Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe 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 2 of 3)
Tbah Oct 30th 2009 10:19PM
Instead of... 5k to 20k players of your faction there are about 50k to 100k players to pool off, depending the size of the battlegoup and the faction balance. So yes, it's much faster to find a group. And I can tell off experience that on different realms players are differently aligned to pugging and/or roles.
Lemming Oct 31st 2009 9:07AM
"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!"."
Actually, I'd say the problem with a lack of tank/healers is alot more complicated than that.
On the fact of it, it could be well, Dps are just alot more fun and less complicated to play.
But think about that first time someone plays WoW and they don't know what a tank or a healer or a Dps is...they just look at the descriptions of the classes and who looks at 'Warrior' or 'priest' in ANY RPG game and thinks 'oh wow cool! something that sounds really vanilla and boring!' or 'awesome! I belong to a Church!'. Of course they don't.
They look at the stuff that sounds either a bit different, or a bit cooler. Like a Rogue, or a Warlock.
You'd be surprised how many things are built into a first impression.
The other side is, of course people who DO know what tanks/healers/Dps are and the sad fact is you have to have a particular mind set to play a tank or healer. You have to want responsibilty and you have to want to juggle alot of balls in the air.
bean Oct 30th 2009 4:48PM
I think this would easily be solved by being able to use the LFG tool as characters other than the one you have logged in. You can be out questing with your pally, but launch the LFG tool and say your hunter's lfg as if you're logged in. If you find a dungeon, it gives you a button that will log you out & in, and teleport you there.
Not saying it'd be easy for blizzard to do, but I think it's the best from a user's PoV.
traptinacivicsi Oct 30th 2009 5:03PM
Exactly, who hasn't been in a bind to either do dailies, or wait around for a group on an alt?
Make it so, Blizzard!
Radioted Oct 30th 2009 4:44PM
I still haven't heard if there's going to be an LFG replacement for group quests. I guess no one cares?
traptinacivicsi Oct 30th 2009 5:02PM
For the most part, you get better use out of general in the zone than the LFG Quest tool. Though it would be nice to spruce it up a bit and make it more apparent, I can't count how many times I've seen someone spam general with no responses... poor guy.
Vinna Oct 30th 2009 4:47PM
I am really hoping the new LFG tool ends up working as well as BGs. When I queue for a BG I seldom wait more than 5 minutes unless it's like 4am, and then I am maybe waiting 10-15, not too bad.
I guess their hesitation to make the LFG channel worldwide as, from what I read, it's going to be on by default when you're in a city (like the trade channel) if they had it on by default worldwide it would be wayyy to many people. Maybe instead of having it as channel that comes on when you enter a city, have a button option on the lfg tool that says "join LFG channel" that you could join from anywhere and not have it default to being on.
Or we could just revolt and start making LFG public channels on our realms ourselves and spreading the word.. hehe.
(cutaia) Oct 30th 2009 5:10PM
Your experience with the BG system must be only at level 80.
One of my fears is that the LFG system *will* be like the BG system. Sure, the BG system is great for just grinding out battlegrounds at level 80, but have you tried it at lower levels? I was in the 70-79 queue for Isle of Conquest for seven hours straight once and it never popped.
I like the idea of a revolt, though. /join worldlfg
traptinacivicsi Oct 30th 2009 4:56PM
There's 11 Million plus people playing this game.
Odds are there's MORE than one person, on whatever time you are, on any of the 20+ servers, wanting to run any given dungeon.
You'd have to be the unluckiest person, in my opinion, to not be able to find a group, especially with the random-grouping setup.
I'm still not sure what they mean by 'worldwide' when they are contrasting it with the current setup.. which is essentially the same thing. You join anywhere in the world as soon as you use the LFG. I don't understand why NOW (having not been spammed since I've been using it) they decide to lock it to cities.
Basically from what I understand.. you have to sit in a city, or join cross-server. These will be our only options. No more joining people from your own realm unless you already know them, or feel like wasting time sitting on your butt, which somewhat kills the random-same-server groups to an extent.
Wanna fix trade chat spam? Make a GLOBAL CHAT CHANNEL that everyone auto-connects to like trade, but call it, I dunno, [6. World] or [6. Global]?
You can disconnect if you dislike it, and everyone who liked to shoot the **** with other people can do so, from anywhere. Just you know, put how to join/leave channels in the new tutorials.. and no more "what if people don't know how to leave the channel and greatly dislike murloc jokes, and being able to connect with the whole community, at any given time?..."
I agree /anal spam is unbearably annoying, but sometimes there are fun conversations that are brought up, usually about the game itself.
Now if only cross-server raids would go through so I can actually get into some. (Quel'dorei has like 3 raiding guilds that are on current content, and of course, being one of few, find it nice to be exclusive.) Having 10 toons at 80 makes it kind of hard to just get up and move, with how much the transfer fees are..
traptinacivicsi Oct 30th 2009 5:00PM
Forgot to mention the biggest problem with my server is that all the raiding guild either run at the same time(8pm), or wayyy late, giving me little options to raid on my time (I play from 8am to 4pm on any random day.)
