Bioware says NO LFD TOOL.

[Behn]

Yes! Ty bioware!

[Israel]

We need an LFG tool, even if they restrict it to your server only. But spamming channels for hours just to find a group is stupid.

[Barracudastr]

Oh no, I will have to type "LFM Athiss" every 3-5 mins while I quest, barely slowing me down!!! Hopefully people don't find that to be too big of a deal. I'm completely fine (and may actually prefer) a LFG interface where you can put your name on a list for a dungeon, and then people would have to talk to you to ask you, but as it stands it really isn't bad.

 

People are just expecting to be spoon fed all the time, and drawing the line is a good thing.

 

oh ya while you quest? my quest area has 30 people in it how many of those are going to join for athiss? Meaning only those 30 people will see your spam for a group... and guess what they probably aren't interested as they are doing their own thing.

 

Seriously most ignorant post in this discussion /1 is limited by the shard/planet you are on.....

 

Get a clue to the actual problem.

Edited December 25, 2011 by Barracudastr

[Ethern]

So basically, you're so completely paranoid about the possibility of someone being so egregiously antisocial that the LFD tool becomes nothing but a vehicle for them to abuse the system unpunished, that you feel that it should be withheld from the entire playerbase to preemptively punish that relative minority? Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

Ah ah ah ah. Well said; you nailed it. Indeed it does not make sense. Edited December 25, 2011 by Ethern

[acheros]

oh ya while you quest? my quest area has 30 people in it how many of those are going to join for athiss? Meaning only those 30 people will see your spam for a group... and guess what they probably aren't interested as they are doing their own thing.

 

Seriously most ignorant post in this discussion /1 is limited by the shard/planet you are on.....

 

Get a clue to the actual problem.

 

its not limited by the shard..Its limited by your server(duh) and planet. But everyone on the entire planet, be they in shard 1 or 2, can hear /1. Its still a problem, but not as bad as you're saying.

[Cerus]

I love this decision! It is very good for the game! :-)

[acheros]

I love this decision! It is very good for the game! :-)

 

Care to explain how you think its good?

[Ethern]

I love this decision! It is very good for the game! :-)

*For the solo metagame.

[Barracudastr]

and how many times do I have to emphasize before you stop seeing what you want to see and see what I'm saying?

 

AUTOMATION.

 

AUTOMATION. same server automation is STILL a license to misbehave becasue you'll still be able to find another random group since the system doesn't care how naughty you were being. it will just group you with different players.

 

unless ignore list becomes unlimited and even then it will take months before jerks are weeded out and then they can just reroll on a different server. and god forbid they implement server transfers...

 

These servers are capped at under 1k. So your point fails.

 

Your point is people will be d bags in groups if there is LFD then just jump to another group fi they want....

 

Did it ever cross your mind that those people might be like hey xxx person is a d bag if you get him in your group kick him.

 

The same rules apply to LFD as long as its for same server LFD. Because after so many LFD of being a bad person people are going to know your name and justkick you when you get in.

 

Think your not understanding what your talking about.

 

Its no different then if you spent an hour getting a group then finding a d bag player and kicking him and telling everyone.... only difference is your group might be crippled as you cant find another replacement depending on their role..... with LFD you would just grab the next out of the que FROM YOUR OWN SERVER.

 

Thus either way the bad player gets punished, while the people that are nice and social dont get punished by not being able to finish or not being able to start a group to begin with.

 

How do you not see different sides to this? Stop basing what wow has done to LFD and using that as your reasoning because thats all your doing.

[Gelos]

So true. Again nothing is stopping that from happening. You are just hurting casuals, guidless, people that play off hours, etc etc. Guilds have always been the crux of the 'in game' community in wow from what I experienced.

You want more, then you gotta stop playing video games and go outside imo.

 

So sad.

 

I will probably never play Flashpoints or group content as a result.

Oh well, The single player story will have to tide me over, and when that's done I'll move onto something else :-)

 

I'm not sitting in chat spamming Looking for Group messages, that's just very silly. And I may/may not join a Guild...and they may/may not be doing the group content that I want to do...

 

In 2012, I can't countenance the lack of a looking for group tool.

[Jeweledleah]

So basically, you're so completely paranoid about the possibility of someone being so egregiously antisocial that the LFD tool becomes nothing but a vehicle for them to abuse the system unpunished, that you feel that it should be withheld from the entire playerbase to preemptively punish that relative minority? Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

 

its not a paranoia, its personal experiences.

 

and once again, I'm not against improvements to the current system, it does have plenty of issues. but people tend to not appreciate things that are handed to them on a silver platter. even better people.

 

and the funny thing is - this game can be played completely solo if one so wishes. you have plenty of options, more quests then you can possibly need to outlevel the planets, plenty of stories to pursue. and you don't have extend your hand to anyone for it.

 

and you know what, I'm done with this. bioware will make their choice one way or another. I'm just hoping its not in favor of "lets make this game into actual WoW clone"

 

the reasoning that "just becasue it happened elsewhere, doesn't mean it will happen here" is..... overly optimistic.

