f13.net

So Blizzard is releasing an expansion this year which will raise the level cap to 70 and introduce a whole lot of new content.

This content, with a few exceptions such as the introduction of new races and the new access of the factions to Pallies and Shamen, is for players who have reached level 60: New talents, new skills and spells, new areas, flying mounts and dungeons.

Cool. I'm looking forward to it.

Blizzard also says that this expansion has taken too long, and they hope in the future that they have expansions out more often.

I have a question, and a worry or two:

Will future expansions follow the same route?

If they do will we get to a point where creating a new character and leveling him up to reach new content will be a grind? I'm planning to make a Blood Elf (Mage or Pallie) in the expansion but I am not looking forward to that stretch between level 20 and 60 where I have to do the same instances over and over again (I don't quest much, I've done them all already and find I *really* cannot stand most of the 'kill x' grind). I want to try out as much of a new experience as possible, I don't want to wade through the stuff I know by heart before I have to get to it.

How will this affect players new to the game in the future? All of a sudden you won't be able to deny there is a grind, and with every expansion it will get bigger and bigger. Will this turn people away?

As the level cap gets higher and higher will there be friction between those who just want to play at the cap and those who want more content in lower areas? Will blizzard cater to both these groups?

I don't really think (hope more like it) that they don't graft on another Tristfal/Silverpine for their new races and instead make them into full fledged zone progressions like the original races. Maybe a few new instances in whatever the mid-levels tend to be.

WoW is still probably the best game I've played (apart from EVE) where a new player can actually have a decent time. Battlegrounds are great fun (if you can avoid the twinks), all the quests are rather well crafted, and the lower instances are probably some of people's favorites. It'll be a grind at times, and it'll take a while to hit that level cap and do all the cool stuff there, but hopefully WoW can continue to do a decent job of being fun along the way.

Hopefully...

I'm a bit worried about this, too.

Expansions for previous MMOs (I'm recalling EQ specifically) tend to get slammed in the gaming rags if they only (or mainly) include content aimed at the top level players.  I've heard two major areas that the expansion will hit:  new level 1-10 zones for the new races, and new level 60-70 zones.  I haven't heard anything about new mid-level instances, or "now we're doubling the number of quests in all the existing zones" or anything at all about the mid-level game.  It's not going to be a huge deal for the newbies (who haven't seen the old stuff yet) or the super-hardcore (who are probably going to want to get back to raiding as soon as possible), but I can't help but think that a sizeable portion of their current population is going to roll an alt as one of the new races.  Then, when they get to level ten, they'll get some "well done, now report to the Barrens for more fun!" quest, and their eyes will glaze over.

I shudder to think of the number of level 19 Blood Elf Paladin twinks that will live in Warsong Gulch this winter.

Of course, maybe there's some big content for the mid levels that I just haven't heard about yet.  Who knows.  At the very least, they're going to have to throw in a few new quests so that the new races won't all be eternally stuck at "friendly" with their home cities.

I was under the impression the new BE/Draenei zones will go up to at least the 20ish level range before streaming into the old zones. I'm half certain I read it on the WoW Forums from a blue... of course said forums are still down :\

There are at least two zones each for Draenei and Blood Elves.  One is roughly 1-10, the other is roughly 10-20.  The 10-20 zones have an elite mob section as well.

I didn't realize this at first (silly me), but it's a big ripoff. Especially considering how long it took to make it. Everything about this expansion shows just how unimaginative and lazy Blizzard really is. Besides the two new races (which are just fluff in this context), this expansion merely adds new things to explore in the game, instead of new ways to explore it (and a big bulk of those things won't be seen by many people anyhow).

Those "things" come at a cost too: The 60-70 grind will be about as long as 1-60 (or twice as long as 50-60). You don't have to wait for another raise in the level cap to realize it's already grindy.

But of course, if you're one of those suckers who clamors for new MMO "content" (which, personally, I never understood), it'll be cake to you, I guess. So chomp away. I just don't want to hear any more bitching about EQ or ToA from now on. Or proclamations about how WoW is "so not grindy!!" -- Because it will only get worse (I shudder to think how bad it'll get once they finally implement Hero Classes).

P.S. What's a "Grundy" anyhow? Spellcheck is fighting with me.

