The thing that made wow what it was wasnt rdf.
Most of wows growth happened before 3.3 when rdf was added.
Did you follow the thread.
What made WoW was removing forced grouping. Making things easier. Making things more accessible - you know things that came later like RDF.
You may not know this, but in some games, most couldnt level unless they formed a group without an RDF. its why they died.
FYI - EQ2 extended this forced option with âheroic opportunitiesâ where players had to react based on things other players did in a group. no one cared because you could solo in WoW - this battle has been fought repeatedly in MMORPGs and your side lost
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RDF was released with patch 3.3.0 on december 8th, 2009.
Wow subscriptions continued to climb until Q3 2010
Cataclysm was released on december 7th, 2010, followed by a freefall plummet of subscribers never before seen in wowâs history.
again, go do your research before you come spewing misinformation.
people already do this in battlegrounds, without dungeons.
people already kick players from groups in the process of forming for stupid reasons.
Nobody is going to be forced to only use RDF, there are still people who will be questing in between dungeons, especially DPS classes.
itâs crazy how you think 1 tool destroyed the franchise. a tool that was present in the most popular version of wow, at the time this tool was released, wow wotlk was @ 11.5m subscribers, when cataclysm was released they were at 12m subscribers.
get real.
your bias towards the tool doesnât make a prime examples of why the reasoning behind the removal of the tool is justified.
except players who canât get into a dungeon because noone else is looking for one in the garbage retail tool the introduced into a classic iteration of the game, especially on lower populated servers where RDF would definitely spike dungeon activity for the players who are stuck there and dont want to abandon their characters.
cross realm promotes more group activity, more players to socialize with. donât be discriminative against players who arenât on your server, they deserve to be socialized with just as much as the players who you see running around in the open world.
100% agree
100% agree
nobody is denying this fact.
every aspect of the game is a chance to make social connections, if you are limiting yourself to dungeons to make friends you probably dont have the social skills to make friends in the open world.
not everybodyâs inner circle is limited to their dungeon encounters.
guess you dont socialize for the sake of socializing then, if it benefits you in the long run shouldnât be the reason for socializing in a game where the core value is the social experience.
and one bad apple isnât going to break the game for the entire wow classic community, people will move on to the next dungeon and report the person causing the issues if they are griefing.
players will choose to do what they want, you canât force them to play or act the way you do, the same scenario can happen without RDF. removing or enabling RDF will not change how players act.
most people like socializing with others in this game, the anti-RDFers dont believe that though.
100%
players will choose to do and act exactly how they want in this game, removing a tool or adding it will not change their behavior, but with blizzardâs new social policy they have agreed to, less people are getting away with being toxic already, perfect time to have RDF when more toxic people are being reported for their chat. dungeon groups can easily replace toxic players just like they can now without RDF.
100%
this made me giggle.
people already do this without RDF
by introducing the player to new people? socializing with new people? are you afraid to socialize with people that are not on your server? dont be scared.
this argument is 1 dimensional, dungeon groups are not the only place players can socialize with eachother in this game, definitely not where the majority of socializing takes place.
oh you mean like the incentives blizzard wow classic dev team is going to hand to tanks and healers? pets, mounts, gold, consumables? i think iâd take the less retail approach and go with what was in the original version of the game, you know the version that had 12 million subscribers.
more instances = more players to socialize with through RDF.
chat isnât disabled in RDF, neither is adding friends to your bnet.
this is where you lose the argument, you dont need to achieve an in-game goal when you socialize with players in the game. you can socialize at any point in the game with any player, itâs how online games work, and in this instance everybody on your faction is available for you to find and socialize with.
creating social connections only for your own gains is kinda narcissist behavior, i hope thatâs not what you prioritize in your social networking within this game.
people dont only group with their guildmates or friends, many do pugs and meet new people, and enjoy doing so, wether itâs people from their own server or not.
nobody is here questioning your anecdotal experiences, the issue is blizzardâs reasoning for removing RDF in the first place, which doesnât add up.
thereâs plenty of people who like to socialize in this game just for the sake of socializing, not every social encounter needs to become a search for more players to run groups/raids with.
the game will still be an mmo with RDF enabled, like it was with a 12m subscriber base back in 2009.
RDF didnât take anything away from what wow is, they had a whole year after RDF with an increase in subscriptions before next expansion dropped followed by a plummet of their subscription base.
5 Likes
It wasnt removed, it was reduced.
There is a balance between free easy groups that is rdf and grouping is needed for everything and hard to do that older mmo games had.
