For the last few days I’ve been paying close attention to the discussion about incoming WotLK changes, especially concerning the automated tools that came with the original expansion. I have to say, that the arguments presented by people opposing such features sound very convincing.
First of all, why bring new feature, if there already exist a tool for that? Using global channels is a thing that already works – countless people connect daily using them. Yes, there are inconveniences, but one thing is certain – it does work.
Second thing is player interaction. One of the posters here summed this up really good: “Automating systems that encourge players not to bother to interact with each other because they no longer need to is bad for the games community. Period. The game from the ground up was built to faciliate co-operation and when you remove that it ceases to exist.” Each time a player uses automated tool instead of talking with others, the community and social aspect of the game suffers.
Finally, there is an argument about world exploration. If the tool allows You to do the thing You want from any major city, there is no incentive to go beyond its borders. The world quickly becomes a barren wasteland, even with thousands of people online. This surely isn’t the MMO experience.
I believe that after reading all this all of You will agree with me: AUCTION HOUSE needs to be removed form the game. There already is a perfectly working trade chat that many people use daily to connect with others, offering goods and services, negotiating prices etc. AH takes all that away. Also, it limits peoples trade activates to capital cities, mostly two for each faction. If we remove it, people would have an incentive to travel the world to meet each other for trade.
If You care about the social aspect of the game, please do everything You can to convince Blizzard to remove this completely nonessential feature, that harms the community, from incoming WotLK classic!
