Posted by Joanis in Blue Milk & Cereal, Columns | 17 Comments
Blue Milk & Cereal: Are Cross-Server Groups A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing?
No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal. Every morning, Joanis and the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!
There’s a certain thrill that comes with finding a dungeon group. You become familiar with the good and bad guilds on your server and you add good group-mates to your friends list. You might even develop a reputation for yourself as a good player, resulting in a flurry of messages from past group-mates every time you log in.
Depending on the dungeon, finding groups could take some time. When Blizzard added the Dungeon Finder to World of Warcraft, many players were happy with how easy it became to find groups. The number of people available in a group of servers made finding groups faster and you could do other things while waiting for your dungeon group to fill.
However, constantly grouping with people you never see again took most of the social aspect away from sharing a server with other players. I rarely group with people on my server outside of my guild, since I use the dungeon finder when my guild-mates are busy.
Do you think cross-server groups are good or bad? Do you miss the social aspect of getting to know your server-mates?
As far as we know, TOR will not have this mechanic, at least at launch. But would they be a good idea for TOR? Please vote and explain your reasoning below!
Loading ...
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I’m voting yes, but not if they are random. I think if they can be like Blizzard is doing, where you simply get to pick your group from any server they’re on, then yes.
yes and no. So not voting. There bad at the beginning of an mmo as they weaken the community. However in the late game they become more necessary when you want to complete older content. Basically once SWTOR 2.0 comes out, it needs to launch with a dungeon finder.
Yeah I agree after like a year cross server dungeons should be made available.
That is a fair point. However If can condense servers so that there are a large amount of people on a server it might limit the need for this. My main issue with the cross server option is the lack of knowing people. When WoW added that option it killed getting to know people and took the Soul out of the game.
The big draw to me is the people that you play with. A game can be great but if you are playing a mmo alone there is something missing.
Thats my 75 cents
I’m totally for them.
If there is a instance that you need to complete, why should you have to spam “DPS LFG” for hours and hours and hours?
I have guildmates for the social aspect of the game, if I’m looking for a random to run an instance with, I’m not doing it to make friends.
I do think the dungeon finder is a good idea IF a server has a particular issue with groups getting together because of low populations, however in world of warcraft when the dungeon finder was implimented initially it was brilliant but then the social aspect of the game really did start to suffer after a few weeks, you now get into a dungeon, people hardly say hello or goodbye or thanks, theres no iteraction. So its a double edged sword, if server populations are good then a group finder that only works within the server itself and isn’t cross-server, then it would be a nice feature
I voted NO. It is a horrible idea that destroys one of the social aspects of the game. It also just reenforces the entitlement attitude.
In my opinion, random dungeon que CROSS server is defintily a bad thing. Number One… there is no if any conversation at all defeating the purpose of MMO. Number two, it truly creates impatient elitest JERKS. Not somthing I’m hoping for in SWTOR. Third, there is less bonding with your realm. There are many other reasons why i do not support cross realm que’s but there are a few for you.
Definatly a no from me.
It destroys the social espect of the game,that is a must in a game,Ye i know.. its boring to wait for a group, instead of waiting for a group make one, if you see the game needs tanks or healer why not make one of thoes im not saying you need to only play that charecter, its only that i have met so many peopel who say there have never tanked or healed in a mmo because they dont have the guts for it.
But to once you,have waited and found a good group/fun group to play whit then you know.
I almoust always play a healer in mmos.
So its not a real prob for me to get into a group, Im also very offen the one who makes them.
But I can definatly see why dps people what the system,as there roll is always the hardest to get into a group.
I think it is a great tool for those who do not have the time to wait around all day. It gets you in the action faster and ultimately allows the player to enjoy more of the game. Yes it does take away most of the social element, but you could always choose to LFG the hard way or play with guildies and use dungeon finder as a last resort or choose not to use it altogether.
4 player per group, if you can’t find 3 friends heck you can even get a computer with you.
plus story wise this will never happen in swtor.
IMO this is a BAD idea.
Raid/opps pugging those is a bad idea at the very core of the idea.
What more does this come down to then:
Cross-server: shorter queue times. less community relations.
No cross-server: better sense of community. you recognize names and learn to know people, much, MUCH easier.
To bring up WoW, in BC I had much more of an idea of who was who on my Realm. Come WOTLK, I knew far less people on my realm.
I like the convenience of them, but there needs to be more long term accountability, like a user rating system. Players that routinely create grief for other players simply lose their ability to join cross server groups.
I like the idea of LFG tools especially since i’m usually in small guilds. With that being said, here’s my take on it. It all depends on server population. If there is a server of 2000 active players on it, they’re fine. But if there are servers with 200 active players on it, then you need to make their LFG cross between 8-10 servers. Maybe you’ll meet a good group of people on another server and want to move over there, growing that server.
In conclusion, LFG cross server works fine if it’s only across a couple servers… you’re still gonna recognize and chat with people if your server pops are low enough
I was a *huge* supporter of the cross-server LFG when it first came out in wrath. Now I’m fairly certain that it played a major part in ruining the game for me. The problem was not that finding groups was a hassle (it was), but that finding groups was pretty much a requirement. Pigeon-holing the reward system from large group content into smaller groups was terrible for the game. For a middle-range quasi-casual raiding guild, completing the daily heroic at least a few times a week was a requirement to keep up on gear. SWTOR seems to be doing away with (most) grindy required content, so hopefully a cross-server LFG is a non-issue since running small group content will not be mandatory.
Of course. They negate the 2 hour wait for a dungeon. And if someone griefs your dungeon experience? Report them and get a new group. Its a lot better than getting griefed by someone on your server, ‘blaclisting’ them, and then having no one to play with.
I like the dungeon finder idea. As long as there is a WoW compreable loot system. Ive played WoW for years and spamming for a group can be a headache,and you still get what you get sometimes.So if you spam for a group on your server or use a dungeon finder you will still get sub par players from time to time. Ive found if you run across a sub par player you just kick them and hope for another good player to take their place, of course sometimes you get a KA player with insomnia on those late night runs!