11/11/2018 09:00 PMPosted by
Monrith
I keep seeing that statement get thrown around from time to time but I'm calling it out.
I remember the days of pre-dungeon finder. Here's how it went:
[Trade] Monrith: "LF tank for Gundrak" x 38
DiabloMeme: "I'll join"
DiabloMeme has joined the group.
Monrith: "someone help summon plz"
DiabloMeme: "okay"
*summons*
*facerolls dungeon*
Random player: "thanks everyone"
Group disbanded.
That was it. It was virtually the same exact thing as dungeon finder with the only difference being you having to spam trade chat for 40 something minutes to form a group and having to argue with people to come summon.
It wasn't a sprawling utopia of high quality conversations where everyone are bestest friends. It was just running with randoms who were as silent back then as they are now.
If you're looking for community a guild is the way to go, same thing for back then in ye olden pre-LFD days.
I disagree completely. LFG UIs did not kill the social aspect 100%.
Cross realms did.
People operate according to consequence. If you're a prig with no cross realms, people remember you. Because you're within the server only. Then there's an incentive to behave.
With cross realms, there's no consequence, people invite and kick you without a word.
Pugs are consequentially not humans to interact with. LFG tools were never to blame.
5 Likes
11/11/2018 09:43 PMPosted by
Kathyna
If you need a social aspect to this game for dungeons and raids join a guild!
This just sends my social anxiety haywire, thinking of just randomly joining a guild for social aspects of WoW. You can't just start speaking to random people and think they care about what you say with social anxiety ruling your brain XD.
1 Like
Mythic dungeons havent changed the social aspect, and yet the people that complain about dungeon finder dont bother with forming groups for it anyways. Mythic dungeons are the old heroics.. Still very easy. Try some. It's not the same as a mythic raid at all.
1 Like
classic as a warrior tank:
"yo, tank strat?"
"what's the group like?"
"[name], mage...[name], paladin healer, [name], rogue...and [name], hunter
"nah, [hunter] is a keyboard turner and likes to take everything, no ty"
11/11/2018 09:43 PMPosted by
Kathyna
If you need a social aspect to this game for dungeons and raids join a guild!
This just sends my social anxiety haywire, thinking of just randomly joining a guild for social aspects of WoW. You can't just start speaking to random people and think they care about what you say with social anxiety ruling your brain XD.
And that's a good reason why dungeon finder needs to stay. Have the harder dungeons group required and the rest queable.
LFD did not kill the social aspect, being grouped with every other server in your local cluster did. I made the most friends in WoW when it was still just my server. Even if it were just your server and the connected realm that goes with it (In my case, Whisperwind and Dentarg), that's a much more tightly knit community than "I'll never see this fool again so TROLOLOLOL!" like it is today.
The main problem with going back to even a dual-server community via connected realm only is that the population is spread so thinly on some servers that it would be virtually impossible to get groups at non-peak times. Maintaining LFD functionality in a single/dual server community would definitely be essential in terms of wait times for sure. I suspect Classic will end up with LFD functionality at some point as well, though if they do I kind of hope it's done via the oooooooold Call to Arms addon method, which added a bit more granular group finding support than just "fill'er up please!" from LFD.
Community identity is what made WoW so much more engaging than other MMOs. I'd love to see that come back. But sadly I'm at a loss as to how to do it with the current population dispersion since so many would lose their character names in the condensing of servers/communities. Blizzard kind of painted themselves into a corner on this one and there doesn't look like a truly happy way out of the lack of community right now. :(
Jerks killed the social aspect.
Not having a group finder wasn't quite the check people say it was on anti-social behavior in instances.
11/11/2018 09:04 PMPosted by
Vãrick
I'll try.
11/11/2018 09:00 PMPosted by
Monrith
[Trade] Monrith: "LF tank for Gundrak" x 38
DiabloMeme: "I'll join"
DiabloMeme has joined the group.
Monrith: "someone help summon plz"
DiabloMeme: "okay"
*summons*
-> Wipes
-> Doesn't get kicked because they just spent 15 minutes looking for a tank
-> They talk about it and figure out what was causing the wipe and the problem.
-> DiabloMeme joins the guild
-> DiabloMeme continues to build a relationship with the players in the group since they're all on the same server.
Both of these were potential outcomes. Your anecdote is just as valuable as mine.
People don't kick for no reason unless someone is actually at fault. I have experiences like this on live all the time.
1 Like
11/11/2018 09:18 PMPosted by
Chrace
The social aspect was dead and buried long before launch due to you being able to solo level. This how I made most of my friends, many I still have, in vaniller EQ.
That's pretty ridiculous considering you could solo level in EQ, too. WoW made it easier, but if that killed anything it was MMO's being a niche market.
LFD did not kill the social aspect, being grouped with every other server in your local cluster did.
That's exactly it.
You might be able to group up with people with just a sentence or two, not even speak much, and do dungeons, but the important part was that it was realistic to have some idea of who that person was or to have seen them around before, and also to see them again afterward.
Servers were a community, not just part of your name tag. Reputation meant something. You might not know everyone, but you passed them in Ironforge and saw them around, knew names from their interactions in chat, PvP'd with and alongside the same people, and so on.
That'll never come back in this game, though, and I don't have a clue as to how it could. Part of what made it possible was that MMO's were a lot smaller back then, or were designed for an audience that was. Small towns became cities, with the changes that go with that.
1 Like
It was demographic changes that "killed" the "community" you remember.
