The indomitable LFG chat channel
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 30th 2009 at 4:00PM
But citywide still isn't enough for a lot of players -- some are saying that they want the channel to be worldwide. Ghostcrawler himself shows up in that thread and says a worldwide LFG channel would be nuts. And he's right: way back in the day when it was worldwide, it was "mass chaos," like a Barrens from everywhere. So why are people so tied to it? Blizzard seems to be missing a major way people used the LFG channel.
Here's the scenario: it's Saturday afternoon. I have my level 80 hunter around, and wouldn't mind running a Heroic instance for some dungeon rep or a little badge grinding. But my more pressing need at the moment is to level up my paladin, and so under the current LFG here's what I do: get on my pally, log into LFG on some instance I don't really want to run, like Sunken Temple, just so I can listen in on the LFG chat while I level. Eventually someone jumps into the LFG chat, asks for a DPS for Heroic Halls of Lightning. I send a tell from my pally saying my hunter would be perfect, they say great, I log, and I'm off and running. In other words (in this case, Valdesta's), I'm lurking.
Cross-realm groups, of course, throws a wrench in that whole plan, because even with a citywide channel, there's no way for me to know that someone else on a different server wants my hunter to run a Heroic unless I'm logged in and waiting on my hunter. Blizzard's gamble, of course, is that with a cross-realm system, there will be a much bigger pool of dungeon runners to run instances with, and instead of waiting around on my pally until I find a group, I'll just choose an instance for my hunter, get into one right away, and run whatever I want any time.
But of course, in practice, I doubt that'll happen -- especially if I'm playing at off times or off instances, it's hard to believe there will always be a full group ready to do what I want to do. Which means I'm back to standing around in a city on my hunter, when I'd really rather be leveling my paladin.
So what's the fix? Honestly, I don't know. The ideal would be a cross-realm LFG channel, but that seems either impossible or really tough to implement from Blizzard's side. Maybe there could be some kind of automated channel to join, that would broadcast which groups are forming from other realms, or maybe a reservation system, where even people on alts could "sign up" for a group and then have 30 seconds to log onto a main or lose their spot.
Or maybe it's all much ado over nothing -- maybe Blizzard's new system will work great, and everyone will have the group they want every time they need it. But I'm thinking that a little while after patch 3.3 goes live, we'll see the LFG channel back in action even outside of cities. If history has taught us anything about LFG, it's that people who are looking for a group really, really want to chat about it, even when they're sitting on alts or doing something else.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Zdouse Oct 30th 2009 4:03PM
I just do dailys and go in LFG on my main. On PTR I will in live as soon as it gets out (soon please)
Reps Oct 30th 2009 10:05PM
Although finding something else to do, such as dailies, may fill your time while you wait, you still don't have the option of switching toons while you do this, or even going offline.
The solution I see, is an option to put your hunter in the queue for whatever instance, and the log onto your alt. When your group is formed, a message window would pop up WHILE ON YOUR ALT asking if you would like to join the group. If you click yes, the game could give you the option to log directly onto your hunter from your paladin, and your pally would be logged off where he is standing.
NeoCloud61 Oct 30th 2009 4:07PM
LFG channel is not so different from a world channel as it stands now. You just have to say you're looking for something to join it.
Restricting LFG to cities is going to piss off a lot of people including me.
Can't count the number of times I got a group for something while I was busy questing out in the world.
Aykwa Oct 30th 2009 4:31PM
Yes, it is going to piss me off too. Why should I be stuck in a city to use LFG? Why can't I be out mining or doing achievements, or something else, and still watch for something to come up of interest to any of my many characters? And how about those times when you're just getting ready to start, say, h CoS and a dps has to drop? Now we won't be able to just hop in LFG, and quickly find someone, we'll have to have someone port to use LFG.
Very lame idea blizz.
V Magius Oct 30th 2009 4:40PM
I'm sure it'll annoy someone. Someone is always crying about something.
I viewed it as two separate things. LFG tool will allow you to put yourself in and go about your business.
LFG City Channel will be for more spur of the moment things. "I wasn't planning on running that, but I'd like to go."
