Guild Wars 2

I feel this tears down community and peoples need to communicate. Basically its best use is so people can zerg dungeons so they can keep re-running the dungeon in chance of a getting a piece of gear they want.

Honestly I am excited to meet people or meet guild mates at dungeons, its kind of like an “adventure” if you will.

100% this.

Tools are helpful for the community, but also detrimental in the side-effects they cause. Instant gratification causes people to expect instant gratification. The amount of immature entitlement that soon follows, and makes others start acting the same is unbearable.

Communication forces people to be civil. If not, their negative personality is not welcome, and they can’t leech. If communication is taken away, the worst types of personalities are able to hide in a sea of randomness. Taking a few moments to talk makes people respect each other ever so slightly. A subtle psychology that keeps things social, just by having to talk, instead of running together like silent robots.

While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I’ve heard many people talk about how you’d have to go through a dungeon a bit too many times to get these tokens to buy gear with. Correct me if this is wrong, though.

Either way, if that’s the case then shouldn’t there be a way to quickly find a group since it takes some major farming to accomplish getting this gear?

I never understood this argument. The only difference between using an LFG tool and not is that one forces you to spam chat channels with “LFG LFG OMG LFG PLEASE LFG” for hours and the other is just a click of a button for multi-server grouping goodness.

The quality of players? Never seen it change. People sucked in groups pre-WoW lfg, sucked after. People didn’t really suck in groups pre-Rift lfg, didn’t really suck after.

I never got why people love to spam “LFG” all over the place, get maybe 1 run every few hours, and say “This is so much better than getting a 10 minute queue on a multi-realm LFG tool without having to spam channels! That would be so sucky!”

Tolmos.8395:

I never understood this argument. The only difference between using an LFG tool and not is that one forces you to spam chat channels with “LFG LFG OMG LFG PLEASE LFG” for hours and the other is just a click of a button for multi-server grouping goodness.

The quality of players? Never seen it change. People sucked in groups pre-WoW lfg, sucked after. People didn’t really suck in groups pre-Rift lfg, didn’t really suck after.

I never got why people love to spam “LFG” all over the place, get maybe 1 run every few hours, and say “This is so much better than getting a 10 minute queue on a multi-realm LFG tool without having to spam channels! That would be so sucky!”

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

Tolmos.8395:

I never understood this argument. The only difference between using an LFG tool and not is that one forces you to spam chat channels with “LFG LFG OMG LFG PLEASE LFG” for hours and the other is just a click of a button for multi-server grouping goodness.

The quality of players? Never seen it change. People sucked in groups pre-WoW lfg, sucked after. People didn’t really suck in groups pre-Rift lfg, didn’t really suck after.

I never got why people love to spam “LFG” all over the place, get maybe 1 run every few hours, and say “This is so much better than getting a 10 minute queue on a multi-realm LFG tool without having to spam channels! That would be so sucky!”

You have to remember one thing though, the type of game WoW is, breeds that sort of person. Everyone is on a free for all to get a group so they can get gear, or roll on gear they would like to have as there secondary skill set.

This game already has an option to tag yourself for LFG, there doesn’t need to be something that just puts you in a queue then you just play the dungeon.

The system make work in WoW because the type of game it is, but GW2 IMO allows for more social interaction and good players. Granted you will always have people who frustrate you, but no where near the amount of frustrating people I experienced during my time playing WoW.

Vendetta.5032:

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

That wouldn’t happen in GW2 and for the obvious reason that you have no dedicated “tanks” or “healers”— just players of various levels of skill. If you “queue up”, you should in theory have a substantially smaller queue time to get into a dungeon because you’re not waiting on a tank or healer to queue up. I do know that back in my WoW days, I have queued up as a Tank and my queue times would be almost instant because Tanks and Healers are always in demand.

Instead, what might happen is that players might inhibit dungeon burn-out for running too many in quick succession. If that player has played a DPS role in other MMOs, then that person might freak-out and be like “Holy crap! My queue is short!” Considering the overall difficulty of dungeons in GW2, those lowly skilled adventurers would be swayed away until that player gets better or the content gets slightly nerfed.

If they did add a LFD tool, I would vote it be like SWTOR’s where it is not multi-server, so you keep the sense of community on the server. It also makes people more responsible for their behavior and/or actions. Personally, I wouldn’t really want one, but if they chose to add one, I think that would be the better option.

At first I thought that LFG tool would be a good point, but now you’ve made some good arguments, and I don’t really want to see communication ruined in this game.

Anyhow, constantly yelling “LFG AC” on the main channel can be a bit irritating, and it’s like that in every starting zone.

What about an LFG chat channel?

Maybe instead of having a LFG tool ArenaNet could implement a waiting room for each dungeon which could be server neutral, so that people who would like to do the dungeon go in and see who is waiting there and still have to talk with the other players to group up.

100% disagree

A decent auto join lfg queue system is badly required.

It’s swtor all over again, just spam in chat and having to stand in one map if you want a group rather then be out and enjoy the world.

add in lfg and only use it if you want to, don’t restrict my offered play style because you don’t like it, if you don’t like lfg, don’t use it. We can both be happy.

Vendetta.5032:

Tolmos.8395:

I never understood this argument. The only difference between using an LFG tool and not is that one forces you to spam chat channels with “LFG LFG OMG LFG PLEASE LFG” for hours and the other is just a click of a button for multi-server grouping goodness.

The quality of players? Never seen it change. People sucked in groups pre-WoW lfg, sucked after. People didn’t really suck in groups pre-Rift lfg, didn’t really suck after.

I never got why people love to spam “LFG” all over the place, get maybe 1 run every few hours, and say “This is so much better than getting a 10 minute queue on a multi-realm LFG tool without having to spam channels! That would be so sucky!”

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

Instead they sit next to theortal and annoy the whole map with lfg spam…. So much better communit there….

Tolmos.8395:

I never understood this argument. The only difference between using an LFG tool and not is that one forces you to spam chat channels with “LFG LFG OMG LFG PLEASE LFG” for hours and the other is just a click of a button for multi-server grouping goodness.

The quality of players? Never seen it change. People sucked in groups pre-WoW lfg, sucked after. People didn’t really suck in groups pre-Rift lfg, didn’t really suck after.

