Remembering why I left.

[Llava]

nobody in the entire world says a word unless they are a vendor or quest-giver, etc.

While I agree with you about the generic feel to so many quests in WoW, this statement is just plain bullshit.

I haven't played WoW in months and I still remember a few times in Stormwind nearly tripping over a couple children.  I think the girl was chasing the boy yelling "Give it back!  Give it back!"

There are plenty of other examples, but that's the most prominent in my mind.  Certainly it's not ALL OVER THE PLACE (and would be annoying if it was) but they did make an effort to include some background action for realism.

[Morfiend]

nobody in the entire world says a word unless they are a vendor or quest-giver, etc.

While I agree with you about the generic feel to so many quests in WoW, this statement is just plain bullshit.

I haven't played WoW in months and I still remember a few times in Stormwind nearly tripping over a couple children.  I think the girl was chasing the boy yelling "Give it back!  Give it back!"

There are plenty of other examples, but that's the most prominent in my mind.  Certainly it's not ALL OVER THE PLACE (and would be annoying if it was) but they did make an effort to include some background action for realism.

This is another one of those thigns that is MUCH MUCH more Alliance than Horde. There are a few places where Horde has this, but not even close to the extent that Alliance does. As some of you know, I have recently been leveling up and Alliance character. WOW their quests are so much better. I honestly feel robbed questing as Horde fo so long. Its really amazing the caliber of quests on the Alliance side compaired to the Horde side.

[Simond]

That's because Bliizzard hates the Horde.

Duh.

[Teleku]

Blizzard hates Alliance.  Shamans and horde racial abilities should prove that for you.


Duh.





 

[Margalis]

This is just a question to get a point of reference but you seem to be talking like you've experienced a good deal of the content. Did you go any farther than a sub level 20 player horde side starting with arguably the most boring horde starting race (orc/troll)? Did you ever make it over to the undead area?

I made it to level 18 or so? Horde, Troll.

Let's not go into the "the game gets much better at level 40 argument." I don't care. 18 levels is plenty. In my time playing I literally did not see a single person who speaks other than vendors, quests givers and guards who give directions and things like that. (No random chit-chatters who provide color only)

"This game gets a lot more interesting after you grind through the boring uninspired part" may be true, but it isn't a compelling argument.

[Rasix]

I don't care. 18 levels is plenty. In my time playing I literally did not see a single person who speaks other than vendors, quests givers and guards who give directions and things like that. (No random chit-chatters who provide color only)

Did you ever make it to Undercity?  Pretty interesting place with a lot of little things going on outside of quest giving.

"This game gets a lot more interesting after you grind through the boring uninspired part" may be true, but it isn't a compelling argument.

That wasn't my point in asking.  You experienced a very small portion of the game but it some how allows you to make grand sweeping statement about the nature of the quests and fiction when the path you took (through pure chance) is the most boring one available (especially if you limited yourself to the Barrens) and limited to the amount of leveling most people can do in less than a weekend.

It's like me passing judgement on EQ2 based on playing the Trial of the Isle months ago.   

Edit (of my edit): Bleh, screw it.  Not worth launching into a big argument over this.

[Margalis]

Trial of the Isle takes about 3 hours to complete and gets you to level 6 out of 50 (?)

I played for WoW for two weeks or so and got to level 18 (?) out of 60. There is a big difference.

The fact that I chose a boring race and starting area isn't my fault. I'n not trying to argue or turn this into something acrimonious. From what I saw the quests sucked. I certainly believe that I got an unlucky draw with race selection and that the game gets more fun later, but 2 weeks is plenty of time for me to give up if I see nothing compelling. If I had played more I might change my mind but what reason did I have to play more?

[HaemishM]

You are right, as a horde troll up to level 18, THE QUESTS DID SUCK. That isn't your fault, it's just a statement of fact. The trolls are the least interesting race in the game (unless you are a big Bob Marley ganga fan), and their quests, especially the Horde quests in the teens located around the Barrens blow monkeys.

All they've been saying is there IS better stuff in the game, you just never happened to see it. Blizzard would do well to make the Troll stuff more interesting (oh and scour the Barrens from the world completely) or they could just keep it the same while they roll around in their sacks of money.

