Logtar has suggested another deep thinking topic:
The last couple of years in WoW have changed the game quite a bit. While it is very easy to jump into the “elite” vs “casual” vs “noob” bandwagon type of discussion, what is causing it I think is a more interesting topic.
Do you guys think that the LFR and LFD kill the sense of community, but taking it one step further; does it also kill the passing down of knowledge?
I know I did learn a lot from reading the web, but even now I get tons of information from my guild. If I have a doubt, I ask the question and most of the time someone knows off the top of their head where an enchant is, or what the best glyph is, etc. I don’t take that community for granted, but it was built before there was a LFD. We are together because we did have to take the trek to the meeting stone. Now we have a button that 1 person uses and BAM we are all there. We know why that is cool, but many of the new players really don’t know what that really means.
So are the new tools for grouping killing the knowledge sharing?
I think this is an interesting concept but only because I started the game when we had very little information available to us to work with. Not that I want to belittle the stuff people are doing know, but we didn’t have the huge amount of resources for strats, gear, rotations and general information.
We used Thottbot and Alkhazam because they were the most up to date and had the most information, and we learnt by trial and error and of course – the longer you play the more information and sites you discover along the journey.
I don’t know LFD or LFR etc are killing the passing down of knowledge, but I think they are killing the sense of community – only because people seem absolutely incapable of being nice or just shutting up. It’s a hard question to answer simply because we have nothing to compare it to. In 40 man days for example, my first raid I didn’t read anything about the bosses – or watch videos – I don’t really remember there being anything to read or watch. I knew the fight from having it explained to me.
When it got to BC, boss starts were everywhere online, and I expected my guildies to read them so I didn’t have to waste raid time explaining them – that of course never happened because someone always turned up unprepared – nothing changes :p. However we also had forums and youtube and so many other ways for people to learn about the fight or the class before stepping into a raid.
It is still the same now – there is so much information out there – some of it contradictory – but overall, there is more information out there then ever before. The problem is new people and lazy people. New people aren’t a “problem” providing they are able to ask for help and do some of their own research. Lazy people are the issue because they can’t be bothered sharing or researching. Instead of offering some constructive feedback or advice you get bombarded with “noob”, “retard”, “10dps sucks”, “kick X person because they can’t tank/heal/dps” etc etc.
Had I not been a raider for the past 6 years and I stepped into an LFR with only my basic experience of getting to 85 and getting enough gear to be in there in the first place, I would have real trouble enjoying raiding because of those people. If my DPS is low, and you happen to play every class in the game with every spec and know everything, then whisper me and ask if I am new and needing some help – don’t publicly make me feel like an idiot for even attempting.
I posted something similar the other day when I got booted out of a group for learning how to play my hunter – people don’t want to share knowledge – they don’t want to be be nice, or be part of a wider community that is not absolutely perfect in every way. Every single person has faults, they have bad days, they have disabilities, they are not as quick – that does not mean you shouldn’t spend the 5 minutes to explain something to them before you go in.
I will say, I think LFR/LFD has made it easier for people to say what they want because you are generally not on the same server as the person you are abusing – however I think the issue of not sharing knowledge has been steadily getting worse each expansion – and is particularly worse when the end of one is looming – I am still not even through DS yet with my guild, so don’t compare my dps with someone who has full heroic gear….and don’t compare my dps to someone who has a different spec to me…..but feel free to ask me if I am doing “x,y,z as my rotation as you may find an increase in your output if you aren’t doing it that way”.
You know, after reading this and the topic I have no idea if I have even put my thoughts down well enough? But I shall leave it here as I am just going to go on and on and on otherwise 
In my memory of the ” old days”, rotations and specs were just not that complex. It was easy to communicate a few quick tips like hit rating and shot rotation to improve someone’s DPS. But more often than not, people weren’t interested.
And now? I can do 30K DPS on my SV hunter. There is no way I could easily explain how I do that in a few minutes in a chat pane. Gear optimization, appropriate reforging, gems/enchants, ability priorities (no more easy rotations), and the right mods (with the ability to use and fix them) are mandatory.
