I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a website that’s throwing red flags at all the WoW scum out there. I discovered it through a blog at Project Lore, and it got me thinking about all the jerks I’ve come across during my WoW career.
Their website is pretty exclusive. My list isn’t nearly as exclusive. It won’t also put your name out there for the masses to jeer at, either, though. It’s a chance at redemption.
For when there just aren't words.
How to be /ignored in 5 Easy Steps
1. Ninja something. You really don’t even have to do this well for it to work. In a Heroic ToC 5-man a couple of weeks ago, a feral druid ninja’ed a caster item, needing it over the healer and then immediately logging out. He failed. He logged out before making sure his bags weren’t too full for the item. Everyone in the group had a good /facepalm moment over this one, and he’s been blacklisted by everyone in that group and all who knew of the failed ninja.
2. Kick people needlessly. There’s a warrior on my server right now who is on my number 1 most unwanted list. He seemed a little off at the beginning of the group, but that happens sometimes. He seemed noobish, and I figured he was probably just a new 80. People don’t always come across well when they’re in the midst of putting a group together. I came in on Amber as the tank. The healer, a paladin who’d been on my questionable list since an epically failed Botanica run back in the day, dc’d and stayed offline for 10 minutes. The warrior invited a DPS. The DPSer got to the instance, and the druid asked, “who’s healing?” The warrior replies, “You are.” So the druid switched to her dual spec. She drank to get her mana back, flipped into tree form, and then bam–kicked from the group. No warning. Three seconds later, the DC’d paladin joined our group. And they couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want to tank for them.
3. Blame it on the lag. I agree, lag is an issue. I’ve had fights where my framerate dropped to 4 fps and it can certainly mess you up. But c’mon. Lag didn’t make you target the wrong mob. It didn’t make you run left instead of right. Owning up to your mistakes is a lot classier than blaming it on lag. (And if your lag is really that bad, you should warn your party members ahead of time, be especially cautious about fights that take movement, and consider upgrading your hardware!). People who fail repeatedly (moonkin hitting the boss with a staff? Why?) make it to my watch list. People who fail repeatedly and don’t take responsibility for it (sorry, lag), or worse, blame others (you should’ve warned me!), get ignored.
4. Pretend you’re a tank. This actually happened to me on my paladin today, but it’s not the first time. Sometimes tanks are slow. They ask “ready?” before every pull or take forever figuring out what they’re marking. It can be annoying sometimes, but the thing to do is to just grin and bear it. Better a cautious tank than 15 wipes, in my opinion. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the case today. I don’t like slow tanks, so now that I’m a little more comfortable with it (I’m still a noob, but I’ve gotten pretty good at handling any chaos that comes from my noobness), I chain pull. Not fast enough for the shaman in my group, though, who decided to go ahead and lightning bolt everything in sight, regardless of what the tank and healer were doing. Don’t do this. If you want to move at your own speed, roll a tank, or don’t PuG.
5. Just be annoying. This may sound vague, but it has to be, or this list would reach into the thousands. Make sure you always take the least popular side in a Trade fiasco. Advise everyone in your party about how they should be using their abilities, and infer that you could certainly play their class better. Whine incessantly about how the gear you want never drops. Link the damage meter after every pull. See? The list goes on and on. There are lots of people who made it to my Ignore list just for being unbearable to be around.
Live long, and stay off people’s ignore lists.
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Tastes Like Battle Chicken 
“But c’mon. Lag didn’t make you target the wrong mob. It didn’t make you run left instead of right. Owning up to your mistakes is a lot classier than blaming it on lag. (And if your lag is really that bad, you should warn your party members ahead of time, be especially cautious about fights that take movement, and consider upgrading your hardware!). People who fail repeatedly (moonkin hitting the boss with a staff? Why?)”
Well, there are two kinds of lag. One comes from a bad net connection while using the local coffeeshop’s free WiFi (another must-divulge point pre-run, sure), and the other, as you say, comes from underpowered hardware. There were times when I was playing on a G4 iBook where stuff from BC kicked my hardware’s butt unexpectedly. Should I upgrade hardware? Um, perhaps the CCCP should have sent something new my way, but it is a PUG, right? If it’s someone’s first or early run (which, natch, should also be admitted up front) in an instance, hardware lag will and has made both of those examples happen, and happen to me. Seems like the SV kicked the iBook’s butt enough I finally upgraded, but not everyone has that option.
