I’ll let you guys in on a little secret, sometimes when I get tired of playing with myself, I just want to get into a group of people and play with them too. Every time I’m playing with a couple other people, it’s so instense and satisfying I forget why I was ever playing with myself in the first place. There’s just something about having a couple of helping hands that really gets the job done. Sometimes, after a long hard night of solo play it really feels good to go out with a group oriented bang.
Enough about my personal life though, more talking about playing with a solid team in WAR. This is something that applies to almost every single activity in life as we know it. The more people working in unison, the easier things go. Things would go a lot smoother for me if I didn’t hate everyone so much, but that’s just how I roll. Iron Rock can be a painful place to pug or roam solo in the lakes. Thanks to frequent rr80 premades of Order griefers running scens or guys like Krieb and Incomingray stalking around in the lakes, a lower RR player in T4 runs into a lot of resistance for getting that purple bar moving.
How does one go about getting a group? Well, the first thing you can do is spam region chat. Chances are you’ll get the handful of other lowbies out there that are wearing Devastator and Fallen Explorer gear. Find yourself a couple of R40’s and you’re a lucky one. Generally, I avoid region chat like the plague. The real first step is to weasel your way into a guild that has a fairly active Alliance. Once you’re in a hot alliance you’ll occasionally see things like “lfm premade, yarr hurr durr”. Be prepared to hop into vent and do whatever the hell they tell you to do. If you have shitty gear, then /hide yourself and flat out LIE to them if they ask you directly what you’re wearing. Only have Dev/Anni? Tell em its Sent and Conq. Shitty looking weapon? Warden gear is a nice baseline, look up something fancy on http://www.arsenalofwar.com/ . Yeah, you’ll feel like a cockbag for a while but if your group is good enough you can get by with a lot more RR than otherwise.
Now eventually someone will catch on and look you up on RealmWAR if you’re not performing up to standards. With any luck they’ll feel bad for you and start dragging you through some dungeons. Just put on your sappy puppy eyes and beg forgiveness. Feed nonsense that you’re trying really hard and this was the fastest way to get in with a decent group. You chances are slim, but it’ll beat the hell out of pugging in the end, and if you’re sincere about it they might fold and accept you. Like I said, slim chance, but I’ve seen it happen on occasion. We occasionally get a lowbie, or friend of a friend that cracks R40 for the first time and he has a couple freebie weeks of gimped Sent/DP/Tyrant runs just to get him some wards and bring him up to par. It doesn’t last forever though, so you might bounce to a couple guilds before you can hack it with the big boys.
Gear isn’t everything, but it’s a nice low watermark for getting into a decent premade. At least one thing you can count on while bouncing around to a couple different guilds is picking up various playstyles and learing what classes are good for. Ask a lot of questions and keep up the retard-facade. The less you appear to know, the sooner everyone will be pooping out information for you to disseminate. Granted, people are generally stupid so take most of it as nonsense. Occasionally someone will say something that actually makes sense. Go ahead and add these guys to your friends list. They’re important. Once you’ve seen the workings of half a dozen different guild and alliance premades, you should be able to nail down whatever it is your class is expected to do. Figure out how you work best with different combinations of classes, and start to establish yourself as one of those people that actually know what they’re doing.
Now that you’ve gotten around and have a couple dozen or so people on your friends list (smart people), and a fair amount of people have seen your name performing to higher standards, you can settle down on a particular guild of your choice. This doesn’t have so much to do with how well they perform, or what the guild structure is like, but generally whether or not you can stand their presense. It took me a while to find a guild that didn’t have the token 9 year old in vent all the time (although there’s one in the alliance). My guild is full of drunken sailors that swear, curse, and glorify the sexuality of women. I can’t be in any other guild, they get mad when I rant. However, my performance on the battlefield still gets me into plenty of groups when I’m tired of running myself ragged on solo kills.
WAR is a team-based game. If you’re not on the path to running with a premade of players, then you’re just another scrub speedbump that’s bound to get run over at some point in time. If you like to solo, that’s awesome. I love getting that freenown.
