While I am not a developer for Blizzard. I like many players like to pretend that I could be. We often find ourselves in the game stating something to the effect of, “Why can’t it do ‘this’?” or “When are they going to fix that?” or “Who plays PvP anyway?” I often times find myself in that boat when it comes to QUESTING in World of Warcraft. Now, to be fair, some players LOVE how questing is laid out in WoW. So, if you love it, you can probably skip this post. Regardless I think Question is ‘just ok’. And when something is ‘just ok’ I try to avoid it as much as possible.That being said, I recognize that Questing is much better than it used to be, but there’s always room for improvement.
Recently, I was grinding some rep for Therazane for my DK, Doomsnarl. He needed those Shoulder enchants as he’s swapping out for my main in Dragon Soul. So, I ended up completing all of Deepholm. As I was grinding this out, I had a few thoughts.
#1: Match Zone Level progression to main Story Line Progression. I find it disconcerting that I had to go BACK to Deepholm to resolve the storyline. On all my Level 85’s. I only quested part way through before I needed to move from the Zone to the more appropriate zone for leveling. In fact, my DK hit level 84 while only half way through Deepholm forcing me to abandon Uldum completely for Twilight Highlands. This makes no sense. I should finish the zone’s MAIN story line while at level in theory. Let’s face it. Most people Quest to Level, and sacrificing these rich stories in favor of toon progression seems wrong.I suggest a shorter main story line for each zone. Tangent story lines to enrichen the experience should continue. Just simply, make those a requirement for an ‘ultimate’ lore achievement or better yet, necessary alternative to grinding rep with the zone faction.
#2: Match Reputation Gain to Level Progression. By the time my toon is ready to leave a zone, I think that he or she should be close to Exalted, if not simply Revered. I know exalted Rep shouldn’t be easy, but in the end. I shouldn’t have to grab a tabbard and run some dungeons to get to Revered. I could spend another post by the way on improving Reputation Grinds.
#3: USE the remote COMPLETE QUEST MORE!: Constant fly backs and walk backs to turn in quests is a waste of time. While many argue that this is what gives you that ‘exploration’ experience. I would argue that once I find a quest hub, and I’ve run, ridden or flown to the new hub, I’ve done my exploration. Making me do it another dozen times as I quest off that hub is ridiculous. Blizzard introduced the remote complete quest option in this expansion, and they should use that more while cutting back on say phasing.
#4: IN GAME ZONE GUIDE: I think that while there is Dungeon Guide now, so too should there be a Quest or Zone Guide. In my opinion, this would help out the player base to not just understand their options in a zone, but help to more effectively guide the experience. Also, each zone should have a questline check off list to let them the quests still available in the area. This is so key. Currently Lore fanatics have to use off line resources and addons to do this, and they shouldn’t have to do that. There should be a tool that helps you in this manner.
#5: BIG BOSS FIGHTS!: Zone bosses should be in every zone, whether it be a group encounter, a single encounter dungeon or even a wandering behemoth (Fel Reaver?) each Zone should have an Antagonist you have to want to kill, and that kill should have a higher scale of difficulty and mean something. Whether the reward is a high faction rep gain, or perhaps a cool piece of loot. Regardless, that adds so much charcter to the experience and it should be it’s own achievement in and of itself. Right now, the end resolves are so… how do I say this… Easy? That should change for at least 1 NCP in the zone. I don’t want every chapter boss to be impossible, but I want one NPC to be difficult in every zone.
Those are my suggestions. Feel free to pick them apart, add your own, and above all else simply participate in the discussion.