Doing Pick Up Groups like I so often do to accomplish my goals, I get to see a lot of interesting player habits.

And sure, every player is unique, everyone is special. But each of us who are unique and special still have a billion traits that can be “categorized” even if the whole person cannot accurately be.

Let’s talk about the trait of being a Tourist in a dungeon group.

What Is A Dungeon Tourist?

In short, a Dungeon Tourist is a player who feels compelled to be at the front of the party - generally in front of the Tank before the pull is done.

A Dungeon Tourist will decide without notice to head down a hallway that the Tank is not heading down, just to see what’s over there, or to mine a node or pick a flower that’s spawned.

Generally, what they find in their short journey is a mob that starts to attack them, and the squishier they are, the more panicked they are when they ask for help.

How Can You Detect A Dungeon Tourist?

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to detect a Dungeon Tourist immediately.

They don’t wear loud shirts, they’re not carrying cameras, and they come along WITH you into the instance instead of already being there when you arrive. In short, they look just like everyone else in your group, and with your hopefulness of a successful run, you might even think them a “good player” by looking at their spec or gear.

The only way to truly know you’ve got a Dungeon Tourist on your hands is to watch their behavior during the instance:

- Do they stand behind the tank before the pull?
- Do they get hurt regularly yet do negligable damage compared to others who are not getting hurt?
- Do they regularly move up and past the tank before thinking about restoring mana or health between pulls?

Tactfully Handling Tourists

Most Tourists, I’ve found, are young players behind the keyboard.

To them, the game is still new and exciting, and the fact that they’re in a dungeon group, or in this particular instance, makes it even more exciting. Team play is quite a bit different than Soloing or Pairing up with a friend, after all.

These tourists generally are well-meaning, and can be coached into altering habits - at least for one run - with a friendly person to give them a tip or two they find useful.

The most useful way I’ve found to tactfully pull most Tourists back is to appeal to their hope of not dying during the run. Simply saying “PlayerName, please wait behind the tank for us to go, if you aggro something, you’re pretty squishy” works most of the time, at least for that pull.

Reminding is easy too - “Hey Squishy, let the tank go through first :)”

Handling Stubborn Tourists

Some Tourist-types are stubborn, unfortunately. Thankfully it’s a small percentage of them the higher level you get - and certainly once you hit Outland instances, they’re almost non-existent.

Stubborn ones might hang back once or twice, but in general, as soon as there’s a corner they can’t see around or a node they can mine or pick, they’re off without a second thought. And again, aggro’ing something as a reward for their lack of foresight.

The best way I’ve seen to handle these types of tourists is to simply not assist the battle if they’ve done it too many times. Let them die as part of their education.

Even if they can get a quick resurrect from a party member, their actions will cost them two ways:

- Repairs
- A blow to the ego that the party members won’t run in like Mommy and Daddy to save them.

Even if it means the rest of the party WAS put into combat and DO have to kill what was aggro’d after the first guy bites it, I still recommend this strategy. Even if the player leaves the party in protest, I’ll bet your group will be the better for it, and unless you’ve got 2-3 OTHER weak players in your group, most pre-Outland instances can be 4-manned without many problems.

Tell Me About Your Adventures With Dungeon Tourists

I’d love to hear about your adventures with Dungeon Tourists - whether they be in PUGs or guild runs, or whatever.

I know of a casual raiding guild that has raid-based financial punishments for Dungeon Tourists, charging them a certain amount of gold every time they get part of the raid killed for their Touristism, and I think that’s both great and hilarious.

What do you think?

Tags: bad puggers, bad pugs, dungeon etiquette, dungeon tourists, group etiquette, lazy puggers, pug etiquette, when to let them die, wiping the group

I recently came out of my first experience of That Person Is Too Young To Be Tanking My Dungeon PUG.

I mean, I’ve had experiences before where I knew I was dealing with a young person:

• The Hunter who was enamoured with Eye of the Beast, and would channel that pet-control spell and attack with his pet instead of attacking with the pet AND his bow…

• The countless DPS who never talked on the party line but constantly pulled extra aggro and had to be saved…
  
• The players who type quickly and talk ALL ABOUT THEMSELVES

• And of course, the Jumpers who are SO BORED with any stop of movement that they need to jump around incessantly…

But this one took the cake. I was honestly shocked.

I logged in to my 37 Druid healer with the intent of hitting Scarlet Monestary or Razorfen Downs or Uldaman to burn off some rest bonus.

I got into a party, it was already full and a couple of people were already at the stone to start summons. The party line had light and friendly chatter.

All of these things were good.

In fact, there was no reason to suspect this wouldn’t be a fast-moving, “normal” PUG through a wing or three of the Scarlet Monestary right up until the moment that battle was to begin in the instance.

The tank came in a little behind the rest of us and DPS and myself on heals had taken down the first guy who aggro’s when you’ve got a lower-level member walking into Cathedral, and then we all lined up at the back of the hall and faced down the first hallway, and got ready to get started.

We waited. The tank was there, responded short responses to some of us in whispers when we inquired about her whereabouts, but didn’t move.

We waited longer. Lead was passed to the tank so she could mark if she wanted. Lead was passed on to a different DPS player than started with it, but the tank still didn’t move.

The DPS member who was given lead let us know that the tank was a “slow typer”. I said “She doesn’t need to type, she needs to tank”.

The other two DPS folk, including a Hunter with a squishy pet of 700 hp, get antsy and bored, and decide to let the pet tank the first 2 mobs. We get through it, but most of the fight I had one or another of the mobs hitting ME because of heal aggro to keep us alive.

The tank is still standing, motionless. Tank apparently gets onto vent with the party lead and the party lead lets us know that.

After a bunch of more waiting around, a second group is pulled with the tank involved, but again it’s chaotic and I should have let the pet die… so I’ve got aggro all over me. But they don’t hit hard, so we all live just fine.

I mention that we’d better pick up the pace a bit, or it’s going to take us 3h to get through this wing alone - and others had been wondering if we could do 2-3 wings this run.

At this point, we’re look into the lower courtyard of the Cathedral, and I stay back, as does the Rogue. A mob wanders by and aggro’s on us - the Pally tank is there and does manage to grab the aggro and we down the mob.

After that mob is down I get the shocking whisper:

“She is only 6″

Six. Six?? SIX!!??

I whispered the original lead of the party and relayed the information.

Then, I said on the party line as I turned back towards the door:

“I’m sorry, I’m 6x the age of our tank, I can’t handle that. Good luck”

And left the party.

Now, I don’t mind if 6 year olds play WoW (although that’s a big discussion on its own), and it’s possible I’ve had 6 year old DPSers in my PUGs before that we carried through and coddled, but surely it’s not to be expected for me to tolerate 6 year old TANKS in PUGs…

Note: WoW is officially rated T for Teen.

Tags: bad pug experiences, bad pugs, bad tank, kids on wow, pugs i bow out of, t for teen, too young for wow, too young to pug