WoW patch 1.11.2

Here is the only item from the World of Warcraft 1.11.2 patch notes that you need to know:

• The Looking For Group channel is now defaulted off. Players will need to join the channel to access it. (/join LFG)

Doh! Why don't they just return it to the previous non-global state, where the LFG channel had its (limited) use? Making it global was a mistake, now turning it off by default further limits it usefulness.

The well-known background of the World of Warcraft developers as being players in well organized raid guilds apparently makes them totally unable to understand even basic truths about playing without a social network. If you are part of a good guild, or similar network (like a network of official playtesters), you don't need a looking-for-group functionality. I would really like to force some of the developers to play through a couple of their dungeons on a server where they don't know anybody, relying only on the pickup groups you can find with the games own LFG functionality.

What WoW needs is a LFG system which is not chat-based, but works in a separate window. Players could either flag themselves there as looking for a group, for everything, or for one or several dungeons or quests. Or they could set up groups with specific limits, like a minimum level, minimum 1 warrior and 1 priest, etc., for going to a dungeon or doing a quest, and other players could see all the groups they would qualify for and sign up for them. I've seen such a system in Dungeons & Dragons Online, and it worked very well there. Why not in WoW?
- posted by Tobold @ 1:32 PM Permanent Link