Which one of these hurt the community more?

[Deleted]

I'm playing since vanilla and I cant realise why a "server community" is so important to someone. It was always about me and my guild, the rest on the server didnt interest me much, since I had never the need to interact with them.

[Vaelorian]

I'm playing since vanilla and I cant realise why a "server community" is so important to someone. It was always about me and my guild, the rest on the server didnt interest me much, since I had never the need to interact with them.

Good for you. Sadly doesn't count for everyone. I was in a guild in Vanilla that did every raid-type up to Naxx. Meanwhile the guild was filled with people who couldn't play and were carried by let's say 15 people in the 40 man. So I actually needed to go out in the world and make friends. And as such made a reputation and was known across the server even the horde side knew me (be it far less ofc). Ultimately I made my own guild of these people I met during my travels and surpassed my former guild with flying colours.

And then you have the other type of player that was never in a guild. So if you weren't an active party of the community doesn't mean that it didn't exist.

[Deleted]

It would cost me $615 to move to servers, a cost which I have already paid twice as two pvp servers I've played on have gone from balanced to 99%+ Horde. Why should I keep having to shell out because of other people's choices? Are you offering to pay my transfer costs for me? If not your solution seems fairly shallow and unhelpful for people who've actually experienced this.

I'm totally done with the server cost milking myself. If I look for a guild to apply to, it is almost always on a different realm, while it took a lot of hard work to migrate all my characters to the same realm before (every class at 85+).

---------- Post added 2013-02-06 at 11:55 AM ----------

I'm playing since vanilla and I cant realise why a "server community" is so important to someone. It was always about me and my guild, the rest on the server didnt interest me much, since I had never the need to interact with them.

I can go with such notion, until your guild falls apart for one reason or another or you part ways for one reason or another. This usually happens somewhere throughout the time line. Being in the same guild for 8 years, while it does happen, is rare and exceptional. When the gquit/gdisband does happen though, and you had all those characters in the same guild and on the same realm then it just sucks to move. I know, you should go for your main and leave your alts behind but its rather sad.

[khalltusk]

I raided during vanilla. We had a good rep with most guilds and I will say amont the 6-8 major guilds at the time it was a nice little group. If you were outside of this group you were looked down upon. Its not all roses sometimes people think the community was vastly better than now. I will say its always been bad.

How many ninjas did I used to see? LOADS did it matter to them? Not really a few god blacklisted and some got really infamous. I still saw them ninjaing raid items right up until wrath.

LFD - before when me and my friends wanted a dungeon run we checked in guild first then our friends lists. We often made a group within an hour. on some days when no one was online we had to go to trade chat. It was part of the reason when I came back to wow for CATA and was leveling a DK. Now during the pre cata event I got to 72 and decided to try this LFD thing. I put my self in blood spec and joined the queue. BAM I got a dungeon in seconds. Joined the group said hello and tanked. I did this right up to 80 and did heroics got the gear I could before cata hit and then powered my way to 85. I loved LFD it allowed me to get into groups with no fuss and if I only had 1 of my mates online we formed a party and rocked up to the dungeon via LFD.

I still make friends the old fashioned way and often chat to people in game none of that has changed in the game infact its EASIER now to chat to people cross faction/realm due to the battle.net features. Still I can see some of the harm it did to people by requiring less time communicating to get a group.

However I still see loads of pugs being formed in /trade everyday. The realm forums are still used by guilds to recruit and people still ask questions there.

[Deleted]

No one is forced to use either of these features. People had the option to not transfer or do groups the old fashioned way, but didn't, because most people WANTED to use the LFG tool. This idea that Blizzard gave players an extra choice somehow forced them into doing something in a way that most of them did not want is ridiculous. If the community was "hurt" by the use of these tools, then it was by collective player choice.

Community is something more than some sort of numerical value that is better or worse. Yes you might say that people sticked together and created communities because they had to if they wanted to get anywhere in a MMO, but if that was somehow a drawback then It begs the question: Why they play a MMO if they dont want to do the MMO thing but get the MMO reward?

Each and every time I wonder why this wierd mutation of cooperation had become a norm and why blizzard didnt just converted WoW to single player. For all intents and pruposes that came with LFD and quest structure, WoW in its current form could very well be just a single-player game with co-op mode.

I'm playing since vanilla and I cant realise why a "server community" is so important to someone. It was always about me and my guild, the rest on the server didnt interest me much, since I had never the need to interact with them.

