MMO "grouping tools" are things like World of Warcraft's Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder tools, which automatically group you with other players -- often from different servers -- to tackle content. A relatively recent addition to MMOs, grouping tools have become a divisive topic, with partisans on both sides predictably acting all partisan-y.

 

And I'm no different. Because this isn't a debate. MMO grouping tools do not do the myriad of bad things its critics attribute to it. Period.

 

There's no body of empirical evidence proving this has ever happened. And even if it did, this is a bogus excuse; if a particular server's community disintegrated after the introduction of a grouping tool, that community wasn't terribly strong to begin with. Not to mention the much bigger community cross-server grouping tools opens up. I've even made friends with players on other servers; imagine that!

 

GOOD. There's this sad train of thought amongst MMO elitists that soloists should somehow be second-class, that somehow true gaming is the realm of the cooperative group. A laughable sentiment at best, but all too prevalent. Personally, MMOs are "just for fun" for me; if I'm going to take a game seriously, it has to be well made and something I can succeed at on my own (speaking of which, play Skullgirls, it's awesome). But there's still something about MMOs that draws me in, and if no real life friend is on hand to help me tackle content, there's nothing wrong with using grouping tools to find other like-minded players and, um, PLAY. We don't have to socialize: believe it or not, it's still "multiplayer" without that.

 

Irresponsible players do that all on their own. They've done so before grouping tools, and will do so after, until the Earth falls into the Sun. And beyond. (There are like eleventy billion more arguments against, none of them valid, so I'll stop listing them here.)

 

MMO grouping tools have not only done mountains of good for many players, they're also a glimpse of the genre's future. If you've played Star Wars: The Old Republic, you know that even within a distinct server, the various geographical locations are instanced to accommodate load. The game even lets you travel to another player's instance, should you party up with someone not in yours. And recently, Blizzard announced that WoW would be introducing cross-server zones, gathering the small populations in low level locations across multiple game servers and letting those players actually experience the "massively multiplayer" part of the game without needing a max level character.

 

A bold prediction, but one I'm confident about: soon, MMOs won't have server lists.

 

Players will log in and game servers will intelligently sort players into instances based on load, while allowing room to transfer, ensuring all players can see and interact with many others without issue. A feature akin to SW:TOR's instance switching will make grouping across instances simple, and the MMO community will take a big leap towards becoming truly global.

 

Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder, whatever SW:TOR, Guild Wars 2, Tera, and other MMOs call their respective grouping tools: they're not the enemy.

 

The enemy is backwards thinking. Abandon it, embrace progress, and look forward to broader communities and an easier time finding party members.

 

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Carlos Alexandre is a self-described handsome fat man. He ponders his entertainment, and you can find said ponderings on both his website and the podcast he co-hosts.