Report from the front: PUG Prowess!

We get too many horror stories of pick up groups (PUGs) from hell here, thought I would share a good one with you.

I joined a completely random PUG today in Hells Precipice, I even violated my own rule of joining with people with silly or obnoxious names...the group was
Awesome.

A genuine pleasure to play with. Nobody talked smack, got into "leet" arguments, or did any of the many stupid behaviors we all have come to know and cringe from.
We went through the mission deliberately, intelligently, and planned strategy before each big fight. Few surprises, some great pitched battles, and a triumphant victory at the end.
I didn't get everyone's names, but I'd like to thank:

Harrek the Morbid - party leader
Captain Planet
and the rest of the team for a great adventure.

This kind of situation gives me great hope for the future of the game.

Talesin

Wow! How nice to hear a nice report.

I also had a great PUG: Queen Justice and the rest: Thanks from the bottom of my heart! It was a genuine pleasure to play with all of you and I had a blast!

*notes that a NICE thread gets buried in all the BS B#$%ing threads*

I was grouped with Captain Planet (and his brothers I believe?) for a Fissure run, went pretty well

I don't know why, but it seems to me that PUGs have been getting progressively better over the last 3 weeks or so. Granted, I've been advancing in the game and difficulty of the missions kind of forces people to cooperate or die, but that never seemed to stop them before.

I used to enter a PUG with the virtual equivalent of a wince and a sigh, but now I hold out hope they won't be losers.

Maybe all the jerks have moved on to the next game? Gotten bored? Gone on summer vacation? Whatever, if it's in fact true that they ARE going away, thank God. Don't come back.

I haven't had problems in PUG's in a long time. Matter of fact, after beating Elona's for the rest of the storyline I never had to repeat a mission due to the PUG's being that good.

Hells Precipe? Isn't that mission... easy, anyway? Doing it with henchies I succeded on 2nd try That might be reason it was doable with PUG

I have the same impression. PUGs are getting better. Maybe the majority of the players making to late game missions are more mature and cooperative. I ran into a decent group late night to do the 15 attr in desert. and we even posted for pics beside that serpent . I hope PUGs would get better and better.

I forgot the names, but thank you my group. and thank to other successful PUGs I ran into as well.

Ok I wish I wasnt asking this question on my account, but I havent found an answer anywhere else. Please forgive me for sounding un-leet, but what does PUG stand for. I know it means "a random assortment of (usually inept) individuals gathered for the purpose of accomplishing a quest or mission in the game Guild Wars".

Here are some things I think it might stand for. Let me know if any of these are right.

People Usually Grunt

Police Using Grenades

Partially Universal Greed

Politically Unitarian Girls

Prolitariate Usurp Government

Those are my best guesses. Warm or cold?

Pick-Up Group.


Imagine playing street basketball by forming random teams of strangers.

geez tyvm. I have been playing the game since E34E and I still didnt know that. I really apreciate you helping an ignoranus like me out.

You know, Forscience, I didn't either until someone in one of the earlier post...or maybe it was a post on another forum....said what it meant. And here I thought it was a derrogatory thing about poor gaming manners.

Trying not to get off topic, but for those who would like to know:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...hlight=acronym

Just goes to show that people with weird names aren't necessarily incessantly annoying pests.

Just... a slight majority are >_>

No no no - you have it backwards. Every mission is easy with henches - the challenge is in using PUGs

Personally I think there's an excessive use of acronyms. I try to keep their use to a minimum regardless of the crowd I'm conversing with.

Agreed. /begin aggregious use of acronyms LOL! I really try not to use them too much. One can't be sure that everyone's on the same page, acronym-wise so it's just safer to literally spell it out IMHO.

/end aggregious use of acronyms

As well as the lacking use of the shift key (or any grammar and punctuation for that matter), unless used to cap every single letter in the sentence.

Heh. Some acronyms have stuck around since the days of 110 baud acoustic modems, so are generally accepted of course.

