How did RDF ruined the social aspect??.

[Dadwen]

What a weird way to twist the blame here, friend.

It is not Blizzard's fault if a player can only play from 2 AM to 6 AM on Tuesdays Thursdays and Sundays. It should not be Blizzard's job to ensure that a player with weird play time availability has the same experience as one who is available at a more normal time. It's a video game not fucking a way of life.

It is not Blizzard's fault that you decide to level 8 months after the initial expansion rush is over and can't find groups. Again, if the game were important enough for this to have mattered to you, you could have leveled when everybody else did.

And finally -- I can't speak as to why Blizzard seems unwilling to combat these issues thus far. If I'd wager a guess it's because they really would prefer to be as "hands-off" of Classic as possible and they simply don't have anybody on the team who cares enough about the plights of people stuck on dead/dying Classic realms to do anything meaningful. That said, I still don't think "fuck it, RDF it is" is the panacea for this issue. They shouldn't be treating Classic denizens as second class citizens and this is one of those issues that can help move things in the right direction again. We've already seen them introduce #SomeChanges. Perhaps it's time we push for more?

twisting? I see a problem, I know a fix for it that works, and I blame blizzard for not putting it in not sure how that's twisting?

again when I played LK the first time I worked some odd hours and due to RDF I ran the hell out of dungeons, without it I probably would have un-subbed shortly after ICC.

it kinda is blizzards fault because as I've said there is know fixes that work they just are unwilling to put them in, seems kinda unreasonable to expect everyone that wants to play to have the same schedule as you do, I mean it seems kinda unsocial to not worry about those players?

"Hands off" and #Somechanges seem to be a bit of a conflict, I'd rather Hands off and #NoChanges and have a authentic LK experience .

and I and others think it RDF is a great answer, if not this thread and ones on the official forums would not still be going, an so far other than "RDF bad", people against it seem unwilling to put forth fixes for the things people are asking RDF to fix other than just placing blame on the players for something we know has a solution that works.

[exochaft]

If there were ways to combat them why have blizzard not implemented them this has been an issues on servers since a few months into BC, even found old twitter comments from Brian on faction issues early this year so it was known, if they have not come up with anything by now it seems they are out of ideas.

and all this does not take away from you still able to have your social group, you don't think there are enough like minded people that would want to have the same social experience as you?.

There are solutions to this problem (and many others in WoW), but I'd say Blizz has been much more hesitent over time to take a plunge on solutions that will cause short term pain but result in long term good health in the game. It's easier to kick the can down the road instead of the addressing the problem, as is done ad nauseum by politicians. Whether the motivation is the same is unknown, but the end result is still the same.

Adversity within reason compared to convenience can be a tricky thing to balance, and it will have impacts on the social aspects of the game. In reality, the social aspects ranging from seemingly mundane to intense all build towards the experience and can be very important to enriching said experience... even if we fail to realize it in the moment. In retrospect, a lot of my best memories from the game revolve around the social aspect of the game and the people I'm playing with, not getting CE or finally getting full BiS or getting an extremely high world ranking parse. Heck, looking back on it, the reason I ended up raiding top 30-50 US was because years before I got ganked while leveling in STV in vanilla, and all the social interactions that occurred because of this one event that many people deem inconvenient lead me to that eventual point. Suppose a more general way of putting (albeit slightly cliche) is that it wasn't about the destination, it was about the journey on the way. Sometimes it's what we think is annoying and inconvenient in the moment that leads us to the more meaningful interactions that would not have happened if convenience was there.

In general, the concept of something being inconvenient tends to be viewed as wholly negative, but in reality there can be benefits. Blizz used to constantly talk about such stuff in blue posts and interviews, and the original WoW dev team was very familiar with this topic. Now, there should be a balance between things being convenient or not, and it should also be realized is that there will be positive and negative consequences for shifting the balance. As a small example, attunements used to be in the game for several reasons despite being viewed as inconvenient: they introduced players to the story/lore leading up to what was to be unlocked, they were used to ensure you belonged in the content (like the heroic keys in BC ensuring to some degree that some people knew the dungeon), etc. When attunements were removed, the positive aspects were basically removed or changed. Beyond attunements, there's flying, which opened up a ton of convenience for players that had large negative impacts on the game that the devs are still trying to address... but in this case, just removing flying would be insanely hard because the players are used to the convenience. Which leads me to...