I never got why people love to spam “LFG” all over the place, get maybe 1 run every few hours, and say “This is so much better than getting a 10 minute queue on a multi-realm LFG tool without having to spam channels! That would be so sucky!”

Pre-LFG tool in WoW, people were better. Groups didn’t suck. The simple act of having to talk with someone made it so they didn’t act like ankittenhat troll. Plus, they knew, if they got their character name noticed as being a jerk, the server community black-listed them. It’s why Leeroy Jenkins was such a meme, because what he did would have got him banned from any group playing with him.

Once you had the LFG tool make it so you could just get kicked out of a group and harass the next, people did so. Their name no longer mattered.

The LFG tool changed the way people interacted with each other for the worse. Raging quitting if 1 perceived mistake was made, knowing they could just hop into a new group.

LFG tools were not the only reason for a crappy community. The whole of mechanics made selfish play and trolling people more fun than being helpful. And if not having a LFG tool harasses those that would harass players, tough. They can do some Dynamic Events in the zone, while waiting for their group to form.

Elle.8064:

If they did add a LFD tool, I would vote it be like SWTOR’s where it is not multi-server, so you keep the sense of community on the server. It also makes people more responsible for their behavior and/or actions. Personally, I wouldn’t really want one, but if they chose to add one, I think that would be the better option.

It’s too bad that overflow already makes you jump around to every server in the game. :/

Freshwater Kangaroo.8962:

Elle.8064:

If they did add a LFD tool, I would vote it be like SWTOR’s where it is not multi-server, so you keep the sense of community on the server. It also makes people more responsible for their behavior and/or actions. Personally, I wouldn’t really want one, but if they chose to add one, I think that would be the better option.

It’s too bad that overflow already makes you jump around to every server in the game. :/

They have also made it that if you happen to be in an overflow map, you can still party with people, remove the rejoin queue for your normal server and that the overflow group still can run dungeons together. I’ve barely played in overflow maps recently, being level 58, so I didn’t really think of them. My comment was more or less aimed at people on their normal server, looking for a dungeon party.

Cameirus.8407:

100% disagree

A decent auto join lfg queue system is badly required.

It’s swtor all over again, just spam in chat and having to stand in one map if you want a group rather then be out and enjoy the world.

add in lfg and only use it if you want to, don’t restrict my offered play style because you don’t like it, if you don’t like lfg, don’t use it. We can both be happy.

That’s because SWTOR was a WoW clone, so maybe it should have had a auto dungeon finder.

This is not WoW….and who cares if you see people saying LFG AC, THAT’S HOW YOUR FORM A GROUP.

Also, join a guild, the game is scalable so if you have issues finding a PUG, then get some guildies to run some dungeons with you. I guarantee there are a lot of good guilds out there who do that for their members.

Elle.8064:

Freshwater Kangaroo.8962:

Elle.8064:

If they did add a LFD tool, I would vote it be like SWTOR’s where it is not multi-server, so you keep the sense of community on the server. It also makes people more responsible for their behavior and/or actions. Personally, I wouldn’t really want one, but if they chose to add one, I think that would be the better option.

It’s too bad that overflow already makes you jump around to every server in the game. :/

They have also made it that if you happen to be in an overflow map, you can still party with people, remove the rejoin queue for your normal server and that the overflow group still can run dungeons together. I’ve barely played in overflow maps recently, being level 58, so I didn’t really think of them. My comment was more or less aimed at people on their normal server, looking for a dungeon party.

I just meant that since you hop on over to another server entirely it kind of ruins the community feel for me.

Tharjax.9068:

Cameirus.8407:

100% disagree

A decent auto join lfg queue system is badly required.

It’s swtor all over again, just spam in chat and having to stand in one map if you want a group rather then be out and enjoy the world.

add in lfg and only use it if you want to, don’t restrict my offered play style because you don’t like it, if you don’t like lfg, don’t use it. We can both be happy.

That’s because SWTOR was a WoW clone, so maybe it should have had a auto dungeon finder.

This is not WoW….and who cares if you see people saying LFG AC, THAT’S HOW YOUR FORM A GROUP.

Also, join a guild, the game is scalable so if you have issues finding a PUG, then get some guildies to run some dungeons with you. I guarantee there are a lot of good guilds out there who do that for their members.

USING ALL CAPS MAKES YOUR POINT BETTER, RRRRRAAAGHGHG….

No, it’s annoying, it’s not community to have spam all the time, and it’s not community to stand in one spot outside a dungeon portal any more than it is to stand in town, all it is is actively stopping people from enjoying the rest of the world.

If you don’t out why do you care? You would never need lfg…and would never get that community as you always run wit your guild…..

And don’t tell me how to play, it’s arrogant in the extreme, unless you are willing to buy me a copy of the game then you can dictate how I play, until then, lose your arrogance and sense of superiority and realise other people’s viewpoints are valid.

So all in all, all a dungeon finder does is remove the time spent spamming a chat and the requirement of being in specific places where dungeons are located or in cities. Yet people think having to spend time spamming a chat and being in a specific zone (something which they also attribute as a negative aspect of a dungeon finder(and they’re also wrong about it), contradiction much?) will make people better players and build community, all this without any logical thought to support their standpoint.

But gosh darn I guess we all get to know and love one another because of that chat spamming am I right?

The arguments against a Dungeon Finder are specious at best. There’s vastly more reasons to put them into the game than to not have them.

Level 80s who would use the dungeon finder instead of being subjected to spamming map chat for hours would still be farming Dynamic Events all around the world for mats and karma.

With that said, I’d rather see ArNet allocate its resources to fixing the dungeons and making them better than they currently are before they begin working on a LFD/LFG tool.

Oh look, it’s one of those threads again. I guess some people really think that spending time spamming in /map is preferable to clicking a few buttons, or that that helps improve some imaginary community. Yes, Anet, by all means, please do not add any useful tools to this game, we really do want to be inconvenienced.

Bottom line, why ask for features not to be added. Isn’t more better? If you don’t like something, simply don’t use it. Even if there was an LFG tool, you could still spam for groups all day long.

The whole “NO LFG TOOL HELPS THE COMMUNITY” is a big kitty-ing lie. Because it happen in WoW it does not mean it’s a rule. Hasn’t anyone learned from other MMOs? Take Star Wars – The Old Republic, being one of the last major MMOs (to my knowledge ) released.

