No Cross Realm LFG tool please!

[sempuken]

(1) Because every MMO has one except for this one

 

(2) There are plenty of downsides, you just can't see them.

 

 

-it doesn't affect community

-makes low pop playable

-less waiting

-more fun

 

what are the downsides?

[anaz]

-it doesn't affect community

-makes low pop playable

-less waiting

-more fun

 

what are the downsides?

 

- Yes, it does.

 

- Can be fixed by server merges, character transfers and server only LFG tool if needed.

 

- that^

 

- what?

 

 

How about the almost bloody sized essay I wrote on it?

Edited March 26, 2012 by anaz

[Meldwyn]

(1) Because every MMO has one except for this one

 

(2) There are plenty of downsides, you just can't see them.

 

People opposed to a cross realm LFG tool always forget the HUGE benefit of being able to enjoy all lower level content while leveling.

 

I saw places in Outlands and Vanilla that I would have never seen without a cross realm LFG tool. No ninja going on, just everyone leveling a toon and wanting to see long forgotten content now available due to that very feature.

 

Opened up a whole new leveling experience for everyone! That, right there, is why its needed. Otherwise SW is just "single player" to max and then spam LFG for HM's. Not a great design strategy!

[sempuken]

How about the almost bloody sized essay I wrote on it?

 

Yea saw that. All moot when you could simply not use it.

 

The upsides for the rest of the "community" outweigh all the negatives.

[anaz]

Yea saw that. All moot when you could simply not use it.

 

The upsides for the rest of the "community" outweigh all the negatives.

 

- Clearly you didn't read my response to someone who suggested the same thing.

 

- If you think easier gearing and leveling outweighs damaging the social element severely in this game "outweighing" than by all means....

[ferroz]

The exact same thing you are doing. We are merely giving are posting our personal opinion as to why we think the cross server LFG tool is a bad idea.

No, I'm mostly posting facts, and clearly labeling opinion as opinion, and then specificalyl disagreeing with anecdotal evidence by offering contradictory anecdotal evidence.

 

You, on the other hand, are asserting that your anecdotal evidence is sufficient to justify not having a cross server lfg tool.

 

You're arguing that there are problems with cross server; the onus is on you to give some sort of factual reason; not opinions, and not anecdotal evidence.

 

so clearly you're not doing exactly the same thing that I'm doing.

 

I'd love for it to be as simple as that be it simply isn't. The decreased communication requirements between players brought on by this tool would affect the community as a whole and consequently me.

Speculation; past deployments of similar tools in other games doesn't support your speculation at all.

 

personally, I suspect that the issue is that you went from primarily not pugging pre-lfd to actually pugging post-lfd, and you're conflating the differences between pug groups and non-pug groups.

 

Why would people bother joining my group that would take so much longer if they can simply use the LFG tool and get it done so muc faster?

The same reason that you'd prefer to have them join your group and take so much longer.... I mean, we're assuming that you prefer this, and that there are other people that do so.

 

as it is, this makes it sound like you're convinced that you're in such a vanishingly tiny minority that there's noone else who will wait to fill groups like this.

 

Now, from personal experience, I know that lots of people will prefer to form groups with people they know through chat; I even know a couple of people in wow that have (to my knowledge) never done a pug group through the lfd; if they have done so when I wasn't paying attention, then lfd pugs would make up less than 1% of their groups.

 

I am not talking about about realm only LFG tool, I am talking about a cross server one.

Me too; People spent less time sitting in cities right after the lfd tool was released. The lfd tool is the cross server lfd tool. Prior to lfd, they had to go to dalaran and spam chat looking for people to do the daily heroic or daily regular.

 

Some did, but they didn't have to, you can simply join channel you want from where you are.

No, if you wanted to find a group in a reasonable amount of time you needed to be in dalaran so you could pounce on the people who were looking for more. The lfg tool was useless for pugging. Flagging yourself as lfg was also useless.

 

Even if they did they would at least have to interact with other players while they were doing it

No, spamming general chat for a group is not interacting with other players. Nor is responding to general chat spam.

 

 

That rarely happened and with much less frequency then before the LFG tool.

No, I disagree; that happened exactly as often pre lfd tool as it did post lfd tool. The lfd too did not, in any way, cause a change in that behavior.

 

(1) The dungeons required some communication

No... not even a little bit. They were roflstomp easy right before the lfd tool. get in, and gogogo.

 

(2) If someone responds you can then have the opportunity of some sort of communication going i.e. what gear they have, have they run the instance before etc.

So? it didn't happen any more often that chatty groups in lfd happen...

