The Social State of WoW: Cross Realm Ruined It?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Yes I know it's a rather lengthy thread but please hear me out

Back in the so-called golden age of WoW, in the days when the Lich King yet lived, players actually made friends on WoW. We would notice familar players questing in the same area, and then we would form groups to achieve our common goals. We would then add each other to our friends list and get together ingame regularly. One day, when we had enough friends, we made guilds and raided and PvPed together. We exchanged email addresses, established guild website. Some of us played together on multiple games, and then we ultimately built real live friendships.

Then cross realm came.

I've been leveling alts on various servers - Moonguard, Wyrmrest Accord, Illidian, Cenarion Circle, etc, and I have NEVER had any form of communication with another player. My group requests usually go without answer, and sometimes if they do accept, the group is disbanded immediately after our common quest is completed. We did Blackrock raids, and no one spoke a word, not even to say hello or ask for a rez. I don't bother friending people anymore because I know that I will probably never ever see that player again in the whole game. The only times when I see people speak is either when me and other people raid ToT or people from other realms trying to sell their finds on trade chat.

When I first saw that poster that appeared on my local gamestop 6 years ago in 2007, "World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, on sale for $20! Bundle with vanilla game: just $30!", the biggest seller of all to me was not fighting Illidan, it was not flying mounts, it was not jewelcrafting, it was players the reason why I bought it. WoW back then was to me just like what Dungeons and Dragons was to my predecessor nerds; adventuring in a fictional world with your friends or against enemies just as smart if not more dangerous than you.

It seems like since cross realm happened, a massive chunk of the game's social identity was ripped out. Not only do NPC's and server messages appear more often than player chat, it seems like it has also affected player organization. Since the disbandment of our guild, I have been wandering through the endless sea of unstable, unorganized, and poor led guilds that plagues WoW's servers. So far, I have visited 14 guilds, and nothing really happens. Guild banks are empty, chat is idle, and events are severely undermanned. It would appear only the hardcore guilds comprised of dedicated players or the few guilds that existed before cross realm have any actual player interaction.

Your thoughts on how this affects player interaction?

[Darsithis]

If anything, cross-realm features have made it easier for me to play with my friends all over World of Warcraft.

[Airwaves]

If anything, cross-realm features have made it easier for me to play with my friends all over World of Warcraft.

Yer was going to say this. For the first time in years i am doing more stuff with more people from all different realms. CRZ is good for the social state of wow. Not bad. The thing is, the social side of wow was gone long before CRZ started.

[Rucati]

Cross realm is significantly better than it was before, before cross realm there weren't even people in game doing anything.

That being said, it's really important to remember that the majority of the game can be done solo or with LFG/LFR tools. If you want to have a social experience look for a guild that has a lot of people, that's your best bet. The guild my main is in has a significant number of people, but I honestly only talk to the 9 people I raid with, and even that I only talk to them during the raid. Other than that I only talk to my arena partners. It's way better this way imo, wasn't fun having to look for people in trade all day for everything.

[blackblade]

Yes I know it's a rather lengthy thread but please hear me out

Back in the so-called golden age of WoW, in the days when the Lich King yet lived, players actually made friends on WoW. We would notice familar players questing in the same area, and then we would form groups to achieve our common goals. We would then add each other to our friends list and get together ingame regularly. One day, when we had enough friends, we made guilds and raided and PvPed together. We exchanged email addresses, established guild website. Some of us became friends on multiple games, and then ultimate built real live friendships.

Then cross realm came.

I've been leveling alts on various servers - Moonguard, Wyrmrest Accord, Illidian, Cenarion Circle, etc, and I have NEVER had any form of communication with another player. My group requests usually go without answer, and sometimes if they do accept, the group is disbanded immediately after our common quest is completed. We did Blackrock raids, and no one spoke a word, not even to say hello or ask for a rez. I don't bother friending people anymore because I know that I will probably never ever see that player again in the whole game. The only times when I see people speak is either when me and other people raid ToT or people from other realms trying to sell their finds on trade chat.

When I first saw that poster that appeared on my local gamestop 6 years ago in 2007, "World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, on sale for $20! Bundle with vanilla game: just $30!", the biggest seller of all to me was not fighting Illidan, it was not flying mounts, it was not jewelcrafting, it was players the reason why I bought it. WoW back then was to me just like what Dungeons and Dragons was to my predecessor nerds; adventuring in a fictional world with your friends or against enemies just as smart if not more dangerous than you.

It seems like since cross realm happened, a massive chunk of the game's social identity was ripped out. Not only do NPC's and server messages appear more often than player chat, it seems like it has also affected player organization. Since the disbandment of our guild, I have been wandering through the endless sea of unstable, unorganized, and poor led guilds that plagues WoW's servers. So far, I have visited 14 guilds, and nothing really happens. Guild banks are empty, chat is idle, and events are severely undermanned. It would appear only the hardcore guilds comprised of dedicated players or the few guilds that existed before cross realm have any actual player interaction.

Your thoughts

You have two options.

You can:

A) Quest alone, in a large, empty world.

or

B) Quest with other strangers in a large, empty world.

CRZ isn't really the problem here. Wow's always been about endgame, and long time players have little to no reason to revisit anything before endgame as they're either happy with thier current characters at or near level cap, or they're rushing new characters to level cap to engage in endgame. It's been this way since WLK.

Even if they feel like "Extras" the people from CRZ is still better, IMO, than running around with not another soul in sight.

[MoanaLisa]

The thing is, the social side of wow was gone long before CRZ started.

That's really the correct answer. The game was no social picnic really all the way back to BC. It was probably a little bit better in BC than it is now but not all that much. Ironically, the social experience in multi-player games seems to degenerate in some proportion to the increase in the number of players. Basically, it doesn't take very many people to ruin your night and you're more likely to run across them now in a group, in LFR, or even in Trade. Cross-realm zones woke a lot of people up to the fact that PVP realms aren't some solitary safe haven. And well it should. They shouldn't be.