This is just further evidence that MMOs should experiment with the (one thing CO got right) idea of just one server and instanced (spawning more if population warrants) normal zones. 1 server is just so very appealing for so many reasons: (1) You never have to worry about whether or not your friends are on your server....they are; (2) You have big populations for all of the things that need it: pvp battles, pve boss battles, looking for group, etc etc; (3) You never have to worry about server merges in the future if the game is less popular because, hey, it is all one server now.
I really think WAR would be a success today if only it had done this. Then people would always have had enough people for open pvp, scenarios, or a public quest.
Doesn't talk about the problems with the dungeon finder? check
What proublems are you talking about. I recently took a character from 1-73 using about 80% dungeon finder and 20% questing and I did not find any proublems with it.
The tool has its good and bad points: the bad points, I am happy to see, are being addressed by Blizzard, most notably in the recent patch.
One of the bad points I have seen and commented on before, is that a group of 4 can get together from a server and "PuG" the fifth, only to kick the "PuGged" player when the time comes to loot the final boss (I have seen this happen numerous times). Blizzard is in the process of addressing this by requiring that players voting to kick a grouped player give a reason for the kick. I'm happy to see this, as it does help with abuse of the tool. Still, even with giving reasons for a kick ("crappy tank," "crappy healer"), I am concerned that Blizzard may not investigate: If 4 players are from guild "We Rule WoW" from Alexstraza kicking a player from guild "I Play for Phat Lewtz" from server Medivh, those 4 players can use guild chat, Ventrilo, or any number of tools to get their stories together - and the Medivh player may be a more than satisfactory tank or healer who was simply kicked over loot, but now the story is 4 against 1 that the Medivh player was not performing to an acceptable standard, so, in my opinion, the tool still needs some work in that regard...but since I am not a programmer or game designer, I do not know what would be a feasible solution to the dilemma.
Have the game keep track of the player's stats to be able to actually substantiate the claims of the kickers. Someone who isn't tanking good enough can be kicked if the game notices that they aren't taking most of the damage. Or a healer can be kicked because of frequent player deaths, etc.
The Dungeon finder is good for grouping, poor for the community. The fact the community is so poor in WoW (like any other MMO) is not a license to do something to the game which makes the community poorer. Things will never get better community wise if MMO’s just keep putting another nail in the community’s coffin. These days a sense of community only exists in your guild and on the forums, it died when swarms of casual players who only play for a few months at most became the norm.
Over all I feel this is a good move by Blizzard, but they need to do something positive for the community to balance this problem out.
WoW doesn't need a community as much as other games so it has simply crubled & devolved, in my opinion it is unsurprising, just human nature expressing it's normal tendencies.
In games that had a much greater co-dependency they were also far smaller in population, there might well be a correlation there, smaller game, smaller community greater sense of co-operative needs = the Real Life equivalent of a village, everbody gets to know each other much better, if not on a personal level at least on an in-game "personality" level, reputations meant a lot more.
In WoW the game is analagous to a large city, people are less dependant on each other (or the perception is this) there is less opportunity to form greater knowlege of your other players personalities, & the huge "churn" of players you come into contact with inevitably leads to a more "me first" mentality, the lack of resp[ect for others goes hand in glove with this lower degree of familiarity.
"The lonliest place on earth in inside a crowd of strangers"
Humans are not adapted to function especially well in very large populaces, we have a need to belong, hence outside of villages & in larger cities you have multitudes of "tribes" that exist as subcultures, this subculturism is present in games too,
You might be a "Headbanger" "Goth" "Nerd" "Football supporter" "Fragger" "Jock" "Explorer" "Adventurer" "Hardcore Raider" "Soloer" or a thousand other labels & may well belong to several, even opposed, tribes, but communities spring up eventually, even in the amorphous conglomerates of modern society, games where the bonds of community are even more ephemeral than in real life it is much less likely for cohesive communities to develop the larger they are, despite the fact that the sheer scale offered opens up oportunities to form as many varieties of community as there are players, what the games lack, are stroing enough personalities with clear enough visions to act as gravitational centre points for those communities to form.
In games as in life, humans are sheep & the goats (leaders) are extremely rare.
While every one talks about the PvE aspect of the LFG window. WHich imo Is a good thing... as a tank/healer i can find groups much faster YAY...
But in the PvP aspect I like playing on a PvP server and lately have had no fear going into a alliance town and totally destroying it like i twas nothing to begin with. Or even quest solo in STV or any place that used to be gank city. Really the only thing it has destroyed imo is World PvP. Thats all I can say about it.
Personally i like to quest and instance at times. Only downside to this queue stuff is that i've come across a lot of ret pallies or arms warriors thinking theya re tanks with a subpar healer... not fun imo
Now that wow has only 13 servers (known as battlegroups) they needed a tool to help connect the login nodes together (what were the old servers) , it is funny that no one picked up on battlegroups being a very clever marketing ploy to cover up server merges.