Considering that is about.. what... Say as a reasonably fast player I level to 60 in 10 /played days, and I level to 20 in about... lets round up to 1.

So there is some new content for (at best) 10% of the way.

Yeah that hardly counts.

What does count is the new characters, the new main cities, and the new, hopefully, factions and faction related quests and such they bring in to the game, because they affect everyone and will remain important once you've past level 20. But unless they add content across the level ranges you've just going to feel shafted once you get past the new bit and have to go back and do the same quests youv'e already done before.

I'd like to see it get to the stage where there are more instances for lower levels, and more interesting quests. The more quality content you can get into the game the whole way from 1-70 will make the grind disappear, because at no point will you be thing stuff like "oh great another collection quest" or "oh great, nothing else to do but run SM again". If there's enoguh stuff that you can't do it all in one character then you'll get much less of a grind out of replaying. Currently it's when you get to around level 50 that you begin to have options in this regard, and from 60+, from what I see of the expansion details, there will be many options too.

But I think they could flesh out pre-50 a bit too, that way even if there isn't always new content  in every expansion at least there will be enough so you dont get bored of always doing the same thing.

A casual player probably gets through 1-20 in 2 or 3 days (at least that's what I've observed from myself and a few others).

That's definitely not 10% of the way though. With the expansion cap, 1-70 is like doing 1-60 now, but twice.

In the current game would you agree that 1-20 is about 10%, or less, of the time /played to level 60? That's all I meant. The numbers are obviously different for everyone.

Just some numbers:

A fast player gets to 60 in 10 /played days. So to get to 70 it'd be 20. A slow player is at least 50% slower than that. So call it 30 /played days to 70.

At 2 hours a night it would take them a year to reach the level cap. So if they were actually casual.. why would they ever buy the expansion? Or any future expansions?

I just hope the Blizzard people wake up from this EQ dream they're having a start thinking about these things. But of course it's kinda fucked down the whole leveling road already, levels are just a slippery slope into a grind and there's not much they will probably do now. I mean, not increasing the level cap beyond 70 would seem very unlikly, and what else can you do?

I'd like to see it stay at 70, and just have new content and fun things like the Arena, which could add a whole lot to the game without ruining what's already there, but then I've long accepted that WoW is not the game I want it to be so I don't expect much from it.

Yeah, I'd agree on that. Probably even less. I'd think that average/casual people could get to 1-60 in 15-20 days played.

I really can't express enough how disappointed I am that they're literally doubling it though.

Maybe I'm not seeing the link, but where has it been said that 60-70 will be as long as 1-60?  Or are you just guestimating?

I doubt Blizzard would abandon their quest-to-progress model.  So, that'd be 10 extra days played worth of new content/quests (Yes, I level fast.  Yes, that's with a non-twinked mount and tradeskills)?

For me, personally, that'd be great.  I don't have the time anymoreto raid and I really enjoyed the sub 60 portion of the game (questing/leveling/instancing with 2 buddies aint bad).   

Raising the cap doesn't bother me from a newbie point of view. Newbies really should be trying to enjoy the game on their way up and most people do have fun doing it. The EQ1 grind was a grind because you literally had to grind through it. With rested you never have to grind in WoW (without rested you need to grind some). It sometimes gets grindy when taking alts/rerolls through though, but I don't think that's an important concern.

What I hope they do is fill out some of the zones some more. Azshara really really needs more quests. The same goes for alliance hinterlands, and a few other zones that don't immediately pop up in my memory. Some of the zones also need to be tuned a little better and their quests a little less spread out both geographically and level wise. They could also add some more quests and bosses/drops to some of the instances on the way up like BFD and RFK/RFD, something that makes them more worth doing as right now they are very often skipped (I'd tentatively say the same for ULD, but it gives crazy-ass experience from quests, drops could be better though). While 1-60 is good, it really could use some work if they are expecting a new wave of levelers.

I don't know if any of you who are complaining have run any characters up lately but they add new content which is usually unmentioned in the patch notes every patch from what I've seen. Not a lot but every character I've leveled has found new quests that weren't there when I ran up a previous character. I don't know about adding new mid level instances. It seems like a waste of time to me. There's enough to cover all the level ranges and if you are at the point of finding them boring maybe it's time to stop rolling new alts.

