Hinted at this in another thread already, but I swear the people complaining about things like never actually played vanilla. You know, back in the day when the addon API was almost-pure XML/LUA with practically no restrictions on it, because it wasn’t something Blizzard had put much thought into yet. Just because most addon creators weren’t aware of what was actually possible at the time doesn’t change the fact that this is within what was possible back in the day.
shakes Glowing Brightwood Staff at the darn youngins cantankerously
Straw man. I’ve never typed the words ‘no changes’.
Understand this please: I am in no way in favor of this addon. I am totally against it. Nothing you say will change my position. You want it…I don’t. Now it’s up to Blizz.
As having never used the addon myself I can’t say with certainty there wouldn’t be a difference. Maybe only a difference on the group leaders end? Or in a general mentality about how the group was formed. The difference wouldn’t be on the surface or recognizable to anyone just watching the chat channels, at least not from what I can tell from what I know about the addon. So I agree with you that it won’t on appear any differently when using chat channels. Again that is without having used or seen said addon operate in real time but I’ll take your word for it.
It only takes a quick google search to notice that a lot of information about the mechanics of classic, yes even something as seemingly obvious for us as /4, will not be obvious to a new player. Retail guides greatly overshadow the search results out there, and wowhead is not something I think new players will find immediately. I do not think that it is an overstatement to say that most people not introduced to a group finder add-on will make groups through organic and wholesome means like many people did back in the day (myself included). I think group finder shoved in these new players face’s will block some of this natural hard earned friendship building.
Many people who do not know much will roll on low pop servers thinking that they will have a nicer experience and will have more of the world to themselves. That’s actually how I thought way back when. I think you underestimate the capabilities Blizz has to maintain healthy server levels. Just this week they are opening plenty of new servers.
That’s the way I’m seeing it as well. It doesn’t teleport people to the dungeon, they still have to travel. It only improves availability and speeds up finding people for groups, as the original way was posting “LFG [lvl] [class] [dungeon]” or “LF#M [dungeon] [optional role requirement]” in whatever channel seemed appropriate. After the LFG channel was created, people would do it then, in the zone chat, and sometimes even by /yell. The real interaction, making friends, and building the community in regards to grouping up happened AFTER the person joined the party.
I’m absolutely convinced that most of the people arguing against this sort of thing were never one of us old farts fumbling around back then. The addon changes very little about partying up, and nothing at all about where the social interaction actually happened.
No, I fully meant what I said, in the context of how I said it. Convenience cheapens the value of the players you play with. let’s look at retail, how easy is it to boot someone from a dungeon group and then have that person replaced withing at most a couple of minutes during prime time, usually faster if their a dps. And we know how often people get kicked in retail for some of the stupidest reasons. The convenience of being able to fill a slot is what I was referring to. Even with a higher supply of people, if you can’t chat directly with them or use an addon to directly post a listing you still have to go back to a city and spam the channels or ues lfg channel which may be full of spam like on retail and people may opt of of it. That means you have to travel, spam the channels, find and invite someone, and head back to the dungeon (or hopefully the other members of your party aren’t being lazy and use the meeting stone to summon you). That’s a lot of work. Or you just keep the subpar mage, help him understand why he needs to sheep certain mobs, don’t attack them first and dot them before sheeping, etc. Mage gets to stay, hopefulyl becomes better and has positive experience. And maybe even gets better to the point you want them in your guild. But if kicking him and easily replacing him (convenience) is possible than that player has been devalued. Where he could have been made better and had a more positive experience he now has had an experience more akin to the cesspool that is retail.
Now obviously that isn’t going to be every interaction, and hopefully that will still be rare even if the addon does get the ok from the devs. But I can see how being able to more conveniently replace people, like in retail (although not THAT convenient) would lessen players value of another.
Jono Hill
Can’t see them allowing something as game breaking to remain…
Can’t see the forest for the trees.
James
They didn’t break the one that we had back on vanilla so I doubt they will break this one.
This right here. It’s nothing new, it’s nothing unusual, and it uses the chat channels like everyone and everything else. We’d sit in the dungeon and wait for people to respond, or before LFG we’d send someone outside to do the advertising. Two if we’re expecting we’ll definitely need to use the stone to summon someone. This just makes it a bit faster to get that person into the actual party itself, and lessens nothing otherwise.
I also said it in another thread but I’ll repeat it here. "The attempts to force an “authentic experience” can be just as damaging to it as they are supporting of it. They’re trying, but I feel like the people complaining, and the devs buckling down, don’t truly understand what the environment of Vanilla was actually like."
I haven’t in the ones I’ve played as I’m not hoping for the most authentic recreation of the Vanilla launch/experience and the following months. Other games that have that are those games. It’s fine if they have them as games ahve evolved over the last 15 years. The point of Classic is to play a version of WoW before those things existed (pre 1.11 when CTA was introduced in case you bring it up lol). A simpler time if you will
If an addon that helps you find groups (within the same server and with the same permanent character names) will ruin the “classic feel”, so will watching thousands of “viewers” in a main city climbing over each other hoping to get their character names “noticed” by someone in the middle saying “thanks for the 3 months twitch prime”…
This is flatly wrong. New players will find /4 late in their leveling experience. Veterans will make friends and join guilds who will connect them to the complex social web of the server. You will see a dead /4 a few months into the game unless you are on the BIG server(s) like Faerlina where spam is endless no matter where you are. Beta is not classic wow and was only open to those already somehow affiliated with the game. I have 3 friends including my partner joining next week who are new to mmo’s.
I try to keep it funny but something like that has happened to everyone who has played retail for more than a month. The present community is extremely toxic because there is no server community. LFG damaged that when it came out, and it’s presence in classic, even in an obviously more stripped back form, has potential to hurt the game.
I’m pretty sure I’ve provided you with a laundry list of ways to tell. In any event, you are not exactly proving my fundamental point wrong. You are merely trying to convince me that the add-on will blend in with the game. That is obviously an extremely bold claim to make, and ignores the reputations of players and servers, and the effect that group helpers have on dialogues between players.
The point is not that it will make people elitist or not. The point is that it encourages unfriendly trivial group formation that does not garnish friendship as often as was the case in classic. I don’t care if the pendulum is only swung slightly in such direction, it is sufficient in my opinion to ban this add-on just based on the fact that this undesirable result is possible. Let group creation matter like it did in the game classic is based off of.
Oh I’m aware that we have that, and it’ll be awful. As I said earlier I’d have excluded that from Classic as well. But at least with LFG channel you’re talking and advertising which everyone gets to see. At that point then whispers would start up from the LFG posting.The addon has the potential to circumvent that completely if people start being elitist about it’s usage and don’t post in chat channels.
But lets be honest here, LFG channel is going to be full of trolls and political talk just like in retail. Which means there might be a bigger push to avoid channels altogether and just use this addon. If you remember back in the day at one point Blizz disabled a world channel due to this type of behavior. Actually I think they have done that twice to channels that could be seen across the whole of Azeroth. But they always bring it back lol.