[El Gallo]

Let my got off topic. (And back to the original topic) To clarify my thoughts. I don't like quests. I realize I am in the minority here but to me quests are very arbitrary and transparent.

In the end, the name of the game is to get XP. In a game without quests I get XP by killing what I want. In a game with quests I am led by the nose to kill 10 harpies to get 10 tail feathers. I may not like fighting harpies but that is where the XP is.

You can level faster in WoW doing nothing but grinding from the second you pop out of the den until the moment you ding 60 than you can by doing quests the entire time.  So, the quests are pretty much optional.  I agree with you that most quests in any of these games are mostly just a facade but, hey, what's not to like about facades?  Also, I think a lot of people just feel better logging off after playing a couple hours thinking "I saved Farmer Ted from the pig people and helped Little Timmy find his way back home through the kobold cave" or even "I knocked off 2 quests" than they do thinking "I ground 1.98% of a level tonight!"  That is, quests break down the grind into much smaller chunks so you get your pellets on a regular basis.

[Furiously]

You also get more shiney.

[Sairon]

When you know the quests very well they're way faster than grinding. Thing is some quests are simply not worth their xp in time while others are. I've done crossroads so many times now since US closed that I know the optimal way between all the quests, there's simply no way anybody grinding comes to close to the xp. Perhaps in the very late game when good quests starts to become scattered out to far in between grinding becomes better.

[Heresiarch]

When you know the quests very well they're way faster than grinding. Thing is some quests are simply not worth their xp in time while others are. I've done crossroads so many times now since US closed that I know the optimal way between all the quests, there's simply no way anybody grinding comes to close to the xp. Perhaps in the very late game when good quests starts to become scattered out to far in between grinding becomes better.

I think the superiority of quest-grinding peters out around 25-30. I remember levelling a few characters up to around 35-40, and it just sucked for a while. Quests start becoming cross-country, or else you need groups. STV is nice, but on a PvP server and solo, I found levelling much slower. And damn I hated Desolace and Thousand Needles.

But... up through 25, I did quests. I got really good at doing the Barrens quests in the right order to blaze through it, getting XP faster than I would by camp farming. Or, at least, it was for more entertaining. I'm the sort that gets a kick out of optimizing quest completion order, so that helped too.

[Phred]

35-40 badlands is crawling with quests. Not the easist place to get to as horde on a pvp server but you're gonna want the kagarth flight point eventually

[Strazos]

Whatever, Alliance is gimp anyway. My 34 cow warrior and my 30 UD rogue friend were getting harassed a lot yesterday in Arathi/Hillsbrad. We each died once. The alliance people, all high-30s, died a Lot more.

newbs

[El Gallo]

It used to be much, much faster to grind than quest as a physical damage class (beta and early release when there were zero-ac grindable mobs for just about every level range).  I haven't levelled a character in a long while, but I still hear people say that grinding with some questing mixed (i.e. pick up the quests involving good grind mobs) in is the fastest path.  It'd be interesting to see the quest/grind mix of the people who win the test server levelling contestss.

Anyway, which is faster isn't really relevant to Margalis' point, which is that he wants to grind and feels WoW is anti-grind because quests give so much more xp.  Afer you leave the newbie zone, that isn't true.  You can pretty much follow either path and end up in roughly the same place in the end (the extra drops the grinder gets I would think largely balance out quest reward items).

[Dren]

Leveling speed depends on if you are talking actual ingame time or starting at 12 p.m. and going until 12 a.m. everyday until you hit 60.

I go the actual time played route, so I use the rest experience exclusively.  If I don't have rest exp on a character, it gets to sit on the "alt shelf" until it does.  Once a char has a couple of levels worth of rest exp, I hit the quests in the order of their location.  The quest exp gained doesn't take away from the rest exp, so I can actually stretch out the rest exp to nearly 3 levels sometimes.

If you organize your quests correctly so you minimize travel time, I beleive you can do better that route.

The other benefits of questing rather than all out grinding is the added quest items and reputation you get.