What this game really needs at this point...is a Dungeon Finder. It was a huge success in other MMO's, no reason for it not to be in this game.

 

Pros:

 

1. Can continue questing while waiting for group to form.

2. Prevents trolls from sitting there ruining General Chat while they are bored trying to fill a group.

3. Proves that BioWare can do something like this. Buys street creds.

 

Cons:

 

1. Some people think it ruins the community...but I think they are wrong. They obviously have not sat for an hour trying to fill a Flashpoint group.

2. People who think like that are probably in a huge guild and have no trouble filling groups. We're usually filling 2-3 of 4 and just need that last role.

Because the previous thread has exceeded our normal threshold for thread length, we've started this new thread for the community to discuss this topic.

 

Developer post in the previous thread:

 

Improving our LFG system is high on the list of features that Systems Design wants to add to the game. We want this to be good not just for helping people find Flashpoints and Operations to run, but also other multiplayer content like heroic missions. A key emphasis will be on advertising for specific role needs (healer, tank, DPS). This feature is currently in the design stage, and once this feature has moved beyond this to a development stage and has a firm ETA, I'll be coming back to you guys to give more details.

 

We've known we would need to revisit this feature for a while. In the level-up game, finding players isn't too rough because, with few exceptions, everyone in that level band is either on your planet or on the fleet. Once more and more players hit endgame, and are spending their time in more places, the need for this feature is going to increase. Note that right now, high level players have the opposite problem - there aren't enough other players up there to group with. This problem will dissipate as the game ages, and more players reach the later levels.

 

That being said, our design team doesn't philosophically believe that cross-server Flashpoints are good for the game at this stage in the game's lifespan. There is huge social pressure to not be a jerk that goes away when the odds that you will never see these people again is high. I'm not saying never - there may come a time in the future where we reevaluate this - but at least in the short term, we believe this will cause more damage to the community than good.

As always, we ask that the community keep the following things in mind when responding:

 

1. 
    
   
2. No insults, name calling, or personal attacks
    
   
3. Please stay on topic.
    
   
4. Please express your opinion and thoughts in a constructive, respectful manner.
    
   
5. If someone violates the Rules of Conduct, please flag it instead of replying to it.
    
   
6. Keep in mind that everyone has different viewpoints. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're trolling. If you believe someone is trolling, please use the Flag function to report their post.
    
   

 

Thank you!

2/24/2012: They finally addressed the LFG in the Community Q&A, though just as vaguely as before:

 

deusBAAL: Will you be providing a LFG tool? What will be its features? How will it be intended to work and when can we expect it to go live?

 

Daniel Erickson (Lead Writer): We are hard at work on a much more robust LFG functionality that will quickly help put groups together while still offering the flexibility to decide how you group and what sort of people you want to be grouped with. We’ll release more details as we get closer to release.

 

http://www.swtor.com/node/313734

 

So maybe... I still have no idea what they're going to do.

 

And they discussed a Companion loot role:

 

Frung: Have you considered adding a "companion" loot roll option?

 

Damion Schubert: We've discussed it and have a design for it - when we do this, we will make it so you can only roll 'need' on items that your advanced class is meant to use in one of its specs. I do not currently have an ETA on this feature.

 

Sweet got in first response first page! Gonna copy info from old thread.

 

Here are some hard facts that the pro cross server lfd people have.

 

Fact: devs in games with cross server lfd/lfg systems have stated that their system is successful and that their game metrics back up their facts.

 

Fact: The demand for cross server lfd/lfg systems is so high that older games are adding them.

 

Fact: Finding groups is easier with cross server lfd/lfg systems.

 

Fact: cross server lfd/lfg systems allow you to meet more people not less. A cross server friends list would be nice to go along with cross server lfd.

 

Fact: /ignore means youll never be effected by some one you dont want to be grouped with again (thats all the repercussion a individual needs). Any thing else is wrong and borders on a desire for vengeance against some one you dislike.

 

Fact: With a good need/greed system there is no ninja looting.

 

Fact: even wow's lfr does not allow players to see true endgame content. It only allows players to see a a easy mode version. You still need a guild for true endgame progression (hardmodes).

 

 

What facts do the anti lfd people have? NONE! just personal opinions and personal experiences that as has been proven here in this thread are easily contradicted.

For ever persons bad experiences there are more people that have had good experiences.

 

 

 

A lfd tool is in the works as we speak and even though BW has said as of NOW they do not want to go cross server they have not said NEVER and have admitted they may have to rethink their stance in the future!

