Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Lady Atia]

Why would they even schedule a post for the single holiday Americans get?

Why should a single holiday only Americans get keep people from reading a news post?

[Dracullus]

Why would they even schedule a post for the single holiday Americans get?

I dont understand your post. Point is, if they want warn people about upcoming Alpha, holiday is no obstacle. It's just a blue post prepared earlier.

[TS26]

i might be wrong. Do they even anounce when alpha is launched?

[therumblings]

I'm expecting them to just put the alpha up alongside a bluepost any day this week after monday.

[Lady Atia]

i might be wrong. Do they even anounce when alpha is launched?

They did it with Shadowlands. It's usually to prevent scammers from selling keys.

[Lahis]

They did it with Shadowlands. It's usually to prevent scammers from selling keys.

If someone still thinks they can buy beta keys, that's a lesson they need to learn.

[Lady Atia]

If someone still thinks they can buy beta keys, that's a lesson they need to learn.

Are you for real? You are aware that there are people out there who joined with Shadowlands and never experienced an alpha/beta for WoW before? Get a tea, listen to some nice music and stop being toxic, please.

[Xilurm]

Are you for real? You are aware that there are people out there who joined with Shadowlands and never experienced an alpha/beta for WoW before? Get a tea, listen to some nice music and stop being toxic, please.

He's not toxic. It doesn't matter if someone joined with Shadowlands and has never experienced an alpha/beta. The internet is full of scammers, people need to learn how to protect themselves, others won't do it for them.

[Hitei]

if you feel like these are just not the correct observations then please enlighten me.

They aren't. You are reiterating exactly what I pointed out to you. That the problem here is not your lack of tools, and your assessment of what does or doesn't produce "healthy"

The statement that I've made is that...

Do you think that if your hypothetical irl friend-group guild had a tool to invite people easier to make repeating calendar events and invite people to them, that it would suddenly be more appealing to typical players than matchmaking grouping or the PuG group tool? It won't. Players aren't not joining guilds because of those minor inconveniences for officers and GMs, they are not joining guilds because they don't see any value in being locked in to a singular schedule that has to be coordinated with two dozen other people when they could run that same content on the fly, when it is convenient for them, when they have time. Because they don't want to have to explain to some raid lead why they won't be at this weeks or next weeks raids--when they can just decide they don't feel like raiding that week and not go find a group.

I'll point out a second time: Guilds have operated for almost two decades now without additional tools. Guilds have managed raids perfectly fine with the calendar or even pre-calendar, so blaming the death of guild structure on the fact that the tools available to guilds are the same as they have been for years, and more than they had for years, is just totally and completely nonsensical. It is not that the game has evolved to make additional tools necessary, it is that players no longer find enough value in those communities to join and be a part of them.

The reason your hypothetical irl friends guild isn't able to recruit well is not because they lack the tools to give them visibility to other players. Make a new, un-guilded character sometime on a decent pop server: you will get spammed with guild advertisements in whispers, random guild invites, guild advertisements in local and linked chat channels without ever touching the guild-finding tool. There is no visibility issue. People aren't joining because they don't feel like joining, not because they aren't aware that there are guilds out there of varying focus and specialty. They get reminded of that multiple times of day.

The issue is not that the game has evolved or changed, it's that players have evolved. The average player no longer wants to deal with the hassle of guild organization when they can just do the same content in a PuG at a whim. You're attempting to avoid that reality by placing the blame on the availability of tools, but a more intrusive, in-your-face recruitment tool than macro/addon spam, and recurring event placement/better invites are not going to stop the "[injury to] communities and people trying to build them", because those things are hurting because they are archaic and no longer desired, not because they lack the proper tools.

Also:

people wanting to play together is always healthier than people playing through automatic group making or manual search. The latter will always look for efficiency and convenience over anything else and are naturally encouraged to get cynical and rude; they will result to taunt, harsh comments, being overly demanding and give up easily, people are volatile this way when it's all about their comfort and that there isn't any consequence to their behaviour.

having groups of solely solo players encourages bad behaviours, so there is a need.

Is an insane perspective.

You're really just patting yourself on the back here, trying to pretend your playstyle somehow makes you a better than average person. I have seen plenty of extremely toxic guilds, both internally and externally toxic. And the majority of the time that I have run into issues of people being assholes in finder or PuG groups, they are guilded people, especially when 2-3 guild members join a run for a thing--god forbid you ever end up the single player in a group that's 2 guild mates and 2 other guild mates and anything starts an argument between the pairs. In Vanilla the vast majority of server community issues and drama on my realm was from dumb clan-fighting between multiple guilds or guilds and clique-like community groups. Solo players just went about their day, much like today, without starting shit.

