Gankers can be funny

Last night I was working on a quest outside of Gadgetzan, the one that involves killing water-stealing scum in the form of 'locks and rogues. It's pretty annoying because while I'm dealing withe the 'lock (sheeped) and the pet (in my face) the wandering rogues jump in. I died a couple of times but I was making progress. In the midst of one of these little battles 3 Hordies come up behind me and attack. Since I've been using my wand (a very recent revelation) I've got mana to play with and I manage to sheep one and do some fire damage to another before I succumb. I was actually pretty pleased with my performance since I'm not very good at PVP and I usually die before I even see who's attacking me.

These players have strange, non-RP names, like FuzzyBunny (the only one I remember) and that amused me, but what I really found amusing was that they had managed to aggro so many nearby mobs in the process of ganking me that they wiped immediately. I decided to see if I could make them do it again, so as soon as I rezzed I ran around collecting mobs and lead them back to the Hordies hoping to train them before I died again. Alas it didn't work and they managed to dispatch the mobs. I rezzed at the GY next to Gadgetzan and stoned at the Inn since I was about ready for bed anyway. While I was puttering around my group of gankers rode through town (one on an Ostrich...really looks silly) and I got a wave from one of them. I thought it would be funny to mess with them a little so I quickly typed:

/e [Flon] is glad he got the gank/wipe on video...look for it on YouTube!

...but by the time I managed that I think they were too far away.

I kill me.

I am a ninja looter

Well, despite my attempts to maintain a decent reputation I screwed up last night in a Maraudon PUG. The group seemed to be pretty good, but it didn't last very long for me.

We started out with a good balance, Warrior Tank, Priest Healer, Rogue, Hunter, Mage (me) DPS. This was only my second trip into Maraudon, first time on the purple side, though I didn't share that information because I didn't want to get kicked for being a noob. So we start through the caves, not even to the instance portal yet, and we come across some big lizards. Not sure what they were called, because I was having trouble with my interface. This is where the trouble began.

After installing TBC one of my must-have mods, LitheToolTipMover (or something pretty close to that) wouldn't work. This is a little gizmo that let's you put the default ToolTip location where you want it (next to the minimap in my case) instead of the usual location, which for me is on top of several important buttons. So the other night I went looking for a new mod and found one that provided many more options than the old one did. I had it configured for my new toon, my Dranei Priest, but hadn't been on my Mage except for a guild event last night (tour of Outland...lot's of fun but we had to hold hands to keep from getting people lost and killed). So the mod on my Mage is using the default setting, which makes the ToolTip float at the cursor location when you roll over things. I find this to be really annoying, especially in an instance with a group where there's things all over the place that pop a ToolTip. So I was planning to fix it when I got this group invite, and then I forgot about it until we got into the caves.

So anyway, we start to attack these lizards, and I can't cast a spell. It took me quite a while to realize that they had an AoE Silence and I was stupidly getting too close to them. I died once, Priest rezzed me, and advised me to stay back. That was good advice. We moved along for a few minutes and then a blue item dropped. I looked it over, noticed that it said "off hand," "+Int" and "+Spirit." I was having trouble keeping the ToolTip up so I could read it but it certainly looked like a caster item, for a Priest definitely but possibly for a Mage like me with crap gear. So I rolled Need, figuring the Priest would too.

Party member 1: wtf?
Leader: Flon? Did you roll need?
Me: yes
Me: (wondering why they would question me on an obvious caster item) problem?
Party member 2: 'cause somebody else might need it more
Party member 1: roll on everything or he'll ninja it

*** You are not part of the group in this instance ***

So now I'm a little upset because there were no loot rules communicated, and I thought I had a legitimate claim to this off-hand caster item. I could go find a one-handed sword and be in business, especially since I was still using a staff I got in Westfall. I've been trying to PUG the last few days to get some decent items, and meet some other players, and as a casual it's not easy, and I also felt a little guilty thinking that I had somehow crossed a line but I just didn't realize where. So I quit and went to watch some TV, thinking that all of WoW is populated by jerks and I'll never PUG again, even if I get invited which I probably won't because I'll have a rep as a ninja and I'll probably get booted from my guild too.

A little later I logged back on to fix the stupid ToolTip settings and took a good look at the blue item that caused all the fuss. It was a shield! Ugh. My Mage couldn't use it at all...couldn't even equip it. It was an item probably intended for a Pally or a Shaman, and it was no wonder my group kicked me because I am a moron. Sure, they could have given me 5 more seconds and I would have figured it out and apologized and all that, but they naturally assumed I could read what was right in front of my face and decided I was bad news.

