Warning signs when forming a farming PUG

LOL!!!
I get this ALL the time. It takes an average of 5 times to get it through all 7 skulls that they need to get rid of the quest.

Getting back to the OP's point-

For farming, I tend to have a much tougher standard for what I will tolerate in the group. For missions, capping, or more general objections, I am more open minded.

I don't worry so much about names- this would be more of a warning sign to me if we could change our names- behaviors such as scribling or drawing obscene things on the mini map will generally prompt me to request that the person stop, and if they don't, I will leave the group. I never leave without warning first.

In my mind, when you are doing a specific farming run, you have particular objectives in mind. People who are not familiar with it are welcome, but should stay back and make it clear to others that they are new to it. Was with someone on an Oro run the other night who just ran up to Oro after we got into the big room and triggered the attacks. That's frustrating when you only have an hour or so to play.

About the random dropout people criteria - I've done that a couple of times though no fault of my own - once my network cable melted, and another time our cat jumped on the modem plug and knocked it out. Bad cat!

I'm sure everyone has those problems though, can't really spot it in a character just by their names/mannerisms :P

Only a few things will prompt me to boot a person from a pug.

1: The deadly Silence brigade. If you dont communicate, you'r not grouping with me, okay?

2: Gogogogogogogogogogo!!!1! Impatience before the start of a mission or trip to FoW= Death for the team in the mission, as these people dont appreciate the time it takes to get these things done.

3: Monk 1: "I'm running 'X type non-cookie smiting build.'"
Player 2: "OMG plz go Healing."
Monk 1: "No. I dont have the right skills or runes for it"
Player 2: "Plz?"
Leader: *boots player 2* *sighs* "Sorry about that Monk 1."
Monk 1: "Thats alright. Lets find someone who knows what theyre doing."

4: "OMG, 3 monk teams are nubz" Go search 'Smiting' on guru or wiki, my friend

5: I know the OP wasnt entirely serious in all his allegations, but the one that struck a dead note with me was the one about <lvl18 minions. Now for anyone that thinks that one level is the end of the world, have you considered that 1 point might well be invested elsewhere? 20 points = a lot for a secondary attribute and besides, nobody complains about monks not having 16 healing prayers - I'd rather not shell out the 10k+ for the rune if i was to go healing. I'll stick to 15 smiting myself Death runes are also a fair amount. Granted, not nearly as much as the monk runes, but still, not everyone has the cash and some people prefer minor or even SHOCK HORROR Major runes

edited for my major typo

so "Teh 1337 Ganja Pwner" would be a bad thing .. got it !

I rarely boot, but when I do, its because of reasons like these:

Silence, especially from one necro when there are two or more in the group.

People who refuse to listen and go off on their own. You can debate rationally, but still do your job. I'll go with the vote of the group, so should you. Since I usually go with guildies, we're likely to all agree.

Constantly impatient people. One gogogogo I can handle, enough pushing when its obvious we're not ready = da boot. "Setting up skills" means we're not ready. Leave when we're not ready, we'll go back and boot you.

Less relevant to farming, but does happen, especially for SF and UW. Kidnapping. When doing missions I clear up my skillbar before joining, ask what they need after joining and spend 15 seconds or so setting it up before I'm ready. I'm a monk generally, and if they're not patient, I'd rather avoid them. If my skills are set up, guess I'm useless and I have no reason to go along.

As far as slow loads, I always load slow into a zone. I also lag in the first battle in a zone (varying amounts depending on how fast people rush in). Once that clears up, I'm fine and almost never lag again.

anyone (esp. Ranger primary) with Legolas or any variant thereof in their name.
Rangers who sit around and hit space, and never use an attack skill or interrupt.

People who don't know how to properly manage aggro.

Monks who request BIP on a necro in the group. Learn energy management.

Basically anyone who doesn't have a clue

Shoot.

Guess I will have to reconsider starting a Warrior/Ranger named "Teh LORD GANJA".

