Communication has also shifted imo. We use discords and other places where we can all keep in touch with each other and chat even if we are playing other games.
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I think that the lack of player interaction isn’t really a problem. I just made a post about it too. Until recently I thought we needed more interaction, but… well… maybe we don’t.
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Idk, I mean I played Classic and it felt more “humane” (like I wasn’t playing with bots) compared to Retail. So as I see, it is not only to blame dungeon finder, but also things like layering/sharding/xrealm, because these features basically removed persistent world and without persistent world there is no point interacting with players, because they are now “water drop in ocean”.
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Basically what was a village in vanilla has now turned into a city and original village residents complain it has grown cold and antisocial. At least that’s the way I see it.
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This too, in 2005 teamspeak wasn’t even a mainstream thing so 80-90% of players, also a lot younger playerbase to add, did most of their communication in game in chat.
15 years later, those kids are now adults who (sadly) mostly lost that desire to want to engage with others all the time and meet new people, and like you said people just hop onto a discord VC and there you go, communication sorted.
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By the time players reach those difficulty levels they have alredy beaten entire game content. Yoy should have those interactions in entire game including challenge. Not just in 0.1% of entire wow content. Why i have to do mythic+ in order to have fun challenging mmo experience? Why i cant have that alredy during leveling?
I don’t think 3rd party communication is playing that much of a role. It is not like we prefer using discord over ingame chat. Discord we rather use to communicate with our guild while we are outside the game. So if we removed discord I don’t think player interaction would increase. At most the guild chats would get few more lines of messages and instead of having to track multiple communication platforms, you would have only single one to track. And it is not like we already didn’t communicate with each other on 3rd party platforms back then. Maybe not right in Vanilla, but in TBC you already had things like MSN and IRC chat rooms, where gaming communities gathered. And then there is Classic- If communication has so much shifted thanks to 3rd party platforms, then how is that in Classic player interactions are still happening.
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.