Which one of these hurt the community more?

[Byniri]

I don't think it's argued that these didn't harm the community, so I want to know, which do you think hurt the community more?

I think it's faction/server transfers. Even with LFD, there's still a lot of things in-game in which you have to interact with people on your own server (raiding, guilds, challenge modes, rated battlegrounds, occasional dailies, world bosses, etc), and you still do have to mind your server reputation and keep it good. However with faction/server transfers, it doesn't matter if you have the worst of the worst reputation on your server; troll it up as much as you want, you can simply pay to do it all over again.

edit: explanation added

[Nerraw]

Transfers. Completely messed up the balance on my server and left it for dead.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

The only thing that hurt the community is the community itself.

[mosely]

LFD helped the community if we define "community" as being "me + my valor points".

[Aquamonkey]

Forums. /10char

[mosely]

The only thing that hurt the community is the community itself.

What caused the community to become toxic? Or has it always been that way?

[McNeil]

Both LFD and transfers do hurt the community a lot.

[Layuth]

The only thing that hurt the community is the community itself.

Incorrect. The community itself is mostly to blame but there are many other things that contribute.

EDIT: Put World of Warcraft in Arcade rooms and suddenly the community is vastly improved...but there will still be other issues.

[Flaks]

What caused the community to become toxic? Or has it always been that way?

What made the community more toxic than before is new mechanics added to the game that killed a sense of progression at the max level and instead provided instant gratification. Players were perfectly content working through Karazhan when the top guilds were downing Kil'jaeden in tBC. Then Wrath came and players that would have still been working on Ulduar were bitching about not being able to down H LK.

This has lead to other problems such as content lasting a far shorter period of time because players could jump right into the last tier.

I can say that without a shadow of a doubt, 5.2 is going to piss A LOT of people off because they won't be able to jump straight into Throne of the Thunder King without gearing up through the earlier LFR raids. Blizzard set a precedent for skipping tiers. Going back on it is going to hurt.

[K i s u]

I would go with transfers in my experience.

[starlord]

transfers are what has really hurt my server. lfd is either completely necessary for small servers or you were on a big enough server that you were still a face in the crowd.

[Confirm Deny]

Rise of MMOs/computer games in popularity because human nature in general sucks. Expectations by the heavily active players who think everybody should be familiarized with min/maxing guides (what, probably under 20% of the actual WoW population?). Possibly just internet culture in general (4chan, trolling, "come at me bro"s).

Truth be told, pretty sure it's just internet flavored misanthropy and popularity in general. To which I unironically state my misanthropic opinion about. Or do I...

[Pull My Finger]

I don't think it's argued that these didn't harm the community

In your little world perhaps.

[Magpai]

No one is forced to use either of these features. People had the option to not transfer or do groups the old fashioned way, but didn't, because most people WANTED to use the LFG tool. This idea that Blizzard gave players an extra choice somehow forced them into doing something in a way that most of them did not want is ridiculous. If the community was "hurt" by the use of these tools, then it was by collective player choice.

[Forsedar]

I believe cross server queuing is what added to the toxicity of the community. If everything was limited to within the server itself, people would refrain from ruining the reputation they had. With a poor reputation, you wouldn't get anywhere so it was required to either put on an act or actually be nice. Cross server, you most likely won't see those people again so acting poorly towards others has no real consequences.

[Shiny212]

cross server instance matchmaking combined with mundane instances "ruined" the community of wow.

[Valium104]

Eve online have 1 server for more than 500k people, and it's far more complicated than WoW. When Blizzard will step aside and merge all servers into one (technology is sufficient for that old game)? As for transfers - go to highest population server and you have a reason to be nice, because you can transfer only to worse servers, which is not an improvement.

[Twotonsteak]

The community hurts the community more than anything else you listed. People who complain about LFD/LFR have the option to not use it. People who don't like Transfers can suck it up. But the community is ever present.

Honestly the community is so bad that I don't even bother with trade chat. I have it pushed off into its own chat box and I haven't looked at it in years.

I've often said that if not for my guild, I wouldn't bother with this game. Because the general community is like reliving all the worse parts of Grade School/High School with none of the good parts.

[Deleted]

Society. Growing up in a world based around materialism, its normal for kids to grow into materialists. Parents spoil their kids, so they don't know anything about being denied something. This combination creates trolling, nagging, arrogant, spoiled and lazy kids that woulnd go the extra mile if they got 10k gold for it. Add QQ when they don't get lewt, and there u have it: WoW community. Eventually you could say that shitty parenting did the trick.

[Duravian]

I think "server communities" are a thing of the past. If you want community, join a guild, make some friends, but having the server as one little pot where everyone is stuck with each other gets old. WoW is a huge game now, server communities would've died out on their own without LFD, etc.