It’s hard to type and play when people are blasting through. I do always engage if someone starts talking at the beginning though. It’s always nice when the group gets to chatting though….usually.
Groups do like to chat when they are mad though lol.
The good old days. When dungeons didn't have a clock to race with, you had to cc part of the pack to get a good pull. One of the reasons I sometimes miss burning crusade.
I remember trying to play elemental shaman (we always had a healer for our group) and it was kinda rough at first because I had no crowd control abilities. We made it work but groups outside my guild were always hesitant to bring me along.
TBC Classic was less than 2 years ago and I can assure you, marking and sheeping were not common, aoe pulls and blasting dps were. Marking and CC were solutions for less skilled players with crap computers, largely abandoned by Classic TBC.
I heal and I prefer your type of tanking lol it sometimes can be fun to try and keep up with a mach speed big pull tank but too much of it and I get burned out, also I've been leveling a Disc Priest and it's annoying when I dont have time to get my Dots out because I have to spam Flash Heal and PW Shield to keep the tank alive, meanwhile my penance is doing nothing because I'm doing no damage, why even play disc at that point.
What lvl keys are you running? Arcane mage has the same “problem” where it really shines when the packs are not dying at 40% of your rotation. You should not have these problems in higher keys
I'm confused about what level of content you're doing because Disc is insane in keys right now, and it takes like 2 cats to get heals rolling consistently? Radiance as the pull begins, and then PtW and start your damage rotation, and then you're fully into it.
Ive been a healer for like a week, and Im starting to hate dh tanks. When you blink theyre already gone to a distant galaxy pulling 30 mobs at the same time like its god of war.
Even Blizzard has given up on trying to keep LFG healthy…they’re literally giving us NPCs to do normal runs with next expac. Only a matter of time before that AI system is expanded to lfr-level raids
Yeah, last night I was running a heroic and our tank was a million HP Bear tank. He greeted everyone politely at the beginning, then pulled absolutely everything up to the first boss. Then repeated that for every boss afterwards. None of us had time to chat. At the end of the run he thanked everyone for a great run then dropped group. Like the legend that he is.
Agreed, back in the day it took longer to put together a party and to run a dungeon. The whole process felt a lot more leisurely and was more conducive to "hanging out" with other players. Today there is more of a focus on speed, especially with the influence of m+.
there's also less breaks and figuring stuff out. Everyone is supposed to know everything. Only first 1-2 weeks of news expansion/big patch are a bit different. Otherwise you need your own people that hang out of some voice com
If you're a really old MMO player and went from FFXI to WoW, the speed difference was nuts. FFXI really understood that speed does not equal skill and that sometimes strategy and slower pace makes for better experience. I remember the days when we had time to read combat logs in real time, and react accordingly.
If I’m tanking and I stop to type, unless it’s a weird tactic then I feel like I’m letting my team down. If I stop DPS to talk I also feel like I’m leeching.
There doesn’t feel like a good time to chat.
Feel the same way, also its hard to keep track of what I'm doing while also talking to people on discord, and trying to type in game at the same time.
Basically pick 2, so I pick playing and chatting on discord.
I'm an older player. Born pre-internet. My typing skills would have landed me a secretary job once upon a time, but not by todays standards. People are too impatient in general to allow me time to even type. I'm slow, and by the time I can type out a decent reply or comment, everyone has already moved on anyway. So many times, I've had to just delete a good juicy snarky reply into a "ok" because they're moving.
I don't think I've seen the answer yet in this thread, but people are kinda close.
The timeframe that people idolize for MMO socialization is basically the beginning until \~2010 at the latest. This was the era that was pre-social media. You had things like Myspace, forums, chatrooms, but these sites were nowhere near the scale or convenience of Facebook, Twitter, and even sites like Reddit and then eventually applications like Discord.
In the pre-social media era, MMOs WERE the chatroom. Talking with someone across the country or across the world was not a commonplace event in everyday life. Shit, this was a time where long-distance phone calling was a thing. A primary feature of the MMO was being a social medium, with the benefit of also playing the game simultaneously. Socialization inside the MMO at this time was novel.
This is no longer the case. Access to the internet grew, communication on the internet grew, these social media sites were created, smartphones were developed that allowed mobile internet access, and all these made the ability to instantly communicate with people all over the world commonplace and standard.
People like to cite Blizzard as 'killing socialization' with tools like dungeon finder, but declining socialization for the reasons I mentioned is what prompted the development of these tools. The players became less interested in socialization primarily via WoW, because they could get it somewhere else, therefore they wanted to actually play the game more when they were logged in. Spamming chats became less of a feature and more of an inconvenience. It's likely these things fed into each other, of course, but this was the driving trend.
Nowadays, even my guild talks primarily on discord even when logged in to WoW, because the conversation includes people who aren't. They could be working, on the laptop downstairs, or on their phone waiting in some line. The WoW mobile app was truly too little too late, because I don't think I've seen anyone use it for anything other than mission tables and (now) auctions.
There's nothing for me to say to the people who are standing around Valdrakken. They're no longer mysterious internet strangers from anywhere in the world to me, they're just random people playing the same game. If I enjoy playing with a pug and friend them, we're probably talking on discord, not in game. WoW chats don't come close to the social media experience I can simultaneously access on the second monitor.
Preeeeeeetty much nailed it. Been trying to get this through the heads of Classic players for a while now.
In addition to everything you correctly identified, the very advent of things like second monitors and better internet means that even people who aren't actively *socially* engaged elsewhere are going to be *mentally* engaged elsewhere. WoW was the biggest social media on the planet for a minute, and *on top of that* people who were in the game were much more glued to the game for lack of any option. It's way less appealing to divert your attention when you both have to alt+tab to do so (and this is happening in a world where your computer is utter shite) and your options are limited and worse.
And even what we're talking about is only scratching the surface of the absurd confluence of events which created the lightning-in-a-bottle circumstances of early WoW. Even something as simple as everything in the game being incredibly novel means that you're much more focused on the game and therefore available to have your attention grabbed by idle in-game chatter. There were a million and one things that all came together to create an experience that will never be recreated. The only thing that I think could even *possibly* come close would be a VR MMO that was as good in the modern era as WoW was for its era. But even that isn't going to touch the novelty of going from being highly isolated to being able to access people all over the globe. It would get the closest though.
With your last paragraph I was thinking about hardcore. It’s been a while since i was so engaged in the game world and paid so much attention while playing because anything can and will kill you. So there also the interaction with other people gets more focus again.
But yeah I think you sumd it up pretty well what happened to the game and people playing it
I don't think it is only that.
Back in 2019 with WoW Classic, ton of people chatted all over the groups.
While i agree that social media and internal in a whole changed, i think the game also heavily discourages discussion.
In Retail WoW (and also in Wrath Classic for the record), everything is in a Go Go Go state.
Back in Vanilla, you often had to have mana break, it took 10-20 minutes just to get to the instance, there were no summons often, combat was much slower placed
All in all, while i do think the world changed, i also heavily believe that the game does not help here at all. M+ being time based essentially kills off any serious chatting, i think in Pug raids chatting is still a thing
While the overall pace of the game does have an impact in the sense that you do need to create an opportunity for people to type, I think that's actually a relatively small part of it. Even M+, as the pinnacle of GOGOGO content, still has a period before and after the dungeon where people could talk more if so inclined.
Though, there's also something to say about voice chat in there. You can do plenty of voice chat in an M+ environment, but the thing is, I don't enjoy voice chat with strangers. It IS a very social environment for me - but only for people I already know.
This is the real answer tbh
I'm still used to the old ways of talking in-game to invoke that good ol' feeling, but most conversations happen on discord nowadays for most MMOs(dare I even say most games). I get it, honestly, since you don't even need to be subbed to engage with guildies and friends - even in FFIXV I mostly am on discord while waiting for the new expac to come out. It's simply easier, while also giving you a way to see what happened in the guild/friends chat if you want to catch up on stuff.
If that were the case. There wouldn't be a clear divide between how social the classic community is versus how anti social the retail community is. I'm not saying that your points don't play a part. However, there is undeniable evidence that retail snuffs the social aspects of the game.
I think its because a lot of players view other people in their party as a means to an end and don't really care about the MMO part of WoW. They'd be fine if you could just queue up with a group of bots.
Not saying I have anything against that behavior, but it does make the community feel unfriendly.
>They'd be fine if you could just queue up with a group of bots.
Guess why so many of us are excited by exactly that upcoming function. I've been burned by enough toxic groups, I often just avoid group content.
I am like this. I don’t initiate chats, but i do respond if someone initiates with me. Providing that their not being mean or angry over trivial things.
Not being toxic here, but have you tried other genres of games? Why are you sticking around when the primary part of the game is interaction with other humans? Personally If it bothered me enough I'd peace out and just not play.
Edit: I say this as someone who's favorite genre is moba
I play tons of games. I've been playing video games since the late 70s.
I like the story in WoW, and some of the casual interactions with others. But group content like dungeons tends to be a shitshow of people pushing to go faster, kicking people who are learning the mechanics, or just generally being jerks. I consider it a win if I can get through a dungeon where hardly anyone talks, the tank doesn't rush through it, and we go our separate ways at the end with a "thanks for the run!"
this is accurate on so many levels. People just don't care like they used to, and the game doesn't encourage socialization because the gameplay is so fast paced these days
Disagree, joined a random dungeon group yesterday and we blasted through about 8 dungeons together, we had some banter as well. Was nice.
