How long did you last?

[cyradis2003]

Just curious, how long did it take you to turn off the "improved" looking for group channel and what was the final straw that drove you to it?

I lasted about 3 minutes, what finally made me shut it down was landing in Feralas and realizing that the spam was not actually going to stop ...

They were calling it "Barrens Extreme Chat" and I shuddered at the memory of 12 levels in the Barrens not counting trips through it to get to RFK/RFD.

For those of you still in the channel, I salute your inhuman patience and courage in the face of danger (or masochism). I feel the world is not ready for the power of a realm wide LFG channel.

[oramac]

i lasted about 10 minutes. my final straw was much the same as yours, except on alliance side. landed in WPL and realized it wasnt gonna stop. got tired of stupid 12 year olds abusing what could have been an excellent addition to the game.

[Cerberus]

Half an hour or so after realizing that the non-stop spam was from a new and "improved" /LFG channel..

[craigbeere]

I like the combined channel. It will make finding instance groups easier.

I think we need to deal with the problem by a combination of (1) lots of reporting people for inappropriate use of the channel and (2) lots of lobbying to Blizzard to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THATS GOOD give us more than 20 /ignore entries.

Cheers
Craig

[sissipher]

Well, I downloaded Extended Ignore which I found at this site. I am still on the so called Improved channel, however, with in only 1 hour of playing last night I put about 50 people on the extended ignore list. It was amazing, after that, all I got was regular LFG msg's. The funny thing was that I recognized about 10 of the people that I put on the ignore list. The where some of the worst players that I have every been in a PuG with.

[det]

I was flying around a lot..so I thought most of the time it was the lfg channel from a major city until I realised (a guildy said it) that the channels are now worldwide combined.

Well..the insane spam made it impossible to read any guild conversation (got pushed too fast o/s) and the last straw was ppl discussing the game generally in LFG.

Switched off after like 20 mins....

[Linch]

LFM RAID ON TM WE HAVE 20 PPL PST FOR INVITES!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!! (lvl 20 toon)
STFU Noob

etc etc etc.........

5 minutes I lasted, the idiots have ruined it for everyone, using it as a general world chat is annoying as hell.

[Bob_TheMadCow]

The last straw for me was realising that even INSIDE MC I was getting LFG spam for random lvl 30 quests. I was hoping there would be some kind of level tiering for the global LFG so that lvl 60s didn't have to listen to LFGs of lvl 12s...

/leave 5

[Krollin]

I didn't even bother with it, I did /leave 4 as soon as I logged in last night as I knew from the PTR that it would be a nightmare.

[Hettar]

Please tell me there is still local LFG channels ?
Anyway, didn't get a chance to enter WoW yet since the patch, but planning on switching it off as soon as I'm logged in !

[Naolin]

I moved it to a seperate window and only use it when I need it. Didn't actually turn it off, I have a sick sense of humor so I sometimes actually enjoy the spam :p Also it seemed to calm down after a few hours.

[EdvinMedvind]

About 5 minutes. It's a shame for the people that actually have to rely on PuGs.

[Calli]

Ok, this was clearly a 2am in the morning, off your face on pot decision at Blizz HQ. I can picture the scene perfectly, a group of Blizz Execs are hopped up on Pro-Plus, caffiene and tobacco and passing the joint around when one of them has a relevation:

"I know, let's make Looking For Group a Global channel!"
"Great idea, you always need to know that Rofladin1334 in Westfall needs a healer for the Deadmines when you're doing Argent Dawn quests in Eastern Plaguelands."
"Yeah, and everyone will love the extra spam, too."

I'm having serious problems getting used to the idea that a global LFG channel was suggested and not one person at Blizz said "No, this is probably the worst idea I ever heard, you're fired." I mean, all they had to do was log onto the Test servers for a minute and listen to the complaints. I could handle the spam in major cities because that's life in a major city, and you're usually there either to trade, bank or because you ARE looking for a group. But with global lfg it's practically required to leave the channel when you're anywhere else, or your group/guild/whatever chat just gets lost in the spam and it's impossible to communicate. I mean, seriously, what the hell were they thinking?

[Havoc Jack]

I hit my limit of 20 ignores, going to have to go looking for that mod.

I've got a basic rule for the channel: Anyone who mentions the name "Chuck Norris" gets an ignore, no exceptions.

My brother was laughing at me earlier tonight. I was on a gryphon, and I had a "/ignore " queued up already, because I wasn't doing anything else and I knew I would need it before I would land. I was correct.

I've still got the channel open. In theory it's not a bad idea. In practice, well, I'd better find that mod.

[Vuriche]

I lasted about 15 minutes until I finally got tired of idiots responding with a ??? to my whispered STFU's, which I must of sent to at least 20 ppl...

