There was no explanation other than, “Y R U PROT?” and then … bam, I was out. It was months before I did a dungeon again.

While this was my fault for being ignorant, it’s still a bit shocking for a new player.

What I found useful is after a wipe instead of starting the conversation with “do you understand how this fight works”, launch straight into explaining strats and point out what they are doing wrong and what they need to fix it. If they don't understand what they are doing wrong fast, they will vote kick you ..

Some of the best LFD groups I’ve had are ones where we’ve wiped multiple times, but the people were friendly and we were all having fun. As a matter of fact, a couple weeks ago I was having a bout of insomnia and was tanking extremely sloppily due to my sleep-deprived brain. By the end of the run, I’d died so much my durability was single digits (the healer was a bit slow to react, but hey, I was also sucking hard at tanking), But the folks I was with were so friendly, and so awesome, that I really wished I’d had the ability to friend cross server for groups then and there. As it is, I screenshotted their names for if that feature ever becomes available.

If someone shows a willingness to learn, and a bit of humility, I have infinite patience. Infinite.

If someone is abrasive, insulting, or just plain rude, I will vote kick in a second.

Joe Ego’s reply hit at the heart of the problem. People think they don’t owe anyone else in the run anything. It’s all mememe, gogogo, and the rest of the party may as well be NPCs with how replaceable they are. Part of it is the anonymity and lack of consequences or accountability that comes with being cross realm and knowing you’ll never see the other people again; part of it too though is the instant gratification and ease with which you can replace a person. If you just don’t like their playstyle, you can simply kick them and another player ports in seamlessly. It’s like sitting there mashing the randomize button until the character creator gives you a combination of features you like. You don’t feel bad that you didn’t like that particular combination of pixels. They’re just pixels.

LFD currently has all the friendliness and community of 4chan’s /B/. It’s that bad.

But! In the spirit of positivity, I thought I’d offer my own excellent experience in Stratholme on my feral druid alt, instead. (Asshats get too much of our time, anyway, don’t they?) So, Strat, a few days ago….

If there was ever a dungeon where I might reasonably have expected to be vote-kicked, that was the one:
1) I had just switched from balance, so was having trouble learning how much Swipe was too much Swipe before the mobs decided I was tastier-looking than the tank.
2) I accidentally pulled an entire group of mobs *while we were on a boss*
3) At the end, I was defeated by Rivendare’s door and had to sit outside while the rest of the group downed him.

In hindsight, certainly not my *best* outing….

Are you laughing? Because I was. What could have easily been an experience that ruined me for the Dungeon Finder for days was an absolute pleasure all the way through. From the tank whose first words were, “Hi, I haven’t played this guy in six months” to the hunter who ran through the dungeon wailing for Holy Water obsessively, to the healer who broke out in dance, and the spriest who randomly yelled everything in caps and ran around going, “AHHHHHHHHH AHHHHH!” in party chat as he dps’ed with abandon (to be fair, that was the pull where I decided we needed another dozen mobs on us, so maybe the panic was justified). And through all the hiccups, it was just laughter and good-natured teasing.

Quotes:
“Wow, there’s a lot of ugly mobs in there.” (that would be the abom section)
“AHHHH! OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! AHHHHHH!”
“Doors are hard for me.” “I’m hard for you.” (no genders given, I’m pretty sure he thought I was a guy)
And most importantly, “lol” (many, many times)

It was a quirky, crazy, imperfect, joy of a time, and it was all because even though the performance was underwhelming, the people were awesome. So even though I’m sorry such a crappy thing happened to you, thank you for this post – it’s inspired me to strive a little more to be the kind of player I’d like to play with. =)

Someone asked what happened. I replied that the shaman totems had pulled everything but we’d be good this time.

Shaman says “fail heals” and I suddenly find myself sitting in Dalaran. “You have been removed from the group”.

I was pissed and hurt and frustrated. That’s my second pally healer. I’ve tanked, healed and dpsed that instance ad nausem. I know the damage outputs and the whens and whys and exactly when someone’s not doing what they’re supposed to do.

And then I wondered what a new player in my position would have done? And the answer I came up with wasn’t pretty. I had just changed the toon to holy five levels prior. I know that if I’d been a new player, I’d have probably gone back to the crappy dps I did on my ret set and lived with it… probably wouldn’t have played that alt much. After a bad experience with druid healing in BC when I was still fairly new to the game, I swore off healing till I discovered my disc priest last xpac.

There’s so much QQ on the forums about not having enough tanks and healers. I mean, the Ahune queue for dps is 30 minutes! That’s a bit insane! But it’s no wonder when tanks and healers are so often treated the way they are. I’ve already been cussed out twice in my queues for Ahune – both times as a tank and both times for things that were out of my control. It’s also no wonder that tanks and healers often go into things looking for a fight, ready to jump on people.

/facepalm