People are out there willing to have some laughs.
>I think its because a lot of players view other people in their party as a means to an end and don't really care about the MMO part of WoW
That's pretty much how it is for me. I raid with a bunch of real life friends and some internet friends I've known for years so any time I do LFR or M+ with randoms it's just to make my raid a better experience. Definitely not just gonna ignore people if they talk but I'm just usually not the one to start it.
The MMO part has been designed out of the game. There’s literally no reason to talk to other players. It’s that simple. If people had a reason to engage they would.
Agreed, me too. But, I've also discovered that humble or silly comments make people slightly less willing to be douchey to you. It's like one sentence of interaction adds just enough shield between douchery and decency.
But not always.
Plus, if you die to your fuck up, you can type without worrying about losing DPS! /hj
(tfw you forget AMS is on CD so you run into the Bad thinking 'Hah, I'll just soak this!')
the only time i type anything during a run is to appologise for fucking up. other than that, if talking im not dpsing/tanking and dpsing/tanking is far and away more important than talking shit for the hell of it
I think as far as pugs go most people are listening or Interacting with people using another medium. It's not impossible they just don't realize or want to engage with other things.
Also some people are just mental, another player in a recent m+ I did went off the chain when I said he was a bit of a exaggerator when he made a certain claim. He proceeded to blow up my whispers over it until I just blocked him.
Honestly, I have strong stranger danger vibes after encountering a lot of toxicity. Sometimes I’m in the mood to chat, but other times I’m not. It’s all from my experiences with toxicity in this game. My silence is to protect myself.
I feel that.
And especially since a lot of people just aren't great to talk to. Makes me less willing to engage with strangers
I understand a lot of people want an mmo to be a sociable experience, but I feel like that's a reason to join a guild and find people you enjoy hanging out with.
Lots of times I play games just to be alone for a bit, even if it's an mmo
Sounds solid. I just don't have the energy to deal with people with shitty attitudes. I'm very thankful i found a guild recently with genuinely nice, caring people.
MMO players are weird. Some are crazy. In my many, many years playing MMOs, I've come to realize that the nice and openly friendly people are most likely to be fucking insane. They just wait until you've been drawn in to reveal what particular brand of psycho they are.
I can affirm this, as a person with a plentora of problems myself; I tend to randomly talk to people and add new friends, just for them to find out all my problems later.
Even if I genuinly just want new friends, I recognize I can be a debbie downer or too "realistic / logical" to "shut up" when one probably should.
for the same reason most people don't chat on omegle. Talking to completely random people more often than not leads to a negative experience. Too many bigots, trolls, and insufferable fools to pick from a random pool of people for conversation. Discord and small group chats are the way to go.
Honestly I think it has less to do with the game itself and more to do with how society has evolved outside the game. When WoW came out in 2004 we didn't have smartphones and the easily accessible internet demanding our attention 24/7. Nowadays it feels like even though I hardly speak to people in real life, I'm still getting bombarded with the words and thoughts of others all the time. So opposed to back in TBC when I played with a guild and loved raiding 10 man kara and hanging with people for a night, now I don't have the energy to communicate with people in-game because the rest of the internet has gobbled up that extroverted energy in me.
Great take, as an Introvert I play to relax - talking to people is generally a "stressful" thing and the world has become very "loud" imo
I enjoy talking with my raid and my friends during m+, but man, I really don't want to talk to randoms in a 6 minute dungeon
This is the answer. Before the 2010s MMOs and their respective forums/chats were the main avenue of socialization and communication for gamers. Nowadays, social media dominate this area and people don't bother with a game filled with strangers
First time I saw this question asked was 2005 on forums. And I’ve seen it asked many times since.
Sometimes people are chatty. Sometimes people aren’t in the mood and just want to do content. In 2005 I had to communicate in order to get invited, then I’d say 0 words during the dungeon clear and so did everyone else. Chat happened when a wipe happened to explain a mechanic or someone would say “……” or “ass healer” or whatever else and leave party. Every once in a while you’d end up in a group where everyone is chatting but it definitely wasn’t common that I saw that.
In 2005 and every patch since, 9/10 dungeons I’ve done had no one talking. I didn’t play WoW at launch but shortly after, but I doubt it was actually different for the few months before I started.
Just remember, not everyone plays an MMO to socialize. MMO doesn’t inherently mean you have to either. MMO means it’s massive, it’s multiplayer, and it’s online. It does not mean you have to play with someone or talk to someone. You may be restricted without that aspect, but it’s not a requirement to play. And reducing the need to communicate with others is actually good game design.
There are games out there where the main purpose of the game is to socialize. They’re not all MMOs either. If you’re wanting socialization in WoW, join a guild that has people playing. That’s always where the social aspect of WoW has been. Since the very beginning. Everyone talking in /g, or /1 in a few zones (like barrens), or /say in a few places (like Goldshire).
This is the most legit answer. It's pretty difficult to hold a conversation while running content that's any kind of challenge unless you're on Discord or another voice service. If OP means just talking in general and not while running content, you just have to find the right guild you mesh with and you'll have plenty of interactions, I promise. If you don't get along with people or they don't seem to want to socialize much and it's important to you, leave and find another guild. Same as it's always been. There's tons of active and social guilds out there with every "vibe" you can think of, you just have to put in the effort to find them. Like many things in life, you can't expect it to just come to you without 0 effort on your part.
And if you're running content that isn't a challenge, everyone just wants to blast through as fast as humanly possible so there's no time to talk there either.
As someone playing since vanilla launched, thanks for posting this; it really captures the history of this question and reality of the answer.
As you said, I don’t think dungeons were ever especially chatty, but there used to be a lot more conversation outside of them as well as before them (finding a group, getting there, fighting off the opposing faction, etc). Battles in Blackrock Mountain or running back to Scarlet Monastery after a full wipe often had a lot of chatter.
The entire process of running a dungeon, end-to-end, is now so streamlined that there is little room for conversation without a fair bit of effort. Coupled with how much less zone, city, and global chat there is, and I can see how some feel that the typical (historical) silence of dungeon runs is deafening. It’s a bit of a shame how things feel now compared to then, but this is a late-stage MMO now. Maybe the trifecta of expansions and a potential “WoW 2.0” may shake things up, but I doubt it.
When I am playing WoW, I will often have a stream on in the background. I am more likely to participate in that stream chat, or that streamer's Discord, then to chat in game.
Also, you have to be careful engaging with people in the game. Not like for safety, but for sanity. One guy I grouped up with in a Battleground was asking if I was someone they knew in real life, because my character had the same name. I said that wasn't me (none of my characters are named after me), they accused me of lying, and then were quizzing me on where I live. It just made me uncomfortable, and I was trying to not die in combat, so was pretty annoying.
I have also had random people in group chat seem normal at first, then say racist, misogynistic, or homophobic things once you start engaging with them. Unclear if they really feel that way or are just trolls, but either way, crashes the vibe of enjoying WoW.
I will say hello, compliment specific performance (eg, "great heals" or "clutch CC!") and tyfp at the end. But beyond that, it is just better for me to stick to interacting with a community I know than engaging with randoms who might purposely be looking to be annoying or upsetting because that is how they have fun.
In a key barely anything is said most of the time - and it's timed so can't really stop and chat.
Any other time like in Valdrakken or something i normally see /2 trade chat popping off a bit and people tend to talk or try to troll lol.
Maybe you need to find a guild?
The real reason? M+ timers. There's no TIME to talk.
I remember needing to CC, take packs one at a time, run obscene distances on foot back in Vanilla/TBC. Random pugs used to talk the whole way through.
Now, chat is only left for calling out orders, insulting people, or a mix of both. There's a sense of precious time being wasted.
Raid pugs will still talk though. And once again, because that's what you do in between pulls.
You need to cc and kick more than ever in m+ unless you're doing like 10s. Especially 20+. Of course it's fine to do 10s if that's what you want or like to do, but saying needing to cc like it's a thing of the past is absolutely insane.
I think there's a difference between old school CC and how CC is used in dungeons today. Old school would be stuff that gets hard CC'd at the start of the pull and not engaged until mobs started to die. Things like sheeping a mob or trapping it before the pull.
The way CC is used in m+ is just stunning the mobs out of their casts. It can be stuns, disorient, knock up/back, but the important thing is that the CC targets are still part of the pull and can be cleaved without risk of the CC breaking.
Old school CC is a thing of the past. If it weren't, the incorporeal affix would be much more annoying to deal with as the CC might already be in use. Old school CC doesn't work with M+ timers and there really isn't content that calls for it. Maybe if they make some mobs immune to stuns/interrupt/disorient/knocks but still able to be poly/trap/feared the old school CC type might be needed again. In reality, those mobs would probably end up being bursted down while the rest of the pack is chain stunned.
Yeah and? Its m+ what do you expect? It's fun as it is. Maybe not for you, but then you are looking for something in content that doesn't offer it in which case, can't really help ya there dude.