 

Originally Posted by Touchbass

Dr. Blizzard or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the X-LFD

 

Before we begin our discussion, I'd like to start off with two extremely positive things X-LFD has brought to the MMORPG community. I'm not saying these two particular benefits make the X-LFD mandatory, but for us to have any kind of a civilized conversation you need to first recognize the inherent benefits X-LFD has brought to these two issues.

 

1) The saviour of low population servers/factions

 

The global LFD tool basically prevented low population servers from hemorrhaging players and salvaged a ton of communities from what a lot of players had previously written off. For those who are unaware, there are currently servers in WoW with less than 30-40 players on a faction at max level at a given time during peak hours. You can literally spam for hours and not receive any replies, its quiet depressing in fact. To be an unfortunate individual stuck on one of those servers, you tend to have one out of threeoptions: spend real life money to transfer off, quit the game, or play the game in a limited capacity. I don’t have the numbers for each of those three options but I’m sure to some of those left on the server felt as if they were on a ‘sinking ship’. When the LFG hit, populations took surges and people came back again. Players could gear themselves up independently of the server being in shambles and guilds were allowed spend their time tackling raids instead of searching for the elusive member(s) to fill out the dungeon group.

 

2) Access to low level content

 

I’ve seen some servers with more naked BE’s running around Orgimmar begging for doubloons than the entire max level base of other servers, even with these massive populations problems can still exist. While the good times were rolling (or dancing on mailboxes), hardly anybody was running low level dungeons. The problem wasn't lack of interest (as inherent of how easy it is now to get a group for lower level dungeons regardless of your group role), the issue was that it is time consuming and a pain in the butt to track down people and fill out the trinity for content that you could of probably leveled out of by the time you finished the bloody dungeon in the first place. With the addition of LFD, leveling became less of a pain if it wasn't your thing and created access. I don't think a lot of people realize that with the LFD a lot of players for the first time got to see these dungeons within the appropriate difficulty parameters.

 

 

The next section is some insight into why the whole LFD crisis came up in the first place

 

1) Gaming demographics have changed

 

The average face of a MMORPG gamer has changed dramatically over the past, we are melting pot of veterans, power games, stay at home dad/moms, the unemployed, the mentally ill, casual gamers and multi-platform gamers. Due to the mass appeal, subscriptions have soared like never before and have brought unforeseen consequences when the play styles of some of these gamers have clashed. The challenge is how we accommodate players of differing extremes: some want tight-knit communities that encourage and require players to work together, players who support grouping within same server but demand working reliable tools to facilitate the process, and finally players who frankly just want access to the game they paid for at their convenience.

 

2) Why should we be catering to these different crowds?

 

Money. The things money buys is good for an MMORPG, it allows it to evolve and address the concerns of players in a reasonable amount of time. The wheeled engine of WoW costs a tremendous amount of money to run, if we got rid of all those players that didn't fit 100% into our ideologies of what a gamer should be we'd see substantial loss of customer service, R&D and free content patches to just name a few things. More importantly, life sometimes makes you transition your availability due to work/school/annoying wife, if a game you truly enjoy is built around one play style you'd be up the creek without a paddle if you can't obligate that time anymore. All of us are probably guilty of taking advantage of the benefits brought to us from our fellow gamers; we need to be more sympathetic to their plight.

 

3) This isn't Kansas anymore

 

Don't let anyone fool you, traditional MMORPG's were built on the concept of ludicrous grinds that basically required an obscene amount of time to reach max level. Now don't confuse my words, this isn't a discussion of how long the leveling process should take or am I advocating the hitting of max level of not being an accomplishment - what I am trying to say is the gaming atmosphere of old which doesn't exist in any practical sense to the target markets Western MMO's are trying to reach out towards. We are spending countless resources trying to redo the leveling process and making it alt friendly, why would we do that when the hard cores spend most of their time at max level? We do this because they are no longer the majority of the player base and the genre has evolved for better or worse, the pockets of the many out weight the pockets of the few.