[Wes]

I really cant see the big problem with it.
Sure the spam IS annoying but i just left the channel and maked another window with only that channel in. so IF i need a pug ill just have to select that window, and write /LFG to xxx or look if someone needs me.

ofc there will some spam on a brand new worldwide channel, but i think; and hope, that with time it will normalise again..

oh and btw took me 10 min to leave the channel, not because i could stand it that long but because i had forgotten how to leave and join Channels DOH:embarassed:

[MacBlimp]

Just make a new chat window for the Lfg channel and remove it from the General. That way you can still keep it around if you should need it, without having it bother you all the time.

[CreslinHellscream]

I switched it off after approx 10mins.. as soon as i got out of org and realised it was global.. Gosh the crap that some people talk just because they know everyone can hear them is disturbing.

The problem I found with it was not the LFG Spam but the inane stuff that people where just coming out with :P Might be because its all shiney and new, I guess they'll get bored soon then maybe it'll be used for its purpose.. Maybe..

[Lunaticfish]

Maybe there should be some limitations on how often you could use /lfg or what you can actually enter there to avoid anything that isn't strictly looking for a group (like you can only click on a task you have/an instance and the message would only be seen by people within a decent level range around that task. Maybe you could even click somewhere to specify your class or the class you are looking for in your group). I'm not sure but having spent probably a couple of hours outside Uldaman whispering at randoms that I found using /who I think a global lfg is a great idea because a /lfg in an area where there isn't a town or city like Badlands/Swamp of Sorrows for the Alliance is such a waste of time.

[KalziEast]

I have it on still. I'm on Azjol'Nerub, there's not too many stupid people, then again I was on from around 2 AM-6 AM or so, that might've made a difference. There was a conversation or 2 going on, but it had to do with the Scourge Invasion, so, I had to jump in and try to help people and stuff.

[Aerath]

I lasted as long as it took me to long in (and out, and in, and out) and sort out my UI and reconfigure the looks when I reinstalled CTRaid and some other stuff.

Once that was sorted out I instantly left the channel.

This has to be one of the single most stupendous moves by Blizzard.

I do -not- want to see LFG HOGGER!!! when I'm in Molten Core or questing in Silithus.

[swaldman]

Please tell me there is still local LFG channels ?
Anyway, didn't get a chance to enter WoW yet since the patch, but planning on switching it off as soon as I'm logged in !

The unfortunately aspect is that everybody will turn it off except when they are looking for an instance group, and it will work very well for that. But what about the people who are questing randomly in, say Redridge or STV, and want to group up for the Elite quests there? In the past you'd get on with your other stuff, and then a group would pop up and you'd join it... now you'll have the channel turned off.

I have a fear that the zone-specific General channels will now get used as a zone-specific LFG (I will probably use them for that). It's a step backward.

On a more practical note, does anybody know a way to remain subscribed to LFG but to hide it from view? That way I could use CTA as my interface to it and remain sane... :-)

[Clef]

Is that what it was, all the lfg spamming? I logged in last night in Grom'gol, did a brief setup of keys and stuff, and immediately entered ZG for a damn nice raid with my guild. The LFG-spamming never stopped, so basically all the guild just did a /leave 4. ^^

[Tarnop]

Maybe there should be some limitations on how often you could use /lfg or what you can actually enter there to avoid anything that isn't strictly looking for a group (like you can only click on a task you have/an instance and the message would only be seen by people within a decent level range around that task. Maybe you could even click somewhere to specify your class or the class you are looking for in your group).

There seems little point in going to all the hassle of making a heavily restricted LFG channel when there's a simple solution.

You have a system like the who window, except it's the LFG window. People who are LFG flag themselves as such and then use the GUI to set which instances they want to do. Then people who are LFM can browse this and find people to fill out their group. Similarly, if you're the group leader and LFG flagged, your whole party appears as a single unit in the GUI (or in a separate LFM pane) so people can quickly browse the groups who are looking for more.

This deals with the global, instance LFG issue (i.e. I want to go and grind some AD rep while LFG Strat + Scholo or whatever). It also means that people aren't spamming the city LFG channels because that would be a really inefficient way of getting a group. Then they just need to switch the local LFG channels back on for people looking for local quest help.

I believe an addon exists that already does what I've described but it relies on others having it installed. When I tried it there were very few people using it on my server. It definitely needs to be built in.

[swaldman]

I really cant see the big problem with it.
Sure the spam IS annoying but i just left the channel and maked another window with only that channel in. so IF i need a pug ill just have to select that window, and write /LFG to xxx or look if someone needs me.

That's a great idea if you have a huge resolution and thus plenty of screen to play with. For those of us with oldish hardware, however, it's hard enough just seeing the world when you have CTRA & Decursive all over the screen, without having another chat window... :-(

[KafkaJr]

I lasted about 30 seconds after leaving a zone and was dissappointed that this childish coversation that was going on in LFG was not going to end. The bad part was that several people were yelling at others to shut up and use the channel properly while the spammers fed on it and spammed even more. It was an immediate relief after I left the channel and I do not miss it at all.

[TheRiddler]

There seems little point in going to all the hassle of making a heavily restricted LFG channel when there's a simple solution.