I should add my own two bits about random grouping. Several weeks back I had a heck of a Time trying to find a party that would accept my ranger primary for the Riverside mission. This despite the ranger being my third character through the area. Finally out of frustration I just started adding people into a new party whenever it seemed that they couldn't get a break. The end result was two rangers, an elementalist, and three necromancers.

http://templars.org/gw/teamplay1.jpg <- here is us getting to Sanctum Cay.

http://templars.org/gw/teamplay2.jpg <- here is us getting to Amnoon Oasis.

Sure not the toughest missions in the game, but when you're tired of waiting around for a group because noone will party with you, it's often better to just party up and go. Nobody died and I still play with a couple of them.

I also had a GREAT experience with random players for Thunderhead Keep. My Wa/Mo teamed up with a mixed party who had a leader who knew what he was doing. We easily (I'd like to emphasize easily) beat the mission and moved on with just one try.

On the opposite side of that coin though, with another warrior of mine I teamed up with four guys from the same guild who SEEMED to know what they were doing, but the leader I think spent a little too much effort overanalyzing things (think back to "leeroy jenkins") and after the third try he and several others dropped out.


Some of you out there should give pickup groups a chance. I realize it's aggravating to be stuck in a bad team, but I find that the good experiences outnumber the bad ones by a good margin.

Nah, personally I think that Elona and River are *the* missions that show which people in PUG have any idea of teamwork, skill choice, etc. Last 3 missions aren't that bad.
That, and Underworld of course

Well I had both yesterday. I a truly craptastic PUG for Thunderhead Keep and and one the very best PUGs I've ever had for FoW.

There was this Monk character in Thunderhead who was such a total ass. He wasn't even the group leader, but assumed the role anyways. Add to that this one lvl18 ranger who had been run there spamming "no let me rush in, I can deal 120 damage to eveyone in one shot" horsecrap. So we get to the end and mister know-it-all Monk is like "you ----ing idiots understand the plan? You do right?" So I check my chat, make sure team and all are checked and lo and behold no plan. 5 of us respond with "uh, dude, we haven't talked about a plan yet." He starts cursing some more about how we're morons, the ranger won't stop talking about his 120 damage attack, so while the rest of us are figuring out what to do, Ranger and monk aggro both sides of the arena forcing all of to scramble and we lose the mission, predictably. *sigh* god---- PUGs.

I jump over to FoW, cuz America FINALLY has favor and get in this group who it turns out only one person had successfully been down there, and you know what? We rocked. We were the tightest, most bad-ass group. Completed two mission in like 20 minutes, got 15,000 exp, awesome loot, no bickering, no noobs (not really), no crap from anyone. Had to leave the group later and actually apologized for having to go. There were so stinking cool about. Everyone thanked each other, and we parted ways.

No point in this post really, but I still have faith in PUGs, but I am also less patient with them now and more prone to leave dumb groups instead of suffering through it. My time is valuable and these losers aren't worth it.

That's all.

Well, it's not like you can't notice some types of "agro all" people instantly, like "Pro W/Mo LFG", or basically anyone acting like he's center of world, or spamming "FFS start mission". But still, more often than not, random people prove to be dissapoinment over even less expierenced guild mates - these at least will listen to you, since you are more "advanced" in game.

Allthough I had random group *finally* do Ring of Fire with me, after failing *again* with henchies (damn them and their "I enjoy walks on the beach and swimming in lava" ). Even though we barely made it through some Mursaat Monk boss, since we didn't have Mesmer, it was still good, no one aggroed needlessly, no one complained when he died to repeated meteors from imps, they knew how to focus fire. Allthough, it might be just because we didn't have a single warrior there, so no one to charge at hordes of monsters and get us killed

A little of all of that, I'd say. Battlefield 2 has definitely soaked up some of the jerks, many of them are doubtless on vacation, and the reduction in need for PvP players to play PvE (which they hated, and it showed) has probably helped too.

Captain Pluto?

on topic again: i had many great pugs. a good pug just works without much talk needed.