And yet Blizzard also made WoW, the thing that was supposed to be “social”.
And yet you end your post talking about you, after pointing somebody else’s sins.
And yet you discuss somebody else’s post, with somebody else, not the OP.
I’m sure you see the irony here.
Of course, GD is not the game, but it’s a typical “social thing”. Except it’s been a cesspool day 1. Because human beings are like that and “online” only focuses it. And afaik, there was no M+ in 2004.
I’m not sure the OP wants “social” stuff to be two players jumping at each other’s throat for ego reasons. What I’m sure though, is a vast majority of players want to avoid such things, and have always done.
It sounds like we agree that recruiting from Trade is a bad idea?
Trade isn’t even close to the widest reach. It’s limited to the handful of servers you’re currently connected to for one, whereas something like a RaiderIO recruitment listing is visible across the entire game’s population. And Trade is further limited to whoever happens to be in a capital city and looking at the in-game chat at that moment.
“Find folks in-game” is exactly what I’m advising people NOT to do. The tools to meet new people in-game are woefully inadequate.
Occasionally you might have a good PUG experience with someone unguilded and steer them towards yours, but that is quite rare. Most people you come across in-game are not looking to jump ship, even pugs.
Back in 2005 we didn’t have all these “movements”. People weren’t such snowflakes and didnt get offended as easily. I was part of an Active guild up until the end of WRATH. What killed the guild was The Shaman healer cheater on the Druid Healer with the guild leader. Half the guild stayed and the other half left with the druid healer. Sense then I joined and left several guild.
Moral of this story. Easier to Solo and not deal with the worlds drama.
The game community has always been anti-social and degenerate since day 1. The only difference between now and then is that nobody has to put up with it if they don’t want to anymore and after over a decade of players demonstrating that anonymity causes people to mistreat others if they feel like it it’s really not a surprise that most have opted out. WoW has a social rep and it’s the players that are responsible for it. Why roll those dice when it’s not needed to have an enjoyable time?
The social fabric of the game isn’t gone. Its just changed and exists outside of the game as well.
Being social is different to different individuals. Some people, just being in the group is social. Some, just being in a GAME with other people is social for them.
You might want to throw some more parameters on that. Looking for friends and social interaction are daily activities for an broad group of people.
In other words, something tells me you mean a specific “type” of person.
I didn’t speak on the former, but I addressed the latter. You can only try and fail so many times before you give up. A number of the folks here and in-game could very well be at that threshold.
I’m not afraid to make friends. I’m just not encountering people worthy of friendship. Solo play and casual PUGs are fine for my gameplay needs. Meaningful connections are made in person for me. Your mileage may vary.
It stopped being that when they added things to speed up progression. The hight of social interaction in wow was when it took 6 months to level a toon and they couldn’t fly. People needed escorts through zones and would pass each other on roads and raid villages.
There are landmines in the sea but it doesn’t stop you from wading through the waters to find more fish now does it? Didn’t think so. Stop focusing on the minefields and start focusing on the schools of fish. People become so jaded due to life trauma, other people, the internet / social media. But that young teenager / college student in you that was super social or explored stuff and became social never stopped being a thing. I mean hell, it’s very possible you were NEVER this and got adopted by some extroverts. Plenty of those player types still exist.
This is a player issue, through and through. Not a time period thing, does anyone not look into the past behavior of pre-gaming days? These types of people (bar social media influence) all existed in 2004. The internet just added modern reasons to be like this, it’s not like real life outside of gaming and the internet was devoid of all these things that made people jaded, despondent, old, etc…
I don’t disagree but my point the behavior you correctly spoke of is still not excused because folks can use external methods to socialize.
I mean team speak and ventrilo were around in the games beginning and people still were junk to each other it just wasn’t as much because law of averages - when there’s less players playing you’ll have less bar actors.
But again I don’t disagree with your premise I just think there’s no excuse for people by default being jack holes to people in any game.
It’s certainly not an excuse for poor behavior regardless of where said behavior is occurring. My point within the context of the OP is that it exists and that having an expectation for players to continue to opt into bad social experiences so that some players can feel like the game is more social is unreasonable and inaccurate. Better to shift ones own mentality and adapt than to try and blame the world for not remaining in line with what they want them to do.
Wow used to be a decent stand-in for what social media has become, and back then people were generally more optimistic about its current and future state.
Plus, when you meet a bunch of strangers and the only thing you know for a fact you have in common is that you play WoW, there has to be a lot of content you feel positive about to strike up a conversation. But the fact is, nobody is gushing over the story in this game, and most day-to-day content is something you’ve done a million times over by now.
It’s smart to look back on the past and see what was good and bad and learn from both. Kind of an odd thing to say he is being passive aggressive by encouraging people to be more social with each other.
To answer the OP title: Maybe? There really isn’t a system in place to encourage social interaction. Guilds have turned into cliques and the world is full of instance queue’s. WoW has become something different now. The best way I think you personally can encourage social interaction is with what you’re doing now with your discord.
IMO, some have been beaten down by toxic people. If you stay quiet there is less chance you’ll be singled out by them. Best way to fight that is to ignore them and carry on!
I don’t believe anything blizzard does would make everyone quit.
As far as speaking to one another that’s not a ludicrous thing to want. In the games current system as I said before there is no time to time unless you are in discord. Blizzard could slow it down a little giving people the ability to talk. Currently to do well the system rewards not speaking in any text based chat
You are essentially arguing you don’t want to talk to people with in the game, yet you come to a forum to talk with complete strangers, hell even argue and be rude for no apparent reason.