You have a system like the who window, except it's the LFG window. People who are LFG flag themselves as such and then use the GUI to set which instances they want to do. Then people who are LFM can browse this and find people to fill out their group. Similarly, if you're the group leader and LFG flagged, your whole party appears as a single unit in the GUI (or in a separate LFM pane) so people can quickly browse the groups who are looking for more.

This deals with the global, instance LFG issue (i.e. I want to go and grind some AD rep while LFG Strat + Scholo or whatever). It also means that people aren't spamming the city LFG channels because that would be a really inefficient way of getting a group. Then they just need to switch the local LFG channels back on for people looking for local quest help.

I believe an addon exists that already does what I've described but it relies on others having it installed. When I tried it there were very few people using it on my server. It definitely needs to be built in.

Are you an old EQ'er by any chance?

[yavvy]

That's a great idea if you have a huge resolution and thus plenty of screen to play with. For those of us with oldish hardware, however, it's hard enough just seeing the world when you have CTRA & Decursive all over the screen, without having another chat window... :-(
You can put it behind another chat window, just like the combat log is by default. Then you can click the tabs to see the chat window you want.

[Seeo]

Took me about 5 mins.

EVERYONE was screaming about ALL their mods being broken... retards never even looked in their addons window from the character selection screen. Took me about 4 "JUST GO TO THE CHARACTER SELECTION SCREAN AND HIT THE 'ADDONS' BUTTON THEN ENABLE THE 'LOAD OUT OF DATE' OPTION" ... still the same people were complaining, sure a few mods broke, they always do, but these ****ing retards are STILL screaming that ALL of them broke even after the 4th time... it's as if their eyes glazed over and couldn't read my UPPER CASE-ness... I think not. So I was like '**** this ****' and just unchecked the LFG channel.

Too many stupid people... just too many...

[Seeo]

There seems little point in going to all the hassle of making a heavily restricted LFG channel when there's a simple solution.

You have a system like the who window, except it's the LFG window. People who are LFG flag themselves as such and then use the GUI to set which instances they want to do. Then people who are LFM can browse this and find people to fill out their group. Similarly, if you're the group leader and LFG flagged, your whole party appears as a single unit in the GUI (or in a separate LFM pane) so people can quickly browse the groups who are looking for more.

This deals with the global, instance LFG issue (i.e. I want to go and grind some AD rep while LFG Strat + Scholo or whatever). It also means that people aren't spamming the city LFG channels because that would be a really inefficient way of getting a group. Then they just need to switch the local LFG channels back on for people looking for local quest help.

I believe an addon exists that already does what I've described but it relies on others having it installed. When I tried it there were very few people using it on my server. It definitely needs to be built in.
I concur,

LFG channel is absolutly and utterly useless... They implemented EXACTLY what you said in Anarchy Online, just before I left the game, and it was SUCH a relief to not even WORRY about that stupid spam.

[HobJoe]

I like the idea. Its the very reason its so hard to find groups for ZF and Uldaman. Because the LFG channel is only really effective in big cities and those instances are so far from them.

I really think the people that whisper STFU to people in these channels are the ones that should be reported. If it bothers you so much just turn it off. The spam is only annoying when your looking for a group and the /4 is filled with the same message. Now I do understand its silly for the lvl 10-19 quests to be advertised in world chat because no-one is going to cross the world to do a lowbie quest. I just think people are making a big deal out of nothing.

[Tarnop]

Are you an old EQ'er by any chance?

Nope, but someone I spoke to about an hour ago said that EQ had a similar system. Did it work well?

I really think the people that whisper STFU to people in these channels are the ones that should be reported. If it bothers you so much just turn it off. The spam is only annoying when your looking for a group and the /4 is filled with the same message. Now I do understand its silly for the lvl 10-19 quests to be advertised in world chat because no-one is going to cross the world to do a lowbie quest. I just think people are making a big deal out of nothing.

The problem is not excessive LFG spam, it's the fact that people are treating it like a global General channel. It's basically become Barrens chat in every zone. So now if I'm actually LFG I have to sift through all the spam and the *****ing to see if anyone is going to an instance I want to do. At least when I had to sit in Org or UC to find a group I could leave General and Trade so I didn't have to watch the spam. Seriously, this game is crying out for a properly implemented LFG interface.

[Renata]

I exiled it to its own chat window. That way, I can look at it if I am actually looking for a group (a few people are still using it for that) and ignore it otherwise.

...Ren

[rgirty]

I put it in its own window, however after a day of chuck norris banter the real users 55+ lvl people looking for brd and above groups really put the pressure on the general chatters. One of the chatters then came up with a brilliant idea! They created channel /norris. Now, when anyone starts inane norris talk, 25 people spam JOIN /NORRIS and it stops. 90% of spam gone by the wayside on my server :D

[MellanCholera]

I turned it off after a few minutes.

It was bad enough when they made the "city" versions of trade and LFG, I had to turn both off when I went to cities, because people used it as a global general. But then... instead of learning from that mistake .. THEY MADE IT WORSE.