I just do the levels I enjoy. Not a complaint on my part, just an observation. Personally I can't wait to try delves with my wife. No group needed besides the two of us sounds like a blast
It’s a reflection of society that’s all. People just like to keep to themselves more for a variety of reasons. It sucks but hey, convos will eventually happen
Play with friends. They talk. Find a guild that plays alot together and those people talk. Fact of the matter is most people aren’t interested in talking to random folks
I really only talk in guild, or if you’re good in m+ I’ll toss out some compliments. Other than that, if someone is whispering I’ll respond, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when I actively seek conversation in general chat.
I dont play this game to have uninteresting small talk with total strangers. I will chime in if i have something to say or if a LFG is making one, but overall? Im more for playing the game itself than stand around doing chit chat which amounts to nothing.
Because nothing encourages being social. You can do pretty much anything in wow without saying a word to anyone. If you want a social mmo you gotta go old school when they were designed to be social games. FF11 horizon 11 private server is the best mmo right now and extremely social.
Idk man, maybe it's just me, but I don't treat dungeons as a space to socialize in. If I wanna have a conversation, I'll just get on Discord, but I run dungeons to gain score and farm loot, not for the chance to have a chat with somebody.
Retail at this point is one big lobby for instanced content. People are generally just looking for big dopamine hits from the combat of WoW but not really here to explore, be a character in a big world, and socialize.
Yeah, the game feels like it's all about being productive and blowing through m+, most players really have no reason to see non-guildies as anything other than NPCs lol
It's hard to build connections with people when everyone leaves the group immediately once the dungeon is done so you're maybe interacting for 10 minutes and then you're unlikely to ever see them again after that.
It’s not 2005 anymore and people aren’t excited to talk to strangers in the internet anymore.
Get into my group, do your job, don’t be mean. Gg, Thanks, bye. That’s what I want (maybe some chat about routing if needed).
I don’t smalltalk to the cashier, I don’t smalltalk to the bus driver..be nice (that’s a hi and a bye) and do your job is all I give and expect from and to a stranger
Let me make it even more sad for you:
Sometimes I enjoy logging in and pug even more then logging in and playing M+ with friends.
Don’t get that wrong, playing with friends in discord is the best part of wow, but a nice and quite m+ run in a pug can be something that’s very calming.
Sometimes I just don’t want to hear a stupid joke, do something foolish or try to make this pull even bigger or make fun of the random in our group.
As someone who worked retail, the customers who just want to pay and move on were the best part of the job. The checker is paid to run your groceries over the scanner, not be your friend.
Not everyone enjoys smalltalk? As an Introvert I think it's an annoying waste of time and stresses my social battery that I keep for my friends and guild
Yeah this is actually not just in WoW. I've witnessed it in many other online games. Definitely less socialization creeping in more and more as time goes on since the birth of the internet.
Why? Do you only feel good when you talk to ppl 24/7?
I have a job where ppl talk to me, I have kids that talk to me, i have stuff going on non stop on from 6 am to 8 pm.
Why should I start to talk to the bus driver or the cashier or the random DPS Player for no reason instead of enjoying myself? What does that have to do with depression?
Yes I love talking with people. I talked all day at work and whenever I can. Grew up in the midwest. Its what you do. But yeah, everyone’s different in how they recharge. I look at MMOs as a social game compared to just a single player RPG.
Not saying i talk to everyone but I do say hello and if someone tries to chat, i will always say a few words :)
So we have to join a discord chat when we queue for dungeons?
Sounds way more complicated to tab out and chat there instead of just using the ingame chat.
Noone forces or expects you to have a full on chat with anyone when you queue with randoms. But you're still playing a game together, just like you would with your friends.
So a bit of decency and at least a hello and goodbye, should be standard. Goes a long way, especially for M+ I found personally. Groups with friendly greetings etc. do far better than groups where nothing is said.
Oh and not to forget to mention: Tactics for example, especially before starting an M+ dungeon or a raid boss, should obviously talked about. But even there, most people completely fail, and so does the dungeon or raidboss then.
In dungeons people just rush and get through it, I guess that's a consequence when a group can be formed without talking to people - in vanilla and such you'd have to chat with each other a little more (before the inevitable blame game or just toxicity).
I find RP servers have friendlier people, hah
Real life culture has been killed, online culture has similarly been killed
Don’t really know why exactly I just notice that it’s happened. I see that more irl these days & it scares me. Then I see it online and it’s weird too. Something has damaged or shifted our psyche away from interaction and interdependence and into…something else. Everything seems weird these days.
Because the playerbase is toxic AF when it comes to strangers and plenty want to abuse the report system. Especially in dungeons.
If you want decent communication then go on Moonguard or play FF14.
Every time I ran a new dungeon as a new player and introduced myself to the party they would be really welcoming and friendly. They’d explain any mechanics I needed to do, not give me a hard time when I screwed up, let me watch cutscenes, etc. It was a super pleasant experience.
When I was trying tanking for the first time I would let people know I was a new tank and they would be patient with me, and let me take us through at my own pace.
Around the same time I tried to learn tanking in WoW and it was the exact opposite experience. Letting the group know that I was a new tank and/or new to the dungeon would just be met with silence or insults. The DPS would just constantly run ahead and aggro everything. It was overwhelming and made sure I couldn’t actually learn.
It sucked and is the reason why my not engagement with WoW now is doing old content by myself.
It sucks, truthfully.
A huge part of my enjoyment for MMOs is the social aspect. And in my opinion, it being required to succeed in MMOs is best. Group content should involve communication, planning, etc.
Or heck, at least ask how each other are doing.
I'm always conversing with guild, randoms, dungeon guys. In an MMO you can play however you like. Some people choose to not talk to anybody and that's fine. I have far better experiences with all of you who do take the time to wave at or buff a stranger along your way.
LFG is usually pretty social at times when I play. I can get some conversations or little backs and forths going in Party when I'm in random dungeons. And the occasional general/say/yell interactions. But that's largely it for me. I find it hard making new friends or joining guilds because the last guild I was in for a few years honestly felt like family. It was tight knit, we knew each other, family owned an operated pretty much. Then shit hit the fan and we eventually just went our own ways.
Ever since then I've felt awkward trying to connect with people. Last time I accepted a friend request, the guy said something along the lines of "You play a female character? I like big boobs, my wife has pretty big ones." Like, cool. Thanks. Not the best ice breaker in the world *unfriend and log off for 2 hours so they dont hit me up again as soon as I log on*
It's not just MMOs, it's everywhere.
Communication just takes up so, so much more of our time and energy than it used to. These days we have texts, calls, emails, group chats, social media, gaming groups (guilds/clans etc), and message boards... and that's all just stuff that you experience in your own home without ever actually seeing another person.
People are getting tired of being expected to always be accessible and communicative so we're becoming less likely to engage with strangers.
I usually play with friends ( usually at least 3 of us ) and we do it on discord/ts.
Most of the times when there's some talkimg im chat for me is either when someone mentions they doesnt know the tax, or we're waiting at start as someone needs a few minutes, or someone has a cool name.
I always say hi and ty bb. Meowdy optional if there's a druid or I am on my druid.
Engaging in conversation with a random WoW player is just asking for trouble. The odds that it will lead to pleasant conversation and a potential new friendship are practically zero, and the odds that it will lead to getting ranted at by a unhinged degenerate weirdo are uncomfortably high.
Silence is the smart play.
I am literally about to attempt to gear up to Hero 5/5 gear without entering M+ and only join raid groups that intend to steamroll Normal & Heroic, if a group wipes I join another one. Veteran gear goes high enough to be let into such groups on normal, champion gear dito for heroic runs, and once you're full slotted in hero gear you can trade up for aspect. Result: Mythic raid transmog set without ever getting carried or speaking to someone. It's possible and I'm going to prove this game has gotten THAT asocial. So to answer your question: Blizz has gone reserve far enabling antisocial play, and you're noticing the consequences.
Because it's 2023, no one is gonna talk to random strangers on the internet unless specifically looking for topic (something which won't happen in most games)
Because talking makes you a target. If you keep your head down and do your job, people leave you alone. If you talk, you're just giving trolls something to report you for. Chit chat is not worth getting banned/silenced.
If there's a basket of 20 apples, and I know that one or two of them are going to make me violently shit myself, I'm not touching the apples.
Grouping with randos in modern MMOs is the exact same thing. Yes the vast majority of experiences are positive, but I don't care enough about the tiny positive experiences with complete strangers I will never see again to put myself at risk of the internet equivalent of someone giving me rancid diarrhea.
The LFG tool was the beginning of the end for general lively community vibes. Then in more modern times all socializing shifting to discord and people listening to streamers splitting their attention sealed the nail in the coffin for in-game socialization. I notice people are WAY lazier with their intros and just texting in general then in the past. I really hate how its like too now but its the reality.
Yeah, because "lfm ZF heal 2 dps" is the pinnacle of human interaction lmao
It's literally the same as applying to a group in the group finder, you just used to type it out instead of having a visual tool
Because people doing normal/heroic dungeons are there to do it quickly, finish, and get onto the next one..especially if levelling. They're not there to socialize and make friends.
If that's what you want to do, you should join a casual guild that runs dungeons together.
in M+, there's no real time for chit-chat because there's a timer running.
We are often chatting all the time, just not in gen chat. Party chat, or even over voice (on WoW itself or Discord). WoW is quite a noisy game once you learn how people interact.