There were hundreds of people saying the same thing most of you say here, and what happen after launch? Most people leveled without seeing the inside of a dungeon (except maybe the very first one), same thing with the group quests and eventually they had to consider it. What was the result? A lot of time wasted and many people missed content. How did that help the community?

And besides, people who are not interested in social interaction (which is kind of a stupid requirement for doing a dungeon in my opinion) will not interact wit the other players either way, even if they do see someone spamming for a dungeon and join that group.
Bottom line, refusing a grouping tool is stupid and wastes time.

Yeni.1924:

Tears down the community mykitten it removes the tedium of spamming a channel and makes creating a group an easier and quicker things. But hey go ahead and tell me channel spamming builds community, go ahead, because that is basically what you’re implying.

Or you mean people would somehow not talk in a group that was createds faster by a dungeon tool when they would do so in a group formed by tedius chat spamming because… magic? Or it’s probably that you just don’t have any basis for your claim at all.

Pre-LFG tool in WoW, people were better. Groups didn’t suck. The simple act of having to talk with someone made it so they didn’t act like ankittenhat troll.

Lol, what a bunch of BS, you never had to talk to anyone pre LFG tool, nor would “having to talk” magically make people better players. And please show me where having to talk with someone equates to having to be nice, and don’t give me the BS about some “bad rep police”, they can find a group who never heard of them just as easy within the hour and you’ll more than likely have forgotten their name and everything about them quite fast as well.

and who cares if you see people saying LFG AC, THAT’S HOW YOUR FORM A GROUP.

Correction, that’s how you form a group in an ineffective and time consuming manner that forces players to locate themselves to a specific zone and being unable to participate in other things they might actually want to do while waiting for a group to be formed by an automated dungeon finder in a more timely manner. Why settle for an inferior system when you could have something that’s superior in every concievable way?
Oh golly, did I just crush another caveman who thinks a dungeon finder is bad because it will steal his soul? I think I did.

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

Again, what a bunch of bull, and I’ll give you logic to support my rightful claim of it being bullkitten. A dungeon finder does not make people sit in a town waiting for a group to form in itself. You know what does? A lack of interesting things they want to do outside of the city. Nothing they want to do outside of the city = them being in the city.

If anything a dungeon finder would lessen that issue since now people don’t need to park theirkitten in zone X where instance Z is located and start spamming the chat, they can actually go anywhere in the world and do whatever they want provided it’s there for them to do, if it’s not, then they will be inactive while not grouping for a dungeon, which is what they would do with the current system as well. Because there is nothing interesting for them to do.

You can call it bull all you want, but I highly doubt you played WoW before the LFG and LFD tools then. If you don’t remember the days of your name being remembered on your server, then you were not there.

Being called a Ninja was an insult that meant something. You could not get a group to risk joining you. Your name was blacklisted. Call it bull if you want, but that just proves to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but are opinionated about it anyway.

You used to only do battlegrounds within your server. Not only did you know your players, you knew the enemy factions players, by name, as well. Completely different community in the start.

Everyone that came into a game when the community was already trolling and griefing, that is the standard they remember, and that is the standard they act on. And they’ll deny the community was any better, cause they were ignorant of such a time.

It’s basic psychology that people end up treating each other better when social conventions force them to. They fall into place. The simple act of needing to communicate is such a convention. We see it for what it is.

I also completely disagree with the OP.

This game needs a Dungeon Finder if dungeons are to be a prominent part of the game.

Disagree, a LFG tool is necessary and would save tons of time which currently is spent spamming the area chat.

I’m noticing a tone with many of those wanting a LFG tool. Impatience and a sort of attitude. Swear words and sarcasm.

Those types might not realize there is a healthy community (since they are already the types to want to troll it or ignore it or add joking remarks), but the rest don’t want a repeat of having to watch that type of behavior become standard.

You don’t simply say “give us this cause the others that don’t like it can ignore it”. It doesn’t work that way, and it belittles the situation. Or you don’t grasp the situation and think it is that simple.

Once a tool is added, it becomes the only way to find a group. You can’t do “LFG for X” because it’ll just be ignored or people say “just use the tool”. It becomes the standard, and any other way falls to the wayside. The completely random PuG. You trade time for people. (and no one is arguing they like spamming LFG either, they are arguing the LFG tools invite too much negative behavior)

Those who have personality types that are…. immature, they will group with the first person to take them. Or will accept the first “I’ll go” when asking for others. They never know others might do it different. They don’t know that they are the types others might be avoiding. So they don’t get it.

The more socially acceptable types, they tend to just be looking for filler too. But if there are red flags with how immature a person is responding, they’ll not take that person. They’ll talk with the other random members of like-mind and kick that person and seek another mature person. Or they’ll tell that person they are acting poorly, and to stop or they won’t be allowed come. And the other person learns their behavior is not acceptable and changes, or they don’t and they only play with their own immature kind. I’m trying to put this as polite and delicate as possible.

So my point is, the socially acceptable community members might not be chatting up a storm and socializing, but they end up able to avoid getting that random “worse PuG in the world” feeling every other run.

The simple act of talking allows people to weed each other out. Those that are the worst of the worst personalities, of course they don’t want that. They’ll be ignored for being what they are.

And so far, it takes 60 seconds to find people to do anything. Whether it is a dungeon run, or a champion needs killing, or an event spawned. I highly doubt I’ve been that lucky and everyone else has been waiting long stretches of time.

I agree.

Please do not nerf the difficulty of dungeons or add a casual low-difficulty mode. This is a very cool thing about GW2, that it’s Dungeons are genuinely something you want to be up for, even on Story Mode.

Plus:
Once you stop trying to play your class as a WoW-like pure DPSer, no class dies that often in Dungeons. It’s just issues of people coming in with max Power / Precision builds and pure glass cannon setups, dying in 5 seconds 200 times because they set their char up for that, and then complaining about it.
Rather, make a tutorial popup which tells you that completely non-defensive setups are a risky thing since no external Tank or Healer is there to protect you.

Zish.9817:

I also completely disagree with the OP.

This game needs a Dungeon Finder if dungeons are to be a prominent part of the game.

Why?
Serious question. “Because WoW had one”? That’s hardly an argument, why do you need one?

Both sides have already made it clear what the reasons are for wanting/not wanting this tool, so stop arguing about it. Just give your opinion about it, no one’s gonna change their mind from this.