Every survey I've seen shows a huge spike of max level players with a fraction of that number spread throughout the lower levels, and the main complaint on the boards seems to be about the lack of things to do at 60 that don't involve raiding. The number of people complaining about a lack of new mid level instances is barely noticeable. God forbid they spend even more time on this expansion making new mid level instances. It's taken enough time already.

As to the no new ways to explore zones, I guess questable flying mounts and zones that can only be entered on them don't count. Or a town that has to be captured via pvp in order to get quests and talk to merchants in it. Sure sounds like having to dredge deep in the barrel for reasons to not like the expansion to me.

Initial info was from a PC Gamer article (not online....how convenient heh) that, in turn, was quoting a Blizzard rep from E3. The only thing I can find on the net is a Gamespy preview (which briefly mentions (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-expansion/725327p3.html) the same thing).

I never said Blizzard was abandoning "quest to progress" though. I'm just saying the experience requirements have doubled. Whether you'd want to do shitty quests or do a shitty grind is your prerogative (grinding will probably be faster, however).

Anyways, I just can't find a compelling reason to get it. It's simply not the product for me. The only thing I have to look forward for 60-70 is 10  talent points and 5 training sessions (for the same amount of time it currently takes to get to 60 at that). More grind, but without the milestones! As if grinds with milestones weren't bad enough.

For everyone else, level 70 might carry more meaning (seeing that there will be something like 10 raids in total after the expansion). Your carrot is bigger.

Scratch that. You carrot actually exists. I don't even have one.

...

Well....That's not totally true. Blizz looks like they're trying to enhance world pvp and whatnot, so no doubt lvl 70 players will probably get new Outland bg's like Sillithus. Being able to play in these future/hypothetical BG's would be a "milestone" for me (the more places to PvP, the better). It's just not enticing enough though.

Lastly (just in case): Please, I don't want to hear anyone tell me that the 60-70 experience is meant to be enjoyed. That milestones don't matter. Like I said earlier, I don't play MMO's for "content" (at least not in the sense that some of you perceive it). Content and Questing is a bad, bad joke. If want to have "adventures", I'll play better (single player) games, try to meet strange people, or get drunk at Disneyland.

[edit] Corrected something...

What do you play MMO's for ?

I think you accidently deleted all the "in my oppinion"s you had in that post Stray.

The space, what I can do to it, and what others can do to me (whether that be in crushing, monopolizing, creating, etc..).

Large scale combat is the biggest attraction though, I think....But I've been known to enjoy bullshitting or just sitting around watering the lilies from time to time too.

...

As far as mmo expansions go, an ideal one for me would resemble Jump to Lightspeed.

Yeah, yeah, SWG sucked. We all know that. I'm just talking about the general idea behind JtL (more depth, not breadth).


You are mistaken.

Sounds like you don't want to be playing WoW then.

Edit: To clarify, WoW is a Diku therefore expansions will mostly consist of bigger foozles to whack, phatter lewtz to collect, the occasional new race/class/etc. and so on. Expecting expansions to completely change the direction of the game is...unrealistic, at best.

What he said, basically.

There are, imo, far too many people who will come in to your pub, sit beside you and say 'Oh My God, You're drinking !  Have you any idea how fat that will make you and how bad it is for you ?'  To which I say "Fuck Off."  Then there's the professional Mountain Climbers that come into your fitness class and look at the people who are climbing the fake fitness wall and say things like 'That's rubbish, it's not even strenous, look at those handholds, Christ this is so fucking simple and childish !'  To which I say "Fuck Off."  Then there are the University Students, fresh out of Teacher Training, who will take a Sixth Year English Dissertation and rip it to shreds for not 'Seeing the language carefully controlled within the subtext and failing to avoid the Authorial Phallacy'.  To which I say "Fuck Off."

I have no idea why you are playing WoW if that's why you play MMO's.  Nothing changes.  Ever.  There's no point to the space in the same way there's no point to the board in Minesweeper.

I say this with a smile on my face and the greatest of respect :  "Fuck Off."

