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Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Patch
World of Warcraft continues to show everyone why they have eighty six million subscriptions and you don’t -- by patching in one of the most hated features from Modern Warfare 2.
Want to go kill things in a dungeon? Sure you do. Just click the button.
BAM. Go. Kill. Get loot. Get bonus loot. Get a DOG.
Come on. Look at that dog. Just LOOK AT IT. You just can’t let that dog down, can you? BAM! GO! KILL! LOOT! DOG!
See, most hardcore forum posters are going to be complaining about Icecrown lockouts and how out of whack itemization is and how arena teams are completely broken now and what the hell, I have to wait a month to 5-man Arthas, come on WTF GG BLIZZ.
Meanwhile, the great majority of players, who are at raiding level but not in a hardcore guild?
BAM! LOOT! DOG!
What really makes this feature special isn’t that it’s new -- it’s not, particularly. Among other implementations, Final Fantasy XI has had random pickup groups since the game launched, and even World of Warcraft’s first iteration of meeting stones tried to do the pile-everyone-in-a-group thing. No -- what makes this version of the matchmaker work is that World of Warcraft has such a critical mass of players that at any time, at almost every level (a level 65-ish alt I was levelling up got groups quickly for instances I had never seen the first time around), you can push a button and get instant -- well, if not gratification, progress. Sure, pick-up groups can often be mindbogglingy hellishly wrong, because people are involved, and sometimes you get the people who just haven’t really figured out the whole process of hitting-buttons-making-things-fall-over ‘skill’ in this sort of game. But most of the time? It’s perfectly tuned to -- dare I say it? The casual player. The guy who gets home from work and just wants to kill things in a dungeon. BAM! LOOT! BADGES! REP! STUFF! It’s a feedback cycle that is so quick and painless, it’s easily one of the best ways to get more people into the core gameplay of dungeon raiding.
(Also, the dog.)
And, the best part? Blizzard already had the code sitting there from Warcraft 3.
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about 8 months ago
Also also, the dog sparkles. I know of at least one player who repeatedly right-clicked the Perky Pug in an attempt to get loot.
about 8 months ago
You know, I re-upped my sub for a month JUST to try this feature out.
I love it.
It’s great when you don’t have to worry about putting a group together and it has a good chance of being successful (I’ve run about 20 random groups so far through this tool, and only had one fail, due to a healer going linkdead). It also makes it nice when I don’t have a lot of time to play (like now when I’m posting from a hotel between work sites
) and I can just jump in and tank heal or DPS for a group.
so 2 thumbs up here, Blizz took a horribly implemented tool and turned it around to a decent utility and a benifit to the game.
and no, I wasn’t paid to say that
~Ash
about 8 months ago
As someone who believes that pickup groups are the only evidence needed for proof of the proposition that the internet is a tool of Nyarlathotep, I’m really, horribly tempted to play WoW again just to try this system out.
about 8 months ago
Waiting for the day end game raiding will be fully converted to casual players. Press buttan, recieve tier 10 bacon.
Still won’t bring me back to WoW, but I do love trolling hardcore raiders.
about 8 months ago
I do have to balk over what this tool wouldn’t let you do (at least as it appears in this blog entry) versus the LFG interface in Dungeons and Dragons Online, where there’s a bit more control over things.
Still, I can’t argue over the results of instant gratification/progress. It’s what the consumer generally wants, right? I paid my $15/mo, now strap on that feedbag and, for God’s sake, don’t make me think!
I remember when games were for playing. Good times. Good times.
about 8 months ago
I’d actually argue that the lack of control is a feature, not a drawback.
When the players were in charge of making groups, we saw things like Gearscore, Achievement-linking, requiring raid-level gear for simple heroics, and a lot of other nonsense that made everything much harder than it needed to be.
The playerbase is often overly conservative, and sometimes that tendency needs to be beaten down.
about 8 months ago
As a beleaguered veteran PUG healer, I do love the new system. It’s pretty much instantaneous to find a party and the rewards are compelling — it’s almost 30 gold for completing one random dungeon per day. I’ve got some bad, but mostly good, and people are for the most part incredibly friendly which is kind of a surprise for WoW. I am just annoyed they took so long to implement it, I could have actually run dungeons with all those alts I leveled solo.
about 8 months ago
“I remember when games were for playing.”
But since this patch landed, there has been much more playing and much less pissfarting around in WoW. I just logged on, opened up the group finder, and within one minute I was in Drak’tharon Keep with four hearties (including the amusingly named paladin “Hearthvader”), playing. And having good fun doing so.
about 8 months ago
OMG it drags its ass on the ground. Awesome!
about 8 months ago
“WTF GG BLIZZ”
I believe the correct saying is “WTFBBQ BLIZZ”
about 8 months ago
@Jaera, I believe that’s called “The Racecar”
about 8 months ago
Maybe people will finally rediscover the fact that Pick Up Groups arent utter shit all the time. They themselves are in one and aren’t shit, and the other people in it are in guilds too, so why should they be?
