PUG Groups

(As you may have realized, these posts are becoming more and more commentary-oriented. This is for the sheer lack of news in the wake of Book 7's release, which is fine. Book 7 in itself is giving us plenty of stuff to write about).

One of the main reasons people join a kinship is to get help (and hopefully help others just as much) doing quests that someone can't do solo. Kinships are by far the most used method of reliable questing. If kinships fail, then usually someone has a close circle of friends they can call on to get stuff done. However, when both of the aforementioned techniques are unavailable, there is still one option left to turn to. You go to the LFF channel, and you type in something to this effect: 60 hunter lff 2.6.8 pst.

If you're lucky, you'll get picked up by another group that needed your class, or you'll find someone else and advertise that you have the makings of a fellowship, and eventually you'll get together enough people to attempt whatever it is you need to do. Of course, this does not guarantee that you'll succeed.

Unfortunately, in the general pool of LotRO players, there are a variety of adeptness levels. Some players know their class backwards and forwards, and know what to do at what time. Others, however, have no idea what they're doing, don't know what their class is for, usually press the same 3 keys when in a fight, and have gotten to level 60 mostly on sheer luck, and a little bit on other people's coattails. It's when these people are picked up unbenounced to the other fellowship members that trouble starts to brew.

Usually it's obvious from the start. The person in question pulls a mob when people aren't ready yet, they're tanking when they shouldn't be, or they're consistently not being johnny-on-the-spot with conjunctions that will make or break the fellowship. After you've maybe wiped a couple times, you've got a pretty good idea of who's behind it all, and a fair share of mocking/irritated comments have been passed through various tell channels, or sneered over Ventrilo if the weak link doesn't have it.

Thus arieses a dilema. Of course, the unwritten rule can't be broken. What's this? You don't know what the unwritten rule is? Well that's probably because it's never been written down. Oh, wait, I have a post-it here somewhere...hold on...ah here it is...ahem..."Thou shalt not kick a player from the Fellowship based purely on his skill level or lacktherof." Ok, so that's not exactly it, but you get the picture. In every kinship I've been in, and every person I've had on my friend's list, it's always been a general consensus that it's not cool to boot someone that you've invited into a fellowship just because they have no idea what the hell they're doing. Maybe I've been in a small circle of naivite where everyone is blissfully ignorant of the real world, but I doubt it. If you invite someone, they have the impression that in the not too-distant future they'll have the quest they signed up for completed, and can go on until the next one pops up. That's a very good feeling, no matter how good you are.

This doesn't change the fact that too often you get a player that is completely clueless. How do we solve this problem? Usually the leader of the fellowship ((s)he is the one with the nifty asterisk badge after all) takes the member aside and explains what they need to do to shape up. This is done in a gentle and reassuring manner, in order to not damage the player's fragile ego. He is, after all, a level 60 just like the rest of us, so he couldn't have been doing too much wrong, right? Notice I did not make that one gender-ambiguous. Guys, sorry to say it, but I've never come across a female player who's sucked. And disregarding the fact that they're probably are out there, every female player has been much more receptive to criticism than any male player I've ever seen. Never have I seen a gal gamer storm out of an instance shouting "WTF YOU GUYS ARE ALL TEH SUX, SCREW THIS ----ING SHIZ...", you get the point.

So, does this whole thing have a point? Yes, but not one as absolute as you were probably hoping for ( he's not saying we should get rid of everyone who sucks? Awwww, no fun...). My point is that in a PUG you're playing roulette, with a ball that's hoped up on Coke and Red Bull moving around a wheel with 3,000 different slots for it to land in. So yeah you can critiscize PUG groups, and you can avoid them like the plauge in favor of your kinship even when that will set you back a couple weeks until enough people need your quest. But they are out there, people ARE getting things done with them, and not everyone shouting in the LFF channel doesn't have a clue.