Is this a singleplayer game?

[Cyanu]

I'm currently leveling a new character after I quit mid Legion and just reached level 40 the other day. In these 40 levels I had zero interactions with other players and saw maybe one other player in the zone I was in. The world chat is dead and all you see in trade chat is people spaming their boost adverts. This can hardly be called an MMO anymore. Now you could say: "Just play Classic then". And I tried that and it's even worse. Good luck finding people that are willing to do quests or run a dungeon normally. What has happend that the game became so asocial?

keyword leveling

none cares about leveling anymore, not even in classic (which is a shitshow btw), get to max level tons of people on LFG for any kind of activity, in fact you can't have an meaningfull progress without a group - all the top tier rewards come from group content

[vulfrika]

No.
WoW is not and will never be a single player game. A bunch of lonely people on this site might convince you otherwise (typically with idiotic reference to "the community"), but every single aspect of the endgame is faster and more fun to do with friends. Gold, mount/pet-farming, raiding, pvp, myth+, achivement hunting are all faster and more fun to do with friends.

Trying to play wow as a single player game will just result in you feeling isloated and never achiveming anything worthwhile.

[Kathranis]

At this point in time I think most people are already part of their own communities and are socializing via Guild / Community chat / Discord.

Leveling and world content is largely a single player experience unless you seek people out. Lots of people leveling alts just kind of do it on autopilot.

You can always try an RP server if you want a more immersive experience.

[kranur]

Well the QoL updates to the systems over the years have removed the need to communicate in order reach your goals.
Want to do group content? Press join queue.
Need an enchant? Search thr AH.
These have made Trade and LFG channels obsolete and that's not really a bad thing.

As far as chatting goes, I find classic to be quite active in world channels and guild and retail mostly in guild.

As for meeting a lot of people while leveling and this applies to both.. why would you expect there to be a large population continously leveling at this point? People reach max level and focus on improving their characters not starting over again and again.

[Elderwolf]

With the full toxic in most group content I wish it was single player.
Just ban raider io
It's always something in wow that's just waiting to ruin your enjoyment. Ilvl meta class achievement's and now we have to battle with raiderio. Games getting out of hand. More work than fantasy.

[ClassicPeon]

I'm currently leveling a new character after I quit mid Legion and just reached level 40 the other day. In these 40 levels I had zero interactions with other players and saw maybe one other player in the zone I was in. The world chat is dead and all you see in trade chat is people spaming their boost adverts. This can hardly be called an MMO anymore. Now you could say: "Just play Classic then". And I tried that and it's even worse. Good luck finding people that are willing to do quests or run a dungeon normally. What has happend that the game became so asocial?

There has been a multitude of expansions in wow. Each new expansion means everyone plays that expansion and not the previous ones. Just like it was back in the very first expansion of wow.

With how many different ways you can level today, and with how long people have had to create the alts they want. Why would there be many people in the leveling zones exactly?

This logic is just so flawed

- - - Updated - - -

With the full toxic in most group content I wish it was single player.
Just ban raider io
It's always something in wow that's just waiting to ruin your enjoyment. Ilvl meta class achievement's and now we have to battle with raiderio. Games getting out of hand. More work than fantasy.

If you dont have the social skills to be a part of a group in a mmo, perhaps the genre just isnt for you.

There are plenty of really good single player rpg's out there

[melzas]

Shit bro, you level through outdated content that's spread across literally dozens of zones and expect to meet people? People levelling are like 1% of players online, and then within that 1%, you have people in dungeons, battlegrounds, afking in cities. The rest is spread thin across 7 expansions worth of zones and then cut in half by war mode.

Lack of player interactions you experience is not a result of player base being antisocial compared to back in day; you draw bad conclusions because your sight is dimmed by nostalgia glasses or wow hate bandwagon you want to jump.

There is plenty of player interaction on max level content, because that's where focus is now and on top of that participation is your choice, if you don't want to talk to people you don't have to and unlike classic or tbc it won't stop you from having fun in the game.

[Razion]

Lot of nerds and geeks are traditionally pretty introverted.
Nerds and geeks also learn shit pretty freaking well, turns out.
That means, not just how dangerous they and enemies are, but also how well each other are doing.
Natural evolutionary instinct to compare yourself to each other, to measure up. Look for valuable traits and all that.
So naturally people get mad at each other for failures. People get frustrated at losing.
People can 'solve' games and rules, but you can't "solve" other people being frustrated as easily.
So, people just decide, hey, instead of grouping up, maybe I'll just solo.
They can calculate the risk of a solo. They can't calculate the risk of a stranger being mad.
People may say, "oh the game lost its mystery." It's also no mystery now what anger in a group can be like.
But there's also a mystery in just how mad other people can get.

So it's complicated. People know now there's danger in grouping, which for sure can be what they've experienced before. But they don't know how to deal with that. They can solve the monsters, the game. But people? People can be predictable, and unpredictable. It isn't easy to figure out fully to some people. To some people figuring out social queues is harder than figuring out numbers and facts. Emotions don't care much for logic a lot of the time, so it can be hard for some to understand.

If everyone was nice no one would be afraid to group with each other - it's strictly more effective to fight in teams. The only reason people avoid each other is out of self-preservation. And it's not survival in the game they're worried about. People have gotten good at that. And now, even if the game is harder in areas like The Maw people will tough it out. Why? Because people are more difficult than monsters right now. And sure, maybe not always, and maybe not everyone is whatever label is appropriate, but maybe, just maybe, the chance that it can happen is so terrifying to a type of person that people just aren't willing to even take the chance anymore. So yeah, people would rather take their chances with a dead-neutral monsters than people who can maybe possibly be mean.