Edited December 25, 2011 by Jeweledleah

[Barracudastr]

its not a paranoia, its personal experiences.

 

and once again, I'm not against improvements to the current system, it does have plenty of issues. but people tend to not appreciate things that are handed to them on a silver platter. even better people.

 

and the funny thing is - this game can be played completely solo if one so wishes. you have plenty of options, more quests then you can possibly need to outlevel the planets, plenty of stories to pursue. and you don't have extend your hand to anyone for it.

 

So what do people do at end game that aren't in a guild and cant get groups just quit?

 

FP's and op's are a MAJOR part of the game and excluding people from it just because you had a bad time in wow and base your opinion off that is just idiocy. This is not wow its not wow's community, and a server side LFD tool would not hurt the community.

 

What will hurt hte community is when people realize they cant get groups and subs start dropping off due to not being able to play the full game.

 

Oh ya end game..... cant get any groups.... well /unsub i guess.

 

ANd I will tell you right now if bio starts losing subs to features that the community is 50/50 on they will add them anyways. They are in the business to make money not please their hardcore fanbase.

 

This is why wow went so casual it brought them more subs and extended the life of the mmo.

 

Its all business and if LFD becomes a big problem they will add some version of it regardless of what you think about social networking and automation/bad players. Its irrelvant.

Edited December 25, 2011 by Barracudastr

[grimgryphon]

Huh, this thread is a deja vu...

 

...where have I heard all this before...

 

...oh right, in Rift.

 

Guess what? The whiners got a LFD tool in Rift and you can see what it did to that game.

 

The same thing will happen here. Making the vocal minority happy in MMOs is top priority for these companies.

Edited December 25, 2011 by grimgryphon

[Bleedbloo]

So basically, you're so completely paranoid about the possibility of someone being so egregiously antisocial that the LFD tool becomes nothing but a vehicle for them to abuse the system unpunished, that you feel that it should be withheld from the entire playerbase to preemptively punish that relative minority? Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

I want you to address certain points that have been brought up.

 

1. If you work to form a group, instead of having it given to you, you will be more inclined to care about it because it took effort to form.

 

2. In order to ease future group formation, people will work harder by being nice to others and effective at playing. By implementing a LFD tool, there is no incentive because forming a group will always be automatic and easy

Edited December 25, 2011 by Bleedbloo

[Barracudastr]

Unfortunately, no matter what side someone is on in an argument, flawed logic is flawed.

 

His logic, as you pointed out, has certain deficiencies that easily invalidate the argument against the LFG. However, I want you to address certain points that have been brought up.

 

1. If you work to form a group, instead of having it given to you, you will be care more about it because it took effort to form.

 

2. In order to ease future group formation, people will work harder by being nice to others and effective at playing. By implementing a LFD tool, there is no incentive because forming a group will always be automatic and easy

 

This is why it has to be server side, and have vote kick option.

 

Because if your a dick im sure the group will tell their friends to kick you if they get you in group. These servers have pretty low caps. The chances of running the same content with the same people is much much higher.

[acheros]

its not a paranoia, its personal experiences.

 

Your personal experiences doesn't mean its common.

 

I've had very few troubles with LFD, even when it went world wide and not just battlegroup.

 

In fact, i've met more people from LFD then i've EVER met from old school grouping.

 

See, with old school grouping. I stuck to my circle of friends and my guild(often time they overlapped, as things happen) However, once LFD hit, i actually met MORE people. and sometimes we'd sit and talk while other people did things...IE, say the tank has to leave, while waiting, i'd talk to people.

 

Or if someone needs to zone and grab a few items, or /afk. I'd TALK TO PEOPLE.

 

I've even met people from my realm on LFD and made friends with them that way.

 

SHOCKING! I KNOW!

[SGRX]

its not a paranoia, its personal experiences.

 

and once again, I'm not against improvements to the current system, it does have plenty of issues. but people tend to not appreciate things that are handed to them on a silver platter. even better people.

 

and the funny thing is - this game can be played completely solo if one so wishes. you have plenty of options, more quests then you can possibly need to outlevel the planets, plenty of stories to pursue. and you don't have extend your hand to anyone for it.

 

Strawman argument. We can't give them this because they wouldn't appreciate it; we shouldn't give them this because they would abuse it.

 

You're assuming that facilitating an otherwise potentially complicated and cumbersome (and let's not deny it, outdated) pseudo-socialization ritual would somehow be tantamount to a welfare system for abusive, antisocial players that are SOMEHOW otherwise unable to socially engineer their preferred pattern of systemic abuse.

 

The server just isn't that big - a same-server LFD tool automates the tedium of grouping and promotes socialization. Those that abuse the system would eventually be blacklisted and ignored because, frankly, the server isn't that big, and there are no server transfers and/or name changes. You want a sense of community, then eliminate the bottlenecks in forming it. A few people maybe getting harassed by a few idiots isn't a good basis for eliminating what amounts to a huge convenience for everyone.

