Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Remember when The Burning Crusade launched and everyone was in a big hurry to ding 70? Apparently some guilds are still leveling up. This week's e-mail doesn't mention whether these are new players or rerolls, but the problem is the same: What should you do when the people you're counting on just aren't leveling up fast enough?
I am a member of a small guild on Gul'dan server. I sympathize with and thank K for sharing his guild problems. Our guild is a lot younger and most likely smaller than his is or was at one point, but as we progress to get our members leveled up and geared up for raiding I can already notice a slight discontent, similar to what K described.
We are very casual right now and our leader is letting the guild "breathe its own air", by not imposing any strict rule. This is done to allow the players to feel comfortable as they level up. The only real rule, more of a suggestion I would say, that we ask our members to follow, is to disregard any dungeon quest and just concentrate on leveling up as fast as possible, without having higher levels running you through areas.
Technically, account sharing is a bannable offense, no ifs, ands, or buts. If your brother, best friend, coworker, or Fred from the soccer league who sometimes drops by your house after practice for a couple cold ones want to play some WoW, they have to get their own account. If they play on your account, and Blizzard finds out, they can shut you down for it.
I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear.
During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.
I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.
Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week Benjamin writes in:
Hi, my name is Benjamin. I am a daily, if not hourly reader of WoW Insider as it is my Warcraft fix while slaving tirelessly under the oppressive regime of work. My question is this: How do you separate yourself from the idiots when trying to PuG? With Mr. Rossi's articles about never Pugging, the endless replies of concurrence, and the numerous other articles of horror stories, I see why I can never get that group together for Black Morass. Part of my issue is that my main is a Night Elf Hunter, which does not exactly inspire confidence but I can chain trap, I am learning to FD BEFORE I pull aggro, and I protect my healers. Bottom line is this, do you have any recommendations when I am hitting the LFG to distinguish myself from the numerous other "OMG, I PEW PEW AND LEWT!" folks, regardless of class? And yes, I do have a Warrior and Priest alt. =) Thank you for your time.
When it comes to avoiding idiots in PuGs, often times the answer is a line from the movie WarGames: "The only winning move is not to play."
Myself, I'm largely removed from the PuG game as well. I'll do a variation of a Pug, where myself and a couple of guildies might seek out a fourth or a fifth, but the days of me hitting the LFG tool have passed. These days, I'm more interested in a Heroic for the badges, and those can be dicey even with guildies; doing it with strangers is just too much of a hassle.
How about you folks -- any tips on how Ben can avoid idiots?
Got questions? Don't wait! Send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com and your query could be up in lights here next week.
WoW Insider serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
PvP was very much on readers' minds this week: Blizzard's balance of focus on PvP vs. PvE content, new Arena gear requirements, the e-sport aspirations of WoW's PvP system ... We bring you a sampling of those, as well as plenty of other tidbits that readers poked at over the last week: meanie players who kill ogres, loot drama, even roleplaying coverage.
As always, be sure to dive into the comments area and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.
Our weekly podcast returns to the Internets tomorrow afternoon -- Turpster and I will be on, along with John "BigBearButt" Patricelli, and Zach Yonzon, assuming he can reach us from his location in the Philippines. Since Zach's on, we'll get back into the PvP discussion that we planned a few weeks ago (including whether or not WSG is working the way it's supposed to now, and what's up with those new Arena changes), plus we'll chat about 2.4.2 of course, Rossi's reasons for not PuGing, and all the other most popular stories in the last week of Warcraft.
We'll check our email inbox as well -- if you'd like to send us a note (or a joke), you can do so at theshow@wowinsider.com. And we'll be on IRC as usual: in the #wowradio channel at irc.mmoirc.com (or you can just chat directly from WoW Radio's webpage).
Should be a good one. See you there: tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST over on WoW Radio, it's the WoW Insider Show live on your PC.
Lauren of the Mystic Worlds Blog has a new post up called "Why we Solo in MMOs," offering her perspective on why, over many years and many MMOs, she has always tended to ignore the grouping game and instead go it alone. While I'm not against grouping at all -- I was very active in the 40 man raid game, and tend to run Heroics around once a week and Karazhans around 1.5 times a week across my 3 70s -- I've always felt that the solo game has a valid spot in MMORPGs, and I've often indulged in it myself. In fact, I'd bet that most WoW players do so on a regular basis these days, whether leveling up or doing their dailies.
She rattles off the usual list of reasons for going solo -- having a weird schedule, needing to take frequent "real life" breaks, not having enough time to go LFG for a dungeon, unwillingness to deal with the infamous horrible PuG group -- then takes it a step further. She believes that many people use these types of statements as excuses or defense against people who can't understand why they wish to solo in a multiplayer game, or actively flame them for it, and that the real reasons are a lot less complicated.