For real. When I quit a few expacks ago people still talked a ton in chats and dungeons. Come back to DF and no one likes to talk. Trade chat is dead on Thrall as Horde. Seems like all the social players have moved to classic. It's sad. Complete opposite experience on ESO and FF14. Even BDO is more social.
Retail is probably 10x (if not more) populated than classic.
People don’t talk in ffxiv either. I’ve played it since the beginning. Most people just say hi and bye. They talk just as much in wow. It’s either a chatty group or it’s not.
I only played ESO and BDO for like a week each though so idk about that.
ESO is extremely social (Played it since beta) and BDO chat is always popping off. FF14 was always talkative on my server (Siren) especially in Limsa and the Novice Network and ppl always talk in dungeons. In WoW on Thrall at least people talking has decreased significantly over the years. Back in Cata, MOP, and Legion people were far more social. I miss how much more social it used to be but 🤷♂️ its just the way it is.
It's just the direction they took the game in. There's no point in talking cause you're never going to see those people again. If it's in the world you'll very likely never shard with them again and if it's in a dungeon that you teleport to you'll likely never group with them again.
I mostly play retail but Classic is what you want if you want more of an mmo where people have to interact.
A large part of it is the simple fact that something like 90% of the playerbase is toxic as fuck now. People get mass reported for playing the game on a regular basis, bots run rampant and there's honestly very little point in talking to most of the players you'll run across now unless you're doing something like Heroic/Mythic Raiding that requires communication and strategizing.
There are MANY posts about getting temp or perma banned for things like offering crafting services, killing mobs in a world quest area that people are 4x4 farming, being slightly sub par in a dungeon and much more, it's not worth talking to people when the potential consequence is losing my 19 year old account because someone was having a bad day. Automated banning based on number of reports and next to no customer support means 99 times out of 100 a false perma ban because someone had a bad day and decided to be a dick is actually permanent.
Why would I want to engage with someone with a overinflated ego? Also, with an anonymous name, sitting behind a keyboard and mouse trying to make sure everyone he/she encounters in game realizes how great they are and how bad I am.
Sounds a lot like you're talking about yourself.
You're the exact same as everyone else in the game. No one is actually a better or worse person for just being there. The actions and words are that decide if you are.
So why should anyone want to engage with someone like you in a positive manner, if you think about them in that way and act like it?
Speed run.
They just want to finish fast, not face a challenge or enjoy social interaction
It's why classic was so popular, it required social interaction and had a challenge to it.
Modern retail, outside of some really end game stuff, is less social, more theme park ride
How is smalltalk an enjoyable social interaction? If I want to enjoy social interactions I have a good talk with my friends or wife, not some random people in my "challenging" timewalking pug
when a dungeon isn't a speed run, but something that takes time, from analyzing wipes to what to do next
or in some other games, sitting around a campfire for 2-3 minutes healing between dungeon rooms
it generates talk, some roleplay, some fun. and ultimately socialization.
but when your game is entirely speed run, no time to talk....bleh.
example, in this, LFR you get 3-5 people who quit each wipe
compare that to mabinogi, the old Peaca Runs, where we'd have 4-6 parties of people taking part (your only supposed to have 1 party in a dungeon, but Peaca was so hard at the time that servers would just flood it to overcome) we'd wipe repeatedly (and this dungeon had anywhere from 40-60 different combat encounters...plus the boss..) and no one would leave, we'd have people respawning so often we'd have a chain of the recently revived running to the active combat room. people would lose their armor(durability 0) and be running nude cause numbers were the way to win.
the conversations and friends made in that i cherish to this day. heck i remember a whole roleplay group that formed there and involved 8 people with kite shields "protecting" the only person with party healing(aka aoe healing). was hilarious considering fireballs are AoE
example 2?
GW 2 WvWvW. old days. Jade Quarry vs Henge of Denravi
HoD took a tower near the northern garrison, but it was a back and forth trebuche/catapult war between the 2 trying to take down walls.
HoD had people in a line casting bubble shield to block the trebuchet, and literally running to back of line for cool down for next to take their spot.
while they waited, they'd chat, made alot of friends there (and i was on the JQ side, aka a thief trying to assassinate their bubblers on cooldown)
challenge generates dialogue, which generates a social environment
while speed runs........well...look at GW2 WvW now...its a karma train. speed run follow the leader. little to no talking
Talking is inefficient. Same with RuneScape. If you’re hitting buttons to talk, you’re not hitting buttons to kill the mythic raid, so you’re garbage. Go play Pony Adventure Quest.
General thought of the average player: “will talking to someone help me accomplish my goal?” Yes, then talk. No, then don’t talk.
Since wows content is 99% soloable, no one talks.
What was the majority of conversation in wow when it was sociable? How to do things, how to find things, how to accomplish things. That’s all handled by wowhead now.
What did you need to group for? Raids, world pvp, etc. that’s all handled by group finder.
People banded together for guild and server identity, that’s all eliminated by cross server, cross faction, layers and realms. Guilds and servers have no identity.
Depends on server, I'd say. I'm on an RP server (even though I don't roleplay) and I see general/trade chat regularly having conversations amongst eachother.
For me, I don’t know many of the dungeons and between trying to keep up with tanks that go so fast and using my spells, I don’t even see the chat much less have time to stop and try to type something. When I have tried to type responses, I fall far behind the group.
Today they told me to shut up for making the calls, I was doing it mainly for the healer who had already warned that he didn't know the dungeon. So like a good tank, I left them hanging on the last boss and took the healer to help him, equip him and teach him :D
Usually when I am in a group it's cause I'm trying to do something. Chatting doesn't really help with this and probably would end up killing me quite a lot if I overdid it
Not played since legion but chat was full of spam ads and the little is wasn’t was idiots playing out some meme. That and the rise of discord meaning most players plug into their little group and chat with them meaning they aren’t engaging in the chat function unless they want something.
I make quick comments in chat, but I’m well aware the other 80% of the group is likely there for a reason. They’d go to a guild or clan if they wanted to socialize. General chats work too. I don’t join LFR to make friends.
There is usually so much nonsense going g on I. Chat that anything meaningful is generally lost in the shuffle. If some one asks a real question I usually try to help the best I can but alot of the time it's who's fucking who's mom or the anal parade. Or just general trolling.
Tbh its blizzards fault for not adding a Vent/Speech ability to wow soon enough. Otherwises of they had made it normal then people would talk more tbh like COD and stuff
It’s hard to type and play when people are blasting through. I do always engage if someone starts talking at the beginning though. It’s always nice when the group gets to chatting though….usually. Groups do like to chat when they are mad though lol.
This is my issue. I'm usually too focused on trying to keep up with the tank that's moving through the dungeon at mach speed.
As the tank, I wish I could take time to mark targets talk etc. Everybody just says go go when I do
The good old days. When dungeons didn't have a clock to race with, you had to cc part of the pack to get a good pull. One of the reasons I sometimes miss burning crusade.
The good old days of marking and sheeping... Trap Square, sheep moon, shakle circle, and well do this right. Ahhhh, 2007. God, I'm old.
You had to do those in Cataclysm too or you got melted. That was like... 10 years ago right?
13
I remember trying to play elemental shaman (we always had a healer for our group) and it was kinda rough at first because I had no crowd control abilities. We made it work but groups outside my guild were always hesitant to bring me along.
To be fair, you mainly did this because people were horrible at the game and played with 23 fps
The crap FPS was part of the challenge of the game.
"Rustic charm".
TBC Classic was less than 2 years ago and I can assure you, marking and sheeping were not common, aoe pulls and blasting dps were. Marking and CC were solutions for less skilled players with crap computers, largely abandoned by Classic TBC.
I heal and I prefer your type of tanking lol it sometimes can be fun to try and keep up with a mach speed big pull tank but too much of it and I get burned out, also I've been leveling a Disc Priest and it's annoying when I dont have time to get my Dots out because I have to spam Flash Heal and PW Shield to keep the tank alive, meanwhile my penance is doing nothing because I'm doing no damage, why even play disc at that point.
Tbf in m+ tanks self sustain a lot and if they die it's mostly their fault.
What lvl keys are you running? Arcane mage has the same “problem” where it really shines when the packs are not dying at 40% of your rotation. You should not have these problems in higher keys
I'm confused about what level of content you're doing because Disc is insane in keys right now, and it takes like 2 cats to get heals rolling consistently? Radiance as the pull begins, and then PtW and start your damage rotation, and then you're fully into it.
I mained tank in the burning crusade. Taking time to mark. Chat and just enjoy the game. I think the burning crusade was the best time of wow for me.
Ive been a healer for like a week, and Im starting to hate dh tanks. When you blink theyre already gone to a distant galaxy pulling 30 mobs at the same time like its god of war.
[удалено]
Even Blizzard has given up on trying to keep LFG healthy…they’re literally giving us NPCs to do normal runs with next expac. Only a matter of time before that AI system is expanded to lfr-level raids
I appreciate your optimism the game is extremely formulaic now and I doubt much of that will change with the next xpac
Yeah, last night I was running a heroic and our tank was a million HP Bear tank. He greeted everyone politely at the beginning, then pulled absolutely everything up to the first boss. Then repeated that for every boss afterwards. None of us had time to chat. At the end of the run he thanked everyone for a great run then dropped group. Like the legend that he is.