/prays for cross-server LFR
Azure Oct 30th 2009 7:09PM
Your comments seem incredibly nieve. You do not have access to all of Blizzard's Realms to form your Random Group. These are formed from your servers Battlegroup. This will be signifigantly less than you suggest. Even if you are a lucky person you could still wait. I have waited for BG's for much more than an hour at a time.
Your comments about how to fix trade also seem very, very unrealistic. You suggest. ... just create a global channel and suddenly people will begin to use trade just for its intended purpose ... really? People will onky use trade for trading because that's its purpose ... do they do that now? Do you think giving people another channel to spam will really cause people to suddenly use things as they were intended ... really?
You seem to miss the point of the article which was ... Blizzard thinks you wont have to stand and wait for a group ... I hope they are right.
kk. thanks ..bye
Shionia Oct 30th 2009 5:08PM
What I haven't seen mentioned in all this talk about LFG is whether or not the levels of LFG have finally been brought in sync with the levels of dungeon-related quests.
In the current system, for certain dungeons (ST comes to mind) the quest remained green long after the dungeon had disappeared from the LFG drop-down.
Sargenus Oct 30th 2009 5:28PM
They said quite a while ago you can queue up to any instance as long as you are able to be useful in it. A.k.a a level 58 can queue up for RFC, WC, RFK etc, but not MgT, SLab, SV etc.
Shionia Oct 30th 2009 6:40PM
in the new system? Glad to hear it.
Vogie Oct 30th 2009 5:16PM
I'm confused... we have cross-realm instancing, a new LFG interface, and a new LFR system. What's the point in having a /LFG outside of cities?? I hope the cross-realm dungeon system is NOT just for 80s... 'cause I can't wait to actually do Uldaman, Maradon, WC, Dire Maul and UBRS, or the Caverns of Time on my leveling alts
Nauscicaa Oct 30th 2009 5:21PM
I find the whole x server thing a bit silly. The idea is to give people a higher chance to find a group right?
So now we get 250 groups from 25 different servers spamming for LF Tank for dungeon X
Every server i have played on has a lack of tanks, (and sometimes a lack of healers) x-server grouping won't fix that.
Good thing though is that IF you play a tank you get to pick even more runs, although most of them are useless as you can mostly join whatever group you want just because you are a tank and you are needed very much and you most probably will have all the gear you can dream of
me Oct 30th 2009 5:32PM
Easy fix.
Very large ignore lists, or
A more generalized "global chat channel" ignore list, seperate from the actual ignore list.
It's rarely 50 people clogging up a chat channel with junk. It's half a dozen at most, even in trade, with,what, Hundreds of people in there?
I found that if I just ignored people the first time they said something stupid in trade, trade would be very quiet after 1-4 ignores for hours.
I do worry that I'm going to find out some guildy is on my ignore lists for participating (not necessarily instigating) an annoying argument in trade, but meh, if they immediately cause drama about the ignore instead of asking why, well, then I'd like them to be on my ignore list!
I agree wholeheartedly with the original author. Sometimes I'm doing something and queuing in an alt. Even more so than the lfg group, what about lfg raid, which IS server specific? And I guarantee you Onyxia raids, while profitable and puggable (like Sarth + 0), don't usually form instantly.
MeToo Oct 30th 2009 5:38PM
1. You can not join lfg for a level 80 character while on a level 20 character. Especially not looking for a raid, under the current system.
This is fine if you get a group in under 5 min. But that won't happen with a raid.
2. a battlegroup is not anywhere *near* 11 million people. In our battlegroup, some battlegrounds have 0 Isle of the Storms running. It's naive to think you're guaranteed to find an occulus group in under 20 min at all times.
3.
(a) Looking for Group Interface; Battlegroup wide. Only character you want to join the group with can join the lfg.
(b)Looking for Group Channel; You can join on any toon. Helpful if the queues are longer than 20 minutes for whatever it is you want to do. These are Server specific.
(c)Looking for Raid interface: Server specific. Not instantaneous. No different from current system really except you can't join a channel if you're on a low level toon to look for these groups (other than lfg in cities).
Dastra Oct 30th 2009 5:41PM
Honestly, I don't care for people who are logged on one toon and look for a group for their other toon. I dislike waiting for people to log off and on which can sometimes lead to confusion.
With the new system, I DO plan on there being a group open frequently for something I'm looking to run.
Just not a big fan of switching toons while trying to group.
jayz Oct 31st 2009 3:50AM
Really? Of all the time that people waste trying to get a group together, it's that 30 seconds that it takes for someone to log off one toon and onto another that really ticks you off?
I never cease to be amazed by the lengths people will go to just to find something to whine about.