Hello everyone,

I know this subject was probably raised many and many times in here but i have to do it.

The reason is because in the whole game, the ONE thing i hate the most (most likely the only thing i hate in the game), is the very small chance you have of finding a decent PUG group.

As examples i will just mention two groups i got yesterday, both of them BRD groups:

1st group - When we set up to move to BRD i asked the warrior, as ive been doing always lately, if he could do at least some fair CC, had no answer. Ok, we proceed to BRD, in the first pull i see the mage getting bashed, the rogue getting bashed, the warlock getting bashed and finally we wipeing after i started getting bashed for healing all of the low armor classes. I asked the warrior and he said, sorry i am only good at dps. Well, i showed him how good at dps he was when the dmg meter had him at 50% of the dmg compared to the other classes. IF you want to play DPS why bother making a warrior?

2nd group - 60 mage, hunter, warrior and rogue, 56 healer(me) - I thought wooohoooo this will work, strong group. Well, on the first pull isaw the warrior with his mighty polearm and thought " **** ", yeah, we wiped. Then in a second event we had a partial wipe, mage, hunter and warrior survived when i saw " Hey lets kill those two guys ", i said " Wait for the healer ", next 5 seconds they all die, i leave group.

I´ve been playing MMORPGS since Ultima Online and i plaied Everquest for 4 years all the way to the high end, for anyone that plaied EQ too, dont you think in EQ it felt much much easier to find fair groups from lvl 30+?

I don´t know, im so tired of this and the time i waste on it that i´ve decided to respec to feral and only play 10 man until i hit 60 and can start raiding with the guild...

Sorry about the big post, had to vent that out!!

IMPORTANT: Don´t mind english errors, its not my main language :)

Tarrasque

Most other games before WoW forced you to group to advance at a reasonable pace. WoW allows someone to solo from 1 to 60 without ever having grouped or setting foot in an instance. The price is that when people group up later on, they have no clue what role they need to play to be successful in a group. Also, there are really no negative consequences to dying, so that encourages people to be less careful. I avoid PUGs like the plague.

Most other games before WoW forced you to group to advance at a reasonable pace. WoW allows someone to solo from 1 to 60 without ever having grouped or setting foot in an instance. The price is that when people group up later on, they have no clue what role they need to play to be successful in a group. Also, there are really no negative consequences to dying, so that encourages people to be less careful. I avoid PUGs like the plague.

Very good point, never thought about it that way!

Guess i will have to plague PUGs too...

Patch day today, no more 10-man for you!

Yeah lol, i've realized that...

Read the patch notes after posting...

Oh well, at least i got thos 21 points in Resto :)

I dont know about everyone else, but I'm looking forward to running Scholo / Strat again 5man because of the new drops / improved droprate on epic stuff (headmasters charge etc.)

And yeah, I hate PuG's too... wasted countless hours wiping, or getting to a boss then all of a sudden someone says omgsry i g2g thx4grp and hearths. GRrr..

I´ve been playing MMORPGS since Ultima Online and i plaied Everquest for 4 years all the way to the high end, for anyone that plaied EQ too, dont you think in EQ it felt much much easier to find fair groups from lvl 30+?

I never played Ultima (got some friends that did hardcore), but was loyal to EQ for 3 years. I left EQ for several reasons:

1) Don't Even Bother Trying to Level Solo
It's impossible to level/quest without a group endgame. Let me repeat that: It's IMPOSSIBLE to level/quest without a group endgame. I can't tell you how much time I wasted trying to find a group in offpeak hours, when I was able to play. In WoW, I love the fact that I don't have to group up if no one I know is on...bad thing is this creates a knowledge gap, people that don't know their role in a group - to which I say: give them a hint, and be nice! Kindly explain what they ought to be doing in their role as MT, healer, CC - whatever. Rather than simply bashing them, and leaving the group, why not tutor them?? They will/should appreciate the chance to learn from your experience.