They wouldn't believe the explanation anyway. I wouldn't in their place.

Suggestion: a scalable instance

One of my biggest disappointments in playing WoW is the difficulty of finding good groups for instanced dungeons. When I first started playing I thought that joining a guild was the solution to this problem, but I quickly learned that I was mistaken. Guilds are great for many things - socialization, help with items, help with noob questions - but making groups is not one of them. Sure, you could probably convince one of your 60s (pre-BC) to run you through any instance you wanted, but that's not the experience I'm looking for. I want to run the instances as intended, with a level-appropriate group. I want to be surprised by new tactics, backed into tight places, have things go wrong, and pull out a victory against all odds. That doesn't happen when you have one of your high level guildies along who's been through the instance so many times he lost count. When you do reach 60, guilds make it possible to tackle the end-game raid instances, but at that point the only difference from one character to the next is the items they've managed to acquire. That's all pre-BC of course, for the past couple of months all of the active 60s have been leveling in Outland, but even at that they all knew each other already and they all started out at the same place, so the gap between them doesn't seem to be as wide as in the first 60 levels. Since I don't have a 60 I don't know this for sure though.

So the problem for me is, I know several other people at various levels, and since I'm a casual player they usually pass me by pretty quickly. But I'd love to play instances with them if there was a way to do it that was fun and profitable for all.

Here's my suggestion: The Scalable Instance.

Get your group together regardless of the level of the individual players. You may have a 20, a 30, a 40, a 50 and a 60. Normally this group, led by the higher level players, could run most any 5-man in the "old" world easily, with the lowbies just along for the ride. But, what if the level adapted itself to be a challenge for all players? What if the mobs dished out higher damage to the higher players, and lower damage to the lower players? What if the players themselves were able to kill or otherwise interact with mobs as if they were on a comparable level? Wouldn't that make it more fun? Everybody could gain level-appropriate experience, items that drop could be scaled based on who won the roll for them, etc.

Purists would probably object to this claiming that it alters the balance or overall gameplay experience, but there are ways of addressing these objections. Maybe the rewards are lower in the scalable instances than in the "real" ones. Or maybe players could choose to gain reputation instead of experience or items, making it an alternative to reputation grinds. I think people would enjoy them, since it would be more valuable for a high level helper to actually have a chance of getting something useful out of it.

It really is lonely 'round here

I checked out www.warcraftrealms.com/census and yes, my new server is pretty empty. The Venture Company, which went online 7/12/06, hosts over 14,000 characters. My new server, online in January 07, has just under 2,000. I looked at some of the notoriously over crowded servers, like Warsong and Laughing Skull, and they too had around 14,000. I'm assuming that's their comfortable population after all the transfers...forced and voluntary. I never had a login queue on TVC so that number must be good. I wonder how long it will take for my new server to fill up, and if I'll still be playing there when it does.

Finally got the expansion!

I wasn't too keen on buying The Burning Crusade, mostly because my Mage is still in the 40s and I figured that I didn't need to upgrade until I reached 60, and that seemed like it might never happen. I was levelling in The Hinterlands when I got ganked and ended up at the GY on the coast. I took a step off the mountain, hit this hills, and tried to find my way back to my body on the other side of the mountains. After running up and down the coast for 20 minutes (there has to be a way back somewhere) I tried swimming out to sea, remembering that I ported back to my Hearthstone location once in Westfall by doing this. Well, that didn't do anything but waste my time, and I did eventually find my way back using the path that was right next to the GY. About that time I caught up all of my rested xp bonus and got ganked again standing in front fo Arie Point or whatever it's called by a ?? Rogue. Not fun.

So, walking by Circuit City later that evening my lovely wife bought me TBC as a present. I'll skip over the part where all my mods were broken, 'cause that wasn't fun either. I decided to try something different and roll a Dranei. That way I could actually see some of the new content that others have seen. I also decided to try a different server. It's not that I don't like my current server, and the people in my guild, it's just that I've only played on one server, a PVP-RP flavor, and I thought maybe I'd try out a PVE server, since I'm terrible at PVP. I also decided to try out a healing class, just to be the sought after new kid for instances, so I settled on a Dranei Priest. Here are my initial impressions:

The Dranei starting area, Azure Mist Isle, is beautiful. There are lots of fun quests and a great storyline. The background music gets old very fast though, and I had to turn that off in favor or iTunes. This never bothered me in Elwyn Forest. The Dranei models are nice, and I like the tail. It's easier than looking over a Tauren's shoulder too.