 

With a LFG tool, all further communication is pointless. The problem with the LFG tool is that it makes things TOO efficient. It makes many interactions among players while preparing for an instance redundant.

No, it doesn't make any of that communication invalid or pointless; there's exactly the same point to communicating with and without an lfg tool.

 

You're confusing "easy content" with "cross server" ... they're totally different. We had easy content before lfd.

 

That assuming that the players actually go out of their way to talk instead of being required to with out a x server LFG tool.

They're not required to... you don't have to with cross server lfg; you don't have to with single server lfg; you don't have to without either.

 

All that is redundant when an LFG tool makes communication between players irrelevant when it comes to assembly or doing an instance

You're not making any sense.

 

There is exactly the same reasons to chat with someone whether there is a cross server lfg, or single server lfg, or no lfg.

 

(dungeons being so easy doesn't help either.)

Dungeons were roflstomp easy before lfd.

 

 

 

It also helps to make the guild redundant i.e. Why would I bother asking my guild for help or possible joiners if LFG tool does it so much faster? <---- That's the kind of mentality the a cross server LFG tool brings.

No, I suspect that most of wow still runs as primarily guild groups; I run into lots of them when I'm pugging solo. My guild runs primarily in guild groups; friends that I know in other guilds run primarily in guild groups.

 

guilds have exactly the same relevance with and without an lfg tool.

 

 

 

I do like the the greater efficiency an LFG tool brings, but not if it sacrifices a large aspect communicating with other players. It helped turned WoW into a mere gear acquiring exercise and nothing more.

No, it doesn't actually sacrifice any communication.

 

Wow had been a gear acquiring exercise for at least 2 or 3 years before they added lfd.

Edited March 26, 2012 by ferroz

[sempuken]

- Clearly you didn't read my response to someone who suggested the same thing.

 

- If you think easier gearing and leveling outweighs damaging the social element severely in this game "outweighing" than by all means....

 

 

 

 

this game is already easy, what's the harm in speeding it up? It doesn't damage anything social unless you let it.

[ferroz]

- Clearly you didn't read my response to someone who suggested the same thing.

So... don't use it. Just like some of my guildies in wow don't use it.

[DarthTHC]

I wonder what would happen to the social aspect of the game if the General channel weren't constantly clogged with the same person spamming "LFG ______________________" every other line and could instead be used for general discussion...

 

Just a thought.

[xxStupidxx]

I agree with Anaz. And while I'm too lazy to write a bloody essay on the matter, I will say this: A cross server LFD tool will destroy any semblance of community interaction related to dungeon finding. In WoW, currently, when you get in a dungeon via the LFD tool, no one talks. Well, some people talk, but it has nothing to do with the game at all. And at the end of the day, you're either questing alone or in a dungeon with people you don't know and won't see again for quite some time. If a cross realm LFG/LFD tool is implemented, SWTOR will become just a single player game with other people who may as well be NPCs.

[Touchbass]

There are benefits and downsides to a X-LFD, no one is saying it's a win/win scenario that fixes everything, what people are saying is the benefits outweigh the risks. Without an automated feature that groups people together, the onus is on the players to decide which content to do which is really bad for so many people

 

1) The lack of instances run pre-lvl cap is sickening

 

2) There aren't enough people online during off-peak server hours to run instances

 

3) PvE dungeons are being skpped in favour of PvP to gear up

 

4) With additional rungs added to the ladder in the next patch, it'll become even harder to find groups to gear up in PvE unless your geared causing the old pre- cross server LFD Catch 22 for getting groups

 

What we need is a solution that benefits people like me without punishing those who wish to group internally. Bioware has essentially shot themselves in the foot with this issue, it's the biggest issue right after populations on certain servers.

[DarthTHC]

I agree with Anaz. And while I'm too lazy to write a bloody essay on the matter, I will say this: A cross server LFD tool will destroy any semblance of community interaction related to dungeon finding. In WoW, currently, when you get in a dungeon via the LFD tool, no one talks. Well, some people talk, but it has nothing to do with the game at all. And at the end of the day, you're either questing alone or in a dungeon with people you don't know and won't see again for quite some time. If a cross realm LFG/LFD tool is implemented, SWTOR will become just a single player game with other people who may as well be NPCs.

 

Right now, unless you're on one of the very few properly populated servers, SWTOR is a single-player game with a chatbox. Essentially it's KOTOR + IRC.

 

How is that good?