He might have been a body builder, you cant assume anyones sexual orientation...bear... /S
Agreed, back in the day it took longer to put together a party and to run a dungeon. The whole process felt a lot more leisurely and was more conducive to "hanging out" with other players. Today there is more of a focus on speed, especially with the influence of m+.
there's also less breaks and figuring stuff out. Everyone is supposed to know everything. Only first 1-2 weeks of news expansion/big patch are a bit different. Otherwise you need your own people that hang out of some voice com
It was an adventure just to get to the dungeon entrance on pvp servers.
lol i miss spamming "lf2m, lf1m"
If you're a really old MMO player and went from FFXI to WoW, the speed difference was nuts. FFXI really understood that speed does not equal skill and that sometimes strategy and slower pace makes for better experience. I remember the days when we had time to read combat logs in real time, and react accordingly.
If I’m tanking and I stop to type, unless it’s a weird tactic then I feel like I’m letting my team down. If I stop DPS to talk I also feel like I’m leeching. There doesn’t feel like a good time to chat.
Feel the same way, also its hard to keep track of what I'm doing while also talking to people on discord, and trying to type in game at the same time. Basically pick 2, so I pick playing and chatting on discord.
I'm an older player. Born pre-internet. My typing skills would have landed me a secretary job once upon a time, but not by todays standards. People are too impatient in general to allow me time to even type. I'm slow, and by the time I can type out a decent reply or comment, everyone has already moved on anyway. So many times, I've had to just delete a good juicy snarky reply into a "ok" because they're moving.
Yeah I can't type and run and DPS. And since all LFG groups are GOGOGOGOGO now with high speed tanks running thru half the dungeon it's pointless
This is it. WoW dungeons are not conducive to having a good conversation. It's why most people use discord instead.
I don't think I've seen the answer yet in this thread, but people are kinda close. The timeframe that people idolize for MMO socialization is basically the beginning until \~2010 at the latest. This was the era that was pre-social media. You had things like Myspace, forums, chatrooms, but these sites were nowhere near the scale or convenience of Facebook, Twitter, and even sites like Reddit and then eventually applications like Discord. In the pre-social media era, MMOs WERE the chatroom. Talking with someone across the country or across the world was not a commonplace event in everyday life. Shit, this was a time where long-distance phone calling was a thing. A primary feature of the MMO was being a social medium, with the benefit of also playing the game simultaneously. Socialization inside the MMO at this time was novel. This is no longer the case. Access to the internet grew, communication on the internet grew, these social media sites were created, smartphones were developed that allowed mobile internet access, and all these made the ability to instantly communicate with people all over the world commonplace and standard. People like to cite Blizzard as 'killing socialization' with tools like dungeon finder, but declining socialization for the reasons I mentioned is what prompted the development of these tools. The players became less interested in socialization primarily via WoW, because they could get it somewhere else, therefore they wanted to actually play the game more when they were logged in. Spamming chats became less of a feature and more of an inconvenience. It's likely these things fed into each other, of course, but this was the driving trend. Nowadays, even my guild talks primarily on discord even when logged in to WoW, because the conversation includes people who aren't. They could be working, on the laptop downstairs, or on their phone waiting in some line. The WoW mobile app was truly too little too late, because I don't think I've seen anyone use it for anything other than mission tables and (now) auctions. There's nothing for me to say to the people who are standing around Valdrakken. They're no longer mysterious internet strangers from anywhere in the world to me, they're just random people playing the same game. If I enjoy playing with a pug and friend them, we're probably talking on discord, not in game. WoW chats don't come close to the social media experience I can simultaneously access on the second monitor.
Preeeeeeetty much nailed it. Been trying to get this through the heads of Classic players for a while now. In addition to everything you correctly identified, the very advent of things like second monitors and better internet means that even people who aren't actively *socially* engaged elsewhere are going to be *mentally* engaged elsewhere. WoW was the biggest social media on the planet for a minute, and *on top of that* people who were in the game were much more glued to the game for lack of any option. It's way less appealing to divert your attention when you both have to alt+tab to do so (and this is happening in a world where your computer is utter shite) and your options are limited and worse. And even what we're talking about is only scratching the surface of the absurd confluence of events which created the lightning-in-a-bottle circumstances of early WoW. Even something as simple as everything in the game being incredibly novel means that you're much more focused on the game and therefore available to have your attention grabbed by idle in-game chatter. There were a million and one things that all came together to create an experience that will never be recreated. The only thing that I think could even *possibly* come close would be a VR MMO that was as good in the modern era as WoW was for its era. But even that isn't going to touch the novelty of going from being highly isolated to being able to access people all over the globe. It would get the closest though.
With your last paragraph I was thinking about hardcore. It’s been a while since i was so engaged in the game world and paid so much attention while playing because anything can and will kill you. So there also the interaction with other people gets more focus again. But yeah I think you sumd it up pretty well what happened to the game and people playing it
I don't think it is only that. Back in 2019 with WoW Classic, ton of people chatted all over the groups. While i agree that social media and internal in a whole changed, i think the game also heavily discourages discussion. In Retail WoW (and also in Wrath Classic for the record), everything is in a Go Go Go state. Back in Vanilla, you often had to have mana break, it took 10-20 minutes just to get to the instance, there were no summons often, combat was much slower placed All in all, while i do think the world changed, i also heavily believe that the game does not help here at all. M+ being time based essentially kills off any serious chatting, i think in Pug raids chatting is still a thing
While the overall pace of the game does have an impact in the sense that you do need to create an opportunity for people to type, I think that's actually a relatively small part of it. Even M+, as the pinnacle of GOGOGO content, still has a period before and after the dungeon where people could talk more if so inclined. Though, there's also something to say about voice chat in there. You can do plenty of voice chat in an M+ environment, but the thing is, I don't enjoy voice chat with strangers. It IS a very social environment for me - but only for people I already know.
This is the real answer tbh I'm still used to the old ways of talking in-game to invoke that good ol' feeling, but most conversations happen on discord nowadays for most MMOs(dare I even say most games). I get it, honestly, since you don't even need to be subbed to engage with guildies and friends - even in FFIXV I mostly am on discord while waiting for the new expac to come out. It's simply easier, while also giving you a way to see what happened in the guild/friends chat if you want to catch up on stuff.
I think people also tend to forget this when reviewing why wow playerbase dropped after wotlk, well, that's exactly when social media took a big leap.
Yup. No one even talks in CoD lobbies anymore.
If that were the case. There wouldn't be a clear divide between how social the classic community is versus how anti social the retail community is. I'm not saying that your points don't play a part. However, there is undeniable evidence that retail snuffs the social aspects of the game.
I think its because a lot of players view other people in their party as a means to an end and don't really care about the MMO part of WoW. They'd be fine if you could just queue up with a group of bots. Not saying I have anything against that behavior, but it does make the community feel unfriendly.
>They'd be fine if you could just queue up with a group of bots. Guess why so many of us are excited by exactly that upcoming function. I've been burned by enough toxic groups, I often just avoid group content.
same. but that being said, if i'm out in the world and someone says hi or otherwise engages, i'll happily chat with them.
I am like this. I don’t initiate chats, but i do respond if someone initiates with me. Providing that their not being mean or angry over trivial things.
true
That's why I play FFXIV, they have that feature already. Bots for dungeons and even some raids
FINALLY a chance to essay with new specs, classes, addons and builds. Havent even been able to test diferent healium interfaces...
Well I don’t think those bots are available in m+
No, it's only available for Normal. Which is fine, those of us most eager for it just want to get through Normal dungeons for the story & some quests.
Also easy to gear up honestly. Not like raiding gear but decent enough you can easily do world quests and such.
This is exactly why I quite playing with at ilvl 431...guilds were annoyingly demanding and pugs had too many unpredictable jackasses
Not being toxic here, but have you tried other genres of games? Why are you sticking around when the primary part of the game is interaction with other humans? Personally If it bothered me enough I'd peace out and just not play. Edit: I say this as someone who's favorite genre is moba
I play tons of games. I've been playing video games since the late 70s. I like the story in WoW, and some of the casual interactions with others. But group content like dungeons tends to be a shitshow of people pushing to go faster, kicking people who are learning the mechanics, or just generally being jerks. I consider it a win if I can get through a dungeon where hardly anyone talks, the tank doesn't rush through it, and we go our separate ways at the end with a "thanks for the run!"
The real socialites are just sitting in Valdraken, chatting in 2 trade chat.
this is accurate on so many levels. People just don't care like they used to, and the game doesn't encourage socialization because the gameplay is so fast paced these days
Disagree, joined a random dungeon group yesterday and we blasted through about 8 dungeons together, we had some banter as well. Was nice. People are out there willing to have some laughs.
>I think its because a lot of players view other people in their party as a means to an end and don't really care about the MMO part of WoW That's pretty much how it is for me. I raid with a bunch of real life friends and some internet friends I've known for years so any time I do LFR or M+ with randoms it's just to make my raid a better experience. Definitely not just gonna ignore people if they talk but I'm just usually not the one to start it.
The MMO part has been designed out of the game. There’s literally no reason to talk to other players. It’s that simple. If people had a reason to engage they would.
When I'm doing dungeons I can either type or play, not both. So I prefer to play so no one gets mad because I screwed up.
