World of Solocraft, Why?

Community General Discussion
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I’ve played this game long enough to see that some of the changes have drastically changed important aspects of the game for the worst when it comes to people who prefer a playstyle that involves social aspects of a multiplayer game.
I don’t usually participate in the forums, but I really would like Blizzard to hear my feedback on this.

I’m going to start from the perspective of making friends and or recruiting for my guild in the game itself:

My character is now level 120, and I’ve only encountered one person while questing that was from my server, and they barely said anything to me when I spoke to them, further they were already in a guild so I couldn’t invite them to mine anyway. It’s not that they HAVE to say anything to me, but if I’m looking to make a new friend or recruit to my guild, hitting max level and only meeting one person in this scenario is not a good one.

Some people may suggest to try yet another server instead, but my server is part of a GROUP of merged servers, specifically designated for NEW PLAYERS. So why would Blizzard want new players to experience a wasteland devoid of other players on the same server?
It’s not that the game world is empty of players itself, but it is totally devoid of players from the same server.

This is bad for new players, Roleplayers, World PVPers, & even just those looking to socialize with others in the game world itself.

I want to find people I can befriend or invite to my guild while playing, instead of spamming chat channels or using “/who”. As this is how I used to do it when I played back in the day. If cross realms & dungeon finder didn’t exist I may have made quite a few friends already as I had in the past. I even tried writing things in general and trade chats, and did not receive a single reply, further, I only even saw one other person speaking in the channels anyway.

Then we have the fact that most of the content is so easy now that you don’t need a group for anything besides dungeons. I soloed my way to level 120, even though I’d prefer playing with other people. It felt more like work than fun. This is supposed to be a multiplayer game, but it’s social design is now like an arena game like DOTA 2 where you are randomly matched with people instead of actually building friendships and social status.

  • How will I go on fun adventures with friends if I can’t actually make any due to the current design of the game?
  • How will I go on fun adventures with friends if I don’t even need their help anyway due to the current design of the game?
  • How do I organically recruit new guild members other than spamming chat channels or posting on the forums?(When I made my character I received many random spam guild invites from people I never even saw or spoke to before) This was a major turn off because in this scenario I’m seen as some random number to be recruited for some random people I have no bond or connection to.) But seeing as this may be the only true way to recruit people these days it’s just pathetic.

I should not have to go outside of the game through third party services to try and befriend people to play this game with & again because the content is so easy now other than end game dungeons, there’s no need for most other players help anyway.

I think because there’s enough players on the forums who want World of Warcraft to become a solo only game instead of a MMORPG, that there needs to be a solution that pleases both groups.

SOLUTION:

This solution would be quite simple, a new type of server introduced, which has been discussed previously called “Pristine Realms”. It can also be expanded upon as well. This way both social & social oriented players can play how they want, and there will no longer be a need for classic WoW either. After Pristine Realms are introduced, the other realms can go fully Solo so the solo player will benefit from this as much as non solo players.
wowwiki.fandom /wiki/Pristine_realm

J. Allen Brack:

So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.

To add to this list, I would also reattune all the experience gains across all experiences to be progressive, instead of invalidating all content with each new expansion. Experience gains should get progressively harder from level 60 Classic Vanilla World of Warcraft.
Also, level scaling would be removed in all zones.

Summary:
New benefits for different types of players:

Solo players: continue playing how you’ve been playing, BUT you will start receiving even more content than before geared towards solo play!

Social Player: Start new characters on Pristine Realms, that encompass a lot of Classic World of Warcraft style gameplay.

Pristine Realms will have the following traits:

  • No Recruit-a-friend bonuses.
  • No Character leveling boosts.
  • No heirloom gear.
  • No character transfers.
  • No cross realm zones.
  • No cross realm merged servers(if a server is merged its new name becomes that current server name).
  • No group finder.
  • No dungeon finder. (However I do have an alternative idea for one, where you’d head to the specific dungeons summoning stone and click it, where you will be placed on a list with other people who want to run that dungeon, and you will be able to see on your user interface a list of all the people wanting to run that dungeon on your server with their class, name and level, and you can right click their names and whisper or invite them to group.)
  • No raid finder.
  • No experience boosts.
  • No sharding.
  • No NPC level scaling.
  • All experience gains are progressive onward from level 60 Classic World of Warcraft Vanilla style.
  • No old content/expansions are invalidated with new expansions, all content is always relevant.
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The biggest irony of QoL features like LFG that bridge cross-realm collaboration has driven the community further apart. I belong to a wpvp guild, and we fight together and have a lot of fun. But the gameplay in this xpac is so boring that even wpvp guilds that rely on community building have fallen apart. I see a lot less activity than I used to when warmode was still fresh and new.

Classic will bring that feeling back. Despite the dryness of the gameplay, the fact that you actually had to play and interact with people was a large part of what made things fun. On top of the lack of gear inflation and progression being meaningful, it just feels like a superior version of wow design that devs threw to the wayside.

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If I am being honest, I have no desire to group with anyone while I am leveling. I will need to stop what I am doing at a moments notice and don’t need or want to be sidetracked from my goals while I have time to play.

