Geography

What zones in the game do I like most? And which ones will I rather pass if I can chose? I ask myself, now that I'm levelling an alt. Since you nowadays can level faster, it isn't required to quest your way through all the alliance available areas. I can afford to be a bit picky. And the question is how I'll land. If I make it easy for myself I'll let others make the decisions for me and follow for instance the levelling guides by Jame. Just go wherever he tells me to go. But if I leave efficiency behind and go for my gut feeling, what areas have I liked and how will I chose then?

Right now Arisal is just above 20, clearing most of what she can do in Redridge. That's a place that is all but mandatory, but that leaves me quite indifferent, if you compare it to what comes next: Duskwood. The eternal twilight there fascinated me the first timed I dared to enter it, and I'm still just as fond of it, with all those spiders, haunted houses, graveyards and all kinds of weird creatures. There's one big drawback: the terribly long way to wander to and through the main graveyard and Darkshire, where a bunch of quests are supposed to be delivered. Then it doesn't help that you sometimes can use Westfall as an extra fp. But apart from that - I'll never grow tired of Duskwood!

Soon I guess it's about time to take a trip to Wetlands. I'm looking forward to have a look at the tunnels once again - it's been long since the last time, but the end goal I'm not quite as enthusiastic about. Pretty dull open swamps, inherited by murlocs, crocodiles, dinosaurs and ooze, that don't really give me a kick, but on the contrary are rather saddening if it also happens to be raining.

After that comes Stranglethorn Vale, that will become some of an eternal project, where I can be kept busy for another 10-15 levels. It's hard to avoid it, even though I've actually met players who had taken it as a mission to prove that you can level up questing without ever putting your foot into STV. For my part I like the jungle environment pretty well, it's sort of boiling with animal and herbal life. What made me a bit fed up the last time I was here was the lack of fp in the northern part, which had the consequence that I had to put ridiculous amounts of time into simply wandering. Nowadays that is taken care of, something I'm very grateful of.

The nest step is obvious: Dustwallow Marsh is supposed to have got a great deal of new quests and of course I want to have a look at them, by the way I've never quested there very much, except for that swamp lady Tabetha, that you have to pay a visit to now and then, being a mage. Then I prefer desert, a real sand desert like Tanaris, not the redish sort like Redridge, Blasted Lands and Hellfire, that truthfully is a bit boring if you compare it to much else.

The zone that really made me on fire when I last levelled was the Un'Goro crater. The first meeting with all those mysterious things - crystals and seeds that I didn't know the use of - all the intense vegetation, the abounding life - and the living flowers, strolling around in the middle of everything made me exalted.

I was so happy about the area I had "discovered" that I more or less forced a guidlie that also was levelling up to come and join me: "Oh you really have to come here right away, its so cool!" it sort of bubbled out of me. And he was as happy as I was - even though we quite instantly were killed by some of the elites wandering around making life hard for unsuspicious newbies. We happily started to ride around, enjoying the process of discovering the whole crater right away, one dinosaur model after each other. I don't know why I became so enthusiastic. Maybe it was the limitations of the room - it's quite easy to orient yourself in there. Maybe it was the fact that I've seen the model of the crater in reality, the Ngorongorocrater in Tanzania, that misses jungle and dinosaurs, but like the game crater has an abandoning wildlife. Of course it brought up a lot of memories.

I've also always had a weak spot for winter landscapes. Maybe it's because of my origin, the first struggling steps as a newborn gnome, when I was amazed that I actually was doing real footprints in the snow. I'm looking forward to once again rush through Winterspring on my mount, even though I'll probably at that time impatiently be waiting to set out for Outlands. Eastern Plaguelands doesn't appeal to me at all, except for a questchain that I'd really like to do over again. The surroundings in themselves are gloomy, full of red fog, boring, no loss if I manage to skip it.

