Actually I would like a game that is not solely focused on the instanced dungeon, but it also uses the open world as well. Surely enough, WoW has tons of dungeons, but at the same time forgo the open world. Its a tradeoff and it seems that converting WoW into DDO has paid off for Blizzard, since the new players are enjoying the content.
I'm not so sure that WoW would need such a tool at launch, so the point is mute. Different games cater to different audiences and need different things throughtout their lifeline.
Btw, it is a tool. As with all tools it has its advantages and its shortcomings. We've seen the advantages and suffered the shortcomings. No need to repeat the same mistakes Blizzard did in this game.
Original? lol. You mean the master copier right? WoW doesn't have one single original idea. None. It has one original technology concept, which is phasing. That's it. Stating that WoW is original is like stating that the sea is dry. Good for a laugh and some head scratching.
Good try, but my 3 points stand still: WOW was made better for all of its active players (not the hating trolls) by offering even more content through the X server mechanics.
Now you can level in that HUGE open world (and even advance through gathering professions) and for those who like it, they can dungeon crawl or BG crawl to get to Tol Barad (elite) group PvP/PVE quests (you know the ones you don't even know about) and Raids.
Most people will just play AND the open world AND the dungeons or the Battlegrounds/Arenas.
More is better. More players and more content is actively played. That's the force behind it.
On topic.
Arguments that don't make sense for a new game - like RIFT : - with few dungeons and not the same kind of pops.
I don't mind a dungeon finder tool in rift as long as its not x server or ports u to the dungeon.
If its xserver then it destroys the possibility of community on a server, sorry it does.
If it allows you to teleport then the open world will be empty and for a game that has open world pvp as one of its main draws that will be devastating. After all running to the dungeon is half the danger, if you can just port there why would people ever venture outside of a city?
Good try, but my 3 points stand still: WOW was made better for all of its active players (not the hating trolls) by offering even more content through the X server mechanics.
Now you can level in that HUGE open world (and even advance through gathering professions) and for those who like it, they can dungeon crawl or BG crawl to get to Tol Barad (elite) group PvP/PVE quests (you know the ones you don't even know about) and Raids.
Most people will just play AND the open world AND the dungeons or the Battlegrounds/Arenas.
More is better. More players and more content is actively played. That's the force behind it.
On topic.
Arguments that don't make sense for a new game - like RIFT : - with few dungeons and not the same kind of pops.
I don't see why apples invalidate oranges.
Do you argue that what WoW needs is exactly what Rift needs? Because they don't, in my opinion. Rift does not need the automated cross server tool that was implemented in WoW. Certainly not in the way it was implemented in WoW. The fact that WoW functioned and boomed over the years without such tool is a testament that that tool was not needed up to this point perhaps.
As for WoW gameplay, once you level, it's either instanced dungeons, or instanced battlegrounds, or instanced arenas or instanced raids. If crafters didn't need to hunt nodes, the open world would be completely barren.
We do agree in the end. Two different games in distinctivly different time in their lifeline have entirely different needs. So the real question is, will that automated cross server LFG tool do more good or more harm in Rift? We've experienced both the advantages and the shortcomings in WoW, but this is a different game and the issues are different.
Do you argue that what WoW needs is exactly what Rift needs? Because they don't, in my opinion. Rift does not need the automated cross server tool that was implemented in WoW. Certainly not in the way it was implemented in WoW. The fact that WoW functioned and boomed over the years without such tool is a testament that that tool was not needed up to this point perhaps.
As for WoW gameplay, once you level it's either instanced dungeons, or instanced battlegrounds, or instanced arenas or instanced raids. If crafters didn't need to hunt nodes, the open world would be completely barren.
We do agree in the end. Two different games in distinctivly different time in their lifeline have entirely different needs. So the real question is, will that automated cross server LFG tool do more good or more hard in Rift? We've experienced both the advantages and the shortcomings in WoW, but this is a different game and the issues are different.
I like to point out that open world PvP is very much alive and kicking in Tol Barad with elite group qeusts thrown in (even open dungeons), so WOW is not only an instanced game, not even in its end game. And certainly not in its leveling game. I guess you simply don't know.
On topic: I don't think that a new small world with few dungeons need a X server dungeon finder per se. But eventually your pops will die over time and over levels and over more spreading content. Like ALL those MMO's in the past.
The fact the makers of Rift talk about it now is simply because they want to lure in as much of WoW players as possible. Who says they even have the techniques to make X server content in the next few months (I seriously doubt it even).
So yes Rift is a clear cut copy of WOW: from marketing trics (Azeroth mentioning) to forum talk to designer talk.
(... mumbles about Tol Barad ... well, I'll refrain from getting dragged into WoW talk again)
So we do agree that Rift does not necessarily need that tool. Good to know.
As for whether they are able to implement it. I don't know if they can. They do have implemented cross server battlegrounds though. If they didn't I would be more sceptical. Personally I sure hope they can't. Not until the end of this year anyway
3rd Time you posted the same rubbish, sitting in town spamming LFG is not playing the game, it is waiting to play,
i posted exactly same kind of tools like DF and yes it is rubbish,i know.
you do understand that answer is right there like you wrote it?
