Oh I agree that at this point it is the people (players) causing the issue now but the game shipped with a crap system to begin with so the underlying fault lies with Blizzard.

It always feels like the LFG system in an MMO is tacked on when it SHOULD be one of the easier to use parts of a UI. So they ship with the crappy system and then the company plays catch up and the players in the mean time got fed up with the old one and it leads to the situation you have in WoW atm.

“Soul, actually that says to me that support isn\’e2\’80\’99t popular. And I\’e2\’80\’99d explore WHY.”

Because hitting the heal button over and over isn’t exactly the most thrilling of gameplay elements.

PUG’s do vary per game. Eve has no concept of them, for example. Even in high security space where he can’t just shoot you. Whereas taking DDO, whole-guild groups (yes, yes, it’s groupign required, but) were unusual (at least on the European server I played on) – I was in a big guild and it was usually a full group with only 2-3 from our guild.

Then pretty much everyone who has the ability to PL or twink or buffbot their next character to 50 does so, for a lot of reasons.

1. People suck.
2. It’s faster.
3. People suck.
4. Grouping other people means less coin, xp, and items for you.
5. People suck.
6. There’s always that clown that says “we’re not getting xp fast enough here let’s move to this other spot!” Typically, that other spot has mobs you can’t handle.
6a. The group wipes, you’re down xp, you’ve lost time, and your hatred of PUGs increases.
7. People suck.
8. There’s always that clown who thinks you aren’t pulling fast enough and does a double pull. See 6a.
9. People suck.
10. CC is a critical element of PvE in groups, and there’s always that clown that breaks every mezz and root. Especially when you just mezzed or rooted that mob that was killing the one support you managed to finally group. See 6a.
11. People suck.

And finally, people suck.

So then the players make do with something, the company tries ot fix the old broken system and implements the new stuff…the old players don’t use it because what they made themselves is working (somewhat) so the few who DO use the new system immediately scream that the new stuff is even worse because now nobody at all is using it.

WoW shipped with a crap LFG system, players made do with their own stuff…the Meeting stones were implemented..nobody used them….players made do…Blizzard goes global with the LFG channel, which is what players were using before..but not everyone knows about the player created channel so it doesn’t get spammed ot hell like the official channel, Blizzard implements new LFG UI and 7 days (impatient lil buggers we players are) after the patch people are up in arms because no one is using it so they in turn quit using it.

That’s pretty much how every MMO I have played has gone so Blizzard isn’t alone in the craparse job. How these games can ship like that with what should be a main feature (you are afterall supposed ot be focused on getting us to play with other people no? )busted is beyond me.

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As for the WoW LFG Ui now I think it has the potential to work, if the players will let it. It is close to what SHOULD have shipped with the game in the first place. The problem being, as has been pointed out, is players are a bunch of impatient kids who want the fix NOW…but most of us won’t give the new UI a fair chance because when we pop on there and see no one on we just assume it’s busted and it is in no way our fault.

Sweet………MMO’s have given me a new form of self loathing.

Even a retarded undead dog with a burning metal bar through its head can clearly envision potential problems just from the proposal of an idea. What makes a developer think that pushing their bad idea down our throats is going to make things better? Do they just not believe us? It’s a mystery to me.

I wish I’d saved a bunch of posts from the 1.11 release week talking about how the new LFG system was incredibly broken, utterly useless, made it impossible to find a group, and had so many things wrong with it that it tainted the rest of the game by association.

You know, for the Chuck Norris jokes.