 

 

4) The Rise of the Titans

 

The height of MMORPG's are communities (think of the name itself), they are living bustling entities that evolve even when you aren't logged on. One of the most efficient and memorable ways of binding a community is the requirement of other players to facilitate something, whether a crafting ingredient or his/her help in a group for example. This created an atmosphere were people who put any resemblance of effort to becoming actually integrated into server and those who caused any problems where chastised and shunned. Imagine advertising your group intentions in whatever deemed appropriate channel and being able to categorize all of your responses with the notation of whether that person is worth grouping with or a waste of time. Don't underplay the notion that servers felt distinctly different from one another and had an identify, rolling need for an off spec item if that was taboo on the server could literally blacklist you. Wait, why is any of this deemed a problem?

 

5) Square peg meets the round hole

 

I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself at this point, hi my name is Charles and I'm a tank. I was the living breathing personification of the aforementioned lifestyle, I'd log to receive a plethora of tells to clear up dungeons for friends on off nights and raid like men on main nights. Everything was going great until I had my son; life and my game time started to change drastically for me at this point. No longer could I commit set chunks of time to play due to child raising duties and I was conversely dropped off the guilds active roster as the tank. I was still able to complete dungeons and occasionally fill in to OT but something fundamentally changed, getting premade groups became difficult for me. What changed wasn't that I become unpopular or my skills had waned to the point of “noobery”, what had fundamentally changed was how much of a hassle everything had become. Before I’d plan to play only 3 hours due to other obligations, I’d log on, see who’s on and we’d negotiate when we’d start. This would allow me to delay my set chunk of time to later or start it immediately and get off, now when I tried to get groups together it was a one shot deal and if people were indisposed at the moment I was unable to get anything done. After weeks of incomplete game time I regrettably said my farewells to my server top guild and only came back for expansion releases (when groups are easy to find) and permanently when the LFD came out.

 

This next part I attempt to highlight why certain situations paved the way for the LFD in the first place, I’ll be making some assumptions but anyone with a dog in the fight (aka has a job and/or family life) will understand that they are reasonable and fair.

 

 

1)Not everyone has 24/7 availability

 

If you work a full-time you only really have between 3-4 hours of playtime a night before you are significantly affecting other areas of your life. Weekends are a different story, sometimes you get to play a lot and sometimes you have less time then weekdays, but let’s say you squeeze in 10 hours total across the weekend. I’m being very generous with the above allotted times, if you have any outside obligations, hobbies, studies, other games of interest or a family, those times allotted are going to skyrocket down. That equals 25 hours of playtime roughly week for a medium to borderline hard core gamer, where I personally think most people are between 11-16 hours. Some people think spending an hour to form a group of “friends” online is acceptable gameplay, while I won’t say that they are wrong but I’m going to say a lot of others disagree strongly.

 

 

2)Think LFD causes problems? The old model was worse

 

Now picture you log on for your daily bread (I mean hours) and instead of going out and enjoying the world you have to stand around a capital city to ask for a group. You just got off work and already you’re not having fun, you’re being forced to work to enjoy yourself. Under the old model it used to take around 20 minutes at minimal for assembling the group and arrival at the instance, some people could get it done faster and others, well couldn’t get it done at all for various reasons. Now imagine someone has to go, god forbid it’s a tank and that means someone has to leave the instance to ask again, by this point another player may drop and your run could be over. Having a run collapse can eat upwards of 2 hours of someone’s play time, if not more. Losing that time may not be a big deal to someone but if they only have 11-16 hours to play a week, not being able to get a dungeon off the ground is going to cost them a significant chunk of their playtime for the week and not including the time it takes to assemble another one.

 

3)The solution that worked for most gamers

 

With the addition of the LFD tool, gamers where finally given a tool that could maximize a person’s time in an efficient manner. When you click that button you know you have roughly between 10 and 30 minutes at longest before you group starts. This gave players the option of doing some dailies, farming some particular items or doing something quick in real life, regardless of their choice they were finally using their time to something they wished. This isn’t as much about the length of time but the expected duration of how long a particular task will take which is important. If I know I that when I log on and I have 3 hours to play and I can calculate it’ll take me 30 minutes to assemble a group, 1 hour to complete it and 45 minutes to do my dailies afterwards I’ll be a happy customer. Now imagine I log on, spend over an hour trying to find a group and can’t complete the group, by the time I reach the point where I can no longer finish the dungeon due to time constraints I’m going to rush through my dailies in a bitter mood. This doesn’t have to happen many times for people to throw up their hands and say to “hell with it”.

 

4)Work odd hour or strangely irregular hours

 

One of the biggest groups that got punished were those who didn’t game when the rest of us were online. Think you got issues assembling a group in the pre-LFD days, trying being online when there aren’t even 5 people online at your level. For years they were told to relocate to a server that best fits their needs, ignore the content entirely or quit. I shouldn’t have to go into why there is something substantial wrong with the above helpful advice and in fact I won’t.

