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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 4.1 dungeon finder change places players from realms together
by Anne Stickney 
Apr 30th 2011 at 10:00PM
There was an interesting change slipped into the 4.1 patch notes a few days ago, and players may or may not have noticed it. The dungeon finder, which pulls from the combined battlegroups of all servers, has been tweaked to place players from the same realm together first, and if it can't find players from the same realm, it will move on to a wider pool of players. What does this mean for the dungeon finder? Very little -- you'll still be getting a group. But it's the motives behind the change that are interesting, as posted by Zarhym on the official forums:
Zarhym
Zarhym
That isn't just a coincidence. Many players have stated since the release of the Dungeon Finder that they like the convenience of being matched for a group automatically, but they miss the feeling of community when they're paired with strangers from other realms with whom they might never speak again. So we made a slight change in the way the Dungeon Finder sorts through the queue matching players for a dungeon.
It's interesting that Zarhym mentions community, as it's one of those intangibles that many players may be missing without realizing they're missing it. In the early days of Wrath and dating all the way back to vanilla, individual realms were full-fledged communities where everyone knew each other, or at the very least knew of each other. The dungeon finder was a brilliant, innovative change designed to allow players to group without the hassle of sitting in a major city and typing in the looking for group channel endlessly, but it had the odd side effect of taking the realm camaraderie away. But there's also a very different reason this change excites me.
Blizzard has always held a standard on self-policing; if a player is being bothersome or harassing, the option has always been there to file a report on the player. But when groups were formed prior to the existence of the dungeon finder, players always knew what they were getting into; player reputation on realms and the close-knit community on individual realms provided ways for players to monitor the less than savory types like ninjas via the realm forums and simple reputation. With the introduction of the dungeon finder, suddenly that self-policing via reputation disappeared, as players you encountered were from realms that were not your own and you'd likely never see them again.
With this change, we've been given a little of that self-policing action back again. Sure, if you're on a smaller realm or a realm without as many players queued up in that dungeon finder, you're still going to have the off-realm players -- but you're also going to start to see a lot of faces you may not have realized you haven't seen in awhile. So go queue up, and when you see players from your realm, say hello; it's been awhile, but now's the chance for everyone on your realm to get reacquainted. I think it's about time -- what do you think?
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Groth May 1st 2011 6:55AM
3 minutes eh? That's nearly enough time to make a cup of tea! Seriously though, the queing system hasn't been balanced for a very long time now- waiting 3 mins rather than 20 is still a real advantage!
Manadar May 1st 2011 7:30PM
@Fletcher: Whatever keeps you occupied for the 20 min long queue as DPS. Drinking tears seems more healthy then doing air loops in Orgrimmar while waiting.
bandrules2006 May 1st 2011 10:35AM
3 minutes is much better than the 45+ dps used to be and go through. Be happy, it could be much worse..
masteroaktree May 1st 2011 12:27PM
I was upset because after taking about 2 hours to run through heroic Deadmines on my tank, I didn't get my satchel. I sent in a ticket and they told me that they were aware of the problem but I wasn't getting a satchel... I had a sad...
Drakkenfyre May 1st 2011 1:52PM
Three minutes? THREE MINUTES?
You are complaining because you have to wait 3 minutes? Be a DPS. Sit and wait on a 45 minute queue. Then finally get in, and some stupid player decides to drop, then you have to wait another 45 minutes waiting for a replacement.
Or you sit there, and watch the roles. And see tank, after tank pop in. Or a healer. Then when the queue pops, one of the DPS doesn't click ok. So you go back to waiting. Then you see the tank drop out. Then you get a DPS in. Then you are waiting on a tank. One of the other DPS gets tired, and drops out. Then a tank pops in, and you are waiting on a DPS.
You complained about waiting for that short amount of time. Be a DPS. You could go thru 10 dungeons by the time a DPS even gets into one on some servers.
Xantenise May 1st 2011 3:25PM
Ahhh, I love watching spoiled tanks cry.
g2g591 May 1st 2011 5:05PM
OMG 3 mintues!!! such a HUGEEEE WAIT!...... lol, its no big deal to wait a bit as a tank if that means more people from your realm are in the group and the dps won't have to fight quite so much for loot. 3 minutes isn't a huge time anyway.
-a dps main, with raid geared tank and healer
Aceman67 May 1st 2011 4:22AM
Just ran Zul'Aman with 3 other people from my Realm (GNOMER REPRESENT!), and we all had a blast, one of the guys I used to run Dungeon Dailies with in Wrath every day till the LFG tool came out. He was quite shocked I switched to Resto Druid from being a DK Tank.
Its all luck of the draw, depends on your realm, but its nice to see some familiar faces.