2) Everquest = Evergrind
The name Everquest is truly an oxymoron. It was SO difficult to even find quests, that everyone spent all of their time grinding in the zones "perfect" for their level (ZEMs). Conversely, finding quests in WoW is sinfully easy. And there are multiple zones and Instances for all ranges of leveling. It got to be the case in EQ that popular areas were camped for hours!

3) Death Penalty
BOOO!!! Lag, and green death from evil PKs pullin huge trains is unacceptable!!! Do I deserve to lose experience because some jack-ass trains green mobs to me??? Please.

4) Money has NO meaning
The Economy became RIDICULOUS! There was nothing setup in EQ to suck money from the economy - i.e. Auction Cuts, Equipment Repair, Mail Fees, Transporation fees... The price of goods got entirely out of hand - unfortunately this is slowly happening in WoW with all the gold farmers in Asia :(.

5) The 300lb., unemployed whales that sit on their lard asses all day eating twinkies and sucking down colas get all the goods.
WoW's answer to this problem is rested exp. SHEER BRILLIANCE. I don't have the time to play WoW 24/7/365, and rather than lag behind, I get the bonus of having been logged off for actual human time (which can be overrated hehe). BTW, no offense to 300lb. WoWers, was just venting a little bit, having played EQ with all the Twinks that had stockpiled millions of plat, just to grossly over charge you for all the items they camped forever...

Besides not needing to group there's also a key difference between WoW and EQ... you can gimp yourself rather easily with talent choices.

I've never had the biggest problems with PuG's, but I've always found that if you want to avoid bad pugs, it helps if your the healer.... and I've spent most my time as a full 31 resto. Innervate makes up for alot of other peoples mistakes.

You also need to PuG imho, that's how you meet people and learn who to avoid in the future...

Braylore,

I plaied a Necro on EQ so i could solo very well but that was one of the only solo class in EQ. I agree with you on that point.

About exp loss due to death i think it is a very good way to make people pay more attention to what they are doing, it had some downsides but i believe the balance is positive.

About giving hints i do that all the time very patiently, i only leave the group when im out of time like yesterday, took us 1.5hour in BRD to get to General stairs!!! And we had the key...

I agree that being the healer is a big part of the group going well but no healer can outstand the agro from chain healing because the mobs are hitting the low armor class and himself while the tank is "DPSING" and looking for the taunt key in the toillete... and on a side note i was resto specced yesterday, all the way to innervate when that happened, only after i left the group i went to TB and respecced to feral, i am very confident about my healing skills and so are the good groups that we once in a while can build.

Friends list is my best friend, i have all the good players listed there and often try to start groups with them in it but its not always possible.

Oh well, as i said, its really just a vent, theres nothing much to be done...

As Falloraan pointed you can solo from 1 - 60 in WoW and that will make, in most of the cases, a very very bad PUG member...

Tarrasque

As Falloraan pointed you can solo from 1 - 60 in WoW and that will make, in most of the cases, a very very bad PUG member...
Tarrasque

I agree Falloraan makes an awesome point that I never thought about before... this explains things.

Regardless of what game it is PUGs always seem to have some morons in them.

This isn't directly related to warcraft but to mmorpgs. I was listening to an interview with one of the guild wars creators. In this interview he was talking about the difference between American players as opposed to European and Asian players. He made the comment that in America everyone plays to be a hero while in Europe and even more so in Asian people play to support the team.

We need less heroes and more team players and PUGs would be alot better.

Well its really a double edged sword. You say you dislike EQ for forcing people into groups, but the only way people get better in groups is by being in them. Since you can virtually level yourself through WoW with no help at all you are allowing the group skills of that player to go to waste. So that warrior who only deals DPS he cant tank because he hasnt practiced. Its a tricky spot to be in but i think there need to be greater rewards to grouping early, xp bonus and such or higher green drop-rate.

I played EQ from may of 98(?) until we beat Quarm (...too long) and played a warrior most of the time. I played a war and on EQ and have one as well in WoW and yeah i can def. tell people appreciate a good tank.

Its a tricky spot to be in but i think there need to be greater rewards to grouping early, xp bonus and such or higher green drop-rate.

