Behind the Curtain: Hell is other people
How often do you your social experiences in MMOs actually satisfy you? How many times have you been part of a PUG that lasted longer than the bare minimum of time it took to finish the instance and left you with the feeling that you'd met some decent people, instead of with a headache from grinding your teeth in frustration for the past hour and a half?
Despite the fact that I'm in a guild full of great people whose sole concern is not being top of the damage meters or who has the most DKP stored up, I still spend a fair amount of time playing solo. Sometime I feel like I'm cheating myself a little bit by intentionally missing out on the social side of World of Warcraft a lot of the time. I guess time is a factor more often than not; being a slave to the evil, capitalist ways of the decadent West, I work a full-time job which involves a fair amount of commuting each day, so on most weeknights I have to juggle what time I have at home, and sometimes I simply can't squeeze in a run through any instance, and I refuse to be the player who skips out of the instance half way through.
Yes, I am well aware of the odd nature of making a point of playing solo in a Massively Multiplayer game – but I make no apologies for it. My time online is my own, and I will spend it as I see fit, and no other way.
While we all love guild runs with friends and like-minded people, they're not always possible. We've all been there – playing with adult, mature gamers means that the work/life balance frequently prevents your schedules from matching up, and the guild run through your preferred instance falls through, leaving you looking for a PUG.
One of the strongest draws of MMOs is their ability to bring strangers together with a common cause. You might never have met the four other players who need to clear out the Slave Pens tonight, but you can still work together to accomplish the task. While that's a great idea in theory, one of the sad things about PUGs is that there's rarely anything social about them.
It may seem odd, me having a go at PUGs and part of the social aspect of MMOs, after my soapboxing a couple of weeks ago, but that's the great thing about MMOs – for as much as I love them, they still, after all this time, have the power to irritate the bejesus out of me.
I actively choose not to take part in much of the social side of WoW on a regular basis, but that's due partly to my play style, the demands on my time and my personality, but I'm curious about other players; Do you actively seek out PUGs to meet new people? I still remember a PUG for Blackrock Depths I ran years ago with some Dutch players who were easily the smartest and funniest people whom I had met in-game at that point. Two years of gaming later, and I still smile at the memory; that's one good argument for PUGs, I suppose. PUGs do give us the opportunity to make friends and meet people, but how many of them deliver on that opportunity, and offer more than just the opportunity to clear a few quests from your log?
Of course, there's a chance that I'm talking drivel, and that people find good groups all the time, and I'm missing out simply because I'm a cantankerous so-and-so, filled with hatred and bile. Which, ironically, would give me something in common with all those terrible PUG members over the years. If that is the case, and you've made good friends from a PUG, please let me know – I'd love to hear stories that show me how much I'm missing out on, I really would.
