I enjoy the dungeon finder tool but I do notice its drawbacks. The tool for me, a rather shy and pesimistic person, makes doing dungeons alot easier. Before the tool I only did a few dungeons in all my time leveling my first character to 80 becouse I always had the nagging thought "What if I suck and we keep wiping becouse of me?" I guess I am just selfcouncious that way but doing a run knowing that I am brining everyone down is not what I call fun. The random nature of the new system is basically an assurance that the group will consist of people of different lvls and experiance. Since my generally all groups i have been in have been from good to awesome I have a mostly positive stance to the tool. Ninjas from my experiance are rare and so are assholes that just speed ahead. There were a couple of tanks that just plowed ahead but we dealt with that simple letting the shit die a few times.
The obvious downside of the tool is that people do less leveling and socialising. Whether this really destroys the community...I doubt it becouse there is so little of that in WoW. I like the game but there is no community just as there is no guild loyalty or anything of the sort. Quite frankly most mmos I have played simply felt like games and not virtual worlds.
Great post. And the blue shows a fantastic realistic view why WOW is popular.
Reread the blue and say: "I am that player". It matched perfectly what I felt in our RL gaming club the last 2 years.
Grtz. As to the guild part: I have the luck of playing with some RL friends in that guild (club wise). The game open up in a true world experience that way. For a shy person it is understandable to feel "lonely" in any MMO.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
I enjoy the dungeon finder tool but I do notice its drawbacks. The tool for me, a rather shy and pesimistic person, makes doing dungeons alot easier. Before the tool I only did a few dungeons in all my time leveling my first character to 80 becouse I always had the nagging thought "What if I suck and we keep wiping becouse of me?" I guess I am just selfcouncious that way but doing a run knowing that I am brining everyone down is not what I call fun. The random nature of the new system is basically an assurance that the group will consist of people of different lvls and experiance. Since my generally all groups i have been in have been from good to awesome I have a mostly positive stance to the tool. Ninjas from my experiance are rare and so are assholes that just speed ahead. There were a couple of tanks that just plowed ahead but we dealt with that simple letting the shit die a few times.
The obvious downside of the tool is that people do less leveling and socialising. Whether this really destroys the community...I doubt it becouse there is so little of that in WoW. I like the game but there is no community just as there is no guild loyalty or anything of the sort. Quite frankly most mmos I have played simply felt like games and not virtual worlds.
Had to reply on your post asswell. I geuss i view the isseu from a whole other perspective. Im am abit of a shy guy in life but in gaming im more assertive and want to proof myself at every point. It's not the question of what if i suck, I just Don't want to suck wich draws the best out of me. The diffrence between u and me is probably that i am an MMO veteran. I have played games from ultima online and everquest online adventures - World of warcraft and Pirates of the burning sea and evrything in between (skipped out on some of the latest MMO's because they already felt unworty to play before they launched).
I geuss i want to point out the reason why tanks (i am a protection warrior myself) Plow ahead and burn trough the instance. It is really simple people want to get it over with quickly they just want their badges and be done with it. If you are slow as a tank you will get scolded. I always try to tend for my group seeing if there are new players around and asking if they know the instance This will not make me move trough the instance slower but i will explain bosses if needed. If not and people screw up then i have the right to be an asshole really.
As for your last part. WoW did have a community. In the beginning in vanila evryone knew who you where. Ninjaíng things was imposible because you where blackmailed out of evrything then. No more pre-made battlegroups and raids if u had ninja'd. On my server atleast a few hardcore guilds (including mine) stil have a reputation to uphold, people are still looking up to you. The thing wich has changed is loyalty because you can namechange transfer crossrealm and do whatnot with your characters. U do not have to behave like u used to and loyalty has disapeared. People are not social anymore because the thing WoW provides is epics, and thats all you need.
EQoa on the playstation still was a world. with a small but very tight community. Heck most of the days we where just sitting inside Highpass (city) talking and stuff instead of actually playing.
I cannot see the harm with this. Before we were either standing around waiting for a group of somewhat the same level to form or waiting to get carried through by a higher level. Now, if you so choose, you can enter an instance within 10 minutes without the fuss.
You still have the ability to join in with friends or guildies. So i´d say this allows you to play however you like.
All statements I make is from my point of view unless stated otherwise.
Yes - it saves me 20 minutes of screwing around finding people and then getting everyone inside the dungeon.
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
I think it's a great feature. Yes, you're mileage will vary on the people you group up with but then again it's not like that couldn't happen to pugs before dungeon finder. I've had some good groups and i've had some really bad ones. That's why it's called a Pick-Up-Group, because that means you are grouping with random people (despite the method of how the group was created). In my experience, I've used it to level up but have also mixed in questing, especially post lvl 60. Leveling via Dungeon Finder does get repetitive at times, especially when you're at a level where you're only being put in one instance for 1-2 levels (low 30's - Scarlet Monastary graveyard comes to mind).
I hear the argument about 'nobody goes into the world anymore' but see heres the thing. A majority of the playerbase are not brand new players. The average subscriber probably has at least 2-3 lvl 80's. Meaning that the 1-60 leveling content has been done multiple times. It's 6 year old content and after you do it a few times, it's boring. Dungeon Finder provides an alternative.
I've never understood people who complain about what other's do. If you don't want to use to DF, don't. Go level out in the world the old way, nobody is forcing you otherwise. Why do you care how I'm leveling my character? Too many old school MMO players need to get out of this mindset that's stuck in 1999 where you only have one way of doing things in game. Alternatives are good. Giving the players choice in how they want to play the game is good.
