This interesting discussion started over on GW2forum that I thought could be a interesting discussion regarding MMO's in general that have instanced dungeons.

I see the same argument here in SWTOR.com/forum. And other places as well.

But do LFG system really ruin the community in a MMO game?

In GW2, most people use third party sites to do this. Not as effective as in-game LFG system that are built into other known games, but better than nothing.

But because of this flaw, people still shout for groups in the city.

Is that really improving the community? having to stand in a populated zone spamming about getting a group.

Is that fun doing that? In WoW this was done often in Vanilla and TBC. But was it fun standing in the city waiting for something to pop? hey even Battlegrounds worked that way. Man was it fun once they added the queue from anywhere system like Warhammer had (too bad they nerfed the BG's soon after to be more fast pace). Could that be a negative side effect?

Faster Queue means less dedicated players to long battles? (Vanilla WoW's BGs and Dungeons, vs, Post LFG Dungeons and BGs)

maybe it does effect and ruin the community. whats your thoughts on this?

 Most LFG systems further ruin the community because games right now are easy and require no travel, you basically group and forget about it. The whole MMO experience in games like GW2 is forgetable.

EQ had a barebone LFG system later on, but the fact you needed to travel for miles to get where other people are meant grouping meant something, now grouping in MMO is playing together 30 minutes and never seeing each other again. Really, you didn't go back to town in EQ just for the heck of it, you stayed with the same people for days usually, in the same zone. If you're going to make someone travel for an hour or letting him wait on a boat for 30 minutes you need to make sure you know who that other person is, you can not just let some automated feature do the grouping for you or use some anonymous site, you need to engage and talk to the other person.

Current MMO have no community, they're just forgetable zergfests. Stuff like queue are a joke, how about you talk to the people yourself and engage with them instead of using automated features.

News flash: Life is full of trade offs and consequences. Sometimes you have to choose between two terrible things. Bored gamers waiting for 45 minutes to find a player you don't know and will never see again or wait 2 minutes to find a player you don't know and will never see again. Let's see ... what's my choice? Oh, you're a social player that wants to meet people? You don't wait 45 minutes anyway - you already have a bunch of friends that will run the dungeon with you.

Moreover...

I know this comes as a shock to MMO purists, but developers #1 priority is to keep the game running. To do this, they need players. Bored players quit. They must minimize the wait time in between fun tasks. GW2's theory was without a trinity, groups would magically form and they were dead wrong. There is as much waiting in GW2 as other games. LFG tool is needed to keep players playing.

Quite the opposite I find.

They get you in a group faster, and don't clog up the chat with 'LFM for Dungeon X - 2 more spots, need Class X and Class Y'. While Class X is busy spamming 'Class X LFG'.

What on earth is social about that? Nothing. It just ruins a perfecly good social aspect (global or area chat) with clutter. TSW and GW2 are perfect examples of this. Going to Argatha or Lions Arch is just a mess for chat. Good luck being social when all you can see is group spam.

I find that if you meet social or useful players with a dungeon finder, you will add them to your friends list and they will be the first call when you want to run more dungeons. Dungeons always go more smoothly with people you have played with before and trust.

But the looking for group aspect itself is not social. Its annoying, and LFG tools are a great way to introduce you to new people when your friends and guildmates are not online.  

Originally posted by evilastro

But the looking for group aspect itself is not social.

wut?

Let's compare the system EQ used versus the automated LFG systems they use now.

EQ:

Engaging with another player for the first time, asking that player if they would like to group, discussing what their goals are, helping them get to your camp, running with them to the camp, helping them get rezzed, engaging with other groups to check for a good spot, learning about each other. Becoming friends.

VERSUS

Current MMO:

Automated LF-dungeon bla bla bla, directly zone into the zone, zerg everything for 20 minutes, never say a word and not even saying bye.

I know one of them created a community, and it sure as hell is not the automated LFG garbage they keep releasing.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by evilastro

But the looking for group aspect itself is not social.

wut?

Let's compare the system EQ used versus the automated LFG systems they use now.

 

EQ:

Engaging with another player for the first time, asking that player if they would like to group, discussing what their goals are, helping them get to your camp, running with them to the camp, helping them get rezzed, engaging with other groups to check for a good spot, learning about each other.

VERSUS

Current MMO:

Automated LF-dungeon bla bla bla, directly zone into the zone, zerg everything for 20 minutes, never say a word and not even saying bye.

 

I know one of them created a community, and it sure as hell is not the automated LFG garbage they keep releasing.

