I'm a little late on this, but I think in general since I've tried to keep a fairly upbeat vibe this week, it was a good time. Also gives me a chance to toss some of the WoW.com folks toward the Blog Azeroth community, which is a good thing in my book! And apparently I have no other shots of Putricide, so the guide will have to wait until Monday.
The March opener Shared Topic suggested by Zan of Altoholic Anonymous prompted us to write about a positive dungeon experience with the LFD tool. With so many horror stories, it's sometimes hard to remember the average groups that progress without incident, but the truly great are sure to stick around. Plus, I take screenshots of everything. Except Putricide. But to answer this topic, I have not one but two excellent PUG stories, both of them from restosham land. One is pre-80, one is post.
The Oculus
Y'know, I'm one of those crazy folks who actually likes Oculus. Even pre-nerf I didn't mind it. But a few Saturdays ago, I was not in the mood for dragon-related shenanigans. I was looking for something quick and easy to help grind out that last little bit to 80. What I got was Oculus with four people who had never been there before. I considered leaving. I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is. I wasn't awake at the time and was just trying to knock something out before I had to start on the boring stuff people, you know. Actually pay me to write.
I did stay, though. The folks there were slow to admit they hadn't done the instance before, but they did say it, which I appreciate. I had someone from Shattered Halls (seriously!) whisper me a few days back in gratitude for some helpful instructions for HoL/HoS, and I really don't mind doing that. I think most people don't mind doing it, and the rest are just dicks, so who really cares. Moral of this mini-story? Speak up if you haven't done an instance!
The drakes were a bit rough, as expected. They got a crash course in all the drake abilities, and I hopped on my green and allowed it to nom itself to near death. No, I didn't fall off this time. I've definitely never done that. Not ever!
But the point is, we got through the instance, and now four people understand how to do Oculus. Curious thing about it, while I seem to get it every day on heroic, I got it all of once on normal, and while helping a friend's shaman to 80, saw neither hide nor hair of it. It's very possible, then, that new 80s are coming into heroic Oculus having no clue what's going on. Suddenly the tank drops, the rest of the group whines, then whatever hodge-podge is left scrambles to finish because everyone hates the place so much. God forbid you actually get aggro from one of the drakes, your ass gets vote-kicked faster than you can parachute down into the rocky depths below.
The Oculus is a shining example of how the vehicle system failed miserably, but c'mon! It's not those poor PUGers' fault.
Forge of Souls
I dare look upon the Host of Souls, ayep. Though I was a bit scared about doing so. My first PUG experience in Heroic Forge was... not pleasant. The tank kept rushing ahead, then on the ghosties toward the end explained to me patiently 'u no u can decurse rite'. I was like '4 srs?' and he was like 'y rnt u doing it'. I kinda lost it, since said beartank had just consecutively pulled two mobs that rip the group to shreds without me even being in range. I had to Chain Heal my ass off to catch up. And yes, I do know that particular curse inhibits heals on the target. But... it was on the tank. I wasn't going to be terribly broken up about watching him die.
But for this one, I got some really nice folks, pictured in the screenshot above. We blew through the place pretty easily, and chatted quite a bit about this and that. They encouraged me to roll on things, complimented me on my healing, and all-in-all made it a very positive experience. I'm fairly sure this was right after yet another horrible Old Kingdom run, so I definitely needed it. And I will say this: DPS wasn't off the charts, the tank wasn't raid geared. Folks still did things they shouldn't have, including myself.
All of that didn't matter one bit. They were great people and were actually social in a social game. (I know, right?) So kudos to you folks, especially the two from Ghostlands.
Honorable Mention: Apathetic Culling of Stratholme
I had almost forgotten about this one or it would be near the top. Super late one night I got into an 'Already in progress' Culling of Strat. Certainly doesn't bode well, in general. What I popped into was four guys (I want to say from Velen?) from the guild Apathy who were giving each other shit while they waited for another healer. The timer was still viable, so I scooted my hot human butt up there and healed through the waves with only a few words between their quips.
Once it slowed down inside the inn, I stated the obvious: Your guild name is very misleading. I expected a 'lol' or blank stares, because the last time I asked someone about their guild name (V is Forever), I was met by a rousing chorus of 'lol idk'. But these guys snarked right back at me, and I was very pleasantly surprised. We continued discussing the ironic nature of this situation through the gauntlet, got to the Guardian of Time with 5 minutes to spare, and got me a drake I can't even use yet, since all the apathetic dudes already had theirs. Or they just didn't care.
There are a few more positive dungeon stories I could recount, probably just as many as the truly horrid, but those ones stand out to me as having improved my day for running them. In the end, this is a game played with other people. If I wanted to be alone or with a select group of folks, I would fire up the console or sit around a tabletop. You have to take the abysmally bad with the super-awesome, sometimes. Unless you're from Apathy. Then I guess it really doesn't matter, does it?
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