[Touchbass]

I agree with Touchbass. And while I'm too lazy to write a bloody essay on the matter, I will say this: not adding a cross server LFD tool will destroy any semblance of community interaction related to dungeon finding. In SWTOR, currently, when you get in a dungeon via the LFD tool, no one talks. Well, some people talk, but it has nothing to do with the game at all. And at the end of the day, you're either questing alone or in a dungeon with people you don't know and won't see again for quite some time. When a cross realm LFG/LFD tool is implemented, SWTOR will become more then just a single player game with other people around that you don't see so they might as be NPCs.

 

Fixed that for you

[Orizuru]

- Yes, it does.

 

- Can be fixed by server merges, character transfers and server only LFG tool if needed.

 

- that^

 

- what?

 

 

How about the almost bloody sized essay I wrote on it?

 

Server mergers are bad, mmmKay? It tends to have a very negative effect on stock performance and upsets the shareholders. Let's not even entertain the technical difficulties involved. As long as the company can afford to maintain all the current servers, then I wouldn't expect any mergers at this juncture.

 

Character Transfers haven't fixed any of the low population server problems for any game I know of. WoW has tried free transfers, paid transfers, and even guild transfers; but they still have more than a few "dead" servers. Why? Because nobody wants to transfer to a low pop realm. All server transfers will accomplish is making a few servers have too many players while others are still struggling to maintain any kind of population at all. People will always cluster around the most popular servers though.

 

The LFG tool that was implemented in other games made all the players on those low population realms rather happy because it created a sense of community on servers that otherwise would not have had one.

[ferroz]

I will say this: A cross server LFD tool will destroy any semblance of community interaction related to dungeon finding. In WoW, currently, when you get in a dungeon via the LFD tool, no one talks. Well, some people talk, but it has nothing to do with the game at all.

So... that's exactly the same as immediately prior to the lfd tool. So clearly the lfd tool didn't cause a change there.

 

And at the end of the day, you're either questing alone or in a dungeon with people you don't know and won't see again for quite some time.

No, you can certainly see them again, if you want to. This is just a blatantly false statement.

 

It sounds like the problem is that you're just anti-social and don't want to socialize with people; that's fine, but don't blame that on the lfd tool.

[Valkirus]

People opposed to a cross realm LFG tool always forget the HUGE benefit of being able to enjoy all lower level content while leveling.

 

I saw places in Outlands and Vanilla that I would have never seen without a cross realm LFG tool. No ninja going on, just everyone leveling a toon and wanting to see long forgotten content now available due to that very feature.

 

Opened up a whole new leveling experience for everyone! That, right there, is why its needed. Otherwise SW is just "single player" to max and then spam LFG for HM's. Not a great design strategy!

 

Well said and exactly on the mark. WoW lost subs for more than one reason, but I serously donot think the LFG tool was one of them. For one, Blizz in thier next expansion is expanding upon the feature even more. They know how popular and successful it has been. Thier reasoning is the feature allows access to end game content to more of the player base and thier data shows this to be true.

[Valkirus]

I agree with Anaz. And while I'm too lazy to write a bloody essay on the matter, I will say this: A cross server LFD tool will destroy any semblance of community interaction related to dungeon finding. In WoW, currently, when you get in a dungeon via the LFD tool, no one talks. Well, some people talk, but it has nothing to do with the game at all. And at the end of the day, you're either questing alone or in a dungeon with people you don't know and won't see again for quite some time. If a cross realm LFG/LFD tool is implemented, SWTOR will become just a single player game with other people who may as well be NPCs.

 

This is so far from the turth. I had to reply to it. For example: The other day....my guild did a LFR run with 10 members. So the 25 player raid was made up of more than 35% being my friends and guildies. And during the run we enjoyed talking about the run and strats..congraulating each other on roll wins , etc. We had as much fun doing this type of raid as we do when we do a all guild one. Saying noone talks in a random dungeon group is just not true.

[navarh]

Saying noone talks in a random dungeon group is just not true.

+

Saying that now all so chatty in fp is also not true

+

Saying that dungeons/fp is chatty-chatty room for chatting is also not true

let's say you tanking da mob's and healer decide

who need healing?

lets see how long tank survive while i'm chatting and socialize

Edited March 26, 2012 by navarh

[Esproc]

Purely, for some, an analogy.

 

You have a nice neighborhood, next a drug dealer moves in across the street from you, all types of different people to meet and get to know (sic).

 

Your neighbors move away or stay out of touch locked in their homes to avoid the "bad" element that has infested their neighborhood.

 

You shouldn't have to worry, it doesn't involve you, besides, maybe the police will even drive by more, make raids, disrupt your harmony, or not, but you shouldn't worry, you're safe, they would never bother you, you are as I said, not a part of that new element.

 

But it does affect you, and that community that you live in, all because of the addition of that one element that destroyed what you had, a community of people that you could talk to, work with, and deal with on a regular basis.