Um, Instance drops. e.g. Rod of the Sleepwalker at lv 22, Manual Crowd Pummeler at lv 27 or so, Illusionary Rod at 34 or any other blue drop from early instance bosses. These give you a pretty decent advantage over similar lvl opponents.

Though being in a group to get the quest / boss drop items doesn't necessarily mean that you will be good in the group. I cringe when I see or hear about people lvling by grinding turtles for countless hours. First off, that cant be fun - this game is about other people (Massive Multiplayer...), and second off, those are the people that ruin groups for the rest of us at the end. I think that, while grinding should still be a viable leveling option, Blizz could find a way to better promote group play. Possibly lower the xp generated by killing the same mob more than 20 times - Diminishing returns. Or something.

Diminishing returns would bite for some of the rep grinds though.

PuGs....I have met some of my best WoW friends in those, and also people I hope to never EVA see again.

I'm not exactly familiar with the terminology, but what are PuGs?

1) Don't Even Bother Trying to Level Solo
It's impossible to level/quest without a group endgame. Let me repeat that: It's IMPOSSIBLE to level/quest without a group endgame.
Really depends on the class. Druids and Wizards could kite like crazy. I know a bard that soloed half of his epic (including parts in plane of fear). Shadow Knights, Paladins and Enchanters aren't too bad off either. I played a Beastlord myself. Rogues, Warrios and Clerics were pretty much the only ones that really had it hard.

2) Everquest = Evergrind
This is stunning. Do you know what you're playing? You grind in every RPG. The only difference is how you do it.

It was SO difficult to even find quests, that everyone spent all of their time grinding in the zones "perfect" for their level (ZEMs). Conversely, finding quests in WoW is sinfully easy. And there are multiple zones and Instances for all ranges of leveling. It got to be the case in EQ that popular areas were camped for hours!
And of course, you have the opposite. Where in WoW, there is no friendliness. You only group in this massively multiplayer world if you have to.

3) Death Penalty
BOOO!!! Lag, and green death from evil PKs pullin huge trains is unacceptable!!! Do I deserve to lose experience because some jack-ass trains green mobs to me??? Please.
Death had a purpose to be feared. What is the purpose of death if there is no penalty?

4) Money has NO meaning
The Economy became RIDICULOUS! There was nothing setup in EQ to suck money from the economy - i.e. Auction Cuts, Equipment Repair, Mail Fees, Transporation fees... The price of goods got entirely out of hand - unfortunately this is slowly happening in WoW with all the gold farmers in Asia :(.
I don't mean to be so harsh, but where the hell do you get your thoughts from?
I've made 130g on a low pop server and haven't gotten any of my 4 characters past 20. Everyone complains about how they can't get gold, blah blah blah. I don't see how you CAN'T get gold. It's sitting there, anyone will buy anything at nearly any price.

SHEER BRILLIANCE.
Grouping everyone that is higher level than you into "300lb beached whales" is just stupid. You sound like every other bnet kid that jumped off wc3/d2 and is now playing WoW. Okay, you like it, that's fantastic. But no one really needs to hear how xxx game sucks hardcore because it isn't WoW. No, WoW isn't orginial either, All the things in WoW have been seen before.

PuGs = Pickup Groups

Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it...

I've actually found that DM isn't so bad if you have some decent people in your group. I've done a complete DM run with 2 people.. yes, 2.

You'll need at least:
1. Healer (either Priest or Druid)
2. Melee (warriors and rogues are good for this)
3. Caster (warlocks are ESPECIALLY good for this. When everything is suddenly elite, having a VW take the hits instead of you is VERY nice)

If you complain about never using Cure Poison, go to BFD. You'll quickly find out how valuable it is. If, upon hitting level 24 and learning it, you'd like to use Cure Curse (or whatever it is), going to Shadowfang Keep isn't too bad.

I'm actually quite surprised by how few people have heard of Shadowfang. Most people in my guild have never heard of it, yet it's a VERY easy dungeon. Highest enemy is a 26 elite, and that's the end boss. Caster's paradise too, as all of the drops by the end-boss are cloth and are Rares. If anyone would like the location, PM me and I'll take a screenshot of my map as soon as possible. (Which is whenever Kargath gets fixed...)