What about Outlands, what places are attracting me there? Basically it's a matter of mood. There are days when the yelling bright meadows of Nagrand seem as artificial and empty as the eyes of a Barbie doll and you'd prefer to hide in the darkness of Shadowmoon Valley. At other times Nagrand is perfect, like a small vitamin pill, full of colour and sunlight. Terokkar leaves me a bit indifferent and the same goes with Blades Edge, another gloomy redish area. Netherstorm on the other hand I'll never grow tired of, thanks to the nice SF feeling and the biospheres with it's wildlife that makes me think of my beloved crater. And as an extra bonus there are a bunch of nice instances, where you after each wipe instantly wake up, being able to repair on the spot without long transportation. That's a luxury that affects my attitude towards the whole zone.

Then there are a couple of places that I honestly don't know so much about. Being gnome and alliance I've never had any reason to make myself at home at big parts of Kalimdor. Teldrassil, Ashenvale and Darkshore I don't know much about. Stonetalon Mountains, Desolace and Thousand Needles I've visited and quested a bit in, but I can't say I feel at home there. Silithus I just sniffed at, being in a hurry to proceed to Outlands.

I suddenly realize that having so much left in the game to see is a luxury. I think I should leave my prejudices behind, put on my explorer glasses again and discover the world all over again. Maybe I'll find new favourite areas where I least expected it.

Feedback to the readers

I've got a few comments to my blog. Wohoo!

After all feedback is one of our essential human needs. You may call yourself a lonely wolf and self sufficient, but in the long run you'll go crazy if you never ever hear anything but your own voice, sort of hovering around in a bubble of your own.

I come to think of my friend and raid leader who leads the raids so well that sometimes everybody goes silent, in a trancelike state of mind, only silently doing their job. A lovely state for everyone, except for the raid leader, who eventually gets a bit frustrated out of the lack of feedback and communication. "I'm only hearing my won voice, is there something wrong with teamspeak", he asks, sounding worried, and we have to reassure him, telling him that we're actually there. He's not alone in his bubble, we share it.

This may not be any Top Blog with thousands of readers all over the world, where advertisers are competing about the best spots. This is the small world of Larisa, with four or five, at the most ten visitors a day (the record is 19, when our guild split, something that makes it quite obvious that it's mostly guild friends that read it). But you who actually read it care, and I'm delighted and surprised to see that from time to time I get comments, even on old posts that are only viewable by looking in the archives. You have no idea how much it means, you are the ones that inspire me to keep on writing.

The interface of this blog tool is far from perfect, and even though I in theory can change the code in whatever way I want, it's more than I can manage. I wish all of your comments were viewable by default, but the aren't. And there's no easy way to give comments to the comments ore to let the one that has given a comment know that I have written an answer. That's why I've decided to let the blog post of to day be about giving feed back to a few of you - encouraging you to keep on writing.

First of all: thanks Hardyman, Nigina, Flawless, Spoten and Emilie for all kind words!
And now a few comments to the comments:

Nigina, who wrote about The art of going to bed, that the hardest thing is to stop chatting. You're so right. All of those errands that you're up to, all those "must do"-things, aren't they mostly an excuse not to stop chatting? Fascinating enough those nightly conversations are going back and forward. Often it's conversations pizza level, but sometimes it takes a completely new direction and becomes very personal. Preferrably at two o clock in the night for some reason.

Consentire about Mage for good and bad, I hope there's no doubt that I really like the mage class - I do - in spite of the flaws. Right now I'm going fire, and I'm happy about that, but If I'd ever get the opportunity to pick up a bit better gear - a couple of T5 pieces, I've planned to go back to arcane. (I see no reason to question the common advice given in the Elitistjerks forum.)

Kazzandra, about To measure yourself, I'm impressed by your Commander titel as well as by your tiger. The sad thing is that there probably are very few players that actually know enough to appreciate what you've achieved. Being a PvE nerd, I'm completely ignorant about the title system. If someone is running around being a Sergant, Pivate, Knight or whatever it is, it doesn't tell me anything, except for that that person probably has played a bit of PvP. On the other hand if I inspect someone and see an interesting drop from a higher raid instance, well then I make a mental bow of honour, aware of how many nights of wiping and how much effort and team work that the drop has cost.