"sitting in town spamming LFG is not playing the game,it is waiting to play"
now play the game and walk to your instance,all of you,maybe do some world PvP ,gathering,exploring whatever game allows you to do on the same run,its not my fault that you and your kind of people are sitting in town spamming LFG.its not gaming i know and you know that too it seems.
dont you understand it is excactly the same thing if i start sitting in the town and start spamming LFG like "give credits im pro"
I disagree with this article, it is features like the Dungeon Finder in WoW which kills immersion in newer games. Money talks and bulls*it walks. All of these features ...
Actually opposite. For end game of course. But I agree maybe should be available only to top level players. Beofre in wow: 10 hours of lfg ... 2 runs. Now: 2 hours of waiting ... 10 runs. So if you love all that lfg-ing at nauseam ... good for you. Besides you do not have to use lfg at all.
Actually opposite. For end game of course. But I agree maybe should be available only to top level players. Beofre in wow: 10 hours of lfg ... 2 runs. Now: 2 hours of waiting ... 10 runs. So if you love all that lfg-ing at nauseam ... good for you. Besides you do not have to use lfg at all.
Do you get badges without the LFG tool? If not, then the tool is not optional at all.
Actually opposite. For end game of course. But I agree maybe should be available only to top level players. Beofre in wow: 10 hours of lfg ... 2 runs. Now: 2 hours of waiting ... 10 runs. So if you love all that lfg-ing at nauseam ... good for you. Besides you do not have to use lfg at all.
Do you get badges without the LFG tool? If not, then the tool is not optional at all.
(I think you do but I'm not 100% certain).
LOL. Why don't you log in, so you can check it out....I think you are a bit uncertain of everything X ... concerning TB too.
Usual scenario in our guild: 10.00 AM. : 6 people on line: 3 willing to do a heroic one. So let's group and find the other 2 through the system.
Point taken X ? see the advantage ? ok.
There is NO difference in grouping through or without the system ... only a 5% buff for every member found through the system until the maximum of 3.
LOL. Why don't you log in, so you can check it out....I think you are a bit uncertain of everything X ... concerning TB too.
Usual scenario in our guild: 10.00 AM. : 6 people on line: 3 willing to do a heroic one. So let's group and find the other 2 through the system.
Point taken X ? see the advantage ? ok.
There is NO difference in grouping through or without the system ... only a 5% buff for every member found through the system until the maximum of 3.
if its that bad,think the worst case scenario then,when theres only 6 people on the whole server.
you will find teams with DF tool ofcourse,but nothing else.
and it is a good thing ? imrovement for the people who dont have time or patience to play.
server merges and better designed LFT tool is the answer but not in this column.
You don't get it. A game with more than 100 different dungeons simply needs a cross server system. That's the only problem with old time single realm MMO designs.
On average every MMO has around 3K people on each server at the same time, you hardly could man 20 or 30 dungeons with them. let alone 100+ dungeons and 4 extreme big continents and 85 levels. Not even talking Bg's, which are divided every 5 levels (to avoid ganking).
The other MMo's never found a solution: launch - full - then a dwindling pop spreading out over too much content - then server merges until only 1 or 2 servers exist.
Blizzard found a solution (X server mechanics already introduced in 2006) , their bank account shows it.
Their new MMO will certainly be X server in all aspects of the game, even in the open world (they'll split pops up by phasing).
Having millions of players in one realm will be the only future to assure a constant playing value for everyone.
Cross server mechanics are simply a stop gap for the new age.
The dungeon finder is only applicable to those who do not have a guild to run with. If you're going to do a pug, why make it a long drawn out painful process? Pugs are often painful anyways, so they might as well be quick. There is nothing stopping you or any other player from finding a group of people you know or like and completing the dungeon.
I personally don't like dungeon finder tools. It changes the atmosphere to that of a lobby game. Gone is the beautifully crafted world. I know people that have leveled new characters in WoW by simply queuing for dungeons the entire game. Times have changed, and the newer set of mmo'ers want instant gratification. The casual crowd has taken over. The sad part, I used to consider myself casual compared to the old standards.
I would love to see a new game come out with a Darkness Falls dungeon. That was so much fun in DAOC. I miss world group content and world questing. Now every new game seems to use the same formula. Solo RPG questing game until you hit max level. Then the game turns into a MMO Lobby Game where you queue for dungeons.
Now, just because I don't like dungeon finder tools doesn't mean I don't like LFG tools. The first one I remember using widely was in City of Heroes. You flag yourself as LFG and leave comments about what you want to do i.e run quests, do specific dungeons. It worked well. You were only searching on your server and if you made a bad name for yourself people could just ignore you.
I remember how people spoke about Dungeon Finder opening potential to abuse. I would see it from a different perspective. In an MMORPG when you are questing (and seeing lands, lore, and trying to experience the content) it is good to see other people as well. If most people don't leave the capitals or just "power level in dungeons" one of the gretest strenghts of MMORPG genre is
lost. Even if you don't use Dungeon Finder, and can avoid most ninjas this way this issue will stay. Lets see my blog post about dungeon finder tools and their consequences. The affect PVP, they affect your chance to meet new people you can play with on the long run, they affect how you can run guilds. Even if you don't hit its button it will influence your gameplay.
The "don't like it, don't hit the button" type argument simply ignores these effects. It also ignores the fact it makes it harder to find group members in any other way. If you don't want to see these side effects in the game, you not only have to avoid hitting the button for dungeon finder, but you should also avoid the game itself.
The other flaw of the argument trying to protect Dungeon Finder is simple: It not only avoids mentioning side effects, but it also fails to mention other options. Some people speak about sitting in a city and shouting in LFG channels.