I guess you had a guild where people you cared about never left or didnt changed sides. Quite happy for you but that isnt the norm or the case for everyone else. People leave, guilds disbands or guild need replacements for those who left to keep the guild doing its activities. At times like this it would be wise to be in touch with other guilds or other people on your server to tackle those issues. That is why communities are important.

[Saphyron]

the community

[Vaelorian]

I will say its always been bad.
How many ninjas did I used to see? LOADS did it matter to them? Not really a few god blacklisted and some got really infamous. I still saw them ninjaing raid items right up until wrath.

You saw that many ninjas cause there was an opportunity to be a ninja. And really mate, how many actual ninjas did you see? Or was it like it was now... - people needing for spec X? Actual ninjas were shunned by the server. You could only be a ninja if you were the leader of the group be it raid or otherwise and set the lootrules different just before the endboss or something. Blizzard usually solved this stuff afaik. And then you also had the idiots who just needed everything for their enchantingprofession.
Are they all ninjas? Not in my book. Is it annoying, hell yes.

LFD - before when me and my friends wanted a dungeon run we checked in guild first then our friends lists. We often made a group within an hour. on some days when no one was online we had to go to trade chat. It was part of the reason when I came back to wow for CATA and was leveling a DK. Now during the pre cata event I got to 72 and decided to try this LFD thing. I put my self in blood spec and joined the queue. BAM I got a dungeon in seconds. Joined the group said hello and tanked. I did this right up to 80 and did heroics got the gear I could before cata hit and then powered my way to 85. I loved LFD it allowed me to get into groups with no fuss and if I only had 1 of my mates online we formed a party and rocked up to the dungeon via LFD.

You're basically saying you love LFD/LFR and as such we shouldn't bash it?
Please read: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post20120047

I still make friends the old fashioned way and often chat to people in game none of that has changed in the game infact its EASIER now to chat to people cross faction/realm due to the battle.net features. Still I can see some of the harm it did to people by requiring less time communicating to get a group.

I have made 1 friends since LFD(xserver)/LFR was implemented. Before I made tons of friends on my own server.
It is not that you cannot now. But you aren't required to be a pleasant fellow anymore in /p. You used to invest in /p. Perhaps people would remember you and /w you next week for another run.
Since that option doesn't exist (unless you extensively talked and shared RealID's, which is pretty uncommon) - it is more or less pointless to be friendly.
I am by no means saying that I am an ass during these LFD/LFR features. But I won't be a talkative guy.

However I still see loads of pugs being formed in /trade everyday. The realm forums are still used by guilds to recruit and people still ask questions there.

Probably related to Sha groups? There is no real incentive to make groups for 5 mans are there, unless it is based on recruitment for a guild. Pugging is a good tool to recruit.

Edit: People take the path of least resistance and the most rewarding path aswell. LFR/LFD does that for them. Hence the feature is that popular. The side effects are unaccountability and the estrangement to ones server.

[khalltusk]

You saw that many ninjas cause there was an opportunity to be a ninja. And really mate, how many actual ninjas did you see? Or was it like it was now... - people needing for spec X? Actual ninjas were shunned by the server. You could only be a ninja if you were the leader of the group be it raid or otherwise and set the lootrules different just before the endboss or something. Blizzard usually solved this stuff afaik. And then you also had the idiots who just needed everything for their enchantingprofession.
Are they all ninjas? Not in my book. Is it annoying, hell yes.

You're basically saying you love LFD/LFR and as such we shouldn't bash it?
Please read: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post20120047

I have made 1 friends since LFD(xserver)/LFR was implemented. Before I made tons of friends on my own server.
It is not that you cannot now. But you aren't required to be a pleasant fellow anymore in /p. You used to invest in /p. Perhaps people would remember you and /w you next week for another run.
Since that option doesn't exist (unless you extensively talked and shared RealID's, which is pretty uncommon) - it is more or less pointless to be friendly.
I am by no means saying that I am an ass during these LFD/LFR features. But I won't be a talkative guy.

Probably related to Sha groups? There is no real incentive to make groups for 5 mans are there, unless it is based on recruitment for a guild. Pugging is a good tool to recruit.

I saw MANY ninjas during my time. Back in the day in a dungeon run or anything you had need or greed or pass. It was not limited to class/armour ability like now so back then anyone could need. It was VERY common on both skullcrusher and balnazzar. Believe me. Raiding pugs, It happened quite a lot so I avoided pugs unless the name of the guy running it was one I knew of. Blizzard solved those issues mostly in LFR with the personal loot and LFD via the class/armour spec check list limiting what you can roll on. Believe me ninjaing was quite common if you were in a pug. I experienced a lot of it in vanilla especially.

