Gevlon has a nice piece today outlining the progress of the PuG project, of which I am a member. I haven’t been online much this week, (trying out EvE before Cataclysm hits), but I jumped in on Sunday afternoon as there is a Wintergrasp battle going on then and I like to help out. I was a bit late to help but I got there just in time to grab some honor points, for as soon as I logged in I got the Wintergrasp join countdown, (I had logged out there), so I joined and two seconds later we won the battle. Nice timing methinks.
As soons as the battle finished an AQ20 run began forming. The last time I was in there was quite a few years ago, (man that sand beetle boss was a real pain in the butt), so I joined in as I didn’t think it would take that long. Which it didn’t – we blew through that place so fast we left the columns spinning. I had no idea why we were in there, and nobody was saying, and I didn’t really care anyway, so I just tagged along using Fan of Knives with poison to pretty deadly effect. That is until we got to the boss down near the pool of water. I was behind the dwarf tank who charged right in there and jumped off the high ledge down into the pool. I hadn’t ever thought of doing that before, and I had a ‘that’s cool’ moment, and then I jumped after him, performing a nice night elven double twist backward forwards somersault split thingy into the water.
The dwarf was on a real charge. He was at the boss almost before I had made it out of the pool and as far as I knew there was nobody behind us. I hit Sprint and made it over there in seconds where I immediately pulled aggro from the boss. Which was strange as I hadn’t done that on the run at all. So I hit Vanish and then hit the boss again and then I got aggro again. What the fuck? I didn’t even have time to look around me as now I was saving my life. A 5 point Regneration really helped, (thank you Blizzard so much for giving us rogues a heal), and I kept my head down as I danced around that boss dealing out the mega damage, blowing my cool downs, hitting my heals, and just generally trying to stay alive. When the boss went down I figured that the tank might be a little pissed at me, what with me pulling all that aggro. It wasn’t the tank that was pissed at me though … it was the rest of the raid.
Gevlon whispered me asking me what the hell I was doing. I whispered back that I was killing the boss. He whispered back that the whole point of the raid was to try and get one of the hunters to tame that boss.
Oops. I whispered that I had no idea and that I must have missed all the guild chat about it before I logged on. He responded that he doubted that as I had certainly been online. So with a sinking feeling I slowly scrolled back through the chat and there it was in lovely bright green: don’t kill that boss, this is why, blah blah blah. They had been talking about it while I was jumping off cliffs into water and sprinting to help a certain tank. So an honest mistake, but still a pretty big one. Isn’t Adam the noob?
I got thinking about this after the fact though. I hadn’t seen the messages due to the fact that I had been so caught up in what I thought was saving the tanks butt. I hadn’t even looked at the guild chat as I just didn’t have time. Gevlon refuses to use voice communication in game, (probably because he has a funny squeeky voice and doesn’t want us all to make fun of him), and I respect that. But in situations like this it can be extremely usefull to say on chat, Adam would you mind not killing the fucking boss?
With Cataclysm and the return of Crowd Control, communication will be more important than ever. Gevlon speaks today about how much more difficult it has been to find good DPS, due to the fact that most of the lolling braindead like to play that role. Maybe vent could be a big help here. Granted we won’t be blowing through the new instances and raids quite as fast as the ten of us took AQ20 to pieces, (and maybe that was a big part of the problem), but there is going to be a lot more going on. If it all falls down to the raid leader all the time to type everything out and mark every single mob, I don’t know who will want to lead raids. I mean, would you with DPS like me?
December 6, 2010 at 9:48 am
For some reason when I read this I chuckled to myself because I have my chat channels broken up and when in raids I only have a raid chat up, which usually I do not pay much attention to as I typically try to know what is going on.
I would probably have done the same thing in the heat of the moment. Communication is excellent and not using vent has some merits. While not a member of this project, when you raid, do they speak strictly in the guild channel or do they use the raid channel? That could also add to some miscommunication.
As far as would I want to take someone like you (DPS) to a raid? Absolutely! You seem to know what you are talking about and if you constantly screwed up, then I would remove you.
December 6, 2010 at 10:10 am
So the AQ raid leader honestly didn’t know what typing /rw does? Seriously?
December 6, 2010 at 10:37 am
Voice communication allow the raid leader to hold the hand of the braindead and tell them what to do. I prefer people who can think for themselves and can read.
December 6, 2010 at 11:07 am
got i
December 6, 2010 at 11:13 am
oops Ill try that again…..
Got to disagree with voice chat being hand holding its just a much better and effective way of communication….. Unless you have a squeeky voice……
December 6, 2010 at 2:10 pm
It also allows effective coordination between intelligent team members. With all the steps you’ve taken to weed the retards out of your guild, i can’t imagine there are many brain-dead left to hold hands with. If there are, all you have to do is refuse to micromanage them over vent. The program itself is still useful.
December 6, 2010 at 8:12 pm
But the lack of voice communications encourages inefficient and slow communications. Typing, even typing /rw Don’t KILL THAT MOB will always always take longer than screaming it over Vent.
What you want is to discourage the behavior of hand holding, what you’re doing is discouraging one of many mediums that can be used for it? Just throwing that out there.
December 6, 2010 at 11:50 am
In general I do agree with Gevlon about the misuse of voice communication. I’ve had personal experience of leading LK raids and having to remind people to move in order that poison is dispelled correctly. It can remove the onus of responsibility to think when you’re just wait for the order.
On the other hand your article highlights exactly where it is useful. I don’t know how it can be managed without creating the none thinking, order taking mentality, but I don’t think it’s a binary decision between use it or don’t use it.
December 6, 2010 at 11:58 am
(quick addendum)
The article did make me laugh though. I can imagine the look on your team mates faces as you had your own “Jenkins” moment – priceless.
December 6, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Sounds to me like you screwed up and now you’re making excuses. If you were a good dps you would stay below the tanks threat no matter what. Meaning this wouldn’t have been a problem if you had voice chat or any chat at all.
This game is not hard, you make it hard.
December 6, 2010 at 1:28 pm
so you downed a boss faster than the what, 20 seconds (?) it takes to tame a mob?
would have loved to be there and see the shitstorm.
December 6, 2010 at 1:43 pm
BAD ADAM! BAD!
Shit happens! I certainly had a few of my own blind moments.
December 6, 2010 at 2:05 pm
LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY…
December 6, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Mistakes happen. Things go wrong. The place can be solod by any competent player. Two manned if you’re not up to the challenge.
Raid warning would’ve gotten your attention. Removing you from the raid while you were burning the boss down would’ve gotten your attention. With so many tools, Gev seems to think he’s faultless. Your fault for killing the boss. His fault for not trying to stop you once he realized you were burning it down.
Did nobody attempt to stop you while you were burning it down?
Shit happens. We all get over it. Next time, 2 man it if he really want the pet.
December 6, 2010 at 3:52 pm
In the wise words of Tasslehof Burfoot: “opps”
December 6, 2010 at 4:15 pm
/high five!
December 6, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Readychecks are another useful tool to make sure everybody is on board with unusual goals like this. “Are you going to kill this boss?” Yes/No. Anybody who clicks Yes didn’t get the message.
December 6, 2010 at 8:15 pm
To answer the rhetorical question, “Yes.” DPS that makes mistakes is common. DPS that thinks about them and makes any effort at all to correct them, let alone write a ‘mae culpa’ blog post about them has got to be on the endangered species list.
December 6, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Damn me for missing that raid, I don’t think I would’ve been able to stop laughing 🙂