We who played Wrath vanilla know the different with and without in that expansion. RDF made the expansion in to complete garbage.
I’ll try my best.
In the really old school MMOs player interaction wasn’t a choice, it was a necessity. I don’t think it was possible to play many older MMOs unless you were willing to communicate with other players. This “mandatory” communication was not really about smalltalk, but talk that concerned elements of the game itself. This could eventually lead to smalltalk, of course, not dissimilar to how personal chemistry works in real life. But the game and the immediate needs of the player was always at the forefront, and the solution was found in the other players that you shared the world with.
Now, World of Warcraft streamlined many aspects of older MMOs. For instance, in some older MMORPGs professions were classes on their own. In World of Warcraft every primary class is combat-oriented, and professions secondary. Another aspect that was streamlined were the dungeons. In older MMOs, if there were any dungeons they were part of the physical world (not instanced), so if you wanted to go to one you could encounter other groups already there, which could be inconveniencing. World of Warcraft streamlined these things but managed to maintain the social qualities anyways; each class brought unique utility and you couldn’t learn every profession in the game meaning you had to interact with other players to get the most out of the experience. And dungeons were pretty much impossible to do on your own so you had to seek help from other players.
In vanilla World of Warcraft it was possible to reach max level without talking to anyone, but it would be a difficult experience and you’d miss out on content, and once you found yourself at end game you’d reach a hard stop. The design of vanilla World of Warcraft (and older MMOs) encouraged communication. It’s not that communication always lead to friendships, rather that communication could be sporadic and casual – and most importantly, relevant to the game. A simple “hey, let’s team up to kill that NPC” could lead to “you also need that other quest in the area?” which could lead to basically anything, depending on your personal chemistry with the other person. Or maybe it leads nowhere, but at least the two of you benefited from each other’s company – and the next time you run into one another it would not be as complete strangers.
Compare this to retail or with any other modern MMO. Convenience is at the forefront. The genre now caters to those who seek a single-player roleplaying experience and the design actively supports this playstyle. There are no group quests so no reason to team up. Mob-tagging is not a thing so grouping is not necessary. Running a dungeon you can do with the click of a button and the grouping is done for you but the content is so trivial that there’s no relevant gameplay element that you actually have to talk about. Communication is always optional. Hell, even fame is something the game tries to give you by having NPCs refer to you with grandiose titles, whereas fame in earlier MMOs had to be earned and recognized by other players on your server. Compare it to trying to become a national celebrity as opposed to becoming a celebrity at highschool. Each server had its own social microcosmos of heroes and villains whose names often meant nothing outside of the server.
Classic was not retail. Classic had many inconveniences that were best solved by simply opening your mouth and talking to someone else. That was my experience when I levelled first in 2019 and a second time in 2021 (TBCC prepatch). By 2021 many of the bad developments of Classic had taken root (what with boosting and GDKPs) but I still managed to have a social experience all the way up to max level. However I am not sure if I would have the same social experience if I had been levelling at the start of 2022, as by that point the vast majority of players would be concerned with the end game. The main type of player you’d encounter in the world would be someone levelling an alt, and people usually just want their alts to reach max level asap. No time to stop and smell the flowers.
The same goes for dungeons and heroic dungeons. It is not as easy to find people for heroic dungeons in phase 3 and onwards because they’ve become irrelevant to a large portion of the playerbase. This is a problem, and they could solve this by implementing the Dungeon Finder (cross-server) … or they could solve it by making sure that dungeons are relevant. Wrath of the Lich King did both and the dungeon/heroic dungeon landscape was forever changed. And not for the better. They tried to reverse the course in Cataclysm and it failed because players now wanted their trivial (in Blizzard’s own words) zerg-fests.
I refer to the contemporary posts/blogs/videos we have from the era. I refer to the what the developers themselves expressed as they reflected on WLK. I refer to the research that has been conducted since. If there was no change in the social climate of the game then there would be no need for research. Or at least, the research would have looked different.
If you after reading this still believe the utterly BS-argument that people are against the RDF is because of “spite” then I can only assume you have a reading comprehension comparable with that of a chimp.
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Honestly I was being facetious because the Party Tool we’re getting in WotLK Classic is a riff of the Party Finder in FFXIV, which on paper is great. You don’t need to spam a chat since the listing is always visible and public once posted and people can browse at their leisure and join automatically without need to be vetoed by the party leader.
…and people do actually go to the tank’s wedding in FFXIV, that’s like a thing in game, so I don’t get why you’re disparing it…
In my opinion you are confused. You confuse inconvenience with social aspect of the game.
Vanila had these not to promote social aspect but because they thought the journey had to be epic. This is why they had so many quests requiring to travel across continents. They also liked to feel it is dangerous to go and pull whatever you wanted. You would be dead. Elite quests as well promotes team play and it was great. Have played both ally and horde 16 years now. I remember the elite orc quests in Redbridge so fondly. I’ve made friends then that I still talk with. I have met people that got married and 2 years ago (or so, was right before covid) I went to England to attend their wedding! I remember having a lot of fun in dungeons with people I did not know before. From every expansion.
But they changed this. And I understand the reason. The more levels needed to reach cap the longest the journey, the fewer people you meet to quest or dungeon with, the less tough quests you can complete and of course the fastest you want to get over with it. This is normal. Blizzard invested in creating better and better endgame, but in order to enjoy it you had to get over leveling phase. They could also create a finite amount of content. So players in order to have something to do or wanted to enjoy other classes they needed to go through 60,70,90… levels of content they had already experienced.
So the leveling process stopped being epic and “conviniences” were introduced. If they wouldn’t do that, then the game would stop existing. And mmos are inclusive by definition. And inclusive means being able to satisfy both you and me.