Personally, as long as you can flag yourself as “LFG”, I’m fine with it.

Hsinimod.5784:

Yeni.1924:

Tears down the community mykitten it removes the tedium of spamming a channel and makes creating a group an easier and quicker things. But hey go ahead and tell me channel spamming builds community, go ahead, because that is basically what you’re implying.

Or you mean people would somehow not talk in a group that was createds faster by a dungeon tool when they would do so in a group formed by tedius chat spamming because… magic? Or it’s probably that you just don’t have any basis for your claim at all.

Pre-LFG tool in WoW, people were better. Groups didn’t suck. The simple act of having to talk with someone made it so they didn’t act like ankittenhat troll.

Lol, what a bunch of BS, you never had to talk to anyone pre LFG tool, nor would “having to talk” magically make people better players. And please show me where having to talk with someone equates to having to be nice, and don’t give me the BS about some “bad rep police”, they can find a group who never heard of them just as easy within the hour and you’ll more than likely have forgotten their name and everything about them quite fast as well.

and who cares if you see people saying LFG AC, THAT’S HOW YOUR FORM A GROUP.

Correction, that’s how you form a group in an ineffective and time consuming manner that forces players to locate themselves to a specific zone and being unable to participate in other things they might actually want to do while waiting for a group to be formed by an automated dungeon finder in a more timely manner. Why settle for an inferior system when you could have something that’s superior in every concievable way?
Oh golly, did I just crush another caveman who thinks a dungeon finder is bad because it will steal his soul? I think I did.

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

Again, what a bunch of bull, and I’ll give you logic to support my rightful claim of it being bullkitten. A dungeon finder does not make people sit in a town waiting for a group to form in itself. You know what does? A lack of interesting things they want to do outside of the city. Nothing they want to do outside of the city = them being in the city.

If anything a dungeon finder would lessen that issue since now people don’t need to park theirkitten in zone X where instance Z is located and start spamming the chat, they can actually go anywhere in the world and do whatever they want provided it’s there for them to do, if it’s not, then they will be inactive while not grouping for a dungeon, which is what they would do with the current system as well. Because there is nothing interesting for them to do.

You can call it bull all you want, but I highly doubt you played WoW before the LFG and LFD tools then. If you don’t remember the days of your name being remembered on your server, then you were not there.

Being called a Ninja was an insult that meant something. You could not get a group to risk joining you. Your name was blacklisted. Call it bull if you want, but that just proves to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but are opinionated about it anyway.

You used to only do battlegrounds within your server. Not only did you know your players, you knew the enemy factions players, by name, as well. Completely different community in the start.

Everyone that came into a game when the community was already trolling and griefing, that is the standard they remember, and that is the standard they act on. And they’ll deny the community was any better, cause they were ignorant of such a time.

It’s basic psychology that people end up treating each other better when social conventions force them to. They fall into place. The simple act of needing to communicate is such a convention. We see it for what it is.

Sorry man, but you are full of it. Vanilla wow was better? Honest? I know a lot of people have changed their perspective over how the actual Vanilla WoW was but saying the people back then were “better” is simply bollox that stinks of denial.

Vanilla WoW was just as bad. Groups sucked then as well and it was much worse because getting a group was a pain in the bum. Endless spamming that when it payed off there was a 50-50 chance to finish a dungeon with that group, thus the time you spent looking for a group could be wasted instantly and logically the amount of frustration was higher.
Add that to the the other related elements that generated frustration and take a good look at the result then see if all that is a fair price to pay for random people being social in a dungeon.
Every time I see someone talking about the Good Ol’ Days in WoW Vanilla I gag.

Hsinimod.5784:

You can call it bull all you want, but I highly doubt you played WoW before the LFG and LFD tools then. If you don’t remember the days of your name being remembered on your server, then you were not there.

Being called a Ninja was an insult that meant something. You could not get a group to risk joining you. Your name was blacklisted. Call it bull if you want, but that just proves to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but are opinionated about it anyway.

You used to only do battlegrounds within your server. Not only did you know your players, you knew the enemy factions players, by name, as well. Completely different community in the start.

Everyone that came into a game when the community was already trolling and griefing, that is the standard they remember, and that is the standard they act on. And they’ll deny the community was any better, cause they were ignorant of such a time.

It’s basic psychology that people end up treating each other better when social conventions force them to. They fall into place. The simple act of needing to communicate is such a convention. We see it for what it is.

I do know in WoW and in most MMOs, the “community” would be regarded as the people of that particular server. In that case, those communities were small and people knew your name. However, one could transfer to another server with a totally different name, identity, (and much later) race and faction affiliation. It’s like dumping a bottle of bleach over a stained shirt.

However, in Guild Wars 2, you’re the only player with that particular name. Names are game-wide. Even if you were to change your name, you also have another name that will remain the same for the very life of your account: your account name! That’s right! The name you have plus the four magical numbers attached to it. The only way to change it is if your fork over another 50 bucks to ANet and buy a another copy of the game.

If someone on the forums called you out by account name, EVERYONE would know about your great deeds or your notorious rap sheet regardless of what server they’re from. Friends Lists are cross-server, unlike in most MMOs where the lists are often server-dependant. If you like trolling parties or just being a total d-bag, that kind of action would be reflected on your Account Name, which can be seen by every member of your party.

I don’t see mute parties happening much in GW2 and I’ll tell you why: Dungeons in GW2 are hard! Unless they’re nerfed to the ground, people will still have to communicate in order to succeed, regardless of world of origin. The parties who fail are those who fail to communicate. With that regard, I know if my guild pugs someone for a near-full guild group, we offer to have them join in on our Vent server.

How about the ninjas? Loot Ninjas practically don’t exist in this game since everyone gets a little bit of something from the loot chest.

What can exist are people who act like jerks. They’re on every single MMO! Fortunately, ratting out jerks is much easier in Guild Wars 2 since 1) names are game-wide and 2) when you add that player to your friend’s list, you can see which characters they play on since it lists both character name AND account name.

In essence, the Guild Wars 2 “community” would be every single person who plays this game regardless of which server you play on. Sure there might be smaller communities like the Jade Quarry community, or the Fort Aspenwood community, or the Kaineng community, and so on per server. However, you could still be held accountable of all the actions you do with other people regardless of what server you play on.