Does Blizz DELIBERATELY cater to the most moronic players and griefers?

What was REALLY the last straw for me:

when yesterday I was reading about how they had personal LFG/LFM flags that you could search on in /who, like many other games, and abandoned in Beta

why Blizz?

[Oatmealsmurf]

10 minutes. Turned it back on last night briefly because I wanted to do Scholo... but it became unbearable again after 10 minutes and I turned it off again and went to fight the scourge invasion.

[zkajan]

it took me a good couple of hours to turn it off, the screen was scrolling buy pretty fast but I wasn't paying attention to what it was saying (my guild and party chat are in a different window) so it took me quite a while to catch on to it.. then I turned it off
:tongue:

[zkajan]

I put it in its own window, however after a day of chuck norris banter the real users 55+ lvl people looking for brd and above groups really put the pressure on the general chatters. One of the chatters then came up with a brilliant idea! They created channel /norris. Now, when anyone starts inane norris talk, 25 people spam JOIN /NORRIS and it stops. 90% of spam gone by the wayside on my server :D
hahaha that's one of the coolest things i heard of lately

[CreslinHellscream]

Problem is, people who are LFG will get pd off with having muppets spamming it with incoherant crap, that they will just leave as well and send tells/whatever to get thier group sorted. I just dont understand why they would put it in, when its so obviously going to be used as a global conversation channel for kids to talk crap and wind each other up.

[Wintrow]

There seems little point in going to all the hassle of making a heavily restricted LFG channel when there's a simple solution.

You have a system like the who window, except it's the LFG window. People who are LFG flag themselves as such and then use the GUI to set which instances they want to do. Then people who are LFM can browse this and find people to fill out their group. Similarly, if you're the group leader and LFG flagged, your whole party appears as a single unit in the GUI (or in a separate LFM pane) so people can quickly browse the groups who are looking for more.

This deals with the global, instance LFG issue (i.e. I want to go and grind some AD rep while LFG Strat + Scholo or whatever). It also means that people aren't spamming the city LFG channels because that would be a really inefficient way of getting a group. Then they just need to switch the local LFG channels back on for people looking for local quest help.

I believe an addon exists that already does what I've described but it relies on others having it installed. When I tried it there were very few people using it on my server. It definitely needs to be built in.

*cough* City of Heroes *cough*

It had this from Day 1 (of the European side anyway). You flag yourself as 'Looking for Team (=group)' and then are able to specify if it's for a mission (=quest), a taskforce (= like a raid), some other thing or just general mayhem and insert a description like (logging off at 10h30 PM). Then ppl who are LFM can filter and sort the list and contact them.

[kevagron]

[QUOTE=Tarnop]Nope, but someone I spoke to about an hour ago said that EQ had a similar system. Did it work well?

It worked very well, you could specify searches by class and level range so you could instantly see if, for example, any tanks were LFG and what level they were. Everybody had an option to add their private note so for example you could put "Only LFG for LBRS, BRD - not interested in DM" to further help people out who were looking for players.

I used to find the LFM option by groups wasn't used much, but the LFG list was used a lot by existing groups.

[rgirty]

LFG flag in EQ worked great, you could /who 60 warrior lfg and get a listing. send them some tells and away you would go. WoW needs the LFG flag.

[Hrungnir]

I think every other MMO I've played has had some variant on this feature.

I don't know why Bliz is ignoring it, when they've managed to fix almost every other complaint I've had about MMO's in general.

I have a feeling that the idea of a /lfg idea bothers them because it is more outside of the game world. In one of the dev interviews, they talked about how the /pizza command in EQ was a poor implementation because it didn't continue immersion - you should go talk to a pizza vendor in Org or something.

Although why they can't improve the meeting stone system (something that keeps you in game) is beyond me. Go talk to an innkeeper and flag yourself for whatever instances/quests, and someone else can talk to another innkeeper and ask who wants to go to these places. The only problems with the existing meeting stone system (which no one uses) are that it only queues you for one instance, and it automatically forms groups. Change those things about it there'd be no problem.

[MellanCholera]

Breaks Immersion? Are they kidding?

Hemit Nessingway doesn't break immersion? Give me a break Bliz.

[Havoc Jack]

I took a couple moments today to look for that mod with the extra ignore space, didn't find it.

What I did find, was this mod (http://ui.worldofwar.net/download.php?dbtable=maps&id=2751&title=LFM%20Spam%20Filiter) which filters out everything that isn't a LFG, LFM, or somesuch. Works like a charm.

No annoying chuck norris jokes, and plenty of options.

[tatergti]

I took a couple moments today to look for that mod with the extra ignore space, didn't find it.

What I did find, was this mod (http://ui.worldofwar.net/download.php?dbtable=maps&id=2751&title=LFM%20Spam%20Filiter) which filters out everything that isn't a LFG, LFM, or somesuch. Works like a charm.

No annoying chuck norris jokes, and plenty of options.

thank you for posting that, i thought i was going to go insane yesterday with my chat box scrolling at about 75 lines per minute with garbage.