If there's one thing that's sparking me off to rant like this, it's because of PvP. I can tolerate, and even enjoy WoW because of the PvP (at least for the time being...What with no other shiny alternatives and all). That's what I was there for originally, and that's what I tried to make do with. It's becoming apparent to me, however, that that's an incredibly stupid premise on which to base my participation in the game. Because that isn't the game at all.

It's not so much that I wanted them to completely change the direction of the game though -- I'd be happy if they just enhanced and didn't cockblock what was already there.


I had this wild idea that they'd start making it an actual Warcraft game. But bigger.

In my mind, you've been in MY pub, bud. ;)

We all had that secret hope at one point.

But it's EQ.  Done Right.

Sorry.

(I'm not even going to get into the PvP thing.  It's fun, but retarded.  You'd be better off with Counterstrike, imo.)

:)

While I do not dobut that the 60-70 run will take longer than 50-60, I think the rep's quote is being mischaracterized.   If I recall correctly the exact quote said something about the AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE REQUIRED to get from 60-70 being the same as from 1-60.  That's the natural progression of their leveling model.   It's also easy to twist that quote into the current "omg another 14 days /played to hit the cap."

I'd be hard pressed to find my PC Gamer mags, tho.  I'm pretty sure I tossed them out a few months back.

Even if it is another 14 days /played it's not a huge deal to me.  My hunter has something like 40 days as it is.. 36 of them at level 60.

Many people got it wrong just like Stray that it will take as long 60-70 as 1-60.  A representative did go on record as saying that is false.  I'll have to search around for the link on that one.  Actually, I thought I read it here.  I'll post a link if I can find it.

I also feel they'll just make it a bit longer than 50-60, which, in my opinion, wasn't very long.

That is a big difference, I'll admit. Thanks for the clarification.

I was cheekily implying that what you wanted was not the direction the mass market wants, nor is it the direction Blizzard seems to want to go. Which is true. :P

It's possible.  I was probably wasted at the time.


(To continue the analogy, SWG is like when they introduced the No Smoking laws in Pubs.  National outcry and people quitting the pubs in disgust.  Also, before the changes it was REALLY bad for your health.)

Did they really do that there?  If so, you've just put yourselves up a rung on my "Spots to Consider Spending Cash At" list.

Because really, I've heard your pubs needed a change to the combat system.  Oh, and no smoking too.  :wink:

As for the "what happens 5 years from now when I need to level 1-120 before I can find anyone to play with" problem, I bet they will jack up lowbie experience quite a bit as the game progresses.  That's only really a problem once the game starts stagnating or contracting and stops opening new servers all the time.  That may be a while. 

As for somking in bars, that's what goddamn bars are for.  Well, that and drinkin'  If there really are a shitload of people out there dying to hang out in smoke-free bars, go open a no-smoking bar and you will be rolling in money from all those customers.  Fucking nanny-staters have banned smoking in bars in my fair city starting Jan 1st, 2007 :(

Maybe my view is simplistic but it seems they're aiming the expansion at the period starting 2 months after it's released, and lasting maybe a year.  I.E. not much there for us out-of-the-box.  Couple months from now, the majority of the playerbase should be in the level range where the content is.

I can't comment on the 'fun factor' of leveling through an additional 10 levels, getting to the end, experiencing new content, whatever. I can, however, lay some math on you and some thoughts in regards to the length of time it takes to level.

First, blizzard has not outright said how much time it will take, except for an offhand quote in pc-gamer that suggests same amount of time for 1-60, but let's assume for a moment they use the same formula as the main game. They will do this because 1) they are lazy and unimaginative and 2) it's not half bad as far as time investment goes.

read up here (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:XP_To_Level) for some information.
I'll just quote, since people have done the work for me:
Now, large numbers get attention, but frankly they mean nothing. Both quests (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Quest_XP) and mobs (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Mob_XP) scale in XP based on the level. Add to that the all important rest XP, which is factored in as a percentage of the level (5% for every 8 hours resting) and can be stored to 150% of a level. That is a HUGE bonus which no one seems to consider. Add to that the explore experience, the fact that quests don't count against rest xp, and you've got a lot of stuff that will offset this time involved. I'm guessing people will end up taking about 8-12 hours per level of game time, just like 50-60. The more casual you get those levels, the more rest XP you will get to offset the hardcore people just grinding it. All in all, this "year of play" thing is way off base. I expect hardcore people to hit 70 within 2-3 weeks, moderates in 2-3 months, and the extreme slowbies maybe as much as 6 months.