Solo players who hit problems tend to just cut losses and drop group. It is guild groups who will sit there and start shit, mob mentality and feeling empowered by the number advantage.

I'm not even all that against extra tools, though again, it's a huge waste of dev time that could be going into tools for the majority of the playerbase. But the idea that guilds and communities are failing because of a lack of support in the form of tools on Blizzard's end is laughable, and the idea that lack of guild/community and trending towards solo/pug is what makes people toxic and overly demanding is just... incorrect on so many different levels.

[Lady Atia]

He's not toxic. It doesn't matter if someone joined with Shadowlands and has never experienced an alpha/beta. The internet is full of scammers, people need to learn how to protect themselves, others won't do it for them.

And that's why you have to educate people. Not say "if they don't know X they should face the consequences".

[KainneAbsolute]

Maybe Diablo Immortal has the answer...extra talent trees for specific content...

For example, a treasure hunter tree (for legacy content or fast alt leveling), harvester tree, crafting tree...or do you think we are talking about too many trees? O_O

[Lady Atia]

Maybe Diablo Immortal has the answer...extra talent trees for specific content...

For example, a treasure hunter tree (for legacy content or fast alt leveling), harvester tree, crafting tree...or do you think we are talking about too many trees? O_O

They are actually adding crafting trees to the professions with Dragonflight. And we had a tree for Torghast and one for Zereth Mortis so I would think they would continue that for open world content too.

[Nymrohd]

Maybe Diablo Immortal has the answer...extra talent trees for specific content...

For example, a treasure hunter tree (for legacy content or fast alt leveling), harvester tree, crafting tree...or do you think we are talking about too many trees? O_O

ESO does that. The trees develop in parallel. I cannot say I found it successful.

- - - Updated - - -

They are actually adding crafting trees to the professions with Dragonflight. And we had a tree for Torghast and one for Zereth Mortis so I would think they would continue that for open world content too.

I think that if there is no opportunity cost and you can pick everything, then it's not really a talent tree.

[Xilurm]

And that's why you have to educate people. Not say "if they don't know X they should face the consequences".

There's plenty of ways for people to educate themselves. The internet has so much stuff you can learn from. Yet people like to stay ignorant.

[Nymrohd]

I mean, someone who is looking to buy a beta key from a third party site is already looking to get scammed. I don't have much sympathy for that person. It's not like someone who gets approached and then used through a confidence scheme, here the sucker is delivering themselves straight to the conmen because they want to make a purchase whose legality is suspect at best.

[Hitei]

I mean, someone who is looking to buy a beta key from a third party site is already looking to get scammed. I don't have much sympathy for that person. It's not like someone who gets approached and then used through a confidence scheme, here the sucker is delivering themselves straight to the conmen because they want to make a purchase whose legality is suspect at best.

Buying aside, there are also almost always phishing emails going out.

[ExiHext]

They are actually adding crafting trees to the professions with Dragonflight. And we had a tree for Torghast and one for Zereth Mortis so I would think they would continue that for open world content too.

Yep. Especially things from the last patch are often carried over to the new expac. That whole Pocopoc shenanigans made me instantly think this will get a new system in DF.

[8bithamster]

Why would they even schedule a post for the single holiday Americans get?

Probably because there is a world outside the US? I know that's difficult for Americans to understand, but not every country cares about your independence day. Yay you tossed tea into water, you can now be free from british governance.

If Blizzard had to stop working all over the world just because there was a national holiday somewhere, we would not have WoW..

[Nymrohd]

Probably because there is a world outside the US? I know that's difficult for Americans to understand, but not every country cares about your independence day. Yay you tossed tea into water, you can now be free from british governance.

If Blizzard had to stop working all over the world just because there was a national holiday somewhere, we would not have WoW..

I am sure maintenance crews will keep working or at least specific shifts will. The majority are probably out of office that day though. Sure you can time an announcement to release on its own but you still want to be there to respond if needed.

[Lahis]

Probably because there is a world outside the US? I know that's difficult for Americans to understand, but not every country cares about your independence day. Yay you tossed tea into water, you can now be free from british governance.

If Blizzard had to stop working all over the world just because there was a national holiday somewhere, we would not have WoW..

I am not American. Thank God.

Blizzard is.