Originally Posted by
SirCowdog
The point is not that groups can not be found, or that I personally have any issues doing so. The discussion is about the social dynamics of the entire game, on a server-wide level, and how a Group-Finding or Group-Management UI would effect that dynamic.
The opposition claims that anything other than spamming a macro into a global channel would fundamentally harm the social dynamic of the "Classic Experience", based primarily on a handful of deeply flawed premises:
1) Because Blizzard said so(because they're never wrong, amirite?)
2) Slippery Slope arguments about a LFG tool leading to instant teleports and/or auto-matchmaking, the ruination of WPVP, the destruction of the economy, cross server tech, and apparently creating lazy and/or anti-social people.
The logic behind these points of view result in powerful arguments such as:
GTFO if you don't like it.
This game isn't for you.
You're lazy.
Go play retail.
Whereas those of us who want a better UI to sort through the macro-spam of trade chat just want to be able to better find groups so we can actually play the game and more effectively find players with similar goals or interests. You know, enjoying the game and being social instead of hating and telling people to leave the game or being super elitist/exclusionary because other people aren't playing the game how we think they should.
In closing: It's not that spamming a global channel doesn't work. Clearly it does. It's that spamming a global channel is an EXTREMELY ineffective tool for finding groups, and doesn't actually contain the traits or benefits to the social dynamic that Purists claim it does. Even if it did have those benefits, it wouldn't be the ONLY source of social interaction, or the sole distributer of such benefits.
The premade group finder from retail serves the same function, but in a cleaner, more-effective and efficient manner. It does not allow for instant teleports to the group. It doesn't automatically form the group. It doesn't have ANY barriers to communication with the group or other players. It's just a modern UI version of listing groups.
The ONLY harm it would do is to a nostalgia-fueled vision of what Vanilla was supposed to have been, but doesn't actually exists because Blizzard has ALREADY deviated from it.