Etiquette and courtesy

Good party etiquette is something I've been seeing less and less of lately. I remember, though I only started a year and a half ago, people were much nicer... Then again I was new, and did not know as many players yet, which is probably why.

The past week, I've spent some time in the dunes leveling various jobs. (I'm going on a sub-job leveling spree, I want to make myself more versatile.) The first party, I was the Paladin. Three new players and two that have played for at least a little while. One was a healer and refused to sit to rest mp...the other was having huge lag issues. (I hate that.) One of the new players insisted on talking to me, "I'm going to make you lol ", among other somewhat creepy comments about uhm...female characters. oO For two hours of partying....I got about 1k xp. OK. Yeah, that's the dunes for you, I expect that of party there. I only go in hopes that I'll find the occasional decent party and get some xp.

The next time I go as Ninja. None of the members wants to pull, so I start pulling. We lose a member in between our pathetic kills. We get a Thief. They pull, do ok, then for some reason start to aggro Goblin Bounty Hunters. It happens, but uhm....I don't ever recall, even at the start of the game, aggroing during pulling THAT much. =/ Anyway, we move camp. Lose another member, another leaves, and the Thief logs off without saying anything.

Coming to my rant. I HATE when people do that. I HATE HATE HATE when people don't have the courage to just say "Look, I'm done." This person played before and had higher levels. At no point in the game is it considered OK to just log off during a party. I've had a healer do this in a party before, and I still remember the name. (probably because the characters name was the same name as my actual boyfriend. :P) I remember people who screw the parties I'm in over. I steer clear of parties with these people in them. If they do it once, they'll do it again. It's just in very bad taste to do that and I myself don't...so yeah. (minus the time my keyboard freaked out on me and I had to force d/c on purpose to try to fix it...I felt so bad. I couldn't even type to them to tell them. My words came out as gibberish...I fried another wireless keyboard that day lol.)

So yeah my little party Do's and Don't list.
-Don't get into a party when you only have...say...45 minutes to play. It's just common sense. It sometimes takes that amount of time just to get to a camp.
-Do bring food. I find even in Valkrum it's very helpful. I'm not talking Squid Sushi or anything, especially for the dunes, but grilled hare is very cheap, lasts for a few hours (as long as you don't die.) and gives you a nice stat boost. There are some great low level food recipes that can help get your through the dunes. No excuses that "I don't have money." grilled hare is dirt cheap to make, and is about 400-500 gil on the AH. I honestly recommend leveling cooking a bit to make these goodies for yourself. It comes in handy in a pinch. Mages bring pies or at least cookies for mp restoration. I've started to carry cookies on me when I'm in low level parties. Just in case a mage doesn't have them.... Orange Juices are great for mp restoration and cap out at level 12 cooking...you can buy the saruta oranges in windy for quite cheap and farm the water crystals. Bring a stack or two of oranges with you, along with the crystals and synth them on the go if need be. (just not when you're supposed to be...say...healing...><)
-Don't come naked. I cringe when I see this. It shows you don't care at all, and it does help to have some defense. I'm not talking about double astral rings (kind of overrated...I have one and it isn't all that impressive.) but at least have gear for your level. I've seen many a party where someone like the healer comes with absolutely nothing on. At dunes level you can have some +mind and +intellect gear...it's not THAT expensive USE it. There are also some GREAT low level items you can get for leveling these jobs, some from NM's other from quests. Gil might be an issue at low levels but just do quests. Many have gil rewards, others, even better, have equipment. You can gear your low level character up completely on quests if you really wanted to.
-Don't fight with other party members. Seriously. So many times I'm in a party and suggest something or mention something and get knocked back by the guy who is like "I know more than you because I have 7 level 75's." This is the same guy that will probably screw up and pull three gobs or log out halfway through the party because it's not going well. I know the type. I'm a veteran of a game called World of Warcraft....I know how irritating "know it alls who talk out of their ass" can be. >< Having a 75 does not make you a massive pool of knowledge. You can still be a bad player. =/ Don't give these people the satisfaction of a fight. Generally they've got a chip on their shoulders and want to piss you off to vindicate themselves.... Just ignore them.
-Don't get discouraged. The games tricky to learn. I can still remember being in Valkrum the first time on my black mage overnuking and doing everything wrong. lol It's a learning experience, and it's supposed to be fun I think a lot of the long time players forget this. If you screw up, and you will, just shrug it off and don't let it get to you.
-Do use the Auto Translate function. While waiting for a party why not go through and view some of the phrases it can translate. It helps when communicating with non-English speaking players. This game is distributed all over the world, don't assume everyone is going to know English. If you are party leader, use it to give directions at all times. Don't assume everyone can understand you.
-Don't talk about members in party chat. It's just mean. Especially when you're talking about another player who you know does not speak your language. It's cruel and you never know how much English a player can understand. (The Japanese, if I'm not mistaken, have to take two years of English by default in school...so yeah....keep that in mind if you are one to do this kind of thing. Same goes with any other language really, I tend to see the most animosity between the English and Japanese...) If you've had it done to you, ignore it, there are jerks all around the world, that doesn't make an entire group of people jerks. Remember that. You wouldn't want it done to you, so don't do it yourself.

I could go on and on all night but I think thats it for now. :P I'm very quiet in parties since I don't like to start stupid debates over stats and equipment. (If one more person tells me I need an o-kote I'll tear their face off......>< I r violent. :P (joking by the way) I'm still discovering what is best for me.

The new update comes out today. I'm still waiting for it to download....My boyfriends downloaded faster, so he's in game while I'm sitting here pouting away. :)