New Player - The silence is deafening

Community General Discussion
1

Brand new player to WoW but long time MMORPG player.

I have run 5 instances so far leveling up… and not a single person has made a comment via keyboard. Not a bad comment, good comment, not a tactic comment, not a “ok ready” comment lol. Literally zero comments or any chat whatsoever.

Is this what I should expect? Just rush through every queue as fast as possible and no interaction? If that is the way it is then no problem, I was just expecting them to be more social like other games. Or is there a lot of chat but all on headphones/mic? Do I need to invest in one?

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Yes you do.

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You have to realize the majority of players have been playing this game for years and have run that dungeon hundreds of times. If you want that type of interaction between players you are going to have to bring it yourself.

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Have you done so yourself?

That’s how that happens - some other person out there decides to speak first. It could be you.

“What goes around comes around,” and all that. If you want it to come around, make it go around.

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Oh yeah, I should have said that. At the start of each dungeon I said something like :Hey guys, how we doing?" and during a few times when I asked for help on the strats… crickets.

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If you’ve never played wow and you’re playing by yourself I would recommend Classic WoW. People here like to hate on it a lot, but its social aspect is unrivaled. It’s like night and day compared to retail.

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I have never had a random group of people who used voice chat, so you don’t need one for levelling (once you hit max level it’s a different story).

As for the lack of people interacting, most people are just trying to power level as fast as they can because for them this is the 5000th time they’ve run Iron Docks and they just assume it’s the same for everyone else. If you don’t know the dungeon just say so at the start and most people will help you out with anything tough, and if you want to start banter with people you will probably have to start the banter yourself.

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Hi :slight_smile:

I think this is somewhat normal. If I am in a group with strangers, usually, nobody will speak unless I say “Hi everybody!” or something like that.

Some people are trying to get to the endgame ASAP so they don’t chat much while running the dungeons.

Also I have never used voice chat for leveling dungeons with strangers and I’ve been playing ten years so if people were doing that and wondering why I wasn’t responding, sorry!

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So, keep going. I do that too. I might get chatter back for every fifty “hello, good luck” that I put out there, but that one person got what they wanted and needed.

We need to be the people that talk, regardless of whether we get responses.

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In pick up groups, ya it’s common, I always make sure to say hi when I join a PuG and that will usually start up conversations.

Take the lead and you will find it much better. Just say ‘hi’ and watch the difference.

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I would say did you have the addon for chat first ? Then,you have to realize people don’t communicate in chat in dungeons too often since they use discord and others chat methods for this.

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People will claim there’s some magic discord that every player is on or something and that’s why nobody types in game, but the truth is:

  1. If you’re playing with random people (queued for dungeon or pvp), no one is generally on voice. No one will type anything either unless they want an item that drops or you messed up. In PVP usually there will be a lot of chat analyzing why your team has lost the match. It generally starts about 30 seconds into the game.

  2. If you’re playing with people you know, you’ll be on a guild discord or something.

Also people on here will blame you for not being the one to talk first, but go ahead and try that. Chances are you won’t get a response either. WOW is a very antisocial game and even if you join a guild, you’ll be lucky if you see more than 10 lines of chat per day (mostly because the guild interface sucks now).

It’s also getting worse, as more and more people are leaving WOW for other MMOs like Final Fantasy and CHESS. You picked a bad time to try out WOW.

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Yes, so being mute is better? How do you think it works from the other end?

If you want interaction, greet people and thank people and talk. Thereby becoming “someone out there who talks.”

Obviously, not talking is detrimental to the community being “talkative.”

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I do not experience this at all in Classic. All I see is looking for group in chat channels and no one speaks during group quests. I have experienced the same quiet there that I do here.

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Nah, plenty of people speak if prompted.

Personally, I won’t say boo until sometime else does. I also won’t berate anyone for making mistakes, will give diplomatic advice if needed and try to make the best of any situation I’m faced with.

It’s a pretty large community. Lots of toxic, shy, wierd and wonderful people around.

The toxic part is what keeps me quiet, until I know it’s safe to crawl out from under my rock.

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Leveling is a chore that people just want to be done with ASAP after playing the game so long.

Chatter doesn’t really open up until end game content.

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hey, sorry to hear it hasn’t been as social as you hoped for so far. just a few things to keep in mind:

  • the majority of people in leveling instances at this point are experienced players leveling their 25th alt or whatever; their goal is to get in and get out as quickly as possible
  • don’t worry about mechanics on low level instances… most of them don’t matter and you won’t see them again. (i’m sure a few people will jump on me for this, but that’s how i feel)
  • for the above reasons, most people in leveling instances are not even looking at instance/party chat. (i often don’t see it at all when in combat – i used to get yelled at by our GM all the time because i wasn’t “seeing” officer chat.)

just keep trying, eventually you’ll run into some friendly people. ask them if you can add them to your friends list. (if they’re tanks, don’t make your next interaction “hey, can you tank _____ for me?”)

also: yes, if you plan to do any end-game group content beyond LFR/non-M+ dungeons, you should pick up at least a cheap headset. i’ve got a cheapo logitech that i paid maybe $30 for that’s lasted me forever and sounds just fine.

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For LFD, yes.

Part of the reason is you’re being thrown together with a bunch of random players from all over. Most of them you will probably never interact with again, so for many people I think they don’t even bother with socializing.

The second reason is that leveling dungeons don’t actually require any coordination. BfA ones might, but otherwise everything is rather automatic and second nature.

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I say things all the time in case you haven’t noticed I am a very LOUD PERSON and I say HELLO and even slap people if they are lifeless but I hardly ever get a response now.

It wasn’t bad like back in OLD WOW expansions but it started getting bad around LEGION and then BFA was :zzz: and then Shadowland is :zzz: :zzz: :zzz:

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I will often enter a dungeon while levelling and say “G’day” and frequently get a response. Beyond that, there isn’t much time to chat using the keyboard because I am using the keyboard to do things like fight mobs and bosses. You need to bear that in mind.

And voice chat is never used in group finder dungeons. If it is, I’ve never encountered it. Only time you talk is if you are with friends or guildies.

Don’t be put off by the silence. The game moves too fast to have much time to say much of anything in an instance. You have plenty of opportunity to talk in regular play.

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