So this tool was always going to help, the game has lost substantial numbers in the north american market over the last couple of years since its peak in 2008. It famous claim to the 11 million players also clever marketing when people finally realise that most of those players are in asia/euro etc.. leaving a peak pop best guestimates from around the web put the NA wow crowd at arouind 2-3 million or so in 08.. so yeah its not that much of a lead over other subscription titles if you look at NA market players only.
Oh btw any mmo in china with less than 10 million subs is considered a failure.
Either your being sarcastic or are SADLY misinformed. Battlegroups have been around since BG's went cross sever back in vanilla WoW. They are collections of servers not "nodes".
I'd like to see some evidence the NA market has DROPPED because Blizzard is making record profits and NA is their biggest profit base AND several servers that have long been traditionally LOW population are hitting medium and high populations........ if anything the NA market for WoW has stayed the same or grown slightly since 2008.......
The biggest problem is that there is not gameplay mechanics in place in most MMOs that actually encourage a community. There are no conceptual ideas in WoW that encourage a group of players to hang out at a tavern or to meet there. There are no persistent concepts that encourage players to place objects in the game world whether it be to show off their home, or to sell a product, or for some other purpose that while not necesarily essential in the MMO to level, gain experience, or raise a skill it is essential for social development; and in my opinion essential to be called an MMORPG.
With that said, I continue to express that most of the so called MMORPGs out there today are, in fact, not MMORPGs at all.
To create a social community there has to be an environment that encourages players to communicate or to interact. You cannot force a player to do that you must encourage it. By creating these featueres there will be incredible communities springing to life.
I think too much goes into MMOs these days that does not encourage players to do things, instead, we see to much of these random dungeon tool concepts while convenient do nothing in the way of community.
I think I love you... :P
I've been saying this about WoW and other recent MMO releases for years. I think LOTRO comes the closest to actually encouraging a decent community in the post-WoW era.
Dungeon Finder is a great addition to WoW . I started a new alt when Dungeon Finder was introduced just so I could work my way through every dungeon , many of which I had never bothered to do at level before . So much more content is now readily available to me that had previously been almost inaccessible due to the difficulty of finding a group . It has greatly increased my enjoyment of the game .
I was standing on the fence when this tool came out. It was more like a job to log on and try to get a group. I am not totaly a casual player but I don't have the time to play as much as I would like. This new tool has made it possible to find groups and do things that I may not be able to until after the next expansion. At the same time I know many that are on all the time my hubby included that it has made their time less hassle and more fun.
True you are always gonna find those that you wish weren't in a group. There is always gonna be a tank or someone else with gear not really good enough for where they are, low hp's, etc and the amazing thing there is the healer is usually the first one to be kicked or the tank. So this goes on with the tool and without.. But overall the tool is great and I believe it has helped server community not hurt it. When people spam for hours trying to get a group then that is no longer fun and will drive people away.
You can pretty much solo from 1-80 level without grouping. Just doing quest that don't require groups and such. Quest by the way is the best way to go for leveling. By pass all the group and dungeon quest then you can go back to them later. But if you want to expeirence the game as it was meant then you will need to group from time to time.
With the new tool finding lower level groups is not as much of a hassel as it was either.
The Dungeon finder is good for grouping, poor for the community. The fact the community is so poor in WoW (like any other MMO) is not a license to do something to the game which makes the community poorer. Things will never get better community wise if MMO’s just keep putting another nail in the community’s coffin. These days a sense of community only exists in your guild and on the forums, it died when swarms of casual players who only play for a few months at most became the norm.
Over all I feel this is a good move by Blizzard, but they need to do something positive for the community to balance this problem out.
I completely agree with this sentiment as well. In fact, despite the LFG tool getting my final toon (druid healer) from a brand new 80 to complete T9 in just a little over a week I still wound up dropping my sub shortly thereafter. The community in WoW is utter garbage- I've played several other games and it seems that not only has WoW caused a change to what is being put out by the companies, but it's also causing a "de-evolution" of the playerbase as well. Several friends I've made in games or know IRL become mouthbreathing leetspeakers in game, and now bring it to other games.
Every game I've played that allows players to progress without depending on their server community allows John Gabriel's Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory to run rampant.
Saying the LFD tool is detrimental to the community in WoW is just idiotic. As has been said before, the community is non-existent.
Oh, wait, there is a community on my server. It essentially consists of members of the top raiding guild preening themselves and extolling on how awesome they are in trade chat. Follow that up with PvP contigent of the same guild going on and on about how bad everyone else on the server is, add to that all the other trolls, and well, yeah. I left the game last year, came back, and nothing had essentially changed communitywise. The one thing i did notice was that my lfg button was replaced by the LFD button. There was much rejoicing.
At one point, i would have agreed that running dungeons with only people from my server was a good thing. I made a lot of friends that way, and learned what guilds were cool, and which ones to avoid, regardless of player skill. That changed a long time ago, and was one of the reasons I quit playing. Finding groups was a hassle, and what was worse, the attitudes I was running into was insane.