[Robba]

Went out off lfg after 5 min and made a macro off join and leave LFG channel :grin:

[Herald of Doom]

I don't know what sort of realm you people are on, but I actually saw loads of LFG and hardly any spam. Argent Dawn btw. I did leave it after I found a group, but I guess that's how it's supposed to be used. If you don't need a group, /leave 4. If you do need a group you no longer have to teleport/run back to SW/Darnasus/IF. If this existed when our warrior left on my last Sunken Temple attempt we could have asked for a tank while in the instance, instead of me teleporting back only to find nobody willing to come with me thus waisting about half an hour. Ofcourse when nobody uses it for lfg I could understand the frustration...

HoD

[Zahyuri]

I lasted a decent 20 minutes. I thought to myself, "I can stand this, I'm a pretty patient person." When it got to the point though where my whispers from my sister were gone in .01 seconds flat it got a bit annoying.

I got some giggles out of the people who were annoyed with people casually chatting in the LFG channel, they themselves were casually chatting amongest each other about the annoyance. Makes sense? I think not...

But what broke the camel's back for me was the minute someone got crazy enough to put "WTS <insert junk> PST!!!" And then others started catching on to his trend and doing the same thing. And then everyone started screaming at them to not use the LFG channel that way...

/leave 4

It was a pure brilliant idea (I know I've said this before somewhere...), the only problem is we have immature idiots and arrogant children playing this game.

[Calli]

It was a pure brilliant idea (I know I've said this before somewhere...), the only problem is we have immature idiots and arrogant children playing this game.


Therefore.... it was the dumbest idea since ashtrays on motorbikes. :tongue: Seriously, this may have looked good on paper, or even sounded like a good one at the 2am, high on crack meeting where the idea was concieved at Blizz HQ. However, surely after 10 minutes on the Test Server even a crack-addled Blizz Exec should have noticed that outside of Blizz HQ there are PEOPLE playing this game. And people, by and large, are idiots. If anything can be exploited or abused to cause grief and harrassment to other players, there are people who WILL do exactly that. And they did on the Test servers too, and the complaints never stopped, yet still it was shipped with the patch.

If people have to expand their ignore lists or leave channels entirely while outside of major cities, or download mods in order to be able to do something as basic as communicate with other players without being swamped in spam that floods their message boxes, something isn't right.

[swaldman]

Therefore.... it was the dumbest idea since ashtrays on motorbikes.

Sounds to me like some executive who doesn't actually play the game had heard about all the comments that WoW needed a well-designed global LFG system (similar to the functionality offered by CTA, or shipped as standard in many MMOGs), and told the developers to "do something about it, but don't spend any time". Here is the result.

Speculation, obviously, but I think most of us will have been on the receiving end of an instruction like that at some stage..... :-(

[HobJoe]

Ok so I must say I recant my original position on this matter. I originally defended this a being a good idea for those traveling abroad to see LFG advertisements. Because you might see a group forming for a quest thats been sitting in your quest log forever and never got a group together for it, or for instances that are far from major cities.

Well sure OK good idea in that respect...Bad idea considering all the children that play this game. The Chuck Norris spam never really bothered me...the lowbies LFG never really bothered me... its when people carry on conversations in this channel and/or arguments for the world to see. Not to mention it fills your chat log constantly. I guess it took me longer than others to get sick of it because I had high hopes for it.

Im sure once 800,000 people are reported for spamming this channel they might fix it.

[innorton38]

Once I realized what was going on, I turned it off. I'd say I lasted about 2.5 minutes....

[Metatron]

I have found the channel to be nothing short of fantastic myself and can't see what all the complaints are about. Sure I tunred it off after being in the game for 2 minutes so I could get my auctions sorted and see what was happening in the guild. Then I decided to go to Stratholme. Turned on the channel. Within 3 minutes I was in a group and we racing towards Stratholme. Turn off the channel again. No problems. I know people are saying 'but if only people used it to look for groups it would be ok'. Why lay that responsibility on other people? Other people, as a rule, are complete and utter morons. Use the channel for what YOU want to be and then leave the other moronic people alone. Easy as pie when you think about it....

[Naedea]

I have found the channel to be nothing short of fantastic myself and can't see what all the complaints are about. Sure I tunred it off after being in the game for 2 minutes so I could get my auctions sorted and see what was happening in the guild. Then I decided to go to Stratholme. Turned on the channel. Within 3 minutes I was in a group and we racing towards Stratholme. Turn off the channel again. No problems. I know people are saying 'but if only people used it to look for groups it would be ok'. Why lay that responsibility on other people? Other people, as a rule, are complete and utter morons. Use the channel for what YOU want to be and then leave the other moronic people alone. Easy as pie when you think about it....

That's the way it's supposed to work, however, it's all too rare.

What if you didn't find a group in 3 minutes?