The biggest frustration in a MMORPG is probably getting ganked at most inopportune moments.The next biggest aggravation has got to be playing with pick-up-groups.Sometimes we get lucky in choosing random players to instance with, but we've all got horror stories of out worst experiences with PUGs.
Ihaveaplan of Altarac Mountains started a thread for players to list 200 things you don't want to hear from your DPS.The original poster's initial complaint was the Warlock who left the group because the tank was fighting multiple mobs.Some other gems from this thread include:
Bizzerk of Laughing Skull, "Does anyone have damage meters?"
Zazzi of Kirin Tor, "Do any of you have another weapon? My sword broke."
Groxikor of Daggerspine, "I'm pretty good with bandages, can I heal?"
Misada of Dark Iron, "Hey guys, can someone resummon me, had to hearth to repair my gear."
Ovelita of Ner'zhul, "We don't need a healer. We have a shadow priest."
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Anyone who has an unguilded bank alt can appreciate this scenario: You're in the auction house, minding your own business, when without any warning the whole auction interface goes away, only to be replaced by a guild charter that someone wants you to sign. It's pretty annoying and rude when people do that without asking first. If you're not in a guild, it can happen to you anywhere.
Usually they don't want you to actually stick around once the guild is formed, but other people actually send guild invites this way. It's not as bad when it's a noncharter invite, since it doesn't close any of your windows. But it always mystified me that people would recruit like this. They don't know anything about you; you don't know anything about them. So it's not so much a guild as it is a long-term pick-up group. I suppose some of the members must know each other, but everyone else was just scooped up fresh from the Barrens. Do you ever wonder what might happen if you actually joined that guild and stuck with it? This week's e-mail comes from someone who did.
Hi Scott --
Thanks for the column. Believe it or not, even those of us who don't lead guilds tune in and get some good tips and advice from you.
I'm an unashamed noob who suddenly has a guild issue. Here's how it breaks down . . .
I got massively bored with my Night Elf Druid after getting him to Ashenvale, and nearly gave up on WoW. I'd only sunk three weeks into the game, and still had another week in the bank, so I rolled a new character. Right out of the gate, I decided to play a more social game: get into more pick-up groups, join a guild, and figure out what these "instance" thingies were all about. So when I was in the middle of a fight and a guild invite popped up onto my screen, I joined immediately.
Tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, February 23rd at 3:30pm EST on WoW Radio, we'll go live on the air yet again with our august podcast. This week, we've got myself and Turpster as usual (did you hear that he's doing something every week on Tuesday over at Massively nowadays?), and relative WI newbies Amanda Dean and Adam Holisky will be along for the ride. We'll be chatting about all those patch 2.4 changes we've seen in the past week (including the vaporous promise of Shaman buffs), what Heroic Badges are really for, what our compadre Elizabeth Harper heard at GDC, and of course we've got to get the inside story from Adam about what made him so bitter about PuGs.
Should be a good time as always. Meet up with us at 3:30pm EST tomorrow afternoon on WoW Radio, and if you'd like (and you have IRC), you can also join us in chat on irc.mmoirc.com, in the #wowradio channel during the show. And if you have a comment, complaint, conundrum, or compliment for us, you can always send it along to theshow@wowinsider.com. We're getting tons of great emails there lately, so we can't answer them all on the show, but we'll answer yours if we can. See you tomorrow!
P.S. Oh, and I almost forgot -- as promised last week, we will have exclusive news of a brand new, upcoming WoW Insider contest. Listen in to the show to find out what we're planning!
Recently you've asked me to group with you. This is cool, and I appreciate being wanted. It gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The same warm and fuzzy feeling you get after you've killed a million boars and are holding the Sword of a Thousand Truths. However, if you don't mind, could we go over a few dos and don'ts?
Here's what you should do:
Do ask nicely if I have time to join your group.
Do look to see if I'm using the LFG tool. If I'm not, I probably don't want to group.
Do offer me at least 100 gold to run you through the Stockades. The two gold you're putting forth does not make up for the time it's going to take me to run you through.
Do talk in English or some other real language. I'll even accept Klingon. Leet speak is not a language.
Do ask if everyone is ready before MDing the boss to me.
Recently a couple of my guild mates ran Heroic Underbog with a few pug members. Life was good, they made it up to the first boss, Hungarfen, and got him. The odd part happens with the loot. A rogue could have used the Boggspine Knuckles that the boss dropped. However a friendly lock decided that this was a badges run, and not a gearing one. He decided that instead of passing on the item, he was going to need all blue items and shard them. Lo and behold, the lock did just that. Anger ensued, and instead of moving on happy, everyone left quite mad.