Lets see some other options. As a WoW player you might remember the Battle for Undercity event from Wrath of the Lich King. A scripted events repeated over and over and some timer and wait period makes sure you can party up with other players who are on same event. The event is playable both as solo and in group.
Now lets see how instances worked in DAOC. They adjusted to the level and size of the party automatically. Now combine the two features: When someone enters an instance (with quests) it starts with a waiting stage. People who join in this stage (from same realm) can be added to group automatically and the instance can adjust to their level. Ohh it might detect presence of tanks, healers, etc. so balancing can be more complex if you want.
What happened now? You have a whole different automated party building tool for your MMORPG. Without some of the side effects of Dungeon Finder.
Again, lets speak about DAOC, I remember how a high level party leader let us to work with "scaled up" versions of spells and experience high level content in the game. This way of mentoring helped us. You can combine it with the above system where dungeons auto adjust in their difficulty to your party.
And you can create a system where you can flag yourself as "mentor / advisor" for some classes, and can also set up "I am looking for a mentor". A Looking for a mentor tool and interface (with rewards for mentoring) can also speak about what kind of experience you want to gather: PVP, instancing, some encounter specific stuff.
The system can recommend you a mentor, and after a bit of talking you can form a "mentor group" with features similar to "recruit a friend" bonuses in World of Warcraft. You can travel to dungeons and have more interesting pugs this way.
You can take the focus away from instanced dungeons and put focus on events where faction wide teamwork is important and give tools to organize groups for this. You would also see different ways to build groups quickly and effectively.
World of Warcraft implemented Dungeon Finder because it was the easiest way to react to problems in game without redesgining the game. Blizzard acknowledged some flaws of the game, and seen dungeon finder fixes a lot of problems and creates only small problems. Their choice was a smart one.
But for a new game there are options to avoid the whole problem, without these side effects. Before release of WoW most MMORPGs represented "the next evolutionary step" or tried to be one. Now they try to copy WoW mindlessly. And if that is the best a developer can do I would avoid their game just for that reason alone.
You remember the usual "WoW clone" argument, where people defending the game says each and every MMO can be seen as a clone of other games? I think you see the answer to that argument in this same post. A good game tries to avoid flaws of WoW, a bad clone copies them. Rift is called as a clone because it does the later.
And it wants too much money for the potential to play a cheap wow clone made by unintelligent unimaginative developers.
You don't get it. A game with more than 100 different dungeons simply needs a cross server system.
I beg to difer here. Lets see: In Eve Online (a game developed in 2001) you have a different approach: Single Shard game. No need for "Cross server system".
Avoiding too many dungeons, and using "story progression events" with mentoring instead and letting new players join the progress is another option: Since you disable most old events, you don't have too many dungeons at same time. And you can easily help people grouping up for new events on a simple basis: if you enter an event, you enter the group for it.
You don't need cross-server system for it either.
If you don't focus too much on dungeons and you don't need instanced content to progress, questing in a realy dynamic (sandboxed) world is more fun, and can help you and your mates more, then you don't need any cross server tools to fill unimportant instances.
You state your narrowminded oppinion you heard from a source you trust as a fact and try to defend a flawed design based on it. You are a player, and you have reason to believe what some developers, web site authors (like MMORPG.COM staff) says. But they should check other options, speak about them, etc.
The dungeon finder is only applicable to those who do not have a guild to run with. If you're going to do a pug, why make it a long drawn out painful process? Pugs are often painful anyways, so they might as well be quick. There is nothing stopping you or any other player from finding a group of people you know or like and completing the dungeon.
The dungeon finder only helps those who don't have other ways to group up, but forced to do instances due to game design. And it only helps them in completting instances, but hurts their chance to see most of the content (hard to get groups for quests), get a "mentor" helping them, find friends in game that let them join a guild they will like /and raid with them/.
While it hurts other people in several different ways. Since if you can't "block" access to a high level dungeon and want to lure out others for PVP, you have to resort to "ganking, corpse camping, griefing".
It also takes you away from exploring (you level by queuing up for dungeons while staying in a city to sell) and experiencing the content.
A dungeon finder tool is not needed functionality for a game. It's a tool requested by people who want instant gratification, and use a "lack of time" as an excuse for being lazy. Previous MMOs have done fine without any such tool, in fact WoW did perfectly fine for several years without it.
Furthermore, this completely glosses over the negative impacts that introducing such a 'feature' has upon a game. In short, it greatly hurts a game's community by devaluing the need for players to socialize. Yes, players need to socialize in MMOs. The entire point of an MMO is to participate in the game with other players, so there is an inherent purpose for players to need to socialize with each other.
That's not to say that players don't socialize via a random dungeon finder group. Rather, the level to which they socialize is extremely shallow. They've put no investment into forming their group, they little to no reason to speak to anyone else in their group, and they have little to no reason to be polite to others in their group due to the LFD system removing the choice in whom you end up in a group with in the future (this is espcially true for cross server LFD).
Lastly, claiming that the LFD is completely optional is a half-truth at best. Yes, using the LFD tool is optional, and the option still exists to manually form groups. However, the existence of a LFD tool means that it is significantly more difficult to form a group manually due to sheer frequency of players who would simply go the 'easy route' and use the LFD tool. As such, use of the LFD tool is more of a forced option due to the increased difficulty of manually forming groups.
