World of Warcraft®

(cross posted on the unofficial CC forums as well)

So, now many of us have had a chance to quest a bit in Cataclysm. Interesting to see the direction that Blizzard has gone with it.

I remember in Classic and Burning Crusade sites like "Jane's Guides" selling information on the most efficient way to level. I remember carefully collecting quests in order to do Stranglethorn. In fact, I'd gone to a website talking about Stranglethorn. Early on, it stated "OK, the first quests you need to do Stranglethorn start in the Racetrack over in Thousand Needles..." Questing in Stranglethorn, in fact, connected strongly to Tanaris, into Zul'Farrak, up to the Hinterlands, through Sunken Temple and eventually into Zul'Gurub. One small side part of this was assembling the mallet to ring the gong and summon that big Hydra in ZF. That was about as tough as keying for Karazhan was... a keying questline just to summon a boss in an instance that didn't even earn the name "dungeon"! (ZF was considered a "mini-dungeon" at the time.) Worth it for the riding crop, though.

This sort of world-spanning interconnected questing is long gone, of course. And many would say "good riddance"... I made plenty of friends opening the door to Upper Blackrock Spire back in the day, but that meant that there were lots of folks that couldn't get in unless they "knew somebody" and sometimes that meant "knew somebody that would be willing to do it for 10g" back when 10g was worth flying somewhere for.

Now I'm working my way through Hyjal. And... well. I remember when the 10 quest limit felt very tight indeed, and how I occasionally had to delete a quest or two when the limit was 25 in the quest log. Now it's pretty rare to crack 5 quests at once. Hyjal is entirely self contained. No need to travel somewhere else to do these! No chance of getting lost either, with each mini-hub placed about 1 minute ride from the next and clearly marked on the map.

As an explorer, my main motivation is to find out what's around the next corner. How does this zone connect with that one? Where did Lord Whathisface hide the dojigger? You need to know where to find the thingy you've been sent to dig up... well, I can help you! First you need to go over thataway, and talk to Whatshisname, and he'll give you a quest to go overhere, etc. I delight in learning and sharing what I've learned.

I already know what's around the next corner in Cataclysm. Around the next corner is a mini-hub. I will find between 1 and 3 questgivers there. I will get a quest to kill between 6 and 12 of one kind of mob, another quest to kill between 4 and 8 of another type of mob intermingled with the first set (occasionally disguised as a drop quest, but usually with a very high drop rate). I will need to collect either a number of ground spawn where those mobs are or pick individual items clearly shown in the same area. I'll then get a follow on quest to either twiddle some object or kill a mini-bosslet. And then I'll get a breadcrumb quest to go to the next mini-hub. Sometimes there will be a cut scene.

I don't really feel any urge to "explore" Hyjal. The old classic zones felt like places to me. Elwynn and Westfall and the Barrens felt like real countryside, in many ways. There were streams and fields and houses and a road. Hyjal to me doesn't feel like a place to visit and explore, it feels like a ride at Disney World. You get in the car, and it takes you to little scenes you watch. Exploring Mt. Hyjal feels as silly and pointless as trying to explore "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" or the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride.

I don't want to try and put a value judgement on all of this. I think many players missed much of what was there before, and for many folks it may be a much better experience. Certainly you can see the storyline where many didn't before. Many players never really wanted to read the quest text before. Questhelper was very popular. I don't want to say that these changes make Cataclysm a "bad game." I will say that it makes it a game that has limited interest for me, personally. Lots of folks like fish, but I don't. Taste and style thing.

So, why not be done with it? Well, I'm hoping that the level cap experience is more to my taste. I enjoyed raiding in Wrath, and hope to enjoy raiding in Cataclysm. The leveling game isn't difficult, it just takes some time. But I'm a bit sad. I hope that there are some experiences I'll remember fondly in front of me. I know I still haven't seen all of it.

Bonney put it to me best, I think. She told me "I know the developers of Cataclysm like Plants vs. Zombies, because they put it in the game. I know they liked the old video game Joust, because they put that in the game. But I don't think they liked World of Warcraft much, because they didn't put it in the game."

What do you think?

I both agree and disagree with what you say.

I also did all the questing back in the day, because I wanted to better experience the story. And while I did enjoy exploring new lands to find certain quest givers and just see special stuff that not everybody knew about, sometimes it felt like a chore to me. Especially something like the Zul'Farrak mallet, or the Hakkar Egg quest for Sunken Temple. You had to prioritize going all over the world just for one quest, in which some parts of it you needed multiple people to get things done, and they were not always willing to help.

