Play with friends you already have, instead of making friends

[venomancer]

Making friends in a game has never been as easy as you put it tbh. By this I mean, people who you actually had fun playing with, added to bnet and you keep on playing with them from time to time. It requires that you have similar objectives, enjoy the same things and find yourselves in similar in-game situations, and lets be honest, unless your actualy goal in the game is making friends, that is something that you don't come across everyday.
I've had my fun with people doing Mythic Dungeons, as I've wanted to smash other people in the face while doing Mythic Dungeons as well, but I think it's always been like this in almost every aspect of the game, I don't think making friends got any more difficult. If that's the way you feel about it, your part of the community or you, probably got too picky; or hey, maybe we'll eventually get too picky in the end, dunno

[Svad]

Gotten 4 new RealID friends in wow this past month, so if you wanna make friends, its not that hard.

[Pantalaimon]

True, but at the same time, the more people who leave, the more people they take with them because it is becoming more difficult to branch out and form new friendships with the people remaining.

I fail to see how it is harder to make friendships. The main argument I see people on here try to make is that they don't make friends because the content is easy so you don't need to talk to others for help & to make friendships. However, that point is flawed because that is assuming that the only reason people talk to one another is for help in game & not to socialize whatsoever, or that socializing always takes a backseat to in game activities. Simply put, people don't make friends because they don't stop long enough to talk to other players, even when the talking wouldn't be to benefit your character whatsoever.

Another thing that affects whether someone makes more friends or not is the types of content you do, or refuse to do. I believe you can make friends with people regardless of the content you do, but some content puts you into contact with more players than other content, and players who involve themselves in a broader area of activities exposes themselves to even more people when compared to someone who only does one thing for a short amount of time. For a simple example, a player who quests & does a dungeon or two for two hours a day three days a week has a lower chance of running into as many people to become friends with than a player who might do a raid, some bgs, & questing spread out over a week. The problem comes when people don't like one or more types of content & restrict themselves to a smaller scope of activities and then wonder why they may have fewer friends than the other guy who does more in game than they do.

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Making friends in a game has never been as easy as you put it tbh. By this I mean, people who you actually had fun playing with, added to bnet and you keep on playing with them from time to time. It requires that you have similar objectives, enjoy the same things and find yourselves in similar in-game situations, and lets be honest, unless your actualy goal in the game is making friends, that is something that you don't come across everyday.
I've had my fun with people doing Mythic Dungeons, as I've wanted to smash other people in the face while doing Mythic Dungeons as well, but I think it's always been like this in almost every aspect of the game, I don't think making friends got any more difficult. If that's the way you feel about it, your part of the community or you, probably got too picky; or hey, maybe we'll eventually get too picky in the end, dunno

Pretty much this. People seem to 'need' an excuse to stop & talk to people & make friends. The general mindset nowadays is "If we're not going to group together to do that quest/dungeon/raid/bg or whatever then why do I want to talk to them?" or "That dude in the same zone as me that has passed by me a few times hasn't talked to me therefore the game is antisocial." (ignoring the fact that they could have talked to the random person & maybe made friends if they didn't strike up a conversation first).

[Vineri]

The fact of the matter is it's a game. No one does most things in this game unless there is some sort of incentive or reason. Why would you join a guild nowadays? The main answer is, to raid and/or have people to complete content with. It's an incentive within the game. When people form friendships within the game, they are less likely to leave and more likely to keep logging in every day. The more incentives there are to branch out and form new friendships with the remaining playerbase, the less likely people are to leave the game.

This is the current mindset talking. Not the ones that originally bred this game. I remember plenty of times folks in the past did acts of kindness / generosity, just for fun, for free.

You are correct that people join guilds for rewards. But with retail WoW's diminished support for guilds, all that is left is players wanting gain without the work involved (then came craftable / alternate profession raid gear). Smaller raids never helped - they only entitled those with big heads to think they ARE the game, when in 40 man raids they were small - a necessary piece of the puzzle. When people need to work together, forced or not, then tend to behave much better, to make an RPG happen. When everyone thinks they are the hero, it's not an RPG - it's a solo player game - and naturally subs will tank. Why pay a sub for a single player game?

[Golden]

I always find the argument that things have changed so drastically to be a weak one. I always made my friends in a guild after repeated exposure, not from some random PuG or a quick group quest, in fact most of the time people were always quiet no matter how the group was formed if no one knew each other from the start. And yes I've been playing since vanilla. Also true for most of the people I've known, something that's usually very evident if your raid group needs a quick fill and it's usually the same couple of people who search their friends lists.

I wanted to quote this because in 12 years of playing WoW, this has been my same experience.

[WintersLegion]

After all these years I still can't decide whether it's ridiculously hilarious or ridiculously pathetic when I listen to my irl friends (fellow WoW players), when they are reminiscing about their past "friendships" with people whom they knew only by their in-game names.

Yeah I have seen people talk about how they used to have a their friends list completely full of people to do dg's and stuff with but not anymore. The reason you don't anymore is because either they were using you or you were using them and dropped each other once their usefulness went away that is not friendship.

[Bosen]

It can be disheartening when you find a team you enjoy playing with and it falls apart for whatever reason. Some rebound better than others.