Hsinimod.5784:

Yeni.1924:

Tears down the community mykitten it removes the tedium of spamming a channel and makes creating a group an easier and quicker things. But hey go ahead and tell me channel spamming builds community, go ahead, because that is basically what you’re implying.

Or you mean people would somehow not talk in a group that was createds faster by a dungeon tool when they would do so in a group formed by tedius chat spamming because… magic? Or it’s probably that you just don’t have any basis for your claim at all.

Pre-LFG tool in WoW, people were better. Groups didn’t suck. The simple act of having to talk with someone made it so they didn’t act like ankittenhat troll.

Lol, what a bunch of BS, you never had to talk to anyone pre LFG tool, nor would “having to talk” magically make people better players. And please show me where having to talk with someone equates to having to be nice, and don’t give me the BS about some “bad rep police”, they can find a group who never heard of them just as easy within the hour and you’ll more than likely have forgotten their name and everything about them quite fast as well.

and who cares if you see people saying LFG AC, THAT’S HOW YOUR FORM A GROUP.

Correction, that’s how you form a group in an ineffective and time consuming manner that forces players to locate themselves to a specific zone and being unable to participate in other things they might actually want to do while waiting for a group to be formed by an automated dungeon finder in a more timely manner. Why settle for an inferior system when you could have something that’s superior in every concievable way?
Oh golly, did I just crush another caveman who thinks a dungeon finder is bad because it will steal his soul? I think I did.

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

Again, what a bunch of bull, and I’ll give you logic to support my rightful claim of it being bullkitten. A dungeon finder does not make people sit in a town waiting for a group to form in itself. You know what does? A lack of interesting things they want to do outside of the city. Nothing they want to do outside of the city = them being in the city.

If anything a dungeon finder would lessen that issue since now people don’t need to park theirkitten in zone X where instance Z is located and start spamming the chat, they can actually go anywhere in the world and do whatever they want provided it’s there for them to do, if it’s not, then they will be inactive while not grouping for a dungeon, which is what they would do with the current system as well. Because there is nothing interesting for them to do.

You can call it bull all you want, but I highly doubt you played WoW before the LFG and LFD tools then. If you don’t remember the days of your name being remembered on your server, then you were not there.

Being called a Ninja was an insult that meant something. You could not get a group to risk joining you. Your name was blacklisted. Call it bull if you want, but that just proves to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but are opinionated about it anyway.

You used to only do battlegrounds within your server. Not only did you know your players, you knew the enemy factions players, by name, as well. Completely different community in the start.

Everyone that came into a game when the community was already trolling and griefing, that is the standard they remember, and that is the standard they act on. And they’ll deny the community was any better, cause they were ignorant of such a time.

It’s basic psychology that people end up treating each other better when social conventions force them to. They fall into place. The simple act of needing to communicate is such a convention. We see it for what it is.

I did play wow pre-lfg, it was awful then as it is now. So much elitist crap, with “pro” players needing people to match up to their idea of how to spec and how to gear ( and yes you had to be chronically over geared to get into groups).

I remember hours spent trying to find groups, I remember groups falling apart because someone had to leave and no one coudl face trying to find a replacement. I remember hardly runnign instances unless it was in 100% guild groups as it was just too much hassle. I remember being stuck in cities for hours rather than beign out playing the game I was paying for…..

Nemo.6295:

Every time I see someone talking about the Good Ol’ Days in WoW Vanilla I gag.

Subjective. I loved vanilla WoW. Albeit not for that reason.

Sorry man, but you are full of it. Vanilla wow was better? Honest? I know a lot of people have changed their perspective over how the actual Vanilla WoW was but saying the people back then were “better” is simply bollox that stinks of denial.

Vanilla WoW was just as bad. Groups sucked then as well and it was much worse because getting a group was a pain in the bum. Endless spamming that when it payed off there was a 50-50 chance to finish a dungeon with that group, thus the time you spent looking for a group could be wasted instantly and logically the amount of frustration was higher.
Add that to the the other related elements that generated frustration and take a good look at the result then see if all that is a fair price to pay for random people being social in a dungeon.
Every time I see someone talking about the Good Ol’ Days in WoW Vanilla I gag.

Quote me where I said “the good old days of Vanilla WoW”.

You clearly are adding more to what I said. Much much more, since I never talked about any of that. At all.

It is better to read what is written, than add your own dialogue.

I simply stated one thing. Your reputation mattered. I didn’t talk about anything else. Only reputation. And the circumstances that made reputation matter. And the circumstances that made reputation not matter.

Also, I never had those troubles. Because of how wiping worked, and how time consuming it was, I was careful with who I grouped with. If someone replied with leet-speak or some other immature response, our group didn’t invite them. It was simple. It makes me assume how others must act if they are having different experiences. Were you in bad groups because you were one of those personalities to be avoided? Did you get upset when people tried to be helpful about not doing something?

Frankly, the people that are to be avoided tend to group together. Normal folk only have to deal with them when added randomly to them. It doesn’t take much to realize what type of a person someone is.

I do know in the WoW and in most MMOs, the “community” would be regarded as the people of that particular server. In that case, those communities were small and people knew your name. However, one could transfer to another server with a totally different name, identity, (and much later) race and faction affiliation. It’s like dumping a bottle of bleach over a stained shirt.

However, in Guild Wars 2, you’re the only player with that particular name. Names are game-wide. Even if you were to change your name, you also have another name that will remain the same for the very life of your account: your account name! That’s right! The name you have plus the four magical numbers attached to it. The only way to change it is if your fork over another 50 bucks to ANet and buy a another copy of the game.

If someone on the forums called you out by account name, EVERYONE would know about your great deeds or your notorious rap sheet regardless of what server they’re from. Friends Lists are cross-server, unlike in most MMOs where the lists are often server-dependant. If you like trolling parties or just being a total d-bag, that kind of action would be reflected on your Account Name, which can be seen by every member of your party.

I don’t see mute parties happening much in GW2 and I’ll tell you why: Dungeons in GW2 are hard! Unless they’re nerfed to the ground, people will still have to communicate in order to succeed, regardless of world of origin. The parties who fail are those who fail to communicate. With that regard, I know if my guild pugs someone for a near-full guild group, we offer to have them join in on our Vent server.