Now of course, this sounds like just another pug horror story. What makes it different from that is this lock actually went on to defend his actions, and really stood by his convictions. My first reaction is to balk at this, and say this is never acceptable. However thinking a little beyond that, I've got to wondering if this is a practice that perhaps happens elsewhere. Perhaps this guy is from a different server with a different culture, where heroics are just meant for badges and gear gets auto-sent to the DE factory.
So my question to you, WoW Insider readers, does this kind of thing happen legitimately anywhere else, or is this just another case of another bad pug story?
Lane asks a good question on WoW LJ that I'd like to ask you as well-- how are those Heroic PUGs coming? With the recent changes to reputation requirements for Heroic dungeons, there's probably a whole lot more players out there ready to run Heroics and looking for groups to do it with. But as classically unorganized as most pick up groups are, and as much concentration and skill that Heroics require, I can't imagine a Heroic PUG would ever been a good time, unless you got really, really lucky. Heck, I have enough trouble running with a normal PUG-- a Heroic PUG seems like it would be hell and a half.
I'm sure it's not impossible-- if you've already got a good tank and some good CC, you can probably PUG a DPS or Healer and do OK. And I'm sure that, just like real PUGs, every once in a while, you'll strike gold and get a group that really has it together. But as easy as badges are to come by nowadays, I have to stand in awe of the people who still go for Heroic PUGs. How's it going out there?
The PUG has been a subject of severaldiscussions lately, on WoW Insider and elsewhere. Today WoWGrrl wrote about how PUGs might be used to help out your guild. I can hear you, gentle reader, exclaim from the other side of the blog, but I am in a guild so that I don't have to run PUGs, so that I will always have people to group with. Yes, I know, but hear me out.
WoWGrrl explains that PUGs are an excellent way to add new guild members to your roster, since for the most part they consist of people who have never grouped before running an instance together. I know from personal experience that much of my guild recruitment in the early days was based in PUGs: a few of us would run an instance, find a player with a great sense of humor who knew their class well, and we would invite them to join us. If we were charming enough as a group, proved we could work together, then every great once in a while that person deigned to join our guild.
Once you're in the guild, however, the tendency is to try to get guild-only runs. After all, you joined the guild for support, right? Only a guild is made up of people of varying levels and interests, and while sometimes guild runs will fall magically into place, more times than not you're left feeling like guild chat is your own worst version of the LFG. This is where the PUG comes in. Where the guild might only be on at certain times, looking to work on specific tasks, a PUG is more consistently available. I say this because mathematically, there are more people who are out of your guild than people in your guild.
Reading WoWGrrl's discussion has reminded me that PUGs can be useful tools even when you are in a guild. Heck, they even strengthen the guild itself when done consistently. I think I'll log in and start a recruiting PUG of my own.
This week on Ask WoW Insider, we've got an interesting question about how to get along with PuGs in game. As you might already know, in patch 2.3, players will be able to see everyone else's spec simply via the Inspect screen without leaving the game. This information has already been available on the Armory, but in 2.3, it'll be just one click away. And that's got reader Mylittleponykiller worried:
Hello. I play an MS warrior, currently specced for PvP, but I also tank for pugs in non-Heroics and offtank in Karazhan when needed. I do a fine job, and often on the journey from 1-69.99 I was mistaken for Prot when I tanked instances (as Fury). However, in 2.3 I know that I will get kicked out of/not invited to PuGs if I am not Prot. I have spent hundreds of gold and many hours getting geared to tank and to DPS, and now it seems half of that might just go to waste. What can I do to prevent this from happening or at least prove myself as a tank to PuGs (even though I have over and over again)?
Interesting question. First of all, readers, would you kick a warrior out of the group if he was there to tank and not specced Prot? When you have the ability to see someone's spec at a click, will you use that information to determine what other players can and can't do in your groups?
And if so, what can those other players do to "prove" that they can tank, or main heal, or do DPS? If you are going to make judgments based solely on spec, what can "offspecs" (haven't heard that word in a while!) like Mlpk do to "prove" that they can fill their roles?
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Technically,
WoW Insider serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Our weekly podcast 
The biggest frustration in a MMORPG is probably 
Dear 
Recently a couple of my guild mates ran Heroic Underbog with a few pug members. Life was good, they made it up to the first boss, 
Lane asks a good question on WoW LJ that I'd like to ask you as well-- how are those Heroic PUGs coming? With the recent changes to 
This week on Ask WoW Insider, we've got an interesting question about how to get along with PuGs in game. As you might already know, in 
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