Blizzard has informed players that they should not expect an automated dungeon finder when the World of Warcraft Classic Wrath Of The Lich King expansion launches later this year.
When the Wrath Of The Lich King expansion was revealed to be returning to World Of Warcraft Classic last week (April 19), lead producer Holly Longdale made a point that the team had no plans to include the dungeon finder feature in the re-release, saying it’s “not a good fit for our community.” The feature was included in the original release of the expansion, which automatically assigns random players to a specific dungeon, teleporting them there.
Speaking to PCGamesN, software engineer Kevin Vigue said that the argument against the feature is that it erodes the MMO’s social aspect. The team says that a “large part” of what they call the “core of Classic” is the social aspect. “I’ve had people who I met in a random dungeon run who have become lifelong friends,” Vigue said to PCGamesN. “For me, that’s something that Classic excels at, and a lot of that comes from how you meet other people.”
According to Vigue, the decision to remove the automatic dungeon finder from World of Warcraft Classic was “relatively unanimous.”
“Would it feel Classic to have that automated Dungeon Finder that was added in the 3.3 patch of Wrath Of The Lich King? We decided that’s not the game we’re making.” In place of the dungeon finder, the team has “a bunch of revamps and a bunch of improvements planned for the ‘Looking for Group’ tool.”
“We want to make that tool better so that players can still find groups and find like-minded people who want to run the same content as them, but do so in a way that feels more Classic, still has that social element, still has you travelling to the dungeon, and having conversations along the way because that’s what makes Classic distinct and special.”
