If pugs are so bad, then how did you meet your guildies?

Legitimate question here.

Unless you're playing with people that you've known before Guild Wars, or signed up with a large guild without ever having played with them beforehand, pugging is the only way to actually play with others.

I may be a dinosaur dating from the beginning of GW, but I find it strange that hating on pugs is all the rage here.



Looking back on the old days, the choice between terrible players (which we all were to some extent) or even more terrible lifeless henchies was clear.

And hey, this is how I actually met my guildies. People I'm still playing with today.

Well, not literally today, as we've all pretty much quit playing.



This day and age, people hero/hench everything and think this is actually a good thing.

And I'm jumping on the perma-H/H bandwagon myself, as forming a party with real people pretty much implies Ursan Blessing now, which often makes me accidentally press Alt-F4 while forming up (couldn't help it, pressed Alt to find the Xunlai and F4 to switch to Weapon Set 4 — but now that I'm out, I don't think I'll log back in).



So how did you meet your guildies?

PvP, through friends, answering/asking questions, forums etc.

First few guilds - Random invites
Rest - Guru people

It's not that ALL PUGs are horrible.

It's just that an awful lot of them are.

Plus, from both sides of the coin, H/H seem more appealing: if you're extremely proficient at your class, a pickup group that may be full of inexperienced peeps is not a nice prospect. If you're new to your class, a pickup group that may be full of highly experience peeps who will laugh at your ineptitude is a similarly unpleasant prospect.

In comparison, Alesia has never, ever complained about the hundreds upon hundreds of times I've got her killed.

Anyway, to answer your actual question: from other places outside of GW.

Family, Real Life friends...and GWG.


Maybe a chance meeting or two...

pming someone who posted a guild announcement on this site about 2 years ago. Through guildmates I met other people, then other people and on and on

Random invites. HA runs and gvg guesting. Oh and guru lf guild posts.

First guild was random, rest were through contacts.

I original started playing with a friend I'd known for years. We joined a random guild together. He quit, I left taking a few friends I'd made from that guild with me.

I still play regularly with one person from that initial guild and made a couple of other friends from forming farm groups in SF when the greens there were sellable. I was to play with two I met there over the next two years. Never really pugged much after that, we would just take henchmen for the rest- until heroes arrived much later.

Now I'm just in a guild on my own in an alliance with another one-person guild. Best arrangement I've had guildwise.



Hi Lagg, LC was good while it lasted

It's still good to play with you lot when I get the chance.

i met mine in a PUG.

I made my own guild, I invited people I knew personally.

An existing online community, we founded a guild based on existing friendships.
The situation is slightly different for me in other MMOs I play:
Two guilds I joined after doing a lot of RP, and repeatedly meeting members of it during those events.
Another I created based on a concept and both RL and existing ingame friends joined.

I think this sums it up nicely.

Back when I was actively pugging, the game was newer and there was an added challenge of finding good people to play with. Of course, no one was really experienced back then.

Even then you could tell if someone was a plain bad player (both in terms of skill and in terms of being fun to play with) and of all the people I've ever played with, I'd say only 1 in 100 is still on my friends list today.



I've played with a heck of a lot of people over the first year or two. A few of those I still sometimes play with today, which I can't help but find much more rewarding than the monotonous robotic efficiency of H/H.

While things have gotten a lot easier because of this, the game has really turned from a brilliant multiplayer to an average single player RPG for me.



PvP is the multiplayer part? Yeah, I've heard that before.

In the current state its in, I'll pass on that one.

random invites.
I don't care enough to look for a guild

Back in early days pugging was not that bad. Just like most people i puged at beginning of game: everyone was inexperienced and thus a bit humble, pug-related problems we less of a issue because of that.

Decent lfg message netted decent group, etc ... Thats how i met people from my first guild. (which died just like OPs)

Problem of pugs is that majority of former newbies transformed to noobs.

For a while, we ran a lot of partial (4/8, 5/8) guild/alliance groups for ToPK - we'd check out for possible members this way. We'd filter the social, experienced - pleasant - guys and gals, and we'd PM them after a run. "Hey, are you happy with your guild ATM? 'cause we're recruiting and thought you'd be a good addition for us! =D" It WORKED. We gained several good members this way. So true, they're not ALL horrible. But a good portion of our runs was ended in a "thought he was a good recruit until <insert reason here>".

The problem is when you feel you've milked out the area - all your PUGs within a mostly alliance groups (which back then, averaged the 6/8 or 7/8 guild players nightly) suddenly start to suck (when HM came out, ugh) and you move to other forms of recruitment - Guru is one of them. Our old alliance is another (unfortunate, but still gotta consider it).

Today, if I PUG, it's an Ursan group for DoA or UW, or the random FoW group I'll join (not Ursan though... always preferred running good ol' builds in there). Haven't met a lot of people I'd ask to be in the guild though.

EDIT: Note that I include my alliance members as my guildies, we're just one big bunch of weirdos under different guild names :P.

Well, FoW and UW pugs were pretty bad.

Leader: Ok guys DO NOT TALK TO THE GHOST
Leader: DO NOT TALK TO THE GHOST
Team: gogogogogogogog
(Enters)
(Loading/Downloading)
(Screen comes up but so does the return to outpost button)


However my longest standing guild my friend met in a FoW PUG. Cept he was the only PU in that PUG. So it was more of a group filler for the guild situation.

I met my guildmates back when we were all noobs, and most people were still noobs, and people were willing to help and learn with each other.

when i first started playing i got a random invite from this guy who also invited my bf (me and my bf bought the game at the same time) but other than the guy we were the only 2 active players

all the guy did was shout at us and get us to hold stuff for him in pre so he can take his character post and make another well we both got fed up and left then a rl friend invited us to our current guild and i wouldnt leave them now for all the tea in china

First guild was RL friends and we were God awful, next guild was through a PUG (but we were horrible, then got a little less horrible I think) the others were through GW friends.

Now I'm just in a guild with my girlfriend, playing with heroes is much better - if anything goes wrong, it's their fault.