Where did the community go?

Community General Discussion
1

Hello everyone! How are you doing? Summer is almost here. Are you excited?

I wanted to share with you my experience from leveling a fresh character, without heirlooms etc. over the last weekend.

And I just want to start of by saying that I’m not “trashing” anyone here. This is just my experience over the weekend, and how I felt afterwards.

[WARNING! WALL OF TEXT AHEAD]

I originally canceled my subscription a while back because I don’t enjoy the focus of the game at max level, and haven’t since probably MoP (bought and played every expansion since I first started playing the game back in 2006). To put it simple; The M+ focus and the boring RNG is not for me.

But I decided to re-subscribe again for a chance on the Classic Beta. Needless to say, I’ve not been accepted (EU account and non-streamer, GG I guess) :stuck_out_tongue:

So instead of leaving my sub running I thought I would get something out of the 30 days and made myself a Priest.

Been leveling without Heirlooms, trying to enjoy the story more and not just rush through it all. But I must say… even without Heirlooms the leveling is far to fast, and I can’t keep up with my professions even if I try. Everything gives XP these days, and you’ll out level your Class quest, dungeon quests etc before you know it.

But I’ve still enjoyed the questing to an extent. Still strange to get epics at level 17, but what am I to do? The game works like that now.

But one thing I’ve learned to hate over the last 28 levels it the community. Or the lack of community to put it more precisely. There’s non what so ever.

Let me give you an example;

You start of as a Undead, getting through “Deathknell” and enter Brill. You see these people running around and you think to yourself “Hey! There’s actually some activity around here. This might turn out to be pretty pleasant”. Thinking you’ll get to interact with people, group up and enjoy leveling through the lower levels.

But after a little while you realize that most of these people are just rushing through everything. Probably to reach level 15 asap and get access to the Dungeon tool. Which is fine, I guess. What are the chance that all of these people think like that, right?

Well… then you realize there’s no talking in /1 General chat. And you decide to try a little experiment yourself. So you type “/1”. But there’s no /1 General chat. It’s gone! Probably removed after the “Battle for Lordaeron” scenario? But still… you should be able to interact with people at a lower level, right?

I decided to leave it be and just focus on finding someone to group with and get further in to the levels before bedtime, so that I could travel to “Hillsbrad Foothills”. Get into some “Southshore vs Tarren Mill” shenanigans with the Alliance. But there’s no groups (at least I didn’t find any), and there’s no more “Southshore vs Tarren Mill” anymore. We’ve apparently nuked the living out of the whole zone.

So I decided to go for “Ashenvale”. There must be some Alliance scum there I figured. So I reached level 20 and got myself on a Zeppelin to Orgrimmar. Opt in to the “War mode” and picked up the “Adventure guide” quest in “Ashenvale”.
When I got to “Ashenvale” I figured I would try my little experiment again. So I typed /who in chat to see how many there were in that zone. The screen showed 15-20 players. Which looked promising! So I saluted them in /1 General chat. Asking how they were doing etc. Not a single answer. Nothing. I said to myself “Okay! They’re probably busy fighting Alliance or something”. So I went on looking for Alliance players to fight.

All I found was a level 120 Nightelf Hunter who drop kicked me from the sky after he dismounted his flying mount. Hehe! But no action anywhere else. No Alliance, nothing.

So I gave my little experiment another go. And asked in /1 General chat for any tips to where the Alliance might be hiding. This was about 15 mins after mys first attempt in this zone. And there were still about 15-20 people in this zone. All leveling (20 - 30). But not a single response.

So I started buffing everyone I saw with my [Power Word: Fortitude] to see if anyone responded to it. I must have buffed 10-15 players just standing next to the Inn in “Splintertree Post”. And only one of them responded with a “ty”. And he were wearing greens and blues, no heirlooms and no “Chauffeur Chopper” mount. But he was level 26 (no trial account), so either a new player or a old school player spending his/hers subscription the only way they can when they didn’t get Beta access. I don’t know. But he was nice.

All of this happened over the weekend, and today I logged back in to do some professions (you just out level them to fast), since I wanted to spend some time with that as well. So most of the day today have been spent in Orgrimmar. And I must say that nothing has made me feel more depressed in this game than the fact that the chat is dead. /1 is dead. /2 is dead, besides the “living bots” spamming their boost services with referral to their discord or whatnot. Every 2 minutes or so. Even in /y they’re spamming. There’s no trading of mats, no bantering about silly stuff. Nothing. Just a lot of “bots” selling boost for gold.

So I came down to a conclusion. The community is “dead”. I’m sure there’s internal chat, in guilds or other communities. Either on discord, in guild chat or community chat. But the “world chat” is dead. No groups for quests, because most people don’t need them. They just nuke the “elite” and move on. And dungeons are only a button away, and you don’t have to talk to anyone to get in a group. You don’t even have to talk to the group you’re playing with, while inside the dungeons. Because everyone just rushes through in hope of maximizing their XP and loot.

