Socializing, server communities, friendships

[Surfd]

I think these are the #3 main defining and important features of an MMO. As we have gone further into expansions, we have lost more and more of these things.

No we havent. If anything, we have a greater pool of potential friends to interact with now, with realms being connected. The problem is that we are no longer FORCED to do things, so we stopped doing them. Funny how that works.

Classic WoW didnt foster a community, it FORCED you into one because it was the only way to do things. The only thing that changed was that they gave us tools to better connect with people, and we used them to take the path of least resistance.

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from being social, having friends, and making community circles in the game right now. People just dont want to. And trying to force them into it by returning to the shackles of classic WoW and attempting to artificially create a community isnt the way to go about fixing it.

[Grym]

As much as I think having communities back isna good thing, being forced on it is not a good way to do so. And it will be "forced", as you can already manually set up group and chat now, but people don't, why? Path of the least resistant, same will happen if you give too much incentive to force socialising, it becomes the least resistant path.

[ShiyoKozuki]

How do you expect them to cater to the social players? They give you CRZ so you have more people to talk to when questing. They give you LFG so you can 1) do dungeons and 2) meet new people from servers you previously wouldn't have. You have trade chat and general discussion channels on each server you can use to talk to people. You can go to the main city and just start talking to someone you walk up to.

How in the world do you expect them to cater more to the social people? They can't exactly force other players to be social. Even if you give them incentives to group up with you repeatedly.

They don't need catered to. You simply don't cater the entire damn game to solo/pug players.

- - - Updated - - -

As much as I think having communities back isna good thing, being forced on it is not a good way to do so. And it will be "forced", as you can already manually set up group and chat now, but people don't, why? Path of the least resistant, same will happen if you give too much incentive to force socialising, it becomes the least resistant path.

Who is forcing anything? There simply needs to be incentives to group up with people from your server/guild, or the game shouldn't cater so heavily to solo/pug players.

My solution keeps catering to solo/pug players, but also allows people who want to do things as a smaller community/guild get rewarded for their effort.

Btw, doing things as a small server/guild and setting shit up takes so much more time and effort than pugging, and it should be reflected with rewards.

[Zantos]

They don't need catered to. You simply don't cater the entire damn game to solo/pug players.

The game Hardly caters to solo players. The only things a solo player can do is level by themselves. There are a few activities like pet battling they can do, but there is barely anything for a solo player. They have to group up to engage in PvP combat in bg's. They have to group up for dungeons and raids. The more difficult content requires a better group, which usually has a Lot more social interaction. All the best gear and content requires grouping up and an organized effort. typically by being in a guild. Its a Lot more socializing when you do difficult content.

[ShiyoKozuki]

The game Hardly caters to solo players. The only things a solo player can do is level by themselve.

Are you playing on a vanilla WOW private server or something? Are you posting here from an alternate dimension?
You can do 100% of content in WOW solo(using the tools provided such as lfr/lfg/premade finder) without communicating with a single person EXCEPT mythic raiding.

That's a problem

[Stava]

If you give a buff for typing words in dungeons, would people engage in real conversations or macro twitch catchphrases into their dps abilities.

You can't effectively force people to socialize with giving them something from it. I like talking with people i play with using LFG tools and i do like the fact i dont have to play with same people in these dungeons and whatnot.

[Zantos]

Are you playing on a vanilla WOW private server or something? Are you posting here from an alternate dimension?
You can do 100% of content in WOW solo(using the tools provided such as lfr/lfg/premade finder) without communicating with a single person EXCEPT mythic raiding.

That's a problem

List of things you can't do without communicating: challenge modes, mythic dungeons, rated battlegrounds, Arena's, normal / heroic raiding. Heroic dungeons (only at the start).

There is far more you cannot do without Some communication then there is you can do without talking. Heck, even in LFR some communication is needed for the smart people to organize the raid on a few fights.

If you want socializing, then actually talk to the people you're grouped with. This is a 100% user issue if they feel there is no socializing going on. They are probably among the large number of people who join a pug via the group finder tool and never talk, then come here and go "wahhh no one socializes anymore!!!".

