In a recent interview, Ex CEO of Blizzard, Mike Morhaime says that by trying to achieve more accessibility, social gameplay was lost.
Did WoW become an anti-social game because of all the conveniences?
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Nope, it is just a big generalization that doesn’t make sense. If there weren’t so many other factors involved maybe the generalization would make more sense.
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players became less social, not the game
there are more ways players can meet each other and start content fast, and yet players talk less
you’d think it’d be the opposite since connecting is way easier, but nope
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I don’t think that’s what the word means.
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Listen to the interview. That’s exactly what he meant.
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Players made the game less social, not the conveniences.
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I wouldn’t say anti social, I think they have just removed a lot of what allowed good social interaction. Mainly realm identity. To much cross realm interaction has ruined a lot of smaller realms that used to allow for healthy community building. Illidan and Tich were like the big cities, while the small pop realms actually let you see a familiar face ever so often.
To that, less content requires groups and more content is available via LFR, LFG, etc. The people, for the most part, are the same.
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Would you agree that by having LFR, you don’t have to socialize with your server community to complete a raid or dungeon?
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I think this is something you’re not realizing yourself. I read the summary on wowhead and I believe they touched upon the fact that WoW used to be a great way to connect to others and they even used the mailing system to talk to family.
So, during the time WoW was the most “social” was at a time just instantly messaging someone or connecting to discord to speak to people all over the world wasn’t a thing.
The world changed, that’s all. “Communicating” online is no longer some luxury.
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Nope,that is very incorrect in terms of social interaction, it’s always been the philosophy of “your mileage may vary”. I’ve had chatty pugs,quiet pugs,good pugs and butthole pugs through my experiences so it’s moreso a people issue rather than a game improving its QoL issue. Final Fantasy XIV has a similar queueing system and most of my runs with them on my characters have been more positive than negative and even has a commendation system to encourage being a team player and not a butthole. I would not recommend regressing to vanilla status and alienate various players as that would be more a detriment than a boon.
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I’d say it’s a combination of both really.
The game adapted to become more inclusive by shedding some of the social requirements, like introducing LFG and LFR so players didn’t need to look in Trade or Group Finder anymore. Things like CRZ removed realm identity. Everything is cross-realm now, there’s no reason to find a guild to do content with! So why bother joining a guild at all?
A lot of things introduced to make the game more accessible and convenient make it less and less social over the years. And I’d say a lot of players wanted that, they wanted it to be less social.
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With or without LFR, the only people i’d be socializing to raid with is my guild, which is exactly how it is now.
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Too much accessibility made the game less sociable. The guilds are there yes, but overall on another atmosphere outside of your guild. Yes the game did become less social. Balances and other bad decisions made players go away.
The game slowly turned into a solo play than team where it was required to do quests with a party like it was in Classic and The Burning Crusade.
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Saying this ignores the carrot on the stick.
You know, what you said is true, but there are distinct reasons for why it’s true.
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Also, discord is a thing. The social aspect of games have shifted away from the game itself and to things outside.
For example, does anyone use the wow ingame voice chat? 
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I’d imagine players are more social on places like Discord compared to in game. If I’m chatting with folks in voice chat there I don’t see much point in typing in game
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i don’t really get that, honestly. i don’t think the people saying guilds are useless cause of cross realm were gonna join a guild in the first place, it feels like people were only social because they had to be, but that’s not really “socializing” but just dealing with players until they don’t have to anymore
only thing i can see making people less social in game is them being more social outside the game connecting with other apps like the blood elf said
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Exactly. Being social is done outside the game. In discord, we got roles, different rooms, voice chats, emotes, gifs, can post anything in chat etc…
What am I supposed to use over that? The community tool nobody asked for?
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Ah, so you’re just another anti-LFR mook eh?
Look, I’mma spell it out for you, Gob style;
Conveniences like LFG and LFR are exactly that, no more or less. Spamming trade chat for three hours trying to put a group together isn’t socializing, it’s busy, needless work. It doesn’t magically make server communities like the old guard try to make you believe.
If people wanted to spam trade chat for groups, than they would whether there was an LFG or not.
If people wanted to spam trade for raids, they they would whether there was a LFR or not.
News flash; dungeons and raiding is nowhere near as popular as that crowd likes to believe. Providing a method for players to quickly group up and complete the content lets them skip all the guild drama and elitist jerk moves that go on daily.
I socialize plenty without Raiding or Dungeons. I engage trade, general, and multiple guilds. If WoW is less social, that’s a player issues.
/micdrop
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More end game content that is tuned to be harder = less reason to socialize with the plebs who can’t clear a +10.
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