The potential of the new PUG wormholes

Will the upcoming cross-server PUGs turn into the paradise of ninjas and morons in general? It's quite likely if you ask Ixobelle, who thinks this is a "horrible idea". Besides he suggests that it doesn't solve any problems. If there's a surplus today of dps and a lack of tanks and healers, this won't change. The disproportions of the roles in LFG will still be the same, even though it's spread on several realms.

And of course it's easy to agree with those points. If you're playing on the same realm, you still can act as a jackass, but you have a reputation to care about. The word will no doubt spread if you have behaved like a jerk. You'll end up on ignore lists and someone may contact your guild master. There are ways to make life unpleasant to people who deserve it. But with a cross-server PUG this will definitely change. The chances that you're ever meet again are infinitely small and protected by the anonymity, this may bring out the worst sides in some players.

Ixobelle is worried about the change and could only think of one good thing about it: that there's a bigger pool of players to draw from when you're looking for a group.

The wormhole revolution
Now, I wouldn't say that I disagree with Ixobelle. After all he's one of my absolute favorite bloggers. But I think there are some potential benefits from this change that deserve to be mentioned.

As I'm writing this, there isn't any detailed information available about how the multi-realm LFG will work in practice. So all my suggestions are very hypothetical. The outcome depends on how they chose to implement it. There's a huge difference if the LFG pool only is drawn from a few realms in your battlegroup, as they do it in the battlegrounds, or if you can pick people freely from any realm within EU or US, as long as they have the same language.

But let's say that they actually WILL give us the opportunity to not only get players from any realm on our side of the ocean, but also to pick actively from the people listed in the LFG channel, instead of getting them automatically added to the group. If that is the case, this means that Blizzard finally has decided to break up the server barriers by building those worm holes. And this, my friends, would be a revolution.

There are many players out there who have friends on different servers - game friends as well as real life friends. So far the only way they've been able to play with them without making server transfers, has been to create alts. A solution like this would mean that friends could team up with their mains., forming the group through LFG.

The possibilities are infinite. Who knows, one day I might join a PUG of EU-bloggers from different realms, checking out one of the new 5-man instances together. How awesome wouldn't that be?

But not only friends would benefit from this. It would also make cross-server guild recruitment infinitely much easier. Just run a couple of instances with the applicant and you'll soon enough see if there is any mutual liking. The risk of wasting money on failed transfers will decrease. You can always check out several games and do some research before you decide, finding a realm that fits with your play style.

Who wants loot anyway?
What about the risk of losing loot to ninjas then? Would Larísa even dare to join such a PUG?
Well, I'll ask a return question: how many of you are running instances for gear anymore? Who wants the loot anyway? I don't. If I pug an instance on my main character, it will mostly be the daily heroic, and the only thing I want from them, apart from entertainment, are the emblems of triumph, which no ninja in the world can steal from me. And this is not just the case with my mage, who is well geared and deep into endgame. It's exactly the same thing if I'm running a PUG with my lvl 62 druid alt. The major reason to do it is to get XP, maybe to get a quest done, or just to get experience of group healing, seeing the instances I've run before from a completely new perspectives. I certainly don't run them for drops. I know that the gear will be replaced many times anyway before it's time for endgame at some point in the future. And then, I can always gear up by emblems and heirloom items.

With the amount of gear currently available in the game, there isn't as much potential loot drama around 5-man instances gear as there used to be. Most of the gear I see drop in pugs goes to shards, if there's a disenchanter around, or if not: to a vendor. I don't think this will be any different just because the players come from different realms.

What possibly could be a source of conflict is the issue of leadership though. Without giving us any details, they've hinted that the PUG leaders somehow will get a reward for their job. And as soon as there are rewards I think there will be many more people who are more than willing to lead. The question is if the other players are willing to be led, missing the reward. It's hard to say until we know more about what they have in mind for this.

Social drawback
But don't I see any drawbacks in this, like Ixobelle do, apart from the lack of social pressure that can bring out the worst in people?

Well, If there's any disadvantage, I would say that it's the social one. Running a lot of pugs is a great way to get to know more people on the realm, building up a list of friends and acquaintances. It's quite unlikely that you'll develop friendship bonds with people from other realms. This will be more like "one night stands" with strangers who you meet once and never will see again. How are you supposed to get to know your own server if you're playing with random people at others?

It will also be harder to predict the outcome of a PUG just by looking at the guild tags. To be honest I always pull a sigh of relief if I see that most of the players in the group are from one of the 15 most progressed raiding guilds on the realm. I know it isn't any guarantee. Just because you have a tip top main it doesn't necessarily mean your alt is as viable, gear- or skillwise. But still - the guild tag normally works like a sort of certificate. This player has been approved by a guild which is probably somewhat picky. There's a big chance that he's got a clue about what he (or she) is doing. With a crossrealm PUG you can't benefit from any general knowledge about the guilds on your realm. But it isn't any worse than that you can look up the player in armory and take a peak to make sure he's good enough for the task.

Finally: I find it hard to believe that Blizzard completely would replace the ordinary LFG channel with this new feature. It's more likely that it will be a complement, somewhere you can look if you're really desperate for a last player to your group.

And now we can only eagerly wait for more information, probably sooner than later, since they plan to implement it in the same patch as Icecrown. Maybe it will turn out to be a disappointment, as clumsy and random as the BG raid formation process. But it certainly has huge potential. I'm looking forward to see if they'll give us those wormholes after all.