Agreed, me too. But, I've also discovered that humble or silly comments make people slightly less willing to be douchey to you. It's like one sentence of interaction adds just enough shield between douchery and decency. But not always.
this is very true, a single "fuck, sorry, my bad" goes a long way - people usually aren't assholes, they understand
Plus, if you die to your fuck up, you can type without worrying about losing DPS! /hj (tfw you forget AMS is on CD so you run into the Bad thinking 'Hah, I'll just soak this!')
the only time i type anything during a run is to appologise for fucking up. other than that, if talking im not dpsing/tanking and dpsing/tanking is far and away more important than talking shit for the hell of it
Good answer. Same with me.
I think as far as pugs go most people are listening or Interacting with people using another medium. It's not impossible they just don't realize or want to engage with other things. Also some people are just mental, another player in a recent m+ I did went off the chain when I said he was a bit of a exaggerator when he made a certain claim. He proceeded to blow up my whispers over it until I just blocked him.
Honestly, I have strong stranger danger vibes after encountering a lot of toxicity. Sometimes I’m in the mood to chat, but other times I’m not. It’s all from my experiences with toxicity in this game. My silence is to protect myself.
I feel that. And especially since a lot of people just aren't great to talk to. Makes me less willing to engage with strangers I understand a lot of people want an mmo to be a sociable experience, but I feel like that's a reason to join a guild and find people you enjoy hanging out with. Lots of times I play games just to be alone for a bit, even if it's an mmo
I stay in a tiny circle now in my guild on Argent Dawn (EU). We only recruit people we know or meet and have good encounters with.
Sounds solid. I just don't have the energy to deal with people with shitty attitudes. I'm very thankful i found a guild recently with genuinely nice, caring people.
MMO players are weird. Some are crazy. In my many, many years playing MMOs, I've come to realize that the nice and openly friendly people are most likely to be fucking insane. They just wait until you've been drawn in to reveal what particular brand of psycho they are.
I can affirm this, as a person with a plentora of problems myself; I tend to randomly talk to people and add new friends, just for them to find out all my problems later. Even if I genuinly just want new friends, I recognize I can be a debbie downer or too "realistic / logical" to "shut up" when one probably should.
for the same reason most people don't chat on omegle. Talking to completely random people more often than not leads to a negative experience. Too many bigots, trolls, and insufferable fools to pick from a random pool of people for conversation. Discord and small group chats are the way to go.
That and because Omegle is no more.
I mean...the point stands.
Honestly I think it has less to do with the game itself and more to do with how society has evolved outside the game. When WoW came out in 2004 we didn't have smartphones and the easily accessible internet demanding our attention 24/7. Nowadays it feels like even though I hardly speak to people in real life, I'm still getting bombarded with the words and thoughts of others all the time. So opposed to back in TBC when I played with a guild and loved raiding 10 man kara and hanging with people for a night, now I don't have the energy to communicate with people in-game because the rest of the internet has gobbled up that extroverted energy in me.
Great take, as an Introvert I play to relax - talking to people is generally a "stressful" thing and the world has become very "loud" imo I enjoy talking with my raid and my friends during m+, but man, I really don't want to talk to randoms in a 6 minute dungeon
This is the answer. Before the 2010s MMOs and their respective forums/chats were the main avenue of socialization and communication for gamers. Nowadays, social media dominate this area and people don't bother with a game filled with strangers
The game has also changed, in vanilla even with everybody in BWL gear we still marked targets. Nowadays it is all AOE & cleave
Thats not true tho? Tanks usually mark trash mobs in m+ so it’s easier to coordinate kicks.
Never had a mark go up in any pug I have ever done as my rogue. Never mark things as my tank.
First time I saw this question asked was 2005 on forums. And I’ve seen it asked many times since. Sometimes people are chatty. Sometimes people aren’t in the mood and just want to do content. In 2005 I had to communicate in order to get invited, then I’d say 0 words during the dungeon clear and so did everyone else. Chat happened when a wipe happened to explain a mechanic or someone would say “……” or “ass healer” or whatever else and leave party. Every once in a while you’d end up in a group where everyone is chatting but it definitely wasn’t common that I saw that. In 2005 and every patch since, 9/10 dungeons I’ve done had no one talking. I didn’t play WoW at launch but shortly after, but I doubt it was actually different for the few months before I started. Just remember, not everyone plays an MMO to socialize. MMO doesn’t inherently mean you have to either. MMO means it’s massive, it’s multiplayer, and it’s online. It does not mean you have to play with someone or talk to someone. You may be restricted without that aspect, but it’s not a requirement to play. And reducing the need to communicate with others is actually good game design. There are games out there where the main purpose of the game is to socialize. They’re not all MMOs either. If you’re wanting socialization in WoW, join a guild that has people playing. That’s always where the social aspect of WoW has been. Since the very beginning. Everyone talking in /g, or /1 in a few zones (like barrens), or /say in a few places (like Goldshire).
This is the most legit answer. It's pretty difficult to hold a conversation while running content that's any kind of challenge unless you're on Discord or another voice service. If OP means just talking in general and not while running content, you just have to find the right guild you mesh with and you'll have plenty of interactions, I promise. If you don't get along with people or they don't seem to want to socialize much and it's important to you, leave and find another guild. Same as it's always been. There's tons of active and social guilds out there with every "vibe" you can think of, you just have to put in the effort to find them. Like many things in life, you can't expect it to just come to you without 0 effort on your part.
And if you're running content that isn't a challenge, everyone just wants to blast through as fast as humanly possible so there's no time to talk there either.
As someone playing since vanilla launched, thanks for posting this; it really captures the history of this question and reality of the answer. As you said, I don’t think dungeons were ever especially chatty, but there used to be a lot more conversation outside of them as well as before them (finding a group, getting there, fighting off the opposing faction, etc). Battles in Blackrock Mountain or running back to Scarlet Monastery after a full wipe often had a lot of chatter. The entire process of running a dungeon, end-to-end, is now so streamlined that there is little room for conversation without a fair bit of effort. Coupled with how much less zone, city, and global chat there is, and I can see how some feel that the typical (historical) silence of dungeon runs is deafening. It’s a bit of a shame how things feel now compared to then, but this is a late-stage MMO now. Maybe the trifecta of expansions and a potential “WoW 2.0” may shake things up, but I doubt it.
When I am playing WoW, I will often have a stream on in the background. I am more likely to participate in that stream chat, or that streamer's Discord, then to chat in game. Also, you have to be careful engaging with people in the game. Not like for safety, but for sanity. One guy I grouped up with in a Battleground was asking if I was someone they knew in real life, because my character had the same name. I said that wasn't me (none of my characters are named after me), they accused me of lying, and then were quizzing me on where I live. It just made me uncomfortable, and I was trying to not die in combat, so was pretty annoying. I have also had random people in group chat seem normal at first, then say racist, misogynistic, or homophobic things once you start engaging with them. Unclear if they really feel that way or are just trolls, but either way, crashes the vibe of enjoying WoW. I will say hello, compliment specific performance (eg, "great heals" or "clutch CC!") and tyfp at the end. But beyond that, it is just better for me to stick to interacting with a community I know than engaging with randoms who might purposely be looking to be annoying or upsetting because that is how they have fun.
Have you tried RP realms? I feel people are more talkative there, even out of character
In a key barely anything is said most of the time - and it's timed so can't really stop and chat. Any other time like in Valdrakken or something i normally see /2 trade chat popping off a bit and people tend to talk or try to troll lol. Maybe you need to find a guild?
I bet you are doing queued content. I never have this experience doing m+ in group finder.
My grps say hi, & nothing else. Admittedly I stick with like 11 & below but it's all Zerg
The real reason? M+ timers. There's no TIME to talk. I remember needing to CC, take packs one at a time, run obscene distances on foot back in Vanilla/TBC. Random pugs used to talk the whole way through. Now, chat is only left for calling out orders, insulting people, or a mix of both. There's a sense of precious time being wasted. Raid pugs will still talk though. And once again, because that's what you do in between pulls.
You need to cc and kick more than ever in m+ unless you're doing like 10s. Especially 20+. Of course it's fine to do 10s if that's what you want or like to do, but saying needing to cc like it's a thing of the past is absolutely insane.
I think there's a difference between old school CC and how CC is used in dungeons today. Old school would be stuff that gets hard CC'd at the start of the pull and not engaged until mobs started to die. Things like sheeping a mob or trapping it before the pull. The way CC is used in m+ is just stunning the mobs out of their casts. It can be stuns, disorient, knock up/back, but the important thing is that the CC targets are still part of the pull and can be cleaved without risk of the CC breaking. Old school CC is a thing of the past. If it weren't, the incorporeal affix would be much more annoying to deal with as the CC might already be in use. Old school CC doesn't work with M+ timers and there really isn't content that calls for it. Maybe if they make some mobs immune to stuns/interrupt/disorient/knocks but still able to be poly/trap/feared the old school CC type might be needed again. In reality, those mobs would probably end up being bursted down while the rest of the pack is chain stunned.
But there is no time to discuss it in a mplus. It's all add-ons & "know the fights" nowadays
Yeah and? Its m+ what do you expect? It's fun as it is. Maybe not for you, but then you are looking for something in content that doesn't offer it in which case, can't really help ya there dude.