Wukas, about Recruiting according to the mouth-to-mouth-method, yes, certainly my arguing is full of exaggerations an black-and-white thinking! It's more fun that way... I actually do respect guilds that work out forms and demand that you put time and effort into your application. If you have a bigger, seriously raiding guild, it takes a certain amount of continuous recruiting, outside of you're closest circle of acquaintances. It's unavoidable to get more applications than you can handle by just test them out in practice, running a few instances and so on. You need some sort of sorting tool to come to the pretty hard decisions that it takes. One bad recruitment can cause devastating consequences. It's just as if you have a symphony orchestra - if even only one of the instruments is badly tuned and is playing false, you'll hear it and everybody else will suffer. And to be that person that has to tell the badly playing flutist that he'd better find another orchestra, The Orchestra for Not Tuned Musicians, is hardly a nice job, not even for players that are supposed to have cold hearts. If you can avoid it by sorting it all out at the moment of application it's a good thing. Even though I think it's hard. To write is one thing, to actually play and behave in a group is another.

Flawlless, about To level fast or with pleasure, I must say that I don't understand how you can level up not just one druid but a whole bunch of them! You must be an expert on low levelled druids! But now at last you're 70 and will be able to try out endgame. An entirely different kind of game than the levelling, actually more fun in my opinion, but that's a matter of taste. By the way it would be interesting to hear a bit more about your experiences from playing on different servers. Does it differ a lot between them, is there a certain climate, an atmosphere, that is special to each server? I curiously ask.

Finally: keep on commenting - or why not protesting, when I'm talking rubbish. My blogging is running on a mixed fuel of inspiration and transpiration, but most of all communication. Thoughts meet thoughts and suddenly something new is borne, there's a flash, just like when Larisa has discovered her last alchemy recipe. That's what makes it so charming.

Boosted

No, there was no Deadmines for real for Arisal. If you log in and suddenly is confronted by two offers to be dragged through by kind guildies, it's hard to turn them down. I could even be picky so I preferred being boosted by a paladin to a hunter, with my two latest runs through DM in memory. After all you risk to die and the walking from the graveyard in Westfall, down through all the tunnels, felt like an eternity, at least when you're close to the end of the instance.

Now it turned out that I didn't need a single res.. Miners, gnomes and pirates were literary glued to the paladin and the mobs were delivered in small, or rather large, neat heaps, only to loot. Or only or only. That is what's so laborious about being boosted. The looting that takes such awful lot of time, and that you just can't skip, partly because you need quest items, partly because you may make bargains, some nice garment or weapon that is really useful to you, well hidden in the loads of linen, wool and lousy, gray, worn equipment.

For being a level 19, Arisal had decept bagspace, over 60 slots, but it didn't take long until they were full, and yet she had panic posted loads of stuff to another char in order to make room for the run. Delayed due to a constant throwing and cleaning of the bags we finally managed to get to the master pirate himself. No, the Cruel barb didn't drop this time. But what did that matter, when I finally turned in the quests, the xp was pouring over me to that amount that Arisal towards the end of the evening had dinged 20, being close to 21.

The question is: has she really deserved it? Or is it cheating to get boosted? Shouldn't evry single xp be conquered through your own hard work, killing mob after mob? Yes and now I believe. If you're completely new in the game, you'll miss quite a lot if a nice friend of yours will help you to powerlevel by boosting you through every instance in the game. You won't learn a thing about instance playing and you won't experience the content in the same way as if you have to do take down the bosses the hard way. To boost a newbie is not to help them in the long run.

But I can't see anything wrong in helping someone that already has got a level 70 char to pull up another one a bit faster and easier. The whole game is about cooperation, to help each other whenever we can, no matter if it's about a group q or farming xp and gear in an instance.