Exodar, or rather the Exodar, a crashed space ship of all things, is somewhat disappointing. It's all pink and lavendar and reminds me far more of Darnassus, my least favorite Alliance city, than Stormwind or Ironforge. I'm still having trouble finding my way around and I predict that once move out of the new content areas as I level up I won't be coming back very often.

Being a Priest is OK so far, with better PVE play than I expected. Having played a Mage the casting is pretty simplistic, but the Power Word Shield seems more useful than Mana Shield ever was, and the self-healing and speedy mana regeneration is nice. From the forums I've read that wands are the essential accessory for PVE, which seems strange because I never found them to be useful on my Mage. I just acquired my first one as a quest reward so I'll try that out and see. One thing that concerns me is the complaining in the Priest forum. It seems that people feel the class is nerfed both as healers and DPS. With the evolution of patches I've seen just since November I'm sure this will change over time. I am surprised at the mechanics of Shadow spells. It's kind of neat especially compared to the Fire spells that I've grown accustomed to. All they do is damage, lots of it...but Shadow spells do damage and can also heal or regen mana. Pretty neat.

The new server is, so far, pretty quiet. The population seems low, even lower than TVC was back in November when I started there. It also has many more Horde players than Alliance. There seem to be many players that transferred here from overpopulated servers, and they like the quiet. The worst symptom of this may be the effect on the Auction House. Whatever...the population is sure to fill up over time so this is just a temporary issue. I am looking forward to enjoying quests without the worry of gankers...Stranglethorn Vale will be my bitch.

More on PUGs

Something amazing happened last night. I actually got into a PUG for an instance I wanted to visit and had plenty of time to play. Yesterday I talked about some of my PUG experiences and how I often find them to be frustrating. Last night's outing was much more satisfying.

I started off just like the night before, setting up the LFG panel for Maraudon, Sunken Temple, and Uldaman. After a few minutes I auto-joined a group for Maraudon. Looking over the other members, I quickly realized that this was my lucky day. We had a Paladin and a Druid, both able to provide healing to the group. Why is this so important, you ask?

Groups for tackling instanced dungeons in WoW must have a certain balance to them. It's all about how the mobs (enemy creatures) behave and the abilities of each class in the group. There have been many good guides written on this subject which I won't try to reproduce here, but I will say in summary that you need to have at a minimum 3 critical roles filled in any good group.

1. Tank. One of your armor-wearing, close combat characters gets to attack the mobs directly and try to keep all of the mobs attacking him and him alone. This keeps the mobs from running off and killing your less durable buddies. Tanks are aptly named due to their ability to take a beating and dish out a steady stream of punishment in return.
   
2. Healer. Even though your Tank is heavily armored and has a huge pool of hit points, with all the mobs beating on him he needs the support of a healer to stay in the game. The Healer's main function is to keep the Tank alive, because if the Tank goes down the mobs go after the rest of the group, who will probably die in short order.
3. DPS (Damage Per Second). This extremely geeky term is used to identify group members who mainly deal out damage from a distance. In WoW, the classes are designed so that the more damage you can dish out, the more fragile you are in direct physical combat. Casters, for example, can apply huge damage in a short period of time (thus the term DPS) but can't wear armor and won't last very long if the mobs start beating on them.

These roles can be filled by many different combinations of players. The purest form is the Warrior Tank, Priest Healer, and Mage DPS. Some other good choices for these roles include:

1. Tanks - Paladins, Druids (in Bear form), Hunter or Warlock pets.
2. Healers - Druids, Paladins.
3. DPS - Rogues, Druids, Hunters.

There are probably other combinations that work too. At any rate, this particular group included both a Druid and a Pally, very nice since Healers are underrepresented in WoW and having 2 players capable of healing in a group is a luxury. The Druid volunteered to heal, which was also refreshing because there's usually some discussion about who will heal since it seems that many players don't enjoy that role.

So 2 of our group members are pretty close to Maraudon, and they summon the rest of us in short order. The Hunter in the group stepped up and took the leadership role, which worked out great, since he had been through the instance a few times before. There was a minimum of argument about which path to take, and he managed the first few pulls just fine.