You can engage in chat after  you get in the dungeon.  Yelling in chat for forever is NOT engaging.  It doesn't make me feel friendly either.  Just very annoyed and I'm more likely not to talk to annyone after the long wait.

Originally posted by Jemcrystal

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by evilastro

But the looking for group aspect itself is not social.

wut?

Let's compare the system EQ used versus the automated LFG systems they use now.

 

EQ:

Engaging with another player for the first time, asking that player if they would like to group, discussing what their goals are, helping them get to your camp, running with them to the camp, helping them get rezzed, engaging with other groups to check for a good spot, learning about each other.

VERSUS

Current MMO:

Automated LF-dungeon bla bla bla, directly zone into the zone, zerg everything for 20 minutes, never say a word and not even saying bye.

 

I know one of them created a community, and it sure as hell is not the automated LFG garbage they keep releasing.

You can engage in chat after  you get in the dungeon.  Yelling in chat for forever is NOT engaging.  It doesn't make me feel friendly either.  Just very annoyed and I'm more likely not to talk to annyone after the long wait.

No one yelled in chat in EQ, the only people who did that were people who were ignored by the community. You engage with other players, you talk to them and get to know them.

Yelling LFG in chat is a thing they do in new MMO because they forgot how to socialise with other people.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

This interesting discussion started over on GW2forum that I thought could be a interesting discussion regarding MMO's in general that have instanced dungeons.

 

I see the same argument here in SWTOR.com/forum. And other places as well.

 

But do LFG system really ruin the community in a MMO game?

In GW2, most people use third party sites to do this. Not as effective as in-game LFG system that are built into other known games, but better than nothing.

I consider the "not as effective as" to be an improvement in itself.

But in truth, I don'entirely t blame the LFG system itself anymore.  It only excaberates issues that were already there under the surface.

Is that really improving the community? having to stand in a populated zone spamming about getting a group.

Is that fun doing that? In WoW this was done often in Vanilla and TBC. But was it fun standing in the city waiting for something to pop? hey even Battlegrounds worked that way. Man was it fun once they added the queue from anywhere system like Warhammer had (too bad they nerfed the BG's soon after to be more fast pace). Could that be a negative side effect?

LFGs make things easier for people who's solution to the lack of them is to spam.  I'm not fond of enabling that crowd in the first place.

But then, they're there regardless.  And so are the guys who bitch about the effects of LFG systems, but still jump in the queue themselves for whatever reason.

LFG systems don't create those problems.

Originally posted by Jemcrystal

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by evilastro

But the looking for group aspect itself is not social.

wut?

Let's compare the system EQ used versus the automated LFG systems they use now.

 

EQ:

Engaging with another player for the first time, asking that player if they would like to group, discussing what their goals are, helping them get to your camp, running with them to the camp, helping them get rezzed, engaging with other groups to check for a good spot, learning about each other.

VERSUS

Current MMO:

Automated LF-dungeon bla bla bla, directly zone into the zone, zerg everything for 20 minutes, never say a word and not even saying bye.

 

I know one of them created a community, and it sure as hell is not the automated LFG garbage they keep releasing.

You can engage in chat after  you get in the dungeon.  Yelling in chat for forever is NOT engaging.  It doesn't make me feel friendly either.  Just very annoyed and I'm more likely not to talk to annyone after the long wait.

Typical dungeon chat doesn't make me feel friendly either.

In fact, very little of what either the LFG-addicts or the LFG-haters does makes me feel all that friendly.  What it really does, is make me regret the anti-griefer stance I took 10 years ago.

I've never understood the argument that it ruins a community.  In fact it seems like incredibly backward logic to me. 

If anything I'd assume anything that makes it easier to unite with other players would actually bring the community together.  Not apart.  It's like arguing that a GPS makes it harder to reach your destination.  

Sometimes I just don't understand where people are coming from.  A lot of the time actually.  The obviously intelligent folks that make concrete, well thought out points?  I think I get them most of the time even if I don't always agree with them.  Then there are the other folks. 

Yes. 

When wow implemented the system in Wotlk, nobody did heroics in groups anymore - just solo que (unless your in an active guild and do it with them). Then came the raid finder, now nobody PUGS raids.

Destroyed the community IMHO.

I like that not all games are looking to always implement the system - I was sad when rift choose to.

Originally posted by Corehaven

I've never understood the argument that it ruins a community.  In fact it seems like incredibly backward logic to me. 

 

If anything I'd assume anything that makes it easier to unite with other players would actually bring the community together.  Not apart.  It's like arguing that a GPS makes it harder to reach your destination.  