It would be nice to have a World Wide LFG Channel for that spur of the moment. It just might be a little redundant. There could be coding issues involved.
blindlinus Oct 30th 2009 5:41PM
i think it's absolute crap that they took away our worldwide LFG to begin with. sure, you can join the new LFG anywhere, but the problem is that if what you want isn't on the list and you pick some random thing then you have to deal with the potential of random whispers from people asking you to go do the thing you're in LFG for, some of whom are less than pleasant when they find out you're not actually looking for the same thing as them. i remember the original LFG as worldwide barrens chat, but it still served it's purpose as well as functioning as a worldwide trade channel. if you didn't want to be in it you could just click it off. i can't understand why blizzard does things like this, giving us an option, then taking that option away because people are too lazy to actually do anything other than complain. much akin to the ban on profanity. there is a profanity filter. if you don't want profanity or don't want you children seeing profanity you turn it on. yet, despite this option people are still penalized for adult language (and if you want to reply about how the EULA prohibits it, then go stick the EULA up your ass). blizz just needs to stop caring quite as much about every minor complaint from people that are too lazy to click a box or type a few words to stop whatever it is that bothers them and would rather whine to somebody instead. it's not like they have eliminated stupidity from wow or from the chat channels, SO JUST GIVE US BACK WORLDWIDE LFG FFS.
tatsumasa Oct 30th 2009 5:52PM
i think the solution would be a vote-kick system similar to what they are doing with the new pug system. right click someone's name on a channel and right under report spam is vote-kick. if enough people click it, say 10, then you are kicked from the channel and not allowed back on for 15 minutes.
so if someone goes on the channel using it for anything other than its intended purpose (i'm looking at you mr anal linking which is not funny btw) a few people who are trying to find a group can kick them off with ease. do us all a favor and put this feature on trade chat too.
SamLowry Oct 31st 2009 12:21PM
And how, then, would an 80 PUG the Headless Horseman if they weren't in line for something else? I usually signed up under Zone for a Wintergrasp group, if you're wondering. And the summoning stone outside the Monestary--when will that be usable by higher-level folks?
It's not like they offered a quest every day for the Monestary that only higher-level characters could plug into the LFG system.
(cutaia) Oct 30th 2009 4:13PM
I wasn't around for whatever world-wide LFG people keep talking about so can someone explain how it differed from the current LFG channel? Currently, if I want to lurk in LFG I just join LFG except instead of picking an instance, I just pick one of the zone options, then bam: World-wide LFG channel. Since this seems to me to already exist without problems, why can't it be done? What exactly happened in the past that made it so horrible?
Mapleleaf Oct 30th 2009 4:37PM
The problem is that the channel is turned on by default for everyone. Thus, it becomes monopolized by bored people seeking attention or arguments or whatever.
The general idea behind limiting access to the channel is to both limit the audience of the channel and thus make it less attractive to troll, and to make it so that you are not generally exposed to that kind of nonsense when you're actually doing something in the game.
(cutaia) Oct 30th 2009 4:44PM
Alright...I just read Ghostcrawler's reasoning and it appears that they simply don't want any global channels because of the potential trade-chatting-chuck-norris-joke-telling buffoonery that would arise.
It seems to me there's a very simple solution to this: Make a realm-wide opt-in LFG channel that only allows predetermined phrases. If they only want channels to be used for their intended purpose, LFG is the easiest one to force that on.
LF[__]M for [Please select instance from drop-down]. Need [tank/heals/dps please check all that apply]. PST.
Why is an LFG channel still nice to have even with the new tool coming out? Well, the tool only finds people who are also looking to do the specific dungeon you want to do. A channel, however, allows people to be (for lack of a better term) *enticed* into doing a dungeon. "Oh...someone's doing MC? I hadn't thought about that, but now that they mention it...I do want some more Waterlords rep."
Plus a realm-wide LFG channel is better for guilds who actually would like to recruit the puggies they enjoyed running with, or people just looking to make more in-game friends that they actually have a chance of seeing again.
If you're like Aarkan below, then you think running dungeons is merely a means to an end, the end being more emblems. But this is a social game. Do we really have to turn all the social aspects into a queue?
Freezeitall Oct 30th 2009 4:16PM
you know...I wonder if you could possibly use the LFG and the cross server instance joining to buy stuff from people that say might be cheaper on their server and sell for a pretty penny on your server?