Go try doing a raid that you have to use the group finder tool, and not lfr for. See how far they get before someone talks to explain a strat and communicate with everyone.

You're looking at the Group finder tool all wrong. For what ever reason, you think it hinders socializing. It helps big time since it allows you to meet players from realms you otherwise wouldn't. Want a server community? Try organizing events and creating a guild that focuses on building and creating a server community. Try actually working to create a server community instead of wrongly blaming Blizzard as if its their fault that no one wants to talk or as if they have some control over how or when people decide to actually interact with one another.

- - - Updated - - -

If you give a buff for typing words in dungeons, would people engage in real conversations or macro twitch catchphrases into their dps abilities.

You can't effectively force people to socialize with giving them something from it. I like talking with people i play with using LFG tools an i do like the fact i dont have to play with same people in these dungeons an whatnot.

Exactly. You cannot force socialization to happen. No matter how many times you are grouped with the same people or if you get bonus loot for talking. Like you said, they would just macro some phrase into their dps abilities.

[ShiyoKozuki]

Did you just say you can't do HEROIC DUNGEONS without communicating?And LFR?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWh9aY4pas
This guy leveled, then geared up through heroics, and did LFR without talking to anyone once.
He afked the entire time too doing 0 DPS, to add to that.
Yeah, you're wrong and I'm done here.

[Stava]

Did you just say you can't do HEROIC DUNGEONS without communicating?And LFR?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWh9aY4pas
This guy leveled, then geared up through heroics, and did LFR without talking to anyone once.
He afked the entire time too doing 0 DPS, to add to that.
Yeah, you're wrong and I'm done here.

If he found that fun and engaging, then the game has something for him aswell.

LFG tools for me, on the other hand offers a way to find group of random people in quick manner. People i can try and socialize with, if i feel like it.

[Golden]

TLDR: Group small servers together so that their player base is the size of a normal larger server, give double the drops per boss to groups that do content with 90-100% of the group from the same server.

I think a better idea is to ship all you "forced socialization" people off to your pristine servers where you can form your utopian cult.

Then players have a choice about how they want to play instead of people like you trying to force your play-style on everyone else.

[Ebalina]

Your point became moot as soon as you wrote.
"I think these are the #3" no one cares what you think.

Every one wants what ever they want.
Therefor point is moot.

[SirBeef]

You can NOT force socializing. I mean, look at the game now. You have a chance to make new friends and meet people from all over thanks to CRZ and the ground finder. You can have great conversations. The thing is, no one wants to. Most are content just wondering through a dungeon, not saying a word. The problem is also the fact that for most of it, you really Can't talk. You're too busy dpsing to really take time to speak.

Just because you see the same people repeatedly, it doesn't mean you'll 1) interact with them or 2) even try to talk to them. So what exactly is it you think the effect of increased loot from being in a party from the same realm would accomplish? You have to, again, Want to talk in order for any of this to work. Most of the time, they don't want to.

Exactly. People need to understand that players are soley responsible for socializing. If they want to they will. Most have chosen not to and hide behind the old and tired lfg/lfr/crz in excuses. Blizzard implemented qol systems to help with common complaints from the masses. Then they go all antisocial and blame Blizzard for their behaviour.

[TCGamer]

Dependence =/= socialization.

I'm sorry if you're having trouble getting people to be social with you.

I have many in-game friends and a guild I'm social with. (Which is the same way I did it in Vanilla/TBC, btw)

Beyond that, I don't choose to be social with every Joe Schmoe in the game.

If you're having issues getting a social experience, then the problem is YOU.

[Deleted]

Product lifecycle isn't just an argument you can throw out like it's gospel. Did the game reach it's maturity?

Yes, if you watch the numbers. There actually is noone "declaring" maturity, it happens, after a product passes an age you cant define before. At some point you dont get enough customers anymore to compensate the losses. Exactly that happened in Q4 2010, long before LFR was introduced, and long after LFD (december 2009, 3 quarters of raising subs followed) was introduced.. actually, the decline start has not even a coincidence with a major game change that made the game more accessible, even contrary considering the fact dungeons became hard again at Cataclysm start. So its easy to assume the subs started to decline because of harder content.