Myself I've been boosting others a few times with my mage and I'd gladly do it again. It may seem a bit ridiculous, but there is something rewarding in being completely OP, to AoE dozens of mobs to death, seeing them falling into symmetric patterns. Once upon a time I was sneaking around in these areas like a fragile, scared little gnome, dying if someone even breathed upon me. Now the roles are the opposite. The revenge is sweet.

The pros and cons of being mage

The reason for my decision to roll a mage a little more than a year ago was quite unclear to be honest. I had read a little too many fantasy books, what else? Actually I didn't have much to base it on. I guess it was a lot about hazard. Am I happy about my choice? Yes, I guess I'm pretty happy. I could probably have picked worse. Would I do the same decision today, with my current knowledge? Maybe. If there's any reader that is thinking about rolling a mage I'll give you a quick evaluation here:

Good

Beginner friendly - and challenging
Mage is a good class for a beginner to pick I think. Throw a ball. The mob is hurt. The mob die. You drink. Repete. But to become a really god mage it takes quite a lot of thinking. If you want to get out the most possible damage per time and mana you put into it, you have to learn about mana management, learn to time your cooldowns with other classes, learn to do the right thing in a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.

Polymorf
When I first learned the spell I was a bit disappointed. Hey, you can only make one sheep at a time,what different does it make when you have a whole bunch of mobs to take care of? But as time passes you understand that this is one of the most powerful cc:s in the game. At higher levels the sheep lasts for an entire minute - and best of all: you have no cooldown. You just resheep - over and over again, as long as needed. Brilliant in five man instances, but also very handy when you're soloing and can take time for bandaging yourself or having a mana gem before grabbing the last mob.

Your own food crate
You're self sufficient when it comes to food and drinks. It's lovely never having to calculate how many stacks you may need to bring to a far away corner of the world. You don't even have to make a fire to make the food. It can hardly get any easier.

Teleport
It isn't as good as the beaming device in Star Trek, but it's not far from it. It's gold to be able to shorten your travelling time for the price of a few silver for the rune, especially when you're levelling and the the quest chains take you from one island to the other, in all sorts of directions. As a mage you get a bit spoiled and you don't realize it until you try playing an non teleporting class. Then you know.

Iceblock
A lovely button for panic sitations that frost mages have enjoyed for a long while but that we fire mages got only recently. Of course you can't be very useful when you're stuck in piece of ice, but you win a few seconds and can give things a second thought - hoping that luck or someone in the party will come to your rescue.

Blink
I never grow tired of being able to jump away from the mobs in this miniature teleportation or to be able to speed up a bit, running back in an instance after a wipe. Its fun and looks cool.

Popular
Being a mage you're quite popular when it comes to instance playing. You're definitely not in the class of a healer or a tank, but at least you're not in the very bottom of the ranking list. Many people want a mage for the sheep, a decent dps and for free food and drink.

They won't blame you
Being a mage you rarely play the leading character. In Gruul you're supposed to tank, but otherwise there are no huge expectations on your performance. You're more of a background person, one soldier among the others. You're supposed to make decent dps, not getting aggro from the tank. No more, no less. If anything go wrong it's probably the healer or the tank that is blamed, no matter how unfair it is. As a mage you can generally go free from uncomfortable attention.

Cheap repairs
Of course you can swear at only being able to wear cloth, that gives such a lousy protection. On the other hand it's much cheaper to patch some simple clothes than to engage into blacksmithing. In spite of dying many times, my repair bills after an instance are nothing if you compare it to the poor tank.

Not so good

Taxi driver
As nice and natural it is being able to offer a portal after finishing an instance, as unpleasant is it to get all those whispers in Stormwind, people wanting you to make portals over and over again. The worst thing is that if you fall for it and make a portal for someone, you instantly have ten new requests to deal with - you have made people aware of that there's a living taxi driver in the middle of the square. Of course you can ignore the whispers, but all that pink text is shining into my eyes and finally I have to have a look at it, in order not to miss calls from friends.