*edit* FYI blizzard did nothing back in the day to help people who got ninja looted. If the ninja took the loot without using an exploit that was it the loot was gone. You could black list them some ninjas were notorious on our server but they somehow still got groups. I admired that they got away with it to be fair but still I never ran a pug with them. Sure blizzards fixed this mostly now in LFR/LFD in normal pug raids this still can occur.

Needing on items that others were going to use just to disenchant is a ninja.

I am not saying we shouldn't bash LFR/LFD you should perhaps read what I wrote and not be so arrogant? I merely pointed out that I liked what LFD has done for me and my friends on a personal level.

As for you not talking much thats the issue I wish to address. That is not blizzards fault that when you are thrown into a dungeon with a bunch of random people that you refuse to talk. I openly talk a lot more now in LFD/LFR I find it more enjoyable with some chit chat going on. I've played this game on and off since vanilla and the one thing I cannot stand on vent/ts or in game chat is silence. It makes the raids SO boring. Not saying blizzards done the best job ever etc just saying maybe if more people took the time out to talk to others it might make the game more enjoyable perhaps?

As for pugs I always see sha pugs thats a given. But there are a number of 10man pugs and some rare 25man pugs (most of its 10man due to the ease of it i'm guessing?) being formed daily in trade. This is on a PVE server as well. There are 5mans formed for the challenge modes but I see these a few times not as common as the raid pugs. 5man dungeon runs are very rare to see for heroics as LFD has replaced the need for most of this.

Not saying the games perfect, but sometimes people should make an effort. In my eyes LFR and LFD are great tools, are they perfect? No but I think they do a good job and I personally love them. I even talked to a druid tank last night as I was running terrace he was chatting to me quite a bit. Made a new friend via battle.net

[Vaelorian]

I saw MANY ninjas during my time. Back in the day in a dungeon run or anything you had need or greed or pass. It was not limited to class/armour ability like now so back then anyone could need. It was VERY common on both skullcrusher and balnazzar. Believe me. Raiding pugs, It happened quite a lot so I avoided pugs unless the name of the guy running it was one I knew of. Blizzard solved those issues mostly in LFR with the personal loot and LFD via the class/armour spec check list limiting what you can roll on. Believe me ninjaing was quite common if you were in a pug. I experienced a lot of it in vanilla especially.
*edit* FYI blizzard did nothing back in the day to help people who got ninja looted. If the ninja took the loot without using an exploit that was it the loot was gone. You could black list them some ninjas were notorious on our server but they somehow still got groups. I admired that they got away with it to be fair but still I never ran a pug with them. Sure blizzards fixed this mostly now in LFR/LFD in normal pug raids this still can occur.

Alright I believe you had a different experience then me. On my realm you got easily blacklisted and by easily I don't mean you got blacklisted for just one offense - I mean everyone knew everyone that was worth knowing (bad or good). But to get back on topic. As you can see, the community is just acting with the tools it is handed. So there were people who looted in a disrespectful way (just using another term as ninja is not understood by a lot and broaden its meaning). This will always happen aslong as there are features that can be abused.

So was the community much worse then now? The people themselves were the same. The community was better then, cause atleast on my realm the social aspect made it impossible for these people to be asses. They could act out a couple of times and then they were shunned. Again.... this was on my realm.

I am not saying we shouldn't bash LFR/LFD you should perhaps read what I wrote and not be so arrogant? I merely pointed out that I liked what LFD has done for me and my friends on a personal level.

Indeed the LFRfeatures are great additions to the game. In a perfect world where everyone was happy and respectful towards one another this feature would be celebrated universally. But since we do not have an ideal world, the scum of the earth uses it to keep behaving badly without repercussions.

As for you not talking much thats the issue I wish to address. That is not blizzards fault that when you are thrown into a dungeon with a bunch of random people that you refuse to talk

I don't talk much if any during LFR/LFD cause if you do, my experience tells me (sadly) that you get bashed for pretty much anything. Hell they even begin to say: "dude stfu I just want this dungeon to be over so I can finish capping my valor." (actual quote)

Sure sometimes when there are talks in /p (/i) - they can be nice. But mostly the chat is being used by people that have a broken capslock.

As for pugs I always see sha pugs thats a given. But there are a number of 10man pugs and some rare 25man pugs (most of its 10man due to the ease of it i'm guessing?) being formed daily in trade. This is on a PVE server as well. There are 5mans formed for the challenge modes but I see these a few times not as common as the raid pugs. 5man dungeon runs are very rare to see for heroics as LFD has replaced the need for most of this.