When the shattering happened, I "started over" by going to the Dwarf starting zone and followed the breadcrumbs up until where I'd go to Outland, and other than the bugs of things not spawning when they should (General Grimaxe), or not having breadcrumbs available (the Ambush in Loch Modan) to get to the next area (the excavation site, or that night elf building further east), I found that the zone to zone breadcrumbs actually made a lot of sense to me. But at some point it kind of seemed to make a little less sense to me.

It went from doing all this stuff for the Dwarves, and then the idea of helping the Dwarves just kind of disappeared into needing to help the Alliance with whatever, and then we are sent to help neutral factions and Goblins, and it was just like "wait..what happened?". But the funny thing is, because I was able to go from zone to zone so easily like this, I was able to notice it was happening. But traveling all over the world like back in the day, there was more focus on looking at stuff and you tend to forget entirely what's really going on as far as what your character is doing or why.

I mean there were some random quests in Ironforge suggesting I go to places like Desolace or whatever, but at the same time it didn't make too much sense to me to go across to the other side of the world when I still had unfinished business on my current side to deal with.

What I didn't like about Vanilla was that sometimes you just couldn't find a group to do a dungeon with. Then with BC you ended up with a bunch of (Group) quests that nobody wanted to help on because either they did it when there was a surge of people going through an area, or they just went on to the next zone without caring. And then we also had the LFG system in place to allow us to put up (Group) quests, but nobody ever used it (or for dungeons either if you think about it). You come to WotLK and you end up with even more (Group) quests, and again the same thing happened and people just wouldn't help each other out, or the quests were parts of chains that took forever for people to get done with since they had sooooo many other quests in an area to do first.

So you come to Cataclysm and there are ZERO (Group) quests to be found. Or at least (Group) quests that involve any kind of storyline. The SINGLE (Group) quest is the arena style chain in Twilight Highlands, but that chain is so fast paced that you aren't able to actually read the quest text to see if there is any relevant information to come across.

As for dungeons, I think it's great that there are quest givers inside the dungeons now. But without completing the zone the dungeon is a part of, going to these places doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. And if you don't do the zone quests first, then you frequently miss out on a quest (I believe..but I only queued for a dungeon after it's zone was completed).

I liked the idea back in Vanilla that they wanted you to explore and work together with people on stuff like dungeons, but it became a chore sometimes, and with the attention span a lot of people have now, you'd forget why you were doing what you were doing to begin with.

BC seemed to focus a little too much on getting groups to do things with, and Wrath seemed to pull back a little bit and add these group things as a side-note. And then Cataclysm comes out and it seems a little StarCrafty. You do the single player thing to get more storyline, and then you queue for a random dungeon to take a break for an hour or longer, and then go back to playing by yourself. But with Guild levels and reputations, it's a bunch of people doing their single player game and helping everyone get rewards, and then you do dungeons together. There's no emphasis on grouping with anyone else outside of dungeons anymore, and that's a bit sad.

So for the TL;DR crowd..

I liked the old Vanilla game. I liked Burning Crusade, I liked Wrath of the Lich King, and I do like Cataclysm. I don't think Cataclysm is less "WarCrafty" or whatever, but I just think Blizzard likes to bounce back and forth between extremes, rather than find some place in the middle to settle down on.

Frankly, exploring Hyjal was one of the best experiences I've had in this game in years. I didn't go the predetermined way however. After 6 years of anticipation and exploring Frostwhisper Gorge, I made quite an event out of this.

I hadn't explored the world yet after the Catacylsm for one thing for the most part. I decided to go about things in honor of the world I explored 6 years ago. I went by foot through Ashenvale and Felwood, down through Winterpring. There I found the bridge had collapsed and I cheated and called on my friendly hippogryph to assist me.

Walking into Frostwhisper Gorge was thrilling, with all new music especially. I wasn't sure which direction to go, but it soon was clear. Climbing up the mountain from the foot was amazing, especially after all the years I'd fantasized about seeing Hyjal for myself and all the lore and history my character has with the place.

Making my way up the mountain was fantastic. Finally reaching the summit and seeing Nordrassil, I was ecstatic. I could go on for hours over game design and philosophy, but I'd rather not. For my part, I think the Cataclysm is the most amazing time I've had in this game since the first few months back in 2004 and 2005. I miss the world spanning quest lines, but what I have now is far worth the trade.

12/16/2010 2:55 PMPosted by Elrith

There I found the bridge had collapsed and I cheated and called on my friendly hippogryph to assist me.

Oh? You could've snuck around the gorge by heading to the east.

