The game today is the way life is and I like it and I’m sure most people do. I keep seeing this in certain topics “sense of community” “community” “part of the community”.
It doesn’t exist folks. There is no community. That chicken you buy from your supermarket wasn’t made by some guy you are gonna get to know and buy chicken from for the rest of your life. It was made by a ‘nameless’ corporation and if you don’t like their chicken you can buy it from another ‘nameless’ corporation. Take your pick, Chicken #1, Chicken #2 or Chicken #3. Either way, at the end of the day, you are getting chicken.
Back to WoW. You go on some dungeon run or raid and use LFG tool, you’ll be with people you may never see again, and you know what? it’s fine cause everyone is there for one thing only - loot and completion.
They are not there to be your buddies, they are there to get some chicken and you are just part of the machine just like the supermarkets and the ‘nameless’ corporations. And guess what, if you don’t help get them that chicken, they’ll look for someone else to get their chicken from. It’s perfect!
I actually get my chicken from the farm up the road whenever possible, personally.
Just playing on WoW makes you part of a community of WoW players. I’ve made a number of friends here and that’s what keeps me here. We have a commonality of liking this game enough to play.
I don’t know in classic I felt like I got to experience a real sense of community. We formed groups and ran dungeons and played often.
I can’t explain it any other way in my mind other than old Warcraft plays like an analog clock, and modern wow is all digital.
The biggest issue with the old way of forming groups is that you could be sitting in chat or on a dead server and essentially be completely out of luck for hours.
Conversely you can be on retail and group up with random people who will never see ever again.
Like others have said it really depends on how well you can form a guild and keep it.
You know, back in December of 2004, possibly in early January of 2005, I was questing in Arathi Highlands, and there were a series of quests in Stromgarde Keep that, while not technically Elite quests, were really hard to do solo because of the high density of relatively powerful mobs in the area (real tough for a low-level Mage, anyway). I was really struggling for a while, and then I encountered two other players, a Rogue and a Paladin (who were friends in RL), who were doing the same quests - we teamed up and had a great time finishing the quest chain. Even though I’d never, and would never, meet them in RL, we became good friends together and ended up being guildies all through Vanilla and TBC. Great times, great memories.
That’s the version of WoW that I miss. The kind where “community” was a thing. The kind the OP is describing where every player is just in it for themselves and not interested in being social… that’s a very poor substitute. But I do agree that’s today’s WoW, and it’s a shame, really.
Yeah, but what about those who could become your friends?
Or those the just helped each other out? Even in classic mages would make water for free/classes would buff you and people would tip without obligation.
I feel like that can still be a thing. It is in Final Fantasy. I was new there and players helped get me started with gold and tips. I tried getting back into this game and was just told to Google guides…
Yeah it did. LFD and LFR took away the requirement for the casual to meet people on their realm. It’s nice that you had a unicorn experience where you were grouped with someone from your realm and they joined your guild but that’s not the norm.
The norm is the five of us clear the dungeon without saying a word then drop group before you can even type the letters “tyfg.”