You also give too little credit to retail. Retail has group content too. And supreme end game. Raids in various difficulties from very very easy in order to see the content and basic mechanics, to extremely challenging content that require serious team work. The more I describe retail the more I think it is better suited for you! You should try it.
So from the various conviniences you are picking rdf as a problem to the game. Still you do not describe how it ruins your "open your mouth to do content " thing. You can open your mouth and search for people. Of course the majority of people are on mega servers now. It is not like back then where you could use chat to open your mouth. There is no way in these servers to find what you want without spending so much time or without using an add-on. So you can only use your mouth to friends or guildmates.
And of course when you find your party you can have all the fun you want in your dungeon or raid. Inconvinience and playing social have some correlation. But you have it wrong. Also do try retail. It is a highly collaborative version of the game if you want to do progress or achieved goals (achievements)! Mythic dungeons surely require to use your mouth! Don’t try to make a game like wotlk with rdf and face roll dungeons suit to your needs. You are clearly a retail guy on my opinion.
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Would you say that Retail and Classic is “the same game”? If not, when did the game stop existing? And what were the reasons?
They are? Please find one definition from anywhere on the internet that says “inclusivity” is part of the definition of MMORPGs. What if someone were to come to World of Warcraft with a desire to build and decorate homes like in The Sims. The game would not be very inclusive to those players. Retail tried to satisfy everyone, and to its credit it has done okay. I also don’t know why you’re telling me that I’m giving Retail too little credit because if you check my post history you’ll see I’ll often comment on the fact that Retail has been very successful at what it has been doing. It just hasn’t had a very strong appeal for me, personally.
Uh-huh. Comes from the person who says:
It sounds like retail is more your type of game. The main reason I’m opposed to the RDF is because I’ve not had fun with randoms for a very long time. Retail has been a game I play where I have to bring friends with me because I know I won’t be making any new contacts. Meanwhile I’ve had a lot of success in expanding my social network in Classic.
So why don’t you play retail?
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I play both you know. And I had fun with both. And once more if you do not have fun with randoms then wow is not for you I guess . Or at least the social part of wow. But since this game is inclusive you can find you niche there (play only with people you know or whatever you can call non-random). Rdf is not the problem. You are.
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I agree with Terres. My enjoyment of playing with randoms has severely decreased in the months after the RDFs introduction back then. And I played to around mit cataclysm, before I finally quit. All this time I was wondering, why I didn’t enjoy it anymore. After all there was lots of new content in a game that I had fun playing for 3 Years.
You can’t be social in a game where the community isn’t social anymore.
As described in the other thread. The community was changed because of the RDF.
Terres described it rather well. At first being social and talking to other players was simply a necessity. RDF took that necessity away and opened the game up for anti-social players.
Over the course of a few months the social gamers then left the game and the anti-social players replaced them. Because now it was a game suited for them and a game that no longer had such a strong focus on what made it enjoyable for the social gamers.
With the number of social gamers shrinking, the whole culture of the game changed. And that is what we see today in Retail and many other games. Being social is no longer a necessity and therefore it is weird to even ask for it.
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But I do have fun with randoms. In Classic.
And for that matter, I had fun with randoms in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a game that had zero cross-server features. Because they create casual social spaces; environments where each individual player mattered.
However, randoms are not always randoms. I wouldn’t want to always play with randoms. The fact that I might recognize people (and they recognize me) is a huge appeal of Classic and you just don’t get that in retail.
So no, I’m not the problem. You and I have different preferences when it comes to games, which is why you want an RDF because the harm it causes has no bearing on your experience. So much for your “inclusivity”.
You both still do not explain what social gamers randoms mean!! Your dislike of “rdf rdf randoms” is not social gaming for sure. Now if you feel social what can I say. We have different definitiona and this is why I insist to know yours.
Also you will most probably recognize the random from rdf as you would from chat. If you manage to see anything meaningful at chat any more
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RDF as a tool was never the problem, the people are.
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Back to retail you goooo
(I flagged this post as spam, its getting old this subject)
And guess what, you don’t need RDF anymore to play with random since there is 6k+ players on all serv.
My enjoyment of the game also wasn’t as high when I played on a mega server with too many people per faction. It creates pretty much the same problem in two different ways. Too much anonymity.
If you have read some of my posts over time, you might also know that I HATE the mega servers and I think that they should’ve limited Server sizes to numbers that were possible back in the day.
Thus:
reducing anonymity
creating more server community
making phasing unneeded
reducing faction imbalance issues
avoiding extreme lack of ressources
reducing GDKP runs
reducing options for gold sellers
increasing importance of guilds and guild reputation
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Yes but since the reality is mega servers you are shooting to a completely wrong direction with rdf. The real problems are what you are listing. Not rdf
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I haven’t played since WotLK and only recently got back to TBC.
Back then I truly believed Dungeon Finder wasn’t that great. Sure it was convenient, but a bit of “magic” got lost.
The times have moved though - the social media changed and therefore the people behavour.
Today I believe that Dungeon Finder would be a really good way to improve WotLK (and people still could spam LFG if they wanted to)
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Glad to see a old player not blinded like some players.
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Peoples behaviour is shaped by enviroment so yes rdf is problem.
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To me not being able to group up cross realm is a problem, i have a group of friends who i was going to lvl up with in LK but they moved to Gehennas even though they knew i would never move to a pvp server.
So this social aspect and so called “server identity” (LOL) got used against me and screwed up my social aspect in the game.
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With RDF you would not be able to do it anyway. Grouping up with other peoploe from other realms on the same faction came in Pandaria i think.
Calling Gehennas a pvp server today is a bit of a stretch. It’s missing one of the P’s.