Now, if I wanna slam dungeons for a few hours, it's quick, and for the most part, all business. I do miss the conversation sometimes, but I also like being able to dump someone who isn't pulling there weight without having to listen to their crap afterwards. I do wish that Blizzard would improve their matching system, sometimes gap in gear between pugs is immense.
I still run into people from my server often, and after one successful run, ran with the same pugs, from my own server for the next few hours.
I also started leveling an old alt that was sitting on the shelf, before the LFD tool, I never bothered with dungeons while leveling. Took too much time, and finding groups was beyond painful. I don't care much for how they broke up some of the vanilla wow dungeons, 1 boss in BRD is not a dungeon run. But other than that, it's better than how it used to be.
It's not perfect, but I do say it's a great improvement.
And whoever mentioned City of Heroes having a tool like this, I must have missed that in 5 years of playing that game. Sure, they had a system for looking for players for specific tasks, but not an automatic system.
Saying the LFD tool is detrimental to the community in WoW is just idiotic. As has been said before, the community is non-existent.
People like to act like communities are independent of the social structures in which they are immersed. In actual fact communities are strongly shaped but such things.
LFD, like a poster above said, is great for grouping. Unfortunately, it is pretty terrible for the community because it enables people to view other players more and more as a means to an end (getting loot) than as people. A lot of WoW is set up that way. In combat there is basically nothing cooperative (compared to say Skill Chains in FFXI), so when there's a failure it is someone's fault and that someone is preventing you from progressing and getting the loots.
Not a bad article, though you failed to realize that Blizzard is fixing the cross-server friend/foe problem with the Battle.net friend list which should be making it's way ingame this year, i believe. Also skimmed over these posts and saw a few stale viewing points... Communities in WoW aren't dead, whether or not you like to accept it as one the trade chat on some realms is a community of people who regularly log on to chat there. The community you percieve can also be affected by the friends you make, if you refuse to make friends that's on you, but can also be determined by your in-game peers, by this I mean guild mostly. Take me for example: I'm in a social guild, I enjoy the game thoroghly, I even make some time to raid and you know what helps with this? I've got other friends who are into raiding, one of them even has his own raiding guild. But the friends you make and the guild you join is all dependent on you. One other, minor thing, that I noticed amongst the replies was that someone said that noone in the random groups talk, yes it could take just one social person, but even if you are a bit shy all you need to do is break the ice and the group can be much more lax and enjoyable, especially if you are in one of those very annoying or long dungeons. To reference both scenarios: I've been in one of those dungeons where noone talks, maybe not at all, maybe just until the end where everyone says thanks and good-bye. I've also been in dungeons where the group would have trouble with it. I've actually made it a habit to try and find the oppurtunity to crack jokes in order to loosen up the atmosphere, this can keep your group from getting annoyed and falling apart. ((though there can always be that one spoiled sport who says everyone but them fails and leaves))
I absolutely love the dungeon finder, but the downside is that there's really no way to police players who take advantage of the system. For example, many players simply use the dungeon finder as a means to grief other players or to ninja loot items simply because they don't stand to loose anything in groups which are encompassed entirely of players from other servers. Also players in dungeon finder groups tend to be a bit more brazen with their words and actions as it's far to common for players to train the group and healers and tanks to leave mid pull if there is some sort of a disagreement becaus eagain, there's no reputation at stake. Players can't block other players from ever grouping with them, so players can be as troublesome as they want with no real consequence.
The second issue is that it seems to me it's far to common for players to simply drop the party when things get bad simply to save their own lives. If a tank pulls too many and dies, players will simply drop the party and be intstantly transported to the area they were prior to the invite.
Thirdly, I wonder if it would be that difficult to add some sort of a ding or something to alert players who may be tabbed out that a dungeon invite awaits them. It can be seriously annoying to wait for a dungeon for 30 minutes only to be dropped from the queue after failing to answer an invite which came five seconds after you tabbed out to check wowhead.com.
I would say, however, that the positives for the dungeon finder system far outweigh the negatives. There just simply needs to be some work done to it to curb the exploitation.
Communities in WoW aren't dead, whether or not you like to accept it as one the trade chat on some realms is a community of people who regularly log on to chat there. The community you percieve can also be affected by the friends you make, if you refuse to make friends that's on you, but can also be determined by your in-game peers, by this I mean guild mostly.
I don't think any of the posters meant a dead community in that there isn't communication, which is how it appears you took it (I could be wrong)- what I mean (and believe other posters do as well) is that the community is just bad; unredeemably bad, unfixably bad. It certainly isn't anything I'd expect to see in a MMORPG, perhaps yahoo chat or in Xbox live but nothing with RPG in the genre. Before I quit the only chat channels I left active was guild chat and tells. Everything else completely killed immersion.
Sigh, as mentioned in the article, you can't kill that which doesn't exist. WOW servers don't have a community and in reading this thread its obvious most people don't even know its not there.