In the beginning, everyone was new to this. Everyone was learning together. Everyone was working for common goals, or at least you thought they were. If your interest was raiding, you may never have noticed the majority who were not raiders, off doing whatever.
But you formed friendships with many players.
Years passed, people left for whatever reason. New players came, some of the unskilled or slower learners, a lot of whom you had little in common with.
You rejected them, refused to consider them as friendship potential. And your community dwindled away.
That's it.
2 Likes
Cross realm kfg did totally kill that social aspect of this game. My guildies and I were discussing as it started happening. The rise of LFG also coincided with the "maturing" of the entitlement generation. You know, the ones who run their mouths constantly because they're basically anonymous and untouchable on the internet. There's no repercussions. No cause and effect to keep them behaving like decent people. Having the filters in their foul, rude potty mouths removed by the anonymity of LFG was fertile grounds for the seeds of toxicity we see everywhere today.
So, disagree all you want. To anyone who was there, and paying attention, the change in the community was immediate and disturbing.
2 Likes
11/11/2018 11:31 PMPosted by
Vyline
Cross realm kfg did totally kill that social aspect of this game. My guildies and I were discussing as it started happening. The rise of LFG also coincided with the "maturing" of the entitlement generation. You know, the ones who run their mouths constantly because they're basically anonymous and untouchable on the internet. There's no repercussions. No cause and effect to keep them behaving like decent people. Having the filters in their foul, rude potty mouths removed by the anonymity of LFG was fertile grounds for the seeds of toxicity we see everywhere today.
So, disagree all you want. To anyone who was there, and paying attention, the change in the community was immediate and disturbing.
I can agree with some of this even though I started playing WoW vaniller with the intent of solo play. I just had enough of the hardcore raiding in EQ.
Even in EQ you had bad apples. I don't think it started with a singular event. I've noticed a gradual decline over the years to what we have now when more and more people realize they can't be held accountable for their actions.
I had an awesome guild in EQ. I had an awesome guild in Warhammer Online. That made me love those games, and the time spent, even more. I wish I could find that in WoW but most people just seem so rude these days. /shrug
This is the same as when older folks mock this generation for always having phones and video games, never socializing in public settings like "the good old days"... only to learn that train/plane/bus rides were spent with your nose in a newspaper and most neighborly friendships were fake, only serving to take advantage of proximity (this is why the "annoying neighbor we pretend to be friends with" trope was so popular in the 80s and 90s)
Even though we're a social species and we do enjoy companionship, most times we just don't care that much about strangers. Grouping up in these games is usually done for individual convenience, getting that content done by recruiting help from those who also need it done. It was like this in EQ when I played, and it's been like this in WoW.
There are guilds and communities and groups of friends, of course. But those are usually sought after separately. "Social friends" and "work friends", if you will. And people can be in both groups, but not always.
2 Likes
Even in groups with smooth runs that required little talking, most people understood that with the server population being finite, it was entirely possible you'd be seeing these people again. Civility buff activated.
You're also ignoring the impact of guild reputations. Even if you didn't know an individual specifically, you might know the reputation of their guild. Many good guilds would not tolerate one of their members behaving like a jerk in public. Another stack of civility activated.
LFR/LFG didn't kill the social aspect of the game.
The players did.
3 Likes
Having been through guilds.. and raid guilds.. I can see why some would choose to stick with them and others would choose to have little to do with them. Humans are so fascinatingly different. I think we ultimately connect with others like us, but what if what we are like.. is somewhat distant by nature? I think there's still room for that but doesn't always come in the obvious ways like guilds.
Beyond that.. it takes a lot in wow to stand out, to not just be a face lost in the crowd. There was a time that was the most geared guy on the server standing on the ironforge bridge.. but.. times evolve. Maybe now it's the guy on top the raider.io ratings or the world first raiders. I'm not sure a lot of that world really leads to us connecting with each other more though.
What does get people and players to gather and connect? If you can answer that correctly, you tap into the multi-billion possibilities.
11/11/2018 09:00 PMPosted by
Monrith
get thrown around
"Thrown around", sounds overly haphazard.
It's not like we just picked it out of a hat.
The reasons behind the remarks have been hashed out in excruciating detail over the years.
And as a result; we got Dungeons that were intentionally left outside the queue system. Because players were correct.
Mythic dungeons havent changed the social aspect
The Mythic dungeon system of Legion was a drastic improvement.
Mythic+ has a large and active community.
11/11/2018 09:00 PMPosted by
Monrith
I remember the days of pre-dungeon finder. Here's how it went:
[Trade] Monrith: "LF tank for Gundrak" x 38
DiabloMeme: "I'll join"
DiabloMeme has joined the group.
Monrith: "someone help summon plz"
DiabloMeme: "okay"
I'm not sure if you're referring to everything within the LFG pane/window,
but if you really want realm chat (trade channel,LFG channel) to become a thing again to form groups, you need to get rid of Premade Group Finder as well as cross realm grouping.
But I don't see that happening. Your best bet is to go play classic.
Unless they introduce premade group finder or something in classic too.
I fail to see why those who value the social aspect of pre-lfd can't continue to uphold their desires after.
You've never heard of the Seattle Freeze.
11/11/2018 09:43 PMPosted by
Kathyna
If you need a social aspect to this game for dungeons and raids join a guild!
This just sends my social anxiety haywire, thinking of just randomly joining a guild for social aspects of WoW. You can't just start speaking to random people and think they care about what you say with social anxiety ruling your brain XD.
Mayhaps that would be a great way to work it out a bit? Maybe doing the things that make you nervous will help be less nervous towards those things going forward?