I doubt we’ll see something like the realm bond between people back in DAoC, when you actually needed 200 guys that weren’t idiots to take down SI’s epic raids, but MAYBE just a teeny bit of the actual COMMUNITY will come back to MMOs.
about 8 months ago
I just want to note. I have that dog. That dog is radical.
No, seriously. Someone put a lot of effort into that little guy.
about 8 months ago
Does Scott actually like the new LFG system? The snark is so thick it’s hard to tell.
about 8 months ago
@Kaalinn
No, PUGs aren’t shit all of the time. The problem with PUGs is that they’re variable. You’re rolling the dice for each slot, trying to see if it comes up with “Great player”, “good player”, “competent guy who’s a laugh in group chat”, “fecking incompetent” or “loot-whoring drama queen”.
If you’re in a (decent) guild, then you KNOW that you don’t have anyone from the last two categories in the group. At the very least, if there’s one guy who’s a bit crap but along because he’s the guild crafter or the GM’s kid brother, you know that and can react accordingly. Also, because you’ve got some social bond with your groupmates you take setbacks in your stride a lot better. Guild groups wipe and have a laugh about it on Vent, PUGs wipe and quite often someone /ragequits.
The other problem is that WoW has a meme of low expectations in PUGs. Everyone “knows” that PUGs are shit, so a lot of players take that as licence to act like a shit in PUGs. In DAoC or EQ2, persistently bad or unpleasant palyers gota rep on their server and didn’t get invited to groups. Unfortunately, cross-server grouping makes that difficult; the pool of players is too large to get to know who the retards are.
Not that I have any personal interest here – I cancelled my WoW account a while back and I’m busy playing Skirmishes in LOTRO
about 8 months ago
Wow, maybe this will make people want to team up sometime before level 847. Can’t wait until enough changes are made to make WoW as good as CoH already is.
about 8 months ago
Put me down as another who has gone back to her lifetime account in LotRO and isn’t in the slightest tempted by WoW. The reason? I try to stay away from Wal-Mart in real life, so I sure don’t want to associate with those people online. The changes Turbine has made are astounding.
about 8 months ago
It’s a great system. I loathe PuGing, and yet this system even works for someone like me. Me and four friends group up and hit a random dungeon and get rewarded for it over and over again. Just chain them till we’re bored.
about 8 months ago
Casual Me…
Love the new system, I was so amazed after my first heroic and non-heroic run (I’m practicing being a resto druid in normal dungeons, it works out perfectly) that I logged into a level 64 mage alt and ran 3 BC dungeons I had never seen before, it was very cool.
Next I want to start a level 1, get out of the newbie area and level exclusively in PUG dungeons. I’d love to play Ragefire (never done), wailing caverns, etc. This tool makes it so much fun.
All you people above who don’t like associating with “those people”, you know, people like me, can go fuck yourselves. Wow (or any game for that matter) is better off without you. Go play Dragon Age, do the Internet a favor, cancel your Internet connection. Sorry, not normally a hater, but as an OLD gamer (39 this Saturday) I find myself acting the codgery old man yelling at the kids who trample my daisies. Get off my MMO, ya hoodlums!
about 8 months ago
Yes, the new lfg system is hawt.
The best part is runing heroics in level 20 gear.
about 8 months ago
I may have to resubscribe.
about 8 months ago
Well, despite my earlier belly aching that I like more control, I do have to agree that one of the main problems with many MMORPGs is the difficulty in finding a group. It sort of obscures the MM from the ORPG. It killed Champions Online. A really well-wrought “push button to be in a group now” functionality is a holy grail, nothing less.
Maybe I’ll give WoW another spin when they drop Cataclysm. Seems appropriate considering they’re revamping the newbie areas.
about 8 months ago
Tis a good implementation of code they had sitting around. I brought it up to some of my friends (who are not WoW players) and as I was describing how it drew random signups from the dozen or so servers in the battlegroup.. I realized.. that the vast majority of other games out there don’t have more then a dozen servers usually. So for most any other game out there something similar to this would have to draw on the whole population.
about 8 months ago
I am subbed and I have to say it’s perfect. Travel time to get to a dungeon is a pain in the @ss. You can’t be upset about this system from any perspective unless you are harping on the whole “In my day we had to have a USB ball kicking device that bashed our manhood to a pulp before we could join a fail group” thing.
I can complain that if you click the button to join a group as a healer or tank it’s pretty much instant, but if you are DPS you have a good 5-10 minute wait ahead of you. This is the price you pay for having a system where DPS is so much more fun than the other roles.
about 8 months ago
It is the Best Thing Ever. I will now require any future MMO I play to include this feature set.