When decline started, blizzard freshly returned to hard dungeons. One year after LFD already was implemented.

So if you act as if the sub decline is based on design decision, i could easily argue that the reason obviously was a change to make 5 mans more harder, and not that LFD was introduced.. as it already was a well accepted feature when decline started.

Fact is, that the only conclusion is the lifecycle, because we do not know why more people quitted than subbed. You cant argue with game change reasons, as you dont know if those are the reasons people quitted. You can only use a filter bubble, where you act as if your anecdotal evidence has anything to do with mainstream decisions, while you just dont have any proof for that.

So dont argument with that.

Hard to tell considering the subs never declined until they changed their design philosophies.

Thats just a bias based observation. No, blizzard didnt change their philosophy at start of cataclysm, they just made 5 mans and raids more difficult. So if you act as if a philosophy change was the reason, i could easily counter with the fact the game was being made harder when the large decline began.

LFR, if I recall correctly, was implemented due to the severe lack of end-game in Cataclysm. Raiding has never been the only end-game content. Just because it was successful doesn't mean it wasn't a emergency, band-aid solution. They stuck with the idea moving forward, in my eyes, so that they didn't have to create more content. Is that not the most logical explanation?

No, it is a biased explanation. Based on your bias LFR is no gameplay for you. Right, raiding was endgame for a few only before LFR was implemented. Blizzard actually wrote themself that the reason to implement LFR was the fact they needed a large audience to justify the effort for the ongoing development of raids. I mean, you are free to not believe in what blizzard says, but exactly that is a quote from a developer interview. Also, if you think, it has other reasons, you are free to actually bring in statistics and proofs for your claims, which you just dont do.

Part of a good discussion is to bring more than anecdotal evidence as a argument, and i miss that in your statements completely.

I would also argue that no one needs to see every piece of content in the game.

And i would argument that everyone should be able to see every piece of content as everyone pays for the creation of that content. Why should millions of players pay the development of raids which are available for a few only, if the development costs as much as a AAA-game itself?

You say that there was an ever-growing group of people that wanted to play end-game, but was it implemented well?

Obviously the story as intrinsic reward and items as extrinsic rewards are enough for many people, as long they dont need to organize in groups to play the content. I made a complete blogpost why i think the addition of LFR was no good idea, but i also state that its removal without compensation would just make all those players that actually played LFR to quit the game. That would be a massive desaster for blizzard, and for the raiding game itself, as it would remove blizzards justification to focus on creating raids.

LFR can exist, but I don't think it's good for the game at all in its current form. It shouldn't be a catch-up mechanic that makes other parts of the game irrelevant.

I think it should be the endgame for those who chose it as endgame. Actually, blizzard are the ones who invented vertical progression, so i doubt they would add rewards from LFR which arent useful in raids as well. They already nerfed the reward to become that bad that the only reward playing LFR is just the story nowadays, by listening to another small minority, the organized raiders, to not have any need to play LFR.

I would be fine if it awarded loot with ilvl in between normal and heroic dungeons because that's where the difficulty lies.

I am sure you would be fine with that. Its more about the question if those that play LFR would be fine with that. It could be even solved in a way where envy would have no chance, as the gear in LFR could be rendered useless in raids, but still be powerful in any other gameplay.

I would also argue that the old tier of content should be released in LFR form after the new tier is released so that people who enjoy raiding don't feel the need to use it as a stepping stone, whereby they see the content before they do it in a "real" raid. Raiding shouldn't be the only end-game content that exists, and just because someone feels entitled to see everything doesn't mean it's good design to cater to that.

It's actually no "good design" to create massive content for a minority only in a broad audience MMORPG and to gate millions of players behind their small minority wish for exclusivity. I dont see any reason to give organized raiders a advantage of what content they should see. Actually i believe the organized raiders should not be envious, but accept that their playstyle is being payed by those who play LFR. Instead of asking to remove everything for those players, they just could say "Thanks", and be happy about the massive amount of raid content they get since LFRs implementation.

