Fixing WoW's Social Problem

[Rylas]

Condensed re-post using ideas and criticism from a previous post. This is how I would fix the loss of socialization server wide. Many people are attracted to WoW as a social game. Playing with people you WANT to play with makes the game more fun.


Problem:

Server socialization has vanished.

Why?:

Cross server random dungeon/heroics.

The idea is sound, make wait times less and dungeons more accessible.
Which it did ten fold but in doing so it removed the need to be social in the server.
From Vanilla to the end of wrath pugging people on your server forced socialization, gave your character a presence in the game.

That presence made you more a living part of the server. People learned who was good, bad, or trolls. Friendships and guilds sprang up based on who they could count on. It also created laziness and less patience which in turn created apathy.

In a random heroic with people, odds are, that you'll never see again you did not have to be polite. It didn't matter if you NEEDED off spec then left the group because the consequences have been removed. In vanilla and BC if you were deemed a ninja you couldn't get into a good guild. Many people were forced to transfer off server or faction because no one would take them, which was a good thing.

Random dungeons has also created a new problem of pugging raids. Due to people knowing less people on the server the players have turned to such mods as "gear score" or "item level" as a soul base or invites. If you have free time or gold you can get either of those.

Pugging people on server is how guilds were formed. You found people you enjoyed playing with, either for personality or skill, and wanted to continue to do so. Being good at the game landed you on friends lists and brought you into the social aspects and personality of the server. With the Random Dungeon this has been removed.

How to fix it:

Change the way Random Heroics work.

Have unlimited from level 1-84 using the entire battlegroup. It is a great tool for leveling and finding a group on server at random levels is difficult especially on low population servers.

1st level 85 (+ heroic) should use a 5-10 minute set up timer. The system would first try and fill the group using pugs from the server. If after 5 minutes the group is not filled the players who are in the group are moved to the battlegroup system and the rest are filled in there.

2ndly the buff "Luck of the Draw" is revamped to the "Home Team" Buff which works like this;

3 people from same server = 5% buff
4 people from same server = 10% buff
5 people from same server = 15% buff (and maybe to even entice more a 5% more justice/valor for full 5 from server)

3rd Servers with low population be merged to proper levels.

Conclusion:
One reason wow grew so well was the human connection. For WoW to continue to grow the social aspect of the game must be returned. I do not want to remove the ease and convenience of the random heroic system, but it could only help if it were changed a bit.


Thank you all for your time and criticism. All constructive criticism is welcome.

[leaks]

You can't force community. If you want to improve the community you need to start with yourself instead of expecting blizzard to wave a magic wand that will suddenly make people nice to each other. Your suggestion does nothing but punish people and extend the already long wait times on the LFD tool.

[blackangel209]

No offense to you or the idea, but this would just screw low pop servers again. It's one of the main reasons it was made in the first place. That, and to help clear trade a little bit.

[Rylas]

You can't force community. If you want to improve the community you need to start with yourself instead of expecting blizzard to wave a magic wand that will suddenly make people nice to each other. Your suggestion does nothing but punish people and extend the already long wait times on the LFD tool.

You actually can force community. It was done in vanilla up to when the random heroic system was put into place.
When a well known player stated they were going to do a raid or instance people jumped at the chance.
Now the well known players have become just random people you pass at the AH.

Wait times would be put back into the players hands. Don't want to wait? Find people in server. Low population server got you down? Move. From vanilla to now they have bent and bent to the lazy population who didn't want to travel to the instance, so they put up stones. Now you don't even have to use the stones you just hit random and wait. Wait times are a piss poor excuse. Tanks and healers never had to wait for a group from vanilla to the end of wrath. And for that matter neither did well known DPS. If you are known for being good in your server or guild there shouldn't be a problem finding a group.

[Pancho]

I'm with you, but instead of that, I think it would better, instead of join random people from the battlegroup, it would first try join people form the same realm if possible (Don't if that is done already but I think not), or give the player the choice of selecting people from the realm or the battlegroup.

I remember in BC doing the heroics was the best way to other players and now is almost gone, unless you like to spend hours spamming trade channel for group

[Nobleshield]

Agreed to a point. The community (what little was left) went down the tubes with the anonymous nature of the Dungeon Finder, and any semblance of manners went down the tubes as well. The fact that the #1 reason people applaud the Dungeon Finder is because "Before it took an hour or more to get a group" shows the selfish nature the game has degenerated into - it's all "me, me, me!" mentality and anything that cuts corners is considered a good thing even if it's bad longterm (hey, just like how most businesses work!).