I guess you had to be part of the early days of MMO's and see how server communities could be built with the proper socialzation mechanics, and tools of which almost none of them exist in WOW and other more modern games.
Almost every post praising this feature spoke of how easy it was to run through the game content, which is undeniable. Understand while you are doing all that great content, you are doing almost no socialization because you are too busy playing the game to develop the social side of an MMO.
I know, I'm a dinosaur for wanting games to be more like they were, the majority of players seem to be happy with the state of affairs these days, even the OP it seems.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I will never understand how introducing such a handy tool can destroy the community. I also do not understand why people consider it as a sign for catering to casuals. Afterall what is so hardcore about standing at one place and spamming LFG for hours? the challenge should be inside the dungeon and not in forming teams. However, players can still form their own groups so yeah more options is always good.
Blizzard is a smart company and by introduction of team tool they are only encouraging players to do group content which they would have other wise skipped due to lack of groups/teams. Its a lot better option then just getting rid of team based quests like Turbine did with LOTR. (easy way out isn't it?)
Games like EQ2, AOC etc can use such a tool as it is always a pain to find teams on lower levels.
I have never tired the WOW idea,but i do knwo they are not that brilliant,i mentioned this to Square Enix 3+ years ago,so everyone is slow moving on this.
There is several problems with this system,it has to be done correctly.Example is you don't want to Que ue into just any group,you should have a preference of what content you want.Also over lapping classes would be a problem,so you need a mechanic where by a group starter is able to check off what exactly he/she wants in their group.
You need selections such as gouping/questing/raiding,then you need the level and willingness to mentor if a game uses the mentoring system.
IMO grouping is not a problem of mechanics it is a problem with game design and community.If your community just wants to play solo,how is any grouping mechanic going to help?If your whole game is designed to solo such as Wow is aside from instances,then why would people want to group?
Also one huge problem i have always seen in GUILDS and their leaders.Why are people joining guilds?Obviously to play with other players,so what is the problem?Your guild leader should not be picking random people just to look big,he should be picking people to form common groups and needs.Example why woudlda guild leader pick 7 people if only 6 can group?One player will always be left out to dry.Also if you have a guild with a level 15 and a level 30 and a level 50 what good is that?
So imo if guild's were structured and run properly there would be again no need for this mechanic and of course you still need people that actually want to play a MMO and not play solo as a single player game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
IMO grouping is not a problem of mechanics it is a problem with game design and community.If your community just wants to play solo,how is any grouping mechanic going to help?If your whole game is designed to solo such as Wow is aside from instances,then why would people want to group?
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics. The LFD is an example of a game mechanic. All game mechanics play into how the community develops and plays (which also affects future game mechanics to an extent). You can't divorce the mechanics from how the community behaves. WoW has a ton of social-killing mechanics now and few to no social-building mechanics, hence the social aspect of the game is pretty crappy overall.
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics. The LFD is an example of a game mechanic. All game mechanics play into how the community develops and plays (which also affects future game mechanics to an extent). You can't divorce the mechanics from how the community behaves. WoW has a ton of social-killing mechanics now and few to no social-building mechanics, hence the social aspect of the game is pretty crappy overall.
WoW Drachasor thats amazing. Let me get this straight:
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics.
Mechanics are a significant part of game mechanics.
I will never understand how introducing such a handy tool can destroy the community. I also do not understand why people consider it as a sign for catering to casuals. Afterall what is so hardcore about standing at one place and spamming LFG for hours? the challenge should be inside the dungeon and not in forming teams. However, players can still form their own groups so yeah more options is always good.
Blizzard is a smart company and by introduction of team tool they are only encouraging players to do group content which they would have other wise skipped due to lack of groups/teams. Its a lot better option then just getting rid of team based quests like Turbine did with LOTR. (easy way out isn't it?)
Games like EQ2, AOC etc can use such a tool as it is always a pain to find teams on lower levels.
I have never tired the WOW idea,but i do knwo they are not that brilliant,i mentioned this to Square Enix 3+ years ago,so everyone is slow moving on this.
There is several problems with this system,it has to be done correctly.Example is you don't want to Que ue into just any group,you should have a preference of what content you want.Also over lapping classes would be a problem,so you need a mechanic where by a group starter is able to check off what exactly he/she wants in their group.
You need selections such as gouping/questing/raiding,then you need the level and willingness to mentor if a game uses the mentoring system.
IMO grouping is not a problem of mechanics it is a problem with game design and community.If your community just wants to play solo,how is any grouping mechanic going to help?If your whole game is designed to solo such as Wow is aside from instances,then why would people want to group?
Also one huge problem i have always seen in GUILDS and their leaders.Why are people joining guilds?Obviously to play with other players,so what is the problem?Your guild leader should not be picking random people just to look big,he should be picking people to form common groups and needs.Example why woudlda guild leader pick 7 people if only 6 can group?One player will always be left out to dry.Also if you have a guild with a level 15 and a level 30 and a level 50 what good is that?