Kitchen slave
Your biggest asset in the game is time. The gold you have, the epic gear you're wearing ar after all just a result form how you've chosen to spend your time. Mages are expected to spend their time making bread and water for others. It seems that other players seriously believe that we think this is great fun, the thing we want to do most of all in the game. It's one thing if you're dealing with guildies, friends or party members. I love to share my food and drinks with them. But to slave for total strangers doesn't make anyone happy.

Too popular
To be a mage isn't quite as being a hunter, but it's not far from it. There are thirteen of us in a dozen and if you're thinking about making a career in the game you can hardly expect the top guilds of the server standing in a queue, begging you to join their guilds.

You're not a star
If you want to get general admiration from the public, feel that you're making big difference and that your participation has meant a big difference for the success of the raid, the mage class isn't the first thing to pick. You'lll rarely - or at least not without big efforts - top the damage lists, you'll se yourself passed by rogues and warlocks. In Karazhan your cc is suddenly useless, while others can keep on shackling, banishing, fearing and trapping. If several players die during the fight and a druid is there for battleressing, the mage isn't the obvious choice. According to Blizzard the mage class is right now supposed to be specialists in making good aoe. But that's not enough. It's no hazard that raiding mages for quite a while have been wining immensly in all sorts of forums.

All those corpse runs
Graygraygray is the world to you, quite often. One hit and you're down. Being a mage you're visiting the graveyard much more often than others.

The water drinking
Sometimes there's a bit too much of water drinking in order to stay fun, at least while you're levelling. Kill one or two mobs. Drink. Over and over again. In instances you allways feel like a drag anchor, keeping the whole party back by the constant demand of drinking. You don't do it to be mean, but you still fee how the whole group impatiently is drumming their fingers, waiting for you to get mana back.

A mage is a mage is a mage
Being a mage you can't do much else but being a dps machine. I can't help getting a bit envious thinking of palas, shammys and druids that can vary their role when they feel like a change (even though it may take them some gold and new gear). And priests at least can switch between shadow and holy. But a mage is a mage. You throw balls, no matter if they're done by fire, ice or are generally magic. This is my standard rotation for a boss fight:
1. Make five scorches in order to get the boss vulnerable for fire
2. Throw eight fire balls. Throw in one scorch to keep up the debuff.
3. Repeat until the boss is down. Interrupt from time to time if you're risking to take aggro.
It's no wonder it sometimes feels just a little bit repetitive....

Summary
This was about the pros and cons of being a mage. In this evaluation the good sides are dominating. After all I love my mage, Larisa is and will remain my main. She's fragile like few others, but she's got a hell lot of dps when things are running as they should. A creature that is constantly touching the limits. To kill or to get killed, heaven or hell. We'll see what Blizzard has planned for the mage class in the expansion. Myself, I'll stick to it, whatever happens. If you've once got a mage heart there's no way to let it go.

Bonsai trees - the art of twinking

She's aging fast, my little rogue. Suddenly I realize that she's got the third of an xp bar left until she'll be old enough to buy sprits (20 year age limit in Sweden). I need to make decisions fast. If I want her to go to BG to take revenge for every time I've been owned as Larísa, it has do be done soon, the moment will pass quickly.

Even though I'm a dedicated PvE player I can't help feeling a bit like doing it. The few guest appearances I've done in the battlegrounds have always ended in a complete failure. And more than once it has been a rogue that has made my life miserable by appearing out of nothing, backstabbing me. My only defence as a flag watcher been to walk around puffing small arcane explosions to discover the nasty little creatures stealthing around in time. Now I've got the chance to switch it all over, I could myself become one of those mean sneakers, mercilessly killing some innocent little newbie, who is all confused, taking his first look at BG by level 19, wondering what it's all about.

Actually as a normal, levelling newcomer you haven't got a chance in BG. At that stage you've hardly heard the word twink, and you don't really realize that PvP is a separate world, and that you'll be meeting players who have specialized in it, players in a completely different division to yourself.

I can't help being a bit fascinated by the phenomena, how twink makers put a fortune in time and gold, shaping their characters until perfection. It's somehow a bit like the art of bonsai - it looks just as a huge, well developed tree, only that it's in such a small scale, but still taken care of, cut by scissors for nails. Or why not compare it to a castrated singer, doomed to forever sing by a angelresembling child voice.

