I think another issue that ruin community is that boosters can spam and advertise on trade non stop.
1 Like
Given that warmode off sharding seems to prioritize sharding you with people on your realm, I wonder whether the new connections would make it possible to have shards that were full of only the people on your connected realms? At least in the current zones and other populated places like capitals.
Having only started in WoD, I have no experience of what the community was like in the past. I don’t have a problem with how things are now, but I suppose you cannot miss something you haven’t experienced.
I’d agree that many conversations that would have happened in gchat previously are now happening elsewhere (e.g. discord) but imo this is often better as those who aren’t online at the time don’t miss out on the discussions.
I’m not a member of any in-game communities, but I expect that many of them fail because they are either not busy enough, so die out, or become too busy and you lose the sense of familiar faces. I am a member of the FF discord made up of fine forum folks, and that gives me plenty of social interaction with lovely people. This, together with my guild, gives me all the social aspect I could desire. But, as I said, if I’ve missed the glory days of something better, I’ll simply never know.
Well if anything WoW just caught up to the other games on the market.
No one wants to be friends or play with you just because, people want to surround themselves with people that can improve themselves.
Meritocracy is the standard now, WoW is a very social game, if you bring something to the table. If you’re just a casual who doesnt do any raid, arena, or m+ content well then you’re not interesting, why would someone want to play with you?
Games stopped being social gatherings like Habbo Hotel like 15 years ago
1 Like
delete crz
Removing War Mode would do most of the work there. Especially for Horde where War Mode on is like, the default, and people from PvE realms get fragmented all over the place.
I wonder if the community aspect of a non-sharded warmode off mode would be enough to appeal to those who just have warmode on, as you say, by default for the extra bonus with no real risk? Perhaps it would help even out the faction imbalance in warmode? But I have no idea how important that feeling of seeing the same people is to others. I barely pay attention to others (both passing in the street irl and in game), so it’s not really important for me personally, but based on this thread, it clearly is for others.
I’m on Draenor and it certainly doesn’t feel like that priority exists.
Just now in the Pyramid I can see players from Tarren Mill, Drak’thul, Stormreaver, Burning Legion, Bloodscalp, and a few from my own Realm.
I don’t run into the same people repeatedly in the shards because it’s just too big a mix. I rarely run into my own guild members out in the world, let alone actual other Draenor players :(.
Removing the War Mode bonus might be a start… Then it’s mostly people who like to world PvP in there, and they’d have rolled on PvP realms in the first place.
2 Likes
Hmm, that’s interesting as when I have WM off I see loads of players from Emerald Dream and Terenas (as well as people from other realms too) but maybe it’s different for the larger realms? I dunno, I just noticed there was a marked difference in the realms where people I saw are from when I had WM off as opposed to on. Seems to be the same situation for Alliance on our realm, as Kyrel has commented on this and also likes to find and /lick my guildies for fun! 
1 Like
I figured this was worth experimenting with but bear in mind it’s just me and by no means conclusive
I went on my mage and turned WM off. Now I’m surrounded by players from my realm.
Pure theory but it could be the bulk play with WM off and you can find enough players to shard into WM off. WM on could be more tricky, if less players use it there may be a greater need to shard with users from other realms.
Currently I’m not willing to give up the WM bonus though. So unless they stop giving me PvE rewards in WM on, I’m unlikely to take the 10% loss.
1 Like
Why does it have to be about destroying something? I tried to focus on improving other aspects of the game. I get the feeling you’re being over-defensive.
All I suggested in my post was that we could have it so that flying and portals etc are not as necessary and not as desirable. not by making them worse in any way, but making it so people feel like they want to stay on the ground, within the environment more, rather than flying. there are many people that feel like the better part of the game is in the air. evidently this is a problem because this game is not a flight simulator. if this were pilotwings then I’d say yeah of course, flying is key. but this is world of warcraft. it’s originally a mmmorpg, now it’s a mmoaa (ation adventure) . none of these game genres are synonyms for ‘flight simulator’.
The way the game currently is, makes flying necessary and the most fun way to play for many people. that needs to change if the game is to stay true to it’s core.
as long as most players would rather fly up in the sky, rather than run along the ground along with their friends (like we used to do when we used to attack stormwind back in TBC) the game is having a crisis of identity.
Absolutely 100% do not remove stuff that is already there… just make the game more fun in other ways so people will naturally want to go in that direction.
It’s quite funny I started on a PvP realm, I hated having to die constantly or having the hand in NPCs slaughtered and have to wait for them to respawn. Eventually I moved to a Normal realm and I loved that I could get on with things in peace.
So now they offer PvE benefits I’m back in the PvP mode I don’t actually enjoy because I want the extra resources.
speaking of which… why do we have to go back to stormwind or orgrimmar to use the Auction house? it’s ridiculous. this has to be one of the key things fragmenting the game experience… having to go to all these disparate places for one task and then back to somewhere else and everyone is all spread out.
you got a bunch of people in mechagon, a bunch of people in nazjatar, a bunch of people in silithus, a bunch of people in stormwind, a bunch of people in pandaria, none of it makes any sense, not to mention the travel time… which is what contributes to people getting fed up of travel and wanting to skip it.
BFA is also designed so that you mostly avoid other faction and Horde has a massive advantage so there’s no real downsides. In Shadowlands War Mode is going to be a lot worse with everyone doing the same quest lines. That and the absurd PvP scaling that people are now aware of might reduce participation. Or it’s just going to get even more overbearingly Horde biased until there’s no Alliance I guess.
Do we?
the longboi is an auction house??? wow!!
Your suggestion is somewhat different from Isha but I don’t really want to keep going over that.
Blizz have already appeased the no fly crowd by giving us this compromise where neither party is happy. The grounders get the first part of expansions where we are stuck on ground mounts and then later they release flying and the flyers get to enjoy their preferred game play. Every time I’ve unlocked flying I feel like the game has finally started.
Being stuck on the ground does not make the game social, it does not give a sense of community. It does not increase interaction. It does not mean you see more people.
Flying in WoW is a core feature and as such I personally would not enjoy that being diluted. If you are with friends there is nothing to stop you flying together at whatever height you choose. Most of us fly at a height relevant to the terrain we are going over. We carry each other and fly in a group. I much preferred it when we had flying required dailies at max level but they can’t do that any more because we have Pathfinders now.
Making travel inconvenient causes more people to alt tab, watch their other monitor. I personally didn’t have an issue with them removing some of the portals last time, we used to have a trim back after expansions. There are still enough portals, hearthstones, personal items and mages to get around the World of Warcraft.
1 Like
It’s the law to stand on your longboi at the mailbox outside the auction house 
…yes? Why else would anyone spend 5 million on it? I mean I bet some would but I am not one of those people.
1 Like
Engineers can use the Auction House in whatever capital city we have in expansions.
Not as convenient as the long boi ofc.