I’m sure it’s different for different players but I use discord more than guild chat or any in game chat. It’s like a message board and voice comms rolled into one.
I can talk to people from any faction, any realm, any region or playing any game on discord. Guild chat just isn’t very active in most guilds, where as discord is always active and always has people posting or chatting on it.
Yeah pog, people spamming LF healer really is a different level of communication instead of me just talking to people.
Weird how there still is a lot of player interactions in classic tho, I guess it’s full of people of 2004. Also in other games player interactions are still a thing, in both good and bad ways.
I can’t say there is much more interaction in Classic than Retail and the bad behaviour is worse in Classic but that’s because a lot of the elements that cause problems have been removed in Retail.
Level 60s sitting on quest mob spawn points because they want to farm and when you try to get them to group so you can complete your quest they tell you (not very politely) to get lost and skip that quest.
People leave dungeons and leave you short and it’s a nightmare forming the groups in the first place, getting everyone there and then trying to spam to get a replacement. You either struggle on without or go as far as you can and give up.
Both games have good and bad things about them and there is nothing wrong with playing one or both.
Seems that ppl have very different experiences with this, I’ve had a lot of good interactions in classic. Ppl asking for help with elite quests, ppl helping me with quests, getting enchants/consumables/crafted gear, ppl actually refuse to take tips for their services even if I offer them gold, summon services making sure I don’t plan to compete with their services.
These are all fun interactions that can not happen in retail.
I think you’ll find game design has equally influenced how people act online.
Yes, it’s true that people are different now-- but you are hilarious misinformed if you think dungeon finder is anything but anti-social. Saying ‘Hi’ is not making friends by the way.
It is impossible to make any meaningful interactions when everything is designed to go-go-go. There is no time or most importantly need to make any.
If you think “Well, the effort should be made by YOU.” then you clearly are entirely clueless on how social environments work, in games and indeed outside them. It’s called social culture, and it is determined by many factors.
Negative sure, but still interaction 
In retail you can’t even get that little of interaction out of players.
I will never understand how people consider this meaningful interaction.
If I wanted a load of abuse for simply existing I’d go play League of Legends.
If I go on Classic I’m literally floating in social interaction. Dependency on others is what causes social interaction, and is likely why mythic raiding, arena and M+ is where I see the most social interaction on retail, but not really anywhere else.
People dont interact for interactions sake anymore, people in 2020 only interact with you to get something.
If you are a god tier player everyone wants to ‘‘be your friend’’ because they hope to be able to catch the draft from you and get ahead.
If you have nothing to ‘‘offer’’ anyone why would they want to talk to you? This mindset is pretty toxic but thats the climate we live in. Don’t hate the players hate the game, the people who are percieved as not liking player interactions aren’t antisocial, they’re just going with the flow.
When it becomes easier to find people it also makes people more expendable.
Without LFG you would find a group and you’d stick it out even if you had problems. You would talk it out, lead people through tactics, say hi because you’re investing a good hour or so.
With LFG you can just kick someone and replace them swiftly.
You can’t blame human nature. Humans will take the path of least resistance. Blizzard created these systems knowing that.
Another issue is premade tools such as LFR and LFG have the content tailored to be 5 random, unorganized people with minimal communication. That has led to easier LFG/LFR content, which has led to no requirement for learning / communicating.
If your MMORPG world is filled with players that doesn’t/can’t react or interact with players around them, then having these player around you is no better than having bots and game world like that is boring. If I wanted a world like that, then I would have gone and played games like The Divison, where world is populated with NPC and when you join instance you get teamed with players. MMORPG world should feel more than just a big 3d lobby where we are browsing our group finder window.
Said the very same a few weeks ago. People changed over the years. The game wont prevent to talk to anyone. People choose to not talk.
Mabe people in 2020 now know that other people in internet are not nice and you don’t want meet them? I don’t like people, so I try do everything myself. There is one + for meeting people online, they don’t stink.
I think it’s a bit of combination of what Puny said (about people spreading to more platforms than before) and many people already having their own “circles” in the game. This can leave players looking like not being social in the game world while they are being social on some other platform with some other people. I might be harder to have new social experiences via game world because of these reasons but it doesn’t mean people would be generally less social than they used to be.
Classic i guess is bit different because big number of players who play classic were missing that in game world interaction amongst people of their own server and are now enjoying it again. It’s possible that after 15 years classic also starts to have it’s “own circles” when people have established long time friendships and groups and world interactions might go down.
Not sure game features are irrelevant though. Sometimes wonder if there should just be less to do for player progression, so people aren’t as stressed to get stuff done. The 10 M+ for weekly chest is going to be among the worst I think.
Now that the patch is basically over and there’s no more gear to get etc I spend a lot more time just hanging out, giving out free cats and stuff.
A lot more to do with players feeling entitled for participation awards than anything else.
I prefer meaningful interactions over abusive. I don’t struggle to have meaningful interactions in retail. You can have them in classic as well. Equally you can have toxic/abusive interactions with players in both games too. However I don’t think either add any value.
Interaction needs to be organic and that is the tricky part. For example the Bee mount being added to the game. There wasn’t really much in they way of forced interaction, however the zone was alive with people. Helping each other in general chat, explaining how things worked. There will always be that rude person who harps on about using google but on the whole people all talked and they even formed groups for honey farming.
of course there is a social structure but a person exists in it and (usually) works by its rules. your own choices is what determines your outcomes. blizzard does not make these decisions for you and they cant. all they can do is give you the platform (and they do).
And this is one of those guys that obviously probably didn’t remember the vanilla experiences when it comes to ''you actually have to start an interaction with people. Instead of it being optional always * Instant Port Button to dungeon / raid features say hi*
You are so delusional i am embarrased.