Hello, I think WoW is facing a heavy anti-socialization in these past years. A portal to everywhere so you should not have to walk or fly. World quests are nice but don’t add much after the third or fourth month in the new expansion, not speaking of the older content. I haven’t seen anybody questing or doing things in groups or together in any of the classic zones or expansions.
How should we fix that?
Well, there are many iterates of community events in other MMOs and those are decent also, but I think if Blizzard would implement a hybrid system that offers valuable rewards then it will engage people in the right way. Let me explain.
Let’s assume this “event” will take place every month, so it’s a monthly event with an expiration. To use and to find a means to update older content graphically and make it more alive, we should create something like a Realm-wide joint effort towards a goal.
Let’s say in the first stage gather 10 000 Gold Ore, 50 000 Iron Ore. Next stage: with the gold, you have helped Lakeshire to rebuild upgrade the shire (purpose to upgrade graphically and finish zones and stories i.e Stonewatch taken by the alliance), with the iron create armour and weapons to the soldiers (you can tie this with the previous one so basically you help Stormwind and Lakeshire to expand and flourish).
We can go with this on and on but I think you get the point. And now for a reward. A reward should be something that is useful and make you think it’s worth your time. I don’t think a piece of gear will be suitable for this, because it’s lacklustre after some time. I think of a reward that is much more useful and carries a meaning so these events will be memorable which is the point by the way. So in our case, we’ve dealt with Lakeshire (for Horde it will be different of course) so the reward should be something that reminds you of Lakeshire. A lakeshire themed horse mount, a transmog item or set (different for plate, cloth etc.) plus an achievement.
Now if you think through you need 12 of these events for a year, it keeps the old content healthy and finds a means to upgrade and tie/finish stories (I’m looking at you Sentinel Hill) plus I think it is taking the community back to the social level it should be.
Thank you for reading this, I hope Blizzard also reads this I would definitely love to see something like this in the future of WoW.
Your idea is an interesting one and I do think we need more events, but these events will not necessarily mean more additional socialization. People may particiapte but they will not necessarily communicate or talk to do this.
Look at how it is in dungeons and raids, people rarely talk. if someone does say something they are either seen as a nuisance or they are ignored. I personally make a point to say hello to people who message me, whether its grouping up in a WQ group or in dungeons or raids.
It’s just a “raw” idea which of course needs tuning and more people to brainstorm. But I think it is a good starting point to help fill the world and give a purpose to update it, because the graphical differences are extreme now.
Khaaz I understand you, I’m also “trying” to socialize but everyone’s experience is different. I’m trying to bring a meaning to old zones with this idea.
It’s just a “raw” idea which of course needs tuning and more people to brainstorm. But I think it is a good starting point to help fill the world and give a purpose to update it, because the graphical differences are extreme now.
Considering that brand new players no longer even have to go through Goldshire and are routed via the new starting zone, Exiles Reach, then they are sent straight to BFA, I do not think Blizzard really cares about updating the old zones.
I do agree that the old zones need an update and it would be great to make those zones relevant again, plus new content is always a good thing, but it appears that Blizzard simply has given up on doing anything fun like you mentioned or updating old zones, except when it suits them.
This depends on server population, times of day when one logs on, and what one is doing in order to socialize. For example on my horde alt, when I log in Origgimar is always busy and all times of day, but on this character Stormwind is only busy certain times.
You can find numerous threads on here about people complaining about lack of socialization in the game now and there was even a thread today about how everyone is on discord but not in the game chatting.
Socializing in Retail WoW is almost entirely dead compared to what it used to be like because of the simple fact that there is a new system or Queue to circumvent talking.
Take Guilds for example if you went back to before they added the little guild recruitment button players/guild masters had to recruit/join guilds the old fashioned way which was by simply posting in LFG/General channels in Major cities now you can just click a couple buttons and join a bunch of people without saying a single word to them prior to joining.
Group/Quest/Dungeon finding is all totally automated and with the exception of Mythic you don’t need to say a single word to anyone prior to joining or during.
You can see the clear difference in social aspects just by logging onto TBC Classic and looking at how active all of the chats are and my TBC guild has minimum 40+ people on during the day and sometimes 130+ during the evenings/raid nights. as opposed to my Retail guild where when I logged in a few day’s ago the last person online hadn’t been online in over 3 months.
Now you could argue my Retail guild was just dead and that’s on me but we were an extremely active raiding guild that was hyped and ready to go into SL but very quickly walked away after the game was effectively finished.
I find the other popular MMO’s of today to be far far more socially engaging in almost every single aspect so for people who hate socializing and just want a game to bash away on Retail is great but for people like myself who want an MMORPG experience this game just aint it anymore sadly.
Socializing is a choice, classic was different because you had different players back then and you did not have discord or that many guilds who had web pages. With the internet taking off, most guilds just prefer to be on discord.
On my horde alt, my guilds discord is very busy. I have seen more players on there 24/7 than they are actually playing the game. You really cannot compare classic to retail WOW. Classic had a ton of content, retail WOW has not had any content in 6 months.
TBC will die just as the new vanilla died. There were people complaining about how dead their guilds were in classic as well the same will be for TBC until we get another classic expansion that returns. In fact my guild had a guild on classic and it was gone after a few months. We have many playing TBC and I suspect that will die as well.
