Kaplan at GDC09, mistakes made in quest design.

[Triforcer]

I don't understand at what point your rant has anything to do with the mechanic of non-dungeon, non-chained group questing. How do random group quests make the game deeper? How does having the random quest boss be an elite asshole that takes 5 people to kill have anything to do with the storyline or design that a soloable boss couldn't provide?

It doesn't.  But like pxib said, while that type of game is ok- why the hell would I pay a monthly fee for that?  I can solo things in SINGLE-PLAYER GAMES, while chatting on IRC- ta-dah, same functionality!

[Ingmar]

I don't understand at what point your rant has anything to do with the mechanic of non-dungeon, non-chained group questing. How do random group quests make the game deeper? How does having the random quest boss be an elite asshole that takes 5 people to kill have anything to do with the storyline or design that a soloable boss couldn't provide?

It doesn't.  But like pxib said, while that type of game is ok- why the hell would I pay a monthly fee for that?  I can solo things in SINGLE-PLAYER GAMES, while chatting on IRC- ta-dah, same functionality!

Why are we playing this little semantic game at all? Nobody is saying ALL CONTENT SHOULD BE SOLOABLE, are they? All overland content soloable isn't going to put one tiny little dent in the number of people that play WoW or in the amount of social interaction takes place. WoW is already completely group centric for endgame content, but group-only leveling content stops being used as the population naturally hits max level. Its fine for the stuff that is at level 60/70/80 to be group stuff, because that stuff gets a decent lifetime from the pauses in leveling that the cap creates, but random outdoor group-only content is just a waste of dev time, it stops being used WAY sooner than endgame group content does. You can see this happening to the piles and piles of fellowship-required quests in LotRO.

I'm kind of surprised by how much of it there is in Wrath, frankly, after Blizzard realized they had to go back and de-elite all the outdoor elite monsters in the old world to make the content relevant at all.

[DraconianOne]

Is there are lot of it in Wrath outside of Icecrown? I know there are, what, 4 or 5 quests in Dragonblight that need 2/3 players (with one that needs 5 players - or one properly specced warlock  ) but that's out of 100+ quests in the zone. The zone quest achievements can all be done solo and the surplus quests are invariably group quests.  I can't even think what G3+ quests there were in HF or BT.

[Ironwood]

I don't understand at what point your rant has anything to do with the mechanic of non-dungeon, non-chained group questing. How do random group quests make the game deeper? How does having the random quest boss be an elite asshole that takes 5 people to kill have anything to do with the storyline or design that a soloable boss couldn't provide?

It doesn't.  But like pxib said, while that type of game is ok- why the hell would I pay a monthly fee for that?  I can solo things in SINGLE-PLAYER GAMES, while chatting on IRC- ta-dah, same functionality!

aaaannnnd, we're back.

 

[Vash]

Is there are lot of it in Wrath outside of Icecrown? I know there are, what, 4 or 5 quests in Dragonblight that need 2/3 players (with one that needs 5 players - or one properly specced warlock  ) but that's out of 100+ quests in the zone. The zone quest achievements can all be done solo and the surplus quests are invariably group quests.  I can't even think what G3+ quests there were in HF or BT.

There are at least two Group[2 or 3] quests in every zone in Northrend, but depending on class/spec/gear/skill/etc. many of them can be solo'd.  I don't mind them at all since they usually aren't required to hit the quest achievement for a zone, are fun to try and solo or duo, and typically give a reward that is significantly better than other quest rewards in the same zone.

[Paelos]

This isn't a thread about why you don't want to pay for the game. It's a thread about quest design decisions and the way you would improve the gameplay experience.

I don't think random grouping outside of the dungeons does much for the social aspects of the game. It's effectively a short and terrible wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am so you can get on to the rest of your questing. I don't remember the people that I randomly met and invited because we were in the same place. However, I do remember people (good or bad) that I ran dungeons or raids with.

