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Blizzard upped the standards of quests. It will never be the same again.
Zaovrantar
Member Posts: 85
Westfall Imagine this: You come upon a murder scene.
A farmer and his horse were killed beside the road. Yep, he was the one who waited for a long time in old Westfal to get things going and now he's murdered.
You have to search for clues: some beggars, homeless, children who steal from the dead. The Bronx type. Some humanoid mobs that live further down the beach are supects too. You need to search but no clues come in.
Then the detective sends you to question a tip giver. He's heard something of course and you need to go to his old hiding place. When you search this cave - you hide within a box, you are witness of a secret meeting between a dual headed Ogre and a young woman you can't identitfy. She asks the Ogre if the operation was succesful. He hired some tugs to do the killing.
You sneak back to the man and he already know the tugs: they stand with 4 around the back of the house. Reluctantly you sneak upon them, but ... you can't attack them: standing close ... you hear them talking about the murder. Suddenly they turn and uncover you. You run (4 guys), but in running you see that only 2 come after you. A fierce fight and you kill those 2.
You go back and the old man lays dead surrounded by crying people: the old tip giver was murdered (perhaps by those other 2). The murdered man has his shoes over his heads: that's what they do with those who talk.
Now the important part.
In this quest you are confronted with 3 phasings without even noticing it. Incredible design. Without any loading screens the murder scenery changes and the inspector is back on track to help you solve the case. Other players still see the murdered man alive... and you don't even realise you're being "phased" while still viewing other players.
Incredible quest mechanics. Superior to anything I've seen on line. The player doesn't even know he's tricked into a phasing sequence.
Comments
Well before you go tooting Blizzards horn,let's getr some facts straight here....
Blizzard is no bettertha nthe rest releasing bugged content,which means they did not testing of their on content to make sure it works.Then they take an idea and rehash the exact same quest idea in EVERY noob zone...you know which one the fire extinguisher.
There is a quest to hand over a DEED to a farmers farm,all a nice little quest if it actually works but it doesn't the farmer never shows up to give him the deed.Grimaxe demise anotehr bugged quest in the stumpy land of dwarves,Don Murdogh or whatever it is called.You need to kill Genral Grimaxe umm he doesn't show lol.
The airfield is a nice bit of quests,you fly in on a plane,extinguish fires [rehashed]jump in a plane and bomb the enemies,but then it ruins the entire design if it can't be continued because of a bugged quest.What can totally ruin the game experience is that MANY peopel wil lrun all over figuring they are in the wrong spot,only to finally ee someone post that the quest/s are bugged,so people wasted tons of their time.
Then you can get used to the game holding your hand showing exactly where to go,but then some one put out a marker that is quite a bit off from where your target is suppsoe to be,again lazy on behalf of Blizzard.The players are not making the content ,Blizz is ,so they are the ones that shoudl get it right.Sure people can eventually find the target,but the point is that Blizz makes many errors and peopel just like to toot the horn like they are perfect,they are not.
This was just two of the zones,i imagine more bugged content throughout the game.This is to make sure people don't go overboard complementing a developer for releasing bugs,afterall to be fair,nobody accepts it from any otehr developer right?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I'm sure some troll will come along to tell you how your wrong but I for one agree.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
That is quite a lame defensive response,you like the OP ,ONLY tell one side of the story w/o telling the obvious,especially when 50% of the people on the servers know of the bugs as i am quite sure both of you also know but made sure to NOT mention it...why?
I told the facts and truth,a few of the quests would be pretty good if they actually worked,asking them to actually work is not asking too much is it?or is that trolling also?SICK of people throwing around trolling even when FACTS are presented.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I will gladly be that troll...but this is serious.
The OP shows a great lack of what is going on in the coding of the quest if they think that what is described is extraordinary.
Phasing? I think not.
sure...it might be an interesting quest (or you might be overselling it) but that doesn't mean anything for the standards of quests. I sure hope that a 6 year old game isn't setting the standards of quests.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
So then, more than ever, you are playing a single player game. A step backward IMO, but to each their own.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So he didnt get murdered? in other words that quest have nada impact on the world just like all the 100000's of quests in wow and other mmo's.
If this is the upped standard of quests i probably give up on mmo's soon
So then, more than ever, you are playing a single player game. A step backward IMO, but to each their own.