I don’t mind playing with strangers; I mind all the fuckery involved in finding a group and getting that group into the dungeon. With this system, there’s no fuckery, and if the group is utter shit, I have no investment in it. I can leave and find a different group.
I never pugged more than once every few weeks; every time I tried, I ended up in a group with dipshits, and couldn’t stomach spending another half hour trying to find another group. In the last week, I’ve pugged 5 or more times a day.
Not every group has been great, but no group has been bad enough to make me stop playing for the night. Shitty group? No problem, get another one!
about 8 months ago
2 things that still need improvement with the new LFG system;
1. Better gear matching. My new 80 in blues shouldn’t be getting matched with the fully epiced out folks, it’s not fair to them. Some of the groups have been cool with it, others have gotten snarky. No kicks yet though.
2. The 15 minute lockout to prevent you from chain-quitting PUGs needs to change somehow. My wife’s DPS wasted an hour last night because a tank or heals kept bailing before the dungeon started (people STILL don’t like Oculus) and all the DPS kept getting the “deserted” debuff through no fault of their own.
about 8 months ago
Wow, they finally put in a good LFG system? Amazing. Took them… 5 years?
Still, though, kudos to the current live team.
about 8 months ago
Drey,
I agree about item levels, but it feels like a minor nitpick. I mean, yes, my ilvl 190 priest got dropped into a Forge of Souls Heroic group as their healer, and that was a hilarious disaster, but mostly that doesn’t seem to happen. I’ve heard that there’s some degree of gear matching — at least to prevent you from ending up in instances you can’t possibly handle.
about 8 months ago
I both like and dislike this system. I dislike it because I am way less likely to PuG with someone from my server, and thus if I find someone I like I can’t add them to my friends list and chat more with them later. On the flip side, I like it because everyone I group with is disposable and I have absolutely no interest in putting up with anyone I can’t stand. As a tank, I get into these groups almost instantly; but if a DPS is being an idiot, it is a very very simple thing to just vote-kick him out and get a replacement. There is no reason to endure a bad group anymore.
about 8 months ago
It has taken me, while playing my mage, about ten minutes on average to find a group. But with travel time eliminated, that’s not bad. My girlfriend on her holy priest just gets in instantly. When three of us from my guild, tank, healer and dps, queued up, we got in instantly. We kept the two other people and ran two more random instances. Saving travel time there was really nice.
I like the system overall and I didn’t think I would when I first heard about it.
about 8 months ago
Oculus is the worst heroic (possibly worst dungeon) ever. They would do well to just remove it from the game. It requires more coordination than is reasonably possible with the average PUG.
about 8 months ago
I don’t think this will tempt me back either. But as someone who is compulsive about completing quests and content, this is a good thing. More MMO’s should adopt it. I will never go back to games where grouping is required for dungeons and completing quests because quite frankly, if you come to a game late, you are gonna solo it.
@Cedia, could you be anymore condescending? I wouldn’t hang around “you” people either.
about 8 months ago
I fixed your post for you:
“World of Warcraft designers continue to show everyone why they have jobs and you don’t”
about 8 months ago
Given Blizzard’s track record, this would seem to be praise for the merits of standing on the shoulders of fallen giants.
about 8 months ago
I’ll join the “didn’t think I’d like it; love it” crowd. They are intentionally matching up geared dps with poor dps, they saids omething somewhere about that. So yeah, your alt in blues may not end up matching other dps, but you also aren’t put into a group headed for failure with everyone putting out 1.5k dps either. The system isn’t perfect, but it’s a ton better than any grouping system I’ve seen before. Hopefully the instant queue times for tanks means more people will try to take up tanking, and that will in turn let the dps realize why waiting for a gcd or two isn’t the worst thing in the world.
about 8 months ago
I haven’t had a chance to really experience raiding yet as I just started REALLY playing WoW, but the new LFG feature seems like its something that should have been there from the get go.
I laughed at the link.
about 8 months ago
I played World of Warcraft a year ago, and never realized that this wasn’t in the game. Why? Because I started playing a few weeks after all the people I knew, and I went through the game as a solo experience, out of necessity. The few people I met in the game were mostly concerned with begging me for money, so after six weeks in WoW, I did not want to stick around.
By the way, does anyone else think Penny Arcade is an awful and definitely unfunny webcomic?
about 8 months ago
[quote] By the way, does anyone else think Penny Arcade is an awful and definitely unfunny webcomic?