I remember doing the 'run through the entire zone on foot' thing in Icecrown, another modular quest zone, with my warrior. It was really fun, and I did plan to get around to doing the same with Hyjal once I realized that the entire zone was one really long road from the Gorge to the tree.

As for the world-spanning questlines, yeah, they were fun - when you bothered to do them. Who here ever bothered to summon and kill Hakkar's avatar, in the Sunken Temple, more than once?

That questline started in Tanaris, went to Feralas, then Blackrock, then Eastern Plaguelands, then you could finally make the boss attempt for the Avatar. It was a really fun boss fight, too, and back then the loot was really nice. But the transit time was ridiculous.

My advice, Clyde, if you like flitting around the world, taking extensive amounts of time traveling from place to place as you unearth nifty little kernels of stuff about the world you're playing in, take up archaeology. It's everything Vanilla questing was, only with more fun things (like a random teleporter device!) and it's completely optional.

Well Borangan, another thing was that we tended to stay in a level range a bit longer back then as well. I remember it took me about a month starting Para and getting him to 60, so I was in the level range for making the ZF mallet, and being able to have the egg, and making the UBRS key, and getting attuned to things all over the place.

But then at some point they lessened the restrictions on leveling (or rather made it faster) and with the dungeon queue system now in place, and heirloom items in Wrath, there was no reason to go all over the place anymore since you wouldn't be that level for long anyway.

We could always play the old guy and say "Back in my day we blah blah blah", but things change. I liked how it was back in the day, but I like how it is now just as much. On the one hand I feel sorry for newer players who don't get to experience how it used to be, and at the same time, I am happy for them being able to play in a world where you aren't throttled so badly by having to take forever to get places.

For nostalgia's sake, there's something to be said for the world-spanning nature of some of the Classic quests. Thing is, they were bathroom breaks built into the game, and even those weren't proper breaks until linked flightpaths were implemented. I still remember having to fly to one point, and then right-click on a flightmaster to fly to the next point, "hopping" across a continent, and sometimes hopping over to Menethil Harbor so I could go to either Theramore or Auberdine.

While those world-spanning quests felt "epic" at the time, they also felt boring due to transit time. To be frank, the only thing that got me fully exploring all of Kalimdor & the Eastern Kingdoms on this character, at least before Cataclysm launched and flying would have made it so much easier (and quicker at 310% speed vs. the 100% speed of a ground mount), was that I wanted the title. Thing is, once I got it, I installed Cataclysm and found out it had considered me to have explored all the "new" areas in the revamped 1-60 zones. I can't speak for anyone else, but I hadn't been out to see the rear burning area behind Northshire Abbey on this toon, nor had I gone over to see Auberdine in wreckage, and to see Lor'danel up north on the coast; I haven't still been out to see the "dancing troll village" that now features, so I hear, said trolls viciously attacking the night elves.

The game feels more sensible to me now in its quest flow (I've so far leveled a Paladin from 1st to around 48th since 4.0.1a came out). As to Mt. Hyjal, yes, it feels somewhat self-contained, because it's encompassing a story that's just one piece of a larger story being told: the elementals under Ragnaros' command are going ape-crazy up there, and Malfurion, ever protective of Nordrassil in light of its sacrifice to stop the Burning Legion 10,000 years prior, wants to insure Ragnaros isn't able to set the recovering World Tree on fire. That elemental craziness ties into elemental craziness in Deepholm, which ties into what's happening in the Twilight Highlands as we march against the Twilight's Hammer and get one step closer to dealing with Deathwing. The only zone that feels sort of "disconnected" to me is Uldum; it was fun, lots of awesome little cutscenes with Harrison Jones, but I had difficulty understanding how it plays into the overall Cataclysm storyline in any fashion other than it being unearthed (or more accurately unhidden) during Deathwing's destruction of Azeroth's status quo.

I have no comments on Vashj'ir, as I haven't run it yet; I'm saving that opening area for my worgen, once this toon is doing nothing but dailies and raiding.

I'm back to not caring about crossing an entire continent to go somewhere, but it's because I still have the novelty of controlling my own flight over Kalimdor & the Eastern Kingdoms. For every time I was on a gryphon and wished I could have an "ejector seat" as I passed over something I wanted/needed (a rare spawn, a hard-to-find herb node, etc.), I can now do that.

But previously, those continent-spanning quests were epic more for the time expenditure on the back of a taxi than for the coolness of the quests. Zone flow makes sense now, I don't have to go skipping off to a zone on another continent to get a couple more levels so I could finish quests in the zone I just left (Hillsbrad was notorious for this with the Horde prior to Cataclysm; you'd often have to go off to Thousand Needles to do some questing so you'd have enough power to come back and finish the Syndicate quests; if you didn't like Thousand Needles, as I didn't, this made for very un-fun game play). There's a coherent story in each zone, complete with cutscenes (admittedly, Duskwood felt kinda "Tacked on" after how cool stuff in Westfall and Redridge were), and things are overall more fun. The whole game feels new again, which is awesome. I hope Blizzard keeps up with this trend.