A good pull and a well coordinated group is wondrous to behold. The Hunter uses his bow to attack the nearest mob, which in this case was a walking thorn bush. The first bush brings along 2 of his buddies and they all start shuffling toward us. The Hunter Pet and Pally engage and tank the mobs, the Druid keeps them alive with healing spells, and the Rogue and Mage (me) deliver the beatdown in carefully measured doses.

As long as this balance is kept the mobs go down and the party advances. But this is a truly fragile balance, and it can be easily upset. Here are some of the many ways to screw it up:

1. The Tank loses aggro on the mobs. This can result from many things, like a Mage doing so much damage that the mobs decide he is the greater threat and they charge into the back row after him. Or, the Healer may be providing so much relief to the Tank that he draws aggro himself. Aggro management is itself a balance between the damage done by the Tank, the DPS, and the output of the Healer. If a Healer or DPS manages to draw aggro off the Tank, you have to hope that the squishies are smart enough not to dig their hole any deeper (ie stop attacking/healing) and that the Tank can open his bag of tricks to regain the attention of the mobs. Because it's a balancing act, when things go wrong some players insist on finding a scapegoat (which is never them) to take the blame. Usually the Healer gets blamed...whether it's his fault or not...and he often picks up his marbles and goes home knowing that there are 10 other groups out there waiting for a Healer.
2. Poor crowd control. Mobs have a tendency to wander around, and if you let them wander too far, they can bring more of their buddies back with them. There are also patrols in many instances that can show up in the middle of an otherwise manageable fight and make things difficult. Some classes have crowd control abilities that can help with these situations, but they have to pay attention and understand their limitations. A good leader is essential here, to make assignments for players and to manage the pulls. Pull too many mobs and the party will wipe for sure. In some areas groups must carefully clear an entire building in order to prevent the boss from calling every mob in earshot to help him. In these situations, the only good leader is the one who's been there before.
3. Lag. It's not as bad in an instance as it is out in the world, but if you lag at the wrong moment things can go straight to hell. While you're staring at your motionless screen, the mobs are chewing up your party, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Anyway, back to our story. Our little group was light on tanking ability, but we managed pretty well anyway. I died a couple of times from using AoE spells to wipe out large numbers of larva and slimy things, but that's OK with me, I'm the Suicide Mage after all. As long as I go down in a blaze of glory, and get a rezz from a friendly group member who's ass I've probably just saved, I'm happy.

Somewhere along the line our Druid Healer says something in /party chat about "Please make sure I have full mana before you pull." A very reasonable request, but I'm not sure anyone but me noticed, and I wasn't pulling. After the next fight, which in all fairness did start while she and I were still recharging our batteries, she suddenly disappears.

Now, I've mentioned before that there are plenty of reasons why players leave a group unexpectedly. Sometimes it's a real life event - like Mom says it's bedtime right now dammit - sometimes it's a network disconnect, whatever. In a perfect world everyone would stick around until the bitter end, and if they did have to leave, would let the group know. But it's not a perfect world, and shit happens. In this particular case the Druid Healer may have been pissed, but her request was pretty common, she said please, and as I said I don't think anybody else noticed anyway. I tried to /whisper her to see what happened, but she was out of the game. Good thing for us we had our Pally as a backup Healer, because there was a boss fight just around the next corner.

Or not.

Turns out our Pally didn't want to heal. He wanted to whack things with his big shiny sword. The group leader points out that killing this boss will complete a quest for several of us, if only the Pally will heal just for this fight. Pally reluctantly agrees.

So we pull the boss. Some sort of smelly elemental, I forget the name. As the fight progresses, the big guy splits into several little guys, then another big guy, and so on. Maybe Pally is healing, maybe not, I can't keep track as I'm trying to crowd-control all the little guys and stay alive myself. After about 30 seconds we all go down and the Rogue is berating the Pally for being a lousy healer. Pally quits the group, Rogue quits, and the Hunter and I corpse run back inside. We decide to try the boss by ourselves but of course we don't last 10 seconds.

And that is how you ruin a perfectly good group.

OK what did we learn from this?