How about the ninjas? Loot Ninjas practically don’t exist in this game since everyone gets a little bit of something from the loot chest.

What can exist are people who act like jerks. They’re on every single MMO! Fortunately, ratting out jerks is much easier in Guild Wars 2 since 1) names are game-wide and 2) when you add that player to your friend’s list, you can see which characters they play on since it lists both character name AND account name.

In essence, the Guild Wars 2 “community” would be every single person who plays this game regardless of which server you play on. Sure there might be smaller communities like the Jade Quarry community, or the Fort Aspenwood community, or the Kaineng community, and so on per server. However, you could still be held accountable of all the actions you do with other people regardless of what server you play on.

Ah… well, you’re sorta right. But you can change your account name (the name and the numbers), without paying money. So you can hide anonymously after doing a ton of crap. Or, you just won’t be remembered anyway. As you pointed out, the smaller community allowed us to remember and flag people to avoid. The larger it is, the less you can do to prevent that.

Also, the difficulty of the dungeons does act as a way to weed out problem players—great point and I never thought of that. But then I remember the times of “why’d you queue up if you don’t know what you’re doing? GTFO.” This doesn’t affect me, as I have a guild, and I’m not messed with in PuGs. But when I see a new person in my group getting picked on because a bunch of random people want to min/max, that bothers me. I have empathy.

Ninjas were not a point I was making about GW2. I was mainly making the point of LFG tools allowed people to be more anonymous and selfish. The second it was up, I was a healing Druid rolling need on Rogue gear. Why? Cause I now could get my offset, and I was tired of being the good guy all the time.

That is exactly what happens to a community when it no longer needs to communicate. People will act like the lowest common denominator.

If GW2 makes a tool, will that happen? We don’t know. We only know what happened from past experiences. And past experiences, it allows the community to get worse. We have MMOs (plural) to judge from. WoW is not the standard, it is simply the example most people can relate to.

The anti-lfg crowd always goes on about how LFG is bad and an awful experience…..I’ve got to ask what are you guys doing to make it so? my LFG experiences in WoW, Rift and now Stwor have been 99% positive.

I’m forced to the conclusion that the problem is not with LFG but with the players who complain about it. Simple solution, put it in and if you dont like it dont use it.

Cameirus.8407:

The anti-lfg crowd always goes on about how LFG is bad and an awful experience…..I’ve got to ask what are you guys doing to make it so? my LFG experiences in WoW, Rift and now Stwor have been 99% positive.

I’m forced to the conclusion that the problem is not with LFG but with the players who complain about it. Simple solution, put it in and if you dont like it dont use it.

You asked a question that the above posts addressed. Or was it rhetorical and you don’t want to read opinion that differs from yours?

The anti-LFG tool crowd are not numb to the other side. We use the tools. We benefit from them. But we also remember a sharp line of when we played with quality players, vs when we played with players that were the worst personalities around.

Did we have bad experiences before the tools? Yes. Did we have good experiences after the tools? Yes. Of course. But we still remember how people acted in groups was more acceptable before, and less acceptable after.

If you ever nerd raged at anyone, you’re what we are avoiding. We don’t understand you, we don’t like having to deal with you. We’re the nice people that are quietly annoyed but patient. Even though you are not directing it at us, but at another member of the PuG, we still find that behavior wrong. We can ignore it fine. We can play through and finish our run and do another. We shouldn’t have to.

Randomly recruiting from chat allows us to screen people out. Randomly being added to anyone forces us to have to deal with the people we would have screened. Giving the tool and telling others not to use it results in the tool getting used because there is no other option. Once a tool goes up, “LFG” is ignored even if anyone bothers to try.

100% agree with the OP.

One of the reasons i used to love WoW was that you had to rely on your guild and/or friends to go through a raid or dungeon and it built up good relationships and whatnot. Never forget the feeling of the first time i went through an instance, we went at our own pace, had a look at everything and learned all the lore.

The reason i’ve quit is that i can literally just click a LFG button and wait. Then we faceroll the instance in 10 mins tops. Wheres the fun?

To me GUILD wars, should be about your guild. Your guild should be there to help you with dungeons and wpvp etc. You shouldnt have to just click a button and wait.

Hsinimod.5784:

Ah… well, you’re sorta right. But you can change your account name (the name and the numbers), without paying money. So you can hide anonymously after doing a ton of crap. Or, you just won’t be remembered anyway. As you pointed out, the smaller community allowed us to remember and flag people to avoid. The larger it is, the less you can do to prevent that.

Also, the difficulty of the dungeons does act as a way to weed out problem players—great point and I never thought of that. But then I remember the times of “why’d you queue up if you don’t know what you’re doing? GTFO.” This doesn’t affect me, as I have a guild, and I’m not messed with in PuGs. But when I see a new person in my group getting picked on because a bunch of random people want to min/max, that bothers me. I have empathy.

Ninjas were not a point I was making about GW2. I was mainly making the point of LFG tools allowed people to be more anonymous and selfish. The second it was up, I was a healing Druid rolling need on Rogue gear. Why? Cause I now could get my offset, and I was tired of being the good guy all the time.

That is exactly what happens to a community when it no longer needs to communicate. People will act like the lowest common denominator.

If GW2 makes a tool, will that happen? We don’t know. We only know what happened from past experiences. And past experiences, it allows the community to get worse. We have MMOs (plural) to judge from. WoW is not the standard, it is simply the example most people can relate to.

The changing of account name is a bit of new information for me. I guess the more you know. Although, I do wonder what notifications other players would get if they have that person in their friend’s list?

Well, I have used automated LFG tools almost extensively ever since it was announce in WoW, and have used it a lot in almost every MMO I have played that included it. It made me run a lot of dungeons. that’s for sure! I have partied with a variety of people with varied degrees of personalities. Some desirable than others, while some could be humorous and add a bit of RP-like flavor to the group. Likewise, I have also bumped into good guild groups and bad guild groups. At the time, I could only write down their name and server on a sheet of paper; but I think the merge of WoW accounts into Battle.net may have allowed for cross-server communication. I wouldn’t know since I left WoW midway through the Cataclysm expansion.

