WoW and outquesting EverQuest

[Qhue]

I recall back, more than 6 years past, when EQ buzz was getting started talking to people I knew about "EverQuest" and how the name referred to the nature of a persistent yet ever-changing online fantasy world. "Unlike in a single player game the quest never ends!" and back then I believed that was true having witnessed the great experiment in social engineering that was UO and having also witnessed it go down in flames of futility as the virtues espoused by Lord British were easily forgotten in the face of such notable quotes as "Your PP or your HP".

Well in a very real way the eventual product of 989 Studios has taken the "Ever" part of its moniker to heart as it continually reinvents itself through a series of lackluster expansions each one providing tantalizing clues to an overall story that never ends. Not that there is a lack of trying on the part of the players but rather that not ONE expansion released for EQ has ever had an actual ending that resolved anything or made one bit of sense. Its less like Lord of the Rings (an epic quest with triumphant noble heros) and more like the Wheel of Time (an epic page count of meandering prose that just will not fucking stop already). A few diehards in EQ still undertake quests for the thrill of the actual exercise, but more often than not the quests are viewed only in terms of material reward and done, or not done, based on a player's internal Risk vs Reward determination. The game goes on, but the Quest part...well unless its the Quest for Phat lEwtz there isn't much interest.

This brings us to the World of Warcraft. Here is an established gaming franchise with a robust history of excellent gaming as well as engaging plotlines. That consumers still bemoan the decision to shelve the Warcraft Adventures game (which told the tale of events between Warcrafts 2 and 3) because they wanted to know the story contained therein is evidence that Warcraft has a loyal and very motivated following. What is even more remarkable is that even the complete cancellation of a game in the Warcraft line doesn't stop that game from becoming part of the official history of the franchise. There is constant reference in Warcraft 3 to details that take place in the game that was never finished...so much so that its as if we skipped into an alternate universe where everyone but us played the game and understands all the inside references to it.

I say all this because Blizzard is a company that "gets it". They understand that people might be drawn in via pretty pictures and base eyecandy, but what keeps them coming back for more and fiercely loyal is the meat of the material. The well tested game, the solid easy-to-use interface, and the rich storytelling. They saw how successful EQ and its ilk were and knew that they could do it one better...by having the gameplay that was as addictive as any other MMORPG but that also fed into a self-perpetuating storyline that can keep people hooked.

The way this works in World of Warcraft are the quests. There arent just a few big quests that you do to pass the time when not in a group or to open up some uber-zone for item farmage...these are the body of the game itself. From the time you first login and see a golden '!' over someone's head you are doing quests.

These quests are how the story of the game is told through your actions in this game world. There are plots and mysteries around every corner and without fail you will be infolved in them. Sure you can choose not to read the various quest texts, but you have to wait until the quest text is all typed out on the interface window before you can hit accept AND the quest text tells you what you need to do in order to get the phat lewtz ya want...so you end up reading it anyway. Once you allow your brain to start digesting some of what is going on its very hard not to get drawn into the world. These quests move you around the game, they send you places and expose you to content that might otherwise go unnoticed. With the All-Alliance push that we are in right now you are inundated with quests from all sorts of different areas. I have a full quest-listing right now (it only lets you accept so many quests before your log is full and you have to clear some out by either giving up on them or finishing them) and there are many golden (!) that I simply can't undertake right now until I get a few more of these cleared out. When people are looking to get a group together they advertise by what quest they want to do. Most of them are broken up into very manageable chunks suitable for a couple hours adventuring at the most. While doing these quests you end up grinding exp, but it doesnt seem like you are grinding exp because you are questing! if you find yourself up against a brick wall with one quest or lacking the group to do something then you can simply switch quests to something more solo-oriented, or move to a different area of similar level and undertake some of the quest backlog you have there. It makes for a fiendishly addictive game when you have these nicely ordered compartmentalized goals codified there for you on this quest window. Its a things-to-do list only its dedicated to maximizing your personal enjoyment. Before you realize it you have not only finsihed a quest, you've finished a whole quest sequence, seen every inch of a zone and been sent off to a couple different areas to continue along nascent plotlines. The zone coverage in WoW is so complete that I often find myself contemplating a zone map and wondering "why haven't I gotten a quest to go over there yet??" Sometimes you may end up coming back to a zone later on in your career and discover that just when you thought you had done it all, its all new again. Its a testimony to good game design that one single zone in WoW can offer more hours of actual adventuring and questing than an entire expansion of EverQuest, and it does so in a virtual area that isnt really that large....its just very efficiently used.

I am really looking forward to playing a second character at least because there are entire plotlines and areas I simply didnt get to with my current alliance character. I reluctantly abandon the quests when they turn grey in my quest window and silently vow to make sure I cover that sequence when I level up the next time. Quests ARE the game in World of Warcraft. Powergamers quest, casual gamers quest, soloers, dual pairs and full blown permanent groups all quest. You are never left hanging without a purpose unless you intentionally ignore all the big bright signs around you that point "This way to fun...come on!!"