1. Don't piss off your Healer. In this case I'm not sure she was pissed or just had to go unexpectedly, but as a general rule, if you've got a willing Healer, be nice to them, give them things, and try to make friends.
2. Don't force players into a role they don't want. Who knows whether our Pally just hated to heal or knew he was out of practice and was afraid he'd blow it. Whatever the reason, why try to make someone do something they don't want to do? Usually the rational for bringing on the pressure is that we have to have a Healer or we can't go any further. Fact is, our group didn't get any further anyway, and I'll bet that Pally will hold a grudge against all Rogues forever. Maybe I exaggerate a little.
3. Even good PUGs are easily ruined.

Undaunted, I will try again tonight.

What's in a name?

You may think that "Flon" is a dumb name, and I wouldn't argue with you. It was one of the random names provided by the game and I couldn't think of anything better at that moment. In my defense, at least it's short and easy to type. In the greater scheme of things my character's name isn't that important.

But I have a question for other players.

Why, on a role-playing server, would you choose a name like "Imajark" or "Hufartd"?? Really, I want to know.

What's wrong with PUG's?

A PUG, for those who are not WoW geeks, is a pick-up group...a group of players who don't know each other but group together to tackle an instanced dungeon or group quest. For casual WoW players, finding people to group with can be a real challenge, and Blizzard has tried several approaches to make it easier. As I write this there are two ways to put together a group. The first is the unofficial way...by pinging your friends, guildies, or unsuspecting strangers and asking them in a chat message to join you. Sometimes you get lucky and this works out, but other times you wish for something better, and that's where the new LFG (that's Looking For Group) system comes in. Here's how it works:

Suppose you have a couple of hours to play WoW after putting the kids to bed and before your wife falls asleep on the couch and gets pissed when you come to get her at 2:00am... :: clears throat :: Here's what you can do. Just open up the LFG interface where you can select up to 3 dungeons or quests that you would like to find a group for. You can only choose instances that are designed to be challenging for your current level, which is nice if you're not quite sure where you should be going, but not so nice if you just wanted to do an easier instance because you missed some content or want a particular item that is only available there. Once you make your picks you just continue doing what you were doing until the system matches you up with a group. This may happen right away - if you're lucky - or it may not happen before you have to quit for the night.

You never know.

In my experience, the group forms up when I don't possibly have time to complete the instance, but of course I'm going to try my best anyway and probably end up disappointing other players by leaving before we're done. Note to other players...believe me, if there was a better way to do instances then I would. It's not fun for me to have to say "sorry got to go" before we get to the boss we're all gunning for. To be completely truthful, I have often refrained from looking for groups, and even turned down invites, because I was afraid that I didn't have time and didn't want to disappoint. But let's get back to our story.

Let me illustrate with an example how difficult it can be to get a PUG together and do anything.

Last night I had about 3 hours to play...plenty of time to do an instance 3+ times if there was nothing else to get in the way. I setup the LFG panel for 3 dungeons of my level - Maraudon, Sunken Temple, and Uldaman. I've been through Uldaman a couple of times but never been into the others and really wanted to see them. Right away I got plunked into a Maraudon group. Maraudon is on the other side of the world from where I was, so I was planning to hang around and wait for a summons - the other new feature of the LFG system - let me explain.

In order to make it easier to get your group to the dungeon, when they're probably scattered all over the world, any 2 players can travel to a Meeting Stone (big rock) outside the dungeon and then summon (instantly teleport) the other members to the same spot. Normally the 2 members closest to the dungeon get this job, and the others just hang around waiting for them.

So, I head back to the nearest town and unload my bags of collected junk and stand around for a few minutes when the group leader informs me that he's going to have to dump me because they already have a Mage in the group. For the uninformed, group balance is very important in instances. If you don't have the right mix of classes, you probably won't be able to complete the instance. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom, I don't know for sure myself because I haven't played in very many instances. So I get bumped from the group, no big disappointment, it happens all the time. Sadly the LFG system has no option for recruiting only balanced groups, and some classes are always in short supply.

Almost immediately I get another group invite. I wonder for a second where it came from, since it's considered impolite to randomly send group invitations without talking with someone first, but then I figure it must be from the LFG system and accept. Well, it was just a random invitation, and for Scarlet Monastery, an instance below my level for which I couldn't get any experience. I decided to go along anyway, since I'm a nice guy, and since I hadn't seen all of Scarlet Monastery when I was at the appropriate level due to the difficulty of finding groups. So, there I was, in a group with 4 other players, pretty well balanced, and ready to tackle SM.

