Play with friends you already have, instead of making friends

[Jotaux]

I'm quite introverted so I rarely make friends outside of guilds.

[Saracens]

That is as true as it is in real life. However, putting yourself out there socially probably will bear more fruit if you do it in a lounge bar or on a friendly coffee terrace in the spring sun rather that in your car on the middle of a busy freeway on a Monday morning commute.

It's all about right place, right time.

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I'm quite introverted so I rarely make friends outside of guilds.

Nothing wrong with that, it's your choice.

I think the argument being made is that it's not as possible as it once used to be, and that's horse poo.

[Deleted]

I started shortly after a friend and he didn't even make it to 60.
That was the only one of my friends to play WoW to begin, there were two others but they played the opposite faction and different servers.

So yeah, if what you say is intended it's bad but forcing people to talk to each other is even worse.

Nothing wrong with that, it's your choice.

Beeing introverted is NOT a choice.

[Deleted]

Point being? There were times when incest was considered good.

I'm pretty sure incest was never considered good

[Deleted]

We would never run acorss each other because my circe of people naturally repels runts and pipsqueaks. It's not the "lack of community", it's just that nobody likes you, face it.

So is wow a anti social game or do you have a circle of "people"...

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I was in one of the top raiding guilds on my realm during WotLK, and I was in a very decent RBG team during Cata. Never talked to anyone. Just signed up in calendar, did the job, left. If you think people in the top spots care about your social skills above the numbers you pull, you're delusional and you should probably piss off back to Facebook.

I find it hard to believe you never talked to anyone while such a feat is possible I would question why one would seek it out.

[Saracens]

Beeing introverted is NOT a choice.

I guess I meant situation, not so much choice. There's nothing wrong with not making friends in that SITUATION, but to say that there isn't the ability because of the game is what I was referring too. As is written in the second line of my post. My mistake, I worded that incorrectly.

[Deleted]

How exactly do you guys get friends in WoW if it aint old guildies?

I dont think i got a single friend on my list i just happen to meet in the open world of warcraft! They are all from IRL, guildmates and old guild mates!

[Snackpack]

I think we can all agree that it's still possible to make friends, but I do think it's different than it used to be.

In my opinion, forcing people into social interactions/environments won't necessarily work for people who don't want to be social but it opens the door. I'm not a social person but I made plenty of friends back when I raided/spammed trade chat for 5 mans. Now all of my friends from back then have quit so I play alone. I'm not complaining because I know I can put myself out there and make friends if I want, the difference is that it was a natural progression in the game before, whereas now I can do everything solo/queue.

I think pre-crz and being on a smallish realm was better for socialization as well.

[HuxNeva]

Here is how it goes on a private (vanilla in this case) server:
Leveling isn't blazing fast, and there is no crz or lfg, so you see people leveling at about the same speed in the same zones you are doing for a long time.
Quests mobs aren't the AoE zerg pushovers you roflstomp trough, so for the Murlocs in Elwyn you tend to group up. These are not 'BIG friendships' or 'Social' with a capital S, but brief social initiations, starting with a group invite and ending with a 'ty'. Repeat this a few times and you have the start of potential friendship.
Some quests you can't do (at near level) without grouping (Elite quests in a zone can be very punishing, even for small groups), so you have the incentive to try a group even if you are introvert. This is not forced, you can chose not to ignore those quests (questing is not as linear) but it is more like a nudge, the carrot, not the stick.
Instances, as alliance starting with Deadmines around 16-18, require a minimum of social interaction as there is no LFG. Not only the often caricatured trade spam, but since you have to travel to the instance and possibly fight your way in, at least some exchanges and you are together for a longer period. Wipes may occur and are par for the course (no heirlooms or zerging the instance mostly, even though not extremely challenging so as long as you don't troll it (which would definetly sink your server reputation) you will make it through).
All in all an environment very much more amenable to initiating social interactions, friendship etc. compared to 'current' wow.

[Deleted]

I have nt big choice
Most of my friends do not play games
These who play WoW stopped ages ago

[Amerissis]

See no.

MMOs have for the most part always been about working together with other people to get things done. From runescape,wow,ff,wildstar,guildwars,and well hell pretty much all of them are about being a part of and working as a community.

People like you the imma solo play are fairly new to the mmo scene and I see zero value in having anything spent resource wise to accommodate you.

You want to play solo in a mmo? Fine but your game should end with world quests. This whole make everything retard proof is why we will never see a end game as well designed as tbc.

Oh, so I am a retard, because I don't want to make friends in a game? Thanks. Do you realise people like you are an important and big part of the reason why people don't want to make friends?