 

5)The player level bubble

 

This sort of ties within an earlier point but I just wanted to expand on it quickly. Group content is great when it’s accessible now imagining having no one around you to complete it. If the majority of players are at max level how are you supposed to perform group activities prior to the level cap? The old model was beg in /1 or coerce a guildie into feeling bad enough to run you through it. This is the reason WoW removed the majority of elite group quests, not because people weren’t interested in them but because people couldn’t get them done in a reasonable amount of time.

 

The next section is my attempt to reconcile the two crowds and try to break the ignorance that is plagued towards us “second class citizens”

 

1)The LFD destroys communities rant

 

This is the biggest and loudest argument and deservers the most attention, we need to think about what the perspective is of the person who is advocating this and what are his intentions. His premise is very understandable, why on earth would you want anything you cherished to be besieged? The players from this perspective are happy with their current gaming experiences and view anything dramatically changing as threatening their positive experiences. They may claim they are community individuals, but they aren’t in fact they really only looking out for their own interests and have no regard for the majority of the player base.

 

2)The LFD killed WoW (or severely crippled it)

 

This has to be the most erroneous statement I’ve heard in the debate and I have to applaud who came up with that conjecture for how much is has swamped the MMORPG community. First off, how would you analyze this statement for any shred of truth? I’m not going to take your anecdotal evidence as fact, because quite frankly the LFD tool brought me back to the game and I know countless others who came back to the game because of it. In fact, the only evidence we can look at that is considered fair is how many subscriptions came back with the addition of the LFG feature versus who left the game at the same time. I wonder who’s going to come out on top of that one

 

3)The majority of these people opposing the LFD are hypocrites

 

The only thing that changed was that we could no longer force people to communicate with others when they didn’t wish it or it wasn’t convenient. If you had a laundry list of friend’s pre-LFD to always do groups with, you should have seen absolutely no change at all in your gameplay experience. What could have possibly changed? You would log on, talk to your guildies and friends and come up with a time to run dungeons as you always did prior. If you were unable to facilitate a group as it sometimes can happen, you’d ask if anyone knew anyone or you simply just ask in trade. When someone refers to bad experiences with the LFD tool, I ask myself how they found themselves interacting with the tool in the first place. You clearly couldn’t find anybody to group with so instead of sitting around in Orgimmar spamming for groups you realized what the rest of us realized years ago that it that wasn’t fun. You then took the approach of joining a queue intended for a different gaming experience and got upset when it wasn’t to your liking. I can’t be the only one who is baffled by this, can I?

 

 

4)Ask not what your server can do for you but what you can do for your server

 

With every major patch people leave and quit which swings servers into mayhem. One of the servers a buddy of mine played on was Smolderthorn, it had a top 100 guild and a fair balance till WOTLK server instability issues forced transfers. Within a few content cycles the server was completely damaged and people jumped ship. If someone quit during TBC and came back after the LFD was introduced he’d logically think it killed the server when it fact did not. Become part of the solution and not the problem, post your attentions on the server forums that you want to participate in a server event. You don’t even have to do know what to; you can usually leverage someone with ideas that has no warm bodies to fill them. Start small and work your way up. There is tons of information on Google on this so happy hunting!

 

5)Players have diminished in quality since the LFD for reason X,Y, and Z

 

No, what has happened is people are of different skill backgrounds and you’ve just never realized just how many of them take up your player base who keeps your game running. This isn’t the days of yore when everyone who plays strongly understands the genre, blizzard has opened up the market for different crowds and it’s their playing experience too. Think of it from the other side of the coin, how do you think it is for us more casual player base to deal with you people on a more regular basis? Don’t got 100% optimized gear and talent spec for an encounter that don’t require it, get ready to get instructed on the values of life and potentially booted. Ask to a do all the bosses to a geared tank, better believe that’s a vote kick.