Remember when I mentioned the Meeting Stones, and how 2 people from the group had to travel to them to summon the rest? Well, I was the closest to the instance so I immediately volunteered to head over there. Scarlet Monastery is in the middle of Horde territory, and it takes a while to get there from the closest Alliance town (Southshore) that you can take a Griffon to. It took me about 5 minutes to get there, and then I hung around the Meeting Stone, which was surrounded by Horde players who killed me repeatedly, waiting for another member of my group to come along. And I had to wait a good long time, because the other players couldn't decide who should go, and when they finally did, the designe was a good distance away and had to get through some nasty world PVP action in that had sprung up around Southshore since I passed through.

Now, this isn't a complaint against the other players, because it is a pain in the ass to travel in WoW, and if you can get someone else to do it, then that's what you want to do. But of course we did need 2 people to make the trip, and couldn't get any farther until someone else joined me.

So eventually the other guy shows up at the Meeting Stone, the local Horde players had tired of killing me, and we were able to summon the rest of the group and head up the hill to SM.

SM is actually 4 separate mini-instances, with the entrances all located in a large room called the Grand Vestibule. Two of the entrances are open to all, and the other 2 require a key, which can be retrieved from one of the open instances. People are meant to do them in sequence as part of a quest. My group wanted to do the Armory, which is behind one of the locked doors. In order to get there, we had to cross the Grand Vestibule, which is filled with patrolling mobs (game controlled enemies) and (it turns out) several Horde players who wanted to kill us. So of course we were taken unaware and immediately died part way across the room. We did the corpse run back from the graveyard (close by thankfully), rezzed, and continued across the room to the Armory door.

At least most of us did. Some of us weren't sure which door led to the Armory, and some weren't sure that we wanted to go to the Armory, since there had been some discussion about which instance held a certain item of interest.

Now I can completely sympathize with players who have this kind of confusion, especially in this particular dungeon. First, there are 4 doors, and if you haven't been around this room a few times it's not always clear which one goes where, especially if you have to figure it out with several opposing players and/or mobs trying to kill you. Second, it's hard to make sure that everyone knows where we're going in a chat window, especially with people chasing you and trying to kill you, as I believe I mentioned. Finally, the door we wanted was locked, and if you didn't have the key (like me) you had to wait for someone else to open it for you, which can be inconvenient if there are people chasing you around and trying to kill you.

So I imagine that you've now seen the underlying theme here.

After several deaths and corpse runs back from the cemetery we all were inside an instance, but not all in the same instance. By this time it has been about an hour since we first formed the group. My how time flies in WoW. Another 20 minutes or so were required to round everyone up and get them into the same instance, and then one of the group members goes offline. That's annoying, but it happens all the time. Some players get upset when someone leaves without any warning, but there are countless reasons that someone might have to quickly leave an online game. Things happen in real life and that's just the way it is.

So now we are missing a fifth group member, and our group leader goes looking for another, using the LFG or the "unofficial" method, or both. Since I'm a pretty high level for this instance, another player and I start to pick off some of the nearest mobs to stave off boredom. Eventually another player joins us, and we're ready to go.

Next we had some group leadership challenges, partially stemming from the fact that as a higher level than the other players I drew a lot more aggro that was normal, and we made slow progress. After a few pulls we got into a groove and worked our way down the stairs and into the corridors leading up to the boss. As we rounded a corner, somebody got a little careless (could have been me but I don't think so) and pulled 7-8 mobs at once...too many for us to handle.

We wiped.

I knew the route back from the graveyard very well from prior experience and made it back to the entrance first. Since we had taken so long getting started, the first mobs guarding the door had already respawned and I almost ran right into them before I pulled up to wait for the others. I advised the rest of the group, with their larger aggro bubbles, to watch out for the guards just inside the entrance, but of course the next guy through ran right into them.

Since a lot of the mobs had respawned, we had to fight our way back to where we died. In the first large area, the group leader used the target marking tool to put a little star, moon, or something else over every mob we could see. Now, normally if you're going to use this tool you will tell the group what you have in mind. Like, attack the star, sheep the moon, etc. Apparently this guy was just messing with us because he didn't have a plan. He was probably bored. Eventually I took the lead and, along with the Rogue we sapped, sheeped, and pulled our way back to where we were.

At this point, my wife has dinner ready and I have to go....sorry guys, even though I know you can't go on without me, that's the way it is.

So ended my PUG.

A couple of comments.

First, I'm sorry but it just takes too damned long to get a group together, get everyone to the instance, and get organized to do anything. Why?