Cheers!
Grimnir's Grudge 
Well I am glad you enjoy playing with yourself so much. I thought you let Scarybooster write a guest post for a minute.I usually run solo most of the time in WAR now. I tend to get pissed off most of the time at even the thought of a guild. Most of the guilds are no better than running with a pug anyways.My biggest struggle now is with my low RR Archmage is I have forgotten how to earn all the lower level RR gear. I may have to join a guild just to get geared up a little, and get started in the right direction.
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I am so glad I don’t play with you or on your server. You sound like an elitist prick. People like you keep new players from sticking around.
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/facepalm, if only you knew me.Wait… you’re that 9 year old on vent aren’t you! Goddammit! This is an ADULT BLOG. Go back to WoW! Hurr….Ok, that was really the only elitist thing that I can think of. It’s really not even that, I just make people mad with my frequent vulgarity so I try to opt out of family/casual guilds. That’s not elitist, that’s just being fucking courteous.
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In fairness, /facepalm, its how the late-game is designed. Organised groups dominate and in darwinian fashion, you either become a part of them or accept you’ll spend most of the game being blasted to bits by bomb groups. Until you get fed up and leave.I’d say its WAR’s design that discourages people from sticking around. There’s no real incentive for good teams / guilds to bring in poorly prepared newcomers unless their own numbers are falling, and only limited incentive for newcomers to try to forge effective PUGs in taking on experienced premades, given the slim chances of success.Elitism is the natural result of any game that rewards longevity of play and dedication of co-ordination. 😉
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I don’t think you are an elitist I’ve been reading your blog for a while. Although, that article makes you sound that way. Vulgarity doesn’t bother me in the least and avoinding those types of guilds is actually a courteous thing to do. I’m 35 now and nothing will make me mute someone on vent quicker than that person giving me a step by step narrative of their journey from rank 1-40. I just get sick of the “you aren’t a good player because your gear sucks” mentality. We all had shitty gear once. Perhaps I posted that earlier comment a little too hastily. :-)
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Ohhh, I see.I’m not particularly picky about gear that people pick. I was more illuminating the perspective of a good premade when they’re picking up a new player for their group. I’d rather lie about gear (since it’s really not that important) than be excluded for it.Make better sense that way?
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As another little glimpse… I run my Chosen def specced in Ruin gear from time to time… hehe
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It is tough to find the right players to pal around with. I guess it all depends upon what kind of player you are. I am far from an elitist and may on occasion burn faces, but am hardly the warband killing Bright Wizard people fear. I’m fortunate that my guild is pretty lowkey … we often run premades where we have successes and failures but in the end it’s about having fun. We run instances to gear out newbies as well as our ALTs and try to work well with others. That’s not always an easy thing to do but that’s what /ignore is for. As for the tandum griefers who gang up on people … last night I got jumped by 4 Witch Elves in Caledor. Me? Four of you? Heck one of them could’ve done me in. My cousin and I have often said we should roll the same toon and pal up … WH and WE are perfect for this and are usually the ones who excel at it. We also have some foul mouth rants but it’s all a part of the fun. Sorry you play Destro on Iron Rock … would be fun to team up with you, Grim.
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Hm, if you or anyone else chooses to play like that it’s your choice I guess, but if it were me I’d kick you the moment you started lying. But I’m not in an active guild so what to do I know. :PBtw, I run solo a lot, and while I have a high RR main I do play my alts a lot. And I run solo with them aswell. If you gank me with your uber Warlord/Sov gear then good for you sir, I hope you enjoyed those 100 free renown from my RR30 ass. It certainly pays out later when I gank you at RR40 and get 4k renown for it. Keep it up. :>
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if you play smart, and perform well (for your gear level), people notice. we let a guild in our alliance prettymuch based on the performance of the anni geared AM they had that we kept queueing with(because our healers went on hiatus for a bit) the fact he didnt /hide so we could be impressed by the “man, i cant believe he did that” factor probably helped more than hurt.
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