[Barracudastr]

Also LFD is a social tool to meet new people you probably would never meet or get an opportunity to run with.

 

You cant base social experiences with wow's LFD and assume the same thing will happen here. Different game different people, and im sure bioware wouldn't make it cross server either. SO you are playing with people from your server and getting to know them.

 

If you want to just stick to your friends list and guild fine then group with them but dont make the rest of us suffer that dont have a big guild or no guild and not many people on our list.

[SGRX]

I want you to address certain points that have been brought up.

 

1. If you work to form a group, instead of having it given to you, you will be care more about it because it took effort to form.

 

2. In order to ease future group formation, people will work harder by being nice to others and effective at playing. By implementing a LFD tool, there is no incentive because forming a group will always be automatic and easy

 

1. One person forms a group; the rest join it. You think this distinction makes or breaks the sense of community on a server? No, it just skews the perception of authority toward those with the predilection to lead.

 

2. There is little difference in practice with this and a same-server LFD tool. How many people do you think are on a server? A few thousand people is a fairly small group - word gets around. Say 1 person knows six people, and they each know six people, it takes 5 repetitions of "this person is a ninja" by each of them, with only those six people hearing/seeing and ignoring, to reach ~7800 people. The server is a LOT less than 7800 people. These things are a reflection of consequence, not a reflection of the effort that goes into finding a group.

 

Removing the bottlenecks in group formation actually promotes this process, rather than restricting it. There are no paid name changes, no paid server transfers. If someone wants to level a new character after exhausting their griefing options on the first, well... more power to them.

Edited December 25, 2011 by SGRX

[Gelos]

Huh, this thread is a deja vu...

 

...where have I heard all this before...

 

...oh right, in Rift.

 

Guess what? The whiners got a LFD tool in Rift and you can see what it did to that game.

 

The same thing will happen here. Making the vocal minority happy in MMOs is top priority for these companies.

 

What happened to Rift? The LFD tool is one of the best features of that game. So many more people play Dungeons and group content there than before, It's great!

 

And with the Instant Adventure and Public Grouping...playing as a team is far far more common in RIFT than it is in SWTOR currently. So again...what is this vast negative effect that the LFD tool had on RIFT?

[Odmjun]

<3333333333333333333333333

[JonnyBigBoss]

Same planet LFD is the best solution. What WoW has currently is the WORST.

[aureliastarr]

The absolute simple bottom line is that the casual people that work typical 8-5 jobs and have the money to spend 15 dollars a month to play this game will be turned off by the fact that they will most nights be unable to experience flashpoint content, because time does not permit going through a laborious manual process in order to get roughly the same quality of group and game that alternative MMOs offer. This is being done in the name of social engineering: "We know when this LFG tool is given, people use it as opposed to the laborious manual process. We think that laborious manual process forces social interaction, and therefore we are not going to give it."

 

I suspect that the developers cannot possibly be this blind and ignorant to the demographics and types of people that a lfg tool help and also the revenue that it supports. The only thing I can imagine is that perhaps technologically with the Hero engine (not certain on this) it is something too difficult for them to implement so they are trying to sweep it under the rug. That's giving them the benefit of the doubt, because the alternative is that they have no understanding of what benefits the LFG tool provides to the player base. It doesn't suppress community... it instead reduces the percentage population of your community that can experience the content that you spent time money and energy developing. That lack of content to those customers translates to lost subscriptions and lost revenue. It's simple.

 

These people in this forum can argue till they are blue in the face about social engineering and using developer power to try to encourage or force certain player behavior all they want. The simple fact is, no LFG translates to fewer players experiencing your content and ultimately playing your game. Period.

[ademnus]

At least for the foreseeable future anyway, which is just fine by me. Read and weep:

 

 

 

Stephen Reid:

 

We're aware of this desire, but we actually believe that finding others on the same planet as you encourages social interaction a bit more than a general 'group finder'. We're not saying it'll never, ever happen but again, not high priority right now.

 

Kudos to Bioware for not giving in. I won't be so crass as to tell players who want this to go back to WoW, but I will point out that you now have a clear choice.

 

agreed

[Gelos]

I want you to address certain points that have been brought up.

 

1. If you work to form a group, instead of having it given to you, you will be more inclined to care about it because it took effort to form.

 

2. In order to ease future group formation, people will work harder by being nice to others and effective at playing. By implementing a LFD tool, there is no incentive because forming a group will always be automatic and easy

 

Completely false assumptions that have not been borne out by decades of MMO gaming.

 

If any of this was true, then before Looking For Group tools were available, we would not have had Griefing, Ninja Looting, and people complaining about poor Pick Up Groups.

 

These things existed long before Looking for Group tools, and these Tools based on my own anecdotal experience have not "worsened" the resulting groups that are formed through use of these tools.

 

So I say your argument is invalid.

 

I should be able to play, and be teleported to my PVE content the same way PVP players get to their PVP Warfronts.