1. It's hard to find groups. I honestly don't know how to fix this, and it's already on my list, so I'll leave that one alone.
2. Once you find a group, it's hard to get the group to the instance. There are 2 factors here...travel time, and world PVP. Most of the problems our group had were not due to travel time, even though it did take a while to get the second person to the Meeting Stone. We could have done a better job as players to minimize that. The world PVP delays only come into play on a PVP server, which we all chose voluntarily, so there's no use complaining about that. I imagine that getting in and out of SM is no big deal on a non-PVP server. The summoning feature of the Meeting Stones also helps a lot since only 2 players need to make the trip, so it could have been much worse than it was.
3. Groups need a leader. If you're playing with friends, or guildies, and you already know who is a good leader, then you're lucky. If you play in PUGs, where leadership is a big question mark, then it can be frustrating. Generally, I don't volunteer to be the leader. I know that I am less experienced than most other players, and I don't want to display my own ignorance. One thing I've learned, however, is that experience does not necessarily make everyone a good leader. Our mistake was that nobody really stepped up to be the leader, so we were disorganized, wasted a lot of time getting started, and were not very effective. I think that if I had been able to stay longer things would have improved, but that's academic.

Finally, let me just say a few words about the other members of my little group. Even though there were many setbacks, nobody got nasty. We kept our sense of humor, helped each other out, and didn't let things fall apart. Because of that, I had a good time. And that's what WoW is all about for me, having fun. So, sorry if I disappointed you guys, but I'll try to make it up to you if we ever meet again.

The pleasures of being a Mage

Ever since my first RP experiences with Dungeons & Dragons years (and years) ago, I've always been drawn to the Wizard type of character. Different games have different names for them. D&D had Magic Users (rolls right off the tongue) and eventually Illusionists. WoW has several spell casting classes, but the closest to the "true" Wizard is the Mage.

I'm drawn to this class because of the variety of things a Mage can do. Back in the days of D&D, a Fighter (like a WoW Warrior) was pretty straightforward. He ran into battle swinging his mighty sword and cracking heads. The Magic User would fight from a distance with ranged attacks - like in WoW - but would also influence the battlefield through trickery. He might create an illusionary dragon to scare off the enemy, or put them all to sleep. The only limit on strategy or tactics was his imagination and the tolerance level of the DM. In fact, there was little need to worry about the type of class balance in a party that you see in WoW because tactics could always make the difference. But I digress.

Although the WoW Mage is only a poor substitute for the Magic User of yore, playing one still has its compensations. Here is my short list:

1. Travel. The ability of the Mage to use Teleport and Portal spells to instantly travel to their faction's main cities saves time and frustration. If you take a moment to plan where you're Hearthstone is bound, between Hearth and Teleport the Mage can be almost anywhere in a matter of minutes.
2. Food and Water. Having spent most of my playing time with my Mage, I don't know the sting of hunger or the desperation of thirst. Mages can create food and water at will, allowing them to heal damage and replenish mana while enjoying the view from a grassy hilltop, out of the way of roaming beasts. I've never bought food, I always sell what I find to vendors (or even just drop it to make room in my bags for more worthwhile stuff), and, aside from the occasional fancy libation at an RP event, I'll remain completely food-independent. Fortunately my Mage never gets tired of eating the same thing over and over again. When questing, the only limitation is the space in my bags for loot, or the durability of my equipment...if I'm having a bad day.
3. Sheeping. The best Mage spell...and possibly the best ability in the game...has to be Polymorph. The Mage turns a humanoid or beast into a sheep for a short period of time, during which the nasty beast contentedly wanders around munching grass. It's useful in battles, amusing in PVP, and reviled by players of the opposite faction. To be sure, there are some serious limitations. Poly only works on one enemy at a time, and doesn't work on all types of enemies, like demons and elementals. The duration of the sheep varies and is immediately broken by any damage to the sheep...so no AoE in the vicinity. Anything above your own level will probably resist, and Druids are immune. Finally, your sheep regenerates health fast, so if you sheep an enemy that was almost done for, when it comes back it will be at full health again. Still, I know several people who claim to have chosen a Mage just for this spell.
4. Burst damage. The Mage is often called the Glass Cannon because he can deliver huge amounts of damage but is easily killed by physical attacks. If he can stay out of the fray, he can do hundreds of points of damage to a single target, or even to multiple targets with an AoE attack. With Fire talents, critical hits cause additional Fire damage accompanied by rewarding animations featuring enemies bursting into flame. With particular talent builds the Mage can instantly deliver over 2,000 points of damage...enough to kill many enemies in one shot.

