Ihmotepp, WoW has heard your plea.  I don't think any game ever has gone out of their way to answer the PUG player more than what WoW has done now.  Simply amazing...

The Ultimate PUG tool coming in WoW update 3.3

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3169275#3169275

Come on Ihmotepp, give it up to Blizzard.  That tool has to make you drool and end your PUG delima forever.

 I think it has more to do with this

www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/15/view/news/page/1/read/15255/World-of-Warcraft-Puggable-Enters-Open-Beta.html

I am impressed. I does look like a nice tool for PUGs, and I see this as possibly becoming a new standard, something future MMORPGs adopt.

I do appreciate games making it easier to PUG. I am however going to point out what I see as a minor flaw.

Doesn't this feel sort of like a lobby game, like Diablo or something, within the WoW game?

Maybe I'm understanding this wrong, but this is all instanced content right?

It's not horrible, I like playing lobby games as well as MMORPGs, but it's not quite as cool as the open world of EQ or DAoC.

I'm not so impressed I'm ready to go out and buy a copy of WoW just yet. I think I'm still going to wait on TOR and see if that is any good, but it's a very interesting development.

Wow. I admit I am impressed.

If it works right, that system could be a great improvement in the low-level WoW experience.

Very impressive.

Too bad Blizzard pissed me off with their account registration shenanigans.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

I am impressed. I does look like a nice tool for PUGs, and I see this as possibly becoming a new standard, something future MMORPGs adopt.

 

I do appreciate games making it easier to PUG. I am however going to point out what I see as a minor flaw.

Doesn't this feel sort of like a lobby game, like Diablo or something, within the WoW game?

Any LFG tool within an MMO will feel that way. The more effective it is, the more it will feel like a lobby.

It's a choice between wandering for hours looking for people to group with, or this sort of design.

A good incentive to level alts would be more appealing to me, but this looks pretty damned good.

I hope folks realize that it will produce some very irregular groups. Shadow priests being selected for main healer? Is there anything to prevent that? Will the system check builds before assigning roles?

I would think this is an incentive to level alts.

 Hrm, nice.  I cancelled about 2 months ago due to time constraints, but that would make for an interesting return.  It does almost seem like a parallel version of the game (lobby-ish as mentioned), but I'm not sure that is a weakness at all - honestly why should I care?  If not this tool being the lobby, then standing around listening to tools spamming the achievements they need to join their uber-PUG (which will wipe anyway) becomes the Lobby.

Still not going to beat guild grouping, obviously, but you know sometimes your guild just isn't on.

No better company to run it than Vivox. :) 

So in short, some of the main features of Puggable include:

* Search for other players of complementary skills and comparable level
* Communicate objectives and become familiar with one another via voice prior to entering the game
* Continue communications without switching voice applications into the game
* Invite new players along the way

It looks like a really great tool and I'm hoping people take advantage of it. .

Originally posted by Horusra

I would think this is an incentive to level alts.

It certainly makes them less of a hassle to level, but I don't see an incentive to do so.

What kind of rewards are involved? If it's something like I have suggested recently, then that WOULD be a good incentive.

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game. No, I don't want my cake and eat it too: I know it's perfectly possible to establish a product that meets all expectations.

A server by design or by result promotes community. Breaking down the playerbase at large into smaller morsels that people can identify with, developping loyalties and rivalries.

Let's add this current implimentation to cross-server BGs, server transfers, and faction switches... and it's just one more thing that chips away at the communities in WoW. Blizzard's design of PvP inside of WoW was flawed on servers with faction imbalance, and server/faction switches wouldn't be necessary had their leveling process been more enjoyable or streamlined.

It would be refreshing to establish a game design that solved the grouping senario without having to do so at another social cost. While Blizzard is to be commended for their recognizing a problem and finding a solution for it, I personally feel that a studio of Blizzard's caliber fell far short of the insightfulness most gamers know they are capable of.

Edit: Grammar

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

In my experience lately in WoW, there is no community for lowbies leveling up.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

I am impressed. I does look like a nice tool for PUGs, and I see this as possibly becoming a new standard, something future MMORPGs adopt.

 

I do appreciate games making it easier to PUG. I am however going to point out what I see as a minor flaw.

Doesn't this feel sort of like a lobby game, like Diablo or something, within the WoW game?

Any LFG tool within an MMO will feel that way. The more effective it is, the more it will feel like a lobby.

 

It's a choice between wandering for hours looking for people to group with, or this sort of design.

A good incentive to level alts would be more appealing to me, but this looks pretty damned good.

 

I hope folks realize that it will produce some very irregular groups. Shadow priests being selected for main healer? Is there anything to prevent that? Will the system check builds before assigning roles?

No, I don't think it's the LFG tool.

When I played DAoC or EQ, i'd be in a dungeon. The dungeon would have content that increased in difficulty as you went down towards the bottom.

But it was an open dungeon, not an instance. I'd see other more powerful players heading past me towards the bottom. I'd see groups wipe and fall apart, and the stragglers would ask to join my group. I'd see players running from mobs that were to tough training them towards my party, and we'd have to run.

