Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Should All Questing Be Made For You?

I am sure most, if not all, level 90s have experienced the Tiller quests Pest Problems, where you need to stomp 25 black nosed marmots and Weed War II, where you need to pull 100 weeds, as part of their dailies but how many of you have noticed that those quests are different from all other quests in the game?

I noticed it the first time I ever did them and I must say I love the fact they are different like that.  In case you have no clue what I am talking about and think I should drink some coffee and wake up before I start to write a post let me explain.

When you are on one of those quests the quest items are there just for you only.  Even if you see other people there they can not stomp your marmots.  Any marmot you see is for you only.  Even if they appear to stomp on the same marmot you have, yours is still there.  All that means is they had one in that area as well.  Everyone sees marmots and weeds that are there just for them only.  If you really wanted to you could wait until a lot are up and do it all at once instead of waiting for the weeds or marmots to spawn.  No one can take them from you, they are yours and yours alone.

This is fantastic design.  It removes the competition from a part of the game that really should not have any.  If you are a competitive type you can play on a PvP server and maybe the quests could make you compete for the objectives there, but for someone that plays a game for fun or just to relax there is no need to add the competition angle to the daily grind.  I can not speak for others but I know I just want to get my dailies done ASAP and having quest objectives that are mine and mine alone helps me with that.

Should all questing be designed this way?  Blizzard has seemingly used it in various parts of the game this expansion.  Finding those rare items is on a per character basis.  You will only see it on a character that does not have it.  However, there is competition for those, but it shows that things can be shown, or hidden, based on a per character basis.  Same with the gray items that are always there.   Everyone can loot it so if you see it and grab it and there is someone else standing right there they can grab it too.  But once you have grabbed it you will never see it there again.  It was there, just for you, always.

It is fantastic design and really helps speed up the daily quest grind.  Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had their own items to gather and did not need to fly around, sometimes for what seems like an hour, trying to find the 10 things they need to gather just because a lot of people are there doing the quest.  I have never been a fan of wasting time and competing for quest items is only a time sink, it is not difficult, it takes no skill, there is no reason to add competition to the concept of gathering items for a quest other than as a time sink.

Maybe someone at blizzard finally realized that there is nothing fun about gathering quest items like that and it make it frustrating when there are others competing for it as well.  Like I said, on a PvP server the competition is fun, you see someone going for something you need, if they are of the opposite faction, you can kill them and take it for yourself.  Now that is fun.  If you are into that sort of thing.  As a small side note, I think you should be allowed to attack your own faction members on a PvP server as well, but that is for another post.  Otherwise, the competition for gathering items is just a general annoyance and a waste of time for people on a PvE server, if anything it can get extremely frustrating as there is nothing you can do if someone steals your item.  Hence the reason this type of competition has no place on a PvE server.

Blizzard has shown that they can make questing just for you.  They can expand it past those quests to all quests with items that need to be gathered.  Could you just imagine how much smoother this would make the redundant task of dailies if you did not have to waste more time finding things for only one quest than it would have taken you to do the entire quest hub otherwise?

Should they go further, should they make quest mobs just for you?  Should they make everything just for you?  I am not sure about that, but I do believe that the items you need to gather, or weeds you need to pick, or marmots you need to stomp could really benefit from using the design that things are made just for you.  Gathering items is not hard and as a daily task it should not be competitive either.  Maybe this is the future, should all questing be made just for you?

9 comments:

  1. What a great idea free-for-all PvP. You can attack everybody, or are you safe in your own guild?

    Can you attack people whilst in a raid? This sounds like chaos. I love it.

    It would lead to drive by shootings in all the major cities. Stabbed in the back whilst visiting the Auction House. Awesome.

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    1. I would guess guild would be the only ones that you could not attack, anyone else would be fair game. In instances you would not be able to fight either.

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  2. Nothing like giving the griefers more ammo.

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  3. Yes, I wish more quests were like that. I especially hate the Golden Lotus Runes quest. I swear it takes longer to do that one than all the other combined.

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    1. I said that to a guild mate when I first did that and I was the only one there doing the quest. I said, it takes me longer to find these stupid things than it did to do everything else.

      Now if it was that annoying alone, add dozens more people a week later when many started to catch up and start doing dailies.

      Yeap, those ruins are horrible.

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  4. and here a few days later - And why not? Tired of the griefers, the trouble makers, the asshats. If this is what it takes, then it should be done. Along with it, make all doorways, mailboxes and quest givers a no mount area. Tired of the (please see above) using thier mounts as blocks.

    And I do wish one could give the "finger" to these jerks. Last night a lvl 88 horde mage decided to bring a mob into Nesingwary's camp onto to me to get me to go pvp.

    Ha! I reconized that trap - sure enough a lvl 90 BE paly from their guild dropped down from the sun. Stupid undead mage. But if the quests were "just for me or party', there would have not been any griefing going on. have that crap on a pvp server.

    Anyway, my 2nd granddaughter "Miss Ava Monroe Bondelid" has decided to come into the world as of Dec 22nd, 2012. Also my wedding date :) Oh boy that will make that easier to remember. So a nice Christmas present for all of us here. :)

    Grump, you and your family have a great and fantasic holiday season. Also all of the other folks such as Jaeger, anonymoose, etc to you I say this-

    "Ein frohes Weihnachtsfest und alles gute zum neuen Jahr!"

    "A joyful Christmas and best wishes for the New Year!"

    -roo "sitting in front of the yule log with a mug of hard cider, bread and cheese, and WeePussyKat at me side, enjoying the scent of Christmas" saying to you "A Blythe Yule an a Guid Hogmanay"



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    1. Congrats on the birth of your granddaughter.

      Hope you had a good one.

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  5. Why not just remove all other players? All of Azeroth would be phased just for you. They could call it "Skyrim"

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    1. Nah, we need other player to overpay for items they could easily get themselves but are too lazy to on the auction house.

      But otherwise, I would LOVE a world without 90% of the players I run into in this game.

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