 

6)The Z in “X,Y, and Z” is for laZy

 

One concern is that queue based systems will make people lazy and lethargically spend their time throughout the game world. We’re living in the country that works one of the most hours per person in the world and has severe time poverty and you’re confused why people are trying to take shortcuts? You’d have to be insane or unemployed not to take every time related advantage that doesn’t spoil your own experience in a game that soaks them up like nothing. Being lazy has no discrimination for which it strikes, whether it’s elites afking in bg’s for High War Lord titles or Johnny McNoob /afking in the raid finder

 

7)People are ******es in the LFD

 

This is the only argument I particularly agree with, it is true that anonymity breeds people to make actions that may have not made in a different situation. Blizzard has given us a tool to deal with it; it’s called the vote kick. If you DO NOT abuse the vote kick, it is available almost every time you’ll ever need it. The majority of incidents that I’ve personally witnessed have been people taking someone’s words to seriously or someone “ninjaing” something. Now, for the latter it’s impossible to ninja in this game, I need you to understand that. “Ninjaing” for the sake of this argument is taking something that didn’t belong to you, entering into a rolling chance with someone when both parties legitimately want an item is not stealing. If someone has the same armour class or item proficiency, then casually speak to them in public or private to get their intentions, you’d be shocked in how people are civil once you make that communication leap and instead of assuming. For the attitude part, that is everyone’s job to try and keep a cool head. If you see people fighting over something in game, first off don’t make it worse by saying who’s right and who’s wrong. Secondly try and defuse the situation, I’ve been able to do this a few times or at least get to the point where everyone agrees it’s best to move on but be silent. Lastly, if else fails, Blizzard has given us the vote kick for these types of measures, use accordingly though or be warned it may not be there when you require it.

Edited February 25, 2012 by BlueSkittles

Server wide LFG tool would remove general spam with none of the cons. If you can present a viable argument against it please do so.

Server wide LFG tool would remove general spam with none of the cons. If you can present a viable argument against it please do so.

 

Low population servers and playing at odd hours. Both of which are fixed with cross-server LFD.

Server wide LFG tool would remove general spam with none of the cons. If you can present a viable argument against it please do so.

 

i'll provide a novel's worth of arguments for it. starting with the 15 dollars i'm paying to be able to do something other than sit in fleet twiddling my thumbs waiting for a response from one of the other 8 people in fleet.

As long as this doesn't lead to cross-server PvP then great go for it

I wish the devs would repost Touchbass arguments for a LFG tool rather than the original post. Touchbass delivers much more succinct and reasonable arguments for our cause and they should be what people first see.

Server wide LFG tool would remove general spam with none of the cons. If you can present a viable argument against it please do so.

I don't think there's much against that.

 

Problem is, there's already a tool for that but nobody uses it. The most logical step would be to improve that tool in some way. It doesn't have to be completely automatic either. I think most people would be able to live with that.

Here once again giving my 100% support for a rift/wow like cross server lfd/lfg tool!

I think some of you guys need to be in the server merg and server transfer threads.

I don't think there's much against that.

 

Problem is, there's already a tool for that but nobody uses it. The most logical step would be to improve that tool in some way. It doesn't have to be completely automatic either. I think most people would be able to live with that.

 

It baffles me why so many people are against an automatic que. It's not like you see them complaining about the PvP que.

Low population servers and playing at odd hours. Both of which are fixed with cross-server LFD.

 

I'm not saying cross-server is or isn't essential, I'm saying server-wide LFG tool IS essential.

I would really like a LFG tool, the one in place is horrible and hardly anyone on my server uses it. No one talks half the time after finally getting a group together and running a dungeon either, so I don't really see how LFG tools ruin the community. Also standing around spamming chat is no fun at all.

It baffles me why so many people are against an automatic que. It's not like you see them complaining about the PvP que.

That's because it's different. A flashpoint requires a lot more teamwork and is a lot more personal due to there only being four people working together. It's also usually longer and more varied than a Warzone.

 

I'm not against automatic grouping per se. I just prefer having a bit more choice myself.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Scorchess

I don't think there's much against that.

 

Problem is, there's already a tool for that but nobody uses it. The most logical step would be to improve that tool in some way. It doesn't have to be completely automatic either. I think most people would be able to live with that.

 

The existing tool is underutilized and clumsy. It needs vast improvement to allow you to queue like warzones do, except for a specific Flashpoint.

No you are advocating LFD because you want it to be faster just with a press of a button.

no, I advocate it because it adds something to the game without taking anything away (at least, noone can offer anything but purely opinion based problems with it). That seems like a winning combination to me.

 

 

 

Finally, my point is that cross-server LFD tools destroys community and heightens douchebaggery. And it DOES impact people that choose not to use it by way of the fact that since nearly everyone will use it (because of how simple it is), it will make finding on-server PUG groups much more challenging.