I do agree that if they want to do more group oriented quests, they need to be related to group only quest hubs. Somewhere that you and your friends could come in there and really knock out quests in a fun environment. Here's an idea I've been kicking around: What about Blizzard implementing more group-daily quests revolving around dungeons? Not just a specific random dungeon, but one quest for every dungeon that you could choose to run? What about adding in quests that reward "hard-mode" achievements in heroics with daily rewards? Maybe they could pour more life into those 5 mans by adding a "hard-mode" quest faction with cool epic items.

[Vash]

It's effectively a short and terrible wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am so you can get on to the rest of your questing.

I don't see anything terrible about them and that is exactly their designed function, which isn't being served by any other conent so I don't see the problem.  If someone has 45min + to dick around with 4 other players there is already 5 man dungeons designed for that.  If someone only has 10-20 min or doesn't want to do a dungeon for whatever reason but would still be up for group activity this is the only content in the game that fits the bill.  Not to mention there are other incentives to do these quests as well.

Just because they're not your cup of tea doesn't mean they are a design failure that needs retooling and I already mentioned they don't really have a negative impact on anyone who doesn't want to partake in them.

[Sheepherder]

Just because they're not your cup of tea doesn't mean they are a design failure that needs retooling and I already mentioned they don't really have a negative impact on anyone who doesn't want to partake in them.

If Blizzard decided to spend the last several months developing water slides to place in-game instead of Ulduar it wouldn't hurt anyone, right?

[Vash]

Just because they're not your cup of tea doesn't mean they are a design failure that needs retooling and I already mentioned they don't really have a negative impact on anyone who doesn't want to partake in them.

If Blizzard decided to spend the last several months developing water slides to place in-game instead of Ulduar it wouldn't hurt anyone, right?

I fail to see how adding a few elite group quests for every 100 or so regular quests when they designed the zones of Northrend for the expansion relates to that terrible analogy.

[pxib]

I'll rephrase.

Group content is one of the big selling points MMOs have over other computer games. Blizzard's open-world group quests are poorly implemented, and their LFG system sucks. Instead of fixing the problem with multi-player leveling content, Blizzard is focusing on removing it or making it soloable. Indeed they are spending much of their development time working on honing the solo player experience and inventing systems like "phasing" which actively discourage group play.I believe this is a bad direction since it puts them in direct competition with single player games with better quests, more interactive combat systems, and better storylines... all for the base cost of the game.

Quests, like every flexible aspect of an MMO, should work to funnel players together rather than to spread them apart.

[Paelos]

I think if you look at the logical outcome of your point, Blizzard is moving towards group content at the level cap instead of during the leveling curve. I think this makes sense given the amount of time that an average toon will spend at level cap vs. time spent leveling. I believe it's a good use of resources because you will find a higher bulk of the playerbase at the level cap to participate in group activities, versus finding people in the right level range at an intermediate period. The current level gap of expansion can be easier to find those people than others, but as you go backwards from the 70-80 range of this xpac, to the 60-70 range of TBC, to the 1-60 range of classic, the chances of finding correctly ranged groups to do the group content decrease exponentially. Instead, you get tells to powerlevel people through group quests rather than actually do them as intended.

In essence, using leveling quests as a focus for your group content or multiplayer experience is a waste of resources. Even if they are completed, they are a one shot deal. People run dungeons and raids hundreds of times during an expansion cycle. In that regard, Blizzard should focus the Multiplayer of the MMOG at the group dungeon/raid content. I also believe that Blizzard learned over time that a large majority of people that quest like doing it on their own. When I was leveling up, I would quest when I couldn't get a group, and I would run dungeons when I could.

The game is over 4 years old now. The cash cow is on the endgame. The leveling aspect is just something to reset the playerbase every expansion, and that's about it. That doesn't mean they don't spend countless man-hours designing cool zones, great music, and writing quests to guide the player along the way. However, I don't think they want that experience to compete with other single player games. I think they want their group activities in pvp and the endgame to rival any other multiplayer game.

[Vash]

Blizzard's open-world group quests are poorly implemented

If someone would elaborate on this topic and explain why they have this particular opinion instead of making blanket statements like it's an already proven fact this discussion might get somewhere.

