On the WotLK beta, there’s a new group finder tool, migrated from retail WoW. One feature of this tool is the ability to request an invite from a group leader. I’ve taken a screenshot here to show people what it looks like when you actually get a request in this way. To provide context for the screenshot, Dunkmasterx is a paladin (notice the lack of class coloring) who has found Kruffzilla’s mana tombs group in the group finder tool’s dungeon section and pressed the “request to join” button.
I personally think this feature is not in the spirit of Classic. But even if it stays in, I think it could still see some improvements, such as allowing group leaders to easily see some more info about the applicant. As you can see in the screenshot, I get barely any information about the applicant that I could easily find out in TBC. What class are they? What guild are they in? What level are they? Stuff like that can help me form a group that I think will be strong and enjoyable to play with. Another concern there is the case where I get a request from someone with some crazy non-English characters in their name and I want to /who or /w them. I’d be completely at a loss.
Regardless of that though, this seems to me like a step in the opposite direction the team supposedly wants to take the game with the removal of LFD - a minor step, but a step nonetheless. This is essentially trying to give an option to some players to skip a simple social ritual of requesting a group invite via a handcrafted message, in favor of saving a few seconds. Some people might not see the difference between this feature and writing a simple little message, but I definitely prefer a handcrafted message. And frankly, I wish that request to join was not an option to begin with.
What do you think? Should this feature be removed/changed? Or is it okay as it is?