From my own experiences, it’s undeniable that we aren’t the same players we were in 2004. Group formation is taciturn, runs are nearly silent unless something goes wrong, and generally the “forming a group” thing isn’t where social interaction occurs.
Lot of people want to see the RDF tool added, many others want to see the Retail LFG tool added instead. Both have their benefits, and both are chosen by different people as their preference.
There’s an argument that “If you add RDF, no-one will do it any other way” and that’s definitely true when it comes to RDF vs a channel spammed mostly by boosters and political or outright offensive chat. Network effect will drive everyone to use RDF, just as most people currently use the LFG Bulletin Board addon to filter the channel into a tool.
However, there’s also the LFG tool that is currently used in Retail for the more complex groups (or non-instanced content) which stands alongside RDF successfully, and is far more in line with LFG-BB that people currently are accepting of.
So why not add both? Provide the opportunity to allow people a structured ‘selection and discussion’ based grouping tool, and the RDF tool as it was in Wrath. Let people select the tool best fitting their preferred method of grouping and they can stand alongside each other. With the LFG tool, not using RDF becomes a viable choice without diving into the need for a spammed channel, and the same gold selling spam protections that supposedly protect it in retail can be applied to booster spam etc.
I will also add that both of these tools need to be realm-locked to have any chance of success without damaging the on-server communities. Without realm-locking, the LFG tool will fail on launch, because it will be far more limited than RDF’s pool of players. While people can complain that “My server is too small to have realm-locked”, remember your alternative status quo right now is zero tools.
So why not implement both the LFG Tool from retail, and the Random Dungeon Finder tool from Wrath, and let people have the options that allow the community to manage itself?
Realm locking for dungeon finder is a no-go and i’d rather just not have it at all and unsub. It’s kind of a deal breaker. But for the stand alone tool you’re also advocating for, sure, realm lock it, that’s what most of the people that would use it would want as well.
If you realm-lock one and not the other, you’re literally nose-diving it’s opportunity to compete. However, not realm locking both opens up an even bigger issue with cross-realm play.
Well then guess they can’t ‘‘compete’’ with us who will be using dungeon finder while running around doing what we want in the open world. Sucks to suck, choose to do things the hard way, don’t be mad at those that don’t.
The “can’t compete” bit is why treating it this way will guarantee you don’t get RDF. You won’t be getting to run around while using Dungeon Finder at all.
Yeah I will, dungeon finder works anywhere, also, bg queues were changed as well in wotlk, to where you didnt have to find a battle master and u weren’t ported back to them after the match ends. Both of these changes, in PvE and PvP helped open up the content to players as they could actually go places while in queue instead of being afk or semi afk in a major city. Dungeon finder was mostly used for leveling and for new 80’s to do heroics. Raiding was still realm only, rightfully so, and arena was where the pro pvpers went for their best gear. Neither dungeon finder nor the pvp queue change was meant for true end game content, it just made content more easily accessed by the player base. No one wants to look for a SFK group for 2 hours, or pay a mage to boost them. But that’s all we have until dungeon finder is put into the game.
Yeah but we’re not getting RDF right now. You’re arguing a position that doesn’t exist, because RDF isn’t coming, as the current development plan stands.
And if you’re willing to accept compromises to allow that to happen, you’re not going to be worse off than you currently are now.
Not to shoot down your “well reasoned argument” but Blizzard has done an abysmal job so far of that, and you’re expecting them to suddenly get better at it? Blizzard’s transfer systems are why those servers are in an abysmal state. They have encouraged the bad situations, by not providing better structured options.
This suggestion is an example of what Blizzard can do to provide better structured options for grouping, because the majority of the community wants a completely open, unconstrained RDF and no other system.