He who travels with another

Henry David Thoreau once said "The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” Yesterday seemed to be the epitome of that quote in World of Warcraft.

After getting a group together for Heroic Trial of the Champion, we downed everyone except for the Black Knight. Just before we started one of our team members posted a be right back (BRB). Ten minutes later we were still waiting for him and the question of replacing him popped up. Ten minutes after that, we found someone to take his place, willing to down only one boss, and finished the instance. Later that day, I grouped with my guild to down the 25 man version of Onyxia. Everything went well until we wiped and one of our members went AFK (sort of like 'be right back' but not nearly as polite). After waiting for about 8 minutes we replaced this member and downed Onyxia.

One of my biggest issues is the AFK/BRB thing. We are a group of peoplewho have agreed to help each other achieve a goal. Not being there to accomplish that goal is disrespectful to the group as a whole because you are not just wasting your time, you are wasting the time of four to twenty-four other people. When you go BRB or AFK you have just stated, in my opinion,'My wants and needs are much more important than your wants or needs. Yes, I want to get awsome loots and be special, but only as long as I can do it at my convenience. You'll just have to wait while my nail polish dries or I get the brownies out of the oven.' While I like brownies, especially with nuts, I ain't getting any and I had to sit here twiddling my thumbs while YOU ATE MY BROWNIES!

Obviously I have issues with waiting, but I propose a solution to this. I recommend an AFK tag for raids. If someone makes the rest of the group wait for, say five minutes, they can be tagged with a debuff that only gives them half of the experience or if items are being rolled on, they can achieve a roll no higher than, say, 66. That way they still get benefit and will not leave the group, but are given incentive to being prepared to accomplish the group's goal. Let me know what you think and be sure to send brownies!