 

Before you say "but you can still do that", I would point out what a poster said about going in to Stormwind or Orgrimmar and asking for a group and "being laughed at", because there is no need for any of that community to work together, because they have a button with a drop down menu that takes care of that for them. There is the loss of community, the destruction of guilds, yes guilds, as stated by another poster who said "there was no more guild runs because they just used LFG".

 

We, the community and BW, have a LFG on the servers we inhabit, it is not the best design, it is not a button with a menu, too complicated, never used but for a few. Who is to be blamed for not using it when it is there? Not BW, not those that use it, but those that do not use it and cry for more like a X-Server because it does not meet their entitlement desires.

 

BW is looking at making this tool more function able for those that can't seem to find it, figure it out, or just won't use it.

 

Please BW, do not implement a X-Server LFG tool.

[anaz]

No, I'm mostly posting facts, and clearly labeling opinion as opinion, and then specificalyl disagreeing with anecdotal evidence by offering contradictory anecdotal evidence.

 

You, on the other hand, are asserting that your anecdotal evidence is sufficient to justify not having a cross server lfg tool. You are doing the exact same thing in support of it

 

You're arguing that there are problems with cross server; the onus is on you to give some sort of factual reason; not opinions, and not anecdotal evidence. We both are offering personal experience from WoW in order to support out claims. Asserting personal experience is not a subsitute for actual facts

 

so clearly you're not doing exactly the same thing that I'm doing. Yes, I am.

 

Obviously when i'm discussing my experiences with the game it is implied that it is opinion, not facts. You can either take my opinion or leave it

 

Speculation; past deployments of similar tools in other games doesn't support your speculation at all.

 

personally, I suspect that the issue is that you went from primarily not pugging pre-lfd to actually pugging post-lfd, and you're conflating the differences between pug groups and non-pug groups. No that's not it. I ran pugs and non-pugs post and pre.

 

The same reason that you'd prefer to have them join your group and take so much longer.... I mean, we're assuming that you prefer this, and that there are other people that do so.

 

as it is, this makes it sound like you're convinced that you're in such a vanishingly tiny minority that there's noone else who will wait to fill groups like this.

 

Now, from personal experience, I know that lots of people will prefer to form groups with people they know through chat; I even know a couple of people in wow that have (to my knowledge) never done a pug group through the lfd; if they have done so when I wasn't paying attention, then lfd pugs would make up less than 1% of their groups.

 

Well that's great for people who have already an existing base of friends in other group with it. That, however, would not be the case for new players who are going into the game fresh and knows no one who plays it. It's therefore safe to assume that person would rely heavily on the LFG tool. Also, with a LFD x-server tool restricts the need communicating with players you have never met due to the reduced need to.

 

Me too; People spent less time sitting in cities right after the lfd tool was released. The lfd tool is the cross server lfd tool. Prior to lfd, they had to go to dalaran and spam chat looking for people to do the daily heroic or daily regular. Before the LFD tool at least two of the group had to travel to the location to summon the others. With a server only tool they often communicated with other players in other to get a group together i.e. "Do you have a tank that wants to join in your guild" instead of having a tool that makes such questions redundant.

 

No, if you wanted to find a group in a reasonable amount of time you needed to be in dalaran so you could pounce on the people who were looking for more. The lfg tool was useless for pugging. Yes, but not all players are doing heroics, some players are leveling and want to a instance etc. Everything is automatic with a x-server LFD and the need to communicate with new players is minimal and consequently forging new relationships within the game is minimal. Flagging yourself as lfg was also useless. Disagree

 

No, spamming general chat for a group is not interacting with other players. Nor is responding to general chat spam. Yes, it is. If you ask for something and I respond, regardless of the level of further communication, we are interacting. This at least opens the gates to further queries either player may have i.e. "do you have healing gear?" The same questions could be made in LFD, but the party leader would at least be prompted to go out of his/her way to sort out the problem due to the trouble of getting new players. This increase communications between players. This would very rarely happen in LFD x-server due to the ease of replacing the player.

 

 

No, I disagree; that happened exactly as often pre lfd tool as it did post lfd tool. The lfd too did not, in any way, cause a change in that behavior. Other then the obligatory "hi" and "bye" there was minimal interaction between players in comparison to before. At least in my experience.

 

No... not even a little bit. They were roflstomp easy right before the lfd tool. get in, and gogogo. Exactly, when the game required some tactics and it was difficult it required communication. The decreased difficulty along with LFD x server tool removed much of player interaction.

 

So? it didn't happen any more often that chatty groups in lfd happen...