[Deleted]

Oh, so I am a retard, because I don't want to make friends in a game? Thanks. Do you realise people like you are an important and big part of the reason why people don't want to make friends?

Didn't call you retarded read what I wrote.

If you want to be a solo player in wow your choices should be extremely narrow designed around simple questing with maybe a class quest. The game shouldn't be designed around asocial players who never talk to anyone. They can play but content must be designed around group activities and be punishingly hard if you attempt to solo them.

[Deleted]

How exactly do you guys get friends in WoW if it aint old guildies?

I don't think WoW is conducive to forging bonds at the moment (for various reasons that I won't mention).

But having said that, I imagine you would need to be an excellent judge of character, be incredibly charismatic, then find loyal people who share your goals.

I could do it. But it will have to wait for now. Online games, for me, are something you only really play with RL friends. Interacting with random strangers can be exhausting.

[Celarent]

Matchmaking spares players so much interpersonal investment in groups that it makes connecting inconvenient or, unthinkably worse, awkward.

Like, "Dude, what are you talking to me, for? Let's just clear this dungeon, type 'Thx' and separately re-queue."

Mythic dungeons and Group Finder were two of the game's best recoveries. The former requires teamwork but isn't so difficult that it excludes many players and/or attracts jackwagons, and the latter forces players to relate to each other.

I figure it'll take Blizzard at least half of one more expansion to figure out that LFG is no longer necessary.

[Auveanna]

This has been happening since dungeon finder and later on agravated by lfr's and very easy heroics.

You just go in a dungeon faceroll everything no one even needs to say a word to anybody and then you leave.

When you have a challenge in front of you though, you need to start communicating beetween each other and then you start talking and one thing leads to another and you gained a friend or 2.


I dont really want to start a ''old days were better'' war but in vanilla and BC there was more interaction.

Realms were also more united and it made this sense of community, people start knewing other people by name and knowing this and that guild which makes making friends more easy.

While it's true that LFD/LFR contributed to the the loss of realm community. This "no one talks because it's faster and easier than before" is exaggerated. I did plenty of dungeons in BC, and in my experience, heroics usually went like this... Grab a couple friends from your guild, whisper every random Priest online to see if they'd heal dungeons for you, fly to dungeon, tank throws out a macro that tells everyone which symbol he uses for which cc and his preferred pace, and everyone goes. You were expected to know the common pathing and to do your job when your symbol showed up. There was no need to talk once the group was formed.

I think the biggest place where there was talking in dungeons that there isn't now, is with the low level longer dungeons (Blackrock Depths in particular comes to mind), and that may be as much a result of them being split into multiple pieces as the random group members.

[xChurch]

See, the problem with your argument and nearly everyones is the "I have an easy and/or hard time finding friends" Its really all opinion and server based.

If you're on a low-pop server complaining about the lack of friendship material, you have only yourself to blame. Though I agree that more anti-social/introverted type people will have a harder time but that's not something Blizzard (or any gaming company) can solve for people.

[Deleted]

If you want friends, go make some.

What's the bloody issue? Hahaha

I can goof about as much as i damn please, in a lot of situations with random people. fact is, that is how i made a lot of my friends.

There is no "Extreme shift", that turned shit sour. If you were social, you could get friends, bound that there are people around.

[Pull My Finger]

Matchmaking spares players so much interpersonal investment in groups that it makes connecting inconvenient or, unthinkably worse, awkward.

Like, "Dude, what are you talking to me, for? Let's just clear this dungeon, type 'Thx' and separately re-queue."

Exactly. That's just how it is. Dude why are you talking to me, pull the mob?!

All hail matchmaking. LFD was the single best addition to the game ever. It pushed all the chipmunks, grannies and other proponents of cozy hen parties to the fringes of the playerbase where they belong.

[ComputerNerd]

"increasingly difficult to make new friends in the game". That's a load of bullshit. Nothing has changed. You don't make friends cause you don't want to make friends. Go find a guild on your server thats recruiting then join it. Simple as that. Maybe if you stopped perusing the forums complaining about how you can't make friends in game and actually tried to make friends in game you'd find the results you're whinging on about.

Agreed.
In fact there are better tools now to experience content with a wider variety of players, and to communicate with them across barriers.
Social interaction is positive interaction without an agenda.
It is not spamming trade for a group, as the agenda there is to get a group to achieve something.
It is that helping of someone with a quest even if it takes you away from something else.
It is that answering of a question in trade.
Doing activities with others which are not about you gaining something.

Those are the sort of things which have prompted players to come back to me long after their help to say they remember me.

[LovesToSpooge]

what do you mean by "Make guilds actually useful and wanted thing again" guilds are useful, you cant properly raid without a guild