The other aspect is the players and what they've become accustomed to over the years or have been 'trained' to do by the game itself. While we tend to talk in extreme cases, such as Blizz not being able to directly change player behavior, the reality is that Blizz could heavily influence player behavior and have done some often throughout the life of WoW. Even on the smallest of scales, Blizz influences players without them realizing it (such as roads through zones are placed in certain ways to tend to lead players, and most players probably follow them even if they aren't the most direct route in most cases). Futhermore, this influence hasn't always been positive either, which is how this ties into systems like RDF. RDF is the classic example of how convenience not only shifted how players approached content in WoW, it also conditioned them to where many can't live without it now (for better or worse). While we can make sweeping claims of societal shifts pushing people to devalue people or treat them poorly, we can also say that RDF combined with the other systems and design choices of the game 'trained' or fostered players to view other players more like NPCs rather than other people.

Would the lack of existence of one of these issues still spawned the result we have today? Who knows, that's basically an academic argument at this point, as the real question is what do we do about it. Would removing RDF from the game lessen the negative aspects that the system introduced? Maybe, but there would be consequences to such actions due to how much time has elapsed and how conditioned players are to its existence. Long-term, something probably has to change, it'll just be a matter of how long Blizz puts it off and how much players will tolerate the negative effects before creating a backlash.

If there's something to take away from all of this, it's that inconvenience is not necessarily a bad thing and that Blizz could probably do a lot more to influence a better outcome. Everything is a balance, and currently I feel that the game is trending towards way too convenient in some aspects while way too inconvenient in others. I probably wouldn't place RDF as high as some other issues in term of priority, but it's something that probably should be looked at. If anything, Dragonflight is the epitome of 'easy wins' in this regard... whether these are long-term changes in Blizz's philosophy or pandering to stem sub losses remains to be seen. Regardless, Blizz still has a long way to go to fixing fundamental issues with the game, many of which are of their own making.

[Dadwen]

There are solutions to this problem (and many others in WoW), but I'd say Blizz has been much more hesitent over time to take a plunge on solutions that will cause short term pain but result in long term good health in the game. It's easier to kick the can down the road instead of the addressing the problem, as is done ad nauseum by politicians. Whether the motivation is the same is unknown, but the end result is still the same.

Adversity within reason compared to convenience can be a tricky thing to balance, and it will have impacts on the social aspects of the game. In reality, the social aspects ranging from seemingly mundane to intense all build towards the experience and can be very important to enriching said experience... even if we fail to realize it in the moment. In retrospect, a lot of my best memories from the game revolve around the social aspect of the game and the people I'm playing with, not getting CE or finally getting full BiS or getting an extremely high world ranking parse. Heck, looking back on it, the reason I ended up raiding top 30-50 US was because years before I got ganked while leveling in STV in vanilla, and all the social interactions that occurred because of this one event that many people deem inconvenient lead me to that eventual point. Suppose a more general way of putting (albeit slightly cliche) is that it wasn't about the destination, it was about the journey on the way. Sometimes it's what we think is annoying and inconvenient in the moment that leads us to the more meaningful interactions that would not have happened if convenience was there.

In general, the concept of something being inconvenient tends to be viewed as wholly negative, but in reality there can be benefits. Blizz used to constantly talk about such stuff in blue posts and interviews, and the original WoW dev team was very familiar with this topic. Now, there should be a balance between things being convenient or not, and it should also be realized is that there will be positive and negative consequences for shifting the balance. As a small example, attunements used to be in the game for several reasons despite being viewed as inconvenient: they introduced players to the story/lore leading up to what was to be unlocked, they were used to ensure you belonged in the content (like the heroic keys in BC ensuring to some degree that some people knew the dungeon), etc. When attunements were removed, the positive aspects were basically removed or changed. Beyond attunements, there's flying, which opened up a ton of convenience for players that had large negative impacts on the game that the devs are still trying to address... but in this case, just removing flying would be insanely hard because the players are used to the convenience. Which leads me to...

