Wednesday, October 10, 2007

How Do You Convince the Unwilling?

I am part of a 3 person guild in WoW. A husband-wife team, and myself. Before I left the game back in March there were about 6 people in the guild. We liked to keep it small. I want to keep it small still... just not so small. I'm 70 now, so is the wife, but the husband just as well may never get there as he's very much an altist.

I find myself craving 5-man dungeons, or at least people who are on often enough to pre-make some BG matches with, and I certainly don't want to leave these 2 people who have been with me in WoW since early 2006. I've already left a lot of friends behind when I chose to transfer servers when Dragonblight was up for transfers. These guys are part of the few who followed me and are still playing the game.

Pirates does not come out for 3 months. I am likely going to be playing WoW for that long. I don't want a huge commitment, but I want more people to play with. Only problem is... the hubby and wife don't seem to want to invite more folks. I don't blame them. We've seen our fair share of drama over the past 2 years. But I don't want tons of people. I just want a few that are on often enough to play with.

What's a dwarf to do?

10 comments:

Link said...

What's this? Bildo, champion of the MMO solo player, laments not having a group? Just shout/spam in your capital city of choice: LF2M BFF! Just giving you a hard time. :)

I feel your pain. That's one of the crappy things about WOW (and other MMOs I suppose). I met people in RL that played and thought it would be fun to join them, but they were Alliance or on a different server or our levels were too far apart.

Bildo said...

Now now, I always have said solo is my preference, not my the only way I will play. :)

Yeah, I tried to actually use the LFG channels... not so working. And no one seems to use the tools either.

So I can either get the wife of the duo to be my arena buddy and hope we save enough for some gear, grind BGs for honor and buy arena 1 gear when it comes out next patch, or in less of a waiting mode, find a group to do some 5-mans with.

If I can, I'd like to work at all 3. But the one that's going to give its rewards the soonest, is 5-mans. My guy really is badly geared. One look at the armory will tell you that. So I get run over when people pay attention to me in BGs (that and I suck when fronted with an assault).

I need a couple more people who are of a casual mindset like myself to form some groups is all. I just have to convince the husband and wife to let me try and find them.

In the meantime, it's saving up honor and doing dailies for my hunter. :) While I level this and that alt of course.

Anonymous said...

Here's how you do it Bildo.

First you do need to get to know somebody outside of your soloing to get a feel for them if they're a good fit, then later you need to start sneaking them into your groups with the wife & hubby sorta like a lost or homeless puppy until they get used to the new player as part of the group. If the next time the spot is open and they ask about or jump at having the new guy join you'll know your work has been done and can see about taking it further then.

Most players that don't want to invite others in are just worried about the asshats or inexperienced players slowing down or hurting the group (the whole point of not doing PUG's in the first place).

Finding good people these days in a MMO to group with, especially casual players just keeps getting more and more difficult as solo-play becomes even more standard with less incentive or emphasis on grouping.

Getting others involved can also be a bit difficult if they're already guilded or have their own cliches, I often found its the friendly new or loner types that are much more sticky about keeping in touch and available for a friengly PUG between aquaintences.

Bildo said...

You're right, finding the right people will be the hardest part, not convincing my friends to let them in... sigh.

Bildo said...

Maybe I can put an add out in the paper? :P

Anonymous said...

This is the problem across all MMOs, it seems. The LFG tools are insufficient to pair groups up.

This is the problems with instanced dungeons. Remove the 'instance' and make them 'public instances' so that small groups can catch up to each other / form teams, and take down a boss on a 'casual' basis.

FYI: you may remember that LoTRO has some 'public instances' where this occurrs quite frequently, and other MMOs (Vanguard SOH, etc.) don't 'instance' their dungeons for this reason.

Blizzard did it originally for performance reasons, then used them to cap the hard-core players from getting item upgrades. Other MMOs are going a little different route (public quests, etc).

sam said...

I understand. Before I quit Wow I transferred servers with some friends and left behind my nice bulky list of people I pugged with. Then my friends schedules shifted, goals changed etc and I was left to rebuild a whole new net of friends to play with.

The hardest and most frustrating thing is finding people who are casual that have a compatible schedule and similar goals. It's usually easy to find people with one but both seems to be about the same occurance as winning 20 dollars in the lotto.

I guess I got spoiled starting so close to launch. I never had to really try to form a group till BC and my server change. For the record If I ever go back to a MMO and get myself established I'll take server login ques over a transfer any day of the century.

brackish said...

well, to handle the issue with your friends: did you tell them about your blog? :P

Addressing the issue with good players to join you three is a much tougher obstacle as others have pointed out. Start searching and grouping with people you don't know. If nothing else it could lead to some interesting conversations and topics for you here.

Anonymous said...

If only you were on elune. I'm in a very small and intentionally lame guild (we all have lives and such, and most of us don't play that much any more), and we also have access to a larger multi-guild channel on which to look for people. So you could join us, still be small and drama-free, but at least have a few more people to look to!

Bildo said...

If only it didn't cost 25 bucks a character to transfer, Heather, I might take you up. :)