Well I can see 3 possibilities.

1. The vast majority of people are in favor of the lfg tool. You'll actually have some challenges finding a group. But, since you're part of a tiny minority, it's silly of you to insist that the majority not get their way.

2. The vast majority of players are not in favor of the lfg tool. You'll have no significant additional challenges for finding groups.

3. The split in the community is somewhere in the middle. You'll have a bit of challenge added to finding groups but will still be able to find groups that way in a reasonable amount of time, and the folks in favor of it will have some of what they want, but not all of it, since a significant portion of the player base won't be be using that tool. Both sides give up something and gain something. this is called compromise.

 

I suspect that #1 is actually the truth, but that's just my suspicion.

Or, as you (rightly) put it, tedious. If LFD were introduced, I imagine you'd see this: Player 1: LFG for any HM FP. Healer here. PST if interested. Player 2: Just use LFD n00b lulz!

That's a win-win situation: you get to easily identify and ignore the players that you really don't want to be grouping with anyway.

 

1. That's your opinion, and I believe you. Doesn't make my experience any more or less valid.

It does, however, show that you aren't actually offering a valid argument against the lfg tool by relating the fact that you've had negative experiences in wow's lfd tool.

 

2. Incorrect. Because people usually choose the easiest path rather than the better one, because people are idiots (myself included). Just because something can be made easier doesn't mean it should. In point #2, you completely ignore the social ramifications X-server LFD tools carry. In your opinion, those things don't matter. In mine they do.

In my opinion, they'd matter if they existed... but I have yet to see anyone mention a negative impact that's actually caused by the lfg tool. matter != justify not having it.

 

3. True. But again, this is your opinion, not a fact, and based on your personal experiences. My personal experiences were different. In my experiences, "occasional jerk" tranlated to "jerks 50%+ of the time". Again, you say my points are less valid because they are substantiated only by opinion and personal experience. This is another of your points, substantiated only by opinion and personal experience.

Clearly, we can take from this that neither of your experience is an argument for or against in the general case.

 

5. Your opinion is that LFD offers a choice. Mine is that it does not.

That's not opinion. You can choose to use or or not. Period.

 

what it offers is perhaps a choice that you don't like... but it's a choice non-the-less.

 

It makes nearly all people wanting to PUG use the LFD tool. I readily admit that.

So, you're saying that you're in a tiny minority?

 

However, I believe that this has significant negative downsides for the server as a whole. Among which: 1) Heightens doucebaggery.

No, it doesn't You're just making an unsupported claim here; I'm pretty sure that you can't actually support it with facts.

 

2) Since everyone uses the LFD, it becomes much more difficult to make friends with players on your local server, thus reinforcing the cycle of using the LFD tool.

This one isn't true either. It's just speculation.

 

3) Completely removes social aspects of group play. Since you'll never group with these again, there's no point in chatting at all.

You're basing this on a flawed premise: an lfg tool (whether single or cross server) does not mean that you'll never group with them again. Beyond that, I'm sorry that you're so antisocial that you're not willing to socialize with people that you're only seeing once; that's not true of everyone

 

Many groups (in my experience) dont even want to discuss tactics.

This was the case in wow before the lfg tool. It was the case in EQ pugs a decade ago. People don't want to discuss tactics once they're trivial.

 

So, in sum, I respect your opinion but it is not based on facts any more than mine is. Your opinions seems to be based on your thoughts and experiences, just like mine is, and therefore no more inherently valid.

I think it's pretty clear that the stance that you're arguing with is based more on facts and less on opinions than the one you're arguing. They've shown concrete advantages to people that are based on fact. You've offered purely opinion based contradiction. Edited February 7, 2012 by ferroz

I think a better LFG tool would be cool. A WoW/Rift style instant-teleport machine? Please, no. Don't need and don't want.

 

If a tool is added, I really hope it just makes finding people to group with easier, but doesn't turn into the anti-social grind-o-matic those other games have. Anything that further trivializes the social aspects of the game isn't a good thing.

I think some of you guys need to be in the server merg and server transfer threads.

 

 

there is no way in hell they are going to reduce the number of servers this soon after release. it would be an admission of failure and BW knows it. the people on low pop servers are stuck there unless they want to re-roll.

 

Hey all you guys on those 4 servers with heavy pops. you want login queue times?

 

didn't think so.

I think a better LFG tool would be cool. A WoW/Rift style instant-teleport machine? Please, no. Don't need and don't want.