What if someone trying to form a Stratholme group never saw you LFG, or you never saw a Stratholme group LFM because people were spamming the channel with retarded macros, or Chuck Norris jokes, or singing song lyrics, or arguing about what class pwns what other class, and all the other people yelling at them to STFU?

What if you had to scroll back to see anything potentially relevant?

What if all the people who might want to go to Stratholme had the channel turned off because it was just too annoying?

[edandor]

ya know, it is excelent for what its ment to do....get groups together. ive been finding groups very very easily, my downtime between instances has definatly gone down. at one point someone was just like, "hey, lets do a RFD group instead of cath" and intantly we had a full group, and i probly wouldnt have ran RFD at that time anyway, so it worked out well. what was really nice was that we all werent even on the same continent. i would have had a hard time getting a rfd group put together near sm.

for those that need a group, just leave it on, its bad but not so horible that you would need to turn it off when trying to accomplish something. and when grouped...../leave 4 i dont really see the big deal.

[Duchel]

I really wanted to give it a chance, so it got 10 minutes. I was getting too angry by then and turned it off. If I hadn't wanted to try it, I would estimate...1 minute?

I just got extremely pissed off with:

LF39M Hogger Raid
Lol
/inv plx
you'll never PuG hogger
I'll join so long as I get the epixxx

/me smashes the faces of all those idiots AARRGGGHHH!!!

[Thilden]

Once I realized what was going on, I turned it off. I'd say I lasted about 2.5 minutes....

I was the same.

Something I've wondered about with all of the inane chat I see in WoW. What in the world is all of that stupid Chuck Norris stuff about anyway?

[Ammon]

I moved the LookingforGroup channel to a window of its own , which by default isnt visible until i click that tab , got rid of all the spam and left it available for me to actually LFG when i need to .

the crazy amount of spam made chatting in the private channel my former guildmates had setup impossible.

[Nosaj]

I just created a new window for the LFG channel. Much better.

[Herald of Doom]

What if someone trying to form a Stratholme group never saw you LFG, or you never saw a Stratholme group LFM because people were spamming the channel with retarded macros, or Chuck Norris jokes, or singing song lyrics, or arguing about what class pwns what other class, and all the other people yelling at them to STFU?

What if all the people who might want to go to Stratholme had the channel turned off because it was just too annoying?
Change server!! I found a group to Maraudon in 6 minutes and my sister found a group to Sunken Temple in 10 minutes. I didn't leave the channel for THREE hours and I saw 2 guys talk about pie. Other than that, only lfg and "need help with quest X'. No mentioning of Chuck Norris or any other moronic moviestars. In my guild about 50% has the channel turned off, but when they need a group they just join the channel again. Thank you Blizzard for making instancing in faraway places easier! And for SUCH a low price, simply typing /leave 4 or dragging it into another window.

PS: If you're server is filled with simpleminded Norris fans, why are you playing on that server?

HoD

[KalziEast]

Whoa, 5 pages came since I last posted 2 days ago O.o... Anyway, I think you should stay in the LFG channel, just give it a week to die down, the kids will calm down.

[Ailill]

About 5 minutes. I logged back in in the Badlands, and was immediately swarmed with utter crap. Whatd annoyed me more was that this channel WAS turned off before the patch, so at first I was quite confused about seeing it again. Anyway I'll only turn it back on when I'm really desperate for a group, I mean, REALLY desperate.

[Tomros]

I love this! It's great for lookin for replacements while in a instance and I think the spamm will cool down after a couple of days.. Also you can either make a macro for join/leaving the channel or make a LFG window:grin:

[Rancid]

I just don't read it. Somehow, my brain filters out what I don't want to see.

Occasionaly, I say "Bruce Lee > Chuck Norris"... Makes them quiet down for a while.

I really don't get how it is sooo annoying. Isn't it possible to just not look at the light pink print? If your finding a group, just type in what you need to say, and you will get PMed in purple.

[KalziEast]

I think staying in the LFG unless you're in a major endgame raid or something THEN you should leave it or put it in a new window.

[sasja]

I think I like it, all things considered. I join it when I'm actually looking for a group, and leave it when I'm not. In a few weeks, perhaps the novelty has worn off, and I can keep the channel on most times.

The major attraction is that I can find new party members when people quit midway through an instance, and it's also nice that I can do something meaningful while gathering an instance group instead of just sitting in a city, or vice versa, I can keep an eye on the lfg calls while questing and jump in an instance group if I suddenly feel like it.

[Morollan]

Perhaps if they were to make the General channel global too it might move some of the spam out of LFG?

[Calli]

This is a joke, right?

[Morollan]

No. Why do you ask?

[bwirum]

Because then you'd have to turn off two channels.

Anyhow, I turned it off as soon as I realized what was going on. I think it's fine to have a global LFG channel available, though they should have kept a zone-specific channel as well.

The best of all would be a CTA-like window.

[Piemaster]

It's amazing how short some people's memories are. A few weeks ago there were loads of posts (on the official forums anyway) suggesting that the LFG channel should be viewable from anywhere. 'OMG Blizz why won't you do this, LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!!11!!' In all this time I don't remember many people saying that it was a bad idea because it will be full of spam.

