Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsAsk WoW Insider: Instance etiquette
by Barb Dybwad 
Aug 24th 2007 at 3:00PM
It's time once again for Ask WoW Insider to publish one of your questions for the community to answer. Last week we heard a ton of great ding stories, and this week we examine a possible breach of instance etiquette. Pelia on Greymane writes: Last night I was leading a PUG into DM East and about 10 minutes into the instance our mage says "hey guys, i g2g in 20 minutes..." Since we were just starting the instance, I dropped him and instantly started looking for a replacement that would be able to run the whole instance with us. The mage was surprised and said "I said 20 minutes!"What say you, readers -- did the mage commit an instance faux pas? Most of us have rushed to complete a dungeon whilst an exasperated significant other/parent/child/spouse/friend waited for our tardy asses to show up somewhere, but what's an acceptable limit for a "gtg soon!" announcement? Would you go into a dungeon knowing you had to replace a member part way through?
Should I have let him stay in our group until he really needed to go? The group had just formed, so I didn't really feel I owed anything to him. Plus I couldn't use the LFG tool/channel if he stayed since we already had 5 people... I figured I owed it to the rest of the group to find a 5th person that was in it for the long haul...
Was I being a good leader, or a jerk... or both?
Our kingdom for your questions! Please send us what you'd like to know for next week at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
Filed under: Instances, Ask WoW Insider
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Ken Lydell Aug 27th 2007 2:13PM
Before you invite someone to join a group or immediately after automatic assignment through LFG ask them if they can stay for the whole run. If the answer is no, politely tell them that you want to run the whole instance without scrambling for replacements and remove them from the group. If someone pulls a surprise GTG, kick them and put them on your ignore list.
I have had countless PUGs fall apart because mommy was serving dinner or a favorite TV show was due to broadcast. I have no time for ingrates who bail out and leave others to scramble to replace them.
By all means bail out of PUGs from Hell but give a good reason for doing so. I usually give a specific warning first. "Start marking and assigning targets or I'm out of here" or "Charge one more mob without notice or warning and I'm out of here". Better yet, "Start another fight while I am at less than 50% mana and you'll need to get another healer".
DavidC Aug 28th 2007 12:47PM
I like this comment:
"The mage had no reason to be upset but there was no reason to drop him either."
I guess they didn't read the OP whom said he had to drop the guy to put the group into the LFG/LFM tool to find a replacement.
Remember, this was a DM (60ish) run, not an end game run full of 70's with lots of 70's around to fill spots :-)
I personally would have asked him if he had a replacement, or checked in guild first, but then I would have done the same thing ... dropped his butt like a hot potato :-)
RaydenUni Sep 6th 2007 11:05AM
If I have to go before I think we will finish, I will always tell the group that way they can decide to keep me or not. When I was healing they usually decided to keep me and find someone else when I left. But the way I see it, joining a dungeon group is committing to finishing the dungeon unless your group can't handle it ( no more wiping 12 times on SL for me ).