Not saying the games perfect, but sometimes people should make an effort. In my eyes LFR and LFD are great tools, are they perfect? No but I think they do a good job and I personally love them. I even talked to a druid tank last night as I was running terrace he was chatting to me quite a bit. Made a new friend via battle.net

It is true it does happen. Though very rarely on my server. Challengemodes especially are a fail mostly to form via pugs. They have a far less % to beat the golden time - or servertime vs guildruns. So they aren't made much. Transmog raids do happen, yet I (for now) shun those out of fear of ninjalooting or pointless discussions about who gets what piece of transmog to complete their set. Yes while I never really seen any ninjas, due to the community as it is now - I don't know anyone anymore and thus cannot know beforehand if I am in a group with a ninjalooter. So I avoid these.

I am sorry you feel I am arrogant. While that post I linked wasn't an attempt at being arrogant. It was my frustration that made that post seeing as many people just walk passed the real issue. You can blame whatever on whomever, ultimately it comes down to humans being humans = they need a form of control/punishment/reward-system. Else they will be assholes - granted not everyone - but enough to piss a lot of people off = why we have threads such as this one.

[ihyln]

Ghostcrawler

[khalltusk]

It seems to me that its more to do with what happens with each persons experiences in LFD/LFR. There are systems in place (not perfect by any means) to help deal with trouble makers. I do think blizzard can improve on that though and make it so people don't abuse the system too much.

In the old days unless you were in a guild getting into a pug was a bit of an annoyance. I often had an alt that I wanted to get geared up and before the account wide achievements I couldn't get into a random pug as they wanted me to have the achievement of clearing the raid to enter the raid..... (puzzling isnt it) I then decided to form my own pugs on my Alt instead worked a treat but for a lot of people not being in a guild hurt their chances of doing any raiding.

My brother being a prime example. He is an ok player - never the best and only plays very casually. He and his friends tried to raid Nax 10 - they were new to it and wiped a fair bit but they got it down after a few raids that I ran with them to show them the ropes. If LFR/LFD was available to them they could have used that to get raids up rather than trying to desperately scrape the bottom of the barrel finding people who could raid during the time they had available. Thats why I like LFR so much I can go online say to my friend fancy a raid? we pop on and queue up do a few quests while we wait and get into our raid no fuss. They are now back for mop but on another server so we're seeing if we can do some cross realm dungeons etc (I think it works never tried it my self only done LFR/LFD which works x faction)

[Deleted]

It would cost me $615 to move to servers, a cost which I have already paid twice as two pvp servers I've played on have gone from balanced to 99%+ Horde. Why should I keep having to shell out because of other people's choices? Are you offering to pay my transfer costs for me? If not your solution seems fairly shallow and unhelpful for people who've actually experienced this.

You can either:

1. Complain and hope for change that will never come because Blizz are cheap (seriously don't hold your breath with Blizzard).

2. Adapt.


Blizz should give free transfers to everyone now, but to say that CRZ is good because of dead servers is wrong. Those servers should not be dead in the first place, and people should learn how to make friends.

[Deleted]

You can either:

1. Complain and hope for change that will never come because Blizz are cheap (seriously don't hold your breath with Blizzard).

2. Adapt.


Blizz should give free transfers to everyone now, but to say that CRZ is good because of dead servers is wrong. Those servers should not be dead in the first place, and people should learn how to make friends.

Combine #1 with #2: unsub and complain in the unsub message about the issue.

[Prancing Minstrel]

Probably LFG, but it was completely worth it though. Only a tiny part of the actual population was part of the fabled 'community' to begin with.

[Deleted]

Good for you. Sadly doesn't count for everyone. I was in a guild in Vanilla that did every raid-type up to Naxx. Meanwhile the guild was filled with people who couldn't play and were carried by let's say 15 people in the 40 man. So I actually needed to go out in the world and make friends. And as such made a reputation and was known across the server even the horde side knew me (be it far less ofc). Ultimately I made my own guild of these people I met during my travels and surpassed my former guild with flying colours.

And then you have the other type of player that was never in a guild. So if you weren't an active party of the community doesn't mean that it didn't exist.

So its rather about e-fame for you than about having a family like atmosphere inside the realm you're playing?