[/quote]
They have their moments, but yeah … for the most part they aren’t really that funny.
about 8 months ago
Of the times I have used the LFG tool, there have only been 2 groups from hell (that fell apart on the first pull) and one group with a bit of drama (dps ld’s, dps’s cousin leaves because they voted out the ld). Most of the time its buff up, maybe say hello, run the dungeon, maybe say goodbye, end of run, repeat. Up until the LFG tool, I had seen maybe 2 of the 5 man dungeons, now I have seen them all.
about 8 months ago
You kids and your UPnP genital mutilation peripherals. In my day we had RS232s and we had to launch the scrotal abuse from a command line.
about 8 months ago
Well, you can’t revamp dungeons if they are going to sit there gathering dust, you know. I love this thing, it finally gutted the soul-destroying experience of having to wait in the meeting stone waiting people to finish the dick-playing that they were doing before they dignify to be summoned.
And, since it gives tokens for the highest level of gear, people will try to do their ok game instead of their asshole game most of the time.
Given the fact that Battleground forums are usually places to bitch if your faction got their asses kicked, I don’t see a community surging of this.
about 8 months ago
The random LFG thing does work wonders. I’ve had more “good” groups than “bad” ones. As a tank or healer it’s pretty much instant. I’m amazed at the general friendliness of the folks I find. There are some nits to pick, but overall it’s a great improvement.
about 8 months ago
The LFG system is simultaneously a triumph (for the reasons you list) and a curse (“because people are involved”). It’s probably more good than harm, and it’s certainly here to stay. DOG!
about 8 months ago
@IanC: And usually you could only find the 25 pin when all the machines were 9 pin, so you had to get the convertor adaptor.
about 8 months ago
FFXI didn’t have random pickup raiding at launch though. It took till the introduction of the Tales of Aht Urgan expasion and the introduction of Nyzul Isle till endgame pickup raids became acceptable. Before that, most endgame was done in-guild.
Pickup seems to have become much more popular as the game aged. There’s several reasons though, for each event, and they vary-some people “pickup” Sky by paying mercenaries to fight. Others do true pickup Dynamis because people sponsor it to own the non-equipment drops, to make money or upgrade relics.
about 8 months ago
I used the new LFG. I got occy. I tried it. Blizz really nerfed the heck out of it. My PUG just button mashed it’s way through. No deaths! It’s by far the easiest heroic in the game now. However, it’s still annoying and i still don’t want to do it.
If it comes up on my random heroic daily again I’ll do it, but not otherwise.
about 8 months ago
[quote]
You kids and your UPnP genital mutilation peripherals. In my day we had RS232s and we had to launch the scrotal abuse from a command line.
[/quote]
Was that /CBT?
about 8 months ago
Also, we appear to have two hatchs, don’t let the other hatch sully my name. That’s my job.
about 8 months ago
@Vetarnias
“By the way, does anyone else think Penny Arcade is an awful and definitely unfunny webcomic?”
You are WRONG sir. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/5/26/
VERY wrong. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/4/22/
about 8 months ago
Ah, Mr. Jennings’ column is up at MMORPG.com: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3838
And he dares not to link to it from here. Shame on you, Sir. Especially since it’s about PvP.
@Hatch
I don’t understand the first PA reference, so I don’t get it. The second is meh. I think that what gets me with that comic is that if those two guys aged according to how long this strip has been going, they’d be in their late twenties/early thirties by now, and should definitely start acting their age.
But then, Garfield’d be thirty, and Tintin, in the last albums, would have been collecting his pension.
about 8 months ago
“Ah, Mr. Jennings’ column is up at MMORPG.com”
Ha! Beat you by about five minutes!
about 8 months ago
You expect comic strip characters to age? *confused*
Although, to be honest, since those two characters are based on the creators, and they get a lot of their ideas from their own lives, but exaggerated, and being in your thirties but not being totally serious about everything is pretty common, I don’t actually see a problem…
What I like about Penny Arcade is that both the writer and artist keep striving to improve their craft and explore new ideas. Something that stale, repetitive strip comics don’t even attempt.
about 8 months ago
And today’s lesson derived from Penny Arcade is: different people like different things.
I like the comic but the verbal eloquence Tycho demonstrates periodically in the news portion is what keeps me coming back to the site. The man can turn a phrase.
about 8 months ago
If you are a tank or a healer, or someone leveling up then this feature is for you. This feature has not improved my ability (as an L80 Rogue) to find pugs one bit. The wait times are still ridiculously long, topping out at 90 minutes on a Saturday night. My battlegroup must have a severe disparity between DPS classes and Healer/Tanks. On another night, I partied up with a healer and we had groups instantly.
The most annoying thing about the current implementation is that you can’t queue for BGs, Raids, and 5 mans concurrently. I used to be able to pass the time in battlegrounds while looking for groups. No more. My time window to play is too narrow to be dithering and waiting. So now.. after 30 minutes or so pass I just log off.
about 8 months ago
@IainC:
The lab supervisor at one of my summer jobs once complained that he had to program his from punch cards while he waited for me to rewrite programs from more modern programming languages into K&R C so he could understand them.