NOTE: When I talk about DM, I'm referring to Dead Mines. Get most of my enchanting supplies from there, as everything is quite easy now, and uncommons drop often

It's always taking PuGs to moderate seriousness. You have to learn not to accept everyone and finding vital roles needed for a successful run. Being a druid and a low level one at that, it's simple to fill in a role and a lot more fun if you can do whatever you want; makes you feel like a hero when the priest goes oom :) or when main tank dies. Always make sure the group you have is also attentive or at least warns someone before running afk...

I'm glad you added that your DM = Deadmines instead of Dire Maul.

Pugs= Pick Up Groups

EDITED *oops didn't read on to see if it was answered sorry*

Pick up groups, when you find strangers to run instances with spamming LFG channels or worse yet meeting stones.

meeting stones... *shudder*

AGAIN, you misread my quote... I didn't really have a problem with some kind of exp penalty, but when I lose exp due to green trains created by PKers, that's :bs: . WoW of course fixed that problem, as mobs will run back to their place of origin, rather than take on the nearest toon.


Hehehe, this is derailed already so wtf. I don't think that the trains in EQ were a problem, i found it very very very fun, in dungeons, when someone would shout "TRAIN TO ZONE" and the mess would start!!! Talk about Solb trains, those were quality trains hahahaha!

Not to mention that it was much more realistic then mobs walking past you, ignoring you, back to its spawn point like in WoW.

Tarrasque

You must not have a brain. I never said I had a problem getting gold, only that EQ economies had become retarded! The plat situation was ridiculous, because Sony never implemented a system in which to control the value of currency (such as the Fed controlling the supply of money in the US economy). Perhaps you better find someone else to translate my english into moron so you can figure it out.

Braylore - you are not supposed to be making personal attacks on this forum. I know you don't agree with him but you can pick better words to argue the statements made instead of making fun of the person.

Attack the statement not the person. I know you are new but you now have been warned.

Braylore - you are not supposed to be making personal attacks on this forum. I know you don't agree with him but you can pick better words to argue the statements made instead of making fun of the person.

Attack the statement not the person. I know you are new but you now have been warned.

Ahh, maybe I just had a bad day and took his attack on me a bit too personally?

I was a diehard EQ'er, and was entirely skeptical when WoW was released... I only made the conversion late in 2005 as a matter of fact, as nearly all of my friends were singing its praises. I had a 65 Shammy on Ayonae Ro (I think the server itself was later combined as populations declined) :texla: .

WoW is a more user friendly game that was designed to appeal to the masses, not just hardcore gamers. As such, it cannot possibly live up to the expectations of every single person. IMHO WoW's success is due to the fact that it improved upon many of EQ's shortfalls.

WoW is not without a death penalty. You have to run back to your corpse, and if you're questing in Southern Tanaris, that can be rather annoying. If you have to Spirit Rez in the GY, OUCH to your pocketbook, especially if you happen to be carrying a couple sets of gear - which is the case for a lot of druids including myself. And no, this is nowhere near the penalty that EQ dished out. But once again, Blizzard is first and foremost a business, and WoW is a product designed to make money for its stockholders. To do this, WoW has to appeal to as many people as possible, to generate sales. Most people don't like the idea of losing exp when they die.

If you think of it from purely an objective standpoint, if you were, say, an actual warrior in medieval England, and you were beset by half a dozen inferior opponents, and overwhelmed by their numbers and consequently you died (of course in real life you would not have the opportunity to rez and start over where you left off - duh), but do you really think you would become less of a warrior, in the sense that your abilities and knowledge in warcraft (no pun intended) would suffer as a result? If anything, you would learn from the experience and become a better fighter and develop better judgement, not the opposite - which is not how EQ handled death. You might actually lose a level, had you recently obtained it.

Also, if WoW allowed people to delevel in this manner, can you imagine the consequences?? Perhaps you've never played HALO2 online...but to give you an idea of what happens there (and I'm guilty of this myself :shuffle: ) people often delevel so they can own n00bs. N00b killing by deranking, so as to mask the true level of your abilities... I guarantee this would happen. The result would be many a frustrated first timer to WoW, and declining sales for Blizzard.