So imo if guild's were structured and run properly there would be again no need for this mechanic and of course you still need people that actually want to play a MMO and not play solo as a single player game.
So according to Wizardry 'the ideas of Blizzard are not that brilliant".
WOW. Saying this about the most succesful game ever invented - highest money making of any single game - ever.
I wonder how many other 5 to 6 billion brilliant dollar games he is referring to.
If you envy succes at least crawl to the niche corner argument and don't come up with arguments of "average" and "not brilliant".
And here is some food of thought: CATA introduces both a PVE and PVP guild leveling system.
Special treatment: the PvP guild competitions with a ranking system all over the internet and in game.
I think it opens up to a complete new kind of PvP guild play which is rather UNIQUE.
As it combines guild PvP play and cross server realms competition play.
Wow. Some people do need to crawl out of their old "one server -realm" games mentality. As this kind of PvP guild competition - no doubt - will be more played than on line RvR with huge balancing problems.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Sigh, as mentioned in the article, you can't kill that which doesn't exist. WOW servers don't have a community and in reading this thread its obvious most people don't even know its not there.
She wrote that there was NO fixed dungeons community Kylrean. That is a complete other thing than what you write about.
The cross server dungeons and cross server BG's will be complemented with a new guild leveling in both PVP and PVE part of the game.
As I said above it (again) opens up extremely rich opportunities for the old "realm" based limits, which always had huge balancing problems.
WOW is opening up its realms to inter realm play and the guilds will be one of the basics to support it.
That mechanism alone beats on realm PvP play anytime as :
1. no big problems in server balancing.
2. always available. 24/24.
3 much bigger competition going from 10K to 200K competition.
4. much more meaningful by number of guilds that play.
5. servers no longer have limits for guild play.
The next step is guild /banks/houses/fortresses of course, being build upon the reputation of your guild leveling.
beats the AOC mechanics anytime too btw.
The future step is contacting/comparingplayers/guilds through BattleNet over ... games.
Now there is a WOW community promoted that crosses the traditional and very limited "realm" (through Guild play and transfers of realms - factions etc to play with RL friends), in the future that will be called a "Blizzard" community, casted over all the new Blizzard games.
Get the picture already ???
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Lol taking away the thinking or doing yourself is typical for themeparks like WoW thats why its causal and playable for all ages.
Man you guys should play some sandboxes i already know what happen when you enter those games ive seen it so manytimes.
Its sad seeing so many been puppets and don't even know or realize it, but ok if you have fun goahead be non thinking easymode puppet:) thats why we have themeparks make mass brain dead and get all there money hehe.
I'll stick with my sandbox where i have to do all by myself and no holding hands from a-z telling me what to do no way i want that:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics. The LFD is an example of a game mechanic. All game mechanics play into how the community develops and plays (which also affects future game mechanics to an extent). You can't divorce the mechanics from how the community behaves. WoW has a ton of social-killing mechanics now and few to no social-building mechanics, hence the social aspect of the game is pretty crappy overall.
WoW Drachasor thats amazing. Let me get this straight:
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics.
Mechanics are a significant part of game mechanics.
Mechanics are a part of game mechanics
Mechanics are game mechanics
Mechanics are game
If you had read my whole post you would have understood the first sentenced was mistyped. I mean to say something like "Game Mechaics are a hugely significant part of the social dynamic." This is something people often forget or don't consider.
Of course, if you prefer to focus on trifles rather than content, go ahead.
Comments
This is just further evidence that MMOs should experiment with the (one thing CO got right) idea of just one server and instanced (spawning more if population warrants) normal zones. 1 server is just so very appealing for so many reasons: (1) You never have to worry about whether or not your friends are on your server....they are; (2) You have big populations for all of the things that need it: pvp battles, pve boss battles, looking for group, etc etc; (3) You never have to worry about server merges in the future if the game is less popular because, hey, it is all one server now.
I really think WAR would be a success today if only it had done this. Then people would always have had enough people for open pvp, scenarios, or a public quest.
What proublems are you talking about. I recently took a character from 1-73 using about 80% dungeon finder and 20% questing and I did not find any proublems with it.
Have the game keep track of the player's stats to be able to actually substantiate the claims of the kickers. Someone who isn't tanking good enough can be kicked if the game notices that they aren't taking most of the damage. Or a healer can be kicked because of frequent player deaths, etc.
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The Dungeon finder is good for grouping, poor for the community. The fact the community is so poor in WoW (like any other MMO) is not a license to do something to the game which makes the community poorer. Things will never get better community wise if MMO’s just keep putting another nail in the community’s coffin. These days a sense of community only exists in your guild and on the forums, it died when swarms of casual players who only play for a few months at most became the norm.
Over all I feel this is a good move by Blizzard, but they need to do something positive for the community to balance this problem out.
WoW doesn't need a community as much as other games so it has simply crubled & devolved, in my opinion it is unsurprising, just human nature expressing it's normal tendencies.