WoW aside, I do let everyone know that if it’s the first time running a dungeon, I’ll announce that at the beginning of the run. 80% of the time, the party members have been pretty cool with it and will explain the mechanics of the trash mobs and boss fights as we continue. That and I also played a tank. They had to explain that crap to me or the party would be in queue for another 20 or so minutes. :P

Honestly, you’re mileage may vary on the LFG matchmaker. Some may use it only once and that’s all the opinion they need. Me? I have probably ran over 500 dungeons using that tool, and have seen a wide spectrum of personalities.

82659

The changing of account name is a bit of new information for me. I guess the more you know. Although, I do wonder what notifications other players would get if they have that person in their friend’s list?

Well, I have used automated LFG tools almost extensively ever since it was announce in WoW, and have used it a lot in almost every MMO I have played that included it. It made me run a lot of dungeons. that’s for sure! I have partied with a variety of people with varied degrees of personalities. Some desirable than others, while some could be humorous and add a bit of RP-like flavor to the group. Likewise, I have also bumped into good guild groups and bad guild groups. At the time, I could only write down their name and server on a sheet of paper; but I think the merge of WoW accounts into Battle.net may have allowed for cross-server communication. I wouldn’t know since I left WoW midway through the Cataclysm expansion.

WoW aside, I do let everyone know that if it’s the first time running a dungeon, I’ll announce that at the beginning of the run. 80% of the time, the party members have been pretty cool with it and will explain the mechanics of the trash mobs and boss fights as we continue. That and I also played a tank. They had to explain that crap to me or the party would be in queue for another 20 or so minutes. :P

Honestly, you’re mileage may vary on the LFG matchmaker. Some may use it only once and that’s all the opinion they need. Me? I have probably ran over 500 dungeons using that tool, and have seen a wide spectrum of personalities.

^ I love this. =)

I’m playing hardcore Devil’s Advocate here, since I’ve had great experiences too with the LFG tool. I mean, I got to do tons and tons and tons of runs with it.

But I also ran into the types that just made the run seem like I was carrying a jerk through. (I’m always a tank/healer type). And I can remember the long long waits of doing /who and whispering every person in the server our level range if they wanted to go. And I remember how boringly long it could be. But I don’t remember ever playing with a jerk then. Ever.

I remember wiping and I remember people having to leave eventually, but I never had a bad experience.

Once I had to stop asking for people, and just getting them automatically, I had to deal with people I never would have played with. I was having to see those types probably about 1/3 to 1/5 of all runs. (I’m tank/healer, so I certainly had more runs than most lol)

I ignored it and became callous to it. I remember the public chat turning into… garbage. It was never perfect “in the good old days” but it was measurably less garbage. I remember the community policing public chat and it worked, since their reputation was ruined if they didn’t straighten up. Maybe I was just on great servers…

If there is a LFG tool, I’ll use it and be happy. But I’ll worry for the first month about if us players will just let crappy behavior go by again, since most people avoid confrontation, especially when they “just want to get this done”.

I’m not sensitive to having to deal with it, but I’m highly sensitive to it ruining the atmosphere of the game. It makes good people act like the rest. /shrug

I’m off the soapbox now. I think I’ve said everything there is possible to say about why I view it as a step backwards.

LFG chat and LFG meeting rooms are great ideas in my opinion. As those other 2 posters above mentioned. They can allow for faster meetings and people can screen each other. But usually, if they are not automatic, people tend to stop using them. Or they get abused for other purposes. Still, I’d love to face the issues with that rather than my super low opinion of LFG tools. (great resource but I just have a low belief they wouldn’t invite a wealth of related problems—which don’t seem related to others, which is another point of debate)

Lycan.7132:

100% agree with the OP.

One of the reasons i used to love WoW was that you had to rely on your guild and/or friends to go through a raid or dungeon and it built up good relationships and whatnot. Never forget the feeling of the first time i went through an instance, we went at our own pace, had a look at everything and learned all the lore.

The reason i’ve quit is that i can literally just click a LFG button and wait. Then we faceroll the instance in 10 mins tops. Wheres the fun?

To me GUILD wars, should be about your guild. Your guild should be there to help you with dungeons and wpvp etc. You shouldnt have to just click a button and wait.

What’s your point?

If an LFG tool is implemented you can still run the dungeon with your guild. You don’t lose anything from it. It’s win-win.

It just gives people who can’t be bothered with guild stuff, an option to find a PUG faster. How’s that bad?

Hsinimod.5784:

You asked a question that the above posts addressed. Or was it rhetorical and you don’t want to read opinion that differs from yours?

The anti-LFG tool crowd are not numb to the other side. We use the tools. We benefit from them. But we also remember a sharp line of when we played with quality players, vs when we played with players that were the worst personalities around.

Did we have bad experiences before the tools? Yes. Did we have good experiences after the tools? Yes. Of course. But we still remember how people acted in groups was more acceptable before, and less acceptable after.

If you ever nerd raged at anyone, you’re what we are avoiding. We don’t understand you, we don’t like having to deal with you. We’re the nice people that are quietly annoyed but patient. Even though you are not directing it at us, but at another member of the PuG, we still find that behavior wrong. We can ignore it fine. We can play through and finish our run and do another. We shouldn’t have to.

Randomly recruiting from chat allows us to screen people out. Randomly being added to anyone forces us to have to deal with the people we would have screened. Giving the tool and telling others not to use it results in the tool getting used because there is no other option. Once a tool goes up, “LFG” is ignored even if anyone bothers to try.

It was rhetorical, but I love hearing different opinions to my own, it makes me thing about my own stance and really consider if its the right one or not.

I dont know of any such division in quality of groups. I had some pretty appalling groups in tradechatspam-era. and have had some apalling groups in the LFG era too. Though in both cases they are the minority.

The difference is that in a bad LFG group, its easier to remove someone and find a replacement. Pre-LFG a bad player getting into a group often ruined the group early on as no one wanted to go back to Org/IF(and yes it was IF then!) and spam trade to find a replacement.

I dont nerd rage, its a game and rage is pointless. though to be honest I encounter more rage in Chatspam groups than LFG, maybe its that LFG is less elitist. I loved Rift when LFG was put it, groups were willing to wipe repeatedly and I never saw any rage, I saw people helping each other to over come some pretty nasty bosses.

LFG does not stop you making groups in chat, it merely allows the playerbase another option. If you find chatspam groups harder to get thent thats democracy in action, being given options and people choosing to use LFG over chatspam. You should not force your way of playing on people by denyiing them options.