The availability of online class guides have driven a more complex style of play. You can’t expect someone who has spent hours studying how to optimize their DPS to be able to do it for you in a few short minutes.
LFR/LFD allows access to content that people want to experience. The “community”, if it ever really existed like people seem to remember, died because it failed to meet that demand. And I find it very rare that people really flame in random groups.
You raise some good points, and to be fair – I have only ever played my mage at end game so explaining a mage rotation wasn’t hard then, and it isn’t hard now
There are some simpler rotations which are easily explained, and others as you mention, aren’t…I would hate to try and explain a ret pallies rotation (priorities) for example.
I don’t think the community has died, but I think it certainly has changed a lot. The community is not just your server now – it is your entire battlegroup which means you are dealing with people you will not see again consistently. Guild reputation used to be a massive thing back when there were nowhere near as many – simply because if you wanted to run things you had to be able to talk to others on your server – you attempted to keep the peace…you didn’t go mental like people seem to go today.
You have been in some fantastic groups if you don’t see flaming all that much – I am actually jealous
I think 80% of mine (LFR or LFD) have someone abusing someone for something 
That is an interesting project actually. I might actually start SS things and seeing how many it actually is or if it is just my memory 
I think Bristal makes a concise and excellent comment, a sentiment I share almost exactly. I think the other thing to remember is that the people still playing WoW, the ones with experience, are no longer college students or single people with mountains of time on their hands.
When I started playing I could churn out 40 hours of WoW in a week. Now, I have 2 kids and the job I wanted, so 6-8 hours is a really good week for me. I don’t have the time (usually) to pull someone aside and walk them through the Death Knight priority system, or the protection paladin stat weights. I direct them to the guides and blogs that I read, and tell them that its the best source of information, and hope that they go.
I think that has a lot to do with why we see so many online guides and blogs – its easier to spend your time making one post that 50 people can read, versus stopping to spend time helping 50 people individually.
Excellent point about the aging of the population.
It does make me wonder if constantly repeating the information for the old players also changes our interest in the knowledge sharing. Like you say making a post/blog is easier now.
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I don’t think LFD/LFR are killing the passing down of knowledge, since people are still doing organized guild runs, which is still one of the main aspects of the game (more than LFR is at this moment). I do think LFD has brought a lot of negativity into the WoW “community”.
People now have zero tolerance for those who are new to the game and no patience at all. Leveling only has one goal and that is dinging 85. While leveling a tank, I’ve often been called a retard for not pulling faster and more.
Yet, the amount of slackers in dungeons 1-60 is HUGE. Think: afk at start, auto-attack, need ALL the gear, only port in for boss loot. And you can’t kick them. These types of griefers is why we should be able to cast more than 1 successful vote-kick.
If people are making huge mistakes at level 80+, I usually just tell them to check websites like EJ – if they haven’t figured it out by 80 levels, they need in-depth guides, or their account was bought off ebay.
As a precaution I always go over tactics the first weeks of new content and in level 80-83 dungeons since a lot of folks are still only starting with Cata, but months into a patch you expect people to know what to do at 85, and if I’m unsure that is the case, I will ask upfront if everyone knows what to do.
At 85 and doing heroics, I believe you can no longer join a group and not /ask/ for the tactics if you don’t know them. I don’t mind explaining at all, and I won’t call you out for asking for help.
I always treat others like I would like to be treated and help where I can. But some people just “want to watch the world burn” or think they can do it on their own – not much you can do there.
LFR is a completely different thing, though, you can never tell if someone is purposefully leeching or doesn’t know what to do, that and the amount of idiots – I’m sorry for this wording, but some people really are – that join these runs are immense. (think: wiping raid on purpose, calling everyone names, etc.)
Completely agree with you, I am still amazed at how many people get the achievement at the end of LFR (not so many on first half) – whether on alts or not we will never know.
It is sad in a game set in conditions that require you to play with other people, we don’t have the tolerance to explain or just ASK the question in the first place.
I know with my recent levelling of my druid, if I couldn’t really remember the boss fight all that well I certainly didn’t ask. I just shut up, interrupted anything I could and stayed out of stuff that hurt…seemed to work well 90% of the time, but it was safer than asking