I much prefer LOTRO's method where the "Dungeon Finder" will just teleport you to the dungeon and out of when you are done; it won't find a group since that's on you in order to build up the community. Yes it takes a while to get a group, but you tend to have a better experience and more importantly you are either getting your name known or learning who is good to group with, and could even form a regular dungeon group with other people.

I would take that over getting a quick and dirty run with people who have no reason to be polite or helpful because chances are they'll never see you again and will suffer no repercussions for being douchebags.

[Deleted]

What the OP is suggesting would ALSO tie into the tank shortage problem too. Now I am not going to sit here and try to make out that EVERY random dungeon group is a nightmare from start to finish because that simply isnt true. during levelling 8 out of 10 runs are perfectly fine, no problems to speak of and the job gets done, but i have found that once you hit 85 that all seems to change. Why? no idea. it is anybody's guess, but i think player boredom is a big factor. but before i digress TOO far this boredom and apathy is causing an increase in rude or elitist players who feel protected by the anonymity of the RDF system. therefore the first in line for the abusive nature of these people are the tanks and healers. Is it any wonder that they don't WANT to tank or heal if they are going to run the risk of that sort of behavior? I know I don't which is why I NEVER tank or heal a random. I always go as a DPS, keep my moth shut and get on with the job

Keeping the groups realm based brings back accountability for your behavior and actions. back before the Random dungeon finder, everyone knew who the good players were and everyone know who the realms ass-hats were and thus avoided them, so it PAID to not be anti-social.

[seam]

Agreed to a point. The community (what little was left) went down the tubes with the anonymous nature of the Dungeon Finder, and any semblance of manners went down the tubes as well. The fact that the #1 reason people applaud the Dungeon Finder is because "Before it took an hour or more to get a group" shows the selfish nature the game has degenerated into - it's all "me, me, me!" mentality and anything that cuts corners is considered a good thing even if it's bad longterm (hey, just like how most businesses work!).

I'm selfish if my group of 2 guildies and myself couldn't find a tank after yelling for over an hour and a half on our low pop server? Or longer if we wanted something that wasn't the daily?(Post daily heros.) Not to mention if the people you got was bad you could do NOTHING unless you wanted to wait hours again.

Sitting in trade chat(Had to stay in trade if you wanted to get people who weren't qued for something) for an hour and a half-2 hours sucks all the fun out of the game. There was a reason I stopped doing heroics altogether.(Along with most my group)

What the OP is suggesting would ALSO tie into the tank shortage problem too.

I doubt it would help. For most tanks I know it would work exactly the same it does now, "Well, my random heroic with people all over the Battlegroup is done, so I'm done for the day"

[leaks]

You actually can force community. It was done in vanilla up to when the random heroic system was put into place.
When a well known player stated they were going to do a raid or instance people jumped at the chance.
Now the well known players have become just random people you pass at the AH.

Wait times would be put back into the players hands. Don't want to wait? Find people in server. Low population server got you down? Move. From vanilla to now they have bent and bent to the lazy population who didn't want to travel to the instance, so they put up stones. Now you don't even have to use the stones you just hit random and wait. Wait times are a piss poor excuse. Tanks and healers never had to wait for a group from vanilla to the end of wrath. And for that matter neither did well known DPS. If you are known for being good in your server or guild there shouldn't be a problem finding a group.

Nothing was forced in vanilla, people did it willingly. Everything you described is a result population growth not "catering to lazy people". It's the same reason populated cities have more crime and ruder people. It's the natural result of a larger broader population. If you want to improve your community you should focus on your community and work to make it better. If you personally make no attempt to improve the server through reporting bad behavior and setting examples then you have no place to complain. There is no magic wand that will fix people's attitude, reverting changes will not fix the problem.

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

allow cross server friends

[Raziella]

As a DPS, melee or ranged, it was absolutely no fun to troll trade looking for a Heroic, especially if you wanted a specific one.
I remember spending much of the early part of Wrath, even, with my response pre-copied, so I could whisper someone looking for DPS and have a prayer of getting to them first by just doing a crtl-V... you literally couldn't type out a reply and have a chance of being in the top 10 to ask to join the group.
And, without the relative safety of the random LFD tool, using your tank or heal OS wasn't really a great idea, because you would get known on server for being sub-par, and that would haunt you even in your MS...