Blizzard has been implementing open-world group quests just like the ones in Wrath (minus the phasing where applicable) since WoW launched.  There are obviously enough players who enjoy them that Blizzard feels like spending the tiny fraction of development time to implement them (in this manner) is justified. 

If you feel they can be implemented in ways that would appeal to more players, without ruining them for the players who already enjoy them as is, that's great.  I just don't get why this is treated in such a zero sum manner.  I don't think it's impossible to have open-world group content like it is currently implemented and have additional open-world group content implemented in other ways, especially since I can't imagine the current implementation takes hardly any resources to produce in comparison to other types of content like normal quests, daily quests, dungeons, and raids.

[Rendakor]

I like the way most Group quests are implemented in Wrath: standalone chains or single quests. In the old world you would often find solo quests turn into elite quests, which I was not a fan of. Getting most of the way through a quest chain then finding I needed to find 2 or 3 people to help finish it was annoying, especially because Blizz likes to save the actual item for the last quest. Making the entire quest chain Group lets you know up front whether or not to bother doing it.

Some specific examples of the Wrath quests I liked are the Runed Giants quests in Howling Fjord and the Mage + Owl + Magnataur into Frost Wyrm in Dragonblight. Ring of Blood/AoA were also great quests. If they made RoB a solo questline, the items for it would be green and it wouldn't be worth an achievement.

[Rasix]

Blizzard's open-world group quests are poorly implemented

If someone would elaborate on this topic and explain why they have this particular opinion instead of making blanket statements like it's an already proven fact this discussion might get somewhere.

There's a multitude of reasons why these quests are poorly implemented:

• The presence of decent crafted gear, the low barrier of entry into heroics, and the numerous dailies available even to a brand new 80 make these quests insignificant from a materialistic standpoint.
• They're typically at the end of very long quest lines and can then lead to further quest lines has finding people with personal interest in doing them very, very low.   This aspect also means that you don't get a lot of response if you advertise in general.
• People in these zones are either doing dailies/questing/farming, which combined with the above points, makes helping you out with this a waste of time. Like it or not, people playing WoW are more concerned with doing what they want to do rather than acts of altruism.
• The Icecrown group quests are typically [5] man group quests even if they can be done with far less.  If many of these were adjusted down to 3 people or incorporated mechanics that didn't necessitate healing/tanking you'd probably see them getting done more often.
• Most guilds don't have 4 people on standbye that are so bored that they'd rather do a pointless quest in Icecrown.  It is hard enough convincing friends to do a quest simply for achievements or a piece of crappy blue gear that's going to get vendored or DE'd.  It's easy to get these done before 80, but honestly, I don't see anyone choosing to go deep into Icecrown when they could level somewhere else where they're not getting constantly gated.
• The older the game gets the more reluctant people are to do these quests. Combine all of the above and let it age over a time. 

I don't like these quests because they tend to just clutter my quest log and prevent me from closing out very long quest lines. It's like reading a long book but the last chapter is closed out to you unless you can get 2-4 friends to read it with you.   My friends will have an easier time completing these and I'll get some more done just because they're completionists and they'll know I'll have a healer available come 3.1.  Out of any guild I've been a part of, there's usually only one guy that's gungho about doing these or helping.  Most everyone else would rather they just go away once they hit 80 and the incentives for getting them done aproach zero.

I would rather see world group content being spawned from dungeons or raids and leave my level progression content with soloable material. 

Side note: arena quest lines are so popular because everyone knows they give weapons that tend to last you for several levels.  They also provide a huge exp and cash boost at the level they're given.  I have no numbers to back this up, but I'd wager the Zul'Drak arena line is done far more than the Icecrown one.

edit: I don't really consider most of the leveling group quest lines very signficant to this discussion.  Almost every 2 or 3 man one can be solo'd or done with at most one other person.

