How to Play World of Warcraft With Friends (2024)

After more than 15 years, WoW is still one of the top MMORPGs on the market. With gameplay heavily focused on character progression and rich lore, many players test their mettle in the world of Azeroth. However, playing WoW by yourself can be a tedious and lonely ordeal. The true strength in WoW, or any MMO for that matter, is the game’s social aspect that enhances the enjoyment by having friends along for the ride.

In this article, we’ll provide more details on how WoW can be played with friends and what benefits group play brings you.

How to Play World of Warcraft With Friends?

World of Warcraft can be more about socializing, spending time with friends, and meeting new people than playing the actual game. In general, there are three types of group play you can partake in:

• Befriending other players: You can add new people you encounter on your WoW journey to your friend list. Doing so allows you to track their progress and form larger groups more easily.
• Grouping up: Players can temporarily band together to defeat a stronger enemy or finish a challenging questline. You don’t necessarily need to have WoW friends to join a group, as you can simply join up with players who are nearby.
• Guilds: Guilds are the end-stage of interplayer interaction. Each guild is an ongoing group of many players that share a common goal or interest. If you’ve started to play WoW with a few of your friends, you can form a guild and expand your in-game social group.

Guilds vary wildly, from small groups to business-like endeavors that span the entire region. Generally, there are three main guild types:

• Casual guilds focus on the fun aspect of the game and are more generous towards newer players who have yet to unlock end-game content. They may have an application process to decide whether someone will be a good fit.
  
• Raid guilds have players that have reached the maximum (or nearly maximum) level and want to focus solely on looting dungeon instances. Their competitive nature means that players are aligned less based on personality and more on the skill, experience, and gear available to them. Raid guilds also use the DKP system to distribute loot fairly across the raiding party.
  
• PvP guilds solely focus on arena matches and Player-vs-Player battlegrounds. They can have some social aspect to them but are similar to raid guilds in that they primarily look at character’s loadout and abilities to see how it fits their plan and strategy.
  

If you play WoW with a few friends, the easiest way is to have everyone start in the same region and faction (Alliance or Horde). That way you’re closer to one another and can form a group quicker. Once you do, you can join forces to tackle the increasingly challenging quests and eventually establish a guild of your own.

How to Talk to Players in World of Warcraft

You can use the in-game chat to talk to other nearby players, or you can send messages to people privately.

Private messages are called “whispers.” You can whisper to other people by pressing “Enter” to open your chat, type “/whisper” (or “/tell,” “/t,” or “/w”) and their username, then type in the message you want to send. If you’re already conversing with them in chat, you can click on their name and the game will automatically whisper to them. Alternatively, you can use the reply function to reply to the last whisper you received (“/r” or press the R key), which doesn’t need a username. Whispers display as pink in the chat.

If you want to talk to players in your vicinity, you can use either the “say” or the “yell” commands. The only difference between them is how far your message will travel. A say (“/s”) can be seen by players who are within 60 yards of your character, while a yell (“/y”) can be seen up to 400 yards away. These are also the only way to communicate with players of opposing factions.

Groups can also use dedicated group chats to communicate with one another. A party chat message starts with “/p” while raid members can use “/ra” to talk to other members, for example.

You can use the “/chat” command to pull up a list of all available chat commands in-game.

Alternatively, you can use your friend list to communicate to players outside of the game. Once you open the social tab, you can click on the player to bring up a chat and send messages outside of WoW. This can be especially useful if you want messages to stick around when you close the game.

How to Convince People to Play World of Warcraft

Convincing your friends to play WoW with you can be a tougher challenge than you initially might think. The game is quite old at this point, so new players have less of an incentive to join, considering how many players have sunk hundreds of hours (and dollars) into the game already.

One of the best ways to approach friends to join you in your adventures in Azeroth is to explain what the game is about and invite them to try the free tutorial. WoW allows anyone to play up to character level 20 with no time limits. While the tutorial explains the basics pretty well, it doesn’t deliver on the depth of late-game content well.

For that reason, consider sending your friends links to popular WoW streams or videos. If they see how enjoyable the game can be once they’ve fully leveled up, they may have a stronger incentive to try it out.

We don’t recommend forcing people to play the game with you, which will only strain your relationship. If you want to find other people to play with, consider looking for players in-game to join your group or find a guild that aligns with your goal and gameplay.

Additional FAQ

How Do You Add Friends in World of Warcraft?

You can use WoW’s social feature to add your friends to your friend list and have a quick overview of currently-online friends and their locations:

• Press “O” while in-game to open WoW’s social tab.

• Click the “Add Friend” button on the bottom-left of the friend list.

• You can enter either your friend’s current character name or their Battle.net tag (the name with the # and numbers in it). If you enter a character name in the friend list, you can only track the character and whether they are online or not. However, if you add the Battle.net tag, you can see when your friend is online in other games or playing other WoW characters instead.

How Do You Recruit in World of Warcraft?

WoW also has a dedicated referral system that helps new players get into the game quicker, while giving bonuses to the player that introduced them to WoW. You can get various cosmetic rewards, and up to four months of free game time for your account if your friends play for a total of 12 months.

For every three months, they subscribe after those initial 12, you’ll receive a bonus month of playtime. If you have multiple recruits, their playtime will accumulate for faster reward acquisition.

Here’s how to recruit a friend:

• Open WoW.

• Log into the game.

• Press “O” to enter the social menu.

• Click the “Recruit a friend” tab.

• Click “Recruitment.”

• Copy your recruitment link and share it with your friends.

You can use the same link up to four times, and you’ll need to generate a new one afterward (you can make a new link every 30 days).

You can recruit friends even if they already have an account, provided the account is less than seven days old. If they haven’t paid for the game in the past 24 months, they can also be recruited within the first seven days of coming back into the game.

Follow this link for more information and a list of rewards.

Is World of Warcraft Played Online?

Yes, WoW is an online-only game, and you need an internet connection to log into your account. There are no offline versions or servers.

Do You Need Friends to Play World of Warcraft?

You don’t need to play with friends. After you’ve created a character, you can follow quests and progress through the game with minimal assistance. At a later point in the game, you will most likely meet other available players to group up for more challenges. You can even make new friends while playing the game!

Why Can’t I See My Friend in World of Warcraft?

In more populated areas, the game separates larger groups of players into distinct game instances to reduce server load. If your friend happens to be sorted into a separate instance, you won’t be able to see them in-game.

You will still be able to send messages to one another using Battle.net’s integrated messaging system. If you join the same party, one of you will be brought over to the other one’s instance, and you’ll be able to play together.

If you and your friend are in different factions, you can’t join the same party. You can ask a member of the opposing faction to enter the same party as your friend and hope that brings them over to your instance.

The game servers will occasionally merge instances when a player population drops.

Is World of Warcraft Friendly?

With the most recent expansion, Shadowlands, WoW has overhauled the leveling system to make the new player experience smoother and progression more enjoyable. From a gameplay perspective, WoW is one of the more newbie-friendly games out there, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll be a walk in the park.

If you’re wondering whether the userbase is friendly, there are always good and bad apples, just like in any group. WoW allows you to mute people you don’t particularly like, and most guilds have a low tolerance for troublemakers. If you want to enjoy PvE content, you’ll have more success getting along with more people.

Get Wow-ed With World of Warcraft

With the most recent expansion, WoW has resurged in popularity once again, and new players have joined the fold in the endless struggle for victory. Playing WoW alone is seldom dull, but teaming up with friends and new acquaintances can be a much better use of your free time.

How many of your friends play WoW? Did you recruit a friend? Let us know in the comment section below.