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Community? Not in WoW
Houtje
Member Posts: 4
I thought, i should share it here.
Someone have posted in wow-forum about how community stared to go downhill since LFD and LFR came out.
"LFD = looking for dungeon, the automatized function where you can just press and go in the group with people from cross-realms".
Thus, the server that we had 6 years ago started to go downhill.
Ill copy the link here, you can read it there.
But whats more interesting that Blizzard even replied to that, and what their opinion actually is. It seems that they still think, HOW more catering to people, how better it is.
For some people who loved the time, where you had to stick group together, and know every people in your server. And your reputatioin mattered, and you had to make friends to be succesful. Then you could read this thread, its interesting what blue"blizzard" is saying. And what other people are saying in this post.
You can find the blue post by pressing on "Next Blizzard post" button.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3225584072
Comments
I don't 100% agree, but I will agree that there's much less of a sense of community because of LFG... well, specificly cross-server LFG. I used to know people from both factions on my server, post on forums and we'd all talk to each other, that kind of thing... and that's mostly gone now.
Where you can still get this interaction is with guilds, and of course it means a whole lot more than just knowing random people on your faction anyway. Maybe it's me personally, but I'd rather find a group of people within the same guild to talk to and hang out with and play with rather than people from other guilds and randoms. Granted the amount of people that get together with guildies to do 5-mans is probably miniscule compared to how it used to be but raiding, even though there's an LFR, is still pretty much dominated by guilds. Same thing with organized PvP for the most part.
I don't necessarily mind that there's less of a sense of community, but there's something to be said for knowing the people you're playing with/against. Battlegrounds for instance were a lot more fun without cross-server matching... granted the system was broken if your server had any kind of imbalancing issues(think APB if you've played that), and that's what cross-server matching fixes, but it's cool to know the team you're playing against.
Pros and cons for each.
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Out of curiosity, what's your opinion of the guild system? How has that affected community? (to OP)
I ran countless Dungeon Finder groups (hundreds and hundreds) and most of them were quiet and effective.
When I wanted community, I played with friends and guildmates. Dungeon Finder worked great with them too, because we could rapidly fill out the rest of the group.
The only complaint is the lack of ability to friend players x-server, which it sounds like BattleTags will enable (and therefore solve my only complaint with xserver Dungeon Finding.) Sounds like Blizzard is taking things in exactly the right direction.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The blue post holds some weight. It's not like every group I go into using LFD is terrible and everyone yells at each other etc. In most cases, it's just really quiet. I say hi when I enter and usually get a few in return, but that is typically the extent of the conversation unless we get into trouble. If I realize that the tank doesn't know what they are doing on a certain fight, I just explain to him what to do and he usually says 'ok' and we kill the boss our next attempt. We tend to remember the bad apples because they are the deviation from the norm. And I'm in a battlegroup with non-English servers!
I don't expect to build a community with the LFD tool. If I want to run with friends / the guild, I get a group going myself. If you're really thirsting for the 'community' part of WoW, you need to put some effort in as well. Look for a guild, get your RL friends to join you, join user-created channels if your server has some, post on the forums, and more.
Before LFD, I can't really remember any 'amazing' or 'riveting' conversations that I had with complete strangers. I usually rolled with at least one friend, my guild, or friends of friends anyway. You can still do that now. The LFD didn't take away community; it just provided an alternative to people who didn't want to do social networking or spam LFG to get a group.
OP, it might take more work than using LFD. But if you really believe what you are posting, then it's time to take action! Build or join a community, bring your RL friends in, schedule your own runs. Take charge of your (virtual, internet) life!
WoW was never like that. Or at least, vanilla WoW (before Burning Crusade) most certainly wasn't like that. 3000 players on a server concurrently means tens of thousands of players on the server in total, counting the ones offline at the time. You'd never meet more than a tiny fraction of them. If you grouped with someone once, whether you thought he was great or a ninja looter, you'd probably never see him again. Your reputation thus didn't matter. No one was known to more than a small fraction of the players on his own server, let alone the community at large.