[Vash]

a large majority of people that quest like doing it on their own

This is the zero sum attitude I don't get personally.  How is the majority negatively impacted by Blizzard throwing the minority a few bones with a few group quests from time to time?  If you only want do solo quests there's tons and you can just go about your business like the group quests aren't even there.  However, if you want a nice change of pace after doing 50+ cookie cutter fed ex/kill X/collect Y/use quest item Z quests, or if you want some short group content that doesn't take 1+ hours and a properly balanced capable group, isn't it great that you have the option?

Not to mention, how do you know who is the majority in regards to these quests?  Your taking personal taste/playstyle and just assuming it's the majority.  Blizzard has proven people prefer quest driven story/leveling over simple grinding.  They've also shown people like having the option to reach the level cap solo.  Since solo leveling/questing is designed to be faster and more efficient than grouping in WoW (other than a few rare circumstances) people will naturally gravitate towards it, since MMO's and WoW especially have also shown the path of least resistance is typically the most popular.  I don't think you can directly infer from WoW that people only want solo leveling content and nothing else till max level.

And before anyone tosses out another crazy hyperbole with water slides and post expansion raid content, I don't think adding the occasional group quest is a significant drain on Blizzard's vast development resources.

[Selby]

How is the majority negatively impacted by Blizzard throwing the minority a few bones with a few group quests from time to time?

My only problem with them is when the rewards aren't seen as "worth it" and therefore very few people bother to do them.  Sure, I may get a merciful run from a guildmate who has nothing better to do, but when I had to log in several different times over a week to get a quest done because no one was interested in doing it?  That's annoying.  The Nessingwary questline in Nagrand once WotLK came out was like that.  As was the Forge camps chain in the same zone.  Almost impossible to find a group of people wanting to do it (at least on my server).  Sure, it happens.  But usually when I was a healing class.  If it wasn't a tank or heal already involved, most weren't interested in waiting around to get one.

[Rendakor]

I think we're talking past each other. Rasix are you talking about Group quests at 80? I agree those are dumb.

[Vash]

How is the majority negatively impacted by Blizzard throwing the minority a few bones with a few group quests from time to time?

My only problem with them is when the rewards aren't seen as "worth it" and therefore very few people bother to do them.  Sure, I may get a merciful run from a guildmate who has nothing better to do, but when I had to log in several different times over a week to get a quest done because no one was interested in doing it?  That's annoying.  The Nessingwary questline in Nagrand once WotLK came out was like that.  As was the Forge camps chain in the same zone.  Almost impossible to find a group of people wanting to do it (at least on my server).  Sure, it happens.  But usually when I was a healing class.  If it wasn't a tank or heal already involved, most weren't interested in waiting around to get one.

If your in the majority you only want to do solo content so you wouldn't even bother with those quests in the first place, if you want to complete them regardless of the reward then you are definitely in the minority.  In any case it's still an itemization and incentive issue not a problem with group quests themselves, people expect to get a better reward if they have to put more effort and time into a quest with higher risk of death, and rightly so.  Historically, Blizzard has been very hit or miss in terms of itemizing group quests well so that doesn't help the general populations perception of them and is probably why they only go out of their way to do them when they know the rewards are very good.  This is a shame because generally they have improved in this area with each expansion.

[pxib]

Blizzard is moving towards group content at the level cap instead of during the leveling curve. I think this makes sense given the amount of time that an average toon will spend at level cap vs. time spent leveling.

This is an excellent point I hadn't considered. Blizzard is genuinely abandoning the idea that people are going to be starting their game from scratch. They assume they've totally saturated that market, and that players who join now will already have friends within the game who will invite them to groups and to a guild practically as soon as they start playing. They know from the start that leveling content is supposed to be inferior to single-player games, because ultimately it's just a boring cockblock to keep you from enjoying the multiplayer portion too soon.

The content of an expansion, the majority of Blizzard's money spent on development, only exists to justify the box purchase. The real money is in getting us to run the same five instances for eight months.

I don't understand how this is a good thing, but it certainly seems to be the plan.

[Vash]

*valid issues with Icecrown and possibly Storm Peaks 5 man group quest implementation*

edit: I don't really consider most of the leveling group quest lines very significant to this discussion.  Almost every 2 or 3 man one can be solo'd or done with at most one other person.