The above pertains mostly to an automatic group forming LFD tool, particularly if it were cross server. I would have no problem with an LFD tool where players could opt into "LFD", and then other players could browse the players LFD on their server and invite them. This would still give a measure of commitment and communication, without being too much of a hassle.
Yea, I totally forgot: games are meant to be like work.
Anyone else see the irony?
The irony is that some people think anything that requires more than two button clicks is work.
A tool that assists players in forming groups by allowing players to list themselves as looking for a group for one or more dungeons, in which they or other players can browse through said list and pick up players is a perfect solution.
A tool where you click "queue" and then pick your nose until the server automatically dumps you into a group with random people who did the same, is the legacy of the casual WoW Wrathbaby.
I personally believe the people that hate the dungeon finder are the ones that enjoy sitting there and riducling others because they have some gear the others don't have. I have seen this over and over in wow, you end up with these either children or adults who think like children (which is worse imo) who find a group to carry them and they get all the gear and then they sit there in chat looking at people's gear and acting like they did this all them selfs when the reality is that they had help and could not have possibly done it alone yet they act as if they did.
The above type of people are just small minded jerks and then you have the elitest They go out and have a group normally a group they have done other mmo's with and with there group they get gear and then sit back on there high horse and tell other people they are not welcome in there group or guild unless they have already done all this high end content that they can't possibly do alone and in fact the ones doing this did not do that content alone but, they have there's and don't care to help others.
These 2 groups of people are larger then you think and both are full of idiots.
My guild which is a group of friends that have played other mmo's together has a totally different and more resonable approach, we help people. We get into a mmo and along the way we recruit, as time goes on we form a communtiy outside of the given mmo and when the next best thing comes along most of us transit to the new one and in the end it works out to us having a larger pool of people to draw from, people we know can get it done and work well together. That is the way it should be.
The point being if the idiots that won't help others would get off there high horses and help others the same way they got help there would not be a need for dungeon finders. As long as these large "I am only in this for me" type groups are out there we are going to need dungeon finders no matter what the mmo is.
These kids need to relize (if you have this type of mentality your a kid don't care how old you are) that not everyone can sit there for hours on end to grind this stuff and the amount of people that play mmo's who have to work for a living is A LOT larger then one might think and this does not make them "bad" people this makes them real people and by limiting your selfs to only people that have done it before you are 1. causing the problem (if you see dungeon finders as a problem) 2. by doing this your the idiot that is limiting your potential pool of players.
MMO's are suppose to be about community not how cool you can act pretending you did this stuff without a group. Get that through your thick skulls and there will be less need for dungeon finders.
What is the key issue with Dungeon Finder tool? People sitting in cities ignoring everything and everyone and waiting the X minutes to see how they are invited to the next dungeon, not doing anything with any other players outside of that.
What is the key issue with Dungeon Finder tool? This behavior alone makes it hard to team up with others elsewhere, it leads to deserted lands, people ignoring most of the content, and turns the game that should be fun into "Wait, grind, equip upgrades sell the rest" cycle repeated over and over with 0 immersion, 0 community, 0 real interaction.
You speak about "I am only in this for me" type people. If they would get rewarded for helping other people and mentoring others would be rewarding and fun they would be out to help people. If you say to a "progress guild" that they only get to the next boss when "80% of population done this instance at least 5 times" and they want to compete with communities on other servers guess how quickly would they try invite everyone to groups?
Would you have the negative side effects of dungeon finder? No.
Dungeon finder tries to solve a problem created by bad game design, without any real adjustment to the game design. It is reasonable if you speak about a several years old game, but simply not accepable for a new one. It is reasonable even if it creates problems in PVP, community management, etc. since you "can't redo the whole wow", but a new game can avoid the problem and the "need" for dungeon finder along with the problems caused by it.
I personally believe the people that hate the dungeon finder are the ones that enjoy sitting there and riducling others because they have some gear the others don't have. I have seen this over and over in wow, you end up with these either children or adults who think like children (which is worse imo) who find a group to carry them and they get all the gear and then they sit there in chat looking at people's gear and acting like they did this all them selfs when the reality is that they had help and could not have possibly done it alone yet they act as if they did.
The above type of people are just small minded jerks and then you have the elitest They go out and have a group normally a group they have done other mmo's with and with there group they get gear and then sit back on there high horse and tell other people they are not welcome in there group or guild unless they have already done all this high end content that they can't possibly do alone and in fact the ones doing this did not do that content alone but, they have there's and don't care to help others.
These 2 groups of people are larger then you think and both are full of idiots.
My guild which is a group of friends that have played other mmo's together has a totally different and more resonable approach, we help people. We get into a mmo and along the way we recruit, as time goes on we form a communtiy outside of the given mmo and when the next best thing comes along most of us transit to the new one and in the end it works out to us having a larger pool of people to draw from, people we know can get it done and work well together. That is the way it should be.
The point being if the idiots that won't help others would get off there high horses and help others the same way they got help there would not be a need for dungeon finders. As long as these large "I am only in this for me" type groups are out there we are going to need dungeon finders no matter what the mmo is.
These kids need to relize (if you have this type of mentality your a kid don't care how old you are) that not everyone can sit there for hours on end to grind this stuff and the amount of people that play mmo's who have to work for a living is A LOT larger then one might think and this does not make them "bad" people this makes them real people and by limiting your selfs to only people that have done it before you are 1. causing the problem (if you see dungeon finders as a problem) 2. by doing this your the idiot that is limiting your potential pool of players.