(cutaia) Oct 30th 2009 4:20PM
No dice. You can't trade with people from other servers, otherwise people would already be doing this in battlegrounds.
Corbett Oct 30th 2009 4:24PM
You cannot. Blues posted that trading of anything but items dropped during that instance run would be forbidden in cross-server runs. This incidentally was apparently the original motivator for the creation of the DE roll option, since as things stand it is impossible for an enchanter to disenchant drops and hand shards to the other party members.
aggrazel Oct 30th 2009 4:21PM
I like the idea of being able to play an alt while you wait for a spot to open up in the dungeon you are queued for. This seems very reasonable. Spot opens up, it gives you a message, and your alt is poofed into the ether and your main is logged in.
Ginncrotz Oct 30th 2009 7:05PM
"I like the idea of being able to play an alt while you wait for a spot to open up in the dungeon you are queued for."
Or better yet, let you queue on LFG and leave that active until you logout (or get into a group), even if you swap toons, even if you put another toon into LFG.
So you could level your hunter, and have your pally up for 'roics, and your 'lock waiting for some level 60 instance action... and group forming up tells you all the current stuff (who the other people are, what instance), and reminds you who you queued on. If you reject it, nothing special happens. Make sure the dialog can survive zoning in so you can hearth/ancestral recall/scroll or recall/whatnot to an inn. If you accept the group, if it wasn't queued from the current toon the game switches toons for you. No matter what toon you accepted from all your other queued group requests are canceled (or suspended until you are done with the group).
Well, I guess it would be better UI to let you manage any of your toon's queues from any other toon. More transparent what is happening. It may or may not be simpler to code too. It would definitely be better UI to have an option to hearth, but it would be more painful to cover all the _ways_ to hearth (unless LFG gives you a magic free hearth).
Any way you slice it, that would make LFG "even more better", but it also makes it "even more code!", which would make it "even longer before the next patch". If I were a PM at Blizz (and I'm not, I don't work for Blizz, and I'm not a PM) I would leave that set of features for a future release. I would actually want them there rather then using "future release" as a euphemism for "never" though.
Fatamorgana Oct 30th 2009 4:28PM
So, Blizzard is going to make a cross-server global LFG channel so we can ressurect Chuck Norris jokes?
I'll allow it.
Aarkan Oct 30th 2009 4:31PM
You guys seem to be missing the point. There will be no more waiting around for groups. Maybe if you want to run a specific instance but if its one of the newer 4 I'd bet you'd get a group quickly and if its one of the original ones you probably want to run it for achievements which finding people you know is usually a better bet. For most purposes though, which would be getting emblems and rep, just choosing random works and you should be off to the races as soon as you press go.
(cutaia) Oct 30th 2009 4:50PM
"if its one of the original ones you probably want to run it for achievements which finding people you know is usually a better bet."
How did you meet all those people you know, though? Personally, I met my guildies through pug runs while leveling. They later introduced me to people they met in pug runs, and so on and so on.
If everyone is using the cross-realm LFG instead, it's going to severely limit the ability of newcomers to meet new friends on their own realm. Sure, for the high-end raider who's just going for extra emblems on the off-night, a quick random dungeon is great. It simply isn't ideal for everyone's needs, though, which is why I think there should still be a second option that isn't limited to cities.
Ginncrotz Oct 30th 2009 7:05PM
"You guys seem to be missing the point. There will be no more waiting around for groups. "
Um...why won't their be?
Ok, so there are now people from all the realms in my battlegroup all in one big pool. So if the bottleneck was waiting for SOMEONE who wanted to run a heroic, then I'm set. Golden. Great. Cool.
That isn't what the bottleneck is.
For most people it is waiting for a tank and a healer who wants to run.
For me I just have to wait for a tank, since I heal.
Why can't people find tanks/healers? Given how fast I can find 3 DPS I would say "because way more DPS wants to run heroics then tanks!".
So what does adding in 10 more realms full of people do? It adds 10 times as many tanks and healers! Cool! Oh, plus 10 times as many DPS. Same imbalance between tanks/healers as DPS. Same wait.
So if you want to run instances at off hours, this will help you. A lot.
If you run a peak hours, I'm not so sure.