As for other MMO’s, I play FFXIV and I can honestly say I hardly ever communicated with anyone in there and I am in a very busy free company over there and the company has a very busy discord, yet I hav rarely said anything but thats my choice to be honest with you. So socialization and communication is up to the player.
What you’re asking will result in one of two things.
1- Another scarab lord thing, which wow classic proved that it won’t be like 15 years ago. People will farm the hell out of it and tire themselves. Or create new efficient methods which requires legal or illegal things. It won’t create a social environment.
2- It’s not important enough for people to care, so it’ll just be another waste of time.
If you want socializing, It requires a ton of changes. And not all of them are going to be aimed at social aspect or events either.
IT starts with moderating the game toxicity and making it a better place for new players.
It is absolutely upto the players but when you have no reason to talk why would you?
My TBC guild was made by our GM on Day 1 and we have had 1000 member’s since Classic and have 1k even in TBC but I have seen many guilds just disband one day due to players leaving so I understand your point there.
XIV get’s away with the lack of talking just due to the fact it’s more like an RPG that has an Online aspect so you don’t get the feeling of it being dead like I do when I load up retail.
My XIV FC is extremely busy at times and quiet at others but we choose this as you’ve said.
I’m more of an old fashioned MMORPG player in the sense that I love communicating and meeting new people to play alongside and take down bosses/monsters that couldn’t otherwise be done alone but Retail for me atleast is 90% Solo content with 5% Raids 5% Dungeons as a PVE player.
But as I stated, most people are social, they are just not doing it in these games. They are doing it via Discord and other social gathering sites. Most of this is due to the fact that these sites are easier and allow them to log on via their phones, plus they can easily share images, vids etc…most simply do not want to be social in the game, nothing you can do about that.
Even if they had to form groups on their own they would simply make groups, list them and still not talk and you would be back to square 1. What you are searching for is fast disappearing because as I keep saying, people have changed, they want to be more mobile and not tied to their laptops or pcs having to socialize. Why do this why you can do it via discord and still talk to the same people everyday?
Most know if they want to talk to their guildies they can simply do it via Discord far easier than taking the time to log into WOW or any other game for that matter.
So the reason I don’t really mention Discord or Teamspeak is because for the majority of my point im talking about random encounter’s with your average stranger player.
I use discord and yeah it’s far more active because of ease of access because of Mobiles etc etc but that’s something I use for guildies not something I’d use personally for a PUG mythic for example.
So because I was addressing the community at large it didn’t really make sense for me to point out discord being an option because I was referring to passerby experiences in the MMO rather than straight communication between friends/guildies.
Lets say for example we didn’t have Discord 70-80% of the things I’ve mentioned previously would still be an issue so in that sense Discord isn’t the cure for all of WoW’s anti social problems within it’s playerbase.
Actually there are PUG communities via the communities feature in WOW, that have discords as well, if you want to PUG or farm together randomly. People simply do not want to use the tools that WOW have to socialize for whatever reason.
As for random people, I think if these randoms actually wanted to talk to someone they would do it, but I have seen random people try talking to others and get ridiculed, trolled or flat out ignored.
I make a point of answering questions if I see someone ask in local chat or if they say they are new, because I want these new players to have a positive experience and remain but sadly most in this community just treat them as if they are a nuisance and ignore them.
Totally agreed to that, but to address your second point first, we need to accept that there is no system or reward that will please every single player so we might have to experiment with rewards, but as I see since Draenor, gear is not a viable option for rewards, people rather tend to more for transmogs like the recruit a friend set or a cool mount or title.
For your first point, I didn’t mean that, but yeah it sounds like silithus 2.0. However, with a polish to that system we could avoid burnout and grind-throughs with multiple “checkpoints” during the event. It’s almost like a fine tune for Warfronts war effort. Let’s say XY starts to farm gold ore but instead of waiting for others to finish the task XY has to contribute to the overall progression or he/she doesn’t get any rewards. Let’s say we measure this progression with three checkpoints. You can gather either gold or iron or both. You reach the first checkpoint, you get a guaranteed transmog. If you reach the second you get a mount, for the third you get a title.
Wow that’s some discussions there! However, we moved from the main point, it’s not about people talking. We cannot force people to talk to each other, it has to be natural. We need to provide the means to talk to each other, or at least create a scenario for that to happen. It’s like love, you cannot force it.
With this system which I mentioned and detailed above and in the comments, I intended to create a joint effort, so people work together. We need to forge this social bond of WoW classic style from the ground to be successful. But I think if Blizzard listens, we will achieve it!
People still talk and socialize while playing WoW, just not in-game. Discord and other platforms like it have mostly taken over on that part. It’s a different time.
It’s not just WoW, it’s the whole internet. Twitter is a cesspit, Facebook is full of misinformation / disinformation. The previous US president was a massive Troll.
Other games have similar issues, there are hundreds of amusing youtube videos of Call of Duty people screaming at each other.
We aren’t going back to the community of Vanilla WoW, the internet has moved on. Back then playing games online was new and was populated mostly by shy timid geeks who were so thrilled to be playing video games with others.
Socialising in WoW has moved in Communities and Guilds more than ever as it is too toxic to do anything with randoms. In the past you needed a community (small c) to achieve goals only in Raids, now you need a community to achieve goals in other areas because random players are simply too toxic.
If you’re wishing to be more social in game then find a social community, they do exist.
everyday i’m talking to someone in this game what is the problem?