Big wins for casuals! Dual Spec - Cross server

the only way i would support a cross server LFD tool is if they added repurcussions for player actions while in the group.

a boot system that each player in the group has a cooldown system. nothing like wow where it glitched all to hell and people were getting 24 hour cooldowns on their ability to boot. because it was abused all to hell, another bad thing about the LFD system: a dps waits 45 minutes for a grp, gets one and kills the first boss and gets booted.

a reputation system done by votes by the party. once a player has a certain amount of bad rep their LFD tool begins a cd.

say every bad vote you get while in a group adds 5 minutes to your cooldown time between uses of the LFD tool. getting good votes with people from other servers only while in a random party will decrease the CD time to 0. (must be a random party made up by the LFD tool to prevent acting like an *** and getting some friends to vote you up)

after 0 rep you gain +rep that puts you ahead in the que line of the people with bad (negative rep)

this system is simple, it rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior.

this is all we are asking for. something that will hold people responsible for their actions, because anonymous people you dont know will never play nice.

And you probably play a tank or healer.

FYI they never stated cross realm LFD at all, it was cross realm Warzones only.

you pay a one time price in credits to a trainer and get the ability to have 2 specs instead of 1 that you can switch to at will without cost. you can keep a tank and dps spec, switch when you want to for free.

Ah...k thanks.

That's not what I hear on the recording. Stephen specifically mentioned a cross-server flashpoint tool.

It didnt hurt WoW, it made participation to dungeons go a lot higher than ever before.

Commando DPS, but nice of you to make assumptions

The "community" people see as having been destroyed by x-server functionality was people on the same faction on the same server interacting and building networks with the people around them, for pvp or pve or just social purposes. None of that exists anymore. The community i was a part of in UO comprised close to a dozen guilds who all worked together to create player events to involve players from both their own guilds and the wider server population. People got to know each other, help each other become better players and contribute to their servers "community" and wellbeing (economy etc). And some of us, still know each other and game together some 15 years later.

It amazes me that people bash this game as being a single player game with a couple of multiplayer features, yet those same people demand a tool (x-server LFD) that actively promotes isolation and single player game play. Why would someone want/need to join a guild or work with people on the server around them (for heroics etc) when they can just click a button, get teleported to the instance and do their run without saying a word to anyone, get their loot/commendations and teleport out? ESPECIALLY IF as the OP's title says they're casuals? People complain on these boards saying they don't want their MMO's to be single player friendly...yet in the next breath they're demanding a tool that promotes and actively encourages it!

With x-server lfd There's zero reason to be in a guild unless:

• You know the people you're in the guild with from another game / irl.
• You're in it for the hardcore Raiding / PVP

Sure it's convenient, but it's not healthy for a server at all. It also gives people who are likely to be morons in a group free license due to anonymity to be an a'hat because at the end of the run, there's a damn good chance they'll never bump into that group of players again, so what's it matter if their behaviour is woeful. Without cross server, people have to mind their behaviour (at least a bit) because sooner or later there will be repurcussions as they get a negative reputation.

Reality is, no system for forced grouping to complete (interesting) content will ever be perfect or please everyone, but in my opinion based off experience in Ultima Online (best community based game i've ever played), SWG (with player /guild towns) and WoW (vanilla post LFD) cross erver does far more harm than good. It's only saving grace is convenience and to me, that just doesn't trump the issues it creates.

Some of these issues are community created (an a'hat's always going to be an a'hat no matter how good the system is) and others are flawed design - MMO's trying to draw so many people in from many varying playstyles at the expense of quality in the area that their game excels at. Neither of which will change any time soon due to human nature and the (greedy) corporations who only care about tapping the biggest market possible.

Teleporting? Yeah such a pain to run 20 meters in the Imp Fleet for a flashpoint.

Makes the game for casuals without all dat hard work of using fleet pass.