A single prompt in World of Warcraft Midnight has players discussing the best (and worst) uses for its NPC party members

While they've been around for a couple of years, a single prompt in World of Warcraft Midnight to use its Follower Dugneon feature has convinced one player to advise others to "do the dungeon the normal way." Instead, the sound advice has the WoW community swapping stories and even uncovering some sneaky ways to make use of the game's NPC allies that are simply "too good at simulating real players."

Reddit user matticus7 attempted to help out those racing through the new World of Warcraft Midnight expansion, suggesting that "it's a trap" to take the iconic MMO up on its offer to run story-progressing dungeons with its "Follower" companions-computer-controlled NPCs designed to let players run party-based dungeons without interacting with others.

Matticus7 brands Crenna Earth-Daughter, one of the partners on offer, as "the most useless healer imaginable," largely due to the fact that she "likes to throw herself off the side of cliffs." Maybe we should stop asking "How, Crenna?" and start asking "Why, Crenna?" instead.

But that's not the end of it. Further lending reason to Matticus7's advice to queue for real players with a slightly lesser chance of hurtling themselves off a cliff, there's Austin Huxworth: a Hunter hero who "will pull anything in a two mile radius with his obnoxious strafe jumping." As someone whose first proper World of Warcraft raiding memory is of being kicked when his cousin (a Hunter) did just that to wipe the raid before it even began, I actually salute the commitment to the bit, Mr. Huxworth.

In the comments, the advice to save time by queuing with the rabble to avoid putting up with NPC shenanigans resulted in players sharing their favorite stories of World of Warcraft's Follower system. And while I've never used it, I can at least compare it to how Final Fantasy 14 handles going the anti-social route.

Over there, your NPC companions do a pretty solid job of following boss mechanics. Unlike a real player, they leave the mob pulls to you, jumping in to heal, tank, or do damage the second a monster decides you're close enough to whack in the head.

Over in Azeroth, which sounds like it's enjoying a long-awaited reinvention thanks to the Midnight expansion, players describe a very different experience. Hearing that World of Warcraft's NPC allies have a habit of "resetting the fight" at the end of new story dungeon sounds like an incredible act of sabotage I actually can't help but respect. There's also a lot of shared experiences in the Magisters' Terrace dungeon, with wipes often happening "because none of the followers were doing the orbs."

In Final Fantasy 14, the NPC allies' ability to do dungeon mechanics at least lets anxious players learn them at their own pace. In World of Warcraft Midnight, however, a player explaining how they "still have no idea what the mechanics of those dungeons are," despite clearing them with the AI-controller companions, has me fearing for those who might eventually queue with this particular breed of player. Maybe some of the best WoW addons can help.

Still, there's a silver lining somewhere. One wise warrior gave a positive spin on the whole experience. No matter how slow it is to party up with Followers versus real players, you'll at least "guarantee the decor drop" goes to you if you're on the WoW housing grind. Those NPCs won't ninja your loot. They're basically homeless.