While the rest of us greedily devour every xp we can get, they're facing the opposite problem - how can they get all the best gear they need from instances, without going over the roof? The smallest mistake can be fatal. We've all heard about players who after investing thousands and thousands of gold in a twink accidently get xp after visiting a new place or thoughtlessly making a BG quest. What's done is done, there's no way back. If there was a medicine to eat to prevent you from growing older (as there is in the Swedish childbook Pippi Longstocking) and it was sold at the AH, I'm convinced it would be sold for a fortune.

I don't know yet if Arisal will have a go in BG and hit someone hard in his head with her rolling pin before she rushes into Deadmines and comes out as level 20. She'll never ever become a twink. She'll be a fullgrown rogue with a mind of her own. That's a promise!

Defending the wowian language

There are many initial obstacles to overcome when you first start out playing WoW. To understand the game mechanics, to learn how to handle your char and your spells, to get the grip on how questing and levelling are connected, to orient yourself in the huge world - that keeps growing for every step you take.

One step that I remember was pretty hard to begin with was learning the language. To at least take your Wowish to a basic level in order to being able to communicate with your coplayers, to simply understand what they were saying.

Probably this step was bigger to me, since I until that moment never had played an online game, not even spent any time chatting on MSN in the ordinary world. The abbreviations that I guess are widely accepted, not only in WoW, were utterly cryptic to me.

It isn't evident, especially not for a Swedish player, what BRB means. Actually it IS the short form of a Swedish cattle race, but I guessed it wasn't referring to that, even though I saw some cows peacefully grassing in Elwynn Forest. It seemed unlikely that someone would want to discuss what sort they were. And what about LFM? It could mean Wages Benefits, if you were trying to translate it to Swedish? SM? It could hardly mean the Swedish Masterships of some sport?

As time passed it cleared to me, party because I'm so old and wise (?) that I've stopped caring about my dignity and actually don't hesitate asking stupid questions, partly thanks to some dictionaries and newbie guides that I found through the discussion forums on the net.
Nowadays I'm rarely lost in what's said, as long as it isn't shortforms for class specific spells, where I honestly don't always know that much about other classes.

If anyone writes in general: "LFM SL Her 1DPS/CC RTG" it's obvious to me that here's a group that is looking for a fifth member to run the instance Shadowlabs in heroic mode. They want someone that is making a lot of damage and has some good ability to temporary get mobs out of the way. And as soon as they've got this fifth member they'll be ready to start running the instance.

Talk about effective communication, when you're thinking about it! Just by 23 characters (inclusive spaces) this person has managed to tell me exactly what he wants. If he or she would have tried to explain it to me without abbreviations it would have taken a small essay to do it.
Of course it isn't by accident the system of abbreviations has reached those levels. After all it's easier to kill a mob if you don't have to write and read walls of text while you're doing it.

I think there's a purpose using most sorts of short forms. But there is one that annoys me. Three small letters: Plz. I realize it's probably not used out of evilness, the one that's writing it probably only is trying to be polite, but I can't help associating it to the stubborn beggars in Stormwind, making any level 70 mage with any instinct of self-preservation to keep away from there. Boost Stockade plz. Water plz. Portal Darnassus plz. I use plz as a sort of filter. You know, sometimes I actually do portals to strangers in order to be kind, as long as I'm not in a hurry or doing something else. But only to people who have bothered to write "please". The Plz requests I ignore consequently.

Then it's not only the abbreviations you have to learn, but also a lot of terms, often a sort of mixture between Swedish and English words that you hardly can find in a dictionary. My own blog is now exeption. I write happily about nuking, sheeping, aggroiing and dispelling, its pugged and spanked and stats and rep and loot are discussed all the time. If I had read this a year ago it would have puzzled my mind. Now the Wowish has come into my vocabulary to that extent that I sometimes in my ordinary life have to bite my tongue not to describe everyday situations in WoW-terms to non-players.