Reg Grundys are underpants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Grundy

Owned! LOLZ!  :-D

Actually, I am just happy with getting it out of Restaurants, but I'll take it all for $500 please Alex.

You sir, are correct.

Now the real question is: Is blizzard is going to zero out everyone's rest meter, or is every level 60 going to get kickstarted with 150% rest experience come expansion?

It's been stated off the record and confirmed by a few internal sources that they have already removed the reward experience for multiple level 60 turnins that grant XP (such as the Qiraji Lord's Insignia & Ancient Qiraji artifact turnins in AQ) on their internal test build server. This is completely necessary, since some people in my guild have well over 150 of the tokens. I wonder, since they are changing battlegrounds, if the stockpiling of 20 of each PvP token for xp turnin will be useful either.

If some sort of quick XP is found, you can bet it will be fixed in a matter of hours. For example, when they added that easily stealth-farmable boss lich to stratholme which dropped a staff that sold for 8g and 2 corruptors scourgestones. It was fixed by the very next day (they moved the lich to make him nigh impossible to stealth run), but not before some friends of mine got 30 or 40 stones which bumped their argent dawn faction way, way up.

But WoW has already put out the parts of the game they put off at release for free.

They've already removed rest experience when they removed the exp bar at 60 from what I understand.

This thread is funny. In a 1999 sorta way. Blizzard will raise the cap again and again, like EQ. They'll add more Talents or create an AAXP system. They'll go back and redesign zones and newbie content so it's worth doing again. They'll add, on Test only, playable monsters and then remove it. They'll go through three staff turnovers and four graphics engine upgrades and 15 expansions and just keep going.

We're living history repeating itself. Not only is the core game the same, the core thinking is.

And as much as I'm enjoying PvP, it's an add-on.

Lies! Lies! Blasphemer! Heritic!

That's NOT what will happen!  They will deliver on the promise!

The Battlegrounds PvP system will develop into something that has impact on world events! Each battle will play out something like a Warcraft battle, with decently intelligent NPCs augementing PCs!

There will be world-based PvP zones that allow for building/taking/razing of structures and land-conquest battles.  All, via Blizzard-magic (I believe!), these zones will have some form of side-balancing for balanced combat based upon fairplay and player skillz!  Winners will be contained with dimishing returns, while the losing side will be given a leg up so that they will have a fighting chance!

Sunshine! Magic! And, dare I say it?, glorious MMO Revolution!  I believe! I believe!

The internet won't be around long enough for WoW to hit 15 expansions.

I don't care how long it takes me to go from 60 to 70, as long as I have fun doing it.  Going quest to quest would count as fun for me.

I also don't care if people hoard their bg ribbons to get a bunch of xp, or how fast other people get to 70.  I'm not planning on racing or worrying about what other people do.  For me, it's all about the journey, not the destination.

I do care if they put in mroe recipes - I really hope they do.

Hehe, never even thought of hoarding my BG ribbons. Never realized they gave XP. Not that I care anyway. When 70 comes out I doubt I'll be PvPing much again before I hit it.

There isn't enough bank space or patience (even for the insane) to get 2.5 million experience off of something like BG ribbons.

...

The journey sucks. I don't expect anything like that to be a fun experience until Bioware comes along.

The journey is "OK" with a guild however. Sometimes. But that isn't because of the quests themselves.

BG Ribbons are also marked "Unique (20)" which I presume that you can only hold 20 of each type at most, as a stack of 20 of them becomes a unique item?

Not sure, I've never held more than 17 of any kind at a time.

They get sent to you in the mail if you're over the cap.

There are more recipes.  Tons of them.

And what would Bioware do differently to Blizzard in a Diku?

Oh, you meant that the Bioware wouldn't be a Diku? Then I ask again - why are you playing WoW, as you are quite clearly not enjoying it?

What the hell are you talking about? I never said anything about diku based games. I was talking about storytelling. All kinds of mmos and muds suck at it.

Your entire premise on which to entrap me is bullshit and nothing I ever said.

I already told Ironwood why I was playing WoW (a recent stint after a year of not playing at that). If you didn't waste your time trying to be clever with me, then you would have seen that.

