How in the hell will WoW "go back to the social roots" of Vanilla...in Shadowlands?

[Theangryone]

Ask for help with a mob in any MMO and people will show up and help. Ask for help in WoW and you will get told to "git gud" and called a noob. It is not going to change in Shadowlands.

[Clozer]

I updated the Op with a list of things i personally found to make a better sense of community.
Its a personal list though.

All those things were solved back then with the word "inv". Maybe followed by a "hi". And then at the end of the fun "bb". I can't remember a situation that was different. Obviously you sometimes had someone funny/strange/stupid in your group - but that's the same today.

[EbaumsTipster]

Ask for help with a mob in any MMO and people will show up and help. Ask for help in WoW and you will get told to "git gud" and called a noob. It is not going to change in Shadowlands.

No they won't. People are unfriendly across the board, in almost every game. It has everything to do with the current social climate and it's not exclusive to any one game.

[Djaye]

this is all PR bullshit. as long as CRZ exists in game there will never be the community that exists in classic. period. you can move on now...

CRZ is a nice feature that doesnt belong in an MMORPG where you wish to have meaningful communities. why they havent switched to a mega server makes no sense to me at this point.

[Theangryone]

Keep telling yourself this. Currently playing SWtOR and GW2, and especially in the latter you ask for help you get help and players actually communicate with each other. WoWs community is the issue, game design can't change that

[Piamonte]

I think some improvements would be merging more servers, continuing with updates and improvements to communities, more incentives for playing with friends and making new ones, etc

yes, merging servers

- - - Updated - - -

No, Ion is a salesman. He sells you the perception of something that never existed in the first place, at least not the way you think it did.

Server community in Vanilla was based on necessity. Technical limitations, for the most part. And it had incredible downsides aswell. Ever waited 2 - 3 hours for an invite to Arathi? Or Alterac? I have. Oh what great fun unbalanced servers were. You think being outnumbered in warmode today is bad? Ha! Yeah, not being able to quest in Stranglethorn because of how drastically outnumbered your faction was was amazing.

You used to recognize more players and their names back in Vanilla? Of course. Servers were a fraction of the size they are today.

World of WarCraft was always designed to be enjoyable solo. It was one of the core design philosophies outlined by Jeff Kaplan, it was what distinguished WoW from the competition and probably contributed greatly to its success. Group content was optional. You could enjoy vast amounts of the game completely on your own. Sure, the game offered you more to do if you grouped up.

And not a single thing has changed in the game since then, all it has done is trim away the fat of mechanics that just aren't viable in 2020 anymore. There is no mechanic in Retail that hinders you in enjoying the game the exact same way you did in Vanilla. If you force people to do something, you'll probably drive people away.

yes it had downsides, if they ever work towards producing a sense of community in the game it will never be the same as it was in vanilla, but hey, they have a lot of experience and technology they didnt have back then, so may be they can pull it off without many downsides.

[Beefkow]

Just removed CRZ and merge a couple of dead servers together.

Problem solved.

[Piamonte]

Merge servers and abolish the stupid fucking CRZ and sharding. When cataclysm added that cancer, it annihilated each and every individual server community out there.

But Blizzard won't do that. People told them it was fucking stupid to do and they went with it anyways insisting that it would be good for the game.

Deep down they knew it was a fuck up but won't admit it.

yeah the easiest way to create a sense of community is locking people together in one server.

[Rusken]

It can't. Vanilla's social roots stemmed from the fact that you saw the same people every day and actually had to seek out other players for help. That and the lack of information available online made talking to other people often times the best way to learn new things about the game.

Shadowlands would need some major changes to core gameplay aspects in order to restore the social aspect - many of which it seems they're trying. Elite quests while leveling is a big one. Vanilla's best quests are the outdoor dungeons that require a full group to complete but give great rewards and exp.

I would also argue that LFG tool should be disabled until max level, no one quests in the world because it's so much faster and easier to just chain dungeon queues, and reintroducing elite group quests means nothing if everyone's still just spamming dungeons from Org/SW.

The last big one would be to make professions actually worth something again. Needing people to craft major upgrades or specific items is a huge RPG aspect that Classic delivers perfectly. Prominent crafters earn a name for themselves and people who try to scam get shunned. I could tell you right now the best Blacksmith, Enchanters and Tailors to go to on my Classic server.

Unless Shadowlands removes all cross-realm activity outside BGs and either removes or severely limits the LFG tool it will be very hard if not impossible to bring back the social RPG aspect of the game, and even if they did it would take years for the playerbase to adapt back to that kind of play style.

[Swnem]

He is delusional, is all.