Dungeon Finder is another "Path of Least Resistance" tool that folks will gravitate and use, but which lessens immersion and chips away at community building. Basically, this tool renders 95% of the game world obsolete.
The DF is a good way to knock out many dungeons in a play session but pretty much killed the purpose of having a world. In my experience with a couple weeks of the DF coming out in even some of the high level pve zones there were no players. Everyone just sits in Dalaran waiting to get into another group.
The world in WOW in leveling and daily quests and mat gathering is even more played than before.
Reason is simple: money and economy.
The fact Bliizard introduced a $3 paid subscription extra Auction House to play the economic game on a mobile shows that the world economy is played like before.
World mats gathering and gold through (daily) world questing is just as much needed (if not more) as before, since the players burn through their gear even more than before with various characters tx to the dungeon finder.
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Like I said: beware for "players" who didn't set foot in WOW in months or years: they only have one purpose: find a reason why they don't want the blonde girl anymore.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Dungeon Finder is another "Path of Least Resistance" tool that folks will gravitate and use, but which lessens immersion and chips away at community building. Basically, this tool renders 95% of the game world obsolete.
This is the kind of response from someone who hasn't played WOW.
1. Community - The alternative to using the DF to level is to solo quest. Which has less community?
2. Path of least resistence - What is the fun part of a game? Beating the content and challenging bosses, or standing around for an hour trying to find 4 other people and then waiting for everyone to take flight paths? Or how about doing /autofollow on a lvl 80 as he pulls you through a low level dungeon?
3. Obsolete - Yes, there are plenty of players that level up through the DF.. there are also plenty who level up by soloing quests. Now there are OPTIONS!!! And if you go back to before the DF.. then you can say that back then, all of the dungeons were obsolete because almost nobody did them the way they were meant to be done ( everyone at appropriate levels). The DF opened up a very fun part of the game to people who are leveling and gave players a choice.
I'm a big fan of the Dungeon Finder . I made a new toon just so I could do many of the Dungeons that I never got around to doing at level previously . I even found that I was leveling up to quickly to fully enjoy all the Dungeons available & it is far more fun to do a dungeon at the level it was designed for than to be run through it by a friend on their lvl 80 . Yes , you do get the occasional fool in a group but I've found them to be surprisingly uncommon .
Dungeon finder took out the community feeling for my server. Before, you would actually have to socialize with people on your server in order to level and what not. ( It wasn't impossible to not socialize with your server) Pretty much all of that is gone now. Which I hate. The reason I like WoW ( and I guess mmo's ) more than normal games is because of the added socializing. Now, I do get plenty of socializing done outside of the game, ( Not trying to sound like a hardcore gamer, I spend at most 30 minutes a week on WoW now, usually it consist of me logging in running a few steps on my mount and then alt+f4ing.) but I suppose I'm just attracted to being around people. Even when I'm in zones no one seems to talk, I guess it is because no one is out in the zones actually questing. I wish WoW would remove the dungeon finder.
After Arenas I thought Blizz would learn from its mistake and never do something as bone-headed again. They did admit Arenas was a mistake (years after the fact), so I had hoped.....
*buzzer* WRONG!
Then they came up with this incredibly asinine Dungeon Finder. Wait, it's too hard to actually go to the instance now? No more exploring? Why do I need mounts anymore I can just poof to Dungeon A anytime. Are their sub numbers so bad that servers are barren wastelands where people had to scrounge for a group? Odd, they claim they still have 11.5 million subs, are they all on 1 server or something?
People have complained that they don't like how Blizz is dumbing down the game. So Blizz..... further dumb downs the game. What is WoW becoming GW-Lite? We already have meaningless pvp and now they are basically making it so there is no point to being in a guild let alone talking to anyone. I can just queue up with The Four Random Dudes, get my blues and leave.
Sad...
*EDIT*
Oh and a common thread here and other places is what would bring you back to WoW. Well dropping this "feature" would rank high on my list.
Dungeon finder took out the community feeling for my server. Before, you would actually have to socialize with people on your server in order to level and what not. ( It wasn't impossible to not socialize with your server) Pretty much all of that is gone now. Which I hate. The reason I like WoW ( and I guess mmo's ) more than normal games is because of the added socializing. Now, I do get plenty of socializing done outside of the game, ( Not trying to sound like a hardcore gamer, I spend at most 30 minutes a week on WoW now, usually it consist of me logging in running a few steps on my mount and then alt+f4ing.) but I suppose I'm just attracted to being around people. Even when I'm in zones no one seems to talk, I guess it is because no one is out in the zones actually questing. I wish WoW would remove the dungeon finder.
We must be playing different games because I can probably count on one hand how many times I 'grouped to level' before dungeon finder. As a matter of fact you can make the case that I've grouped up with more people outside of my guild with DF than I ever would have previously. Server community has to be one of the all time overrated things ever, especially in a game like WoW where you can lvl 1-80 solo. It's been this way since the game launched. Instancing did alot to kill the idea of 'community'.
And the downside gets worse using Dungeon Finder as most groups generally have 2 or more people with heirloom gear who want to rush every step of the way with no chance to loot or learn. Who see anyone not close to their dps/damage done level as failures (try shadow priest spec for very low dps) and kick and/or berate them.
Not my experience running low level dungeons. Of course i have heirlooms & am pulling my weight but people are not really rushing that much. We do pull fast but never skip loot. And people do lead the way when people don't know the dungeon.
What's worse is many guilds see no need to assist leveling members now and more and more do not take leveling players even beyond level 80, now expecting them to use dungeon finder to reach a certain gear level.