Can you tell I like it?

[Lenardo]

NICELY written.

well put, my quest log currently has 1 spot available- because i traveled over the weekend

took me 3 hrs overall but i made it from ironforge to stormwind.

yes it is only 2 zones over but ONE of the connecting zones is CLOSED..thus i had to go over 2 continents and 9 zones to get there...died 11 times otw but it was fun to me. i also picked up 5 routes and found alot of things i never knew was there - inzones i had already "explored"


the barrens and the rachet area is still my favorite spot in game atm


cannot wait to see what these life quests are like

[Olio]

When LoY came out in EQ they added in the new froglok race. At that time they went through and retrofited all of the newbie zones to have quests for new armor. Here for example is the quest list associated with Gukta. Of course you can point out that noone cares about the newbie quests in EQ. And this is rightly so. You can go to the bazaar and get gear 10x better just by selling off low level tradeskill items. Besides, it's much faster to simply ignore all that.

Sure WoW may have the quest rewards be more integrated into the game. In particular they can be more LDoNish in nature in that you get a little adventure to do that's also decent xp. But you must consider the posibility that taking 4 of your friends and killing higher level mobs is better xp than questing (at the very least the travel overhead will be gone.) If that is the case then noone will give a damn about any of this fantastic content within a month of the game's release. They'll be as exciting as making a new froglok and going back to do those little armor quests in EQ.

So tell me. What did the people who were first to level 30 in the beta do to get there? And why would I want to go back and spend time on this content after I were already level 30?

Olio

[Trezl]

If you want to just power your way through to get the best gear, then go do it. Content is for those that want to enjoy a fantasy world.

I don't play RPGs for the items I will get out of them. I play them for the story. The problem comes when the loot is emphasized over the story.

Also, when I was low leveled in EQ, I didn't care about my gear. I didn't care about leveling as fast as possible to 50. I cared about enjoying the game. It was after I got to 50 (then 60, 65) that the loot became the driving force. I already knew so much about the game world that going slowly a 2nd time for my 2nd character was not worth it any longer. For that, I camped the twink loot and leveled as quick as I could.

I want to go back to the way I played EQ originally. Lost in a world, not looking for the best min/max combination of loot I could find to make me more uber

What looks great about WoW is I believe it will cater to both crowds. If your motivation is high end content, and raiding, I have no doubt Blizzard will come through for you. Tigole isn't there to sit on his hands and do nothing. But for me, I'm going to take my time and enjoy the story because I have equal confidence that Blizzard is going to make that part fun and not just a "grind to the real game". If they do it real well, you'll be able to quest your way to the top and actually fully understand why you are killing the dragon in the dungeon (you've been tracking a quest to this point for 50+ levels )

[ketsui]

Originally posted by Olio
And why would I want to go back and spend time on this content after I were already level 30?

Olio

Anyone know if when you solve a quest your list shows a solved quest? A previous RPG of mine I played we would compete on who could solve more quests, of course sharing quest info was forbidden and the game was small enough where they could erase characters who cheated. My point is can we compete on this game to complete all the quests?

Ketsui

[Xitix]

I am going to take a sort of opposing view here. Quests are good but weighting advancement too heavily in favour of them probably isn't. I am just not heavily into questing beyond a few that spark my interest due to the story behind them or running into them randomly. A long line of do a task get pellet quests to introduce a player to the game and the local area don't hold my attention for very long. I quickly want to strike out on my own and explore this world I find myself in. Rewarding and enoyable should apply just as much to normal adventuring as to questing. In eq the balance is too far one way and my guess is too far the other way wouldn't be much better in the long run.

[Ravensign]

How's about this for some context generation? What about making Quests the only source of xp and loot?

The only way to advance would be killing in some kind of rp/lore context.

At level 30, you would have to do a couple nights worth of crawling in one of 3 particular dungeons to level to 31. Maybe the dungeon you decided would influence the level 31 to 32 quest.

Eliminates grind, re-stores a sense of in-game purpose. I dont know if its feasable, its just an idea. Obviously developers would have to constantly be making large over wrough quests to move peopel along.

Its just an idea, I'm not married to it.

[Elgonn]

Everquest always was ironically named. So far WoW really has me addicted to doing quests and having fun completing them. Although I would have to say that most of the collection quests certainly don't seem to help move the story along. They seem more like extra filler.

Originally posted by Ravensign
What about making Quests the only source of xp and loot?

I doubt you could get this to work in a multiplayer game. The only game that had a theme in this vein was Mythica. Never know how it would have turned out.

