You do realize that after a merger takes place the parent company generally doesn’t start meddling immediately right? There was ZERO point in Activision stepping in to a game with 12 million subs making money hand over fist.
You want to blame LFD on Activision, but even Brian has said they were excited to put it in originally.
Serious talks about the merger began in 2006, and Activision’s plans officially solidified in 2007. I’m not sure if you know a bunch about how acquisitions and mergers work, but when these things are set into motion, it’s not uncommon for the new parent company to start calling shots either through publicized suggestion or by direct communication behind the scenes before the acquisitions are actually finalized. That being said, the timeframe allows way more than enough time for Activision’s infuence to tangibly manifest in WoW.
Do you think it’s just a coincidence that the first vestiges of Retail only emerged after the acquisition?
We’ll just have to agree to disagree I guess.
There’s bene multiple stated things that Activision was pretty hands off initially and Brian himself stating how excited they were putting LFD in because it would “change the game”
Do you have any sources to share on that? I’m fully prepared to admit I was wrong about it if there’s any evidence to specifically suggest that Activision had no influence over their decision making at that time.
That being said, I don’t doubt for a single second that the people on the development team at the time were showing public support for the change – I’m sure they were contractually obligated to show full public support for the decisions made by the high executives in the company, just as I suspect they have been in recent times concerning the level boost.
It was awhile ago, on twitter from former employees, and I don’t feel like digging. Though the brian thing is easy, it was during a recent interview.
Though recently it seems they have been, like OW2 development.
They got Vanilla classic, they dont have to play Wrath. Tell them to stay where they are happy and let people who loved wrath have wrath not a version of vanilla. ALL CLASSIC VERSIONS SHOULD BE RELEASED UNTOUCHED !!!
[quote=“Aurumai-grobbulus, post:5, topic:1244468”]
Years of Retail have shown us that Dungeon Finder doesn’t fix or even significantly mitigate the scarcity of tanks and healers. The fact that they had to load a tank-only goodie bag with ultra rare pets, mounts, gear, materials and gold after years of Dungeon Finder only reinforces this idea.
This is a good thing Helping people get to play the game. Only a complete ~!@#$ would think that getting more people to enjoy the game is bad. Tired of the minority crybabies with the loud mouths getting what they want, THEY ARE THE ONES WHO RUINEDTHE GAME !!!
Actually, It does. Let’s say that there are 100 tanks available. Total. Those 100 tanks can only get the daily and do that quest for the daily dungeon once per day. When they added the random dungeon finder, the quest went from one specific dungeon to your first one of the day.
That meant that tanks could, if they wanted, run that daily dungeon more than once per day. There were reasons why you’d want to grind badges at the time, so they did. RDF probably boosted the number of overall runs by at least 20% or more. On a scale of millions of players that’s a lot of extra runs.
I would imagine that right now, less than half the tanks are even running in classic because the system to get groups is so bad.
This is what I wrote, the part you commented on was a quote from someone else.
We don’t have to play Vanilla Classic to have a fun time in Classic. And even if they added dungeon finder, most of us would still play Wrath Classic, because we actually like the content and we’re not absolutely bent on having one single feature our way.
I’ll go ahead and just pull an Uno Reverse card on you: You have Retail, you don’t have to play Wrath.
I have no idea what you mean by that.
Who said that more people playing the game is bad?
I’m not seeing where the extra runs are coming from here. People currently do the daily normal and heroic dungeons, and they can also currently run multiple heroics if they really want to farm badges.
I’m not specifically remembering, were you able to run the same heroic dungeon multiple times if you queued for a random dungeon and happened to get it?
At any rate, this isn’t really an argument for dungeon finder specifically. You’re talking about the incentives to run the dungeons, which doesn’t require a system that automatically creates cross-realm groups and teleports you to the dungeon.
Short answer yes.
Long answer…
Old system: You got the quest in dalaran, killed the last boss in the dungeon and turned in the quest get your heroic badges and some gold.
RDF system: Enter Queue, finished whatever random dungeon and inside the bag at the you got your heroic badges, maybe a blue gem and some gold. Nothing more, nothing less. Runs after that would have gold, maybe a blue gem and no badges.
Since it was based on the first heroic dungeon of the day it didn’t matter which one it was so the quests didn’t matter. Tank could get in, get randomed into gundrak, join a second group and whoever already didn’t do their first also got their heroic sack. One tank/healer combo could run as many heroics as they wanted and whoever went with them got credit for the daily.