There was NEVER a need to assist leveling members. You mostly level by quests before DF anyway.
Talking of epic marathons, it's nigh impossible even to get full buffs below a level 70 group as people with heirloom gear are too much in a rush to finish and start the next instance.
You don't really need the buff.
If you're trying to level with it, don't you just love entering at the last boss, or during an wipe/battle, or as the group quits? Or better still as someone pulls a mob then leaves? Sure people were bad before, but when you'll never see them again as they are on another realm it's opened a whole can of nasties. People ninja more than ever, are more abusive than ever because they can get away with it. Who's going to go and create a new toon on another server and talk to to an abusive players GM? And will the GM care about someone else from another realm?
I LOVE to enter at the last boss. That is the fastest 5 min worth of xp/loot. I would love to run that again and again when i level. That is MUCH faster than killing trash, which i don't mind.
And being bad is a two way street. That means I don't have to tolerate others as much. If a n00b is causing wipe after wipe, now i can just hit the "quit" button without him spamming obsensities in the trade channels.
Dungeon finder is great if you have an 80 main which can subsidise a new toon. You know all the pitfalls, but it's fine as you don't want to quest, just get to 80 and gear up. Otherwise, it's just not a fun experience.
I found it more fun than quest grinding. And it is MUCH faster.
Responses like this make me question whether or not people really understand the term 'community' anymore and whether or not people are interested in playing a game or taking virtual viagra for the ED issue they have with their e-peen.
No, people do not need assistance in leveling but it is helpful and rather nice. These are MMORPGs, not merely MORPGs with the multi-player thrown out. I absolutely love to solo in games and think that soloing should be a viable way to play, but I enjoy completing quests with guild members and my girlfriend because I get to share the accomplishment with other people.
No, people don't absolutely need random buffs, but they are helpful and nice. Granted, the player's potential death is of little consequence within WoW but it is the gaming equivalent of watching someone get mugged without doing anything at all, saying something to the effect of it not being your business.
Lastly, if you are interesting in blitzing to end-game you need to ask yourself why you are playing or 'playing' because, in reality, you're not longer playing a game: you are min-maxing, crunching numbers in your head. It's amazing that people complain about a lack of content when, like you from what I have observed, they simply want to get to the end-game content.
I would argue that you simply don't have the right personality to play MMORPGs, people who think like you and are more interested in getting to the end as fast as possible and without any concern whatever for their fellow players should simply step out of the genre. It's not productive for anyone involved.
"right personality to play MMORPG"??? LOL .. MMORPGs are GAMES to ENTERTAIN. It is the developers who should build the right game for us, not us trying to have the right "personality" to play it.
There is already enough community. I have a bunch of frds & guildies i can talk to anytime i want. I much prefer to have FUN progressing at my own place then are forced to participate in any "community" when i am not in the mood.
Plus, minmaxing is a WAY to play the game. It is a GAME. we play it anyway we want to. If you don't like minmaxin, it is your choice. There are plenty of those who do (just check elitistjerks). Oh, and you don't have to get to the end game to minmax. You can certainly tweak your rotation & gear in lower levels to based on recount results.
Then they came up with this incredibly asinine Dungeon Finder. Wait, it's too hard to actually go to the instance now? No more exploring? Why do I need mounts anymore I can just poof to Dungeon A anytime. Are their sub numbers so bad that servers are barren wastelands where people had to scrounge for a group? Odd, they claim they still have 11.5 million subs, are they all on 1 server or something?
Exploring dungeons i have already been to? Give me a break. No one wants to trek to SFK again, again and again. It is not hard. It is BORING. Everyone LOVES the instance teleport features, except may be YOU.
And if you haven't noticed, LOWER level dungeon groups are harder to find.
And even if I can find a group, using DF beats shouting in trade and PMing. It is MUCH easier and let us get to the fun parts.
Everyone looks at the negatives and never focuses on the positives. Like for example making lower level instances have some form of activity. Gnomernegan pre-dungeon finder was being run by no one.Pugs were not being formed for Blackrock Depths (one of the all time classic dungeons) before dungeon finder.
This stuff about grouping while leveling has got to be one the biggest jokes going. I've been playing the game on and off for the better part of 5 years and I'm telling you, people in zone chat asking for groups for quests just was not happening with any frequency. What really happened is occasionally someone would be in the same area as you were for a quest and shoot you a random group invite, you'd complete whatever the objective is and then disband, where the only words being mentioned was 'hi' and 'thanks'. That was your 'community'.
Since when did World of Warcraft become Everquest where you absoulety had to group up with people to get anything done?
Exploring dungeons i have already been to? Give me a break. No one wants to trek to SFK again, again and again.
Actually, I miss the old "adventure" dungeons like SFK and Deadmines. Instances nowadays are "kill boss, move to next room, kill boss, move to next room..." in a boring "lather, rinse, repeat" fashion. Dungeons have become far too linear compared to the old stuff.
It is not hard. It is BORING.
Can you honestly say anything is "hard" anymore? Besides for heroic ICC, all the dungeons are yawnfests. But then, with the next instances/raids coming soon, ICC will also become "boring". Welcome to the cycle of WoW dungeons.
Everyone LOVES the instance teleport features, except may be YOU.
No, the only people who LOVE the instance teleport features are the people who are too lazy to travel there. Although time consuming, I liked traveling to SFK/SM on my alliance toons and coming across random horde along the way. Sure, it was irritating if I got killed, but that was part of the challenge. It's lazy people like you who just want to sit around Dalaran until a queue pops that has contributed to the death of world PvP. Perhaps you should stop thinking that you speak for EVERYONE, eh?