WoW is, pretty much, as good as diku-MMOGs are going to get for storytelling/RP in its quests...and yet you claim that part of the game sucks.

If the game isn't going to change to what you want (which it won't with the possibly exception of the gladiatorial combat...if Blizzard pulls that off, of course), and if you think most of the content sucks then - again - why are you playing it?

I'm genuinely confused here.

I thought WoW was crappy too.  Which is why I don't play it anymore.  Add me to the "wtf?" crowd.

My personal favourite was the exploit with Jandice Barov.  I know a few people who litterally did starting friendly -> Exalted in a couple of hours.  Some enterprising soul found out that if you did physical damage to the duplicates she spawned, they each awarded 5 AD rep when they "died" (they despawn on their own after about 10 seconds).   Just get a warrior with a shield + thorium shield spike and improved shield block, have him spam Shield Block, and stand around for a few hours raking in the AD rep.  You could litterally last for ever (your shield would quite often break before you even made a noticable dent in Jandice's hitpoints from the shield spike damage).  They fixed that one right quick.

I went in with a group and it was hotfixed before our eyes. :/

Got exalted now though; thanks Naxx.

Diku is combat/class/grouping mechanics. Not storytelling mechanics. There is nothing inherent in Diku that dictates quests must be of a specific Click Stationary NPC --> Read Spewed Text --> FedEx/Whack Foozle nature. Just like there is nothing inherent in RTS or FPS mechanics that dictates how exactly a story must be told.
 
And what is WoW doing so different from other games anyways? Ninety-Five percent of the time, the quests are like the ones above. These are the very same storytelling mechanics most MMO's have had (diku or not). Very few quests in WoW stand out from anything else (though to be fair, I can think of a handful...).


Again - I told you already. Asshole.

I'm really being too nice by repeating this, but here:

PvP. I'm no different than most pvp oriented players who grit their teeth through "content" so they can get to the part they want. It's the boring, drawn out ritual before the blood and sacrifice, if you will. As long as the blood flows enough in the end, and outweighs the ritual, then I'm going to enjoy it. This kind of thing has been going on for so long in mmo's that it's almost a time honored tradition. Yet, you're treating me like I'm some unique case. Trying to interrogate me and shit.

Simple answer is: I play and enjoy what I want. Stop asking me stupid questions. And stop assuming my statement about the "journey" was a specific criticism of your beloved game.

The mail they get sent with lasts 24 hours.  Theres going to be tons of ribbon farming the last day before the expansion but not enough to make a dent into more than one level.  Each turn in is 3k exp.

What a silly way to play though. 

WoW has AWFUL writing.

Maybe not as awful as many other games. But god. It's not good.

They do humor pretty well, but everything else is a haphasard mix of fantasy cliches.

There's some moments of inspiration in quest series, but it's more in the story itself than quality of narrative.

As Stray notes, diku is separate from quality of writing, and there's not as much attention given to the quality of writing as, say, game balance, world objects, textures and so on.

From a business standpoint, it's hard to justify. Are players any less inclined to do a quest if the writing sucks? But it's also a question of quantity. Each quest/series is a completely new story, and games generally have thousands of them. Hard to maintain quality across that number.

What I've long wanted is a narrative-based engine, something where every story in a game is connected to every other one, making the story more relevant than the micro-achievements from individual quests. But I'm still waiting, and likely will be for some time.

And that was my point.

Random thoughts to irritate those that want better writing in games:

Why would Blizzard pay for Shakespear when a large part of the gaming audience doesn't want Shakespear (phat lewt!!!!), and more importantly, that gaming audience isn't in their seats and doesn't want to be in their seats?

How do you write high-drama in 150-words-or-less snippets that can be read non-sequentially with (potentially) months between the reading of each snippet?

Bitching about the writing in games is like bitching about the science on episodic T.V.  Sure, I bitch about the science on T.V., but I realize that I'm in the vast minority that actually gives a damn.

I'd rather not wait another six months for an update/expansion because some anal literary genius couldn't get the voice of some minor NPC (that I'm likely to never run across) "just right".

Exactly why I said: "From a business standpoint, it's hard to justify. Are players any less inclined to do a quest if the writing sucks?"