If I want to be social I have my guild or discord, I don’t need a tag along.

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What if you don’t have a guild though? Or don’t have the members for one… As I mention in my post.

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Socialization has changed, as much as the game has honestly.
If you are in game there is too much to do besides sitting sitting around in general chat reading and chatting.

Most social interactions now take place on discord, on reddit and other third party platforms.

Either way, if you did challenging content i promise communication and socialization are vital to it. Give it a try!

But honestly, leveling has always been a mostly solo experience. You can choose to make it otherwise, but as far back as classic seeing other players you didnt know likely meant you were having your tag stolen or you were getting ganked.

Either way find a community you can enjoy being around as step 1.
If you arent sure where to start, look me up on youtube. I will be streaming there shortly for the next few hours or so.

Stop by, and ill introduce you to my friends and many of my guild mates. Youll see that socialization is alive and well, even if it happens above the game, and you may make friends that can cascade into a great experience for you.

Either way, its on you to take these steps. Blizzard doesn’t force people to have friends.

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World of Solocraft is why the game was so successful in the first place.

A casual player being able to level at their own rate all the way to cap with solo play was a new idea and completely changed the genre.

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I’ve always leveled solo, but I do miss the community aspect of the way servers used to be. I like having people to talk to even if I’m not actively playing “with” them. I used to have a group of friends both inside and outside of my guild that I would talk to in /w for hours while out on my own doing whatever, that is the part I miss. The game just feels sort of lonely now. I’ve been in discord groups and whatnot but even there it seems people aren’t as interested in making friends, but maybe I’ve just been in the wrong groups.

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I joined my guild many years back and grew with them. It is a crap shoot in modern gaming to find decent people. I wish you best of luck because, for me, the grouping system in WoW has perminately changed how I game and it is not worth my time to test the waters any more.

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People are kinda, deliberately or not, missing the point with OP talking about leveling with a buddy.

It’s not about dinging levels with someone’s help. It’s about running content together and getting gear in a meaningful way that required collaboration and working together, not pushing a button, finding randos through LFG, and quietly running through and instance in 20min, never to talk again.

Discord interaction and raiding is still alive, but it’s not even remotely close to how collaboration used to be. Furthermore, m+ has more or less killed raiding for a lot of people, which further takes away the need to make friends and run content.

TLDR: You can run solo beyond leveling; social interaction is unneeded and more or less a distant afterthought.

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So you came to gd?

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@Metrohaha
Why do I have to now go outside of the game & Blizzard’s content & services to try and do something that was previously done easily? It doesn’t make sense… I shouldn’t need to use third party services to make friends or guildmates.

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I always wished this game was singleplayer. Just not that big on other players in my world space.

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Being able to get to max level by yourself is how WoW destroyed EverQuest. Most, not all, people don’t want to rely on a group to hit 60 (now 120).

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I actually prefer discord and in-game communities. When I needed a group for big brain, it was easier to just ask over my community if anyone wanted to help. And when doing other things that may require more than a few players, I ask over discord.

I’m not in a guild because I honestly don’t want to join one :man_shrugging: Each time I create a new character, I have to rush and turn off guild invites because I’m instantly spammed by dozens of people trying to get me in their guild. And the one time I did join, it was just a bunch of memers trolling each other with political talk.

If this game takes away the ability to do things on my own, I’d likely just quit. I like not being forced to group up to play content that i’m interested in. If I wanted that, i’d just join a mythic guild.

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I know exactly what you mean. Having convenience to easily group up is great but it feels like they didn’t realize the cost it would have on social repercussions.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this mostly, to me it’s about the adventure, needing help and socializing combined.

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Because thats how communication works. You can reach way more people and its way easier to communicate above the game, while you focus on actually playing it.

This is a product of 2019 though not the game. Your concerns are misguided, and even in classic people still use discord and reddit etc a LOT.

Open your mind to it and find friendships. Maybe it sucks that its this way, but its still a problem you can solve yourself.

And im happy to help you solve it, but you need to want to do that first.

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That’s a fair argument to make, but it would be best suited for a different topic suggesting an alternate Offline version of WoW, don’t you think?

So would you be satisfied if they took away the ability to do things on your own, but made your social interactions with others better than what you’ve currently been experiencing?

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Why is this a problem?

There’s nothing stopping someone from making friends if they are likable. I’m not convinced the game is better if everyone is forced to deal with each other, but I had very negative experiences in Classic and TBC.

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Getting into that challenging content often first requires you to meet and/or know people. I literally blind-lucked my way into a mythic raiding guild with cool people, even if I haven’t been active for a while, but not everyone has my fortune.

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That’s kinda the point of MMORPGs isn’t it? The social interaction bit? I understand there are a lot of negatives that come out of it, but that’s the core philosophy of the game.

Also, there are plenty of ways you could still do solo content, but basing progression on working with other people is the essence of what MMOs should be about, not doing WQs and emissarries and playing with mute anonymous randos through LFG. It creates a vacuous state, and collaboration is completely invalidated.

3 Likes