Your Questions

Dear Crusader Manners,

I have two questions.

The first, perhaps is rhetorical, as I'm not sure there's an answer, but; How exactly does one keep an Oculus group together? I know that they put in the nifty loot bags with the extra badges, and that they nerfed the nose off the end boss, but I can't seem to keep a random instance group together either straight out of the gate, or following the first wipe due to someone not being able to use the green drake to heal as well as dps/find the timestop button on their bars/ fly a red dragon in a forward facing manner.

Second, Do you think that the vote to kick mechanic has instituted a sort of common manners mob justice? I've noticed PUGs for heroic quests being unusually full of kind and well mannered people lately, except for the one in an extremely long while, where someone will lose their mind and sense of common decency and start badmouthing the DPS about how he's topping the charts, when he's actually specced feral dps and can't seem to hold aggro, which is why you're finding out what the floor tastes like in places that you wouldn't normally voluntarily lick the flagstones.

Curious,
Dr Locktopus

Dear Dr. Locktopus

Crusader Manners spent a little time exploring your questions. It actually took me a while to get a random Oculus, and then I had to think about what made it work well and what had made it miserable in the past. Since Crusader Manners is also trying to learn how to tank (unholy if you were wondering), this made things pretty interesting.

As always, I have to remind you that there's very little that you can do to change the behavior of others. Instead, you have to behave wonderfully yourself, and hope that people will fall in with it. The first thing I did when I got to Oculus was to say, "Yay! I love this instance!" This is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but the group was convinced that I did not mean it sarcastically. Being enthusiastic should help some. The other thing that's important is to make sure that you know what you're doing in there, including what to do with all the different drakes, so that you can provide advice and help. Crusader Manners has a guild mate who she can simply auto-follow during the last fight, and she loves that guy.

Finally, one of the biggest stress-causing Oculus group break downs comes when someone insists on doing one of the color-shutout achievements. This is a big no-no for a random group. They require coordination and planning that can be better done with your guildmates in voice chat. So if someone insists on doing them, explain this, and respectfully decline.

As for your second question, I think that common manners mob justice can only apply when the mob has some idea of manners. Judging from trade chat, Crusader Manners is pretty sure we aren't there yet.

Yours Truly,
Crusader Manners

Have a question of your own? Email crusader_manners@incendiaeternus.net for answers.