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.
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.
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*
I have played classic and I met a lot of people, because we were in the same realm without layers nor anything.
For example: I say in chat “who wanna go to this dungeon?” So I end up creating a group and we finishes the dungeon. Then, after 2 says i see one guy with a familar name and woah its the same guy i played 2 days ago! I talk to him and we end up adding each other.