The other aspect is the players and what they've become accustomed to over the years or have been 'trained' to do by the game itself. While we tend to talk in extreme cases, such as Blizz not being able to directly change player behavior, the reality is that Blizz could heavily influence player behavior and have done some often throughout the life of WoW. Futhermore, this influence hasn't always been positive either, which is how this ties into systems like RDF. RDF is the classic example of how convenience not only shifted how players approached content in WoW, it also conditioned them to where many can't live without it now (for better or worse). While we can make sweeping claims of societal shifts pushing people to devalue people or treat them poorly, we can also say that RDF combined with the other systems and design choices of the game 'trained' or fostered players to view other players more like NPCs rather than other people.

Would the lack of existence of one of these issues still spawned the result we have today? Who knows, that's basically an academic argument at this point, as the real question is what do we do about it. Would removing RDF from the game lessen the negative aspects that the system introduced? Maybe, but there would be consequences to such actions due to how much time has elapsed and how conditioned players are to its existence. Long-term, something probably has to change, it'll just be a matter of how long Blizz puts it off and how much players will tolerate the negative effects before creating a backlash.

If there's something to take away from all of this, it's that inconvenience is not necessarily a bad thing and that Blizz could probably do a lot more to influence a better outcome. Everything is a balance, and currently I feel that the game is trending towards way too convenient in some aspects while way too inconvenient in others. I probably wouldn't place RDF as high as some other issues in term of priority, but it's something that probably should be looked at. If anything, Dragonflight is the epitome of 'easy wins' in this regard... whether these are long-term changes in Blizz's philosophy or pandering to stem sub losses remains to be seen. Regardless, Blizz still has a long way to go to fixing fundamental issues with the game, many of which are of their own making.

wow was built on being convenient I came from EQ (wow was joked as hello kitty world of MMO) the whole RDF killed my social experience is baloney anyway at some point you could add battle tags as friends and just had a bigger group to pull your social group from *had a number of them back then, but the entire inconvenience thing should never impede with actually playing the game, the dungeons-raids should be hard\the mob should be hard\the quest puzzle should be hard, getting a chance to be able to do the content should not be hard.

*maybe challenging is a better word than hard in this case.

[Relapses]

As a whole? I agree with you, the game itself won't live or die because of RDF, however for some people it's a deal breaker one way or the other.

I could make the argument that people on the fringe who are using the lack of the RDF as a reason not to play likely weren't very interested in Classic WotLK in the first place. It's such a petty thing to hold against Blizzard. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'd wager a lot of these people are more upset that they were told no by Blizzard than they are about the RDF itself. Because Blizzard made ~a choice~ the default position of this community is that whatever that choice was, it was made either in spite of or with contempt for its playerbase.

Personally, I don't think Blizzard is in the luxurious position it is in the gaming world through pure indiscriminate hate for their players; I just think that whenever the extreme ends of any fringe argument feel they're being targeted they have a tendency to whine the loudest. I try to view things in a slightly more pragmatic, less cynical light, though that admittedly gets me in trouble with the non-insignificant number of forum posters whose entire personality is defined by hating on Blizzard.

[Katchii]

I could make the argument that people on the fringe who are using the lack of the RDF as a reason not to play likely weren't very interested in Classic WotLK in the first place. It's such a petty thing to hold against Blizzard. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'd wager a lot of these people are more upset that they were told no by Blizzard than they are about the RDF itself. Because Blizzard made ~a choice~ the default position of this community is that whatever that choice was, it was made either in spite of or with contempt for its playerbase.

