The Daily Grind: Which MMO has the best PUGs?

Hmm... I'm going to say probably none.

In my experience the best PuGs have been on role play servers.. but if a game designer doesn't enforce the rules then the line between RP and normal gets so hazy it doesn't matter anymore.

You basically can't accomplish anything in FFXI without joining PUGs, at least for XP. I'd say I get about 50% okay groups, 10% terrible, and 40% good groups. For missions/quests/etc, I do PUGs a lot less but have somewhat similar experiences: 25% dissolve before they get enough people, 10% terrible, 40% okay and 25% good.

Dungeons and Dragons Online

Definitely not Guild Wars. :(

Everquest. Soloing was darn near impossible when you got to a certain level, and as a general rule the community was pretty close. If you became known as a problem it got around quickly. I hardly ever had a bad PUG experience in Everquest, but I've been burned so many times now in other games I refuse to do it anymore.

CoX has some great teams and some not so great teams. It all depends on the usual things that apply to all MMO's (knowledge of class (or AT), knowledge of powers or skills and all that) I would give it about a 75% good 25 % bad in my own personal time in game.

I'd have to say COX. Once you get to the higher levels past the majority of immature people who dominate low levels in games COX pugs are pretty good.

Second I would have to say DDO. Lot of good people in that game. The low levels you will get some bad apples, chronic AFKers, people who rush ahead, etc.

I also had a good PUG experience in Vanguard.

My experience with PUG's in WoW is generally positive. Most groups form, get the job done, and dissolve with no problem at all.

When problems DO arise, it's usually due to incompetence. Somebody who didn't realize their pet was set on aggressive, or the tank doesn't bother to pull the skull away from his friends before fighting him, or the mage pyroblasts a target, steals aggro away from the puller, and proceeds to duke it out at long range instead of LOS'ing him back to a safe location...

Occasionally it's because of a bad attitude. We had a pally tank just the other night who consecrated in the middle of a huge blob of neutral monsters just to keep aggro on the three he was fighting. We ALMOST didn't wipe. But then he blamed the healer for not keeping him up. Not his own stupidity, of course not.

But there's usually telltale signs when someone has an attitude problem! The same pally tank had harvested every single herbalism node up to that point, ignoring the group's requests to let the other two herbalists have a chance. Whenever we said anything about it, he would rush ahead and engage another enemy, drowning the topic in combat.

Rule of thumb: Between 5% and 10% of the players you meet will be total assholes, utterly selfish, unwilling to accept any responsiblity for mistakes, unwilling to help the group beyond directly achieving their own goals.

Between 15% and 25% of the players you meet will be total incompetents. They mean well, but they just don't know what they're doing. They haven't been able to learn any advanced techniques for their class, and they usually have only a very fuzzy idea about their "aggro radius".

Best PUGS I was ever in were in EQ1

Everquest for sure. Sometimes I can't handle the reality of PUGS in WoW. I guess because of how easy it is to solo 100% of the time, some people just dont know what to do in group situations.

So far, up to level 20, I've had about a half-and-half experience with PUGs in CoH. Some have been pretty good. Others have fallen apart as complete disasters. Hasn't been good enough yet to think about any of the taskforces.

Over on LotRO on the other hand, while I'm pretty shy about it (due to bad experiences elsewhere) the PUGs have been (so far) 100% great, even when half of us are fellowship newbies, we're still doing okay.

Hands down, Dungeons and Dragons Online. The whole game is based around PUGs, as there is little to no solo content, depending on your class and level.
First off, the group finding system is awesomely brilliant. It allows you to select any quest from the list of 200 or so adventures currently in the game, a difficulty (normal, hard, elite), a level range and desired classes, and set a comment. People can then directly through the LFG interface request to join, or send you a tell first.

When it comes to group dynamics, there is built in voice chat, so not often do you have misunderstandings because of the shortcomings of text chat. It also helps seed out bad players.

But I general, I think it's thanks to the already very mature player base.
While I do at times get bad apples in my DDO pugs, these seem a lot less frequent than in other MMOs such as LOTRO and WoW.
The only pity is, even if you find out a person is ruining the group, you cannot kick him out until he leaves the instance (all fighting in the game is instanced). But this also prevents powertripping timmy-powergamers (not that the game has many of those) from kicking you because you point out that they are rushing too much;)

Everquest 1 had very coorperative gameplay. I have not played it in several years, so I don't know if people still place nice together?

Is the content challenging enough to require people to work together as a team? Is the penalty for failure or promise of rewards significant enough that teams will try hard to avoid wipe-outs?

Dungeons and Dragons Online is quite good at team-play. The game is mostly based around working together as a group, although there is still room for a duo of over-powered character to go off on their own in most adventures, but they typically won't get too far ahead of the others. Most people are polite enough not to solve quest objectives without the rest of the team being there.

AO, You got people that hit up whats called Hecks...they lvl the character up so fast, forget to lvl up their equipement and skills. Just end up with "Heck Noobs". But long as you don't have thos AO does fine with PUGs, if you want to lvl fast you have to PUG just never have been enough players in a mix of class's needed for a decent group...leveling past mid to max lvl you can't lvl grind with out a team. Some times you do find players more capable then others at a mix of things, like a healer near equal a tank and dd at the same time as full time healing. Those become prised as the tank doesn't have worry about keeping agro off the healer.

GW, forget it. Just grab NPC team and go. Most everyone can solo the entire game this way...well not int he since of solo as 1 chat but solo as 1 human player. Only team for PvP, thats almost always guild teams. One massive bonus, you can lvl cap in around 36 hours of play, so just completing the quest is all everyone is concerded about....but how it is completed and if optional quests are done at the same time is an all other story!!! Skill cap teams are ok, they really flaten out as people cap their skills then cut out.

EVE, no need to teams ever unless you find your self over whelmed or planing on a big PvP event.

All those Asian design based MMOs. Unless doing a raid of some kind. Solo fully. Doing the quests which the quickest lvling is done. You some times lvl before completing the quest ten lvl agian completing it. But as time goes ont he number of mob kills required to complete a quest gets to beeting your head in...kill 5000 of this mob. Some like SRO you can group up at a spot and share AoE resources and buffs...but still need to be solo for the kills to count to you. Even if your alone and you have a decent AoE skill set up for your use, you will see passers by stop and use it if needed.

AC, you can solo that one all they way. Teaming is optional but lvling gets faster in a team. Also you don't even need be involved with the fighting to gain. Get a lvl 11 to make team, teams a lvl21 and lvl1. The lvl 11 run the lvl 1 around get starting items and show around while the lvl 21 goes and kills Lugs and lvls the lvl 1 to like lvl5-10 in roughly 1-2 hours. instead of days.