But more importantly, why the moonkin staff hate? ;^) When you’re /oom and nobody needs bandaging, **depending on the mob**, there’s nothing horrible about a leather-wearing ‘kin coming out of the keeper’s box and wailing for a few seconds, is there? They’re off-tanking. ;))) The good ‘kin should have swapped out staffs beforehand to get the melee staff ready. If this happens, allow them to vent for a few seconds, until they’ve got enough mana to wrath or innervate again. The dps can actually be considerable, occasionally, as I’m betting you know. Or do you run clothkin?
Well, there’s a couple of things you’re missing:
1) My real problem with the “Blame the lag” is the tendency for people to find ANYONE or ANYTHING to blame when they screw up. And I don’t mean screw up one time, I mean screw up on every pull, over and over again, and constantly say, “oh, I lagged out,” or “I didn’t get heals!” If you’re in a situation where your lag is so bad that you’re wiping your group over and over, you really shouldn’t be there. It’s a consideration thing.
I really know people who have HORRIBLE lag. I mean, like, the kind that makes you curl up into a ball and wonder why you’ve been doomed to play WoW at 2 fps. But these people manage to do their jobs despite their lag, and if it really does get too bad to function, they volunteer to step out.
2) If you’re running out of mana on your moonkin to the point where you need to start staffing, ya need more gear. But okay, maybe in a heroic you’re in low gear trying to get new stuff and you’re OOM, going for the staff is an option. But this guy…it was the beginning of the pull. He started hitting the boss with his staff, so I looked at his mana. Full. I waited a few minutes, thinking maybe he was afraid to start casting because he’d pull aggro or something. We got the boss down to 85% and he was still using his staff. Finally, I asked him, and he switched into moonkin and started casting.
It’s okay to be a noob. Everyone’s a noob at some point (Lord knows I am!). But there are lot’s of resources out there to help you improve. If you continually suck and you never try to improve, you’re a liability to any group.
“But these people manage to do their jobs despite their lag, and if it really does get too bad to function, they volunteer to step out.”
Fair enough. I’ve manged to do pretty well in DPS with fps 4, as you say. It’s usually not that difficult to cast in a slide show. Seems tanking would be much harder.
It’s the first time you run into bosses, though, that tends to make the lagginess most aggravating to the group, as it makes it difficult to respond to, whatever — new mobs, wacky vorpal attacks, whatever — and for that, I apologize on behalf of all PowerPC owners everywhere.
“He started hitting the boss with his staff, so I looked at his mana. Full.”
You didn’t tell him to reroll as a warlock? (I love a good warlock as much as the next guy, but their mean age has to be a good 5-7 years lower than the rest, right?) There are times where I think kids really give other tweens a bad name. I’m hoping that’s what happened here. Under 14ers seem to get caught up in “shiny new object thingy” syndrome more quickly than others.
And yeah, I tend to be a little under-geared when I do runs. Comes with the low /played @ max, I guess. Was better when crits regen’d mana. Then you had a good reason to go melee for a while.
I approve of this post 😉
moonkin hitting the boss with a staff? Why?)
i remember when i first made my druid a boomkin. He was my level 55ish bank alt that had sat for a long time and it was backw hen you had to have weapon skills for mana. I went feral to boom, and had NO staff skills. I ran around trying to get that up forever. Than he sat til Lich king few weeks after the release, we were stuck on the 2nd boss of construct and needed heals/dps so i power leved him to do that.
I didnt raid at all with the old way, maybe the guy was thinking moonkins are still ooold school?
Lag has always been one of those weird excuses i have used to get out of pugs that are failures. the horde side of my server is rather dead, so we are able to know most people and can avoid certain “trade celebs” if you will in groups. I will admit there are some nights i used to play just TRASHED drunk. Sometimes id tank on my dk and just power thru if i had a good healer not really paying attention, and other times id be on my boom and just go crazy and i got lucky many times with good tanks.