But actually there's nothing wrong about it. It's just the same thing as when a carpenter is talking about his trying plane and not about "that thing". The Wowish helps us to communicate effectively and according to me the abbreviations and the special words are legitimate and meaningful. The language works like a brook that is changing direction now and then in order to come down the mountainside the quickest and easiest way. It'ts constantly developing and when new needs appear - then we invent new words, to simpler and faster be able to express what we want to say. The Wowish helps us to play and cooperate.

On the other hand you certainly have to be kind and understanding to those that are new to the game and haven't conquered the wowian language yet. Explain to those who ask without disparaging comments and raised eyebrows, reach out a hand and help them into the game

That said I finally still want to request a boycott of "plz". Let's join our forces and extinct this weed of the wowian language once for all!

In the country of pugs

PUG - pick up group. The very combination of letters gives many players shivers, because of memories that they'd rather repress.

Most annoying are the pug groups that never ever starts. You've joined a LFG channel and suddenly you turn up in an "almost ready" group. You "only" miss a healer. A druid comes around, yippee! Ready to go? Noooo... turned out to be dps. New impatient waiting - eventually you manage to get a healer. Yes! Whereafter the tank bursts: "soz gtg, bye". And that's how it continues, like in a sort of eternal dance, one step forward, one backwards, why time passes and fewer and fewer seem to feel like going for an instance, until you finally have to resign, realize that you're screwed, it has all turned into nothing. In worst case you've spent two or three hours doing... nothing!

Actually I prefer any kind of lousy pug, as long as it at least manages to get to the starting point and goes ahead in some kind of direction. You just have accept the sources if irritation. Like all those players who seems to have taken it as a life mission to torture mages. You know the tank that happily rushes into the next room, pulling in spite of the fact that you've only got ¼ of your mana pool left. Or trigger happy hunters, that time after time break your sheep, not realizing they did it themselves, starting to yell at you when you don't resheep fast enough.

I let it pass, as long as the pace is decent and we're getting somewhere, I'm all happy. It's those sudden exits and the non time limited AFK:s that make me furious, swearing promising myself: never ever a pug again.

There was a time when I pugged myself through the game. I belonged to a guild that was huge, but so loosely connected that it from time to time mostly worked as an extra chat. There rarely was any organized instance playing. So I had to pug, not the least my Kara attunement. I ddin't think much about it - it became a habit for me to play in English, without access to any TS, and constantly getting those small surprises. Sometimes it was like wine, sometimes like water. That was normal to me. Later I've been spoiled running instances with my Swedish guild, communicating through TS, except for some "r" or "brb" in the party chat. That's why I rarely pug these days. Which actually isn't only a good thing.

You see, the pugs have some advantages as well! If nothing else it's a brilliant possibility to see new players, to make your friends list grow. To get new impulses, maybe seeing a mage colleague to exchange ideas with, to test how it is to party with some kind of class or spec that you're missing in your guild or in your normal circles. And it also gives you so many memories! Fun ones like less fun ones.

One of the worse memories I have is from a veritable horror pug that I experienced when I was looking for the kara key part in Arcatraz. I should have known something was bad right from the start. The self appointed leader in the group, a rogue from a quite well known raiding guild on our server, showed his attitude right from the start. During the first pull someone died (a non mob). Without any mercy he kicked the poor priest, claiming he couldn't heal. Quick pick of a new one from the LFG channel. During the rest of the run we all went anxiously, tipping on our toes. Sometimes we comforted each other in whispers. We all felt like the slightest mistake could result in a kick from the group (a sort of insecurity that normally won't make you perform any better, rather the opposite). And surprise, surprise. When we came to the last boss he kicked the tank. Not that he had done any major mistake (what I could see), but the rogue simply thought that the fight was too hard, that the tank didn't have the required gear. Instead he took in a guildie. This rogue was actually a real big ass and now and then I was wondering if I shouldn't have left the group, protesting against his unethical behaviour. On the other hand -he evidently knew what he was doing. He's marking was good, he gave clear and wise instructions. Efficient. He wanted this instance cleared in the smoothest, quickest way. And he actually wasn't picking on me, on the contrary, he asked me if I was interested in raiding, since I wanted the key part, and encouraged me to make an application to his guild, in which case he would put a good word for me. So I stayed along the whole way, but I didn't have any attention to apply to that guild. I don't feel like playing with bullies no matter how successful they are.