That time ain't coming back and it didnt with classic either. Players consume mmo's in different ways now. There are also many other multiplayer experiences competing for players atentions and social networks exist outside the game in prominant ways now.

Also, impossible with CRZ and sharding. For communities to form, servers have to be closed again. Heck, all forms of instant match making likely would have to be removed as well.
Something tells me they aren't willing to do that. Can't have omeletes without eggs and as such, Ion is being delusional or willingly lying.

[Lucetia]

(by the way, it felt good hearing Ion say that. This goes to all the haters who told me several times "there is no such thing as more sense of community in classic wow") - Ion disagrees

Do you understand why he said it? Just because he said it does not mean it is true. It's called a selling point. They want to push something in game and using this as the selling point of it and why it'll be good.

Forcing communication also doesn't make things social either. A lot of the suggestions people are just forced things that doesn't make things social or enjoyable.

[Big Thanks]

Do you understand why he said it? Just because he said it does not mean it is true. It's called a selling point. They want to push something in game and using this as the selling point of it and why it'll be good.

You also Lucetia? Claiming Ion lied like a shameless...lawyer? *self high five* (for the joke)

I dont believe he was lying...
He even said "we have this discussion on a regular basis internally with the team"

[Drusin]

I didn't watch the interview so maybe I'm misunderstand this



It leads me to think that the social aspect of vanilla is something they want for classic. Did he mention it for retail as well?

[Big Thanks]

I didn't watch the interview so maybe I'm misunderstand this



It leads me to think that the social aspect of vanilla is something they want for classic. Did he mention it for retail as well?

The question was:

Is there anything you learned from the fame of classic wow that can be brought to the current game? (something along those lines)

He answered the social aspect. He called it inspiring and said they discuss this internally on a regular basis.

[gd8]

I dont give a shit about being involved in a "community" full of a bunch of annoying alt right nerds I just want to play the stupid game

[Gasparde]

What about, and now hear me out because this might sound crazy, but what about...

We changed the loot system so that guilds can actually distribute loot based on needs, contribution-to-the-guild or simply seniority instead of automatically assigning loot to people that they then can't trade 9 out of 10 times? Like, we could have this act as some sort of social moment where you're like *oh, I see that this item is actually a 10% increase for you whereas it's only a 3% increase for me, here, take it - oh wow, that's so generous of you, I'll definitely repay the favor, we're best friends now*.

Sounds absolutely crazy, I know. But maybe we could run it as some kind of social experiment and then not base our final conclusions on the abusive bottom 5% of the spectrum!

[liberaet]

In my opinion, if there is an option to be anti social...people will take it.

Communities are a perfect example. Its an optional tool

If they want the game to be social again...in my opinion it needs to be "mandatory" by design

This is how i see it...kinda messed up if you think about it.
Removing the option to be antisocial in order for the game to be social

But IMO is the only way

I agree with that completely.

[trapmaster]

If you heard the recent Ion interview, he said if there is something we want to recreate from wow classic is the sense of community.
He even said it to be "inspiring"

(by the way, it felt good hearing Ion say that. This goes to all the haters who told me several times "there is no such thing as more sense of community in classic wow") - Ion disagrees

Sorry for the "gotcha moment"

But how in the world will they acomplish this?
Is it even possible with cross realm tech, no trading, LFG tool, queues, etc?

How in the world will they be able to recreate the "sense of community" of classic with this many tools we have today?

Because, in my eyes, what made the sense of community in classic is the fact we had no tools...so we needed to bond because of it...

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List of things that IMO made for a greater sense of community in Vanilla:

1) Leveling
Mob tagging for your own faction made you want to group up, otherwise you were fighting for resources with your own faction
Also some zones have elite quests OR high density mobs inside houses where is mandatory to group up

2) World Buffs
There are discord communities with schedules for world buffs and the entire server gathers around at the same time in the city to be buffed

3) Professions
You needed to be friends with enchanters and other profession players

4) Raiding
There is no solo queue so you need to be social in order to receive raiding epics

5) Server community
Recognize the same faces, be the servers famous X player for doing/giving X thing
Or be infamous by ganking the other faction in PvP

6) Trading
You can /trade any item with anyone you meet in the world

I mean, why are we going backward instead forward for better mandatory design? Laziness right..?

[Big Thanks]

I mean, why are we going backward instead forward for better mandatory design? Laziness right..?

I dont have the answers
Is more of a question, "where do we go from here"?

Is it possible to make the game more social without going backwards?

It probably is...i just have no idea how.

[Stardrift]

yeah the easiest way to create a sense of community is locking people together in one server.

Someone wasn't around for pre cata lmao