Now Blizzard make the change and suddenly millions of hindsight monkeys come out of the woodwork saying 'what a stupid idea!' 'How could they not know this would happen?!' 'Blizzard are on crack!' etc

Amazing how none of these players seemed to be around when a large number of players were demanding this feature. In fact it wouldn't suprise me if some of them were the same players.

[Morollan]

Because then you'd have to turn off two channels. I'd quite happily lose General as I never use it. And I suspect that the majority of spam would be in the General channel, leaving LFG for people looking for groups.

[rgirty]

Saturday night on my server someone discovered how to build a macro to spam the LFG channel so badly that it would bring the server down. They did it 9 times in a 3 hour span starting at 10:30 server time until about 1:30 am. I'm not sure if blizz did something about it, or they simply got tired of doing it.
I was actually on a boat trying to get back to a city when one of these happened. When I logged back in I was swimming in total darkness without a breath bar. Very quickly drowned and popped up in a GY in the middle of the barrens. As soon as I rezzed I received the "you have discovered xx zone" I had never been there and in fact was on the boat in feralas when the server went down.

[moopy]

You have a system like the who window, except it's the LFG window. People who are LFG flag themselves as such and then use the GUI to set which instances they want to do. Then people who are LFM can browse this and find people to fill out their group. Similarly, if you're the group leader and LFG flagged, your whole party appears as a single unit in the GUI (or in a separate LFM pane) so people can quickly browse the groups who are looking for more.

There used to be an LFG flag in beta. This meant that you only needed to bother people who wanted a group. Blizzard have been promising to reinstate this for a very long time, maybe this is their half-assed attempt.

Some other MMORPGs have an LFG flag, it works well. The idea would seem to be sound, you're not the only one who has made this simple and very sensible suggestion.

[Zahyuri]

I still think it was an amzingly helpful and good idea, finding groups is an easy task now. It's just hard handling some of the spam that comes off people who enjoy annoying the world. I wouldn't say it's a horrible 'Ashtray on a Motorcycle' idea. That's completely useless. The global LFG channel though, is in fact, quite helpful on downtime between groups, finding groups and filling the spots where others ditched. There is just a rather annoying problem with idiotic spam causing your window to move quicker then the spped of light at peak server time.

Oh and I was trying to move my LFG channel, but having trouble with it. I created a new Tab called LFG and right clicked that tab and turned on LFG but it kept turning on the LFG in my main tab (General). How do I get just LFG in the newly created tab without opening it in others?

[moopy]

In Soviet Russia, groups found YOU.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[rutty]

Well I created a new character on a new RP-PvP server to get a feel for the realm and endured some pillock called Johnnyy spamming the hell out of the LFG channel by constantly quoting songs. Despite everyone telling him to shut up he carried on. He must have got on dozens and dozens of ignore lists.

I'd put him on straight away then removed him again just to see what he was saying :D

It's not a good idea having this global at all. If people want to join the Org LFG channel they can do that from anywhere.

[cyradis2003]

It's amazing how short some people's memories are. A few weeks ago there were loads of posts (on the official forums anyway) suggesting that the LFG channel should be viewable from anywhere. 'OMG Blizz why won't you do this, LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!!11!!' In all this time I don't remember many people saying that it was a bad idea because it will be full of spam.

Now Blizzard make the change and suddenly millions of hindsight monkeys come out of the woodwork saying 'what a stupid idea!' 'How could they not know this would happen?!' 'Blizzard are on crack!' etc

Amazing how none of these players seemed to be around when a large number of players were demanding this feature. In fact it wouldn't suprise me if some of them were the same players.

Gasp! You caught me, I spent all my time trolling official forums demanding global LFG just so that I could one day come here hand make this thread. In fact this thread is the culmination of my life's work.

I would like to thank those that made it all possible, first other MMO's that have a working system causing people to want one in WOW as well. I would like to thank the suggestion makers who brought it up to Bliz and said how cool it would be to get a ST group while in Feralas. Big props to the folks screening test realm complaints also since this was a major issue, as I understand it, but they did not falter and put it through anyway! Much love to the folks on my server like Tiaamett and Joxxtrap who use the lfg channel to discuss various bodily functions and fluids, Martisee who is always ready with a "Hi _______ how was that ______ thing today?" as each of her friends log in allowing us to partake in the joy of her small talk without having to know her or give a crap about Schandrawr's eye test or Piglie's day in court. Most of all I would like to thank Ellie for this forum and all the mods for letting me come here and post a thread designed obviously to allow all of us who vocally supported this new channel to come and complain about it later, thus completing the cycle of consumerism.

Thank you all for this shining moment and always loves to my homeboy Hakkar, God of Blood through him all things are possible (messy and gross but possible)!

[Zahyuri]

/slowly falls out of the chair giggling

"...Much love to the folks on my server like Tiaamett and Joxxtrap who use the lfg channel to discuss various bodily functions and fluids..."