Oh, well.

personally, the things that make me leave goups are ppl taking too much time to answer a simple question. That probably means they are insecure about it and probably inexperienced too. If i see some1 asking a bad question i always try asking a trivial question about the zone we're farming or the build they're using. If they take too much time to answer or give a bad answer that's a bad sign.
Like when u invite a monk for a mission and ask, are u prot? (no answer) then when ppl start dieying i click on the monk to find that he's using meteor shower and fire storm and his only rez skill is a rez signet which he promptly uses as soon as some1 dies, even if there are players with rebirth or restore life on the team.

always ask what their armour is (for missions like thk) i had a ranger on my team who had LA armour or something and died in 3 hits in thk (i was a monk)
also in that same group, there was a warr who had 300 max hp, always ran away from the monks into a grp of enemies, then used heal sig to try to stay alive...

so, ask what armour everyone has, and ask their max hps

Another warning sign. When invited into a group, and they refuse to speak after you've said hello. I hate that and leave as soon as I realize it.

I've known several people who monk on 56k and do just fine. If you have never had that connection before, how do you know what it is like?

I'de rather have a laggy monk healing me than a non-laggy monk not healing me.

Boot anyone who says that right away.

I have seen several groups that will kick/replace people for breaking the deadly silence, if you can believe that.

I think some of the problem is people EXPECT you to know already what build to use or what skills you'll be using on/with them. I don't really care for somebody who tells me to use a certain build, and exactly what skills to bring... it would be different if they told me what skills work really well in that situation. But, I'm not a bot, if you wanna play with characters that you can just plop skills into the skill bar and hope they use them in the right order, get a henchie. Armor is a good thing, I'll agree with that. I'm more interested in seeing what each person brings to a team, if what they're using is ineffective in that environment, I'm pretty sure they'll realize that soon. If they don't realize that, then maybe you could give them some ideas on the second try through. Unless you just wanna boot them and not worry about it anymore, doesn't really matter.

LoL, that was hillarious about the defend droks quest people.

Wow, I'm feeling the hate here!

After reading this response I can say the feeling is mutual... you wouldn't belong in any farming group I was in. Mainly because you completely missed the point of my original post and jumped to some strange conclusions. That gap in your ability to think clearly/logically makes me sure you and I would be incompatible in a farming team.

As for target calling... I mainly run a MM Necro so I don't care about targets being called at all. I care mostly about corpses on the ground and drops. The only time I've quit groups is when one of the other members is abusive, disruptive or in any other way undermining the success of the farming run. I'm not interested in babysitting children, no matter what their age.

You need to try a little harder to make a counter argument too. I mean, it's plain as day that you invented a scenario in which I did a bunch of negative things. Then you used this to prove your point that I was an elitist idiot. Sadly, I think you proved that about yourself in the process. Though, the argument was so poor that you could probably drop elitist as an adjective.

I'm sorry if my "tongue-in-cheek" guidelines got you so hot under the collar. They were meant mostly as a guide for people with a sense of humor that enjoy successful farming runs. I guess you don't fit that demographic. Your loss, not mine.

Good luck to you in Guild Wars and in life! You will need all the luck/help you can get!

NOW BACK TO THE THREAD:

Just had a fun time this weekend with a B/P ranger group where two of the rangers showed up without pets. When confronted one of them denied it and the other called us all F---ers and left. For all the confused rangers out there reading this... B/P stands for Barrage/Pet. Bring Barrage, Charm Animal and Comfort Animal at a minimum. Also helps if Kitty/Spider/Bear/Doggie is higher than level 5, though I don't mind since I'm usually running a MM, and I don't discriminate on corpses based on level.

Oh yeah... our monk was waiting for his RL wife and kids to leave so he could get out his bong.

Weekend farming at its best! Huzzzaaah!

The whole werd name thing isnt true, my characters names are all named using "The Lich _____ "

"Legolas Skywalker" FTW! (I have never encountered anyone with that name. )