklist a bit. It's a short list (which may surprise you given all the whinging about pugs here so far), scrawled on a pad of paper next to my computer. It's arranged in the order I ran into each person, and next to each name, there are just a couple of words to describe why they're on the list. Ninja. Jerk. Yells at everyone. Runs ahead and wipes the party. Not too many details, but I hoped that in each case that it would be enough to make me remember why I wouldn't want to party with them again. It looks a little worse for the wear, given that the cat has overturned at least two glasses of water on it, but I can still make out most of the names.
With the jerky paladin, his name is weird/recognizable and my memories are fresh thanks to writing the blog entry, so the decision will always be clear on that one. For others, I found that the memories were hazier. What instance did I run with them, and what, more specifically, bothered me? I'm pretty sure I don't add a person if they are simply annoying. They need to be a special kind of annoying to make the list, a kind that says I could not stomach another instance with them. Some offenses are definitely worse than others though. For example, take "runs ahead and wipes the party." What if the leader was very good, and they were able to keep the person under control? Or, what if they'd learned some better grouping practices since our last meeting? It might be ok to party with someone like that again. On the other hand, I absolutely want to steer clear of the loot ninjas, because I know I'll just get mad if they do it again. So, it seems I need a better way to keep track of people, perhaps something better organized (and more cat-proof).
After reading Nibuca's thoughts on WoW player ratings, I casually looked into addons for keeping track of other players and storing notes on them in the game. One that intrigued me was DiggKarma, which also allows you also to share notes on players with others who have the addon. I wouldn't mind being able to warn others about the jerky paladin, but I'm not sure that I'd really want to share my friend/ignore lists. I'd have to see what kind of settings it has for privacy.
Really, I just want a way to keep notes for myself. NotesUNeed seems to be a rather popular download, but perhaps something simpler like Player Notes or NoteIt would be sufficient. Oooh, wait a second, I just found a WowAce one that's FuBar compatible: AuldLangSyne. I'll give that a try this weekend and report back.
Now, the other issue... It's easy enough to avoid these folks if they are the one asking me to join the party, but what if I join a party invited by someone else, and find that someone on my blacklist is in the group? This is not something I've been faced with yet... would I politely excuse myself? (Sorry guys, gotta log...) I don't think I'm confrontational enough to actually say why I'm leaving to the person (unless they -really- pissed me off), but would I whisper my reason to the leader? (Look out for the rogue -- he's a ninja...) I think I'd have to say something to someone. I always find it annoying, even if it's clear that the pug is terrible and going to be unsuccessful, when people leave the group without saying anything, especially if you're already inside the instance. I genuinely hope I won't be faced with this, but I'm curious to see how I'll react when I'm actually in the situation.
How do you keep track of players you'd like to avoid? And if you find yourself in a group with one of these folks, what's your next move?
After his second tell, I was browsing my blacklist a bit. It's a short list (which may surprise you given all the whinging about pugs here so far), scrawled on a pad of paper next to my computer. It's arranged in the order I ran into each person, and next to each name, there are just a couple of words to describe why they're on the list. Ninja. Jerk. Yells at everyone. Runs ahead and wipes the party. Not too many details, but I hoped that in each case that it would be enough to make me remember why I wouldn't want to party with them again. It looks a little worse for the wear, given that the cat has overturned at least two glasses of water on it, but I can still make out most of the names.
With the jerky paladin, his name is weird/recognizable and my memories are fresh thanks to writing the blog entry, so the decision will always be clear on that one. For others, I found that the memories were hazier. What instance did I run with them, and what, more specifically, bothered me? I'm pretty sure I don't add a person if they are simply annoying. They need to be a special kind of annoying to make the list, a kind that says I could not stomach another instance with them. Some offenses are definitely worse than others though. For example, take "runs ahead and wipes the party." What if the leader was very good, and they were able to keep the person under control? Or, what if they'd learned some better grouping practices since our last meeting? It might be ok to party with someone like that again. On the other hand, I absolutely want to steer clear of the loot ninjas, because I know I'll just get mad if they do it again. So, it seems I need a better way to keep track of people, perhaps something better organized (and more cat-proof).
After reading Nibuca's thoughts on WoW player ratings, I casually looked into addons for keeping track of other players and storing notes on them in the game. One that intrigued me was DiggKarma, which also allows you also to share notes on players with others who have the addon. I wouldn't mind being able to warn others about the jerky paladin, but I'm not sure that I'd really want to share my friend/ignore lists. I'd have to see what kind of settings it has for privacy.
Really, I just want a way to keep notes for myself. NotesUNeed seems to be a rather popular download, but perhaps something simpler like Player Notes or NoteIt would be sufficient. Oooh, wait a second, I just found a WowAce one that's FuBar compatible: AuldLangSyne. I'll give that a try this weekend and report back.
Now, the other issue... It's easy enough to avoid these folks if they are the one asking me to join the party, but what if I join a party invited by someone else, and find that someone on my blacklist is in the group? This is not something I've been faced with yet... would I politely excuse myself? (Sorry guys, gotta log...) I don't think I'm confrontational enough to actually say why I'm leaving to the person (unless they -really- pissed me off), but would I whisper my reason to the leader? (Look out for the rogue -- he's a ninja...) I think I'd have to say something to someone. I always find it annoying, even if it's clear that the pug is terrible and going to be unsuccessful, when people leave the group without saying anything, especially if you're already inside the instance. I genuinely hope I won't be faced with this, but I'm curious to see how I'll react when I'm actually in the situation.
How do you keep track of players you'd like to avoid? And if you find yourself in a group with one of these folks, what's your next move?
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