Making friends to group with them was no good, either. Even if you were the same level that day, you might not still be close enough to group together a week or two later. So you'd have to constantly find different people to group with. Trying to make guild groups ran into the same problem. Having friends in your guild would give you people to chat with, but that's about it.
WOW is a GAME.
LFD & LFR is great addition. In fact, I came back to it because of LFR.
This community thing is just silly talk. I have a few friends i met on WOW and i play with family members. Beyond that, i really don't care as long as I can get a group fast. And while there are always bad group (heck, you can get a bad group shouting lfg on trade too), LFD & LFR works AS WELL AS PUGS with less hassle and wait time.
So Blizz is right. These featuers are great and popular. And my quality of play-time improves a great deal because of them.
I don't play wow to meet new people. I play WOW to have fun in a game.
Oh, I don't know about that one. You're assuming differing levels, and that just doesn't happen much in older games--when everyone's piled up against the cap.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Yep, numbers are so large and levelling so fast in MMOs nowadays that what community there is is transient and superficial at best.
This notion of knowing every people in your serve is just silly.
1) There are many people on a server. Practically i see new toons in Org EVERYDAY
2) People come and go. I have made friends in WOW and they quit.
I don't think is possible, or even fun to know every one. Most people are happy just to know a few people, and then enjoy group content with strangers.
I will take Blizz approach over the OP anyday.
World of Warcraft is a traditional combat-styled MMO. If you want a social MMO, play a different game. Hell, my first MMO was The Sims Online, the epitome of social MMOs. (Granted, TSO is now done for, but I'm sure there are three that have replaced it.)
The point is that community is not that important to the enjoyment of the game. If you have good groups going, do you really care about whether you play with them again? If you have a few friends to play with, do you care about knowing everyone on your server?
I don't. And the good of LFD/LFR outweight ANY downside.
People continue to:
1) Bash WoW
2) Bash WoW with complaints using person opinions
3) Bash WoW....
Largest population of any MMO ever and the game is bad? Sure, you don't like it. We all get that. But more people like it than any other MMO ever. Nuff said.
LFD/LFG = Good
LFD/LFG Does not destroy community.
Community is destroyed by massive populations. Just look at the real f*cking world for a perfect example...
1) Community IS that important to me, and many others. The lack of it causes a game to lose a lot of its appeal.
2) In the days I used to group, being in a good group DID make me want to play with them again. Why wouldn't it?
3) Being known to the community as a good person to group with and someone who would pitch in if you were in trouble actually meant something in EQ1. I used to get a lot of help on my alts because my main used to spend the odd hour travelling zones buffing lowbies and lending a hand - people knew this, knew me, appreciated it and payed it forward to myself and others. Now THAT is a social aspect worth having.
I hate to break this to you Sparky but community means ONE server. Server size in WoW is no bigger than the server size in EQ 13 years ago. The poulation per server isn't any more 'massive' then it was in 1999. What's made it that way is LFD tools(cross server grouping). You defeted your own argument... LOL
As for people that call "Guild" or "Your close group of friends" community you obviously have no idea what a "Server wide" community is. Lineage II was the last game I experienced this in which by coincidence is the last game with a truly massive world that released before WoW.
Bren
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1) Based on the popularly of LFD/LFR .. you and "many" others obviously are not "many" enough. Sure it loses appeal to YOU. It gains appeal to MANY more.
2) Because it is a drag to keep track of them, and may be have to spend time to chat? If you can get a equally GOOD group in the next LFD, why bother with people in this one?
3) EQ1 is horribly boring. Stand around to wait for group. Stand around to camp the boss. I am glad the genre has move on. That only works for a small population. In wow today, even without LFD/LFR, you won't be known to many and certainly buffing people get you no where. The best is to know a few people who play regularly. And you can still do that with LFD/LFR. The game is much better with those features.
The point is that a truly massive community is, to most people, not important to the enjoyment of a game. How many friends can you keep? How many people can you talk to?
Heck, even amongst my guildies, i can keep track of a few people whom i like and i do not know most of them (particularly i have several toons in many guilds).