MMO's are suppose to be about community not how cool you can act pretending you did this stuff without a group. Get that through your thick skulls and there will be less need for dungeon finders.
What does any of this have to do with... anything?
A dungeon finder tool that does all of the work for you is one of the root causes of souring MMO communities. It creates an atmosphere where zero effort, communication, and accountability is required of players. It also sours the game world by confining players in cities, where they just sit around and wait.
Your post basically just confirms what most of the who are against the LFD believe, which is that many of the people who want is are casuals who are too lazy to put in any thought or effort in the game.
I try to be understanding of people's views and decisions, but this is one of the issues that I just can't accept. MMOs are about socializing. An MMO mechanic designed to intentionally remove any thought, effort, or need to even speak to other players is contrary to the point of an MMO
I'm all for a tool that helps players find other players looking to run dungeons. The key point being that players are still actually consciously making choices as to whom to invite and actually communicating with each other. This is vastly dfifferent from a LFD system that literally does every ounce of effort for you short of clicking the queue button for you.
if all you want is instant gratification fun via not having to think, put in any effort, or socialize, then you should reevaluate why you're playing MMOs.
I personally don't like dungeon finder tools. It changes the atmosphere to that of a lobby game. Gone is the beautifully crafted world. I know people that have leveled new characters in WoW by simply queuing for dungeons the entire game. Times have changed, and the newer set of mmo'ers want instant gratification. The casual crowd has taken over. The sad part, I used to consider myself casual compared to the old standards.
Now, just because I don't like dungeon finder tools doesn't mean I don't like LFG tools. The first one I remember using widely was in City of Heroes. You flag yourself as LFG and leave comments about what you want to do i.e run quests, do specific dungeons. It worked well. You were only searching on your server and if you made a bad name for yourself people could just ignore you.
I agree with you about skipping beautiully crafted game. As I'm very pro lfg for endgame, maybe dungeons should be available only to higher level players.
About flagging yourself as lfg never worked really good. With that system was epic adventure lfg and not to play. At end of day could be I have been in 2 instances and have spend (in real numbers) 10 hours for that. Now is viceversa.
I personally don't like dungeon finder tools. It changes the atmosphere to that of a lobby game. Gone is the beautifully crafted world. I know people that have leveled new characters in WoW by simply queuing for dungeons the entire game. Times have changed, and the newer set of mmo'ers want instant gratification. The casual crowd has taken over. The sad part, I used to consider myself casual compared to the old standards.
Now, just because I don't like dungeon finder tools doesn't mean I don't like LFG tools. The first one I remember using widely was in City of Heroes. You flag yourself as LFG and leave comments about what you want to do i.e run quests, do specific dungeons. It worked well. You were only searching on your server and if you made a bad name for yourself people could just ignore you.
I agree with you about skipping beautiully crafted game. As I'm very pro lfg for endgame, maybe dungeons should be available only to higher level players.
About flagging yourself as lfg never worked really good. With that system was epic adventure lfg and not to play. At end of day could be I have been in 2 instances and have spend (in real numbers) 10 hours for that. Now is viceversa.
Not to mention main problem what if I do not have daily 10 hours to lfg ... what if I have i.e. 2 hours or less. Wow did regarding this incredible good job to appeal game to wider audience. But for sure as for anything there is "+" and "-". And for sure all "+" goes in lfg system of wow.
Btw, who says "get guild". Yes, tried and changed dozen and dozen of them.
deltanious: If you would have an option to "go in to" an event area (instanced) for current story progression event, after 5 minutes waiting (tops) the event would start (just like ragnaros fight in hyjal in WoW) but you would be automatically grouped with the people in the same "instance" AND the encounters would adjust in difficulty to groups size, level and gear... You would have a chance to instance in 2 hours without any of problems created by dungeon finder
Originally posted by Enerla deltanious: If you would have an option to "go in to" an event area (instanced) for current story progression event, after 5 minutes waiting (tops) the event would start (just like ragnaros fight in hyjal in WoW) but you would be automatically grouped with the people in the same "instance" AND the encounters would adjust in difficulty to groups size, level and gear... You would have a chance to instance in 2 hours without any of problems created by dungeon finder
You've just described rifts, except you don't have to wait the 5 minutes.
I'm having a hard time not feeling that the players who are very anti-lfg tool are much more against the fact that now just anyone can hop into an instance. They don't want all those 'easy mode' players to do it the hard way, they just don't want those 'easy mode' players to play at all.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
Good try, but my 3 points stand still: WOW was made better for all of its active players (not the hating trolls) by offering even more content through the X server mechanics.
Now you can level in that HUGE open world (and even advance through gathering professions) and for those who like it, they can dungeon crawl or BG crawl to get to Tol Barad (elite) group PvP/PVE quests (you know the ones you don't even know about) and Raids.
Most people will just play AND the open world AND the dungeons or the Battlegrounds/Arenas.
More is better. More players and more content is actively played. That's the force behind it.
On topic.
Arguments that don't make sense for a new game - like RIFT : - with few dungeons and not the same kind of pops.
I don't mind a dungeon finder tool in rift as long as its not x server or ports u to the dungeon.
If its xserver then it destroys the possibility of community on a server, sorry it does.
If it allows you to teleport then the open world will be empty and for a game that has open world pvp as one of its main draws that will be devastating. After all running to the dungeon is half the danger, if you can just port there why would people ever venture outside of a city?