I'd stop at a certain level, because my particular group wasn't powerful enough to go deeper, only to join another group with a few more levels,  or different classes, or more players, and delve deeper down. Then my group would disband, and I'd be stuck and have to ask another group to escort me up to easier levels.

All this was happening in the dungeon around me. One group would yell, help! and my group could grab an add and stop them from wiping, or rez their healer, kill off any mobs that popped while their healer rezzed the rest of the group, and stuff like that.

That's a bit different from finding a PUG< then we all zone into an instanced dungeon and it's just us until we finish the dungeon or quit.

It can still be fun, but not as cool as the open world dungeons for the reasons mentioned above. It was like the city of Heroes dungeons.

They were fun, but instanced and scaled, so they seemed kind of lifeless being only populated by my group and the mobs, with no other solo players or groups running around if you know what I mean.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

I understand what he's saying.

If I play on a server of 3K players, I get to know a lot of those players.

With this set up, I'm playing on ALL servers with potentially millions of players.

Instead of a small community of 3K players that I get to know, and group with over and over, I'll have the potential to group with players from ALL servers, and be less likely to see the same people over and over again.

More likely to group, less likely to see the same players on my server over and over again, which builds a sense of community.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Doesn't this feel sort of like a lobby game, like Diablo or something, within the WoW game?

Why do you think they're making everyone create Battle.net accounts?

This is the first step to Cross-Server integration. Right now it will only work with PUGS, but I'm sure it's a small step away from being able to chose who you group with from other servers to run instances. Cross-server communication too. But hopefully, not cross-server trading, but I can see that happening.

 

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

 

I understand what he's saying.

If I play on a server of 3K players, I get to know a lot of those players.

With this set up, I'm playing on ALL servers with potentially millions of players.

Instead of a small community of 3K players that I get to know, and group with over and over, I'll have the potential to group with players from ALL servers, and be less likely to see the same people over and over again.

More likely to group, less likely to see the same players on my server over and over again, which builds a sense of community.

I guess if you only play one server and aren't really part of the community outside your guild the feature doesn't offer much. This feature has me tempted to renew my sub because now instead of paying ofr server transfers or leveling up on new servers I have more of a chnace of meeting up with people I know from Cenarius, Death Hollow, Archimonde and the other servers I played on over the years.

Anxiously looking forward to resubbing, meeting new people, and wiping in a dungeon with them. :)

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

If anything, this tool promotes people to not solo.  Instead of just your server ot level up with in the low levels, it gives you 19 more servers worth of peple.  That is HUGE.  And for those people that say "but what about when the dungeon is over, how do I keep friends with anyone I like?"  That is what battle.net is for.  So that way you can keep track of cross realm and cross game friends.  It doesn't get more social friendly.

 I am no fan of WoW by any means but this is a pretty neat tool. I am curious to see how they will handle cross server trading as has been mentioned already.

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

 

If anything, this tool promotes people to not solo.  Instead of just your server ot level up with in the low levels, it gives you 19 more servers worth of peple.  That is HUGE.  And for those people that say "but what about when the dungeon is over, how do I keep friends with anyone I like?"  That is what battle.net is for.  So that way you can keep track of cross realm and cross game friends.  It doesn't get more social friendly.

 

It's not bad. And it does promote socializing and making new friends. I definitley view this as a positive thing, and potentially fun. I played the Crap out of Diablo and had an absolute blast, and that's a lobby game.

But it plays very, very, very differently from an open world dungeon that requires cooperation not only among players in a group, but between groups as well.

 I think you've stated that you have never played EQ or DAoC.

It DOES get more social and friendly on a server with that sort of game play.

I dont' think you'd actually understand the difference unless you tried it for yourself.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

 

If anything, this tool promotes people to not solo.  Instead of just your server ot level up with in the low levels, it gives you 19 more servers worth of peple.  That is HUGE.  And for those people that say "but what about when the dungeon is over, how do I keep friends with anyone I like?"  That is what battle.net is for.  So that way you can keep track of cross realm and cross game friends.  It doesn't get more social friendly.

 

 

It's not bad. And it does promote socializing and making new friends. I definitley view this as a positive thing, and potentially fun. I played the Crap out of Diablo and had an absolute blast, and that's a lobby game.

But it plays very, very, very differently from an open world dungeon that requires cooperation not only among players in a group, but between groups as well.

 I think you've stated that you have never played EQ or DAoC.

It DOES get more social and friendly on a server with that sort of game play.

I dont' think you'd actually understand the difference unless you tried it for yourself.

 

Oh, I agree with you 100%.  Yes, I did play those games back in the day.  I was more of M59 & UO type guy myself.  I do agree that open world is a lot more fun, but in today's day and age, open world isn't where player's hearts are unfortunately.  I was a believer in the "The Vision" from Brad McQuaid.  Personally, the vision was too large.  Better to start small and expand when you can than sink the ship because you don't have enough resources for the job. Vanguard, Saga of Heroes is our modern day open world game in which you speak.  Unfortunately, it's going to take SOE committment to the game of at least three years and expansion to 20 full time experienced devs instead of just that four they have to turn brad's vision into the reality of game that we'd all like to see.