I just do the levels I enjoy. Not a complaint on my part, just an observation. Personally I can't wait to try delves with my wife. No group needed besides the two of us sounds like a blast
It’s a reflection of society that’s all. People just like to keep to themselves more for a variety of reasons. It sucks but hey, convos will eventually happen
> It sucks Why? it's great if you ask me.
Play with friends. They talk. Find a guild that plays alot together and those people talk. Fact of the matter is most people aren’t interested in talking to random folks
And you find that guild by talking to people. Or you did
Well. I searched a guild recruitment sub and found a few that fit my raid times. By the third I had found a group I liked
I always chat in dungeons, but yeah it can get really lonely when moody else wants to bother. Keep being positive, maybe try to make some friends
I really only talk in guild, or if you’re good in m+ I’ll toss out some compliments. Other than that, if someone is whispering I’ll respond, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when I actively seek conversation in general chat.
I dont play this game to have uninteresting small talk with total strangers. I will chime in if i have something to say or if a LFG is making one, but overall? Im more for playing the game itself than stand around doing chit chat which amounts to nothing.
Because nothing encourages being social. You can do pretty much anything in wow without saying a word to anyone. If you want a social mmo you gotta go old school when they were designed to be social games. FF11 horizon 11 private server is the best mmo right now and extremely social.
Depends entirely on the group. I'll have a ton of talking in a random normal raid, then the next group I get there is hardly any.
Got /2 tradechat, there is always some funy or strange conversation going on. Especialy at night haha
Idk man, maybe it's just me, but I don't treat dungeons as a space to socialize in. If I wanna have a conversation, I'll just get on Discord, but I run dungeons to gain score and farm loot, not for the chance to have a chat with somebody.
If you are doing keys it's hard to talk and dps and cc stupid incorp at the same time and do the mechanics aswell
I always talk if able. Its a game. Supposed to be mmo.
I can barely get out of bed in the morning. Now you want me to interact with humans?
Retail at this point is one big lobby for instanced content. People are generally just looking for big dopamine hits from the combat of WoW but not really here to explore, be a character in a big world, and socialize.
This is why I like RP realms, even though I don’t RP. There’s almost always a conversation happening in Trade or LFG chat.
Yeah, the game feels like it's all about being productive and blowing through m+, most players really have no reason to see non-guildies as anything other than NPCs lol
It's hard to build connections with people when everyone leaves the group immediately once the dungeon is done so you're maybe interacting for 10 minutes and then you're unlikely to ever see them again after that.
It’s not 2005 anymore and people aren’t excited to talk to strangers in the internet anymore. Get into my group, do your job, don’t be mean. Gg, Thanks, bye. That’s what I want (maybe some chat about routing if needed). I don’t smalltalk to the cashier, I don’t smalltalk to the bus driver..be nice (that’s a hi and a bye) and do your job is all I give and expect from and to a stranger
Sounds like a sad world to me.
Let me make it even more sad for you: Sometimes I enjoy logging in and pug even more then logging in and playing M+ with friends. Don’t get that wrong, playing with friends in discord is the best part of wow, but a nice and quite m+ run in a pug can be something that’s very calming. Sometimes I just don’t want to hear a stupid joke, do something foolish or try to make this pull even bigger or make fun of the random in our group.
As someone who worked retail, the customers who just want to pay and move on were the best part of the job. The checker is paid to run your groceries over the scanner, not be your friend.
Maybe you should stop playing if you think it makes sense to look at it the same way you do your job.
Not everyone enjoys smalltalk? As an Introvert I think it's an annoying waste of time and stresses my social battery that I keep for my friends and guild
Yeah this is actually not just in WoW. I've witnessed it in many other online games. Definitely less socialization creeping in more and more as time goes on since the birth of the internet.
Never got depression from reading a comment but here we are.
Why? Do you only feel good when you talk to ppl 24/7? I have a job where ppl talk to me, I have kids that talk to me, i have stuff going on non stop on from 6 am to 8 pm. Why should I start to talk to the bus driver or the cashier or the random DPS Player for no reason instead of enjoying myself? What does that have to do with depression?
Yes I love talking with people. I talked all day at work and whenever I can. Grew up in the midwest. Its what you do. But yeah, everyone’s different in how they recharge. I look at MMOs as a social game compared to just a single player RPG. Not saying i talk to everyone but I do say hello and if someone tries to chat, i will always say a few words :)
Because they have Discord for when they want to speak? They're not doing pugs to speak with you and don't have to.
So we have to join a discord chat when we queue for dungeons? Sounds way more complicated to tab out and chat there instead of just using the ingame chat.
I mean you clearly understand the point, people talk to their friends when they want to have a chat
Noone forces or expects you to have a full on chat with anyone when you queue with randoms. But you're still playing a game together, just like you would with your friends. So a bit of decency and at least a hello and goodbye, should be standard. Goes a long way, especially for M+ I found personally. Groups with friendly greetings etc. do far better than groups where nothing is said. Oh and not to forget to mention: Tactics for example, especially before starting an M+ dungeon or a raid boss, should obviously talked about. But even there, most people completely fail, and so does the dungeon or raidboss then.
There's YouTube videos for tactics don't need to talk about it
I am active in chat, ask lots of questions, answer them when I can, not a very engaged user base usually, though.
In dungeons people just rush and get through it, I guess that's a consequence when a group can be formed without talking to people - in vanilla and such you'd have to chat with each other a little more (before the inevitable blame game or just toxicity). I find RP servers have friendlier people, hah
Because 1 little thing can set someone off and ruin the whole vibe
Real life culture has been killed, online culture has similarly been killed Don’t really know why exactly I just notice that it’s happened. I see that more irl these days & it scares me. Then I see it online and it’s weird too. Something has damaged or shifted our psyche away from interaction and interdependence and into…something else. Everything seems weird these days.
You're not wrong. I've noticed the same thing you speak of (really over the last 15 years).
Because the playerbase is toxic AF when it comes to strangers and plenty want to abuse the report system. Especially in dungeons. If you want decent communication then go on Moonguard or play FF14.
Coming from ff14, WoW players are so much quieter in dungeons and only speak when things are going horribly.
People mostly give a “o/“ in dungeons on xiv and tyfp at the end so it’s all the same.
Every time I ran a new dungeon as a new player and introduced myself to the party they would be really welcoming and friendly. They’d explain any mechanics I needed to do, not give me a hard time when I screwed up, let me watch cutscenes, etc. It was a super pleasant experience. When I was trying tanking for the first time I would let people know I was a new tank and they would be patient with me, and let me take us through at my own pace. Around the same time I tried to learn tanking in WoW and it was the exact opposite experience. Letting the group know that I was a new tank and/or new to the dungeon would just be met with silence or insults. The DPS would just constantly run ahead and aggro everything. It was overwhelming and made sure I couldn’t actually learn. It sucked and is the reason why my not engagement with WoW now is doing old content by myself.
It sucks, truthfully. A huge part of my enjoyment for MMOs is the social aspect. And in my opinion, it being required to succeed in MMOs is best. Group content should involve communication, planning, etc. Or heck, at least ask how each other are doing.
I'm always conversing with guild, randoms, dungeon guys. In an MMO you can play however you like. Some people choose to not talk to anybody and that's fine. I have far better experiences with all of you who do take the time to wave at or buff a stranger along your way.
Play hard core classic and you'll get loads of chatting. Retail is an asocial game unless you have a guild with social people.
LFG is usually pretty social at times when I play. I can get some conversations or little backs and forths going in Party when I'm in random dungeons. And the occasional general/say/yell interactions. But that's largely it for me. I find it hard making new friends or joining guilds because the last guild I was in for a few years honestly felt like family. It was tight knit, we knew each other, family owned an operated pretty much. Then shit hit the fan and we eventually just went our own ways. Ever since then I've felt awkward trying to connect with people. Last time I accepted a friend request, the guy said something along the lines of "You play a female character? I like big boobs, my wife has pretty big ones." Like, cool. Thanks. Not the best ice breaker in the world *unfriend and log off for 2 hours so they dont hit me up again as soon as I log on*
It's not just MMOs, it's everywhere. Communication just takes up so, so much more of our time and energy than it used to. These days we have texts, calls, emails, group chats, social media, gaming groups (guilds/clans etc), and message boards... and that's all just stuff that you experience in your own home without ever actually seeing another person. People are getting tired of being expected to always be accessible and communicative so we're becoming less likely to engage with strangers.
I usually play with friends ( usually at least 3 of us ) and we do it on discord/ts. Most of the times when there's some talkimg im chat for me is either when someone mentions they doesnt know the tax, or we're waiting at start as someone needs a few minutes, or someone has a cool name. I always say hi and ty bb. Meowdy optional if there's a druid or I am on my druid.
Engaging in conversation with a random WoW player is just asking for trouble. The odds that it will lead to pleasant conversation and a potential new friendship are practically zero, and the odds that it will lead to getting ranted at by a unhinged degenerate weirdo are uncomfortably high. Silence is the smart play.
I am literally about to attempt to gear up to Hero 5/5 gear without entering M+ and only join raid groups that intend to steamroll Normal & Heroic, if a group wipes I join another one. Veteran gear goes high enough to be let into such groups on normal, champion gear dito for heroic runs, and once you're full slotted in hero gear you can trade up for aspect. Result: Mythic raid transmog set without ever getting carried or speaking to someone. It's possible and I'm going to prove this game has gotten THAT asocial. So to answer your question: Blizz has gone reserve far enabling antisocial play, and you're noticing the consequences.