It's truly a balancing act they have to perform, to appeal to hardcore gamers that want significant challenges to hold their interest, and to also appeal to ordinary folk that make up most of their bottomline :cool: .

So far I say KUDOS to Blizzard for making a fairly balanced game, that is enjoyable to lots of people.

I agree with you about the death penalty stuff. Personally, my favorite form of the death penalty is the one found on guild wars where you lose 15% of your health and energy each time you die while out on a mission (capped at 60%). This is a strong enough penalty to not want to die without the problems of people lowering their level to pwn on n00bs.

WOW is really made for the masses and that's why the masses play it. I never played EQ but for the most part it seems that many EQ players see WoW as an improvement while a hardcore few that played EQ see WoW as a joke. The good thing is that I can play WoW and enjoy it regardless if a hardcore EQ fan thinks that game is junk. For me (not to sound selfish but practical) if I am having fun it doesn't matter how many people hate the game.

an actual warrior in medieval England, and you were beset by half a dozen inferior opponents, and overwhelmed by their numbers.
What about being AFK, zonelines, invis, and gateing?

Also, if WoW allowed people to delevel in this manner, can you imagine the consequences?? Perhaps you've never played HALO2 online...but to give you an idea of what happens there people often delevel so they can own n00bs. N00b killing by deranking, so as to mask the true level of your abilities... I guarantee this would happen. The result would be many a frustrated first timer to WoW, and declining sales for Blizzard.
What is BG 10-19.

I agree with you about the death penalty stuff. Personally, my favorite form of the death penalty is the one found on guild wars where you lose 15% of your health and energy each time you die while out on a mission (capped at 60%). This is a strong enough penalty to not want to die without the problems of people lowering their level to pwn on n00bs.

WOW is really made for the masses and that's why the masses play it. I never played EQ but for the most part it seems that many EQ players see WoW as an improvement while a hardcore few that played EQ see WoW as a joke. The good thing is that I can play WoW and enjoy it regardless if a hardcore EQ fan thinks that game is junk. For me (not to sound selfish but practical) if I am having fun it doesn't matter how many people hate the game.

The Guild Wars DP was awesome for the missions because it was during missions and you were bound to work it off. I don't recall a DP during PvP.

I do pug in WSG a lot. Most of the time we work together well. Sometimes it is a holy cluster pluck.

y worst pug experience was in RFK. I got hounded by this hunter for 3 nights in tells begging me to come do it. I was reluctant (I had little to gain by going there and I was busy) but finally agreed. I pulled off my questing and ran down to meet them. I was to be their only healer.

I should have known things were not going to go well when we had to chill for 40 minutes while a warrior showed up. Also, one of the doods was PVP, mid 20's and insisted on standing out on the road. Sure enough, a mounted ally rides by, stops and lights him up. We did what we had to do...we helped and ultimately dispatched the attacker but not before one more of us died.

So now we are waiting for corpse runs and the tardy warrior.

Once we finally get it together, we pop in and these guys obviously know the place. It is my first time there. Off they go...right into the middle of every scrum without a moment to consider pulling. I kept them alive, barely until the 4th or 5th time and sure enough one of them dies.

omg! They pissing and moaning that ensued. They called me lots of names. I am female, and so is my character. The went there too. 'dumb bit@h' etc etc.

So I stoned out.

the hate flowed until I could get them all on ignore.

Guild runs... I despise PuG, unless I personally know the people.

Really depends on the class. Druids and Wizards could kite like crazy. I know a bard that soloed half of his epic (including parts in plane of fear). Shadow Knights, Paladins and Enchanters aren't too bad off either. I played a Beastlord myself. Rogues, Warrios and Clerics were pretty much the only ones that really had it hard.

WAY after the fact, but had to add something. Most of any 1.0 epic for any class could be soloed. Plane of Fear is a joke. My necro could run circles around that place. It's actually quite fun to just go there and goof off since the content is so old! Almost as much fun as Plane of Mischief.

