My social battery runs out at work.
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I’m not sure that they actually want socialization as much as they want the benefits of socialization. I spend my workday dealing with people making demands of me and have no interest dealing with more of the same when I get home. I accept that this limits what I can do in game. If I raid, it’s only pugs so progress is erratic and AOTC is rare. I won’t do m+ because pugging isn’t worth it. I can live with these limitations. People don’t seem to understand that when you make a choice, you accept all the consequences of that choice.
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Figured I’d log in and see if the first thing I see in chat will be conducive to making friends. I expected the standard city chat arguing, but instead was confronted by:
“Someday the US will be free from (racial slur deleted).”
I reported them immediately, but the moment is sort of ruined for making friends.
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A lesson we all need, in and out of gaming.
While this statement is 1000% true, WoW is a game and the actual “consequence” i a construct of the game design. TWW is in a pretty good state for casuals like me, certainly better than WoD or SL. But it could be better, and benefits for casual players don’t in any way cancel out the benefits for more social players. 
WoW hasn’t been a social game since the introduction of LFG
Most of it isn’t. If I don’t want to socialize, I’m limiting myself to pugs. It’s an intrinsic property of pugs that they will, usually, underperform fixed groups. There aren’t any kind of game design changes that will change that.
That’s very individualized. Assuming the crest conversion and crafting numbers remain the same next season, a player will be able to get within 6 ilvl of cap just doing solo/queueable content. It’ll take longer but it’ll be doable without it being an unbearable grind. Depending on the reward structure of Horrific Visions, the gap could be even smaller. Some people will consider that an acceptable tradeoff, other’s won’t. Everyone weighs value differently.
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Well that never happened once in Vanilla since you had to actually go to the dungeon so there was no waiting around in towns.
If you are going to attempt to speak about the past of this game please know what you are talking about first.
This is not a WoW-specific trend.
The online gaming space in general has moved in this direction bigtime over the years.
There was an era where talking with randoms online was somewhat novel (especially over voice) and so it was the norm for people to actively engage with other players.
It’s not novel anymore. People have gone back to sticking to their existing social circles and only interact with strangers if they absolutely have to.
It happened with Xbox Live / Console Gaming as a whole, it happened in MMORPGs, it’s true for just about any Online Multiplayer setting that isn’t INHERENTLY social to the point that the people playing it are 100% definitely seeking out socialization (see: VRChat).
MMORPGs are not inherently social in that way. People fill the world, but the games are not designed to be inherently social experiences. They can be, but they largely aren’t, especially as tools to get into groups for content improved over time (across the genre).
You have to actively seek out social experiences these days. Which is fine, but it definitely feels worse compared to the era when it just kind of happened naturally.
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People 100% stood around in major cities spamming general chat looking for pugs to make a group or for groups looking for your class or role and then everyone went to the dungeons once the group was formed. This happened all the way up to the advent of LFG in patch 3.3.0. If you are going to attempt to correct someone about the past of this game please know what you are talking about first.
Well said.
Online gaming was still a very new concept in 2005 and people loved interacting and seeing others online back then. The honeymoon phase never last forever.
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I mean, it wasn’t that new. I got my start in Yserbius in 1992/93 after a slew of BBS door games.
MMOs had been around for a bit too. WOW was basically the AOL of online gaming, appealing to the lowest common denominator and cashing in.
A lot of people in my native country didn’t have ease of access to the internet until the mid 2000’s and if they did it wasn’t good enough for online gaming. This was also definitely true for a lot rural America too.
I do understand that people in the 90’s had access to it but it definitely wasn’t readily available around the globe.
WoW has evolved to meet the desires of the players. You can still be social with friends, pugs just want to rush the content and move on these days.
It’s just how things are nowadays.
Even on the Anniversary Classic WoW Servers people are way more reserved and only group if they absolutely have to or are just power leveling through boosting groups.
Fair enough.
Comments like these make me thank god this is no longer a social game.
Not afraid of making friendships at all.
Got tired of “friends” who wouldn’t make an effort unless they were carried the whole time.
Other friends stopped playing years ago.
Dealt with plenty of years seeing how bad this community can get twards eachother really put a nail in that for alot of players.
And also as others have stated, alot of players use Discord for talking.
A majority of stuff in game is people being jerks to eachother in chat so, yeah.
I’m not sad about it at all.
If I could give you a Jester I would.
People went to the actual dungeons to stand around and get a group together. There were no summon stones. No one sat around in Org while trying to get a UBRS / LBRS when it was over 15 minutes away.
Wow, you are something special aren’t you. People 10000000000000000000% would form groups in major cities because you could post in General chat in cities such as “LFT for SFK, or Need Heals for VC” and get more responses than using zone chat and local defense chat near the dungeons. There were meeting stones in Vanilla that were initially automated filling in partial parties with random players who were the right level for the dungeon but they were horrible because they could fill the party with DPS as they didnt take class/role into consideration. Then the meeting stones were changed to summoning stones to summon people to the dungeons; however as late as WotLK people would still bark in General or Trade chat “LFG…” messages.