The entire game has become a joke compared to what it used to. Blizzard has taken too much time into catering to the lazy that it has killed the fun times to be had in the world. Nowadays players just want to rewarded for sitting around Dalaran and hitting a button to run an instance without having to put forth any effort.
I'd love to take these people, throw them on a vanilla server and watch them bitch and whine when they have to actually EARN their dungeon access. I can hear the crying now about the UBRS key and the Onyxia chain....
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
I haven't played the game in a LONG time. Since before WotLK.
I can remember waiting OVER AN HOUR to get 1 UBRS run pre-BC if you tried off-hours. I can remember, as many others can, that you can grind without quests from the first level of being able to run Gnomeregon to after its pointless to run it before a group would form. I knew people with multiple lvl 60s that were asking what and where SFK was because no groups existed for it.
Heck, none of the instances had short waits except for during primetime and it was only the major instances.
This tool alone nearly got me to buy WotLK and come back. Now I am waiting for CATA and I will come back.
No, the only people who LOVE the instance teleport features are the people who are too lazy to travel there. Although time consuming, I liked traveling to SFK/SM on my alliance toons and coming across random horde along the way. Sure, it was irritating if I got killed, but that was part of the challenge. It's lazy people like you who just want to sit around Dalaran until a queue pops that has contributed to the death of world PvP. Perhaps you should stop thinking that you speak for EVERYONE, eh?
The entire game has become a joke compared to what it used to. Blizzard has taken too much time into catering to the lazy that it has killed the fun times to be had in the world. Nowadays players just want to rewarded for sitting around Dalaran and hitting a button to run an instance without having to put forth any effort.
I'd love to take these people, throw them on a vanilla server and watch them bitch and whine when they have to actually EARN their dungeon access. I can hear the crying now about the UBRS key and the Onyxia chain....
I earned the UBRS key. I earned the Onyxia chain. I earned the BWL key. I earned all of them pre-BC.
And its people like you who show utter ignorance and I have no pity for you when you go crying attempting to find a game that caters to the teenager with no responsibility.
There is no lazy about why I like this feature. There is no lazy about why I wont travel to a dungeon. Its about time. You caught a glimpse of it in the teal highlighted above. You were so close. So very close.
Blizzard recognized that they can please many many many more people than the ignorant like you if they reduce time sinks.
When I first played WoW, I had no job, no wife and no kids. I now have a full-time job a wife and two young children. There is nothing lazy about me wanting to logon and be doing what I want to be doing in 15 min rather than 45-75 min. There is no way I could play vanilla WoW anymore with the time I have.
Sorry to say this, but there are more people with the disposable income that dont have the time to spend 20 minutes travaling to the instance after spending 30 forming the group than there are people who have the 6-hours a day to raid and grind mats/gold for pots/buffs/enchants/repairs for the guild.
Also, what of the people who arnt gamers? The working people who dont really play games and dont have the understanding or willingness to understand to have a hobby? The parents that get involved because of thier kids or for or with thier kids? There are lots of people out there that just dont have the time to invest to understand it all and know it all that just want to play and have fun. Sure, they look lazy, but then again, maybe they want to be lazy in a G-A-M-E that they play to take thier mind off of a stressful job?
Well... I'll just be on my way waiting for CATA and hop back into WoW and use the DFT heavily and enjoy what it gives me.
No, the only people who LOVE the instance teleport features are the people who are too lazy to travel there. Although time consuming, I liked traveling to SFK/SM on my alliance toons and coming across random horde along the way. Sure, it was irritating if I got killed, but that was part of the challenge. It's lazy people like you who just want to sit around Dalaran until a queue pops that has contributed to the death of world PvP. Perhaps you should stop thinking that you speak for EVERYONE, eh?
The entire game has become a joke compared to what it used to. Blizzard has taken too much time into catering to the lazy that it has killed the fun times to be had in the world. Nowadays players just want to rewarded for sitting around Dalaran and hitting a button to run an instance without having to put forth any effort.
I'd love to take these people, throw them on a vanilla server and watch them bitch and whine when they have to actually EARN their dungeon access. I can hear the crying now about the UBRS key and the Onyxia chain....
Lazy?? We are talking about a GAME here. Not LIFE LONG CAREER. Of course i am lazy. If it is work, i do it in my office, not a gaming session. Well, if you like to walk, you can still do it. The world did NOT go away. But no thanks for walking to SKF for the 1000th time.
If you haven't noticed, WOW GREW subs since WOTLK and it is holding at 11.5M. So if people LOVE to socialize in DAL and wait for instance dungeon, who the heck are you to say that is not the way to enjoy a game? I am HAPPY that blizz is ignoring self-righteous people like you.
"To earn dungeon access"? If you want to make a game so much work, why don't you go do work instead of playing a game?
I think some folks had a point about challenge being missing, and I do agree that trekking across the world and dodging mobs (or NPC's) added fun and excitement to the game.
Face it, the LFG Tool is a stopgap measure to keep us busy until Cataclysm comes out. Blizz has already mentioned that Cataclsym will restore more of the "world" feel that has been lost of late with everyone hanging out in Dalaran.
It makes no sense to revamp the world of Azeroth if we all are just going to continue hanging out in Dalaran spamming the LFT Tool. Think about it. LFG Tool is going to change; it has to. They are going to get us back out into the world again, where the challenge and the fun is.
And by the way, I was never bored while traveling to a dungeon to meet up with a group. Never. Was always fun. Could it be the LFG Tool was never about cutting out travel time, but about getting folks together across servers because groups were hard to find?