Broad audience content, I would argue, is why we're in the hole we're in today with content.

WoW is a broad audience game since start. Blizzards mission statement is about creating games for everyone. Blizzard is strong when its about creating mainstream games out of niche games. They did that with WoW, they did that with RTS games, they did that with card games.

If you look for a game for engaged gamers only, WoW actually isnt the right pick. As it always was planned to be a game for a lot of different players, which also means they have to share the same content at some point.

If you want a game that caters to exclusivity, you surely will find that kind of game if you take a closer look onto the market.

I realize that you vehemently disagree with what I'm saying, but I do enjoy having this debate. I'm out for now, but I'll come back to continue later today if you respond.

Because your opinion is obviously based on a false (and uninformed) bias. Stop consuming youtube videos only and learn to get informations from sources that do not only fit to your bias.

[Deleted]

Ok?
You should not cater so heavily to the single player/pug player that it encourages it over guild/friend groups in every way possible besides mythic raiding.

Hm, something is wrong here. Forums are crying there is no content besides raiding (single player one) and you are saying they cater to single player.
Which one is it?

[Eapoe]

I feel like my post in the Nost thread had a little something to do with this one, so I feel a need to weigh in. I will be as polite and concise as possible:
"Forced" participation is not being sociable or having a community.
You CAN do everything solo now as long as you are fine with being a casual player and just wanting to see content; however, if you are wanting the hard to get mounts/achievements/progression you need to be social within your guild, unless you have a ton of gold and pay for a carry. Even then, you can find a guild to raid with and barely talk to them.
The tools given to us (CRZ/LFD/LFG/LFR) did not kill the community. People chose to use the tools and stop interacting. The PEOPLE killed any perceived community there was when they decided to not participate in it.
People can still interact within their match made groups of dungeon making and raid finder, they just choose not to.
"Path of least resistance" is a bad reason for no community as it still does not address the fact that even with it people can still choose to talk to each other but they don't.
Bottom line: WE killed a perceived community when we decided to stop talking to each other when we were given tools that no longer "forced" us to spam trade/general chat for AH sales or finding a group to do something. The only thing stopping the game from having a community is US.

[ShiyoKozuki]

This thread depresses me.
Friendships have always been what keeps me and everyone I know playing WOW for extended periods of time. Even when there's no content, as long as you have friends to play with the game is still fun.

All my most fond memories are with the people I was with, and not the actual content.

Maybe in 2-3 years people will realize this, i mean I was only like 7 years ahead complaining about catch up mechanics during wotlk

[Zantos]

Did you just say you can't do HEROIC DUNGEONS without communicating?And LFR?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWh9aY4pas
This guy leveled, then geared up through heroics, and did LFR without talking to anyone once.
He afked the entire time too doing 0 DPS, to add to that.
Yeah, you're wrong and I'm done here.

I said heroic dungeons At The Start. You're only Now done? You were done the instant you tried using some guy who essentially acted like a bot for your argument. People talk in LFR. Can you Probably safely not talk? Yes, but someone in that raid Will Have to talk to discuss a strat.

[Sansnom]

Are you playing on a vanilla WOW private server or something? Are you posting here from an alternate dimension?
You can do 100% of content in WOW solo(using the tools provided such as lfr/lfg/premade finder) without communicating with a single person EXCEPT mythic raiding.

That's a problem

Forcing people to talk to each other is not socialization. Just people need to communicate in organize group, tank this, cc that, interrupt X etc is not socialization. It is organization.

Funny how people complained about the lack of socialization now. Maybe because people back in Vanilla had, rather than want to, to group in order to complete any meaningful content.

Forcing people to group together does not build long term or stable friendship. Funny how people here complain about lack of socialization, blaming everything and anything. Yet, people in my guild rarely complain about this aspect of the game.

Usually, it is the people who have a problem that complains about it. So is everyone having a problem with the social aspect or the game or just a few? Is the problem really LFR, LFG etc or is it something else?

[Etselion]

OP just want some e-hugs