I don't see why apples invalidate oranges.
Do you argue that what WoW needs is exactly what Rift needs? Because they don't, in my opinion. Rift does not need the automated cross server tool that was implemented in WoW. Certainly not in the way it was implemented in WoW. The fact that WoW functioned and boomed over the years without such tool is a testament that that tool was not needed up to this point perhaps.
As for WoW gameplay, once you level, it's either instanced dungeons, or instanced battlegrounds, or instanced arenas or instanced raids. If crafters didn't need to hunt nodes, the open world would be completely barren.
We do agree in the end. Two different games in distinctivly different time in their lifeline have entirely different needs. So the real question is, will that automated cross server LFG tool do more good or more harm in Rift? We've experienced both the advantages and the shortcomings in WoW, but this is a different game and the issues are different.
To put it differently:
Which one of you put one person that met in the automated LFG cross dungeon tool into his friend list?
I like to point out that open world PvP is very much alive and kicking in Tol Barad with elite group qeusts thrown in (even open dungeons), so WOW is not only an instanced game, not even in its end game. And certainly not in its leveling game. I guess you simply don't know.
On topic: I don't think that a new small world with few dungeons need a X server dungeon finder per se. But eventually your pops will die over time and over levels and over more spreading content. Like ALL those MMO's in the past.
The fact the makers of Rift talk about it now is simply because they want to lure in as much of WoW players as possible. Who says they even have the techniques to make X server content in the next few months (I seriously doubt it even).
So yes Rift is a clear cut copy of WOW: from marketing trics (Azeroth mentioning) to forum talk to designer talk.
We already knew that all the way.
(... mumbles about Tol Barad ... well, I'll refrain from getting dragged into WoW talk again)
So we do agree that Rift does not necessarily need that tool. Good to know.
As for whether they are able to implement it. I don't know if they can. They do have implemented cross server battlegrounds though. If they didn't I would be more sceptical. Personally I sure hope they can't. Not until the end of this year anyway
i posted exactly same kind of tools like DF and yes it is rubbish,i know.
you do understand that answer is right there like you wrote it?
"sitting in town spamming LFG is not playing the game,it is waiting to play"
now play the game and walk to your instance,all of you,maybe do some world PvP ,gathering,exploring whatever game allows you to do on the same run,its not my fault that you and your kind of people are sitting in town spamming LFG.its not gaming i know and you know that too it seems.
dont you understand it is excactly the same thing if i start sitting in the town and start spamming LFG like "give credits im pro"
Generation P
Actually opposite. For end game of course. But I agree maybe should be available only to top level players. Beofre in wow: 10 hours of lfg ... 2 runs. Now: 2 hours of waiting ... 10 runs. So if you love all that lfg-ing at nauseam ... good for you. Besides you do not have to use lfg at all.
Do you get badges without the LFG tool? If not, then the tool is not optional at all.
(I think you do but I'm not 100% certain).
LOL. Why don't you log in, so you can check it out....I think you are a bit uncertain of everything X ... concerning TB too.
Usual scenario in our guild: 10.00 AM. : 6 people on line: 3 willing to do a heroic one. So let's group and find the other 2 through the system.
Point taken X ? see the advantage ? ok.
There is NO difference in grouping through or without the system ... only a 5% buff for every member found through the system until the maximum of 3.
if its that bad,think the worst case scenario then,when theres only 6 people on the whole server.
you will find teams with DF tool ofcourse,but nothing else,everything else is completely dead.
and it is a good thing ? imrovement for the people who dont have time or patience to play.
server merges and better designed LFT tool is the answer but not in this column.
Generation P
You don't get it. A game with more than 100 different dungeons simply needs a cross server system. That's the only problem with old time single realm MMO designs.
On average every MMO has around 3K people on each server at the same time, you hardly could man 20 or 30 dungeons with them. let alone 100+ dungeons and 4 extreme big continents and 85 levels. Not even talking Bg's, which are divided every 5 levels (to avoid ganking).
The other MMo's never found a solution: launch - full - then a dwindling pop spreading out over too much content - then server merges until only 1 or 2 servers exist.
Blizzard found a solution (X server mechanics already introduced in 2006) , their bank account shows it.
Their new MMO will certainly be X server in all aspects of the game, even in the open world (they'll split pops up by phasing).
Having millions of players in one realm will be the only future to assure a constant playing value for everyone.
Cross server mechanics are simply a stop gap for the new age.
Adapt.
The dungeon finder is only applicable to those who do not have a guild to run with. If you're going to do a pug, why make it a long drawn out painful process? Pugs are often painful anyways, so they might as well be quick. There is nothing stopping you or any other player from finding a group of people you know or like and completing the dungeon.
I personally don't like dungeon finder tools. It changes the atmosphere to that of a lobby game. Gone is the beautifully crafted world. I know people that have leveled new characters in WoW by simply queuing for dungeons the entire game. Times have changed, and the newer set of mmo'ers want instant gratification. The casual crowd has taken over. The sad part, I used to consider myself casual compared to the old standards.
I would love to see a new game come out with a Darkness Falls dungeon. That was so much fun in DAOC. I miss world group content and world questing. Now every new game seems to use the same formula. Solo RPG questing game until you hit max level. Then the game turns into a MMO Lobby Game where you queue for dungeons.
