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

I agree. There appears to be very few people, less than it seems, that wants (or are at least fighting for) a cross-server LFD tool. Maybe this game drew in a different crowd and these are just the vocal minority?

Don't try to pretend you're any different. You don't care about any one else's game experience but your own.

Ontopic: here's my reason, the sooner I get burnt out on doing instances the sooner I unsub to the game. Running with LFG pugs is the easiest way to get burnt out on Flashpoints, just like how we all get burnt out playing PVP with AFK bots and the like.

God I hope so...

The real concern for me will be the vocal minority DOES start having their QQ demands met. Once BW set a precedent for this course of action...it is only a matter of time before we have a REAL WoW clone on our hands

Driz

But generally speaking everyone who saw what it did in warcraft knows what is coming if it is made Cross-Server.

The primary reason why WoW is now loosing so many subscribers: because the social part of the game has been almost destroyed with Cataclysm.

Allow me to explain:


The Social Side

The reason why people kept playing and kept coming back to WoW when the content got stale was because of the people, the community, and the friends. What started about midway through WotLK and which has been going on for years now is that the social side of WoW, the ability to meet random people, get to know them, maybe even befriend them, has become more and more difficult.


The main casual PvE and PvP content has become cross-server in the name of convenience and shorter queue times, and everything related to questing has become so easy that you'll never need the help of other people:

When you want to do a dungeon you either do it with people you already know or with complete and utter strangers that you'll never see again, even if you wanted to.
When you want to do a battleground you either do it with people you know or with complete and utter strangers you'll never see again, even if you wanted to.
When you want to do daily quests you do it by yourself because every single one of them is solo-able, and in many cases bringing friends along penalizes you.
When you level up a new alt you do it by yourself because every single one of the quests from from 1-85 is solo-able and because phasing has made helping other players with quests impossible. There are no more group or elite quests.


This goes for almost all content in WoW now: The content that you actually need other people to play with is designed in such a way that you will be playing with or against people that you'll never ever be able to play with again, even if you wanted to.

The Dungeon Finder means that all dungeons and heroic you do is either done with guildies or with complete random strangers that you'll never see again.

Phasing means that simply meeting people out in the world has become extremely difficult. It would not be unusual for you to not see a single other person in whichever zone you level in.

Sandbox games are definitely more social simply because of the way they're designed.

The dependance on user created content, the whole idea of giving players the tools and then unleashing them in the sandbox is the basis of good community and a social game.

I never got around to play SWG, but having played EVE for years it's pretty obvious that in a sandbox game like EVE where player interactions are what the drives the game forward, a larger and more open community appears.


But yes WoW was a very social game. Although undoubtedly a themepark game when it was first released it was no where close to being at the extreme end of the Themepark------Sandbox spectrum as it is today.

For a good community to spring up and prosper you need to force people to have to work together and to depend upon each other.

In original WoW in most aspects of the game you actually had to interact with other people for things to happen, you had to depend on other people, and you had to make an effort yourself and be responsible.

Doing a dungeon required you to actually talk to other people to set up a group, to actually bother to move across the map to find the dungeon and to actually work together with your group to complete the dungeon, something that could take quite a while.

People got to know each other, they talked to each other, they depended upon each other, and so friendships formed. People had their friendslists full of skilled and reliable people that knew how to play their class, were funny and friendly, and knew how to pull their weight.

The same with battlegrounds. Long ago you only played with people from your realm. You fought with and against the same people every time, you actually got to know them; their weaknesses, their strengths, which enemies to look out for etc.
Rivalries and friendships formed, celebrities emerged, skilled players that organized and lead the battleground to victory.

In regards to questing. It used to be harder, there used to be a lot of quests where you actually had to depend upon each other. In most zones there were at least 2-5 group or elite quests that couldn't be completed unless you had a group, and so people simple asked in the local channel for help and in that way again friendships formed.


There were no realm transfers, no factions transfers, no name changes, and so people got to really know each other. If you were an !@#$%^- the whole server would know and you wouldn't be invited to any groups. If you were an awesome player you would find yourself on a lot of people's friendslist and would be invited to do dungeons with them.


And there are so many other examples of ways that people bonded and get to know each other. WoW was a really social game!


Today you can't meet new people though dungeons, you can't meet them through battlegrounds, you can't meet them while questing, and you can't meet them while just standing around in the cities doing nothing..

There are no incentives for you to work with other people that are not in your guild, and there is no reason for you to even talk to them.
The game in general has just become extremely lonely.

That is the primary reason why people are now leaving in droves; because the thing that kept people playing when the game was stagnant and no new content has been added for a long time, was the community and the friends.


I am very interested to think what everyone else thinks. This thread gets enough attention maybe blizzard will read it and do something before all is lost! Thank You.



I just have to copy that and post in this forum.
It is excellent post from Eruruu.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4015344575

If you agree, or think otherwise. Please post it on Usa and help to bump this thread as well to get more attention to people.
If we can attract Blizzard, then its all good.

it's there on page 35.

I will stop posting in this thread as it's apparent to me that people will remain ignorant of the cold, hard truth and blind to any other viewpoint that actually presents logic.

Now just give me the functionality to run Maelstrom this week if I want to, without wasting my paid game time staring at Empire reflections, and I'll be happy.

I already posted my view points on a cross-server LFD tool and why I believe that it shouldn't be implemented. It was disregarded by the LFD-lovers who, obviously, are unable to face logic and realize what the negative effects will be down the road, at any rate, it's there on page 35. I will stop posting in this thread as it's apparent to me that people will remain ignorant of the cold, hard truth and blind to any other viewpoint that actually presents logic.

I will now link a video in which Stephen Fry is talking about the current age of laziness that this world is getting into (the entire clip is centered around philosophy, but he talks of the world as a whole when it comes to this), it begins around 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqyXgvvzJQM

"We live in an age, in which, hard work is, if not actively deprecated or denigrated, it is run away from or ignored. People frown at you and say "well that's a bit dull and stupid, why can't we just short-circuit it?""