I think some folks had a point about challenge being missing, and I do agree that trekking across the world and dodging mobs (or NPC's) added fun and excitement to the game.
Face it, the LFG Tool is a stopgap measure to keep us busy until Cataclysm comes out. Blizz has already mentioned that Cataclsym will restore more of the "world" feel that has been lost of late with everyone hanging out in Dalaran.
It makes no sense to revamp the world of Azeroth if we all are just going to continue hanging out in Dalaran spamming the LFT Tool. Think about it. LFG Tool is going to change; it has to. They are going to get us back out into the world again, where the challenge and the fun is.
And by the way, I was never bored while traveling to a dungeon to meet up with a group. Never. Was always fun. Could it be the LFG Tool was never about cutting out travel time, but about getting folks together across servers because groups were hard to find?
You never answered the question how all those gathering mats and crafted mats come in on the AH ....
Must be quite a lot of people playing "the world."
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Like I said earlier: the LFG mechanism for dungeons (not working for Raids btw) is past its "new" use too. The mechanic is now simply used in a daily playing schedule of most players.I rarely play more than one dungeon in a session. Very rarely.
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On my leveling toon I even play a dungeon mostly once while I level through them (to solve a few quests I stumble upon), I play some interesting world quests, try to level two new interesting professions and I try to play a few BG's each day, since that's what I like most.
The max time to enter a dungeon is around 20-25 minutes in the leveling dungeons, so plenty of things to do in the meantime, like chatting in guild or general and crafting/gathering/questing. the same goes for the early BG's.
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Every other day I play with a main. The 1.5 to 2 hour playing session consist of ONE dungeon run max and one BG "trying for the arena points". Always do 5 step daily quest at Icecrown and trying to gather food ingredients and mining mats (for the much needed cash for new gear stats).
So I have a question: how do you get money to Raid twice a week? You buy gold on wowgold.com ? or do you play the game's economy?
...because sitting in Dalaran is not bringing in any gold.
And a very small percentage of people will play only ONE way when you have several other options to choose from.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Exploring dungeons i have already been to? Give me a break. No one wants to trek to SFK again, again and again.
Actually, I miss the old "adventure" dungeons like SFK and Deadmines. Instances nowadays are "kill boss, move to next room, kill boss, move to next room..." in a boring "lather, rinse, repeat" fashion. Dungeons have become far too linear compared to the old stuff.
It is not hard. It is BORING.
Can you honestly say anything is "hard" anymore? Besides for heroic ICC, all the dungeons are yawnfests. But then, with the next instances/raids coming soon, ICC will also become "boring". Welcome to the cycle of WoW dungeons.
Everyone LOVES the instance teleport features, except may be YOU.
No, the only people who LOVE the instance teleport features are the people who are too lazy to travel there. Although time consuming, I liked traveling to SFK/SM on my alliance toons and coming across random horde along the way. Sure, it was irritating if I got killed, but that was part of the challenge. It's lazy people like you who just want to sit around Dalaran until a queue pops that has contributed to the death of world PvP. Perhaps you should stop thinking that you speak for EVERYONE, eh?
The entire game has become a joke compared to what it used to. Blizzard has taken too much time into catering to the lazy that it has killed the fun times to be had in the world. Nowadays players just want to rewarded for sitting around Dalaran and hitting a button to run an instance without having to put forth any effort.
I'd love to take these people, throw them on a vanilla server and watch them bitch and whine when they have to actually EARN their dungeon access. I can hear the crying now about the UBRS key and the Onyxia chain....
Well, considering that all four of my 80's are on Silvermoon, I doubt I'm contributing to the death of world ganking. ^^
Lets face it, thats what world PvP was at its base. Groups of high levels roaming around and corpse camping and endlessly ganking lower levels. Why? Because they could, and because they are bored. After leveling to 60 on deathwing, I moved to silvermoon and started all over.
The Dungeon Finder system is one of the best additions to the game in years. It allows many more people to finally see the dungeon content. I missed out on most of the BC dungeons because its such a PITA to sit spamming LFG for each and every run.
Not everyone has a group of friends or guild mates to group with when ever they want to do something. Not to mention that I really love the emblem system. T9 isn't T10(nor should it be) but it is FAR better than the crafted blues, faction rewards and quest rewards I had before Dungeon Finder made it practical to gain it.
I think some folks had a point about challenge being missing, and I do agree that trekking across the world and dodging mobs (or NPC's) added fun and excitement to the game.
Face it, the LFG Tool is a stopgap measure to keep us busy until Cataclysm comes out. Blizz has already mentioned that Cataclsym will restore more of the "world" feel that has been lost of late with everyone hanging out in Dalaran.
It makes no sense to revamp the world of Azeroth if we all are just going to continue hanging out in Dalaran spamming the LFT Tool. Think about it. LFG Tool is going to change; it has to. They are going to get us back out into the world again, where the challenge and the fun is.
And by the way, I was never bored while traveling to a dungeon to meet up with a group. Never. Was always fun. Could it be the LFG Tool was never about cutting out travel time, but about getting folks together across servers because groups were hard to find?
If they cripple the DF system, its going to come back and bite them in the rear end HARD. Its what allows many more people to access the dungeon content. Those who are howling and whining about it "ruining the game!" are a SMALL fraction of the player base. If Blizzard gives in to their teeth gnashing, its going to cost them much more than simply ignoring their howling would. Given their obsession with numbers, they have to have the data showing how many more people are using it.