So adding more to my "community" does NOTHING to my enjoyment. OTOH, a LFD/LFR tool has a great value to make gameplay better.
...And it's this attitude that has led to the downfall of community in MMOs. Community is the only reason to even play a MMO. Without community a MMO is nothing more than a piss poor single player/CORPG game. That is the direction the genre is heading and people seem to be lining up for it. It is some dark times for the MMO genre. MMOs will soon be no more than lobby CORPGs in the near future I fear.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
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beat();
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That would be great. Good CORPG is hard to come by. In fact, I cannot think of one that has what wow has:
1) a AH economy
2) Good small group content like varying mechanics based dungeons and boss fights
3) BG PvP
... may be Diablo 3 will have that. However, before that is out, there is no other alternative but MMORPGs. There is a REASON why MMORPGs is moving in this direction. Plus, it is only a downfall to YOU, but not to the millions that enjoy the better gameplay.
Haven't read the official forum thread but i do have some thoughts on the community thing.
One definition of community that i think fits within the game i play is "a social, religious, occupational or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and percieved or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists" and by this i of course mean my guild, that is my community within the wider world of warcraft and it is where i spend my time, chat with friends, do our dungeon runs, raids or just generally hang out.
The other thing to remember is that a community is what you make of it, you can no more expect Blizzard to 'control' the community as you can expect the police in your town/city to walk about telling people to stop being annoying or idiotic because unfortunately, some people are just annoying and idiotic.
When you talk about the dungeon and raid tools, remember that they are only that and you can choose to use them or not, you still have a choice if you wish to build a group of people yourself it is just that you will have to put some effort into doing it.
My main point is that it is all well and good to keep shaking a finger in the direction of Blizzard for 'destroying the community' but that is not up to them, the players are the ones who decide what shape their own community takes and can even influence the wider world in some cases too, but overall it is what 'you' make of it.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Only dark times for those who refuse to have fun any other way.
For gamers, MMOs have never been better. (And are nowhere near "lobby CORPGs" although gamers love those too -- aka Diablo 3)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
WoW has just as much community as any other MMORPG. The difference is WoW doesn't sacrifice gameplay to force it upon people. The LFD and LFR systems are some of the best features ever introduced to this genre, and I'd not play a game that did not have them.
It's all a matter of personal taste. For me the LFD tool and battlegrounds killed the game. The huge world with great zones became ghost towns and questing became obsolete because of the LFD. Battlegrounds killed open world PVP i.e the epic battles in Tauren Mill/ Southshore and other areas of the game world.
No signature, I don't have a pen
You have no clue about what you are talking about.
All the starting zones were empty BEFORE LFD. Back in WOTLK, most people are at max level will be in dalaran spamming "lfg" in the trade channel. Then you fly there and run the daily H or weekly raid. Zones being empty has NOTHING to do with LFD. The only thing it does is to make the lfg process MUCH better.
PvP was killed long time ago before LFD/LFR. BTW, pvp was never that popular. There were a lot of complaint about inconvenience of open world pvp.
There is no need to be rude, thanks. Also I meant to come back and edit the post and say that I know that LFD/LFR had sadly become neccesary because the game had been out so long and these aspects of the game were already fading away. Unfortunately something came up in RL that prevented me from editing. LFD was the final straw that turned the game worlds zones into ghost towns in my opinion though.
I will however disagree about world PVP being an inconvenience to many players. As I said some of the best memories for myself and many others were the big open world PVP battles we got into in various regions of the World. Did they give rewards, or really accomplish anything, no but it was a hell of a lot of fun. Battlegrounds were the nail in the coffin for that part of PVP. However this post was not about Battlegrounds so I digress.
No signature, I don't have a pen
Ok .. i apologize for a bit heavy on the language but i think my point stands.
World pvp was taken away because of complaints of incovenience. Sure you like it, but a lot of people don't. Many just don't like the idea of additional hassle on the road when they are going somewhere to turn in a quest or for whatever reasons.