In games that had a much greater co-dependency they were also far smaller in population, there might well be a correlation there, smaller game, smaller community greater sense of co-operative needs = the Real Life equivalent of a village, everbody gets to know each other much better, if not on a personal level at least on an in-game "personality" level, reputations meant a lot more.
In WoW the game is analagous to a large city, people are less dependant on each other (or the perception is this) there is less opportunity to form greater knowlege of your other players personalities, & the huge "churn" of players you come into contact with inevitably leads to a more "me first" mentality, the lack of resp[ect for others goes hand in glove with this lower degree of familiarity.
"The lonliest place on earth in inside a crowd of strangers"
Humans are not adapted to function especially well in very large populaces, we have a need to belong, hence outside of villages & in larger cities you have multitudes of "tribes" that exist as subcultures, this subculturism is present in games too,
You might be a "Headbanger" "Goth" "Nerd" "Football supporter" "Fragger" "Jock" "Explorer" "Adventurer" "Hardcore Raider" "Soloer" or a thousand other labels & may well belong to several, even opposed, tribes, but communities spring up eventually, even in the amorphous conglomerates of modern society, games where the bonds of community are even more ephemeral than in real life it is much less likely for cohesive communities to develop the larger they are, despite the fact that the sheer scale offered opens up oportunities to form as many varieties of community as there are players, what the games lack, are stroing enough personalities with clear enough visions to act as gravitational centre points for those communities to form.
In games as in life, humans are sheep & the goats (leaders) are extremely rare.
While every one talks about the PvE aspect of the LFG window. WHich imo Is a good thing... as a tank/healer i can find groups much faster YAY...
But in the PvP aspect I like playing on a PvP server and lately have had no fear going into a alliance town and totally destroying it like i twas nothing to begin with. Or even quest solo in STV or any place that used to be gank city. Really the only thing it has destroyed imo is World PvP. Thats all I can say about it.
Personally i like to quest and instance at times. Only downside to this queue stuff is that i've come across a lot of ret pallies or arms warriors thinking theya re tanks with a subpar healer... not fun imo
Either your being sarcastic or are SADLY misinformed. Battlegroups have been around since BG's went cross sever back in vanilla WoW. They are collections of servers not "nodes".
I'd like to see some evidence the NA market has DROPPED because Blizzard is making record profits and NA is their biggest profit base AND several servers that have long been traditionally LOW population are hitting medium and high populations........ if anything the NA market for WoW has stayed the same or grown slightly since 2008.......
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
I think I love you... :P
I've been saying this about WoW and other recent MMO releases for years. I think LOTRO comes the closest to actually encouraging a decent community in the post-WoW era.
Dungeon Finder is a great addition to WoW . I started a new alt when Dungeon Finder was introduced just so I could work my way through every dungeon , many of which I had never bothered to do at level before . So much more content is now readily available to me that had previously been almost inaccessible due to the difficulty of finding a group . It has greatly increased my enjoyment of the game .
I was standing on the fence when this tool came out. It was more like a job to log on and try to get a group. I am not totaly a casual player but I don't have the time to play as much as I would like. This new tool has made it possible to find groups and do things that I may not be able to until after the next expansion. At the same time I know many that are on all the time my hubby included that it has made their time less hassle and more fun.
True you are always gonna find those that you wish weren't in a group. There is always gonna be a tank or someone else with gear not really good enough for where they are, low hp's, etc and the amazing thing there is the healer is usually the first one to be kicked or the tank. So this goes on with the tool and without.. But overall the tool is great and I believe it has helped server community not hurt it. When people spam for hours trying to get a group then that is no longer fun and will drive people away.
You can pretty much solo from 1-80 level without grouping. Just doing quest that don't require groups and such. Quest by the way is the best way to go for leveling. By pass all the group and dungeon quest then you can go back to them later. But if you want to expeirence the game as it was meant then you will need to group from time to time.
With the new tool finding lower level groups is not as much of a hassel as it was either.
Gikku
I completely agree with this sentiment as well. In fact, despite the LFG tool getting my final toon (druid healer) from a brand new 80 to complete T9 in just a little over a week I still wound up dropping my sub shortly thereafter. The community in WoW is utter garbage- I've played several other games and it seems that not only has WoW caused a change to what is being put out by the companies, but it's also causing a "de-evolution" of the playerbase as well. Several friends I've made in games or know IRL become mouthbreathing leetspeakers in game, and now bring it to other games.
Every game I've played that allows players to progress without depending on their server community allows John Gabriel's Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory to run rampant.
Saying the LFD tool is detrimental to the community in WoW is just idiotic. As has been said before, the community is non-existent.
Oh, wait, there is a community on my server. It essentially consists of members of the top raiding guild preening themselves and extolling on how awesome they are in trade chat. Follow that up with PvP contigent of the same guild going on and on about how bad everyone else on the server is, add to that all the other trolls, and well, yeah. I left the game last year, came back, and nothing had essentially changed communitywise. The one thing i did notice was that my lfg button was replaced by the LFD button. There was much rejoicing.