At the same time, development is not a strictly linear activity. If you have a standard quest system like WoW, the mechanics of play (objective, difficulty, reward) are independent of the writing. So you can develop the quest itself, balance it, and then in parallel have it written better.

For me though, the quality of narrative is intrinsically tied to the quality of game play. A Kill X Get Y quest is still a Kill X Get Y quest. The story of that quest is irrelevent to 90% of the players because they're there mostly for the objective, difficulty and reward. To make writing and story relevant is to make people care about it, and that requires their actions actually have some impact on that story. So far, there isn't any real impact, as each new game gets less dynamic than prior ones. Heck, even faction from EQ is gone. There's no mechanic-derived accountability system beyond the linear ladders of Rep, XP and so on.

I think one of the most popular, requested addons early on was the one the sped up quest text scrolling. Face it, 90% of the customer base doesn't even read the quest text, so I'm impressed with the effort they have put in for us  10% that actually read stuff.

Which is endemic of the type of people attracted to these sorts of games. This is one of the very reasons why having a successful diku doesn't necessarily mean you've made a game for everyone. In other words, there's still lots of room to grow in this and corrollary spaces.

I think it's actually endemic of the quests available.  When I first started playing WoW I read all those quest descriptions.  It was fun and interesting....for about an hour until you've seen pretty much all quest variation - yeah, yeah, blah, blah, you want me to kill x to get y bits, or you want me to click on x things to get x things.  The few interesting quests get lost in randomized content.

I don't know, to me one of the things FFXI did that was interesting was put in missions that formed an overall storyarc for the game (with cutscenes and all).  Not every little quest needs to be Shakespeare, but it's nice to have a larger story going on throughout your character's leveling.

And there are a ton of story arc quests in WoW too, at least on the Alliance side.

In case it seems otherwise, I used to read a lot and enjoy reading (so much so that I'm compulsive about it, and having a stressful job doesn't mix with reading till 3am).

That said, I don't enjoy reading in an instance with 4 other people waiting for me to finish.  I'd like it even less if I was reading Shakespear while 4 other people were waiting for me to finish.

Quest text will go the way of the dinosaur once decent text-to-speech software exists (or it becomes significantly cheaper to do voice recording/storing) - no I don't think this will happen anytime soon.  Until that point, it seems to me that quest text writers have a very small palette to work on, so cut them some slack.  Another analogy - no one expects icon artists to produce a Mona Lisa, why would you expect that a quest text writer produce a MacBeth?

You won't like hearing the NPC's speech with 4 other people waiting for it to finish, either.

The problem is other people. One solution would be to separate story advancement from group encounters, or at least minimize it. So, if your group has killed The Big Baddie, you get Proof of Accomplishment. To turn that Proof of Accomplishment into Epic Lewtz, you have to complete a series of solo quests which only advance the story. If you can do those quests at your convenience before the next week's raid then there's no external pressure to speed through them.

*blink*

That's not an issue.

Quests are a single-player experience. Even if 40 people have the same quest, the rewards are all individualistic. As such,

That's my point. This is not chicken-and-egg type stuff here. Blizzard identified a specific type of game player (the people already in the genre, the ones who loved diku, itself a formula successful enough to draw in new fans of diku, if the game is "done right"), studied them and said "they don't care about quest text nor story so it's a waste of money to refine them too much". It's all causal.

You don't look at the last eight years of the genre and not see in what direction the vast majority of the cash has flown. Blizzard, with their money and talent, could have iterated, instead, say, Underlight. But they didn't get that money and talent by reinventing the wheel. They did it through iteration and heavy refinement.

And iterating diku-inspired experiences basically means the quest text and stories are often just in the way of raw achievement. Some people like them, so it's worth putting some effort into it. But most people are not going to quit for a spelling error or a bad story.

The last time I played Everquest, their story started with "here's a letter, go talk to yourself and feel stupid in the same room as your guildmaster, then level 8 levels while killing Crushridge orcs to gather some items you need for your level 2 armor".

Then, in AC2 levels 1-22 were almost like a single-player game.

Then WoW did the same but for levels 1-60.

So from my point of view the evolution of Dikus has gone towards advancement thru story-telling and away from whack-a-foozle. Which makes sense because anyone can make whack-a-foozle; you just need players, foozles and advancement curves.