Besides not sure if everyone agrees but sometimes I like the grind.

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by ketsui
Anyone know if when you solve a quest your list shows a solved quest?

No completed list. Although there are some UI mods that do it. But whether or not that type of Mod will be legal come end of beta is unknown. Most likely though since it just logs information.

[Edit] For the record stop making fun of WoT. It isn't that bad...

[Kreugen]

I never spent a moment on "grind" xp - I was always working on a quest or ten.

[Shinrai]

Interesting observation and a good write up. It's also valid to say that even if the item reward becomes dated the XP and story remain viable, unlike EQ quests that have minimal XP or story. And yes, along the way the lore should suck you into the world.

There's no reason to make quests the only form of XP. Basically any challenge you undergo should generate XP, that's what its measuring after all. Why limit the possibilities to only one facet?

It occurred to me that part of the reason WoW may really be 2nd generation is if it has heavy use of scripting / AI for quests and gaming. EQ partly went to massive mobs with huge DPS because there ability to script dynamic events was marginal.

The interesting counter-examples are those EQ "stories" which have lore but no real connection to the game. Likewise the newbie quests, which I generally do, are marginally successful in that they give your early levelling a purpose. However they are very basic collection quests and extremely illogical. Your going to make me some armor out of two snake fangs, a bat wing and a short beer? This I have to see. They also tend to have poorly balanced challenges and rarities mixed in.

[Xaen]

From what im seeing.. The quickest way to level up IS by doing questing. Why? Because not only do you get to kill a ton of mobs that are at your level, or above it, you get an assload of XP when you're done with it. You're funneling in XP from two sources instead of just going to camp somewhere with a friend or four. If the quests didn't give such decent xp and loot, then yeah, you might have people just grinding it straight to the top. And I guess for some people, thats their preferred method regardless.

The closest I can compare this to, is the quests in Diablo. There were tons and tons of them, and you always saw those caves on the way to some other quest, so you take a side quest while you've got other quests waiting and you have a blast doing it. WoW is like this, but ten times better. Where ever you go, you can literally get wrapped up in dozens of quests. Running down a road to a mine to finish one, you might see some buzzard off to the left that you'll need for some other quest, so off you go.. 5 hours later you're still not at the mines - But you've finished off maybe 2-3 unrelated quests that you just happened upon.

I love it. I so fucking love it.

[Star8urst]

But you must consider the posibility that taking 4 of your friends and killing higher level mobs is better xp than questing (at the very least the travel overhead will be gone.)

I'm not in the beta, but from what I read, part of the quest reward is a nice amount of experience which makes questing faster leveling than just exp grind. You also get items which help you gear up better than what you get from normal exp grind.

So it seems that getting 4 of your friends and quest is actualy better than just getting 4 of your friends and kill mobs for exp. Also some quest make you kill higher level mobs too, so seems like it's a win win system.

[Iannis]

Originally posted by Ravensign
How's about this for some context generation? What about making Quests the only source of xp and loot?

The only way to advance would be killing in some kind of rp/lore context.

At level 30, you would have to do a couple nights worth of crawling in one of 3 particular dungeons to level to 31. Maybe the dungeon you decided would influence the level 31 to 32 quest.

Eliminates grind, re-stores a sense of in-game purpose. I dont know if its feasable, its just an idea. Obviously developers would have to constantly be making large over wrough quests to move peopel along.

Its just an idea, I'm not married to it.

Ironically, the latest expansion for DaoC was a pve expansion, and it's got the seed of this idea in it. It's obviously not pure, but what they basically did was add a set of "AA's" that you quest for, not grind for.

Obvious annoying factors aside (pve requirements in a pvp game of this scope are pretty jacktarded), i think it was done about as well as can be reasonably expected.

The trouble is that it turns into a grind itself, just of a different color. I think to keep it truly interactive and fresh you'd need an army of content authors pumping this out in weekly serials. Basically, they'd have to pump content faster than it could be experienced (and spoiled). And i really just don't see that ever being practical.

It's a hella good idea tho. If someone could do it, I'd pay upwards of a dollar to play that game!

[Bizanich]

Originally posted by Qhue
and back then I believed that was true having witnessed the great experiment in social engineering that was UO and having also witnessed it go down in flames of futility as the virtues espoused by Lord British were easily forgotten in the face of such notable quotes as "Your PP or your HP".

?

Blasphemy . UO was an incredible game before Trammel. And I don't think that quote was from UO....you had gold, not plat in UO .

UO had an actual community, full of villains and heroes who ran "good" guilds and towns. I give as evidence two blasts from the past.




I want to do this in WoW Sing, Orc, sing!

As for Quests..I like Quests, but I hope they don't go overboard. At a certain point in FFXI, you need many groups of people to complete your quest . Not as easy to do compared to flagging/backflagging.....