I'm not saying random LFD doesn't have huge drawbacks, but for me at least, 30-40 mins can sometimes be shorter than what I would wait without the tool. It's the fact that dungeons were taking 3-4 hours minimum to complete (personal record being 7 hours for my first deadmines run, with a grand total of 14 different players involved) in the first months of Cata release, and some were damn near impossible in randoms that was the crappy part.

And honestly? There were problems with the community before the random tool... as a game like this ages, it's inevitable. The LFD tool didn't even do a fraction of the damage to the community as Gearscore did, imo.

[Deleted]

Nothing was forced in vanilla, people did it willingly. Everything you described is a result population growth not "catering to lazy people". It's the same reason populated cities have more crime and ruder people. It's the natural result of a larger broader population. If you want to improve your community you should focus on your community and work to make it better. If you personally make no attempt to improve the server through reporting bad behavior and setting examples then you have no place to complain. There is no magic wand that will fix people's attitude, reverting changes will not fix the problem.

Agreed.. but a lot of the problem comes from OUTSIDE of your own server (LFG tool comest to mind for starters)

[Rylas]

big thing here guys... Not saying to remove it. Saying Revamp it.

[Garots]

You can't change a community-- or force it to interact. Forcing it to interact wouldn't be the goal.

[Thallidomaniac]

Low population server got you down? Move.

So you're pushing the blame on someone for playing on such realms, even if it wasn't low population at a different time in the past? (i.e. Magtheridon-EU in the Nihilum/Ensidia era, now it's a low population realm.) Not to mentioned taking the easy way out of "moving" further aggravates the issue.

This would also be a pain for the severely unbalanced realms, people moving to the more populated side just to get faster dungeon queues with this system.

[La]

you`re saying the way to fix a social problem is by making people look for dungeons together? if i wanted to be social i`d go outside, or i`d go on a RP server, this just seems like an attempt to make crappy dungeon queues shorter, not about fixing anything social. I guess being social by asking for a group rather than randomly finding one, but chances are you`re gunna get charged by a tank for that.

you could also just find a guild, find some friends, and run heroics with them.

[nnelson54]

WoW never had any kind of server community to begin with. I couldn't name one single person who I ever did a dungeon with who wasn't already a friend or in my guild, while I can still rattle off names of random people I did Lower Guk and Sol B with 12 years ago. It's largely because of instances. You got a group together, zoned in, killed everything and left. There was very little social interaction, even in vanilla when places like BRD took all day, beyond "sheep this" and "kill that first". Where as in pre-instanced games like EverQuest you'd sit with these people for hours with 5-10 minutes between pulls with nothing to do but chat.

(Clearly WoW is a better game because of it, but there never was any sort of real social in game community like it's being implied that we lost.)

edit: There's definately a community within trade chat, but I'm going to make up a number and say 85% of the players on a given server have trade chat off unless they're looking to buy something or need a crafter. The trade chat community is a miniscule portion of the population.

[Sephirithane]

I've always thought they should add some kind of Random Dungeon Friend list or something. One that would allow you to form parties with people found outside of your server. You can't do that with battle.net, and not many people would want to share their battlenet information with a stranger. However many people wouldn't mind adding a stranger to their friend list.

This would allow new or old players to meet people in dungeons that they actually think are cool to talk to or even just cool to run with, and form parties with them despite being on separate servers. I'm positive the tech to do this is already their, Blizz would just have to set it up.

[Deleted]

less populated servers should be merged... and when they become populated enough they can then be split into their original separate servers and all on the combined realm are then given a choice which server they wish to be on for free. so you would get server Names like Bronzebeard/Magtharadon indicating a merged server etc.. obv blizz would work out who to merge based on population etc.

[tyggyr]

Personally I'm in agreement with the OP.

I'd love to see an option to the LFD browser which would allow you to request that groups come from your own server. I'm certain I'd use it on my tanks, but I can see how the option would possibly lengthen DPS queues in general; for myself, I'd be willing to put up with it for what I perceive to be an increase in the quality of life in general.