The general opinion seems to be that meeting stones are worthless because they create unbalanced groups.

It is my understanding of the mechanics of meeting stones that the system’s first funcion is to assemble a group out of an assortment of classes (tank, healer, etc). However, if you aren’t giving the meeting stones variety to work with, obviously it has to form groups out of what it has available.

Let me get at this a different way for you. If you have twenty players, chances are you could form at least two fairly balanced teams out of that assortment, whatever it may be.

However if five rogues and a warlock sign up for the meeting stone, and that’s it… well, guess what your group is going to turn out to be?

The system could be better, but it’s not broken. People just aren’t making use of it.

Also, you don’t have to run all the way to the instance to get listen on a meeting stone. You can get listed for dungeons your level from most innkeepers. And since you should be logging out in an inn or city anyway, how much more convenient do you need it?

Here’s what I’d like to see, though:

You go into a town/city and find an innkeeper (or perhaps a specialized NPC) and when you speak to him, he gives you a list of quests that are currently in your log. You can select five of them to be flagged as LFG.

Other people do the same thing.

If two people flag the same quest, you get some sort of notification like “Hey, this guy needs to do the same quest as you do. Would you like to group with him?”.

Right now the only way I get groups for quests is if I happen to run into someone in the same area that looks like they’re doing what I’m there to do. But even still, half the time they are just finishing up the quest, or whatnot.

You can solo most quests in WoW. However occasionally you work yourself up to those red quests that you either have to group on, or wait ten levels to finish. Not to mention the elite (non-instance) quests you come across.

Grinding also goes a lot smoother with a couple of companions…