LFG time

How many of you actually use the LFG tool? Before they added it in all we had was a chat channel which at first went with the zone you were in, but now it is server wide and really annoying to be in. I know the reason they made a tool was to make it easier on us, but is it really? Sure it was annoying standing around in Ironforge trying to find an instance group and having to filter through all the spam and everyone else also looking for groups, but it was still pretty easy. Now we still have the channel, and it's still annoying, but I think the LFG tool is too hard for some people to use. It seems like every time I actually try to use it I find nobody else looking to do the instance I want, sometimes there are one or two people in there, but the majority of the time it's empty. I think the reason for this is that we were used to the old way of just spamming LFG a bunch of times and hoping for people that wanted to join you.

Now at first I thought it would only be a matter of time before people started getting the hang of using the LFG tool, but while there are more people using it, the majority seem to be spamming in the LFG channel still. I think the only way to get the LFG tool to function as it was meant to would be to take away the LFG channel altogether, forcing everyone to use the tool. This would pose the problem of making many players angry though. People don't want to be forced to use this tool when they already know and use the chat channel, they're already set in their ways and I'm sure someone on each server would create a LFG chat channel on their own and it wouldn't change anything except that the new channel is player created rather than part of the game.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this, and at first I wasn't sure either, but I think my point is that people need to start trusting the LFG tool that we have been given. The few times it actually worked for me were great. I could see levels and classes of other people that wanted to do the same instance without having the manually check their info, and there was no sifting through LFG and trade spamming to find what I was looking for. I really do think the use of this tool would make putting together a PUG much easier. I'm always whispered asking to heal instances when I'm on my priest, and I'm sure if everyone who wanted to do that particular instance were queued up for it in the LFG tool it would be easier to find the class you are looking for that actually wants to go, without having to look up every priest on a the moment and asking them one by one.

Moral of the story is everyone use the LFG tool as your primary mode of finding a group, then if you don't find what you need you can resort to the LFG chat, not the other way around. This will make finding groups faster and easier for everyone, and it will keep you sane.