Have you played Guildwars? watching the cutscenes the first time is fine, the 2nd time is ok, the 3rd time, you think, "I' could care less if I see this again." After that, it gets a bit painful. One party member not hitting skip makes the entire party view it.

So either make it an individual thing or a global skip.

It's not an issue Tech Wise, was my meaning.


(Oh and No.  I haven't played GW.  Tho the GM who feeds people to dragons made me laugh.)

They also made some of them mid-dungeon. And they last like 5 minutes. Not the best design decision.

For a real tragedy, consider a scenario where the group stays and players change but none of them have seen it even once because they all think others have seen it too many times already.


Well, no, but it's a gameplay issue. If you punish groups for stopping and smelling the flowers, then they won't do it, even if some individuals in the group wanted to. The fundamental problem is having repeatable content and mixing people who have never experienced it with people who have. If the story portion of your content is not suitable for all group members then it should really be solo content, shouldn't it?

There's several of these in WoW already, but they could use it a lot more.  Onyxia/ Nefarian's head, Priest Epic, Hunter Epic.

Hell, even getting to the group encounters requires some participation in the 'storyline' quests previously mentioned.    Are they secondary, yes, but they're a damn sight better than most of the crappy quests you had to deal with in EQ.  Most folks do NOT enjoy playing 'hunt the quest' so WoW didn't go after the minority of you that do.  

You've all hashed-out the realities of the writing.  It's there for people to enjoy, but it's not the make-or-break for anyone IF they even read the damn things.  (And from the number of /yell "Where can I find XYZ" that happen each night. It's obvious the majority simply don't read them.)

If it were a more 'worldly' game, you'd all be here complaining there was only one or two ways of correctly completing any prose-laiden heavily-involved quest of the types you're thinking.  Without a GM walking along with you reacting to each action you do, computer quests will never get much beyond where they're at now.

Well, yeah, but the gameplay issue once again comes down to forcing you to group with fucking retards.  If I'm in my regular group of friends, we'll watch the cutscene if someone wants to.

If I'm in a group of 40 of the scum of the fucking internet, I probably won't.

And what the hell do you mean by punish ?  The 40 seconds out their life ?  Again, you're grouping with Jerks.  And I didn't say it wasn't SUITABLE.  That's entirely the wrong word in this context.

Other people.  They fuck these games.

Another example from WoW is the conversation between Ragnoros and Majordomo Executus before Ragnoros goes hostile to the raid. The first time it's cool as hell but by the 10th time the whole raid is praying for a skip button like in Guild Wars.

Vael's initial speech is almost as bad.

hehe agreed. That Rag/Domo speech should be triggerable based on the collective equipment of the raid. If more than 10 people have Rag drops, make skipping the speech an option. However, I appreciate the effort they made in some cases, to act-out the quest resolution, like that event near Ratchet involving the water elemental, or the Lady Prestor/Windsor event in Stormwind. These add flavor to an otherwise very straightforward game of acquisition.

If they wanted to make quest stories matter, it'd be easier for them to do it. It's just that the wimp out. It's like that newbie Night Elf quest where you accidentally help a "bad guy". There's no penalty. Of course, if they added penalty, they'd need to add truly informative details about the choices one would make.

I swear, the only decisions that really have any weight are whether to choose Gnomish or Goblin Engineering :P

Or, do you reeeeeally want that bloodsail pirate hat?

With speech I was thinking that the NPC was speak his/her/it's monologue without an artificial interruption of the action.  If you've never heard it before, (and you've played the game enough to know that a speaking NPC means I can stand still for it until he's/she's/it's done), you can wait it out.  If you have heard it before, no need to wait have at it - the speech still plays for those that haven't heard it, but the NPC joins the fray (if he/she/it is something you attack).

I also assumed that players would have something like a journal (which WoW oddly does not), which would capture what was being said so you could go over it later if necessary to figure out what to do.

But then, I assume alot.

Some new information (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=31004637&pageNo=1&sid=1#8) about XP was posted:

There goes my plan of having 20 quests completed and just need to talk to the final dude.

I don't mind that actually, I take it as an opportunity to refill my drink without going down on the DPS meters. :P