Personally, I don't think Blizzard is in the luxurious position it is in the gaming world through pure indiscriminate hate for their players; I just think that whenever the extreme ends of any fringe argument feel they're being targeted they have a tendency to whine the loudest. I try to view things in a slightly more pragmatic, less cynical light, though that admittedly gets me in trouble with the non-insignificant number of forum posters whose entire personality is defined by hating on Blizzard.

If people are basing their experiences on what they saw back in the day when WotLK was current, I can understand how some might say RDF not being in the game would be a deal breaker. On some servers (mine included) trying to find a group was absolutely excruciating. I'll never forget the day I decided to quit back then, trying to find a group for a Heroic Dungeon for the third day in a row without success after 2 hours and my motivation to continue playing was dead. So I quit. RDF saved the game for me back then.

[Dadwen]

If people are basing their experiences on what they saw back in the day when WotLK was current, I can understand how some might say RDF not being in the game would be a deal breaker. On some servers (mine included) trying to find a group was absolutely excruciating. I'll never forget the day I decided to quit back then, trying to find a group for a Heroic Dungeon for the third day in a row without success after 2 hours and my motivation to continue playing was dead. So I quit. RDF saved the game for me back then.

just ran across a screen shot of a who for all the level 70's on the BC classic server I played on in May Eastern server at 5:29 PM , was 6 people total, 1 shaman, 1 Hunter, two mages, and two Warriors. - ya unsubbed shortly after that. (think they could at least offer a free server transfer off for servers that bad, I don't think the other faction will really notice us gone).

[Skylarking]

At least there's an opportunity for social interaction in one of those situations. The RDF removes it completely which is, like, the whole fucking point.

I hear this argument as well and don't get it. I've had social interaction with and without the rdf. I've seen people act like ass holes as well with or without rdf. I have had positive interactions with and without the rdf.

Maybe we should look at what the game is doing wrong if people are so anti rdf because ffxiv has no problem with social interaction it seems with their rdf.

[Grinning Serpent]

And finally -- I can't speak as to why Blizzard seems unwilling to combat these issues thus far. If I'd wager a guess it's because they really would prefer to be as "hands-off" of Classic as possible and they simply don't have anybody on the team who cares enough about the plights of people stuck on dead/dying Classic realms to do anything meaningful. That said, I still don't think "fuck it, RDF it is" is the panacea for this issue. They shouldn't be treating Classic denizens as second class citizens and this is one of those issues that can help move things in the right direction again. We've already seen them introduce #SomeChanges. Perhaps it's time we push for more?

I think the most likely rational explanation is simply that Classic is handled by a skeleton crew, and there's only a limited amount of work hours they can dedicate to anything non-essential. Major gameplay-affecting bugs and preparing phase 2 (Ulduar) are probably the top priorities, with everything else being "when we have time." Some things will certainly be a design objectives difference (RDF vs no RDF), but I think most of it is *probably* just a lack of resources to spend on the projects.

I will play whether they put RDF in or not. It makes little difference to me. But I'd rather they don't do RDF and just simply make the LFG tool more effective.

- - - Updated - - -

I hear this argument as well and don't get it. I've had social interaction with and without the rdf. I've seen people act like ass holes as well with or without rdf. I have had positive interactions with and without the rdf.

Maybe we should look at what the game is doing wrong if people are so anti rdf because ffxiv has no problem with social interaction it seems with their rdf.

Really? Almost every Duty Finder group I've ever been in has been stone silent aside from generic hellos and goodbyes. The only time people really talk is if there's a wipe and they want to make sure that everyone is aware of what they need to do.

I played that game for the past... I dunno, almost four years? And I honestly can't remember when the last time I had a DF group that was actually chatting and having normal conversations. The fact that a lot of players use gamepads instead of keyboards probably exacerbates it.

[Skylarking]

Really? Almost every Duty Finder group I've ever been in has been stone silent aside from generic hellos and goodbyes. The only time people really talk is if there's a wipe and they want to make sure that everyone is aware of what they need to do.

