Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Joys of PUGS

This is a great post on the ten commandments of PUGs by Kaestrel. Everyone should read this and heed.

I've been doing a few PUGs to try to get Kara keyed and get some halfway decent gear.
It usually doesn't go well, since there aren't enough experienced and well-geared people in the group (and there are 16 new instances in OL, I've only done 4 of them so far).

Example 1: Sunday morning, ran Shadow Labs (which I need for first part of kara key). We died at the first boss.

Example 2: Botanica in Tempest Keep, this group had it together mostly, but we wiped hard at the second boss, which requires you to melee the adds, I am of course not a melee person. We could probably do this with 3 melee types, me, and healer.

Example 3: Stek Halls (or something like that. This was a 65-68 instance (the others were 70 instances, designed for level 70 players), and was easier, but it was quite late, nobody knew what they were doing (first time through for all of us). We downed first boss but kept wiping on trash en route to second boss. Pulling, heck just being in this instance is very hard, lack of manuever room, tons of mobs together, etc.

Anyway instances are fun, but so far have yet to bear fruit. If i only had a guild that I could run instances with! (oh wait, i do, but they won't let me go...)

But something must be said about the greatness that is the voicechat in 2.2. Its so hugely useful I can't describe it. The divide between those who do and those who don't have a mic is vast. Its very hard to communicate effectively while running around and getting killed without a mic; you are too busy to type quickly. I actually think its a huge sign of the quality of teh player if they have a mic or not (and use it).

Here are my thoughts.

1) Dont' talk too much (i break this alot). People tend to be very focused in instances, and inane chatter may break concentration.

2) Don't chew and talk, don't chew while wearing mic. Easy and obvious.

3) Don't trash other people using mic. Its harder to be mean to people via voice than it is via chat text. But some are still asses.

Mics have rescued horrid PUG situations to enjoyable, fun events. Wipe 10 times in a row? At least everyone has commentary on it. :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the plug, Gibbiex!

I had to restrain myself from replying to one of the commenters on WI in the article linking mine. "Dave" seems to be very negative--I scanned a bunch of his earlier comments, and he's a tard. I don't care what his skills are, he's a tard. That said, he really was down on voice chat in 5-man PUGs.

I think you've just proved him wrong. ;)

Rob Dejournett said...

No problem, and thanks for the excellent article! Keep it up!

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