But I've also experienced the opposite, in a quite special run in heroic Botanica. I've never ever done such a cosy, but looking to the accomplishments, terrible run. The whole group, consisting of people from Finland, Denmark, Turkey and Sweden, was sort of shimmering out of love. Everything was SO cute. If someone made a mistake everybody was full of understanding. We were constantly comforting, praising and hugging each other. And in one way that's nice, but it turned out impossible to accomplish anything. We got stuck on boss number two, the one that is healed by the small flowers, and didn't get anywhere further. Wipe after wipe after wipe. And all the time this lovely, understanding atmosphere. We kept doing this for a few of hours until a couple of parents gave up, since their babies were about to have their first morning meal in a couple of hours. It was expensive, fun in one aspect, but not the kind of run I want to do daily.

Then there are pugs that aren't real pugs, but rather guild runs, with one or two added strangers. Normally it works out very fine. I've seen it from both sides. If you're four people that are used to play together, it usually isn't hard to get the fifth one to become a good team member. It's hard for pugged player to start making a fuss, going his own way, if he has four against him.

To be that extra person yourself isn't bad either, usually there's a solidness in an almost full group, you don't have to face the trouble with people that suddenly leave. The only thing is that the communication can become a bit troublesome. If the ones that are in the same guild are speaking to each other on TS or Ventrilo, it's easily done that they miss to give essential information to the fifth party member, that becomes somewhat of a side wagon, that has to try to come along on the ride the best he can.

If the guild isn't English speaking it can become really troublesome. I saw that doing the Durnhold quest in my attunement. I was pugging as usual and turned up in a group with four players, all belonging to the same polish guild. Good, I thought, thinking that this would be easy - it was almost as good as a guild run. But I was dead wrong. Those Polish players obviously didn't have any TS. Instead they kept using the party chat. In Polish. I really had to look carefully to find the english words, the instructions, and mostly I had to guess what they actually were planning to do. Finally I understood that they didn't talk much about the instance at all. They were having a quarrel. There's a saying for it in Swedish, "Polish parliament", when everybody is trying to talk at the same time. Sometimes they said a few words in English, so I too could see how the quarrel developed. I some strange way we actually managed to get through the instance, but the last word from the tank was that he never ever would tank another instance with the other guys. Suddenly they were all gone, taking HS each one of them and I was wondering how they ever would manage to get that guild to stick together. But then I shrugged, happy to at last have gotten access to BM. This was just another one of all those pug stories to put into my memory bank slot.

Yesterday it was time to have a pug again, for the first time in a very long time. We were only a few guild members online and I was desperate to run an instance. I joined the LFG channel. Karazhan, Zul Aman or heroic Slave Pens. I went for the latter, that seemed to be the most realistic choice. The hour that passed before we got away made me swear - we had the worst kind of "suddenly-finds-out-that-you-can't-go-fuss". Worst was a rogue that joined who suddenly realized he didn't have the key. When he was away to buy it, he found out he couldn't afford it, he ony had 6g. Thanks and goodbye. But at last we took off, and it turned out to be the best pug ever. Only players that actually knew what they were doing. Like the hunter, who happily and willingly kidded a naga, so elegantly and confidently that you had tears in your eyes out of admiration. Not a wipe. Total agreement about loot. The only bad thing was, of course, that it ended too quickly.

To pug is to gamble, but among all those blanks and almost-blanks there also are some winners. After the first prize yesterday I'm committed to do some pug gambling again. A decision that I'll probably stick to until I draw the next blank lot....