I’m a druid, so I toss out Mark of the Wild to nearly every Hordie I pass in my travels. I throw HoTs on people caught up in battling mobs. I nuke things that are following fleeing lowbies. I’ve also given away free gear when I was leveling my leatherworking and the prices on the AH were low. Why sell it for 10silver to the vendor when someone might get use of it for a level or so. I’m a soft touch when it comes to people asking for a handful of silver to train skills at low levels, I usually give them a handful of gold instead.

Why do I do all this? First of all, to balance out the jerks. And secondly, because other people have done the same thing for me. Whether it be friends or strangers, I’ve come across many helpful and awesome people. I’ve had passing Hordies resurrect my lifeless cow body, I’ve gotten free gear enchants from people trying to skill up, I’ve received gold just for offering information.

Sure I’ve run across more than enough jerks and idiots, but there are still plenty of nice people in game. If more of us try to do a good deed, it will eventually come back right when you need it.

My friends and I got lucky finding some really cool people too.
Three of us qued DPS and got into Heroic Deadmines for the first time. We qued DPS because none of us wanted to put up with the the jack-asses you’re talking about. We ended up with a healer/tank team from the same guild, and it turned into a fantastic run. They were level-headed and willing to learn and work through unknown fights. We were thrilled to find people so easy going and obviously in it for the fun of the experience. And they were happy to work with three DPS that knew what they were doing and weren’t interested in competing with each other. After the first one we got into a common Vent together and ran some more. If those two hadn’t been from a cross-server que, we’d have invited them to our guild and made runs like that more common. We made some friends that night even if they are cross-server.

All in all, it renewed my faith that are really ARE cool people out there playing. It very often feels like they are few and very far between, but every once in a while, just when you think it’s totally not worth it, you come across someone that is just a pleasure to work with.

Yesterday, in trade a paladin was asking for Truegold transmute. I hadn’t used mine yet, so we grouped up – she traded me the mats, I pressed ‘create’ and poof! Truegold x2!

She typed (and I read with a forlorn voice) “I guess I don’t get the extra one, huh?”

I happily traded both to her, and went on my way to do dailies. She whispered “THANK YOU!!!” as I headed out of Org.

I was later telling my guildies of this post, and how I’d been so kind to the pally. Their thoughts: “Wait, she didn’t tip you?!? And you didn’t ask for any money!?! – Cooldowns are expensive, yo”

Yeah, but it’s my cooldown to do with as I please. If it makes a poor paladin happy, that makes me happy.

(Although I secretly hope Pay It Forward is true karmic power…. otherwise I’m just a chump ;) )

I saw him pause while fighting the ghosts. He replied “OMFG someone asked instead of just ninjaing the cannonballs. I don’t believe it! BTW I’m not on that quest, help yourself.” I got my cannonballs and was on my way.

So glad that this random kindness happened to you. Wonderful way to start off the new year!

However, I am sorry to Cassie for a horrible start to the new year in that heroic. I hope she runs into some random kindness to offset it soon!