12/19/2010 2:21 AMPosted by Brynnara

I haven't still been out to see the "dancing troll village" that now features, so I hear, said trolls viciously attacking the night elves.

I'm actually fairly certain that the night elves have killed the entire village.

Overall, I think... questing feels better. More like my character is doing something that matters. As easy as it is to ignore, having to span whole continents quest-hunting is just sorta immersion-breaking, I think. You lose any feeling of urgency when you have to plan out a travel route, which quests to stop and do killcounts/itemgrabs for and when... I rather enjoy that, but it was anything but immersive.

I... have some trouble breaking off in the middle of the current questlines! They actually feel like unfinished business now.


But enough about new things that I like!

What I don't like is the distinct LACK of unrelated quests in a zone. The zone just doesn't feel real when only ONE thing is happening there. Vashj'ir I can sorta accept- the few unrelated quests are finds from obscure nowhereness to just go hunt treasure. I like that, and it makes sense to exist in the zone too! Hyjal is distressingly void of such distractions. You have some missions, and a four-branch that converges back into one line after you complete all four branches. I find that far too linear. Perhaps if fewer branches were required, or if more existed than were needed to move on with the main story, it'd feel more natural.
Hell, "unrelated" quests can even be moderately related! Tidbits of lore, miniature questlines that show the motivations behind other bits of questing in the zone.. so long as they aren't screaming in your face "I AM REQUIRED TO CONTINUE QUESTING IN THIS ZONE!" a few of those spread about would be much appreciated.

I don't like that in so many zones I can get Loremaster by simply following the main storyline. Those questgivers cannot be the only ones in the zone! Where are the other needy people clamoring for attention with their own petty problems? If you help someone in Eureka, you won't eventually be passed straight to me just because I also live in California!

Which leads me to Too Much Chaining. If you enter a zone at the wrong level, you will be the wrong level throughout the entire thing. You cannot skip straight to Raven Hill even if you're above Darkshire's level.
While questing no longer has group-required chokepoints, it is downright UNfriendly to levelling as a team. Nothing a two-man team can be put against will be a challenge. You cannot accept quests until they are two easy for too people, whether it's because the zone simply doesn't ALLOW people of lower level, or because it won't let you move straight to the level 32 part until you complete the level 29 part... at which point you'll gain a couple levels... and the part you were aiming for is now not a challenge for your team.


Now, I'm sure I forgot to include the full explanation of my gripes, but that gives a good idea of my thoughts on current questing, yah?

I've been thinking the same thing, Clyde. From the very first steps in Vashj'ir and Hyjal we are set on a quest path that seemed to me like a guided tour of the areas. The quests in both the old and new zones are far more varied than they were in previous expansions, and more entertaining. Some are emotionally wrenching, like the quest with the Orc and his mount in Southshore.

There is little "wasted space" anymore, and Blizzard has done an outstanding job chaining the quests together so nobody gets distracted. As Ourie mentioned, they make the us feel like we're doing something that matters. Its true, we're participating in history but I miss the open spaces, the non-quest areas where we could screw around and devise our own events. Its like moving from the country to the city. Where once you found your own fun in the forest, now there are amusement parks.

I never thought I'd say this, but we're on the verge of having too many available quests to support an area. When I was levelling my new hunter in Silverpine and Hillsbrad, I was able to skip entire quest hubs due to being in the "Rested" state and outlevelling the area. These hubs are so plentiful now, they seem homogenous. Gone is the single gathering place in a zone, such as Sepulcher or Tarren Mill, because the landscape is dotted with rest-stop suburbs.

Grinding for experience is a thing of the past, and I miss it. Trips to low- and mid-level dungeons seem unnecessary -aside from the achievement- because the levelling system is so fast, and outdoor quests are lucrative and plentiful. There's little need to hang around an area and hunt or explore, because the quest givers have dutifully pointed you to the next exhibit down the road.

Don't get me wrong, its a blast doing the new quests, and I know I sound like an ingrate for complaining about too much content. I'm not sure how it could be fixed at this point, unless Blizzard raised the levelling requirements by 30% or so, (or lowered quest & mob xp by that amount), but players would scream bloody murder. At least it'd give us a reason to hang out in these pretty new zones, band together for dungeons, and smell the roses.

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