It was very common to see people in town offer up healer and tank queues so people could avoid longer waits. I know I did that a lot on my healer.
Yeah, I remember that the quest itself was integrated into dungeon finder, I just wasn’t clear on the number of heroics being uncapped through it, and I’m honestly still unclear on it.
But still, I’m not understanding how you see extra runs coming from this. What dungeon finder does is basically just remove the need to do specific dungeons for the daily, but it still only rewards you for the first one you run. Even if you could run an unlimited number of heroics a day, I highly doubt that people will be much more inclined to do it than they are to run every single heroic every day right now.
Absolutely! Dungeon finder needs to be in Wrath Classic. The ENTIRE reason I stopped playing BC classic is because finding a dungeon group is a massive PITA. I am beyond pissed that it’s being left out, and I’m not even sure I’ll bother playing.
It’s not that complicated. Without RDF, my tank can complete the daily heroic quest once. Per day. Then I’m locked out. Let’s say I bring 4 guild mates with me. We get it done, 5 happy people.
With RDF I can get my badges in the first run - let’s say we still do an all-guild group. Everyone gets their badges. Then I can still queue up and tank for 4 more players. 9 happy people. Send me 4 more, I can tank all day: 13, 17, 21, etc.
Yes you can spam heroics endlessly in LFD, in theory you can do the same heroic more than once a day if you run enough. You only get the heroic reward once per day then you get what is essentially the normal dungeon reward.
Now sure most people won’t spam heroics endlessly, just like they don’t now. But by creating a more pleasant group forming experience you increase the chances a tank/healer will decide to do one on a whim.
The other added benefit is that people queuing for specific dungeons are mixed with people random queuing, they just don’t get the bonus rewards. So if you want that super annoying dungeon it’s much more reliable to get a run for since you can be mixed with people who’ve essentially said i don’t care what dungeon i get. Think about that in terms of TBc, you want as SH or Arc run well good luck with RNG until that becomes the daily, with LFD that isn’t an issue.
I thought I explained it in great detail but bloody did a good job too. RDF made sure guilds could fully take care of their own. It wasn’t uncommon for one tank to do 2-3 extra runs so everyone in the guild could get their daily done.
Some of these guys talk about RDF causing lack of socializing were clearly not part of Wrath when RDF first hit. I know in my guild we always made sure everyone got their daily done so they could get badges to get gear. Unless you’re the kind of person who needs to know everyone on the server, the 50 or so regular players in the guild will get tighter.
I never minded going in once or twice because at the time I was grinding badges for heirlooms. If we controlled Wintergrasp we also got stone keeper shard that you could turn in for honor. There were lots of reasons to go in twice.
Exactly.
As a tank, I always asked whether anybody in the guild needed the random daily heroic done, and volunteered to run if there was any still hasn’t done. I would end up running random daily 2-3 times on the same toon. Without RDF, that cannot happen.
RDF also opens up people to do daily heroic as they see fit without ruining themselves and other guildies.
I would much rather be social with the 25-50 in my own guild and form friendships that way than post over and over in chat like some of these goobers always talk about.
Yes, joining a group with people I have never met before, and likely will never group with again is obviously my fault. On Benediction there is a pretty good chance you will never group with them again.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, alright, I think I see what you guys are saying now. 
Basically, once a tank does the daily dungeon now in TBC, they can no longer take part in a “daily group” because it needs to be that specific dungeon which they’re now locked out of. But with the reward coming from your first random heroic for the day, they can take part in as many of those “daily runs” as they want. Yes?
Sorry, I thought we were talking about incentives for the individual player to queue for more runs, so it was completely unclear to me what you guys were talking about. Yeah, I wouldn’t deny for a single second that guilds and groups of friends can get a lot more bang for their buck from their tanks and healers. I remember that being a thing myself. Now, while I do agree with you guys that this is definitely a thing, I still don’t see it being a reasonable argument for why dungeon finder would be needed because it doesn’t really solve any problems that will exist.
So again, I see the added benefit that some people would enjoy, but I highly doubt that it alone would be anywhere near as positive for the experience as other things that will happen whether we have dungeon finder or not.
Not moreso than DPS. Probably quite a bit less than DPS, actually. Dungeon finder doesn’t make tanks and healers and less scarce.
I would definitely agree that the mixture of people makes it easier to find groups for unpopular dungeons.