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The force behind the new LFG tool

It’s remarkably hard to please everyone, no matter what you do.  Remember middle school when the teacher decided that there would be no quiz that week as along as everyone was ok with it?  All of the students would cheer, and then there was that one kid at the back of the room that would speak up in his nasally voice demanding the quiz.  What was wrong with him?  Clearly someone needed to introduce him to peer pressure, or a swift kick in the groin.  But I am getting off-track.  My point is that it is really hard to reach a consensus with any group of people and Warcraft is no exception.  There are lots of different groups of players and each one reacts differently.  Remember the introduction of badge gear?  Casual players and occasional raiders loved them, hardcore raiders regarded them as marginally more appropriate than genocide.  And that certainly isn’t the only example of different player groups reacting in completely different ways to a change in the game.  That is what makes the new Looking for Group (Dungeon) Tool implemented in Patch 3.3 so great, it is the first change that all players can agree on.  From casual to hardcore, the new LFG tool offers something to everyone.

Girlfriend: extra item type available to casual players

The Casuals:  Casual is almost a dirty word in internet lingo, but like it or not most MMO players fit the description.  They don’t raid, their gear is generally a mix of blue and purple with maybe even a little green in there, and they possess functional social relationships outside of the game.  Bastards.  For the casual the LFG tool is their best friend.  Want to run your level 80 heroic?  No more sitting in Dalaran spamming chat for an hour to do a single instance, you can queue for the instance remotely from anywhere and cross server matching means that the game searches multiple servers to find you a group.  Now you can chain those heroics!  Casuals can spend more of their game time actually playing the game and less spamming chat in Dalaran.  With faster forming groups you can farm more badges in the same time and deck out your character in purple.

Emblems for you.

The Occasional Raider: Not willing to devote a second work week to your work week to raid? Intrigued by the possibly of other hobbies and friends outside of WoW?  But you like to kick Onyxia’s tail around Dustwallow?  Then you may be an occasional raider, and LFG has something for you too.  You get the same benefit of more game time devoted to playing and less to forming groups like the casuals but you also get the added bonus of Frost emblems!  That’s right everyday you place your dungeon selection fate in Blizzard’s hands they will reward you with two Emblems of Frost.  These babies are redeemable for some good stuff.  Let’s face it – you are not running 25-man ToC or ICC anytime soon, but these Frost emblems are redeemable for stuff almost as good.  But that isn’t all, those triumph badges you accumulate in the process can be used to buy mats for some of the highest end craftable items in the game!

LFG: even Stiller approves

The Hardcore raider: Do you raid everynight?  Well except for the nights that there is a TNG marathon showing on SyFy?  Is your gear purple and have you replaced purples with purples with purples?  Do you know every trash mob ability in ICC 25 but aren’t certain what “dinner and a movie” refers to?  Then you are probably a hardcore raider.  You hate casuals and their welfare epics.  Luckily for you weekly raid quests will allow you to accumulate Emblems of Frost faster than casuals and occasional raiders.  But what about all those useless triumph badges you accumulate in the process?  You certainly aren’t going to buy welfare epics with them.  No way.  You can however use them to buy high ends mats for enchantments and gems.  Done with all that?  Well you can buy the mats with badges and sell them on the AH for raiding cash.

In the end there is something for everyone in the new LFG system.  The stratified rewards system keeps rewards hardcore players a little better (less QQ), but gives casual players a reason to keep logging on (more $$), and gives all players a faster path into the instances that we want to play (more pew pew).  And as far as I can tell there hasn’t been a nasally kid in the back of the room.  What do you think?