When my level 58 priest was collecting her first Hellfire Peninsula quests, I noted there was someone in general chat saying, “Does some1 want to join for 1st quests?” Er, no thanks. “I need help with 1st quests, plz.” Same person, over and over. I decided I’d better scoot away from the Orcs and do the demon-killing quest so they couldn’t find me, but I wasn’t quick enough. They approached me, asked me to party, and … I caved. They were a level 59 ret paladin, so it would certainly speed things up. If they were too annoying, I’d just log over to another toon after we were done with these quests.
So, we ran around a bit, killing Orcs and picking up the wood and metal for the collection quests. At first I thought they might try to tank somewhat, but they weren’t following any logical pattern to their approach of the mobs. They were running around a bit randomly, and a few times we picked up three instead of one. Normally I’d think a paladin would be fine with this, but they weren’t casting consecrate or doing anything to hold the attention of more than one, so I just blasted away as though I were by myself. I took a look at my damage meter at one point, and saw that I was doing most of the damage, in addition to healing us both. A level 58 holy priest out-DPSing a level 59 ret paladin? Hm.
They had to go afk a few times. “Phone.” “PHONE again.” “/sigh that was my drum teacher.” Heh. I was doing fine by myself, I didn’t care.
Finally, they got back and we continued killing and collecting stuff. “lol sry my dps is low,” they said.
“Nah, no worries.”
“My gear sucks,” they explained.
“Well, I guess that happens when you run right out to Outland at level 58 or 59.”
“No I havent killed anything since level 49 lol.”
“What??”
“Im waring level 26 pants.”
…
“Recruit-a-friend?” I ventured.
“Ya.”
So, they leveled from 49-59 without upgrading any gear. And wearing level 26 pants? Sounds like they didn’t do a heck of a lot of upgrading before that either. Guess that’s one thing they don’t put in the advertisement for that program — Outland is going to be a shock if you skip the later levels in Azeroth. I have a sneaking suspicion this was their highest level character, too. It’s going to be scary to run instances with some of these new recruit-a-friend folks…
Outland Bound 
Oh boy.. Whoever his friend was, he didn’t do a good job as a proper recruiter.
lol that’s great…. why go naked when you can wear pants from your childhood
Wow this seems to be a serious oversight. It sounds like whoever they hired instead of me two years ago (if they hired anyone) didn’t talk to the game design team on the impact of this promotion. I think this is bad news. WAY worse news than class tweaks from a patch or an expansion. I mean, they put so much thought into game balance but they let this promotion loose without so much as a blink. It’s hard enough out there to not be covered in purples and therefore be called a noob. In this case, the people really ARE noobs and they are gonna screw up some gameplay.
@Ash
I’d guess that this kid was the one who had done the recruiting (because recruiters get to add levels each time their recruited friend gains a few levels, right?). But still, walking into Outland with gear that poor and expecting someone to help you … sheesh.
@Gnomeaggedon
Hehe, and they still fit!
@Game Dame
There would still be clueless in Outland even without this promotional program, but yeah, this does potentially let them in with even less preparation of their characters.
OMFG! That has got to be the funniest thing I’ve read this morning. THIS, THIS is the reason why I stay away from PuGs. Having had bad enough an experience in the world world with randoms. Sad thing is, you won’t know until you group them. And then after that, it’s straight on the ignore list. 🙂
It’s probably safer to solo than have nub nubs like them around you.
Good hunting ppl 🙂
This is just a bad player who didn’t bother to buy some greens from the auction house. The RAF program is great at bringing friends to the game instead of punishing them by making them play to level 70 slowly or punishing the recruiter by making him roll an alt and play with the friend slowly.
That’s actually pretty hilarious. I’ve been using the RAF bonus myself, but with an eye towards constantly upgrading gear as I go, because the program makes a ton of quests obsolete in record time – including ones with gear upgrades. I find that if nothing else, running instances is both a better source of xp (as the 300% bonus still applies even if you’ve got other people in the group), and a source of gear less likely to be obsolete so quickly.
I’m hoping I’m not *completely* useless in Outland, as a result. The shaman who’s going to receive the 30 granted levels, though… well, you want to group for 1st quests? 🙂 (I kid, I kid. She has gear waiting on her.)
@Krusty
I still risk the pugs because sometimes you do meet some good players, and the worst pugs will at least give you a good story. 😉 I do avoid them if I want to get things done efficiently, however. You’re right — sometimes it’s just better to go it solo. 🙂
@Marc
I agree with you that this was probably just a clueless player that would have been clueless with or without the RAF program. I disagree, however, with your other comments. If you think leveling is a “punishment,” you should play a different game. I don’t buy all the “Blizzard is making us do boring things” arguments I see when people are complaining about the game because Blizzard is not making you do anything. As a gamer, you have a choice of how and where you spend your time.
Instead, I think this is just another strategy to get a greater percentage of the player base to the level cap, so they’ll go on to buy the expansion. Would a player bother to buy it if they didn’t have a character to level 55 or 60 yet? And not only will folks reach the level cap faster, they’re potentially bringing in at least one new account to do so. That’s pretty smart on Blizzard’s part.
@StoppableForce
Hehe, sure, we can do 1st quests, but be sure to call your drum teacher first so they won’t interrupt us. 😉
I do think there are plenty of good players that will benefit from the RAF bonus, and I’ve probably played with many of them, too. In the end, smart players will still be smart, clueless people will still be clueless, and there will always be noobs. This experience just left me wondering whether the RAF program will let a significantly higher number of unprepared people through the Dark Portal.
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