 

In my experience, more communication seems to occur when there is difficulty within the group i.e. try to find new players, wiping etc.

No, it doesn't make any of that communication invalid or pointless; there's exactly the same point to communicating with and without an lfg tool.

 

Require more players? just let the LFG tool do it. Healer sucks? Just let the LFD tool get a new one instead of helping him.

 

You're confusing "easy content" with "cross server" ... they're totally different. We had easy content before lfd.

 

They're not required to... you don't have to with cross server lfg; you don't have to with single server lfg; you don't have to without either. Having trouble find a player? you'll have to communicate. With the LFD it's never even an issue as zero communication is required because it does it for you and fast.

 

You're not making any sense.

 

There is exactly the same reasons to chat with someone whether there is a cross server lfg, or single server lfg, or no lfg.

 

Already covered

 

Dungeons were roflstomp easy before lfd.

 

 

 

No, I suspect that most of wow still runs as primarily guild groups; I run into lots of them when I'm pugging solo. My guild runs primarily in guild groups; friends that I know in other guilds run primarily in guild groups.

 

guilds have exactly the same relevance with and without an lfg tool.

 

Not to the same extent. When assembling a group or having tackling an instead one of the first things you do is ask your guild for help. This is reduced largely when new players can be brought in so easily. Also, i found people were increasingly aggressive to failing players due to the ease of their replacement, the inefficiences promoted helpful play because that player couldn't be replaced so easily.

 

 

No, it doesn't actually sacrifice any communication.

 

covered

 

Wow had been a gear acquiring exercise for at least 2 or 3 years before they added lfd. It was but there was a large social element to the game that LFD helped to reduce drastically.

 

In red.

Edited March 26, 2012 by anaz

[Ptello]

My issue with cross server lfg is not necessarily the "killing the community" idea, but rather the "you don't know who I am and will never see me again, so I can be a complete tool to you, and your options are either to leave the group and find another, or if my friends are here with me, wait until we kick you" problem. Not every group is like that, of course, but it really seemed to be in WoW that the anonymity provided by cross server groups increased the bad behavior in groups. Before that option existed, a ninja or just a simple jerk on a server would become known and avoided for bad behavior (unless they somehow developed a following, which did happen occasionally). It seemed like once cross server groups existed, people just didn't care about any type of bad reputation anymore. I would be thrilled to have a server only tool implemented, because it is hard to find groups at off peak times, but I'm just not looking foward to the attitudes that come from being more anonymous.

[Nitewolfe]

Frankly i would not mind that it kills single server communities. I actually prefer that it would.

The mmo genre as a whole needs to break away from the single server mind set and start thinking in a much large community aspect. Its time that mmo's became truly massive and included the whole p[layer base as a community not just one server.

 

The next great mmo will be one that embraces being truly massive. That is if wow doesnt beat them to it.

 

I dont like gated communities in real live and i am tired of playing online in gated communities.

[DarthTHC]

My issue with cross server lfg is not necessarily the "killing the community" idea, but rather the "you don't know who I am and will never see me again, so I can be a complete tool to you, and your options are either to leave the group and find another, or if my friends are here with me, wait until we kick you" problem. Not every group is like that, of course, but it really seemed to be in WoW that the anonymity provided by cross server groups increased the bad behavior in groups. Before that option existed, a ninja or just a simple jerk on a server would become known and avoided for bad behavior (unless they somehow developed a following, which did happen occasionally). It seemed like once cross server groups existed, people just didn't care about any type of bad reputation anymore. I would be thrilled to have a server only tool implemented, because it is hard to find groups at off peak times, but I'm just not looking foward to the attitudes that come from being more anonymous.

 

So here's an interesting tidbit about the group mechanics in SWTOR... you do not need a majority to boot someone.

 

You can try this if you'd like to...

 

Let's say you want to do a flashpoint. You spam your LFG and someone invites you. You get right up to the last mob in the flashpoint and... the group leader boots you from the group.

 

Now imagine if that was a long flashpoint. You just wasted how many hours of your time, helped the group through 98% of the content, and you have to do it all over again.

 

At least with an LFG tool, if implemented according to typical standards, the majority of the group would have to decide to throw your work away rather than just one person.

 

Which is the greater recipe for grief?

[Zhoultier]

Will this work for pvp? the Cross Realm idea Cuz iam a bit sick of getting the same "randoms" over and over on WZ. Iam not a regular player, but i like to pvp a bit when the pve is dead, and i always get the same premades on the server. At lvl 50 seems that the random players disapper from server

 

thx

[Gerandar]

if they refuse to add cross realm LFG then they better not add cross realm warzones because that will ruin my community! D: