Disastrous AFKs
by John Himes 
Nov 3rd 2007 at 12:30AM
While I'm sure we've all had the experience where a crucial group member went away from their keyboard at a bad time, a whole different type of disastrous AFK was brought up on the WoW forums the other day. An earthquake in the San Francisco area was cause for a lot of sudden AFKs for many posters, including Delthen who started the thread. It seems that many of the posters actually told their group that they were going away from the keyboard. Apparently they failed to read the recent article on the subject by our own Robin Torres. Nethaera chimed in with her own story of a group member needing to leave the game due to a tornado warning, one which I've seen occur in-game myself. Personally, the worst thing that's suddenly taken my attention from the game is my dog getting sick or maybe a desperate cry for me to kill a spider that's harassing my wife. What's the worst thing that's caused you to go AFK?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Justo Nov 3rd 2007 12:40AM
upset stomach + shart + prince malchazar = bad times
killer_twinkie Nov 3rd 2007 12:42AM
I had to go AFK once in Old Hillsbrad because of a severe thunderstorm warning that had the potential to turn into a tornado.
There was also a guy I was in a PUG with once that left because his feet were cold. Clearly his was the more valid one lol
Erika Nov 3rd 2007 12:42AM
The spider thingy with my mom during a heroic murmur fight.
Charles Nov 3rd 2007 12:43AM
About two weeks ago we had tornado warnings in Michigan, you might have heard about the baby that survived the tornado, that is about 1/2 from me.
Anyway, had to go AFK because my dorm room is the tornado shelter. We were just before Netherspite
Doug Nov 3rd 2007 12:44AM
Home alone, about 8 pm and i'm in UD strat with a group. I hear skidding tires, a large CRUNCH sound, and then a car horn goes off and doesn't stop. I type "hold one sec" and look out my window. We live on a curve in a neighborhood and some kid was going too fast for it. Ended up sliding on the loose gravel and hit our neighbors tree. I ran back to the PC and typed "car wreck in my front yard gotta go!"
I ran out there and he was ok, a few cuts on his head and that's all. Sadly, his gear was not up to par and the tree one-shotted his car...
bnorman Nov 3rd 2007 12:48AM
My worst?
Hmm, I suppose I'd have to say the time where my entire lower half of my body went numb during a run through Shadow Labs with my guildies.
Long story short I ended up going to the hospital shortly after that, (with laptop in hand) got a bed in the hospital and luckily they had wifi at the hospital, I logged back on and finished the run!
Shadowisp Nov 3rd 2007 12:55AM
Middle of a guild run a person in our guild DCed, he came back on and said on Ventrillo "Sorry about that seems there the power just flickered at my place, needed to restart my computer"
... there was a silence before I had to say...
Me: "Your live in ______, have you looked outside ?"
Him: "No, my computer is in the basement, dont have any windows"
Me: "Recommend you get out of the basement and check outside"
Him: "AFK"
.... 1 minute later...
Him: "Holy @*%#@, Its a @*(&%#@ Cyclone"
... Disconnected...
Turns out he was only person in town that didnt know, or didnt get evacuated. But hey, he lived in the basement so he was kind of safe :P
Chai Nov 3rd 2007 1:13AM
lightning striking a powerpole outside my house making everything in my house simultaneously shut down.
Needless to say, I didn't have a chance to say AFK.
Pathoria Nov 3rd 2007 1:19AM
ZG, snake boss. Mom wants me to move the couch. I go to do it really quick, I come back and everyones dead, I'm alive sitting down in the corner...apparently he didn't see me. Pretty sure I'll never live that one down
Balgair Nov 3rd 2007 1:35AM
Wasn't actually in WoW but during my Planetside days, my most memorable one...
"erm, AFK a sec, flatmate's set the kitchen on fire"
At least my flatmate learned not to reheat pizza whilst still in the cardbox box! We could've done without the smoke smell that lasted for the next two weeks though...
Shadowisp Nov 3rd 2007 1:37AM
I like this one from WoWBash
http://www.wowbash.com/image-820.html
BartmanDK Nov 3rd 2007 1:39AM
Well my worst have got to be last weekend.. For once i decided to stay in on a saturday night.. But it wasent long since i got to the beers and i ended up getting pretty drunk, and had to go afk to throw up :D But the funny/great thing was the it wasent my fault the PuG group wiped since i had manneged to write "afk 2 sec" before running to the bathroom! But some random shaman decided to pull when either tank/dps/healer wher ready :D
Nathan Nov 3rd 2007 1:53AM
had an sfk group tonight where the paladin went afk in the middle of the instance to TAKE A FRAKKING SHOWER. He was back in like 5-6 minutes (before we could find someone to replace him) But what the hell? Not only did he finish out the run, but he went through us again afterward, so it's not like he was going out on a hot date or anything. Aside from that, he was great, but why exactly do you need to you need to smell fresh in order to take out Arugal?
Dave Nov 3rd 2007 1:57AM
I'm in SF, so I had to go AFK for the whole earthquake "oh hey, I might die" sorta scenario. Unfortunately, I was in netherstorm at the time and I was running in some random direction and ended up predictably falling off the world in one of those spots where you can't do anything but spirit res at that point. Oops.
I've frequently had to bail in the middle of things to go clean up after the cat who tends to barf at just the wrong sort of times. I'm not sure everyone who doesn't know me actually believes that I'm going to stop the carpet from being ruined by the cat (and i know it sounds stupid) but it's caused many a lame wipe in a group.
Jake Nov 3rd 2007 2:27AM
Best AFK -
Right as we pull rag, the MT is like, "OH CRAP. AFK g2g take shower!" and we wiped. he came back 15 minutes later and was all, what the eff?
Bobby Hansen Nov 3rd 2007 2:47AM
A friend of mine who is a police officer was stuck on desk duty for a night. It's a very quiet town and he wanted someone to hang with. I said I'd gladly shoot the breeze if he'd let me connect and grind some while we did so. He of course said yes, and we were playing, when the town's first violent arrest in 3 years (an attempted rape) came in the front door, cursing, screaming, fighting. I had to tell my group who I was grinding with "GTG Crazy MFer attacking", and closed the lid to my lappy.
They found it funny.
abhinav Nov 3rd 2007 2:49AM
I'll never forget the time my Comp over heated and caused a smoke which made me pass out while i was talking on vent in the middle of a heroic. Melting Plastic + Heroic Bot = One dead Rogue.
John Nov 3rd 2007 3:02AM
Last weekend My guild and I were doing High Astromancer Solarian. My precious little son comes running up and says daddy look at this so i turn around and marvel at his newest creation. After about ten seconds I here my name and turn to see two seconds left on Wrath of the Astromancer. Little needs to be said about what happened , but during the run back I got a good lesson on: every addon that'll tell me that it's on me, that I'm a noob , and a recap of how many times this has happened (the wiping , not the kids).
Rich Nov 3rd 2007 2:58AM
Best AFK moment was a run through Strat (back before TBC). I was telling some people about the next pull over TS when all smoke alarms went off in the house.
Turns out the gf forgot to remove the bag the garlic bread was in. Smoked out the whole place!
Tweck Nov 3rd 2007 3:07AM
My favorite was a warrior who who kept DCing in Scholo. He was always back shortly, but eventually the rest of the group got a little pissed, and started asking why. Warrior: "Well, they keep shelling my bunker and it knocks the router off the shelf and the network cable gets kicked out." Turns out he was stationed in Iraq...