Now, just because I don't like dungeon finder tools doesn't mean I don't like LFG tools. The first one I remember using widely was in City of Heroes. You flag yourself as LFG and leave comments about what you want to do i.e run quests, do specific dungeons. It worked well. You were only searching on your server and if you made a bad name for yourself people could just ignore you.
Let me play the devils advocate here.
I remember how people spoke about Dungeon Finder opening potential to abuse. I would see it from a different perspective. In an MMORPG when you are questing (and seeing lands, lore, and trying to experience the content) it is good to see other people as well. If most people don't leave the capitals or just "power level in dungeons" one of the gretest strenghts of MMORPG genre is
lost. Even if you don't use Dungeon Finder, and can avoid most ninjas this way this issue will stay. Lets see my blog post about dungeon finder tools and their consequences. The affect PVP, they affect your chance to meet new people you can play with on the long run, they affect how you can run guilds. Even if you don't hit its button it will influence your gameplay.
The "don't like it, don't hit the button" type argument simply ignores these effects. It also ignores the fact it makes it harder to find group members in any other way. If you don't want to see these side effects in the game, you not only have to avoid hitting the button for dungeon finder, but you should also avoid the game itself.
The other flaw of the argument trying to protect Dungeon Finder is simple: It not only avoids mentioning side effects, but it also fails to mention other options. Some people speak about sitting in a city and shouting in LFG channels.
Lets see some other options. As a WoW player you might remember the Battle for Undercity event from Wrath of the Lich King. A scripted events repeated over and over and some timer and wait period makes sure you can party up with other players who are on same event. The event is playable both as solo and in group.
Now lets see how instances worked in DAOC. They adjusted to the level and size of the party automatically. Now combine the two features: When someone enters an instance (with quests) it starts with a waiting stage. People who join in this stage (from same realm) can be added to group automatically and the instance can adjust to their level. Ohh it might detect presence of tanks, healers, etc. so balancing can be more complex if you want.
What happened now? You have a whole different automated party building tool for your MMORPG. Without some of the side effects of Dungeon Finder.
Again, lets speak about DAOC, I remember how a high level party leader let us to work with "scaled up" versions of spells and experience high level content in the game. This way of mentoring helped us. You can combine it with the above system where dungeons auto adjust in their difficulty to your party.
And you can create a system where you can flag yourself as "mentor / advisor" for some classes, and can also set up "I am looking for a mentor". A Looking for a mentor tool and interface (with rewards for mentoring) can also speak about what kind of experience you want to gather: PVP, instancing, some encounter specific stuff.
The system can recommend you a mentor, and after a bit of talking you can form a "mentor group" with features similar to "recruit a friend" bonuses in World of Warcraft. You can travel to dungeons and have more interesting pugs this way.
You can take the focus away from instanced dungeons and put focus on events where faction wide teamwork is important and give tools to organize groups for this. You would also see different ways to build groups quickly and effectively.
World of Warcraft implemented Dungeon Finder because it was the easiest way to react to problems in game without redesgining the game. Blizzard acknowledged some flaws of the game, and seen dungeon finder fixes a lot of problems and creates only small problems. Their choice was a smart one.
But for a new game there are options to avoid the whole problem, without these side effects. Before release of WoW most MMORPGs represented "the next evolutionary step" or tried to be one. Now they try to copy WoW mindlessly. And if that is the best a developer can do I would avoid their game just for that reason alone.
You remember the usual "WoW clone" argument, where people defending the game says each and every MMO can be seen as a clone of other games? I think you see the answer to that argument in this same post. A good game tries to avoid flaws of WoW, a bad clone copies them. Rift is called as a clone because it does the later.
And it wants too much money for the potential to play a cheap wow clone made by unintelligent unimaginative developers.
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I beg to difer here. Lets see: In Eve Online (a game developed in 2001) you have a different approach: Single Shard game. No need for "Cross server system".
Avoiding too many dungeons, and using "story progression events" with mentoring instead and letting new players join the progress is another option: Since you disable most old events, you don't have too many dungeons at same time. And you can easily help people grouping up for new events on a simple basis: if you enter an event, you enter the group for it.
You don't need cross-server system for it either.
If you don't focus too much on dungeons and you don't need instanced content to progress, questing in a realy dynamic (sandboxed) world is more fun, and can help you and your mates more, then you don't need any cross server tools to fill unimportant instances.
You state your narrowminded oppinion you heard from a source you trust as a fact and try to defend a flawed design based on it. You are a player, and you have reason to believe what some developers, web site authors (like MMORPG.COM staff) says. But they should check other options, speak about them, etc.
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The dungeon finder only helps those who don't have other ways to group up, but forced to do instances due to game design. And it only helps them in completting instances, but hurts their chance to see most of the content (hard to get groups for quests), get a "mentor" helping them, find friends in game that let them join a guild they will like /and raid with them/.
While it hurts other people in several different ways. Since if you can't "block" access to a high level dungeon and want to lure out others for PVP, you have to resort to "ganking, corpse camping, griefing".
It also takes you away from exploring (you level by queuing up for dungeons while staying in a city to sell) and experiencing the content.
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The irony is that some people think anything that requires more than two button clicks is work.
A tool that assists players in forming groups by allowing players to list themselves as looking for a group for one or more dungeons, in which they or other players can browse through said list and pick up players is a perfect solution.
A tool where you click "queue" and then pick your nose until the server automatically dumps you into a group with random people who did the same, is the legacy of the casual WoW Wrathbaby.
