People say the game is much less social than it used to be, that chats used to be more active and people would talk to eachother more.
In my opinion (as a new player) the game is more inclusive nowadays, that also includes people that don’t want to socialize as much. If you asked me 5-8 years ago if I wanted to play WoW I’d probably say that all this social activity with randoms is hella scary.
So there are more people who don’t want to socialize as much, is that so bad? Not necessarily. The people who do want to socialize are still there, it’s just that since the game doesn’t force you to do so as much you need to be more active about it.
I think older players got used to having the game forcing them to socialize to experience content, and that’s one thing that isn’t coming back.
You just have to be more active if you want to be social, look for a guild or a community. If it bothers you that general chat is empty then try to actually start a conversation there, you might be surprised to find people actually replying.
Just to be clear, I think you’re mixing a bit of social anxiety with being an introvert.
Introverts don’t like a lot of social activity, that’s a personal trait.
People with social anxiety usually want to be social, but as the name suggests, they are anxious about it. It’s more of a condition since people can be helped to get over their social anxiety.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, I am an introvert and I go through social anxiety at times (just because I don’t like what I define as social “overexposure” doesn’t mean I don’t want to be social at all).
I agree. I’ve been here since vanilla and i’ve never really experienced a fundemental change in the social dimension of WoW. Then again, my behaviour has never changed. I am quite forthright in starting conversations or “taking the first step” etc, so I haven’t noticed a change when the social frameworks of mandatory raiding or non-auto groupfinder were challenged.
I’ve never found those areas to be the hotbed of social activity as is claimed though. For me i’ve always made the most social interactions (in game) either through questing or in town, and nothing about those has changed in a fundemental way. And by questing I don’t mean the “one big quest that requires a group in vanilla but doesn;'t anymore”, I mean general moving about the zone doing quests and working in the same space.
The fact that I don’t need a party member to kill the big bear mob anymore doesn’t change my behaviour. If me and the dude don’t cooperate (if i notice a guy is working in the same area and they’re a bit behind or ahead of me) I may as well invite them because then we can speed up our quest time and share the same kill, rather than waiting on a repop. It’s common sense to me.
It amazes me people will quest side-by-side with someone, killing the same mobs or competing for them, trying to tag each other’s to get credit. but they won’t think to just group up so they can split their ground and not have to waste time tagging each other’s mobs and get the quest done twice as fast.
Your guild was your lifeline to raiding, dungeons, counter ganks, group quests and premade pvp.
I get that there are many anti-social players and being forced to such content might feel scary and intimidating to you? But it is actually good for you.
Socializing, that is… it’s actually not that bad. It’s how you make friends, life partners and enemies
Game’s what you make of it. If you’re social and outgoing you’ll meet like-minded people and have a blast. If you are more into the “gogogogo, pushpushpush” mentality you get that too.
Make your own luck people. I’ve help build what’s obviously the best guild ever. it’s incredibly fun and social, and our Discord is just too good.
I think people had and still are the same as they used to be.
It is all about how the platform encourages/discourages interaction.
On the Boralus chat I still see a lot of banter on my server.
Also the LFG chat on Classic WoW is also a part time server wide chat where various things are being discussed between the actual LFG usage.
If there is one thing the modern wow has that is a problem is that people in it are often too busy doing their daily/weekly quotas or timed dungeon/vision runs on things they need to grind to have much time to talk outside of when they are hanging out on a voice chat or trade chat
What people forget is in “ye olde WoW” outside of logging raids or grinding honour 24/7 if you were so inclined, what exactly were you doing? Stuff that has a more liesurely pace like farming mats, gold or levelling an alt. All stuff where you can chat to your heart’s content and do it.
In modern wow there is almost always “something to do”. This is why when people blame it on LFR and dungeon finder I raise my eyebrow. They are hardly the only things in game which consume people’s time and attention that have changed.
The game is potentially a lot busier than it used to be in terms of what to do and how quickly it is acheived. This has nothing to do with how groups are formed and everything to do with how willing the players are to mess about in content.
Even in content you have to use groupfinder for, people aren’t typically looking for a chat, they’re looking to get into the dungeon ASAP and they’ll leave otherwise.
Social stuff in WoW has always been the result of those who actively want to sustain it and nurture it. Even in retail if you know where to look you will find tons of interaction in game (and i’m not talking about discords)
Game wasn’t more social cause people wanted it back in the days, it was just that it forced us to be if we wanted to find a group for dungeons etc, I’m happy those days are over. I always felt stressed out having to perform 110% or get kicked and trashtalked in the tradechat.
And social media has changed people through the years, people don’t go out and talk as much as they do that stuff online now. Just being connected all the time and always having people contact us all the time has even made people shy away from even reading messages and stuff.
I’d say that’s what made people not socialize as much. I for one play the game to relax my overactive brain by farming and leveling. If I wanna socialize i got friends irl.
I honestly think people have just shifted how they communicate with each other. Most guild chats are less active than before because we chat on discord. Both on voice comms and typing in the various channels. These places are more active because people don’t have to be in the game to take part, we have an app on our phones, we have it on our PCs.
If I’m in the middle of some activity like a raid, even if it’s a PuG I’m not likely to type much in chat. There isn’t really any need to.
