So I'm doing my dailies yesterday, and out of the blue a guildie messages me. Seems he's got a 46 Priest, but wants a slightly early run through Zul'Furrak. Other instances are a pain in the backside, but ZF I don't mind too much. I wouldn't ordinarily do this any more, but he is a guildie, so I figure it's the right thing to do and say yes.
There are a number of false starts, and a heap of other screwing around, and we don't end up actually starting for probably two hours. Then my RL housemate logs in with his Priest and wants to come as well. No problems there, as we've levelled and instanced before together, and he's fine; stays well behind me where he isn't going to pull aggro etc, and is generally mature and reliable.
The guildie though is a pain in the neck from start to finish. First I find out he's ten years old. That doesn't actually put me off straight away, as I've run with 11 year olds before who were more mature than most adults.
What does annoy me though, to an extreme degree, is that he's a Shadow Priest with a wide pull circle who insists on fighting mobs when we go in. I try and tell him not to, probably close to half a dozen times. Then he rolls need indiscriminately on loot. Then he mounts up and starts randomly running in front of me on his mount while I'm clearing. Eventually I get tired of this, kick him from the group after swearing like a pirate into voice chat, and put him on ignore when he starts msging me and badmouthing me in guild chat. Eventually he /gquits, right before the RL friend of mine who invited me to the guild would have /gkicked him.
The icing on the cake comes though when, immediately after that, someone else entirely unrelated messages me out of the blue, asking for a run through Blackrock Depths. I immediately say no, and my explanation for why was a shorter version of what follows here.
The reason why I've posted the above photo is because, when I've given people run throughs at times, it's reminded me of the film Crocodile Dundee in the sense that when Mick and Sue go out into the bush together, Sue gets scared by things, and at one point insists on going off on her own, when it's more or less suicidal for her to do so; hence the connection with what happens in WoW.
The RL housemate I mentioned is the only person I've ever run through an instance (well, other than my brother who I also just remembered) who has followed instructions and refrained from making things more difficult generally.
Most of the time, if you don't end up waiting ages for them, they're pulling adds all over the place, and not giving me anywhere near enough range to clear effectively. When I pull threat, I need to feign to hand it back to my pet. If I've got the newb who wanted the run through standing *right next to me* however as they always insist on doing, the mob doesn't go to my pet; it goes straight to them.
Hence, I have to spend far more of my time focusing on keeping them alive rather than actually being able to kill things. In instances like Blackrock Depths or Scholo, it's even worse, because those instances can still be dangerous for 70s if you don't watch your threat. If I had a dollar for every time I've had someone run ahead of me in BRD and pull close to a dozen mobs down on our heads, I'd be a billionaire.
The other reason why I don't do run throughs any more is because I actually spent close to two years doing it, and sacrificed my own progression in the process. I've been playing this game since before BC, and I was around 55 when BC came out. That means that in the time that other people have gone to the Black Temple, I've been largely running 10-14 year olds through BRD, ZF, and the Wailing Caverns.
No more. It's time for my own progression now. Kids who come into the game these days need to learn to play on their own.
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