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

 

If anything, this tool promotes people to not solo.  Instead of just your server ot level up with in the low levels, it gives you 19 more servers worth of peple.  That is HUGE.  And for those people that say "but what about when the dungeon is over, how do I keep friends with anyone I like?"  That is what battle.net is for.  So that way you can keep track of cross realm and cross game friends.  It doesn't get more social friendly.

 

 

It's not bad. And it does promote socializing and making new friends. I definitley view this as a positive thing, and potentially fun. I played the Crap out of Diablo and had an absolute blast, and that's a lobby game.

But it plays very, very, very differently from an open world dungeon that requires cooperation not only among players in a group, but between groups as well.

 I think you've stated that you have never played EQ or DAoC.

It DOES get more social and friendly on a server with that sort of game play.

I dont' think you'd actually understand the difference unless you tried it for yourself.

 

 

Oh, I agree with you 100%.  Yes, I did play those games back in the day.  I was more of M59 & UO type guy myself.  I do agree that open world is a lot more fun, but in today's day and age, open world isn't where player's hearts are unfortunately.  I was a believer in the "The Vision" from Brad McQuaid.  Personally, the vision was too large.  Better to start small and expand when you can than sink the ship because you don't have enough resources for the job. Vanguard, Saga of Heroes is our modern day open world game in which you speak.  Unfortunately, it's going to take SOE committment to the game of at least three years and expansion to 20 full time experienced devs instead of just that four they have to turn brad's vision into the reality of game that we'd all like to see.

 

If you compare playing in DaoC something like Darkness Falls, to playing in an instanced and scaled dungeon like in City of Heroes, both are fun.

But the DAoC experience wins hands down. Much more immersive, much more community IMO.

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game.

How does a tool that increases both the methods and ease of communicating/interaction 'destroy the sense of community?'

 

If anything, this tool promotes people to not solo.  Instead of just your server ot level up with in the low levels, it gives you 19 more servers worth of peple.  That is HUGE.  And for those people that say "but what about when the dungeon is over, how do I keep friends with anyone I like?"  That is what battle.net is for.  So that way you can keep track of cross realm and cross game friends.  It doesn't get more social friendly.

 

Exactly! It effectively breaks down the barrier to interaction create by a multi-shard/server system.

I understand.  I understand the game you want.  That game is Vanguard.  At this point in time, I can't recommend it to anyone because SOE isn't really committed to the game.  4 devs doesn't make for a live team in the MMORPG community.  Just keep your eye on that game.  Until then, WoW is going out of it's way to make more and more tools to greatly enchance the play for all of it's players and with this LFG tool, they hit a grand slam.  Think about.  5th year out and instead of just sitting back milking money off of WoW, Blizzard is still creating awesome tools to push the MMOG community forward.  Yes, it's a throw back to the "lobby system", but doing it in-game is just creative and forward thinking.   

Originally posted by Zorndorf

@Night.

The new LFG tool will cluster about 20 DIFFERENT servers buddy

That means always having 1000-2000 people around you in the same "bracket" of levels say lvl 40-45 to do dungeons with..

By adding rewards and the usual dungeon quests, you"ll see a boost in group play doing the lucrative WOW dungeon loot.... while leveling.

A little revolution. Combine it with CATA (new 1-60 Azeroth) and it's dynamite to level up through dungeon crawling.

 It's basis is the already clustered BG servers, so you can play 24/7 without hastle or waiting times to group in PvP or PVE now.

 

I agree it will be nice, but what if I'm level 70 and want to run in Dire Maul, just for fun. The current LFG tool does not allow me to LFG in that bracket, or to even see those who are LFG for that dungeon. It would be nice if they changed that as well.

Originally posted by pojung

Can no one else see this for what it is? It's a patch-solution to a problem with the game's design. Does it make grouping easier? Absolutely. But at what cost? It further destroys the sense of community in the game. No, I don't want my cake and eat it too: I know it's perfectly possible to establish a product that meets all expectations.

A server by design or by result promotes community. Breaking down the playerbase at large into smaller morsels that people can identify with, developping loyalties and rivalries.

Let's add this current implimentation to cross-server BGs, server transfers, and faction switches... and it's just one more thing that chips away at the communities in WoW. Blizzard's design of PvP inside of WoW was flawed on servers with faction imbalance, and server/faction switches wouldn't be necessary had their leveling process been more enjoyable or streamlined.

It would be refreshing to establish a game design that solved the grouping senario without having to do so at another social cost. While Blizzard is to be commended for their recognizing a problem and finding a solution for it, I personally feel that a studio of Blizzard's caliber fell far short of the insightfulness most gamers know they are capable of.

Edit: Grammar

That makes alot of sense, but also, you have to figure that combining the servers like this makes it more like a  single-server game such as  EvE, which I think is great. The only downside to this new system is that you can't really interact with most of the other players outsdie the instances. Do you think WoW would be better or worse off if they had only one huge server to deal with?