Whiny Post Day: Let me 'ave 'em!

Have you ever been in a mediocre pug, suffered through repeated wipes, AFKs and similar annoyances just to stand before the last boss and think, "phew, almost done"? And then you try to kill that boss, and what with the pug being mediocre, you wipe due to the dps being lackluster, the healer being undergeared or some similarly mundane reason - either way, not exactly something that's impossible to overcome. But suddenly... the tank leaves, the healer leaves, and before you know it, your chat window presents you with the words "your group has been disbanded" and the dungeon finder happily offers you the option to queue for a new instance.

You know what? Screw that. Seriously. After suffering through all those nuisances, I have a right to complete this damn instance. It's not my fault that the system grouped me with a bunch of spineless imbeciles who run at the first sign of trouble. Why punish me for their failures by forcing me to start over completely, even though I'm right in front of the last boss and ready to kill? Not to mention that I bet the dungeon finder is full of people who'd be more than happy to score a run that's already at the last boss to get their daily points dose quickly. Seriously, you should be allowed to replenish your run in progress from the dungeon finder even if you're the only person left in the group.

The problem isn't limited to max-level dungeons and point farming either. Nothing like queuing for a specific instance on a low-level character and getting in after half an hour, just to see the tank charge off before the healer's even zoned in, people drop group to avoid the wipe and before you know it the group's been disbanded again before you've even killed anything. Really, offering me to wait another half hour for the next run (which might end up being just as bad) isn't even a cold comfort. I already paid my dues in terms of waiting time, I should get priority to fill this one-man group and complete the run.

Also, since we're already talking about annoyances related to people leaving prematurely, what's up with the loot rolling at the end of an instance? Don't you just hate it when someone is really slow to roll on the last couple of drops, half the party leaves and when the roll finally goes through, it says that the item was won by a person who's already left both group and instance and will thus never get it? Once again Blizzard laughs in the face of people with patience, as they have to watch their desired drop get assigned to someone who hasn't even bothered to hang around long enough to pick it up. I think that whenever you leave an instance group, you should automatically forfeit your right to any loot rolls in progress so that the item can only go to those who are actually still around to pick it up.

Whine, whine.

Whiny Post Day: The lull

(What is Whiny Post Day?)

You may or may not have noticed that the number of posts I make per week has gone down quite a bit as of late. This is because the amount of time that I spend on WoW has gone down as well, meaning that I have less chance to randomly get inspired to write something about a bad pug or some other noteworthy experience. I guess I've been hit by the pre-expansion blues, the lull between patches, whatever you want to call it.

And I hate feeling that way, because it bugs me when other people pull this card on me. "Meh, I'm bored of the game." - "Sorry, but there's just nothing left for me to do!"

Now, being bored with something is a perfectly legit feeling to have, but if you're part of a group it tends to have negative side effects on the other people involved. Have you ever been to the movies with a group of friends and ended up sitting next to the one guy who thought that the film was utter crap and kept talking over the soundtrack to alleviate his boredom? Have you ever played a game of some sort with someone who didn't really like it and kept making stupid moves or missing important clues because he just didn't care? Have you ever gone out for the evening with a couple of mates but had trouble deciding on where to go because there was this one guy who would object to absolutely every suggestion with "that's boring"? I dread to hear the words "I'm bored" from someone I'm involved with because it's pretty much guaranteed to soon diminish my own experience of whatever we're doing as well.

They could of course do the logical thing and just stop participating, though this then carries the risk of making the group suffer in some other way, for example by being a player short for a game and being unable to play at all (*cough*raids*cough*). I'm not entirely sure which is worse, really.

And complaining that there's nothing left to do? Are you kidding me? I know there are a handful of people in the world who have completed nearly all the achievements in the game, but most people aren't anywhere near close to that, so there's plenty of stuff for them to do. Of course the problem with a game like WoW is that no matter how much there is to do, a lot of it simply won't appeal to everyone, so it's quite possible to run out of things you're interested in doing. Which is why we need those constant patches that add new options for everyone.

So yeah, I hate to hear those complaints from other people, and yet I'm thinking similar thoughts myself at the moment. I'm not entirely bored of the game, but I don't feel motivated to do much outside of our scheduled raids. Sure, I could grind frost emblems for all my alts until kingdom come, but... eh. I'm getting some enjoyment out of levelling my new baby shaman on Argent Dawn, but it's something that I like to do at a slow pace, for a few hours twice a week or so, so it's not exactly driving me to play the game all that much.

Why does it matter? It's a game, I should be able to start and stop whenever I like, playing as much or as little as I like! But then I think of guild chat being dead because nobody is online, raids getting cancelled because there aren't enough signups, and I feel guilty. I think of people checking my blog for new posts and not finding anything, and I feel guilty.

Curse those social games. Woe is me.