And by the way, I was never bored while traveling to a dungeon to meet up with a group. Never. Was always fun. Could it be the LFG Tool was never about cutting out travel time, but about getting folks together across servers because groups were hard to find?
Sure fun for you. Boring for million others. I just did Naxx for the weekly yesterday. Do i really want to fly to venmonsplit, and then fly up to Naxx for the 1000th time?
Not really.
And thank GOD we had a warlock in the group and summon us into the dungeon.
Number of people declining the summon and wanted to travel? ZERO.
Comments
Great post. And the blue shows a fantastic realistic view why WOW is popular.
Reread the blue and say: "I am that player".
It matched perfectly what I felt in our RL gaming club the last 2 years.
Grtz. As to the guild part: I have the luck of playing with some RL friends in that guild (club wise). The game open up in a true world experience that way. For a shy person it is understandable to feel "lonely" in any MMO.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Had to reply on your post asswell. I geuss i view the isseu from a whole other perspective. Im am abit of a shy guy in life but in gaming im more assertive and want to proof myself at every point. It's not the question of what if i suck, I just Don't want to suck wich draws the best out of me. The diffrence between u and me is probably that i am an MMO veteran. I have played games from ultima online and everquest online adventures - World of warcraft and Pirates of the burning sea and evrything in between (skipped out on some of the latest MMO's because they already felt unworty to play before they launched).
I geuss i want to point out the reason why tanks (i am a protection warrior myself) Plow ahead and burn trough the instance. It is really simple people want to get it over with quickly they just want their badges and be done with it. If you are slow as a tank you will get scolded. I always try to tend for my group seeing if there are new players around and asking if they know the instance This will not make me move trough the instance slower but i will explain bosses if needed. If not and people screw up then i have the right to be an asshole really.
As for your last part. WoW did have a community. In the beginning in vanila evryone knew who you where. Ninjaíng things was imposible because you where blackmailed out of evrything then. No more pre-made battlegroups and raids if u had ninja'd. On my server atleast a few hardcore guilds (including mine) stil have a reputation to uphold, people are still looking up to you. The thing wich has changed is loyalty because you can namechange transfer crossrealm and do whatnot with your characters. U do not have to behave like u used to and loyalty has disapeared. People are not social anymore because the thing WoW provides is epics, and thats all you need.
EQoa on the playstation still was a world. with a small but very tight community. Heck most of the days we where just sitting inside Highpass (city) talking and stuff instead of actually playing.
I cannot see the harm with this. Before we were either standing around waiting for a group of somewhat the same level to form or waiting to get carried through by a higher level. Now, if you so choose, you can enter an instance within 10 minutes without the fuss.
You still have the ability to join in with friends or guildies. So i´d say this allows you to play however you like.
All statements I make is from my point of view unless stated otherwise.
Yes - it saves me 20 minutes of screwing around finding people and then getting everyone inside the dungeon.
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
I think it's a great feature. Yes, you're mileage will vary on the people you group up with but then again it's not like that couldn't happen to pugs before dungeon finder. I've had some good groups and i've had some really bad ones. That's why it's called a Pick-Up-Group, because that means you are grouping with random people (despite the method of how the group was created). In my experience, I've used it to level up but have also mixed in questing, especially post lvl 60. Leveling via Dungeon Finder does get repetitive at times, especially when you're at a level where you're only being put in one instance for 1-2 levels (low 30's - Scarlet Monastary graveyard comes to mind).
I hear the argument about 'nobody goes into the world anymore' but see heres the thing. A majority of the playerbase are not brand new players. The average subscriber probably has at least 2-3 lvl 80's. Meaning that the 1-60 leveling content has been done multiple times. It's 6 year old content and after you do it a few times, it's boring. Dungeon Finder provides an alternative.
I've never understood people who complain about what other's do. If you don't want to use to DF, don't. Go level out in the world the old way, nobody is forcing you otherwise. Why do you care how I'm leveling my character? Too many old school MMO players need to get out of this mindset that's stuck in 1999 where you only have one way of doing things in game. Alternatives are good. Giving the players choice in how they want to play the game is good.
Dungeon Finder is another "Path of Least Resistance" tool that folks will gravitate and use, but which lessens immersion and chips away at community building. Basically, this tool renders 95% of the game world obsolete.
The DF is a good way to knock out many dungeons in a play session but pretty much killed the purpose of having a world. In my experience with a couple weeks of the DF coming out in even some of the high level pve zones there were no players. Everyone just sits in Dalaran waiting to get into another group.
The world in WOW in leveling and daily quests and mat gathering is even more played than before.
Reason is simple: money and economy.
The fact Bliizard introduced a $3 paid subscription extra Auction House to play the economic game on a mobile shows that the world economy is played like before.
World mats gathering and gold through (daily) world questing is just as much needed (if not more) as before, since the players burn through their gear even more than before with various characters tx to the dungeon finder.
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Like I said: beware for "players" who didn't set foot in WOW in months or years: they only have one purpose: find a reason why they don't want the blonde girl anymore.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
This is the kind of response from someone who hasn't played WOW.
1. Community - The alternative to using the DF to level is to solo quest. Which has less community?
2. Path of least resistence - What is the fun part of a game? Beating the content and challenging bosses, or standing around for an hour trying to find 4 other people and then waiting for everyone to take flight paths? Or how about doing /autofollow on a lvl 80 as he pulls you through a low level dungeon?
3. Obsolete - Yes, there are plenty of players that level up through the DF.. there are also plenty who level up by soloing quests. Now there are OPTIONS!!! And if you go back to before the DF.. then you can say that back then, all of the dungeons were obsolete because almost nobody did them the way they were meant to be done ( everyone at appropriate levels). The DF opened up a very fun part of the game to people who are leveling and gave players a choice.
