WoW Forever is apparently not satisfied with making you talk to strangers. It would also quite like you to remember who they were afterwards.
The beta now includes a fully functioning Recent Allies system that automatically records players you have grouped with while adventuring through Azeroth. Instead of that helpful Warrior from Westfall vanishing into the population forever, Forever remembers their name, class, level, where you met and what the two of you were actually doing together.
If they are online later, you can invite them again directly from the Recent Allies window. You can even pin useful players so they remain near the top of the list rather than slowly disappearing beneath several evenings of questionable dungeon groups.
It sounds like a small social feature. In WoW Forever, it may be one of the systems that makes the entire project work.
Forever Remembers More Than Just a Character Name
As shown in the currently available Recent Allies interface, every player you group with can leave behind a small record containing their name, current level, class, location and the activity you completed together.
That context is important.
There is a substantial difference between seeing an unfamiliar name and seeing the Priest who healed your Deadmines run two nights ago. Instead of trying to remember whether “Mightysword Something” was brilliant, terrible or merely the person who repeatedly jumped into lava, the game gives you enough information to reconstruct the encounter.
Players who are currently online also receive a one-click invite option. If somebody proves particularly useful, they can be pinned to keep them visible.
And perhaps, eventually, promoted to the actual friends list.
This Is the Other Half of Blizzard’s Mob Tagging Decision
Recent Allies makes considerably more sense when viewed alongside Blizzard’s controversial decision to keep Classic-style contested mob tagging in WoW Forever.
Forever does not allow every nearby player to receive credit simply because they attacked the same quest enemy. Blizzard wants two people waiting for the same mob to have a reason to form a group instead.
That creates friction. Recent Allies tries to make sure the interaction does not become completely disposable.
You meet somebody because both of you need the same quest target. You group. An hour later you split up. Two zones later, perhaps that same player appears again and the game reminds you that you already fought together.
Now they are not quite a stranger anymore.
That is the experiment Blizzard seems increasingly interested in with Forever. The inconvenience creates the first interaction. Recent Allies gives that interaction a chance to survive.
Realmless WoW Needs a Way to Create Familiar Faces
The system may be even more important because WoW Forever is abandoning traditional realms.
Old WoW communities partly formed because populations were limited. You kept seeing the same guilds, tanks, crafters and PvP troublemakers because everybody inhabited the same server. Forever instead places players inside much larger ruleset-based ecosystems such as Normal, PvP and Roleplaying.
That solves the old problem of accidentally choosing a dying realm, but it creates another one: how do you preserve familiarity inside a much larger population?
Recent Allies looks like part of Blizzard’s answer.
The game cannot guarantee that you will naturally recognize every useful player you encounter, so it gives your memory a little assistance.
It Fits the Version of WoW Forever Is Trying to Build
Our WoW Forever beginner’s guide already recommends grouping when other players need the same objectives, because Forever deliberately preserves situations where cooperation is simply easier than pretending everyone around you is decorative scenery.
Recent Allies turns that recommendation into something more interesting than temporary efficiency.
The same philosophy runs through many of the changes collected in our complete guide to what is new in WoW Forever. Blizzard is modernizing technical systems aggressively while being much more cautious about removing inconveniences that once made players depend on one another.
Not every random party will become a friendship. Most probably will not.
But occasionally you find a good tank. Or a healer who does not panic. Or somebody who also thinks running the same dungeon again at midnight is perfectly sensible.
Old WoW relied on you remembering those people yourself.
Forever has decided to take notes.
Post a Comment