Give me a legitimate reason to NOT have a LFD tool.

It kills games because of two simple facts.

1) with an endless pool of randomized groups, you can be a douch with impunity. When you are a ***** in same server lfg, you develop a reputation, people can ignore you, etc. with cross server you get the annonymouty that makes such pleasant people like forum trolls and YouTube commenters.

2) you can't invite people from other servers to raids/guilds. This means if you find really great people in these groups, you can't group up with them later. Alernately, since you are grouping using x server lfg, you aren't recruiting new people to your guild.

You can use the argument "you can opt to not use it" all you want; but it will be used by the majority, and you will find yourself laughed out of chat channels and told to use the tool.

so?
you press button, spell fires-off mob cc'ed, level of skill required is beyond the godlike…

don't make me laugh, and when "CC was necessary and required" classes without long-last cc is screwed for no reason and classed with cc suddenly become more skilled and more desirable

this **** must go from mmo games, make fight itself interesting
kill with fire trash like
CC-take-skill
cc-mob with one button is fun
fight one helpeless foe is fun

WoW is the ultimate cash cow and it has a massive user base over seven years after launch. Eight? Who knows.

So, why do so many players like WoW? It's not the first MMO, but it's the first one with market penetration anything like this.

1. They understand that the majority of their players are casual. They will play a couple hours a night at most.
2. They understand that people want to feel like they've gotten something done in that hour or two. The feeling of accomplishment and progression is absolutely required to maintain that player.
3. They understand that people want to play with their friends and if their friends start quitting they quit too. This goes for even the ultrahardcore raiders.
4. They have devised ways in which you can log in, do cool stuff and log out feeling good.
5. They have made it so even casual players can see all the content and yet the hardcore players still have better stats so they're happy too.

So you ask, how does this apply to a LFD tool.

Lets assume that Jane Casual plays 2 hours a night, when she logs in she throws a quick LFG in general in her fleet. Unless she's a healer odds are nobody wants her and so she wanders off to go questing. The alternative is sitting there in the fleet spamming general, it's not all that likely to work and if she doesn't get a group in the first hour or so she wouldn't be able to finish anyway. In the former case she is moderately happy, she's bothered a little that she didn't get to see what the Red Reaper looked like but hey she finished her class quest and now she's Darth Jane the Sorcerer. In the latter she's very unhappy as she wastes half her playtime and doesn't find any groups that want her and her lightning then goes out and finishes a couple of quests and has to log out for the night.

Not a real good experience.

So how does a LFD tool help? She logs in, she clicks that she's interested in doing the level appropriate instances and then runs off to do quests, space combat, pvp or whatever while she waits. Best case it pops quickly and she meets a group of people and they do a couple of runs together. She logs out happy with a few new shiney pieces of loot. Worst case it never pops, in this case she is in the same shape as if she had never even tried from the previous example, and far better off than the one where she hangs around for an hour lfg. Average case might be takes 30 minutes to find a group, she finishes one FP and then goes on her way to try out the shiny new loot.

All of those are much better experiences than not having that tool.

There was a game that used to like to make things as painful as possible, it was called Everquest. When WoW came out it died. You may be ultra ****** hardcore game ninjas (in your own mind) and enjoy the pain of trying to put together a group on a low pop server off prime time, but guess what... for every one of you there are HUNDREDS of Joe/Jane Casual. If you quit, EA doesn't even notice. If they quit, the game shuts down and they lose you too.

Convenience and quality of life is critical to keeping the casual, keeping the casual is critical to staying profitable.

That's a lie

The timer was also extended on people who got kicked too often which in the end protected the douche bags

If you're going to argue at least stick to the truth

Oh and i love how some of the supporters of a LFD tool uses the whole wow bad people got carried thing. You're exactly the kind of people we don't want to group with.

Why can't we have both? Make some servers have the LFG and others not. That way we can all be happy I my self don't enjoy the LFG or LFR option.

Ok, I understand it's the cool thing to do to bash WoW here, but let me give you a little wake up call.

SWTOR will never be as successful as WoW. It will never run as long, it will never have as many players.

That doesn't mean it's a bad game, that doesn't mean it can't be successful, but trying to claim that you should just do the opposite of WoW in everything is beyond stupid.

Here is painful fact number two:

EA would sell their souls to have SWTOR or ANY of their games be as successful as WoW

WoW is the ultimate cash cow and it has a massive user base over seven years after launch. Eight? Who knows.

So, why do so many players like WoW? It's not the first MMO, but it's the first one with market penetration anything like this.

1. They understand that the majority of their players are casual. They will play a couple hours a night at most.
2. They understand that people want to feel like they've gotten something done in that hour or two. The feeling of accomplishment and progression is absolutely required to maintain that player.
3. They understand that people want to play with their friends and if their friends start quitting they quit too. This goes for even the ultrahardcore raiders.
4. They have devised ways in which you can log in, do cool stuff and log out feeling good.
5. They have made it so even casual players can see all the content and yet the hardcore players still have better stats so they're happy too.

So you ask, how does this apply to a LFD tool.

Lets assume that Jane Casual plays 2 hours a night, when she logs in she throws a quick LFG in general in her fleet. Unless she's a healer odds are nobody wants her and so she wanders off to go questing. The alternative is sitting there in the fleet spamming general, it's not all that likely to work and if she doesn't get a group in the first hour or so she wouldn't be able to finish anyway. In the former case she is moderately happy, she's bothered a little that she didn't get to see what the Red Reaper looked like but hey she finished her class quest and now she's Darth Jane the Sorcerer. In the latter she's very unhappy as she wastes half her playtime and doesn't find any groups that want her and her lightning then goes out and finishes a couple of quests and has to log out for the night.

Not a real good experience.

So how does a LFD tool help? She logs in, she clicks that she's interested in doing the level appropriate instances and then runs off to do quests, space combat, pvp or whatever while she waits. Best case it pops quickly and she meets a group of people and they do a couple of runs together. She logs out happy with a few new shiney pieces of loot. Worst case it never pops, in this case she is in the same shape as if she had never even tried from the previous example, and far better off than the one where she hangs around for an hour lfg. Average case might be takes 30 minutes to find a group, she finishes one FP and then goes on her way to try out the shiny new loot.

All of those are much better experiences than not having that tool.

There was a game that used to like to make things as painful as possible, it was called Everquest. When WoW came out it died. You may be ultra ****** hardcore game ninjas (in your own mind) and enjoy the pain of trying to put together a group on a low pop server off prime time, but guess what... for every one of you there are HUNDREDS of Joe/Jane Casual. If you quit, EA doesn't even notice. If they quit, the game shuts down and they lose you too.

Convenience and quality of life is critical to keeping the casual, keeping the casual is critical to staying profitable.