Where WoW went wrong was attaching rewards to LFG to incentivise it, leave it as jut a grouping tool, not a reward system, and people are free to choose which method they prefer. And no, dont alter difficulty, leave it how it is, LFG should be 100% a group finder, not an easy mode and not incentivised. Then its a free choice of which you use, and thats the best way to do it in my opinion.

Hsinimod.5784 i have a very big bone to pick with you

You say this “I’m noticing a tone with many of those wanting a LFG tool. Impatience and a sort of attitude. Swear words and sarcasm.”

i have not seen any swear words in all the posts above. and what is impatient to you may not be impatient to others. when a majority of people cry that they want a more efficient way i dont think you can just say the majority are too impatient. i think impatient applies to the minority since it involves a comparison to the more patient. from my point of view you are a minority that has too much patience.

you say this: “You don’t simply say “give us this cause the others that don’t like it can ignore it”. It doesn’t work that way, and it belittles the situation. Or you don’t grasp the situation and think it is that simple.”

you realise the one who made that kind of statement in this thread is actually saying everyone should just ignore the extra spam they are getting it doesnt bother him.

ppl come from different backgrounds, live in different envirnoments, you cant possibly expect everyone to fully explain every single detail the way you want to. most people will just state their opinion in simple terms and will not bother to go into that much detail. you can try to explain things to them but you dont say everyone has to explain themselves fully. although that is very attractive to me but this is not the way things must be done. you have no right to demand everyone does what you think is right.

you say this: “Those who have personality types that are…. immature, they will group with the first person to take them. Or will accept the first “I’ll go” when asking for others. They never know others might do it different. They don’t know that they are the types others might be avoiding. So they don’t get it.”

i find this to be particularly ridiculous. phd psychologists can only make generalisations and guesses and cannot be 100% accurate. for some reason you can characterise large group of different people in with 100% accuracy with access to hardly any information about them other then the fact that you feel they are vocal and have a personality you dont like. do you at the very least acknowledge that people online tend to be more unreserved and behave differently than real life? and you quote somewhere basic psychology?

I completely disagree that a vocal person with personality will take just anyone and join any group. people will only do so when they do not have high requirements and do not feel strongly about it or that their own skill level is low. very very few will demand their team to be alot more skilled then they actually are. the people that feels strongly about it and have requirements will always check and qualify their team members. – that is there are enough players that satisfy their criteria for them to pick from.

you say this: "So my point is, the socially acceptable community members might not be chatting up a storm and socializing, but they end up able to avoid getting that random “worse PuG in the world” feeling every other run.

The simple act of talking allows people to weed each other out. Those that are the worst of the worst personalities, of course they don’t want that. They’ll be ignored for being what they are.

no the simple act of only saying LFG does not weed out anyone. people do not go off at another person straight off after joining party when they dont know anything. I’ve never ever seen any1 joining a party straight off and go (#$&^(#&$(@#&$*.

when the party spams lfg ppl can just client and join, and alot of cases people will just accept. i have done 5 or 6 straight through runs of a lvl 40 dungeon and no one asked any questions and nobody was of the type that goes (#$&(#$&*(#$&

the people that will ask questions can still ask questions even if there is a system. you just need the system not be completely automatic and randomly matches anyone.

what you say does not stand. a LFG function should be added for convenience. however, i do not support a completely automated one because i also like the option to qualify team mates. and i stress the word OPTION.

Vendetta.5032:

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

Lmfao that’s what already happens, almost noone sits outside the instances or in the zones looking for group, they all sit in la looking for one. Every time i go to la to craft i see nothing but people looking for groups for instances in map chat.

LFG tool should be aded at least some LFG chat acros whole world, not to shout in map near instance to find group….

Dungeon finder is simply too useful to be left out in a game like this. Reasons why have already been explained in far more detail than necessary.

stairs.1798:

Dungeon finder is simply too useful to be left out in a game like this. Reasons why have already been explained in far more detail than necessary.

No no, you see, according to people high as kites on nostalgia it makes for a better community to have to spam a chat and sit in a specific zone to make a group, it will also make people more skilled. They don’t have any arguments for it though unless you actually count “it happened in WoW I promise, and if you say it didn’t you’re a liar that didn’t play” as an actual argument which in itself is laughable. And chat spamming will also make sure we have to “communicate” in a dungeon, somehow, I don’t know they don’t really have any arguments there either (recurring theme with all their reasons why a dungeon finder is bad).

You can call it bull all you want, but I highly doubt you played WoW before the LFG and LFD tools then. If you don’t remember the days of your name being remembered on your server, then you were not there.

Being called a Ninja was an insult that meant something. You could not get a group to risk joining you. Your name was blacklisted. Call it bull if you want, but that just proves to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but are opinionated about it anyway.

You used to only do battlegrounds within your server. Not only did you know your players, you knew the enemy factions players, by name, as well. Completely different community in the start.

Everyone that came into a game when the community was already trolling and griefing, that is the standard they remember, and that is the standard they act on. And they’ll deny the community was any better, cause they were ignorant of such a time.

It’s basic psychology that people end up treating each other better when social conventions force them to. They fall into place. The simple act of needing to communicate is such a convention. We see it for what it is.

Gentlemen, I give you a person with no arguments beyond “It happened in wow and if you say it didn’t you’re a liar that didn’t play”. He thinks chat spamming forces us to communicate and be nicer and will actually create some sort of server wide bad rep police that ensures the meanies will never group again (just like in wow and if you say it didn’t exist you’re a liar that didn’t play). And sitting in battleground ques for thirty minutes was well worth it because maybe, just maybe you might recognize a name in there which would make it all worth the wait.

I agree 100% with this alot of Games got Ruined by this.

Strange thread…

As someone who was there in the early days in WoW, it was HORRIBLE before the LFG enhancements came along. The tool itself doesn’t have much of an effect on the community, though it did help get rid some of the guild nonsense that went on at the time (not going in-depth here, in short top guilds (which I was a part of :W, was a lifetime ago) tended to not be that nice to new players).

People are just waiting next to the dungeon entrance or around in a big town right now in GW2 just like in WoW before the automated LFG enhancements. Just like WoW, there’s that barrier for new players to start a new group (they become scared, the terse “LFG XXX” spam doesn’t help).