There’s no World PvP because, why would you spend time on something that gains you nothing? No honor points to spend on nice gear. No faction rep for cool tabards or mounts. There’s absolutely no reason to do World PvP unless you just do it because you want to, and don’t care if you’re “wasting” time with it. Which I gladly would. But the majority of the player base won’t. And can you blame them?

There’s no sense of faction loyalty, nothing. It feels like I’m playing a singleplayer game with the option to Coop with others on certain things like dungeons and battlegrounds etc.

Like GTA 5, where the city just works as a lobby while they wait for new transport missions to be available again, or some race to start. That is how the world feels to me. People are running around “1-2 hitting” stuff while they wait for the queue to pop. Which is pretty frequent at lower levels, compared to level 120 where you’ll have to wait for 30 mins (at least) if you just want to do some random battleground for fun.

So… where did the community go?

I love this game. And I want to play it. But it’s getting harder every time I come back. I’m looking forward to Classic. Hopefully things will be better there. But who knows? Maybe this community is to broken and toxic to be “saved”? I sure hope not. Or maybe I’m just too old and grumpy? Maybe I don’t get how things work anymore, and therefore are missing out on a lot of stuff? I don’t know…

I’m still going to level my priest. I’m still having fun on my own. But it saddens me to see how empty the world is now.

6 Likes
2

On rare occasions I still make some new friends while leveling, but this is mostly in dungeon groups. It’s not how it was like in Vanilla-Wotlk. Nowadays you don’t really need to interact with others. Which is a shame.

1 Like
3

That’s weird. I was levelling a few months ago and managed to get a group of 3 together to deal with a end of quest boss in like 5min in Netherstorm. Hardly a popular zone. Sounds like you got unlucky mate.

1 Like
4

you my friend u are rigth

5

Oooh, I see you experince the exact same thing I did when I returned - thinking I would relive what I left so many years ago :slight_smile:

It’s not dead, but it has changed.
Not to something worse, but neither to something better.

It has changed into the way people interact and play games today.
The reason why the written chat often is dead, is because many people have trouble managing a written chat and a chat where they talk at the same time :yum:

I get those buffs a lot, but sadly I rarely see who cast then on me as I am often focused on something else.
Although I remember one pala who once jumped around me as I ran through Org and kept healing and buffing me :smile: I of course had to thank him for the overwhelmin attention and healing I recived :wink:

But /1 is a bit dead, /2 reach more people and if you had written Anal Asmondgold in that, you would have reached a lot of people :wink:

The numbers - fall in players means that you have to work harder to get the socializing up, it demands that you give a little effort into getting everything to a place where you can laugh with random people in general, trade or even guild.

But if you only write one sentence and expect people to react to that, and then get disappointed, then of course it feels dead.
I was once in the barrens, where one player kepts spamming the general with no end, after 20 minutes the chat was lively and we were a lot responding to him.

But the time of day still matters, and even if we seem to get a lot of new players in the game, I still seem to fall over the players in the very grown up age - meaning that a lot have something outside the screen pulling in them, and their attention might not always be on the chat screen.

I do believe a lot of people are rushing, but I still meet a lot of people who doesn’t - but it’s rarely in the starter zones… It isn’t that many that likes to stay on those for too long, not even the players who take it slow :slight_smile:

Maybe, but I don’t think it is.
Many players are still here and never left, they have their own circles, and the new players must adapt to that.
As a returning you could show the new ones what you loved, and maybe you can get some of the things you laughed at back :slight_smile:

6 Likes
6

Tbh I havent made any friends from playing for a long time… :frowning: most come from the friends thread and a lot of those dont play anymore

7

Blizzard have destroyed almost every aspect of WoW which requires player interaction and cooperation outside of higher difficulty raids and dungeons.

This was done on their crusade to streamline WoW as much as possible, so anyone can jump into game at any time, do some no thinking required “content” and then log out.

While that approach may sound good on paper, making a game so accessible and content so trivial makes the player experience very shallow. It creates no bond between players, and player interaction and co-dependency is the backbone of MMORPG.

2 Likes
8
1 Like
9

The world has changed, people used to talk to each other at the local corner shop and catch up on the gossip and news. That doesn’t happen any more.

It’s not the game thats changing per se, its hows the world has changed thats influenced the game.

2 Likes
10

Its the community, people in it.

11

In eso and ff14 people talk to eachother plenty

1 Like
12

Here you go, wall to fight wall xD, got carried away a bit, and watch that link (its important for the atmosphere)! :smiley:

When I was leveling my first char (orc shaman) on vanilla I was stuck on one quest in ashenvale, fully decked out warrior on some super cool looking mount was afking near flightmaster.