I'm a big fan of the Dungeon Finder . I made a new toon just so I could do many of the Dungeons that I never got around to doing at level previously . I even found that I was leveling up to quickly to fully enjoy all the Dungeons available & it is far more fun to do a dungeon at the level it was designed for than to be run through it by a friend on their lvl 80 . Yes , you do get the occasional fool in a group but I've found them to be surprisingly uncommon .
No.
Dungeon finder took out the community feeling for my server. Before, you would actually have to socialize with people on your server in order to level and what not. ( It wasn't impossible to not socialize with your server) Pretty much all of that is gone now. Which I hate. The reason I like WoW ( and I guess mmo's ) more than normal games is because of the added socializing. Now, I do get plenty of socializing done outside of the game, ( Not trying to sound like a hardcore gamer, I spend at most 30 minutes a week on WoW now, usually it consist of me logging in running a few steps on my mount and then alt+f4ing.) but I suppose I'm just attracted to being around people. Even when I'm in zones no one seems to talk, I guess it is because no one is out in the zones actually questing. I wish WoW would remove the dungeon finder.
Rift
After Arenas I thought Blizz would learn from its mistake and never do something as bone-headed again. They did admit Arenas was a mistake (years after the fact), so I had hoped.....
*buzzer* WRONG!
Then they came up with this incredibly asinine Dungeon Finder. Wait, it's too hard to actually go to the instance now? No more exploring? Why do I need mounts anymore I can just poof to Dungeon A anytime. Are their sub numbers so bad that servers are barren wastelands where people had to scrounge for a group? Odd, they claim they still have 11.5 million subs, are they all on 1 server or something?
People have complained that they don't like how Blizz is dumbing down the game. So Blizz..... further dumb downs the game. What is WoW becoming GW-Lite? We already have meaningless pvp and now they are basically making it so there is no point to being in a guild let alone talking to anyone. I can just queue up with The Four Random Dudes, get my blues and leave.
Sad...
*EDIT*
Oh and a common thread here and other places is what would bring you back to WoW. Well dropping this "feature" would rank high on my list.
We must be playing different games because I can probably count on one hand how many times I 'grouped to level' before dungeon finder. As a matter of fact you can make the case that I've grouped up with more people outside of my guild with DF than I ever would have previously. Server community has to be one of the all time overrated things ever, especially in a game like WoW where you can lvl 1-80 solo. It's been this way since the game launched. Instancing did alot to kill the idea of 'community'.
"right personality to play MMORPG"??? LOL .. MMORPGs are GAMES to ENTERTAIN. It is the developers who should build the right game for us, not us trying to have the right "personality" to play it.
There is already enough community. I have a bunch of frds & guildies i can talk to anytime i want. I much prefer to have FUN progressing at my own place then are forced to participate in any "community" when i am not in the mood.
Plus, minmaxing is a WAY to play the game. It is a GAME. we play it anyway we want to. If you don't like minmaxin, it is your choice. There are plenty of those who do (just check elitistjerks). Oh, and you don't have to get to the end game to minmax. You can certainly tweak your rotation & gear in lower levels to based on recount results.
Exploring dungeons i have already been to? Give me a break. No one wants to trek to SFK again, again and again. It is not hard. It is BORING. Everyone LOVES the instance teleport features, except may be YOU.
And if you haven't noticed, LOWER level dungeon groups are harder to find.
And even if I can find a group, using DF beats shouting in trade and PMing. It is MUCH easier and let us get to the fun parts.
Everyone looks at the negatives and never focuses on the positives. Like for example making lower level instances have some form of activity. Gnomernegan pre-dungeon finder was being run by no one. Pugs were not being formed for Blackrock Depths (one of the all time classic dungeons) before dungeon finder.
This stuff about grouping while leveling has got to be one the biggest jokes going. I've been playing the game on and off for the better part of 5 years and I'm telling you, people in zone chat asking for groups for quests just was not happening with any frequency. What really happened is occasionally someone would be in the same area as you were for a quest and shoot you a random group invite, you'd complete whatever the objective is and then disband, where the only words being mentioned was 'hi' and 'thanks'. That was your 'community'.
Since when did World of Warcraft become Everquest where you absoulety had to group up with people to get anything done?
The entire game has become a joke compared to what it used to. Blizzard has taken too much time into catering to the lazy that it has killed the fun times to be had in the world. Nowadays players just want to rewarded for sitting around Dalaran and hitting a button to run an instance without having to put forth any effort.
I'd love to take these people, throw them on a vanilla server and watch them bitch and whine when they have to actually EARN their dungeon access. I can hear the crying now about the UBRS key and the Onyxia chain....
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
Why the hell can't the whiners comprehend this?
I haven't played the game in a LONG time. Since before WotLK.
I can remember waiting OVER AN HOUR to get 1 UBRS run pre-BC if you tried off-hours. I can remember, as many others can, that you can grind without quests from the first level of being able to run Gnomeregon to after its pointless to run it before a group would form. I knew people with multiple lvl 60s that were asking what and where SFK was because no groups existed for it.
Heck, none of the instances had short waits except for during primetime and it was only the major instances.
This tool alone nearly got me to buy WotLK and come back. Now I am waiting for CATA and I will come back.
I earned the UBRS key. I earned the Onyxia chain. I earned the BWL key. I earned all of them pre-BC.
And its people like you who show utter ignorance and I have no pity for you when you go crying attempting to find a game that caters to the teenager with no responsibility.