Braylor was right, though. It is nearly impossible for any class to solo endgame EQ. I'd like to see most classes go into PG, RS, the Nest, or portions of DoD content and solo it without dying. I've yet to try the new expansion since I left shortly before its release to play WoW. Soloing is possible in the newer content, but you need Anguish gear or better (unless you're a necro, lol), which takes hours of raiding to accomplish.

I find WoW to be a joke in that respect compared to EQ. You can solo to 60 and only then do you need to learn to work with other people to accomplish anything. There is also a lot less raid content and less zones to explore and conquer. It's for that reason that I find a lot of people's skills and knowledge to be lacking when I get in a pug.

Give 'em a wake-up call...

Drop them in an instance and "go AFK" for a few minutes. Shadowmeld and watch the fun. I'm truely evil.. heehee. Did this to someone in RFK after he started cussing me out for having "sucky heals". 3 deaths later, he was alot nicer.:)

It's been my experience that it has ALOT to do with maturity levels in the player. Example, I'm currently running SM to finish getting all the loot I want out of there (still need that dang amulet the chick drops at the end of Cath).

1st PuG: I should have IMMEDIATLEY know that I was dealing with a bunch of 14 year olds. We were trying to find 1 or 2 more ppl to join up, and the Mage goes "DON'T GET ANYONE WITH CLOTH I NEED ALL THE CLOTH DROPS." My 1st sign I should have dropped and not even wasted my time. Alas....on the run to SM the same Mage goes "WHO WANTS TO RUN INTO THE UNDERCITY?!?..."WE'LL DIE AND THEN REZ AND WAIT 10 MINS." Again...should have dropped.

You can imagine how it went inside the instance. We ended up finishing it and of course someone else needed the amulet that didn't need it.

y 2nd PuG was MUCH better....the tank went a little fast, but we were all decent lvls and everyone worked well together. Oh...did I mention no one acted like a greedy little snot?

If you're looking for a PuG you can almost immediatly tell if it's going to work or not even before you get in the instance. Just watch how they act.

This isn't directly related to warcraft but to mmorpgs. I was listening to an interview with one of the guild wars creators. In this interview he was talking about the difference between American players as opposed to European and Asian players. He made the comment that in America everyone plays to be a hero while in Europe and even more so in Asian people play to support the team.

Not only that, but in the "real world" it is true. Learned this is in intro to psych where the mindset of americans is self-centered. Atleast until the drunk moonkin with fireworks shows up to fill his role as the distraction and adding dps/off heal/off tank/cure poisens and curses/battle rez/whatnot :texla:

Yeah I agree that players need to group else they'll never learn the skills of group play. I'm writing this post as a totally new player and I admit it, I mess up in groups, but what happens? I get abuse and the group disbands.

So how can I learn? I even tell others when they invite me that I'm a Newbie and got lots to learn.... so it's not like I'm pretending to be a strong player. I find that alot of players may be having a character at my level, but infact they are already experienced players because they already have high level characters. This means things like they already know the layout of the dungeon; where the bosses are etcetc... I think that people forget what it is like to be an utter newbie.

I understand that no player wants to die whilst the newbie makes their mistakes... I completely understand that. But what is the alternative? Anyone know how true newbies can find each other to group and discover instances together? I think it would be more fun and a productive way to learn.

I'm put off now from grouping because of past experiences. Like this thread notes.. WofW allows progression without grouping so I'm now lvl 27 but know I haven't got the experience to be a good group player and the situation will only get harder because the higher I level the more that any group will expect!

Thats my thoughts anyway.... anyone know of any solutions I'd be glad for your ideas

dingo

I was completey new to massive-multi-online RPG's, so PuG was the only way to go for me. There are definitely some quests that require groups! Of course I had my share of nightmare PuG's, but I did meet a lot of friends with whom I still quest.

As long as you go into a PuG with the right attitude (i.e. not too serious), it's always interesting to meet new players and see how they play the game. When someone says "g2g" or "supper's ready" I just laugh it off. :sumo: