How many of you play WoW solely with a group of friends?
How many of you are just solo players?
I’d like to hear about your insight as why so many players in the game seem to struggle to make friends despite their being things like guilds, communities, forums, discords and social media.
I get that with the implementation of things lile LFR you no longer need to be as social but what I don’t get is that large group of players who complain about having nobody to play with.
This is an MMO with 10s of thousands of people online at any given moment, plenty of people to play with… I understand players have anxiety, but in a game we already know the common interest when starting a conversation with someone… its not like trying to pick a cute girl up at the bar or anything.
Am I just being insensitive? Whats with social anxiety on a game thats literally meant to be played with people?
As of rn, this community isn’t healthy, socially. For a healthy social group you have to do find a decent guild which is hard to come by. Besides that though, the community has become toxic, especially when raiding.
I enjoy plying with my guildies, but even though I can be socially anxious I will talk in PUGs if others are talking. My anxiety normally stems from one on one conversations with people I don’t know.
That being said in terms of actual gameplay, I enjoy healing M+ if I’m with my guildies, but if I’m pugging, especially pugging a tank, my anxiety sky rockets because I don’t know if these people are the type to give up as soon as things get tough, the type to flame and insult, or if they’re chill people who are just trying to have fun doing keys.
So I suppose you could say I fear not knowing how people will act and react.
I only enjoy the game because I have such an awesome guild. I sometimes feel a bit weird and shy around them- or don’t know how to joke but they’re cool.
I’m a pretyt mediocre mage, but I never feel … out of place.
Plus, I’ve gotten AOTC twice, and I’m getting to raid as a healer for a second raid tier. Idk I love it, they’re great. I can’t imagine playing the game without friends and guildies.
I play with my husband and a regular group of friends. One friend we’ve known since wrath, one since BFA. The other two we met in DF. We still occasionally pug, and it’s not unusual for us to make friends in pug groups. We swap btags with people all the time. My husband is incredibly friendly, talkative and easy-going - he makes it look really easy to make friends. He is usually tanking, and I think this makes a big difference in the way folks we pug with respond. When the tank is cool and easygoing, it seems to make for a chill, fun run.
Pretty much entirely solo besides queued group content or the occasional random group finder if I need something specific.
I’ve had various IRL friends that have played off and on over the years, but none at the moment, and I generally prefer to just do my own thing anyways.
Not to be a meme but my social life is a bit too active to ever really be able to regularly commit any evenings to the game for organized content, like I did back in college (BC/WotLK). No knocks against those who can, but it’s just not important enough to me to put aside anything else I have going on.
this is not the wow of old so you don’t get friendly folks just looking to game with you instead get folks just looking for reasons to hate you you literally can’t nowadays
There are some very socially awkward people who play this game. I’ll never understand why so many people are so afraid to talk to other people, especially in text behind an avatar in a video game.
me for the most part. I might pug a person or two for keys every now and the, but most of my runs are done in-guild. 100% of my raiding is done in-guild, and I never run random queued content.
man idk. I’m a barely functioning adult with severe social anxiety who rarely leaves her house because people scare me so much… yet I have no problem talking to people in-game. I have no problem saying “hey mind if I add you to bnet friends list so we can run together in the future”, no problem using discord to communicate to people I know (I don’t talk a lot if it’s people I don’t know)
I can do it, and knowing what a mess I am, I honestly struggle to understand how others can’t. people online are people you’ll never encounter IRL, with no power over you.
My IRL friends haven’t touched WoW or any MMO in years. I do meet a couple of people every expansion and strike up a friendship. Like anything else though, they don’t always stay and the friend list goes grey again.
I’ll pug a season or 2 when I have the time to commit. As I said, I do meet people on here. I just don’t always have the time to play consistency. Otherwise, I usually just keep to myself.
I’m mostly a solo player, though I help the occasional guildie with some keys here and there. I work 12hr shifts, have a wife and kiddo and do stuff with family, so my schedule doesn’t allow for me to commit to organized… uh, anything lol
My guild is rather large and spans over several servers, but they do a lot to keep toxicty stamped out. I’ve only ever seen folks be chill in guild chat, even if I’m just glancing at it while flying from point A to B and not really participating.
I personally have very little issue with socializing in the game, I just have no need for it 95% of the time. It’s easy enough to speak up and be polite in keys, and sometimes the LFR banter can be fun if it isn’t an absolute cesspool group.
As for why people have trouble socializing in WoW, I can only guess it boils down to how unreasonable many people see others being on social media. If you act like a goober, you get to be loud and have lots of attention, but if you just act like a normal friggin’ person, you’d be surprised how often that same chill attitude is reflected back at you for a positive interaction.