I played that game for the past... I dunno, almost four years? And I honestly can't remember when the last time I had a DF group that was actually chatting and having normal conversations. The fact that a lot of players use gamepads instead of keyboards probably exacerbates it.

My experience was different, although brief as i did not play the game long. But as i said social experience in ffxiv is vastly superior to wow and i think i can point to a few obvious reasons as to why that is. I mean shit you can literally go night clubbing in it with others in-game. It's no wonder that something as insignificant as rdf doesn't diminish social cues and no one gives a crap about it being in the game.

WoWs problem has always been ever since the beginning it lacks these kind of interactions, outside the first few years of its launch when being online in a virtual world was so novel and new to everyone it was enough to drive social interaction everywhere you went.

But anyway its probably pointless to ponder over these ideas since the classic team has shown no willingness to add new content to the game (nor have the retail dev team thought of adding any major social hub or any of the sort either)

[Ragedaug]

What a weird way to twist the blame here, friend.

It is not Blizzard's fault if a player can only play from 2 AM to 6 AM on Tuesdays Thursdays and Sundays. It should not be Blizzard's job to ensure that a player with weird play time availability has the same experience as one who is available at a more normal time. It's a video game not fucking a way of life.

It is not Blizzard's fault that you decide to level 8 months after the initial expansion rush is over and can't find groups. Again, if the game were important enough for this to have mattered to you, you could have leveled when everybody else did.

It's not about fault. It's not Blizzards fault. I don't think anyone is saying it is. But it is Blizzard's job to ensure a player with a weird play time is able to play their game if they expect said player to pay a sub.

If Blizzard doesn't care about subs, they I would agree with you, but I think job #1 for Blizzard employees is "find ways to make the game more appealing to more people so we can have as many players as possible paying a monthly sub". So yeah, I think you are wrong on that point.

[Grinning Serpent]

My experience was different, although brief as i did not play the game long. But as i said social experience in ffxiv is vastly superior to wow and i think i can point to a few obvious reasons as to why that is. I mean shit you can literally go night clubbing in it with others in-game. It's no wonder that something as insignificant as rdf doesn't diminish social cues and no one gives a crap about it being in the game.

WoWs problem has always been ever since the beginning it lacks these kind of interactions, outside the first few years of its launch when being online in a virtual world was so novel and new to everyone it was enough to drive social interaction everywhere you went.

But anyway its probably pointless to ponder over these ideas since the classic team has shown no willingness to add new content to the game (nor have the retail dev team thought of adding any major social hub or any of the sort either)

Oh, I agree XIV is a billion times better as a social engine. But we're talking about the RDF/DF experience, and in my experience, in both games, groups are as quiet as graveyard mice.

[Relapses]

It's not about fault. It's not Blizzards fault. I don't think anyone is saying it is. But it is Blizzard's job to ensure a player with a weird play time is able to play their game if they expect said player to pay a sub.

If Blizzard doesn't care about subs, they I would agree with you, but I think job #1 for Blizzard employees is "find ways to make the game more appealing to more people so we can have as many players as possible paying a monthly sub". So yeah, I think you are wrong on that point.

Yeah, no. This is just ridiculous entitlement on your part. Plenty of businesses are successful without being open 24/7. If you have outside circumstances impacting your ability to play a video game it is not on the developers of the video game to ensure you have the same experience at 5:03 am on a Thursday as you would at 8:30 pm on a Tuesday.

[Skylarking]

Oh, I agree XIV is a billion times better as a social engine. But we're talking about the RDF/DF experience, and in my experience, in both games, groups are as quiet as graveyard mice.

It can be but doesn't have to be. I don't understand why people think that just because you're in a random dungeon from the dungeon finder you can't speak? I say things occasionally and it gets things rolling and sometimes i dont feel like breaking the ice. Shits complicated when it comes to social experiences and i feel like just putting the blame squarely on rfd is a bit short sighted.

[kranur]

It can be but doesn't have to be. I don't understand why people think that just because you're in a random dungeon from the dungeon finder you can't speak?

