WoW Journal - 21-Jun-2006

My brilliant plan to play on a new server and group a lot hit the first bump in the road: the PUGFH, pickup group from hell. I keep forgetting how bad pickup groups can be. I hit level 18 with my priest yesterday, and did three groups to the Deadmines, without ever arriving at Van Cleef.

The first group was the best of the three, although there were players for who it was their first character and their first instance. The warrior didn't taunt much, and when asked to do so more often seriously replied that it was impossible, because he couldn't use taunt in the more offensive battle stance. Doh, Einstein! Fortunately the paladin was tanking well, and with two hunter pets for off-tanking we didn't notice the bad warrior all that much. We managed to make it to the ship, with some difficulty I managed to persuade them to do Cookie before Van Cleef, and then I got lucky and we found Cookie's Stirring Rod, which is probably the best wand a level 18 priest can get hold of. After that the group went downhill, we wiped on the way up the ship, the paladin left, people decided to hearthstone out due to destroyed gear. We planned to come back, but one of the hearthstoning guys was bound in Loch Modan, and by the time everybody was back and we had a rogue to replace the paladin, all the mobs had respawned. Then without the pally tanking, and the warrior still not taunting, we didn't make much progress and abandoned.

The second group didn't even make it into the non-instanced area of the Deadmines. I thought I had just left warrior stupidity behind, when in that second group I met the warrior who beat them all. The group leader did a short assignment of roles, priest heals, warrior tanks, etc., when the warrior interrupts and said that he wouldn't be tanking. He had tried tanking in a previous group and found that it lead to a too high repair bill, so he wouldn't do it any more in the future. We tried to explain him that tanking was his role, but he categorically refused. So the group leader kicked him out, but then couldn't find a replacement, somebody else left, and the group abandoned before even the first kill.

By the third group I was already a nervous wreck. That group made it into the non-instanced part of the Deadmines, but two people absolutely wanted to go to the non-instanced undead part to collect miner's cards for a quest, while the other three wanted to do the instance. The people wanting the miner's cards swore that it would take only 5 minutes, and managed to get the group there, but with so many players being in this level range now, the place was totally overcamped, and after 10 minutes we hadn't even found one card, needing 4 per person on that quest. General bickering occurred, with lots of swear words, until I couldn't stand it any more and left the group to go to bed.

I am sure that the new server is full of experienced players, but it seems I missed the boat somewhere. The server is just one week old, and the experienced players are mostly already above level 30. Sorry, I just can't play that many hours to be level 30+ in a week. And besides what would be the point to reach level 60 in a month and having missed most of the content level 1 to 59? I already have a level 60 priest, I made the new priest to visit the lower level instances, not for getting to Molten Core again. I just hope I get a bit more lucky with lower level people from my new guild being online, or finding better pickup groups. Playing with people that refuse to learn how to play better is not fun.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:13 AM Permanent Link