I approached him and went something like :“o super mighty awesome godlike warrior, could you please send some of your amazing sunshine in my direction and help me completely unworthy servant with simple task that is so much beneath your notice Ill probably burn in seventh circle of hell just for asking you?”

Insert convenient CarBot video → here

Thats how it went. After that, well I wasnt naive or stupid, but I told to myself that when I finish leveling, I am going to be as much badass as this guy and that I will help every lowly newbie that even tries saying as much as hello in zone chat …

My second char elf druid, also during vanilla, finished leveling basically in one afternoon, without saying word to a single person …

I simply didnt care, it was already back then, its nothing new. I just wanted to get max level and play with friends …

Yes blizz isnt exactly helping but is it such problem that never existed before?

People in BGs either dont talk or are toxic.
I played rated BGs with community, tons of fun on discord, they even made vids from the voice chat and recordings.
People are not leveling in groups?
It was sometimes annoying even during vanilla, now leveling isnt important, its about endgame and you can still have tons of fun even in dungeon finder, I cant even count the amount of fat themed jokes I heard while leveling my kultiran.
No world PvP?
WPVP was never constant, but one of my best moments from BFA was going with some random healer maybe even 2v8 and we destroyed them all, and I remember tons of people camping lowlies during vanilla and tbc and other expansions …
Dead guild chat?
Tons of spam notifications of what I missed on discord.

Could it be that everything is changing? And could it be that not every change means its bad?
I played BFA and I had lot of that MMO part, I often see people saying that they are alone in their guild from vanilla/tbc/wotlk … And? So leave, we had guild since vanilla, we were all friends there, we knew each other from real life. It died during MoP. So I left and I have dozen alts in dozen different guilds.
Also we have communities, that basically allows you to be in dozen guilds at once, sometimes I was even missing the correct chat, I had several PvP communities, several PvE, some random for chat and jokes and insults on BFA.
Thats better than vanilla where you needed soul shards to whisper to someone …

PS: His nick was Narguf /salute to you dude, I still remember you (named one of my DnD characters after you)

1 Like
13

I read this bit and wondered if I was remembering something wrong, didn’t blizzard change it so you get less experience in groups? or something like that…It’s been a long time…

14

I always come back for a couple of months and take a break for about a year… i miss the old comminity too. Back in the day people actually knew who i where which i think was pretty cool.

Now im waiting for vanilla to go live so i can have some fun with some irlies who used to grind this game too. Thats gonna be good.

So for your question: Im waiting vanilla

15

The reason there is no community is because blizzard has steam rolled the game on a singleplayer level and they’ve changed it from ‘‘Play the Game’’ to ‘‘Play the Patch’’.

The only community you will find in WoW is in a Guild, Trade Chat shenanigans or Twitch streamers.

16

Recently played FF14 for a month. The normal there is to say hi at the start of a dungeon. And thanks at the end. Seriously, well over 200 dungeons/raid. Was very, very rare someone wouldn’t speak. Went is as a tank for my first chara. Messed up and caused wipes many times. Never once had anyone rage or moan. Not once.

It was kind of a shock, and kinda annoying at the same time. Compared to wow, thr communities, and general politeness is in a really bad state.

17

I have played for 12 years and the one thing I would love more than anything is the community aspect back.

Is there anyone here that would be interested in making a fresh alt with me to make a total of 5 so we can go through all the dungeons, and then later mythic+ and various other stuff… maybe even raid although it’s been a long time since I did any raiding so tactics are not my thing this expac.

We could make a guild.

We’d have one rule - if we are not all on then we wait until we are… so if someone is ill or has another reason they can’t be on we swap to an alt.

People I can get along with need to be able to have a laugh… my jokes are terrible! Not take anything too serious and be patient with one another once facing more difficult content. I would also like to use wow voice chat, I really don’t want to have to type on runs, although at times I may have to.

You’d need to pick a role and stick to it (an alt is fine too if all roles can still be covered)… and maybe later we could try classic together if we all get along?

I can level with or without looms… I really don’t mind… with 5 of us dungeons prob would be the most fun.

Just an idea for now…

3 Likes
18

What realm would you create that on?
What faction do you prefer?

I am not the dungeon type anymore, but I have never said I would never do it - I just haven’t found any reasons/the right people to take it up with anymore, so I hope socials will be welcome in your new guild as well?

8-9 years ago a forum guild was created, it was one of the funniest things I have tried being part of - unfortunately it happened close before my break.

A forum guild once more could be very fun :slight_smile:

4 Likes
19

People get kicked from groups for talking.

Everything and everyone phases in and out of existence constantly.

Welcome to nu-wow.

1 Like
20

It’s been gone for about 8 or 9 years.