I think all group quests are significant to the discussion, the fact that some are fine and dandy but others have issues helps point to the implementation issues that could be causing problems.

I agree that the group quests in Icecrown specifically have some major issues and you touched on several of them, but I think most of their issues boil down to some major miscalculations on Blizzard's part and it shouldn't be used as grounds to just eliminate every group quest from the game.

I think Icecrown group quests suffer from TBC style thinking in terms of zone design.  In TBC Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm were packed with group quests and they got lots of use initially after the expansion was launched and maintained steady use even well into the expansion.  However, most of that use was due to the major cock blocks on the end game when the expansion launched.  All of the raid content had long attunements.  Kara was brutal for a fresh 70, T5 content even worse, and Heroics were locked off until you bought a key at Revered which usually took some work after hitting 70.  Even normal lvl 70 5 man dungeons were rough for fresh 70's and 2 even had their own attunement/key nonsense.

All of that created a perfect storm for group quest participation.  Whether it was doing an attunement chain for a raid/dungeon/daily quest zone, working on reputation, trying to make gold for an epic flyer since daily quests weren't around initially, or typically just trying to get gear good enough to start the 5 man dungeon content.  Group quests were basically the only endgame content available for a fresh 70 player until well into TBC when most people were in epics and could carry them through content.

Wrath is the exact opposite, the perfect storm for max level group quests being reduced to insignificance.  No attunements for anything, daily quests and tabbards for rep, plenty of daily and regular quests for gold, and all of the end game PvE severely reduced in difficulty thus requiring almost no gearing up phase at max level.

Why Blizzard decided to design Icecrown and to a lesser degree Storm Peaks just like SMV and Netherstorm only with the addition of phasing instead of adapting the zone design for the complete lack of end game cock block is something only they can answer.   

It's like they expected them to be just as popular as ever even though they have been essentially made insignificant.

edit: by zone design I mostly mean quest types and distribution/prevalence

[Gobbeldygook]

Wrath is the exact opposite, the perfect storm for max level group quests being reduced to insignificance.  No attunements for anything, daily quests and tabbards for rep, plenty of daily and regular quests for gold, and all of the end game PvE severely reduced in difficulty thus requiring almost no gearing up phase at max level.

Why Blizzard decided to design Icecrown and to a lesser degree Storm Peaks just like SMV and Netherstorm only with the addition of phasing instead of adapting the zone design for the complete lack of end game cock block is something only they can answer.   

I am going to guess you have not done the quests in icecrown, so I'm going to let you in on a little secret: Most of them are also dailies.  The lions share of the more annoying group quests can be repeated afterward for some gold.  Off-hand, the ones that aren't dailies are the ones related to the argent crusade way over on the far west side and the riders ones.  I believe I was able to solo all of the rider quests as a prot warrior except one.

It will also be much, much easier to find partners for the group quests in 3.1 with the addition of the argent tournament.  Now there's a reason for people to spend a few hours at a time just chillin' in Icecrown.

[tkinnun0]

If someone would elaborate on this topic and explain why they have this particular opinion instead of making blanket statements like it's an already proven fact this discussion might get somewhere.

The rise and fall of Drakuru, in Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak. If you want to do that in the intended order you have to do a normal Drak'Tharon Keep instance at level 76-78, because the quest-lines in Zul'Drak pick up from where the group quest in Drak'Tharon left off. Good luck LFG. That's one full solo zone and half of a solo quest-line cockblocked by a single group quest. And the thing is, the more compelling and immersive storylines Blizzard makes, the bigger portion of their playerbase is going to be noticing this problem.

[Gobbeldygook]

The rise and fall of Drakuru, in Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak. If you want to do that in the intended order you have to do a normal Drak'Tharon Keep instance at level 76-78, because the quest-lines in Zul'Drak pick up from where the group quest in Drak'Tharon left off.

You're just wrong.  I completely cleared zul'drak, including the Fall of Drakuru, before I did a single Grizzly Hill's quest or Drak'Tharon Keep for that matter.