 

Sometimes I just don't understand where people are coming from.  A lot of the time actually.  The obviously intelligent folks that make concrete, well thought out points?  I think I get them most of the time even if I don't always agree with them.  Then there are the other folks. 

You're making an incorrect assumption that simply being in a group is a community building exercise. In actuality it is communication between players in said group that builds relationships and ultimately a community. You cannot form a relationship with someone without communication of some kind.

With regards to the GPS you have it wrong; it's like arguing that using a GPS all the time makes you less capable of navigating without one, which is true of any tool or device humans come to rely on.

Players come to rely upon the automated LFG tools and no longer bother to communicate any more. It completely replaces the part where players used to talk to each other to find other people for their group. It may make it easier to play together with other people but that alone does not make a community. You need that forced communication to break the ice and get players talking in order for them to find friendships, without it they'll just follow in silence.

I know a lot of people like to rebutt that argument by saying 'you can still be social'. Yes I can but I alone cannot build a community, you need everyone socialising to do that and most people are too busy chasing their carrots to bother unless forced.

  I've played games that had LFG systems and games that don't.  It doesn't affect community.  Not...exactly.  Having the system teleport you to the dungeon can eat away at the number of playes active in the world itself.  WoW find many of its players simply sitting in towns using the dungeon finder over and over.  This means less players meeting out in the world, jumping in to save each other or meet up along quest chains. 

  But a system that just gets people together and lets them do whatever after the fact...thats not harmful at all.  Especially if there is a server wide ranking you can see based on how people enjoyed playing with you.  That said I really enjoyed WoW, and thought the dungeon finder was awesome and loved every second of it.  It single handedly got me to play a tank and enjoy it.

What really ruined MMORPG communities was the introduction of solo quest progression.  Now, I might argue that solo quest grinding certainly made MMORPGs more playable for the average person, but after that method of progression became popular, players had little reason to make friends with one another at least until endgame.

The argument is often that the cross-server LFGs hurt players' ability to make friends,  but when probably less than 25% of the playerbase actually participates in group-based content, introducing a LFG helps more people than it hurts.  After Blizzard implemented cross-server LFG in WoW, I was able to experience virtually every single dungeon in the game multiple times.  I don't know if I could've said the same for an older, solo-focused MMO without a LFG system.

Originally posted by Alberel

Players come to rely upon the automated LFG tools and no longer bother to communicate any more. It completely replaces the part where players used to talk to each other to find other people for their group. It may make it easier to play together with other people but that alone does not make a community. You need that forced communication to break the ice and get players talking in order for them to find friendships, without it they'll just follow in silence.

 

At least one person gets it.

Originally posted by Alberel

You're making an incorrect assumption that simply being in a group is a community building exercise. In actuality it is communication between players in said group that builds relationships and ultimately a community. You cannot form a relationship with someone without communication of some kind.

With regards to the GPS you have it wrong; it's like arguing that using a GPS all the time makes you less capable of navigating without one, which is true of any tool or device humans come to rely on.

Players come to rely upon the automated LFG tools and no longer bother to communicate any more. It completely replaces the part where players used to talk to each other to find other people for their group. It may make it easier to play together with other people but that alone does not make a community. You need that forced communication to break the ice and get players talking in order for them to find friendships, without it they'll just follow in silence.

I know a lot of people like to rebutt that argument by saying 'you can still be social'. Yes I can but I alone cannot build a community, you need everyone socialising to do that and most people are too busy chasing their carrots to bother unless forced.

 

Yep. 

99% of people you team up over LFG tool may as well be bots and it wouldn't change much. Hell it would probably change on better. At least you could script a bot to always politely say "Hi" after joining a group.

I also find it borderline insulting when people join groups and open up conversations with stuff like "fast run plz". Not to mention bitching and leaving without a word.

This lack of most basic social (and friendly) activities unstoppably shows how careless, egoistic and overall introvert, many (if not most) gamers are. Games with these spoon feeding tools together with internet anonimity let gamers fall to the lowest level of humanity and it reflects in communities rather well. Yes these are the communities still, but it's definitely not something one could be proud being part of.

No one ruins the community but themselves. If you are adaptable in real life you can as well be in a game to accomodate your needs wether it be raiding or leveling or trading, etc.

A person can make his community be good or bad. The choice is yours. I can mute almost every idiot in every game ever made. Most of the poeple who complain about community are actually the ones feeding into the problem.

Case Closed.

Carmen Sandiego solved the mystery.