Wrath of the Lich King, the new expansion for WoW Classic, will be released soon. Originally, the Dungeon Finder appeared in the first form with WotLK, as you now know it from modern WoW. And while the feature is often seen as the “beginning of the end” of WoW, some people are now complaining that it’s missing.
What is this feature? The Dungeon Finder allows you to find a group for a dungeon at the touch of a button and teleport to its entrance. In a way you probably hardly know any different today.
Before the Dungeon Finder, there was its predecessor, the LFG tool. Here you have to look for groups in a kind of notice board or alternatively via addons or the chat and then travel to the entrance of the instance yourself. This often lasted as long or longer than the dungeon itself.
The Dungeon Finder was released with the latest WotLK patch, which also releases the Classic version. We’ve known for a while that WotLK Classic will be coming without a Dungeon Finder, and that should make Classic players happy. But now they complain.
WotLK Classic will be released on September 27th as a new expansion. You can see the trailer here:
WoW Classic: The trailer for Wrath of the Lich King
The Dungeon Finder is actually hated and still people complain now
This is the criticism of the dungeon finder: Actually, the idea behind the tool is to make MMORPGs like WoW more convenient. And indeed, WoW has become more comfortable, but also more antisocial, as players have been criticizing for many years.
Back then, veterans from vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade in particular appreciated that the groups got together to really tear something – even if the run lasted several hours. As long as you finish the dungeon.
Putting together the group and getting there already ensured small talk and social bonding or cohesion in the guild if you could quickly ask for help. The issue of social bonding is the reason Blizzard calls against the implementation of the Dungeon Finder (via WoW forums).
Because many of these factors are removed with Dungeon Finder, veterans find the game more impersonal. In addition, the early versions of the tool in particular imposed massive penalties on players if they left prematurely. Rarer roles in particular, such as tanks, have taken advantage of this from time to time to hold entire groups “hostage”, as users explain on reddit.
Why are the fans complaining now? Blizzard once again confirmed in a forum post that the Dungeon Finder will not appear in WotLK Classic, not at release and probably not later either. That drew a lot of criticism.
Dungeon Finder defenders value the convenience and see no loss in social interaction. Especially compared to the classic version of the LFG tool, the Dungeon Finder is a lot more enjoyable. On reddit user Ranec writes:
Look, if we don’t get the dungeon finder, AT LEAST the LFG tool does it like it does in retail. The current one is SO bad. I’m really surprised that they just made a new one [Tool] but have made worse than what they already have.
The decision was also met with criticism in the forum, especially with regard to the LFG tool. Here one would also like the Dungeon Finder as a new feature or at least a better version of the group search than the one that currently exists.
By the way, MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch is a big advocate of dungeon finders in all MMORPGs:
Hate me, but: dungeon finders are the best thing that could have happened to MMORPGs
More changes to WotLK Classic
With the release on September 27th, WotLK Classic will be different than you remember in a few ways. In the latest post, Blizzard explains some of the changes again:
Also, there was an earlier decision to remove the “Quest Helper” from WotLK Classic. The feature marked quests directly on the map. However, this decision was reversed and the function remains in play.
Since Blizzard has already rowed back here, fans are now also hoping that a dungeon finder might come into play after all. Whether that will happen, however, remains to be seen – it doesn’t look like it at the moment.
Those who were also looking forward to the Battle of Wintergrasp will probably be a bit disappointed:
WoW WotLK Classic changes legendary PvP battle: “We are disappointed in ourselves”