[Fordel]

How is he wrong? Story wise, you did those events backwards.

[Gobbeldygook]

How is he wrong? Story wise, you did those events backwards.

Oh I see what I did there.  I missed 'intended' but did not miss 'cockblocked'.

[Sheepherder]

I fail to see how adding a few elite group quests for every 100 or so regular quests when they designed the zones of Northrend for the expansion relates to that terrible analogy.

I fail to see why I should craft a better analogy when you're advocating that serious time should be spent on creating disposable content.

Incidentally, the time and talent required to make a group quest is effectively the same as is required to make an instance boss.  Want to know a great way to make group quest more popular?  Put an instance portal on the Amphitheater of Anguish, tie it into the LFG tool, add drops.

[Paelos]

Snarkiness aside, the real issue is that you can't mix and match group and solo quests on the same line. A group quest hub where you know there is a long line to do means you can go in there with a group of friends for an hour and knock them out. OTOH, a 13 solo quest line that ends with a 5 man boss is a giant "fuck you" to the players.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Were there any group quests in storm peaks? I seem to remember soloing all of them for the loremaster achievement.

[tkinnun0]

Snarkiness aside, the real issue is that you can't mix and match group and solo quests on the same line.

Well, you can, but only if skipping those group quests doesn't gimp your character and people don't pay attention to quest text. The first point is not a problem with WoW. The second point...

With the amount of free to play MMOs coming out with random fetch and kill quests, coherent quest lines could be something to justify a subscription fee.

[Fordel]

Were there any group quests in storm peaks? I seem to remember soloing all of them for the loremaster achievement.

That fucking Harpy queen, she's a bitch for most classes to solo (its listed as a group 3 I think, only need 2 though, or 1 if your like, a Protection something class)

[Lakov_Sanite]

Were there any group quests in storm peaks? I seem to remember soloing all of them for the loremaster achievement.

That fucking Harpy queen, she's a bitch for most classes to solo (its listed as a group 3 I think, only need 2 though, or 1 if your like, a Protection something class)

Ah, alliance quest. I don't think there's a single group quest for horde in that zone. None that were un-soloable at least.

[Rendakor]

IIRC there was a Horde side quest for an elite Jormungar (those worm things); thats the only one I remember offhand. Of course, I play a DK so everything is soloable and I might not be remembering others.

[Malakili]

Blizzard is moving towards group content at the level cap instead of during the leveling curve. I think this makes sense given the amount of time that an average toon will spend at level cap vs. time spent leveling.

This is an excellent point I hadn't considered. Blizzard is genuinely abandoning the idea that people are going to be starting their game from scratch. They assume they've totally saturated that market, and that players who join now will already have friends within the game who will invite them to groups and to a guild practically as soon as they start playing. They know from the start that leveling content is supposed to be inferior to single-player games, because ultimately it's just a boring cockblock to keep you from enjoying the multiplayer portion too soon.

The content of an expansion, the majority of Blizzard's money spent on development, only exists to justify the box purchase. The real money is in getting us to run the same five instances for eight months.

I don't understand how this is a good thing, but it certainly seems to be the plan.

Ding Ding.

[WindupAtheist]

What the fuck are you guys on about? I thought it was pretty clear that the reason they've moved away from group content during leveling is precisely BECAUSE they expect new people to start from scratch. They don't expect Joe Newbie whose main is level 30 to stand around spamming LFG all day for every third quest when 80% of the playerbase is off in Northrend or whatever anyway.

It's the same reason they've sped up leveling in the 20-60 and 60-70 brackets, and the same reason each expansion renders the previous set of raids obsolete. They don't want that EQ syndrome where someone coming in years after release has to level for six months, look for groups in underpopulated low-level brackets, and then start at the bottom of some horrible ladder of raids, the bottom rungs of which the majority was done with years ago.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Heroic dungeons is one of the best things they could have done. You get a chance to do them while levelling for some quick easy gear with a forgiving dungeon if you want. if not you can skip them entirely and still experience that content at 80.