 

If a tool is added, I really hope it just makes finding people to group with easier, but doesn't turn into the anti-social grind-o-matic those other games have. Anything that further trivializes the social aspects of the game isn't a good thing.

 

Spamming general for hours isn't social. Some people want to grind dungeons without having to spam general for hours. Really groups are as anti-social as you make them, regardless of how they're formed.

1. A LFG global channel is a nice *hotfix*, despite the spam it would be a channel you could join/leave at any time. Made lot's of friends in past games using this rudimentary tool, some of them still play with me today.

 

2. The final solution is already in the bottom right corner of the UI.

An icon, that puts you or your group in a queue for the desired flashpoint (server only).

 

If the current PVP queue button is not killing the community, I don't understand how the hell a PVE button with the exact same functionality will be able to do it. You MAY have to create some sort of flashpoint *locking* mechanisms to avoid people to level up only using this tool. Also, full teleportation to the flashpoint is not needed imo (they are all in the same place).

Edited February 7, 2012 by Hurkan

Spamming general for hours isn't social. Some people want to grind dungeons without having to spam general for hours. Really groups are as anti-social as you make them, regardless of how they're formed.

 

Did I not just say I think a better LFG tool would be a good thing? You might want to lighten up on the knee-jerking a bit.

 

And if you think how groups are formed has no effect on how social they are, well, I completely disagree. I think a system that slams a bunch of people together and drops them into an instance in front of their first fight has a huge effect on how social groups are. I've seen it first-hand, as have many others.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Pink_Saber

Due to the lack of an automated LFG tool in this game, I have met more new people and had more random fun with these people in the past month then in the past year of WoW. It may seem strange to some of you but being forced as a community to coordinate and work together in order to achieve goals is what makes an MMO succeed.

 

I would rather sit around for 30 minutes to forever trying to make groups and being social and talking in general chat and talking to prospective group members then click on a button and be automagically ported to an instance with 3 other people I may never see again.

 

The benefit of an LFG system is that content becomes more accessable for the masses and people can have thier instant gratification. This is what people want in all aspects of life. The direct result of this is that content becomes stale faster and rewards feel less epic.

 

If you want a game to have longevity and feel epic and be enjoyable for years to come it must be difficult and take time, or fast-paced twitchy and churn content constantly. FPS and Action-RPG are designed to be fast-paced twitchy and as a result churn content (read: map packs). MMO-RPG is the genre that is supposed to be slow, difficult and time based.

 

Please BW/EA/Lucas do not try to fight WoW directly. Create something different. The MMO community is divided heavily between those who want instant gratification and those who want challenge and reward. WoW owns the instant gratification crowd and I would love to see you guys go the way of providing for the challenge crowd. Eve has kept themselves successful through doing it thier own way for years. Set yourself apart from the WoW clones (read: eq clones) and keep this game pure and in the direction you are already going.

 

At this point it is my opinion that the only thing that keeps WoW going is the snowball effect of its previous success. There is a reason that every new MMO comes out is touted as the WoW-killer. It is because people want something other then WoW. Then a new game comes out and tries to do it differently, but the people are so conditioned by WoW that they complain and force the company to turn it into a WoW-clone. The first WoW-Killer will refuse to bow to this and make something different then WoW. They will make Hard, Challenging, Time Consuming, and EPIC content that you feel amazing for completing.

 

Down with instant gratification in SWTOR! Give me EPIC gratification!

I think a better LFG tool would be cool. A WoW/Rift style instant-teleport machine? Please, no. Don't need and don't want.

 

If a tool is added, I really hope it just makes finding people to group with easier, but doesn't turn into the anti-social grind-o-matic those other games have. Anything that further trivializes the social aspects of the game isn't a good thing.

 

 

game features don't trivialize the social aspects of a game.

 

anti-social people do. and anti social people spend more time and more money playing video games in virtual worlds than anyone else. whether or not we have a low opinion of anti-social people, it would make good business sense to give them what they want before they find someone else who will. it isn't difficult to understand. blizzard gets it. trion gets it. if bioware doesn't get it, it's their loss. and it's a BIG loss.

Did I not just say I think a better LFG tool would be a good thing? You might want to lighten up on the knee-jerking a bit.

 

Picture me saying this while casually taking a sip of beer rather than frothing with rage. I'm saying that the LFG tool doesn't make the game any more anti-social in response to you saying to be cautious of it.