Therinor May 1st 2011 4:52AM
I do appreciate this as well, as I kind of like the idea of having a chance to meet players from your server in PUGs... it might help a bit with the general attitude in many of those PUGs.
Last night, I wanted to try something new, so I lvled my low level pally (the second one) up to lvl 16 or 17 and queued him for a random. A few of my friends did try to lvl up as tanks, using a combination of questing and PUGs, and I remember their complaints about how badly a lot of those PUGs went, but I guess I didnt listen.
So I queued, and ended up in the first instance. Two mages from the same server (so they queued together) and a lock were DPS. From the get-go, they were pulling left and right. I was actually racing frostbolts to the mobs. I played along for a while, since no one was dieing, but it was stressful.
During the last boss, one of the mages was complaining about me being asleep (as it took a sec or two to pull aggro off of him on the adds he was blasting away on, I wonder why), so I told him that if he gets aggro, it doesnt help if he unloads all his spells on him, getting tons of threat.
So he told me that his job was DPS, mine was tanking. I reminded him that pulling wasnt part of his "job", so he said "If you dont do it, i will". I told him to tank it then, and dropped group. This might seem diva-like or stupid, but I had been trying my best throughout the instance, and there was no reason to get offensive after ninja-pulling 75% of the instance.
So a guildie said "Ah, you have a few bad apples in between". So I queued for another, and ended up shortly before the kitchen in SFK. I had a bad feeling and was wondering why the tank had quit, but went ahead and tanked.
Again, while I was tanking mobs, I saw chaosbolts fly over my char to the other end of the kitchen, pulling adds.
Then the boss in the kitchen came up, the healer was at less than 5% mana, and the lock pulled the boss. A wipe, of course.
I do hope that this might change at least a few peoples behaviour, if they end up with ppl from the same server. I love tanking, but this stuff is really frustrating and takes the fun out of instances all the way. I know lowbie instances arent serious business, but then again, I dont see why they need to be wipefests because people pull like maniacs... I mean, they have to wait for tank and healer for 45 min,a nd then they go ahead and make their job extra-extra-difficult? I dunno.
I am sorry if this seems a bit off-topic or is too long, yet I thought of all that when I saw this story, and I do hope it changes the general attitude both in high lvl and low lvl instances. Those can be a lot of fun, but right now, both me and several friends tanking with alts really feel like there is no need to queue anymore.
Sorry for rambling!
Tokhand May 1st 2011 8:26AM
Low-level tanks don't get a lot threat generation abilities until around 35-40, so really read that as, "Tanks don't get a lot threat generation abilities until around 35-40".
Next time, tell the DPS to slow it down, as it was them for being "gogogogoogooooo" but it was you not telling them to knock it off.
Tondef May 1st 2011 6:49AM
Awesome!
Thanks
Groth May 1st 2011 6:49AM
If you want to only run with people from your realm, just go back to the good old LFG spam. Remembering the slow old days makes me think that people want the speed and convenience of the LFD tool, while being able to cut down on the less desirable players. Having a group purely from your realm isnt going to remove the fools- alot of GMs don't care how individuals act when not in a raid, so there are still going to be idiots. Spamming trade about people who've ninjad stuff can get close to harrassment.
Fast queues arent the problem. People aren't more likely to mess around because there are short queues. People who are going to act like idiots will do it anyway.
What this change does give is greater interaction between the community on each realm. It'll be easier to build a reputation as a good player, (idiots and bad players are just going to get ignored). That doesn't mean you won't still get people who are new to an instance, gearing up, just dinged 85 etc- they're present on every realm.
The idea that realm dungeons are going to go more smoothly is misguided. You may well get a group who've never been there before, so it'll go slowly with alot of wipes, or you may get a cross realm group of people who've farmed every instance so much that no-one speaks and every pull is perfect.
It does have extra potential to help guild recruitment- if you join a pug where there are 4 others in a guild on your realm, then you immediately have more of a chance to meet more potential recruits.
Abbadon May 1st 2011 7:15AM
I really like this idea... And for another reason that I haven't seen anyone mention yet! (at least not on page 1 of the comments...) Guild recruitment!!
We hit a lull in our 25man group over the past few weeks with ppl leaving and/or quitting altogether and have been on a recruiting binge. Not taking just anyone, but definitely looking for good players w/ good attitudes.
I think the change Blizz made (along with the suggestion by Stella) would really help both sides of this equation. Those recruiting could be on the lookout for good, unguilded players from their realm, and those looking to join a guild could take notice of the guild tags of others with whom they run.
mazca13 May 1st 2011 7:33AM
Yeah, I was surprised and delighted with this change. I'm on a particularly low-population realm (Bronze Dragonflight - EU) and before this change it was *extremely* rare to see another person from my realm in a random group. I've had several recently and it's been nice to make new friends.
