World of Warcraft integrates Discord into the game’s chat system. Guilds especially benefit from this.
The upcoming Patch 12.1 for World of Warcraft will bring a variety of new features and improvements. There will also be some convenience features and better ways to stay in touch with your friends and guildmates. Perhaps the biggest change: The Discord integration. From now on, the guild chat and Discord will be connected – at least if you want it to be.
How does it work? In Patch 12.1, you can link your WoW account with Discord. If you have a Discord server for your guild, you can also connect a Discord channel to your guild channel. Then, messages in one channel will be duplicated in the other.
For instance, if someone asks in the guild chat if anyone wants to run a dungeon tonight, they could receive answers from colleagues and friends who can only respond via Discord.
Discord does not replace the guild chat, but complements it
What does it look like in-game? Your guild leader (or officers with appropriate permissions) can configure how this connection should look. This means that either all chat messages will appear in the same chat (that is, both Discord and in-game guild messages in the guild chat), or there will be a new “Discord” guild channel where all messages sent from Discord will go, but where players from the game can also write.
Why is Blizzard doing this? Even the developers of World of Warcraft must have realized over time that the guild chat has lost its function over the years. What used to be the primary platform for communication within a guild is now only rarely the case.
The vast majority of guilds, communities, and friend groups have their own Discord server and communicate there. Typically, this is where they already plan when to go into a raid, which dungeons they will visit in the evening, or whether there will be a nice campfire RP in the guild leader’s front yard.
Do you have to use this? No. If you do not want to use this feature, you do not have to. Ultimately, the decision lies with your guild leadership regarding whether this feature will be activated in the guild. If you do not link your account with Discord, you cannot use the feature either. You can read all messages from others, but your own messages will not be transmitted from the guild chat to Discord and vice versa.
Cortyn says: I find the step logical and reasonable. Over the past few years, the guild chat has been used less and less in my guild – actually only to send messages within the guild that not everyone in the current raid group should read or occasionally for a short “Does anyone want to join Dungeon X?”
The vast majority of communication has already taken place on Discord. Whether it’s about sharing screenshots, memes, or simply planning the next season – that happens on Discord because it’s easier to refer back to and you do not have to be actively playing to discuss it.
But what do you think? Do you find the Discord integration good and sensible because everyone is using it anyway? Or should World of Warcraft strengthen its own systems instead of making more connections with other services? The new patch brings not only Discord integration but also a drastic improvement for raids – which will be much more rewarding.
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