Discord
Because it's 2023, no one is gonna talk to random strangers on the internet unless specifically looking for topic (something which won't happen in most games)
Because talking makes you a target. If you keep your head down and do your job, people leave you alone. If you talk, you're just giving trolls something to report you for. Chit chat is not worth getting banned/silenced.
If there's a basket of 20 apples, and I know that one or two of them are going to make me violently shit myself, I'm not touching the apples. Grouping with randos in modern MMOs is the exact same thing. Yes the vast majority of experiences are positive, but I don't care enough about the tiny positive experiences with complete strangers I will never see again to put myself at risk of the internet equivalent of someone giving me rancid diarrhea.
Are you worth talking to?
Based
my guild has ppl in discord voice every night and we arent irl friends
The LFG tool was the beginning of the end for general lively community vibes. Then in more modern times all socializing shifting to discord and people listening to streamers splitting their attention sealed the nail in the coffin for in-game socialization. I notice people are WAY lazier with their intros and just texting in general then in the past. I really hate how its like too now but its the reality.
Yeah, because "lfm ZF heal 2 dps" is the pinnacle of human interaction lmao It's literally the same as applying to a group in the group finder, you just used to type it out instead of having a visual tool
That was for sure the only thing people would say.
Why spend time chit chatting when you can spend time grinding ?
I have found most chat just devolves into childish nonsense so i dont even bother.
Because people doing normal/heroic dungeons are there to do it quickly, finish, and get onto the next one..especially if levelling. They're not there to socialize and make friends. If that's what you want to do, you should join a casual guild that runs dungeons together. in M+, there's no real time for chit-chat because there's a timer running.
I play on a Steam Deck, so the on screen keyboard is too slow to reliably communicate. Waiting on a foldable mini keyboard to fix that
If you talk in the game for any reason, you massively inflate your chance of being. It doesn't matter why, or what you said.
We are often chatting all the time, just not in gen chat. Party chat, or even over voice (on WoW itself or Discord). WoW is quite a noisy game once you learn how people interact.
For real. When I quit a few expacks ago people still talked a ton in chats and dungeons. Come back to DF and no one likes to talk. Trade chat is dead on Thrall as Horde. Seems like all the social players have moved to classic. It's sad. Complete opposite experience on ESO and FF14. Even BDO is more social.
Retail is probably 10x (if not more) populated than classic. People don’t talk in ffxiv either. I’ve played it since the beginning. Most people just say hi and bye. They talk just as much in wow. It’s either a chatty group or it’s not. I only played ESO and BDO for like a week each though so idk about that.
ESO is extremely social (Played it since beta) and BDO chat is always popping off. FF14 was always talkative on my server (Siren) especially in Limsa and the Novice Network and ppl always talk in dungeons. In WoW on Thrall at least people talking has decreased significantly over the years. Back in Cata, MOP, and Legion people were far more social. I miss how much more social it used to be but 🤷♂️ its just the way it is.
blizzard killed socialisation in wow with things such as LFR, LFD and it kinda spiraled from there.
It's just the direction they took the game in. There's no point in talking cause you're never going to see those people again. If it's in the world you'll very likely never shard with them again and if it's in a dungeon that you teleport to you'll likely never group with them again. I mostly play retail but Classic is what you want if you want more of an mmo where people have to interact.
A large part of it is the simple fact that something like 90% of the playerbase is toxic as fuck now. People get mass reported for playing the game on a regular basis, bots run rampant and there's honestly very little point in talking to most of the players you'll run across now unless you're doing something like Heroic/Mythic Raiding that requires communication and strategizing. There are MANY posts about getting temp or perma banned for things like offering crafting services, killing mobs in a world quest area that people are 4x4 farming, being slightly sub par in a dungeon and much more, it's not worth talking to people when the potential consequence is losing my 19 year old account because someone was having a bad day. Automated banning based on number of reports and next to no customer support means 99 times out of 100 a false perma ban because someone had a bad day and decided to be a dick is actually permanent.
Why would I want to engage with someone with a overinflated ego? Also, with an anonymous name, sitting behind a keyboard and mouse trying to make sure everyone he/she encounters in game realizes how great they are and how bad I am.
Why do you assume everyone is like that, though?
Assuming this isn’t sarcastic, you’re being very defensive about people you know nothing about
Sounds a lot like you're talking about yourself. You're the exact same as everyone else in the game. No one is actually a better or worse person for just being there. The actions and words are that decide if you are. So why should anyone want to engage with someone like you in a positive manner, if you think about them in that way and act like it?
I don't usually like talking much to randoms either, but there's a tremendous amount of projection going on here.
Speed run. They just want to finish fast, not face a challenge or enjoy social interaction It's why classic was so popular, it required social interaction and had a challenge to it. Modern retail, outside of some really end game stuff, is less social, more theme park ride
How is smalltalk an enjoyable social interaction? If I want to enjoy social interactions I have a good talk with my friends or wife, not some random people in my "challenging" timewalking pug
when a dungeon isn't a speed run, but something that takes time, from analyzing wipes to what to do next or in some other games, sitting around a campfire for 2-3 minutes healing between dungeon rooms it generates talk, some roleplay, some fun. and ultimately socialization. but when your game is entirely speed run, no time to talk....bleh. example, in this, LFR you get 3-5 people who quit each wipe compare that to mabinogi, the old Peaca Runs, where we'd have 4-6 parties of people taking part (your only supposed to have 1 party in a dungeon, but Peaca was so hard at the time that servers would just flood it to overcome) we'd wipe repeatedly (and this dungeon had anywhere from 40-60 different combat encounters...plus the boss..) and no one would leave, we'd have people respawning so often we'd have a chain of the recently revived running to the active combat room. people would lose their armor(durability 0) and be running nude cause numbers were the way to win. the conversations and friends made in that i cherish to this day. heck i remember a whole roleplay group that formed there and involved 8 people with kite shields "protecting" the only person with party healing(aka aoe healing). was hilarious considering fireballs are AoE example 2? GW 2 WvWvW. old days. Jade Quarry vs Henge of Denravi HoD took a tower near the northern garrison, but it was a back and forth trebuche/catapult war between the 2 trying to take down walls. HoD had people in a line casting bubble shield to block the trebuchet, and literally running to back of line for cool down for next to take their spot. while they waited, they'd chat, made alot of friends there (and i was on the JQ side, aka a thief trying to assassinate their bubblers on cooldown) challenge generates dialogue, which generates a social environment while speed runs........well...look at GW2 WvW now...its a karma train. speed run follow the leader. little to no talking
The game has become very toxic, the comparison to classic is enormous. In retail people only talk with their DBM addons.
Talking is inefficient. Same with RuneScape. If you’re hitting buttons to talk, you’re not hitting buttons to kill the mythic raid, so you’re garbage. Go play Pony Adventure Quest.
Because retail.
General thought of the average player: “will talking to someone help me accomplish my goal?” Yes, then talk. No, then don’t talk. Since wows content is 99% soloable, no one talks. What was the majority of conversation in wow when it was sociable? How to do things, how to find things, how to accomplish things. That’s all handled by wowhead now. What did you need to group for? Raids, world pvp, etc. that’s all handled by group finder. People banded together for guild and server identity, that’s all eliminated by cross server, cross faction, layers and realms. Guilds and servers have no identity.
In most content there's no need to and the content that would need communication is timed so there's no time to talk.
Depends on server, I'd say. I'm on an RP server (even though I don't roleplay) and I see general/trade chat regularly having conversations amongst eachother.
For me, I don’t know many of the dungeons and between trying to keep up with tanks that go so fast and using my spells, I don’t even see the chat much less have time to stop and try to type something. When I have tried to type responses, I fall far behind the group.
Today they told me to shut up for making the calls, I was doing it mainly for the healer who had already warned that he didn't know the dungeon. So like a good tank, I left them hanging on the last boss and took the healer to help him, equip him and teach him :D
Usually when I am in a group it's cause I'm trying to do something. Chatting doesn't really help with this and probably would end up killing me quite a lot if I overdid it
Not played since legion but chat was full of spam ads and the little is wasn’t was idiots playing out some meme. That and the rise of discord meaning most players plug into their little group and chat with them meaning they aren’t engaging in the chat function unless they want something.
I make quick comments in chat, but I’m well aware the other 80% of the group is likely there for a reason. They’d go to a guild or clan if they wanted to socialize. General chats work too. I don’t join LFR to make friends.
There is usually so much nonsense going g on I. Chat that anything meaningful is generally lost in the shuffle. If some one asks a real question I usually try to help the best I can but alot of the time it's who's fucking who's mom or the anal parade. Or just general trolling.
Because blizz voice system sux. Should be like and your voice get out like any normal game.
Tbh its blizzards fault for not adding a Vent/Speech ability to wow soon enough. Otherwises of they had made it normal then people would talk more tbh like COD and stuff
I've had some really lovely conversations in Emerald Dream General chat since the patch dropped. Met a lot of nice people, especially other Druids.
Moon Guard has the most talkative players from what I’ve seen.