Lachdanan May 1st 2011 8:15AM
This feeling of community really depends on the realm you play on. I'm on a VERY populated realm, and there's no way I could know everyone. It has advantages (most importantly, a bigger pool of players to PUG with) but the big drawback is that it gives people more anonimity, and they don't feel like they'll be held accountable for their bad actions the way they would in a smaller community.
On my server, ninjas often don't get a bad reputation (because how are you going to remember so many names, right?) ; it's the people who cry "ninja!" on the trade channel who are actually seen as nuisances. And even they just get blacklisted and disappear in the flood of messages. ^^"
Marcosius May 1st 2011 9:22AM
"but it had the odd side effect of taking the realm camaraderie away."
What? What, what, in my gut?
I have to say that at least in my realm - an RP realm, which may or may not have something to do with this - "realm camaderie" has never left. We still know which guilds have great guys to chat and mess around in Orgrimmar with, which guilds are the greatest raiders of the server and so on. So, at least i find it hard to understand how a simple LFG tool killed "realm camaderie", but maybe that's just me.
Ken May 1st 2011 9:35AM
This has been one of the biggest issues I have with WoW these days. When I started, as last as 2009, there was still a sense of community with everyone banding together looking for people to play. Now that there's a dungeon finder, even with the revamped one in 4.1, I still feel like there's less onus to really get to know people. Truth be told, I sometimes don't really feel like there's anything special to playing an MMO anymore. It's more like playing a multiplayer game where you hit a button and spend some time "looking for a match" like in a Call of Duty or Halo game. I don't need to work to meet people and forge relationships anymore. I miss that aspect of the game, and I feel like, although the Dungeon Finder tool does enhance quality of life, it takes away a major aspect of MMOs in general, which is the social one.
Yes, LFG takes time, and that's time that could be better spent either questing, or leveling up in general, but it also takes away a fundamental reason why anyone plays MMOs, which is the relationships we can form with other people. If someone isn't up to snuff in a PUG, we boot him, and requeue. I feel like there's something lost there. It enables people to be more impatient, and that in turn makes it more difficult for new players to learn the ropes. And that's another thing--I feel as though the Dungeon Finder tool allows veterans an easier time, but almost makes things more difficult for newer players. Seems ironic if Blizzard intended this as a way to, in fact, get people together. To be honest, sometimes I'll run a dungeon without even saying more than just 'hello' when I enter the dungeon. Maybe, that's my fail, but it doesn't seem like I'm the only one that does this.
I don't know. I've left WoW here and there for a month or two at a time, and I've tried others, likt LotRO and Vindictus, which are Free to play of course, but there's one thing that those two games have, that I feel like WoW has lost in their bid to become more user friendly, which is comraderie. It seems as though, Blizzard has picked up on that to some extent. Or maybe I'm just old fashioned and want to blow things up back to the stone ages when things were a bit harder, but just that much more satisfying when you get them done. That's my two cents.
Spellotape May 1st 2011 11:06AM
When I read this article an hour or so ago I agreed with many of the sentiments from players who were nostalgic about the sense of "community" that the RDF contributed to taking away.
Having since queued for a random dungeon where I was grouped with three people from my own server, I've since changed my mind. They were either unprepared, unhelpful, or belligerent, with the worst offender being the tank who despite his own mistakes made the point of calling every person out on theirs (harshly) and threatening to start a votekick if it was repeated.
Random strangers you meet from other servers in the RDF are the same as the random strangers you meet on your server - all just as likely to be nice/friendly/helpful as they are to be rude/aggressive/unpleasant. Being exposed to more of the people I have to make a community with on my server today has done little except cause additions to my blacklist for guild and raid invites.
For me, my "community" is my guild and most of the people I've ever known and liked have come by word of mouth. I suppose someone has to start the ball rolling by speaking to random people they meet on the server to begin with, but my initial experience with the new RDF was negative enough to put me off queueing randomly for a few days.
Dbones May 1st 2011 5:13PM
its not just me lol, my server is filled with 'elitist' dodos that dont want to learn of the ZA/ZG fights, or if we need CC cause the tank isnt 'Uber'
these dodos either dont CC at all, or attack CC before the tank gets to them, die, blame the healer, say the tank sucks
then go on trade about 'fail guilds suckzor, trolling ect'
my main isnt a tank or healer, these guys arent healing or tanking either, i dont know how hard it is to sheep square
or to kill skull first
Xantenise May 1st 2011 3:20PM
I was astounded when I did a dungeon run the other day, and the tank was not only someone from my realm, but a name I'd seen around quite often!
I like this change. I miss the days where I knew everyone's name and they knew mine even if we'd never talked, and I'd get strangers saying hello to me because they'd seen me around.
Ah, Moon Guard TBC days, how I miss thee...