There is no lazy about why I like this feature. There is no lazy about why I wont travel to a dungeon. Its about time. You caught a glimpse of it in the teal highlighted above. You were so close. So very close.
Blizzard recognized that they can please many many many more people than the ignorant like you if they reduce time sinks.
When I first played WoW, I had no job, no wife and no kids. I now have a full-time job a wife and two young children. There is nothing lazy about me wanting to logon and be doing what I want to be doing in 15 min rather than 45-75 min. There is no way I could play vanilla WoW anymore with the time I have.
Sorry to say this, but there are more people with the disposable income that dont have the time to spend 20 minutes travaling to the instance after spending 30 forming the group than there are people who have the 6-hours a day to raid and grind mats/gold for pots/buffs/enchants/repairs for the guild.
Also, what of the people who arnt gamers? The working people who dont really play games and dont have the understanding or willingness to understand to have a hobby? The parents that get involved because of thier kids or for or with thier kids? There are lots of people out there that just dont have the time to invest to understand it all and know it all that just want to play and have fun. Sure, they look lazy, but then again, maybe they want to be lazy in a G-A-M-E that they play to take thier mind off of a stressful job?
Well... I'll just be on my way waiting for CATA and hop back into WoW and use the DFT heavily and enjoy what it gives me.
Lazy?? We are talking about a GAME here. Not LIFE LONG CAREER. Of course i am lazy. If it is work, i do it in my office, not a gaming session. Well, if you like to walk, you can still do it. The world did NOT go away. But no thanks for walking to SKF for the 1000th time.
If you haven't noticed, WOW GREW subs since WOTLK and it is holding at 11.5M. So if people LOVE to socialize in DAL and wait for instance dungeon, who the heck are you to say that is not the way to enjoy a game? I am HAPPY that blizz is ignoring self-righteous people like you.
"To earn dungeon access"? If you want to make a game so much work, why don't you go do work instead of playing a game?
I think some folks had a point about challenge being missing, and I do agree that trekking across the world and dodging mobs (or NPC's) added fun and excitement to the game.
Face it, the LFG Tool is a stopgap measure to keep us busy until Cataclysm comes out. Blizz has already mentioned that Cataclsym will restore more of the "world" feel that has been lost of late with everyone hanging out in Dalaran.
It makes no sense to revamp the world of Azeroth if we all are just going to continue hanging out in Dalaran spamming the LFT Tool. Think about it. LFG Tool is going to change; it has to. They are going to get us back out into the world again, where the challenge and the fun is.
And by the way, I was never bored while traveling to a dungeon to meet up with a group. Never. Was always fun. Could it be the LFG Tool was never about cutting out travel time, but about getting folks together across servers because groups were hard to find?
You never answered the question how all those gathering mats and crafted mats come in on the AH ....
Must be quite a lot of people playing "the world."
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Like I said earlier: the LFG mechanism for dungeons (not working for Raids btw) is past its "new" use too. The mechanic is now simply used in a daily playing schedule of most players.I rarely play more than one dungeon in a session. Very rarely.
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On my leveling toon I even play a dungeon mostly once while I level through them (to solve a few quests I stumble upon), I play some interesting world quests, try to level two new interesting professions and I try to play a few BG's each day, since that's what I like most.
The max time to enter a dungeon is around 20-25 minutes in the leveling dungeons, so plenty of things to do in the meantime, like chatting in guild or general and crafting/gathering/questing. the same goes for the early BG's.
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Every other day I play with a main. The 1.5 to 2 hour playing session consist of ONE dungeon run max and one BG "trying for the arena points". Always do 5 step daily quest at Icecrown and trying to gather food ingredients and mining mats (for the much needed cash for new gear stats).
So I have a question: how do you get money to Raid twice a week? You buy gold on wowgold.com ? or do you play the game's economy?
...because sitting in Dalaran is not bringing in any gold.
And a very small percentage of people will play only ONE way when you have several other options to choose from.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Well, considering that all four of my 80's are on Silvermoon, I doubt I'm contributing to the death of world ganking. ^^
Lets face it, thats what world PvP was at its base. Groups of high levels roaming around and corpse camping and endlessly ganking lower levels. Why? Because they could, and because they are bored. After leveling to 60 on deathwing, I moved to silvermoon and started all over.
The Dungeon Finder system is one of the best additions to the game in years. It allows many more people to finally see the dungeon content. I missed out on most of the BC dungeons because its such a PITA to sit spamming LFG for each and every run.
Not everyone has a group of friends or guild mates to group with when ever they want to do something. Not to mention that I really love the emblem system. T9 isn't T10(nor should it be) but it is FAR better than the crafted blues, faction rewards and quest rewards I had before Dungeon Finder made it practical to gain it.
If they cripple the DF system, its going to come back and bite them in the rear end HARD. Its what allows many more people to access the dungeon content. Those who are howling and whining about it "ruining the game!" are a SMALL fraction of the player base. If Blizzard gives in to their teeth gnashing, its going to cost them much more than simply ignoring their howling would. Given their obsession with numbers, they have to have the data showing how many more people are using it.
And by the way, I was never bored while traveling to a dungeon to meet up with a group. Never. Was always fun. Could it be the LFG Tool was never about cutting out travel time, but about getting folks together across servers because groups were hard to find?
Sure fun for you. Boring for million others. I just did Naxx for the weekly yesterday. Do i really want to fly to venmonsplit, and then fly up to Naxx for the 1000th time?
Not really.
And thank GOD we had a warlock in the group and summon us into the dungeon.
Number of people declining the summon and wanted to travel? ZERO.