I personally believe the people that hate the dungeon finder are the ones that enjoy sitting there and riducling others because they have some gear the others don't have. I have seen this over and over in wow, you end up with these either children or adults who think like children (which is worse imo) who find a group to carry them and they get all the gear and then they sit there in chat looking at people's gear and acting like they did this all them selfs when the reality is that they had help and could not have possibly done it alone yet they act as if they did.
The above type of people are just small minded jerks and then you have the elitest They go out and have a group normally a group they have done other mmo's with and with there group they get gear and then sit back on there high horse and tell other people they are not welcome in there group or guild unless they have already done all this high end content that they can't possibly do alone and in fact the ones doing this did not do that content alone but, they have there's and don't care to help others.
These 2 groups of people are larger then you think and both are full of idiots.
My guild which is a group of friends that have played other mmo's together has a totally different and more resonable approach, we help people. We get into a mmo and along the way we recruit, as time goes on we form a communtiy outside of the given mmo and when the next best thing comes along most of us transit to the new one and in the end it works out to us having a larger pool of people to draw from, people we know can get it done and work well together. That is the way it should be.
The point being if the idiots that won't help others would get off there high horses and help others the same way they got help there would not be a need for dungeon finders. As long as these large "I am only in this for me" type groups are out there we are going to need dungeon finders no matter what the mmo is.
These kids need to relize (if you have this type of mentality your a kid don't care how old you are) that not everyone can sit there for hours on end to grind this stuff and the amount of people that play mmo's who have to work for a living is A LOT larger then one might think and this does not make them "bad" people this makes them real people and by limiting your selfs to only people that have done it before you are 1. causing the problem (if you see dungeon finders as a problem) 2. by doing this your the idiot that is limiting your potential pool of players.
MMO's are suppose to be about community not how cool you can act pretending you did this stuff without a group. Get that through your thick skulls and there will be less need for dungeon finders.
{Mod edit}
What is the key issue with Dungeon Finder tool? People sitting in cities ignoring everything and everyone and waiting the X minutes to see how they are invited to the next dungeon, not doing anything with any other players outside of that.
What is the key issue with Dungeon Finder tool? This behavior alone makes it hard to team up with others elsewhere, it leads to deserted lands, people ignoring most of the content, and turns the game that should be fun into "Wait, grind, equip upgrades sell the rest" cycle repeated over and over with 0 immersion, 0 community, 0 real interaction.
You speak about "I am only in this for me" type people. If they would get rewarded for helping other people and mentoring others would be rewarding and fun they would be out to help people. If you say to a "progress guild" that they only get to the next boss when "80% of population done this instance at least 5 times" and they want to compete with communities on other servers guess how quickly would they try invite everyone to groups?
Would you have the negative side effects of dungeon finder? No.
Dungeon finder tries to solve a problem created by bad game design, without any real adjustment to the game design. It is reasonable if you speak about a several years old game, but simply not accepable for a new one. It is reasonable even if it creates problems in PVP, community management, etc. since you "can't redo the whole wow", but a new game can avoid the problem and the "need" for dungeon finder along with the problems caused by it.
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What does any of this have to do with... anything?
A dungeon finder tool that does all of the work for you is one of the root causes of souring MMO communities. It creates an atmosphere where zero effort, communication, and accountability is required of players. It also sours the game world by confining players in cities, where they just sit around and wait.
Your post basically just confirms what most of the who are against the LFD believe, which is that many of the people who want is are casuals who are too lazy to put in any thought or effort in the game.
I try to be understanding of people's views and decisions, but this is one of the issues that I just can't accept. MMOs are about socializing. An MMO mechanic designed to intentionally remove any thought, effort, or need to even speak to other players is contrary to the point of an MMO
I'm all for a tool that helps players find other players looking to run dungeons. The key point being that players are still actually consciously making choices as to whom to invite and actually communicating with each other. This is vastly dfifferent from a LFD system that literally does every ounce of effort for you short of clicking the queue button for you.
if all you want is instant gratification fun via not having to think, put in any effort, or socialize, then you should reevaluate why you're playing MMOs.
I agree with you about skipping beautiully crafted game. As I'm very pro lfg for endgame, maybe dungeons should be available only to higher level players.
About flagging yourself as lfg never worked really good. With that system was epic adventure lfg and not to play. At end of day could be I have been in 2 instances and have spend (in real numbers) 10 hours for that. Now is viceversa.
Not to mention main problem what if I do not have daily 10 hours to lfg ... what if I have i.e. 2 hours or less. Wow did regarding this incredible good job to appeal game to wider audience. But for sure as for anything there is "+" and "-". And for sure all "+" goes in lfg system of wow.
Btw, who says "get guild". Yes, tried and changed dozen and dozen of them.
deltanious: If you would have an option to "go in to" an event area (instanced) for current story progression event, after 5 minutes waiting (tops) the event would start (just like ragnaros fight in hyjal in WoW) but you would be automatically grouped with the people in the same "instance" AND the encounters would adjust in difficulty to groups size, level and gear... You would have a chance to instance in 2 hours without any of problems created by dungeon finder
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You've just described rifts, except you don't have to wait the 5 minutes.
I'm having a hard time not feeling that the players who are very anti-lfg tool are much more against the fact that now just anyone can hop into an instance. They don't want all those 'easy mode' players to do it the hard way, they just don't want those 'easy mode' players to play at all.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.