WoW gets BG friendy with Dungeon Finder queue!
WoW Random Dungeon Queue gives badges!
World of Warcraft just got more Busy Gamer friendly. Now that the new dungeon finder has been in use for a little while, I think it’s safe to say that it has made playing WoW with a busy schedule much more productive.
Basically, the Dungeon Finder puts players together in automatic groups across server lines. This means, of course, that there are now exponentially more players looking for the dungeon you are looking for. Unlike the previous incarnation of the automatic group maker, the Dungeon Finder has you select the role you will fill and it only forms groups with all roles filled. You can also select the random dungeon option, (which most of the time means you will be in a group nearly instantaneously) and gain bonus perks such as Emblems of Frost, gold, and a chance at getting a special non-combat pet. And forget about flying to dungeons or summoning. When you use the Dungeon Finder, you will be ported there automatically once your group is ready.
The full details of the Dungeon Finder can be found here, but the highlights of the new system for those of us playing on a time crunch are as follows:
º Less time spent trying to put together a group because there is a greater pool of potential players, and no need to spend a lot of time pst-ing back and forth with would be group members.
º No travel time to dungeons.
º The added bonus of being able to run a dungeon and make some money at the same time instead of having to chose one or the other.
º You and a friend can join as a group if you choose- you get to run with your buddy without having to spend a lot of time putting together the rest of the group.
º In my experience, most of the time you are in a group within three minutes of getting in the Dungeon Finder queue.
º My unscientific estimate is that I can now run three PUG dungeons in the time it took me to put together and complete one. (This is assuming no use of guildies or friends in my group assembly.) This makes my time far more productive which in turn makes my gear far more respectable.
Author Rika Stead by Jim Brown
One thing that has been getting some complaints in the forums is that you don’t get to check gear on your group members. Personally, this doesn’t concern me much. To be a truly good player you need to have some experience making up for weaker players. And a lot of the time, people checking gear for dungeons seem to be inordinately fixated on that. I can heal heroics with Shard of the Virtuous on (and thats experience talking, sadly, not hypothetical) but a player who no one will give a chance to can’t run anything. If you are a “non-hardcore??? player with not as good gear this is advantageous to you because you won’t be turned down to take someone with better gear. I have seen some horror stories about parties heavy on grossly undergeared players, but personally I haven’t yet encountered a situation that the other players were unable to compensate for.
The only major concern I have is that dungeoning across servers may effect how players find and form guilds in the long term. Meeting other players by running pug dungeons has always been the basic way to meet other people you enjoy playing with. Now we are running most of the time with people who we can’t stay in contact with and what that means remains to be seen.
Tags: Blizzard, busygamer, World of Warcraft