Wow hit the sweet spot for this until rdf was added.
false,
Q4 2008 11.5m subscribers
Patch 3.30 released on december 8th, 2009 in Q4 2009 with wow @ 11.5 subscribers
cataclysm launched december 7th, 2010 in Q4 2010 with 12m subscribers.
you should really go back and do your research before you continue to spew misinformation for the 3rd time. i love it how you try and change the facts to support your opinion of how RDF is bad, but everytime you try you forget people arenât just going to take your word for it, there is data available to disprove your claim.
say it until itâs true
1 Like
The fact that you donât have âRDFâ in the title is a missed opportunity. 
not needed anymore, post was already flagged as spam so we dont technically need to add RDF to the title now.
1 Like
Offer me a solution to being able to play with people i meet from another server and im down.
RDF did not work for me in the past as nearly no one could be reached after i go for a break to continue dungeon runs.
To me it was a lonely experience, in a game meant to be massive.
transfer or make an alt, RDF isnât going to force the groups made within to hang out after the dungeon, if you want to do that you have the option to without any tool needed, albeit not the way that you probably would want to.
it would be nice to be able to queue up with battle.net friends together in dungeons cross-realm though, which iâm open-minded enough to support 100%
even without that though, you can always /who and form a group with RDF in the game like people are doing without it right now, RDF doesnât force any player to only use RDF.
ok I know understand where you are coming from.
Its the FREE easy groups that interfere with your RMT or GDKP runs, right?
3 Likes
Neither are a real solution if i have already tried them.
I have multiple level 70 characters spread across 4 servers, i just dont have the time or energy to figure out the logistics of trying to play the game with either transferring or making more alts.
Paid for 3 server transfers; when arcanite reaper died, thunderfury dying, ridiculous queues on benediction or skyfury and grobbulus. Every single time my friend group fragmented further apart and now im just trying to find a place to stay long enough to last a phase.
to be honest i dont think this is on topic, but the way blizzard has been consolidating realms and offering free transfers then locking servers has been a huge issue for many players, which i dont believe is related to this RDF issue; i really hope they can accommodate players who are in similar situations as yourself because iâd be pretty annoyed dealing with that too.
luckily i picked a good server from TBC to transfer to before my original one died with no queues, healthy server population, and plenty of people to socialize with.
i do have characters on multiple servers, 1 being a locked server who experienced heavy queues during the prepatch launch and a week following, but my main isnât there so iâm not really worried about it for the time being.
Its true though.
11.5 million before rdf in growth.
.5 mil after rdf.
wotlk didnât make 11.5m subscribers, they retained it from vanilla & TBC which ended with ~11m subscribers. they gained 500k before & after rdf was introduced, during wotlk.
tbc ended with 11m in Q3 2008, wotlk ended with 12m in q3 2010
keep trying till itâs true
regardless of the decline once cataclysm hit, wow remained the most popular mmorpg at the time; i wouldnât doubt they gained the maximum amount of subscribers that would have been available and interested in their game at the time, not everybody wanted to or wants to play world of warcraft.
That being said, the game didnât completely change until cataclysm hit for the majority of it, we will most likely see a similarly-fashioned fallout of subscribers once cata classic launches if there is no other avenue of classic available. who knows though maybe people will enjoy it more than dragonland
no RDF isnât going to make cata classic any better either in that regard, for what itâs worth.
4 Likes
Correct. Most of wows growth happened before rdf.
Thats what i have been sayingâŚ
all of wowâs growth happened before cataclysm, wotlk maintained the growth up to that point with 500k before and after rdf, rdf didnât affect subscriber numbers according to wotlk subscription data within wotlk.
stop trying to move the goal post to support your opinion on why rdf is bad, it aint working buddy.
3 Likes
I am not moving the goal posts wotlk had the most subscribers total, but its rate of growth was far less than the two previous expansions.
stole your away guildies? stole them from what? obtaining 251, 264, and 277 loot? pulease, they were grinding out gems. nothing more. if they were on alts they were grinding out gear. lets be quite honest. RDF didnât steal your guild.
1 Like
When did I write that madam Necromancer? 
wotlk had the same growth in wow subscriptions before and after RDF, 500k from wotlk launch to RDF, 500k at the end of wotlk. there wasnât a growth / retention issue in wotlk; cata classic is when they couldnât retain the subscription base.
if you want to talk about the highest subscription growth in wowâs history it ends in wow vanilla, tbc didnât pull half the numbers vanilla pulled in. guess tbc was bad too then based on subscription growth.
i still dont see your point i guess, since growth between wotlk launch and RDF and between RDF and cata launch was the same rate of subscription growth, how did RDF affect wotlk subscription growth again?
are you trying to say that 1 feature of a game should be able to draw in more subscribers than an entire base game?
4 Likes