Shared Topic March 19th-25th: Killing Knowledge

Thursday, March 22, 2012
The last couple of years in WoW have changed the game quite a bit. While it is very easy to jump into the "elite" vs "casual" vs "noob" bandwagon type of discussion, what is causing it I think is a more interesting topic.
Do you guys think that the LFR and LFD kill the sense of community, but taking it one step further; does it also kill the passing down of knowledge?
I know I did learn a lot from reading the web, but even now I get tons of information from my guild. If I have a doubt, I ask the question and most of the time someone knows off the top of their head where an enchant is, or what the best glyph is, etc. I don't take that community for granted, but it was built before there was a LFD. We are together because we did have to take the trek to the meeting stone. Now we have a button that 1 person uses and BAM we are all there. We know why that is cool, but many of the new players really don't know what that really means.
So are the new tools for grouping killing the knowledge sharing?

I sit here, with a root beer next to me, my cellphone open to Twitter next to me and I think about this shared topic.  Do I think that LFD and LFR have killed the community and knowledge sharing that is out there?  In a short answer, No.  In a long answer, Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.  (Okay, bad joke that I heard from an old rogue friend of mine.)

When I started playing, back in Vanilla, I sucked ass.  I did.  There is no doubt about that.  I looked up to other people, but they were also not the 'elite'.  They played because it was fun to just poke around the world.  The knowledge that was shared to me at that time was simple things like "To use party chat, type /p" and shit like that.

Then, during Burning Crusade, I started raiding and thus became aware of other things.  Like WoW blogs and Thottbot (remember them??) and Allakhazam (remember THEM?).  I fucking thottbot-ed EVERYTHING.  I moved to other guilds and started playing new characters.  In my new guilds, no one played the spec that I wanted so I had to learn on my own.  (Apparently incorrectly, but that's a story I've already told.)  I didn't have that community of people that knew things.

I found Resto4Life.com and fell in love.  I wanted to have Phaelia's little baby druids and I worshiped everything she said.  When she stopped blogging due to her expanding family, I truly mourned but I looked around for other resto druid blogs.  I found elitistjerks during the beginning of Wrath and followed their advice for a while, but eventually carved out my own 'niche' in healing in my guild.

In Wrath, we were a 25 man raiding guild and I believe only had 2, maybe 3, healers when it started.  Between me and my co-healer, my best friend and our resto shaman, we could answer almost every question.  My best friend had a disc priest, the only thing we didn't have was holy pally and we ended up with one of those by the time ICC came about.

However, I was the one people came to with resto druid questions.  If they had healing questions, they would go to either myself or my best friend.  Even people who weren't in our guild would come to us.  It was really weird!!

I never felt that there was a in game 'community' for me to rely on for my questions.  No one played a resto druid when I was starting out or forming my opinions.  I had to search outside the game to get my community.  And oh boy did I find it.

When I made my own blog, BlogAzeroth welcomed me with open arms.  They supported me and let me feel like I was writing TO someone instead of just throwing my thoughts into the nether.  When I decided to become more active in Twitter, I was also welcomed.  I'm very shy (still) but people still respond to me and I have conversations with people all over.  I feel a PART of something.

I'm in a new guild now, one where (for the first time ever) I am healing with another resto druid on a consistent basis.  This was something I never wanted to do.  However, I'm doing it.  I think we have our own healing and gearing ideas but that's okay.  At this point in my healing career, I'm willing to say "Look, I don't heal like you but I'm a goddamn good healer who can keep my shit alive".

I joined the new guild after LFR and LFD were put in.  I still feel a sense of community with them.  They are great people and we fit well together during raids.  I love running randoms with them to meet our weekly guild challenges because they're silly people and fun!

I don't think that advent of LFR and LFD caused a lack of community.  I think the only way it does that is if people only run them alone.  I know my old guild makes a group to go run LFR on Wednesday nights.  I know that my current guild will get 2-6 people together to go run it randomly through out the week.  I love that if we have 4 guildies together, we can pug a 5th from LFD really easily!

Also, in my new guild, we don't have that 1 button that will summon everyone.  We still have 9 levels until we get that, so probably about the time they take that out of the game!!

4 comments:

  1. I think the only way it does that is if people only run them alone.

    For some of us that's the only option—which I think is why the topic touched a nerve for me. I'm a very casual player so I haven't found a good guild fit yet and thus I'm running dungeons with people who are being punished for taking the time to help me (longer dungeon play-times + no lasting benefit for them = more booting, less teaching).

    I think if Blizz did something like give the whole group a benefit for the first few times someone completed a dungeon in the 'finders it might make people more receptive to the teachable moments… *shrugs* I dunno, I just wish there was either a benefit to being nice or a punishment for being a jerk! :p

  1. Unknown said...:

    Martha, you need to add me to your real ID. My comments should have my e-mail address so you can find me :) You are always welcome to run with one of our groups.

    I am also a huge advocate of having a rank or reward system for people trying to teach people.

    (Logtar) http://logtar.com/wow

  1. Karegina said...:

    @Martha - I didn't make myself clear (apparently that is something that is happening a lot lately), when you have 12 people online in a guild and everyone is running a LFR/LFD by themselves and never talk in guild chat, THAT kills my sense of community. I completely understand that there are a lot people out there that play on 'off hours' to the rest of the server and this is how they get to see content! I love that.

    I know that my husband and I tend to help out whoever we see that needs help. If someone is getting trolled in trade for asking a 'nooby' question, we're one of the ones that whispers them directly to help them out, or invites them to group to show them.

    It sucks that in general, people are assholes. With my anxiety, I don't run things without my husband, but I've been in a group with 3 dps that didn't know what they were doing and yet we were able to succeed because I had played enough of their classes to give them some pointers.

    Anyway, this will run on forever if I don't stop it now.

  1. @John – Will do! :)

    @Karegina – Ah! Okay, gotacha. I was coming from my own experiences where my mini-guild tended to do everything en masse so I just assumed that's how everyone else was. (doh) Suppose it all depends on their mood too, if they are feeling anti-social a nice quiet 'finder group would probably fit like a glove. ^_^

    You're a much braver soul than I for jumping into trade chat. The first thing I do on new toons it turn that channel off. >.<;; (Between that and Barrens chat I'm amazed I talk to anyone in-game)

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