[Osmeric]

It's a zero player game. The baddies are going to be dealt with and I don't have to even play.

[Dazlartist]

You will be acceptable as a friend when you do the hardest content which is where you are needed and can then commiserate with your peers. Anything lower than top level content you are just a leveler who should have done everything so many times there’s no reason to waste time talking.

[schwarzkopf]

Pretty much yes.... for most people, WoW is predominantly a single player game.

For the lucky few who find the right cliché, they won't get a moment alone in game.

The sooner we can hire NPC merc tanks and healers - the better it will be.

[Afrospinach]

I'm currently leveling a new character after I quit mid Legion and just reached level 40 the other day. In these 40 levels I had zero interactions with other players and saw maybe one other player in the zone I was in. The world chat is dead and all you see in trade chat is people spaming their boost adverts. This can hardly be called an MMO anymore. Now you could say: "Just play Classic then". And I tried that and it's even worse. Good luck finding people that are willing to do quests or run a dungeon normally. What has happend that the game became so asocial?

I used to cherish this alone time...in vanilla and really resent the presence of other people when I was just trying to get shit done

I am sure there are not as many people leveling now than before but leveling being a bit of a solitary experience is not something new by a long shot.

[Paulosio]

I'm currently leveling a new character after I quit mid Legion and just reached level 40 the other day. In these 40 levels I had zero interactions with other players and saw maybe one other player in the zone I was in. The world chat is dead and all you see in trade chat is people spaming their boost adverts. This can hardly be called an MMO anymore. Now you could say: "Just play Classic then". And I tried that and it's even worse. Good luck finding people that are willing to do quests or run a dungeon normally. What has happend that the game became so asocial?

Join a guild. I raid with my guild and I do mythic plus with my guild exclusively. I've pretty much totally seperated myself from the wider WOW community in game because like most online communities, anonymity breeds toxicity.

[Garymorilix]

3 pages and people AGAIN fail to read anything more than the title of the fucking post.

The OP is not about the game being less "social" than it ever was.
In fact, there are shittons of group activities to do with shittons of people everywhere.

The whole thread is about OP not finding people in the sub 50 leveling zones to chat with, yet people talk about all kinds of unrelated shit.
Learn to read please.

As for Op:
Sub 50 leveling is not considered content.
We are no longer in the Classic-WotLK era where you had to level for 1 month from 1 to cap. Even then, the world was mostly empty.
Nobody cares, you can level a char from 1 to 50 in an afternoon. You can level a char from 1 to 60 on a weekend day.
Stop trying to complain about something that ain't been in the game for the past 10 years.
Nobody cares about leveling or grouping up to kill 10 boars, especially with shared mob tagging.

Sometimes people try to invite me for quests in the Maw but I just decline as grouping has no real purpose in the world.

This is not a social thing, you can join social guilds and talk to people. It's still there.
But if you are not looking for what you want then don't expect to find it just because "it used to be like this 10 y ago".

This thread is literally like:
"I can't find people to talk to randomly while I level, people should play the game in a way that I may randomly encounter them otherwise this game sucks."
It's not the rest of the playerbase that has to adapt to you, you need to adapt to the majority.
Like with everything in life.

[Afrospinach]

This is not a social thing, you can join social guilds and talk to people. It's still there.
But if you are not looking for what you want then don't expect to find it just because "it used to be like this 10 y ago".

Well you can look at classic to see that the anti social nature of retail really is a consequence of the various systems incorporated over time.

It does not matter how often you say "it is still there", the lack of incentive has had an effect.

[Ealyssa]

8 years old content in a MMO is almost dead ? Color me shocked...

Can we stop with stupid thread ? That would be a dream.

[Zantera]

Not to jump at you but using the lack of activity and other players in leveling zones is a bit weird because the game is more than 15 years old and for many of us who have played since the start, the charm of leveling new characters wears off. The main bulk of the gameplay has always been the endgame at max level and I know it wasn't always the case, but with every expansion added to the game and the bigger the picture, the more true it has become. You'll get some people leveling alts (or new mains) but even then people look to take the quickest route which is usually dungeon spamming (with maybe some questing) and not running around low level zones writing in general chat.

As for the social aspect that's why you join a guild IMO. The worst/most annoying aspect of the social part of the game has always been the general/trade people spamming and writing the weirdest stuff.

[Echocho]

Well you can look at classic to see that the anti social nature of retail really is a consequence of the various systems incorporated over time.

It does not matter how often you say "it is still there", the lack of incentive has had an effect.

Actually Classic is not much better. The problem is more because of the players than it is the game.

[glowpipe]

wow imagine being surprised that by the 9th expansion and with the leveling being sped up that you notice less people in those zones

you may not know this but,people leveling now have the option of leveling in almost any zone made in the past 8 expansions,and those levels go by pretty fast

and how the hek is classic WORSE?how??are people not lvling at all these days or what?

classic barely got players left and those that still play, are max level

[Garymorilix]

Well you can look at classic to see that the anti social nature of retail really is a consequence of the various systems incorporated over time.

It does not matter how often you say "it is still there", the lack of incentive has had an effect.

It's not a 'retail' thing.

Stop being ignorant.

Times changed. 15 years passed. Online gaming is very very very different.
Noone is awed anymore like "oh my god this dwarf is an actual real human somewhere in the world".
Everybody understands what being an online game is.

There was never an incentive to social interactions. If people were just as good as they are now they would have done the same as they do now.
Classic is the perfect example: you might have thought it was going to be the social paradise of "oh my god lets quest together" with strangers BUT reality is people fucking cleared Molten Core on the first week while not even being at 60.

Stop this pink nostalgia goggle bs.