Currently it’s just LFG spam for spellcleave, melee cleave etc. People who are forming standard quest runs are that exhausted trying to use the new tool and finding people who want to run the dungeon normally that by the time they have the group, have ran to the stone, have summoned, and can start, they don’t have the mental energy to start striking conversations.
In RDF, it was an instant group form, and then an instant ‘hey guys, hows it going’ etc. Not ‘must be frost mage disc priest holy pala 90k xp/h’ groups.
Anyway, isnt coming back anytime soon but yeah, just observing.
Yeah im avoiding dungeons because im a mage and I just want to play fire in peace, because of what level I am im getting a lot of messages asking if I want to do SM
I’d argue it wasn’t because of the tool, and method of forming the group, but instead the ease of dungeons, increase in gear and overall completion difficulty. Speedruns was norm because gear was so strong. Nothing to do with actual social context making the groups quicker and easier. You required less communication to complete them.
Think TBC, you needed to coordinate CC - forcing conversation. Now? You don’t.
From the remaining memories I have of Wotlk, there was definitely a good amount of talking in RDF for the lower level dungeons.
With the heroics I think the tone of the talking was the issue, people who had played since vanilla being rude to new players.
Yeah this is my (probably nostalgic and biased memory), but I would always start conversations in RDF. Did they continue on to life-long friendships? No, but I know these mages and palas I’m playing with in spellcleave also won’t.
Was it a cause or coincidence?
It was added in the last phase - 3.3 or 3.2 - when people were generally done with their dungeons, and mostly just looking for a quick currency and a couple disenchants.
Hard to define the net result, because it’s possible that a few very social people benefit from it, while the more casual masses don’t get to enjoy the scene as much, play fewer dungeons, meet fewer people, make fewer friends.
Right now it’s a non-issue, everyone and their mother is running dungeons.
Easy dungeons are also against socializing (as well as too hard ones, but). Right now, people expect to jump in and just cleave the whole thing down in as little time as possible. No time to drink even, just chainpull until the end or an out of mana wipe. Better not waste time talking, the tank might die.
I did the classic mistake of only thinking about current dungeons, leveling a holy priest now to support the newcomers, 66 now. And 70 I assume.
I learned in the last 3 years that I’m either playing current content or better not bother. Burnt myself out crazy bad during BC launch, trying to do dungeons 45-57. Effectively caused a 10 month break.
This and people knew the mechanics inside out by that time, because they have been playing WoW for years. Even in groups that went slow and used CC there was no communication needed. Everybody knew that moon is the sheep or another CC, skull is the first target and X is the second.
When WotLK came communication in dungeons just wasn’t necessary anymore, like it was in Vanilla or TBC.
You also didn’t get a lot of fresh players by that time already. It was intimidating for fresh players, to think you have to play through the base game and an expansion first to get where everybody else is.
It was more the age of WoW and other factors mostly outside of the game, that led to less communication in dungeons and also the decline of the player base. The RDF just came at about the same time and therefore ended up being the scapegoat for it.
Yes there are a lot of reasons. As soon as you got into the dungeon everybody knew their job without any need for communication. In Vanilla people still needed to learn their roles, classes and the mechanics of the mobs and game. In TBC there were still a lot of new players, because joining WoW wasn’t so intimidating yet. And those players had to learn that stuff too.
Outside of the game the whole internet culture changed, which of course also effected how people play MMORPGs. You suddenly had much more guides and ways to communicate outside of the game. And that’s where the communication went. Today most players communicate more on discord, than they do ingame.
If we got RFD, people can still form spellcleave and other metas with blizzards new tool, and people who wants a random group can queue up with RFD. I dont see the issue with having more options to be honest.