It's true that I haven't played other classes very much, but I do know that playing a Mage is very entertaining.

5 things I don't like about World of Warcraft

1. The experience level system. I don't know how to fix it, but I know that I don't like it. The thing I hate the most is that many times I have spent some time adventuring with other players, only to return after a few days away from the game and have them be several levels ahead of me. When this happens I almost never get to group with them again, since they have moved on to different zones or more challenging quests and instances. This is certainly a consequence of my own schedule, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.
2. Repetition. The monsters inhabiting Azeroth aren't different enough to make things interesting. Running across bigger stronger Merlocks or Crocs just isn't much fun. I'd also like to see more variety in their tactics. Why can't they cooperate? You can certainly end up in trouble if a stealthed spider blunders into you while you're fighting a Croc in Dustwallow Marsh. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the spiders and the Crocs worked together? Sure, the tactics would still be predictable after you learned them, but it would be fun the first few times you faced them.
3. Finding players to group with. With 7 million players you would think that it would be easy to find buddies to run dungeons and complete group quests with. Everybody wants to do them, right? Well, that hasn't been my experience at all. It seems that I will get tells asking if I want to join a group just as I'm getting ready to log off. If I try to get a group together, I immediately find a Hunter, Rogue, and Warrior, but a healing class? Forget it. There are plenty of friendly players in my guild, but once again, very few at my level at any given time. It's darned frustrating since it seems that all of the most interesting activities require a class-balanced group. Blizzard has tried several ways of addressing this, but we still end up advertising in General chat.
4. Immaturity. I know that most of the WoW players I run across are teens or college students. I know many that are smart, interesting, and fun to play with. I also know that there are plenty that are just obnoxious. Playing on an RP server, in a RP guild improves the odds of finding positive interactions, I think, but there is the undercurrent of immature, discourteous behavior still. I can avoid it sometimes, but not always, and when it pops up it can ruin my day.
5. Predictability. Maybe it's impossible to create a computer game that has unpredictable behavior. Certainly the human players behind the WoW toons can be unpredictable, usually in disappointing ways. It sure would be nice if every monster, boss fight, and quest wasn't ultimately just a scripted fight that you just have to learn how to beat. The most fun I've had is when the plan falls apart and players have to improvise to save their necks. This is one aspect of the old pen and paper games like D&D that I miss. Your DM could always throw a curve ball at you to keep things interesting.
   

5 things I like about World of Warcraft

1. The "rested" system. For an occasional player like myself, the ability to log on and gain a half-level or so in a couple of hours is great. I'll never keep up with people that play a lot, but it makes things more pleasant when I can see the XP bar actually move.
2. Having a mount. It took me a long time to get from level 1 to level 40...something like 2 months. The tedium of having to run around from area to area was so annoying that I did start to feel frustrated trying to get through the high 30s in Stranglethorn Vale. What a relief to have that black stallion. Exploring the world of Azeroth is now possible, and even enjoyable.
   
3. A role-playing server. The sad truth is that I am an old man compared to most other WoW players. This becomes apparent in many situations, like when I have to /afk to cook dinner, skip guild events due to work, or totally miss the point in OOC chatter. On an RP server, and especially in an RP guild, the chat is much more enjoyable because it is at least partially in-character. I find that this makes it much easier for me to communicate with other players, and - perhaps more importantly - it makes it easier to sustain my illusion that I am playing with other people of my own generation.
   
4. Professions. Before playing WoW, all I knew about MMOGs came from overhearing my son playing Star Wars Galaxies. It seemed to me that he and his buddies spent an awful lot of time picking out their clothes and decorating their houses. As I tried out WoW, I assumed that the professions were just going to be annoying time-wasters. That has been partially true, but I've also enjoyed working on my main profession (Tailoring) and I've been able to create some useful items for my character that I couldn't get any other way. Of course, if I played more often and ran more instanced dungeons I could gain similar items without Tailoring, but it's nice to have this option. As an example, my current robe looks cool, has good properties, and, as a bind-on-pickup item can only be obtained by Tailors.
   
5. Teamwork. The most fun I've had playing WoW revolved around doing things, be they RP events or dungeon runs, as a team with other players. Unfortunately these occasions have been few and far between, but lots of fun nevertheless.