I've got enough toons to work on advancing at any one time that I can start to specialize certain functions beyond the standard - Professions.
This Druid Healer toon I'm working on as a Pick-up Group toon is going to take FOREVER to get to 60, nevermind 70. Her role is to give me an anonymous toon to play when I don't want to socialize with friends, but instead just want to play for the sake of playing, without having to "socialize" so much.
I've decided that this toon, as a healer especially, is not going to lead any groups. She'll join groups that have a leader, but if it becomes clear that there's no real "leader" in the group and everyone's hoping someone else will step up, I'm going to take my healer ass somewhere else. I do enough leading with my Hunter and Warrior toons.
Sunday afternoon, about 4PM was an example, and a small learning experience for me. I saw someone LFGing for an RFC group, so I whispered to them that I'd hop over to my Druid Healer alt in order to join them, and I did it right then, without having asked any questions. That was my first mistake.
So, I hop over and join a party, and there's three of us in it - two level 12's (a hunter and a warlock) and myself at 14. The Hunter is the leader of the party, and he LFG's on the LookingForGroup channel like this:
"LF2M RFC"
Which is fine in the most basic sense, but it demonstrated a bit of lack of experience as well, since "tank" and "healer" are the two hardest positions to fill in a team, and generally when you have one or the other, your LFG message asks specifically for the other and sometimes even mentions that one position has already been filled.
So, while it's a minor infraction, this was a red flag, and added in with my mistake of not confirming the party was already mostly-full, that's #2 in terms of black marks against the PUG itself.
Then, the third and final black mark - there's no LFG messages being sent to General, LookingForGroup or anything over the past 5-10 minutes, and the party leader says:
"Does anyone know anyone else who can come?"
At that point, I bugged out and went back to grinding with my (now) level 38 Mage.
What Did I Learn?
I'm going to be very picky about my PUGs with this toon, and get out early instead of suffering. For this reason, here are some of the things I believe I'll start doing/looking for:
I'm not leading the group. If there's not already a semi-confident leader, I'm bugging out, because I don't want to participate in wishy-washy confused advancement on a realm where 70%+ of lowbies are alts of higher level toons.
I'm willing to be the main healer in a group, but I'll be asking them to call on me when they've got the rest of the group secured, so I can grind on other alts in the mean time. My part in this deal is that I agree to be dungeon-ready (repaired, stocked with consumables, in the right gear) so I'm not the one slowing down the group.
I'll never offer to join a group that is "LF2M, need tank and healer" since they're demonstrating a strong lack of understanding of who to get into a party first, or they simply haven't developed friendships/relationships with tanks and healers period, which is a problem on its own, especially at lvl 20+ for folks who obviously know the dungeons they're in.
Then, there's things I don't really care about, exactly. I mean, I may award or remove Karma points for them (++karma = +10 pts, +karma = +5 pts, -karma = -5 pts, %26#8212;karma = -10pts), but they won't make me leave or get me overly stressed:
Rolling need without (being polite and) asking on the Group line first
Ninja'ing chests or items that other players in the group wanted to use
Nuke-happy mages dying (if they bitch about lack of heals -karma. If they know they caused their own death by pulling aggro and are okay with it, ++karma)
Tanks and shields (druid tanks don't count here of course, but ++karma for Pally and Warrior tanks who show up with a shield equipped and don't need to be asked. %26#8212;karma if a Warrior/Pally is asked if he has a shield and the answer is "no".
Knowledge of primary roles (tank is about holding aggro while others burn down the targets, DPS is about burning down the targets without pulling aggro, healing is about keeping the main tank up while providing occasional emergency support to DPSers who pull aggro) can result in a ++karma or a %26#8212;karma or anything in between.
Knowledge of support functions (I'm very weak here, but certain classes can cleanse certain debuffs, and having an on-the-ball party mate can help a lot with those debuffs)
In the end, I'll have a lot more Karma-ized information about players who are progressing through the levels at the same time as this Druid healer toon is. As I progress I'll continue to post the stories and we'll see how it goes :)
Oh, btw, the lvl 12 hunter who started this Sunday afternoon party and couldn't get it populated got -10 karma. In order to get back to "average" he'll need to be in a couple parties I get into, and perform well. I suppose the odds are, however, that I'll never see him again.
We'll see!