That was just a beautiful show of sarcasim, two thumbs up!!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[moopy]

Hey, leave Hakkar out of this. He might be a funny cross-dressing bird/serpent bloodgod freak, but he's given my little hunter a lovely new necklace and a great lobster gun. Comparing him to the "special" brigade on Global Barrens Chat is just unfair.

However, great post, Cyradis. I think a lot of people feel that way, but you said it best :)

[HobJoe]

I'd say the worst thing about this channel are the people that get annoyed and tell people to STFU. Mostly because it just keeps things going. Children often paw at people for attention, just ignore them and they go away. But I see too many arguments in /4 because some idiot is calling someone else an idiot for spamming in /4.... Kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me :) The more you respond to them the more they are going to keep doing it.....just a thought

[Your Average WoW Player]

I gave up after it turned into a Chuck Norris discussion, with people quoting Chuck Norris Facts from the site of the same name. I flipped it on to find a Scholo group, then I flipped it off again.

Edit: If there is ONE thing I like about it, it's that fact that I can plaster Ninja Looters much easier for the realm to see.

[craigbeere]

Some other MMORPGs have an LFG flag, it works well.
COH has this with an extra feature, you can optionally say what you are looking for (looking for mission, looking for badges, looking to level). The problem is, not all players look. I get random tells about one every couple of hours "want to grp plz". On the plus side, it lets me reply with some scathing comment about "why don't you right-click on my name and look at the little blue writing there, you can read, can't you?". *evil laugh*

My personal tactic of dealing with the LFG channel was to do lots of reporting. This was followed by the realisation that it didn't seem to do anything. The same names were still dribbling on about Chuck Norris the next day. My current tactic is to use an addon which does not display messages in the LFG channel unless they contain some predetermined strings (like LFG, LFM, Mara). Search the UI sites for "spam" and you'll find plenty of mods. It's just a pity that I have to download a 3rd-party piece of software to cover for other players' misuse of the tool.

Spam in LFG is just like spam in email. Just as you should never reply to email, you should never respond to spammers in the channel with anything more than a polite "Please take the non-LFG stuff to a private channel". Any more and you're just fanning the flames. Heck, even that one statement is inflammatory but at least now you can honestly report them for "misuse of channel continuing after being asked not to".

My perfect solution would be for Blizzard to hire people to continually monitor the LFG channel on a server, handing out instant 2 hour bans to violators. Eventually people would learn. The cost to Blizzard would be wages for people to monitor the channels on some or all of the servers for a couple of weeks.

Cheers
Craig

[arcamedes]

I have lasted since it became a part of the game lol. I think this is mostly because I'm so hell bent on grinding to 60 I rarely look at the chat box, unless of course It's a guildie wanting help for something, but other than that I forget it's there. Plus at 2 or 3 in the morning killing Scourge in EPL it's kind of entertaining to read the stupid things people will say while I give my fingers a rest.

[nebby]

Thank you all for this shining moment and always loves to my homeboy Hakkar, God of Blood through him all things are possible (messy and gross but possible)!

umm, can I say something?



eeewwwwww.

oh ya, and one more thing: I disabled the LFG, General, yell, and trade channels months ago. Guild groups FTW. Just remember: PUGs are evil. The design of demented, sadistic people in the bowels of BLizzards real-life dungeons. There can be no other explanation.


and one more thing: hiya Cy!!!!:wave:

[rgirty]

I noticed the LFG channel is now pretty heavily moderated and the general chatting is all but gone, very useful on my server now. however i have noticed that general chat in IF is full of the norris now.

[Robba]

No chuck noris, on my realm and lfg channel goes oke now sometimes spam most people like to spam on saturdays and sundays :P
i like the global channel

[Aerath]

and one more thing: hiya Cy!!!!:wave:

Oh - you made the switch as well ? :)

[bwirum]

The lfg channel has calmed down quite a bit since it came out. I still slid it over to it's own pane and plan on keeping it there, but at least it's serving its purpose now. Even tho it's a halfass solution.

[Unubis]

I still put it on every now and then to see if theres any groups going that I might want to join. The majority of the time it's off though.

The 2 realms I play on seem to be very bad for spam. Shattered Hand (EU) seems to have alot of 13 year old swedish kids having arguments, and Aszune (EU) seems to have people flaming each other in english and just talking crap all day. Its ok during the morning / afternoon, but as soon as the time comes for schools to finish, it just goes mad.

I created a horde alt on Azsune the other day (first horde char after a year of playing, a nice change), and I must say its alot quieter and a bit more mature. Im not sure if thats down to all the younglings wanting to be characters from LOTR or that amount of horde on the server is lower, meaning theres less people to talk rubbish in the channel.

I think its a good change. You can switch it off when you want to grind in peace, and turn it on when you are actively looking for a group.

[Vindictive]

5 minutes after the server came up from maintenance.

I didn't leave it but I turned off LookingForGroup on my chat window. Means I can spam /4 with Macros when I need to do anything in particular.