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LFM ZG PST
Sometimes, bored players suggest crazy things. Yesterday's madness was a random pick-up-group expedition to Zul'Gurub; twenty bored players venturing into (mostly) uncharted territory for kicks and giggles. I joined simply to see what on earth this group would be capable of, in one of those "well, why not?" moments. The problem with such a group is its very nature -- advertised on the LFG channel, it contained many players who had never been in Zul'Gurub (or even a 20-man raid) before, and who were generally unprepared. No soul shards, reagents, potions or bandages; these brave adventurers had but the (low-durability) clothes on their backs.
PUGs 101
Chevalie of EU server Defias Brotherhood wrote up this handy post on how to best participate in PUG groups - likely after running a few too many bad PUGs. Sadly, I'm quite certain that the people who really need this advice never bother to read these things....
Breakfast Topic: u want 2 b our healr?
Sometimes, the inevitable happens. You're down a man (or woman), halfway through an instance, and one of you has to pick up a replacement. Or perhaps you're on the other side -- you really want to get into a particular instance to do all those quests cluttering up your log.Some players in the latter category may hang around capital cities occasionally asking in LFG and waiting for appropriate LFM broadcasts. However, it's safe to say that not every player in Orgrimmar wants to do RFC, and not every player in Stormwind wants to do the Stockades. Unfortunately, I've seen a huge rise in the number of unsolicited whispers recently from players asking for help in these instances -- and more.I wouldn't mind so much if they were phrased nicely, or gave me some motivation to join. "u want 2 come to dm with us? u heal?" isn't sufficient justification for a high-level character to leave the comfort of a city and run through a low-level instance with strangers. Of course, some players take this opportunity to play tricks on unsuspecting lowbies -- what's your reaction to random instance invitations? Have you ever found one compelling enough to take up? Or did you manage to phrase your LFG nicely enough that you were deluged with help?
Late Breakfast Topic: PUG-ing in WoW
I'm sure we've all played in PUGs - that's "pick up groups," for the uninitiated - before. When attacking dungeons or battlegrounds, you'll always end up grouped with people you don't know. For me, the type of group I end up in makes all the difference between enjoying and not enjoying the game. Unfortunately, though, bad pick up groups seem much more common than good - but even then, they're a necessary evil that you may just have to tolerate until you manage to complete whatever mutual objective brought you together in the first place. So what do you do when you encounter an obstacle that you can't get past on your own? Hit the local looking for group channel for a PUG? Wait until you can get a group of friends together? Or just wait until you're high enough level to do it on your own?
