Other People

WoW has some massively oversized mobs wandering its locales as targets for ostensibly group (3 people) quests.

Yetimus the Yeti Lord was the first one encountered, and he was quite a doozy, being an elite that my hunter couldn't solo (something I wasn't used to) with crazy knockback that would boot you into the air and let you drop down again from a great height.

Checking the wiki revealed he was considered quite hard, and folks recommended the proper group of 3 people.

I'm antisocial, so I don't do the 'form a group' thing on my own, but when one or two people started discussing on the open region channel that they were putting together a group for Yetimus, I sent a tell and got invited. Two hunters, one mages (yay dps) and a druid.

The mage was there (the group starter, I'll call him, not the group leader), I came up, the other hunter caught up, and the last, the druid was yet to get to us.

Group starter decided that three was more than enough, and went:
'go'
'pet'
'go'
'pet'
'pet'

In the space of 3-5 seconds.

By the second 'pet,' I'd kinda figured that he wanted to get going, and thatone of us was supposed to send our pets over.

I'd only just narrowly escaped mild embarassment about a minute ago because I'd put my two pets into the stables right before this, having the idea to tame more pets before hearing the group getting formed and wanting in. Fortunately, since I arrived a mite earlier than the other hunter, I had realized that I was petless, and went to tame the nearest animal within reach - which was a cat type. Guessing by the druid shapeshifts, I'd figure a cat to be more dps, especially since the pet cat had a 'prowl' skill that allowed it to sneak and do extra damage coming out of sneak.

Um, ok, my current pet isn't set up for tanking (I had a pet snapjaw turtle for that) but what the heck, it dying is better than me. So I sent it in.

Everybody unleashed stuff. Me being newb, I kinda forgot that I had a spell called mend pet, and didn't cast it, so the squishy dps cat keeled over fairly quickly. I backscrambled as the Yeti came for me, keeping well out of range because I'd been tossed by its knockback before, having experimented.

The other two had not, or were not expecting it, or were careless, or I don't know...but they got knocked about and went flying and came down with a happy splat and died. Goodness knows what happened to the other guy's pet, maybe desummoned at the same time he died.

By now, the druid had fortunately got here as I kited about madly, losing health. He dropped a heal on me, started unleashing and somehow we killed it just before I died. It was fairly close, the monster and me had 300hp each kind of thing.

Woot, survived to get the quest trophy from the mob after all. Group starter demanded 'rez' from the druid, who gamely, yet wordlessly put the mage and hunter back on their feet for their quest trophies.

---

The next bout of massively oversized elite group mobs were a bunch of elementals at Durnholde's Fortress. Now strangely, I didn't see as many region chats asking if folks wanted to kill these elementals. So I thought: Hmm, maybe they aren't as hard as Yetimus. I shall go see if I can solo them.

First up, Zephyrus, a thing made of air. Sent the pet in (a more proper tank, this time), shot arrows, hey, he died.

Then the second elemental, whose name I forget, died the same way. And the third.

The fourth was Infernus, and he was terrible. He had a daze/fear thing, which caused my pet to lose aggro completely. He could daze/fear me too, making him hard to kite. And he had this 'rush of flame' skill that caused him to run up at a very fast pace to me. I died. And I died. And died some more.

Ok, so I can't really solo him. Comments from the wiki were dissenting. One 'leet' guy said his hunter and pet soloed him, kiting, no probs. Others recommended two or three people.

Whatever. Turns out that some guys were in the vincinity. I saw a duo who had met up on the regional chat come by to get Zephyrus. I wandered over, and asked, "Hey guys, any room? Need to kill them too."

Got ignored. They killed all the elementals using two-person dps, and weren't really bothered to pick up another.

Saw another duo come along. Tank and priest. "Hi guys, any room?"

Same scenario. Pure deafness. Tank tanked, healer healed. elementals died. Vroom, gone.

*sighs* Tried Infernus a few more times, died some more.

Then a max level 80 came along, with a lowbie alt or friend tagging behind.

I came up to watch wordlessly, as the level 80 beat up Zephyrus in two seconds and turned around for the elementals. Just as wordlessly, a group invite popped up. Hmm. Ah well, click accept.

"Don't shoot," coached the lowbie, as I enthusiastically tried to help out on the third elemental. Then decides the better of telling the huntard anything. "Nm," he says "It's ok." Oh ok. Level 80 kills him.

They run on to the fourth and last elemental. I chase after. Level 80 kills him. This time I don't bother to "help."

Quest complete. The lowbie capers about. The level 80 runs in circles, pulls out his epic flying mount, flaps around.

Being as allergic to the plevel train as I am, I take the opportunity to say a polite 'thanks' and quickly leave the party. No denying it was nice to finally get some help completing the quest...

...But there's always that sense of non-discovery and lost exploration every time you have some veterans into the picture. Makes grouping up so annoyingly hard in any kind of co-op.

Alien Swarm had it. Left 4 Dead has a little bit of it, but the enemies are unpredictable and there's the hardcoded necessity to remain together at all times. MMO groups typically have it in spades - Guild Wars, WoW, even City of Heroes taskforces sometimes.

When will we get procedurally generated dungeons in which the co-op group creeps in tentatively, having to map out what's behind every corner, communicating with each other and treating every encounter as new because it pretty much is?

That's the kind of co-op I'd like to play. Not the kind in which there is one 'correct' path, please execute it flawlessly, or failing which, just don't cause a team wipe, let the vets handle it without a sweat, plzthxkbai.

And some more ease of teaming design would be nice. Let's have everyone near the big bad shoot at it naturally and get credit for it. Players are not each other's enemies. Open groups. That sorta thing. Guess we have to wait for the next-gen of next-gen MMOs.