At one point, i would have agreed that running dungeons with only people from my server was a good thing. I made a lot of friends that way, and learned what guilds were cool, and which ones to avoid, regardless of player skill. That changed a long time ago, and was one of the reasons I quit playing. Finding groups was a hassle, and what was worse, the attitudes I was running into was insane.
Now, if I wanna slam dungeons for a few hours, it's quick, and for the most part, all business. I do miss the conversation sometimes, but I also like being able to dump someone who isn't pulling there weight without having to listen to their crap afterwards. I do wish that Blizzard would improve their matching system, sometimes gap in gear between pugs is immense.
I still run into people from my server often, and after one successful run, ran with the same pugs, from my own server for the next few hours.
I also started leveling an old alt that was sitting on the shelf, before the LFD tool, I never bothered with dungeons while leveling. Took too much time, and finding groups was beyond painful. I don't care much for how they broke up some of the vanilla wow dungeons, 1 boss in BRD is not a dungeon run. But other than that, it's better than how it used to be.
It's not perfect, but I do say it's a great improvement.
And whoever mentioned City of Heroes having a tool like this, I must have missed that in 5 years of playing that game. Sure, they had a system for looking for players for specific tasks, but not an automatic system.
People like to act like communities are independent of the social structures in which they are immersed. In actual fact communities are strongly shaped but such things.
LFD, like a poster above said, is great for grouping. Unfortunately, it is pretty terrible for the community because it enables people to view other players more and more as a means to an end (getting loot) than as people. A lot of WoW is set up that way. In combat there is basically nothing cooperative (compared to say Skill Chains in FFXI), so when there's a failure it is someone's fault and that someone is preventing you from progressing and getting the loots.
Not a bad article, though you failed to realize that Blizzard is fixing the cross-server friend/foe problem with the Battle.net friend list which should be making it's way ingame this year, i believe. Also skimmed over these posts and saw a few stale viewing points... Communities in WoW aren't dead, whether or not you like to accept it as one the trade chat on some realms is a community of people who regularly log on to chat there. The community you percieve can also be affected by the friends you make, if you refuse to make friends that's on you, but can also be determined by your in-game peers, by this I mean guild mostly. Take me for example: I'm in a social guild, I enjoy the game thoroghly, I even make some time to raid and you know what helps with this? I've got other friends who are into raiding, one of them even has his own raiding guild. But the friends you make and the guild you join is all dependent on you. One other, minor thing, that I noticed amongst the replies was that someone said that noone in the random groups talk, yes it could take just one social person, but even if you are a bit shy all you need to do is break the ice and the group can be much more lax and enjoyable, especially if you are in one of those very annoying or long dungeons. To reference both scenarios: I've been in one of those dungeons where noone talks, maybe not at all, maybe just until the end where everyone says thanks and good-bye. I've also been in dungeons where the group would have trouble with it. I've actually made it a habit to try and find the oppurtunity to crack jokes in order to loosen up the atmosphere, this can keep your group from getting annoyed and falling apart. ((though there can always be that one spoiled sport who says everyone but them fails and leaves))
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I think it well past time evolution occurred
Godspeed my fellow gamer
I absolutely love the dungeon finder, but the downside is that there's really no way to police players who take advantage of the system. For example, many players simply use the dungeon finder as a means to grief other players or to ninja loot items simply because they don't stand to loose anything in groups which are encompassed entirely of players from other servers. Also players in dungeon finder groups tend to be a bit more brazen with their words and actions as it's far to common for players to train the group and healers and tanks to leave mid pull if there is some sort of a disagreement becaus eagain, there's no reputation at stake. Players can't block other players from ever grouping with them, so players can be as troublesome as they want with no real consequence.
The second issue is that it seems to me it's far to common for players to simply drop the party when things get bad simply to save their own lives. If a tank pulls too many and dies, players will simply drop the party and be intstantly transported to the area they were prior to the invite.
Thirdly, I wonder if it would be that difficult to add some sort of a ding or something to alert players who may be tabbed out that a dungeon invite awaits them. It can be seriously annoying to wait for a dungeon for 30 minutes only to be dropped from the queue after failing to answer an invite which came five seconds after you tabbed out to check wowhead.com.
I would say, however, that the positives for the dungeon finder system far outweigh the negatives. There just simply needs to be some work done to it to curb the exploitation.
I don't think any of the posters meant a dead community in that there isn't communication, which is how it appears you took it (I could be wrong)- what I mean (and believe other posters do as well) is that the community is just bad; unredeemably bad, unfixably bad. It certainly isn't anything I'd expect to see in a MMORPG, perhaps yahoo chat or in Xbox live but nothing with RPG in the genre. Before I quit the only chat channels I left active was guild chat and tells. Everything else completely killed immersion.
Sigh, as mentioned in the article, you can't kill that which doesn't exist. WOW servers don't have a community and in reading this thread its obvious most people don't even know its not there.
