AFK Excuses

Everyone has to go AFK at some point. It’s nearly impossible for most players to get up and stretch or walk around the house quickly or fix a drink during a five hour raid night. I have the kind of parents where I absolutely MUST eat dinner with them at the table and I have to step out of the raid for three minutes (six if its roast beef). No matter what the excuse is for going AFK, there is an art involved in it. Some people are best remembered for being awesome tanks. Some people are renowned for their Arena ability. The rest just have really darned memorable AFK excuses. I’ve said something that’ve made my Guildies blink twice and say what? Here’s my place to explain the story:

AFK BASEMENT FLOOD

I remember barking this one out a few months ago. My mom was telling me the basement was beginning to flood and my dad wasn’t home but he showed me how to cut the water in the event something like this happened. Thankfully, this was during a trash clear towards VR so my absence wasn’t notable nor significantly slowing down raid progress.

afk making rice

For some reason this one seems to draw a snicker. Doesn’t take that long to scoop out some rice, add water, and press a button *shrug*.

afk moving tv

I used this one last night. It was just after we took down Solarian. My Guildies were going… what? The story behind this one is that on Saturday, my Sony TV had some problems with it. There was power going into it but it seemed liked the cathode inside wasn’t displaying anything. There were no channels and the video 1/video 2 options weren’t appearing either. We thought that the TV suffered an internal combustion or something so we brought in a back up TV to replace the set and moved the Sony off the pedestal. So the next day, WHILE I’M RAIDING, my dad has the genius idea of plugging the Sony back into an outlet and turning it on again. Lo and behold, white noise ensues. Then he promptly asks me for help to switch the old set with the Sony. We’ve had the Sony for almost 15 years and I think it’s going to bite the dust. I just hope it lasts until Boxing Day.

%&#@ afk keyboard’s fried

I spilled beer on my keyboard. The game was going on a fritz. I was shooting off random spells and would constantly be in motion. I had to take a minute to switch out my Logitech with a $10 backup I had lying around. Times like this I’d be “oob” (out of beer). Take that as a lesson for all you aspiring WoW raiders out there. If anything can go wrong, it will. Always keep spare hardware on standby. You never know when you need an extra mouse, keyboard, or monitor.

Here’s some others that I’ve heard throughout my WoW career from other people

afk quick sex

Classic. I see this one happening all the time. Nine times out of ten it’s caused by people hitting the x key instead of the c. The other one time wasn’t a typo, apparently.

afk tornado

He did live in Kansas. In one of my past Guilds, if weather was going to be an issue an officer would have CNN turned or the weather page loaded and keyed it to the zip code of where that member was living.

afk smoke

I may not approve of it, but I understand some people having to light one up to calm their nerves down. But to light up one DURING a trash pull to Attumen, AFTER Attumen, and BEFORE Moroes within the time span of one hour? Give me a break!

afk gotta run to a store

A friend of mine used this almost all the time. It was always during an inopportune moment when we raided and he would be gone for thirty minutes at a time. COSTCO IS YOUR FRIEND!

brb wife aggro

This is another common one that has been floating around for a while. The game appeals widely to different players of all ages. It’s not weird to hear this one coming from various guys at some point during a raid because the wife would get pissed off at the player for playing too much WoW. C’mon guys! Need to farm that rep and get Exalted with the wife!

AFK wildfire

This one I heard happened a few weeks back. Good ol’ Socal.

The WoW Forums can be ever so entertaining. Check out these gems that I’ve found.

I was raiding with my guild, and suddenly 1 of the guys yells “Ill brb, someone threw a grenade inside my house!” seconds later we hear a boom, and then he goes afk. 2 minutes later he comes back “Stupid neighbours.. wont be throwing those again..”. There was silence for 7 minutes untill we got up to Hakkar. Funniest raid ever.

– Zakki, Darksorrow

Excuse.. plausible. But I must say, I would be rendered speechless if I heard that.

Actually, this one time my mate was in kara and I was watching.. He gets pissed and kind of throws his arms up in frustration; his wireless mouse flies across the room and goes through the open balcony door. Now the problem is, the balcony door has a safety “metal bar” door to keep out thiefs etc. since they live on the first floor. And the door is locked. He doesn’t have a key to it. So he spends 10-15 minutes trying to reach the mouse with 2 sticks etc. while I try to explain the situation to the raid. >.<

Mundus, Requiem

This is one of those freak accidents. I’m known for my temper. People in my Guild will testify that (Razer mouses are very resilient). I can’t say I’ve thrown my mouse out a window. By the way, this exact case is an excellent argument for why getting a wired mouse is better than a wireless.

I know there’s got to be some other excuses out there I haven’t heard of. Expect to see some more later on when I run into some from my Guildies or party members.