I can go with such notion, until your guild falls apart for one reason or another or you part ways for one reason or another. This usually happens somewhere throughout the time line. Being in the same guild for 8 years, while it does happen, is rare and exceptional. When the gquit/gdisband does happen though, and you had all those characters in the same guild and on the same realm then it just sucks to move. I know, you should go for your main and leave your alts behind but its rather sad.

Exactly thats why server transfer and company were introduced. It sucks to move all yours chars, I never moved more than 3 at the same time and now I stick to my main char, still thinking about if I need that farm char on my current realm. I've spent a total of 300-400€ in transfers because the reason why I play WoW is not to make best friends for life-time, but having fun and enjoying the game for MYSELF.

I guess you had a guild where people you cared about never left or didnt changed sides. Quite happy for you but that isnt the norm or the case for everyone else. People leave, guilds disbands or guild need replacements for those who left to keep the guild doing its activities. At times like this it would be wise to be in touch with other guilds or other people on your server to tackle those issues. That is why communities are important.

Of course people left and we recruited new ones, but I still couldnt care less about what other people doing in their guilds or outside my own. Its a harsh way, but why would I in the first place? Not to sound arrogant, but my achievements speak for themselves and I usually end up in a guild I fit in.

My last guild recently disbanded and I had to server transfer to a guild who recruited me via wowprogress private msg.

[Deleted]

blizzards catering to casuals. (not casuals themselves) blizz always have a choise. but since they're a company they go for the money.

[Tomana]

The things that hurt the community the most, are the people who complain about stuff taking to much time/ something is only for the hardcore players. It's like "because i don't have 5 hours a day to play, and thus can't use that kind of content, NO-ONE CAN!".. everything is so focused only on casuals, that right now, the hardcore players are being forgotten

Because the model which focuses on "hardcore" players (I put the term in quotation marks because the top world hardcore players don't usually complain on forums left and right) is not defensible from an economical point of view. You can't spend a huge part of resources into developing content which only a small percentage will see at its release or in a reasonable time afterwards. Games become too expensive to develop for that.

You will also notice that LFR players aren't asking (beside a couple of trolls perhaps) to remove normal and heroic raiding. On the other hand, some "medicores" are asking for LFR removal.

What they should do, is every patch, add 1 hard raid for 10 or 25 man, but not give that loot a higher ilvl than the normal raids. In that way, the casuals can't QQ about the fact that they can't get better gear, and the hardcore people still get the thrill on downing the hardest bosses..

Translation: they should spent countless hours designing a raid that very few players would see. It will no longer happen, deal with it.

On a side note, LFD has ruined it aswell. It totally takes away the social aspect of the game, of asking for people to join you group. The spamming in /2 wasn't allways great, but it was alot better than the system is now.

On my server, it was a gigantic pain in the booty I'm totally NOT going back to.

---------- Post added 2013-02-06 at 08:53 PM ----------

The shitty thing is, right now, everything is build around dungeons.. You can basically level up till 90 while only doing dungeons. It used to be doing quests, and doing dungeons while leveling, just because you got the quests for it. Right now, u spam dungeons to get the the highest level.

I know people who leveled their toons (tanks or healers generally) entirely through dungeons in BC.

And by the time you hit 60 or 70, and you had to farm dungeons for the blue gear, you mostly did it with your guild anyway. Dungeons used to be something special, fun and social.

Yeah, especially the part where you had to farm items for Ony attunement... oh wait it wasn't.

---------- Post added 2013-02-06 at 08:54 PM ----------

...but where is the proof of that?

That's the problem with all the whiners: they don't even have a basic understanding of economy. -_-

[Vaelorian]

So its rather about e-fame for you than about having a family like atmosphere inside the realm.

You are missing the point as to why I wrote that. From a selfish pov I needed friends and as many as possible to
Create a guild
To have no problems when creating a group for dungeons or raids

Being nice and likable pays off.

And now please don't come at me like I was faking being nice. Cause thats rediculous. Point is I had also had a goal with My reputation. It helped me a lot for many years.

[Regalbeast]

...but where is the proof of that?

in the game direction......?

[Thatwsntmilk]

You could perfectly summarize it in one definition:
The thing that hurt the community (and therefore the game) the most was introducing features that reduced the already present anonymity of WoW pre-3.0 and tried to please the "new type of player" that grew up with instant-gratification games where you get 20 achievements for pressing a random button and post it to your 5000 "friends" etc...

It includes but is not limited to:
- LFD
- LFR
- CRZ
- removing the smooth progression curve and later on almost removing progression past max level entirely and letting players jump into top tier immediately because they screamed for it.