I guess you had to be part of the early days of MMO's and see how server communities could be built with the proper socialzation mechanics, and tools of which almost none of them exist in WOW and other more modern games.
Almost every post praising this feature spoke of how easy it was to run through the game content, which is undeniable. Understand while you are doing all that great content, you are doing almost no socialization because you are too busy playing the game to develop the social side of an MMO.
I know, I'm a dinosaur for wanting games to be more like they were, the majority of players seem to be happy with the state of affairs these days, even the OP it seems.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I have never tired the WOW idea,but i do knwo they are not that brilliant,i mentioned this to Square Enix 3+ years ago,so everyone is slow moving on this.
There is several problems with this system,it has to be done correctly.Example is you don't want to Que ue into just any group,you should have a preference of what content you want.Also over lapping classes would be a problem,so you need a mechanic where by a group starter is able to check off what exactly he/she wants in their group.
You need selections such as gouping/questing/raiding,then you need the level and willingness to mentor if a game uses the mentoring system.
IMO grouping is not a problem of mechanics it is a problem with game design and community.If your community just wants to play solo,how is any grouping mechanic going to help?If your whole game is designed to solo such as Wow is aside from instances,then why would people want to group?
Also one huge problem i have always seen in GUILDS and their leaders.Why are people joining guilds?Obviously to play with other players,so what is the problem?Your guild leader should not be picking random people just to look big,he should be picking people to form common groups and needs.Example why woudlda guild leader pick 7 people if only 6 can group?One player will always be left out to dry.Also if you have a guild with a level 15 and a level 30 and a level 50 what good is that?
So imo if guild's were structured and run properly there would be again no need for this mechanic and of course you still need people that actually want to play a MMO and not play solo as a single player game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics. The LFD is an example of a game mechanic. All game mechanics play into how the community develops and plays (which also affects future game mechanics to an extent). You can't divorce the mechanics from how the community behaves. WoW has a ton of social-killing mechanics now and few to no social-building mechanics, hence the social aspect of the game is pretty crappy overall.
WoW Drachasor thats amazing. Let me get this straight:
Mechanics are a hugely significant part of game mechanics.
Mechanics are a significant part of game mechanics.
Mechanics are a part of game mechanics
Mechanics are game mechanics
Mechanics are game
So according to Wizardry 'the ideas of Blizzard are not that brilliant".
WOW. Saying this about the most succesful game ever invented - highest money making of any single game - ever.
I wonder how many other 5 to 6 billion brilliant dollar games he is referring to.
If you envy succes at least crawl to the niche corner argument and don't come up with arguments of "average" and "not brilliant".
And here is some food of thought: CATA introduces both a PVE and PVP guild leveling system.
Special treatment: the PvP guild competitions with a ranking system all over the internet and in game.
I think it opens up to a complete new kind of PvP guild play which is rather UNIQUE.
As it combines guild PvP play and cross server realms competition play.
Wow. Some people do need to crawl out of their old "one server -realm" games mentality. As this kind of PvP guild competition - no doubt - will be more played than on line RvR with huge balancing problems.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
She wrote that there was NO fixed dungeons community Kylrean. That is a complete other thing than what you write about.
The cross server dungeons and cross server BG's will be complemented with a new guild leveling in both PVP and PVE part of the game.
As I said above it (again) opens up extremely rich opportunities for the old "realm" based limits, which always had huge balancing problems.
WOW is opening up its realms to inter realm play and the guilds will be one of the basics to support it.
That mechanism alone beats on realm PvP play anytime as :
1. no big problems in server balancing.
2. always available. 24/24.
3 much bigger competition going from 10K to 200K competition.
4. much more meaningful by number of guilds that play.
5. servers no longer have limits for guild play.
The next step is guild /banks/houses/fortresses of course, being build upon the reputation of your guild leveling.
beats the AOC mechanics anytime too btw.
The future step is contacting/comparing players/guilds through BattleNet over ... games.
Now there is a WOW community promoted that crosses the traditional and very limited "realm" (through Guild play and transfers of realms - factions etc to play with RL friends), in the future that will be called a "Blizzard" community, casted over all the new Blizzard games.
Get the picture already ???
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Lol taking away the thinking or doing yourself is typical for themeparks like WoW thats why its causal and playable for all ages.
Man you guys should play some sandboxes i already know what happen when you enter those games ive seen it so manytimes.
Its sad seeing so many been puppets and don't even know or realize it, but ok if you have fun goahead be non thinking easymode puppet:) thats why we have themeparks make mass brain dead and get all there money hehe.
I'll stick with my sandbox where i have to do all by myself and no holding hands from a-z telling me what to do no way i want that:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
If you had read my whole post you would have understood the first sentenced was mistyped. I mean to say something like "Game Mechaics are a hugely significant part of the social dynamic." This is something people often forget or don't consider.
Of course, if you prefer to focus on trifles rather than content, go ahead.