This is the point that some of you simply cannot understand. If a feature removes any all sorts of need to do something then people will just not do it.
It's like adding a vendor with raid gear for cheap and say "you don't have to buy it from the vendor, you can still raid to get it". Almost all people are always going to choose the easy way out, that doesn't mean it's something good.

[Mysterymask]

This is the point that some of you simply cannot understand. If a feature removes any all sorts of need to do something then people will just not do it.
It's like adding a vendor with raid gear for cheap and say "you don't have to buy it from the vendor, you can still raid to get it". Almost all people are always going to choose the easy way out, that doesn't mean it's something good.

Ie no one wants to talk to you unless they are forced too?

[Ragedaug]

Yeah, no. This is just ridiculous entitlement on your part. Plenty of businesses are successful without being open 24/7. If you have outside circumstances impacting your ability to play a video game it is not on the developers of the video game to ensure you have the same experience at 5:03 am on a Thursday as you would at 8:30 pm on a Tuesday.

=) yeah, no. The entitlement is from the company that thinks players owe them monthly subs for a game the player doesn't enjoy playing.

I guess that's the new zoomer mindset? I should be able to make any product I want, and people should just buy it regardless of whether they want to.

[Relapses]

=) yeah, no. The entitlement is from the company that thinks players owe them monthly subs for a game the player doesn't enjoy playing.

I guess that's the new zoomer mindset? I should be able to make any product I want, and people should just buy it regardless of whether they want to.

I'd argue the precise opposite is the truth. Just because the game has a subscription doesn't mean Blizzard is obligated to satisfy every weird fucking segment of the gaming population.

[Ragedaug]

This is the point that some of you simply cannot understand. If a feature removes any all sorts of need to do something then people will just not do it.

Not sure if you just aren't playing the game, but the current LFG tool doesn't force anyone to socialize or communicate. So RDF doesn't hurt or improve that aspect of the game. The social impact of RDF vs LFG is a net neutral.

This is coming from playing Classic since it was introduced where probably 80% of the randoms I've grouped with never said a word, and of the remaining, 10% may have said, "gg", before dropping group. The final 10% may have said more words then just "gg", but that's the same I experience in RDF.

My social experience in Retail RDF is exactly the same as the current LFG in Classic. It's almost like the tool isn't dictating social behavior. It's almost like the social behavior of the players is dictated by said players.

[ryjkur]

People talk in groups ALOT without RDF, dungeons are full of chat. In classic group members chat to each other and sometimes they even forget to pull and no one says "go go go" in dungeons. People dont want to clear dungeons fast and thats the social aspect.

[Ragedaug]

Just because the game has a subscription doesn't mean Blizzard is obligated to satisfy every weird fucking segment of the gaming population.

OK, great argument. I would agree with that. That's not what I was saying, so great job being right about something no one is arguing. You win the internet my friend!

Also to note, that's not precisely the opposite of what I said. That's some weird tangent you just went on.

Also also to note, there's no way to satisfy every weird segment of the gaming population, because some segments want literally the opposite thing of what other segments want. So that would be an impossible obligation.

What I said was pretty simple and straight forward. Blizzard is only obligated to satisfy whatever segments of the gaming population that they hope to garner monthly subs from.

Like how do you think they will get monthly subs from segments that they want to play their game if they aren't satisfying those segments?

- - - Updated - - -

People talk in groups ALOT without RDF, dungeons are full of chat. In classic group members chat to each other and sometimes they even forget to pull and no one says "go go go" in dungeons. People dont want to clear dungeons fast and thats the social aspect.

Nope, that's pretend and not reality. Nice try though. I'm the only one who talks in nearly all of my dungeons runs. So maybe you only get on runs with me, so you are like "someone's talking in all my dungeons", but it's just me. And if that's the case, that means you let me do all the talking while you aren't saying anything.

Also folks get really impatient if I try to talk about an upcoming pull and they'll just pull the group without me, even if I'm the tank. So yeah, "go go go" is real in LFG.