Yo!!! Who put this sp rpg in my sandbox!!!!!Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Yep, the MMO I want to play (and probably is a long time in coming) is one where If the man gets murdered, he stays murdered and we all see him dead at the same time. He never respawns, never comes back, and its a one time, permanent event in the game world.
I know its a content nightmare to try and create, but I can hope that one day we'l have games to play like this.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The phasing is so well camouflaged the player doesn't feel it.
First there is the tip giver, then that same man is surrounded by other people (scenery change) and finally he is murdered and the neighbours and family are standing around him. They are even questioned by the detective.
Other players around me see the man still alive. All flows naturally and doesn't effect the game as an MMO (you still see players) and you chat in the zone's channel.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
The man stays murdered for all those who did the quest chain. Forever: he'll never wake up and your avatar has to solve the case of the mysterious woman behind these crimes.
It does exactly what you ask for. You are hoping for something what already has been delivered: a programmer's nightmare.
How does it not effect the game? the other players near you have no impact on that quest whatsover, they probably dont even see all those people, family etc.
Playing the witcher 2 and chat on windows live makes it an mmo too?
No, you're not quite grasping my point, if I solve the mystery, I want to be the only person who solves the mystery, and not the person who did it for the 33,298th time.
I want the game world to be unique and dynamic, that we all actually live in, however the amount of content generation far outstrips our current technology, but one day we might have such an interactive environment.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I bought 1 month of play time out of curiosity. Some thoughts:
1) I created a troll mage on wednesday. On friday morning I was on lvl 31 (18 hours of /played). Do you really think you can keep me entertained for more than a month?
2) Wow is more of a hand holding than ever. Today, you follow a linear flow of quests, many of them rewards you with a green piece of equipment, some even blue. No group quests where you would actually need a group so far. You can use a flight path even if you're not discovered your destination yet; if you have a quest to relocate to next quest hub, that is.
3) Dungeons (which have always been a grain and salt of WoW) are no longer AoE fest but a faceroll nevertheless. Mob numbers have been decreased and the damage they deal is pathetic. Bosses have increased health; that does mean the fight takes longer than before and... well, that's it.
4) Quests give you a huge amount of exp. Do some dungeons and they turn to gray. you still have to do them if you want to unlock the follow-ups.
5) Due to quest rewards and random dungeon 'goodie packs', crafting professions are next to useless. I believe you can craft something useful on lvl 85 but before that it's only a big grind. Oh, for some reasons you cant get glyphs from anywhere else but from an inscription profession.
6) PvP? Obviously I wouldn't know; I play other games for FPS. PvP in WoW has nothing to do with anything in the world of warcraft.
Bottom line: WoW is a playable saturday morning cartoon. It's a damn good game in its own league but I'm looking for a real MMO; you know, something I could play for months and months.
well, after ive been playing for tis last 3 days with my alts i can say something about the changes in the quest system.
To be honest, im completely surprised by the way I felt immersed on this virtual world like I never did before in any other game.
The way Blizzard made the zones, with improved phasing, the writing used in the quests, the "movies" we get to see in the quests wich explain the story we are following and the way they are presented to us is just far far away from everything else in the market.
This new system just brings WoW to a whole new level and lets other games in the market behind.
There is no "enter a city, collect all quests, do all quests, deliver all quests" no, every quest belongs to a chain now, a chain wich explains and explores the lore of each zone.
Every other game suddenly feels like just a plethora os quests thrown at us without any link to each other, just to grind the next level. And WoW got above that, bringing sense to what we are doing.
Great job done by Blizzard.
Unlike I was thinking beforehand this is not an expansion, this is an absolutely well made redoing of a completely world of an online game.
WoW once again stands out of the crowd and proves its here for many years in the leadership position.
The only game I see now that can compete with wow in lore and game immersion (story wise) will be SW: ToR, but its yet a bit soon to see whats coming from there
I would have to point you in the direction of any MMO you can name and tell you that the content you are seeking does exist, however that content needs YOU to create it, it's called RP and is rarely used within most mainstream MMO's.
CoH and SWG also give players the tools to create their own content, and I'm sure there are others out there that do the same, yet these games are largely ignored, for whatever reason the player may have.
However if you want to see on the fly content, start using your own imagination and use your friends/guildies to help you create it, after all most of these games tell us time and again that we shape our own destiny blah blah crap, why not do it for a change rather than complain that the devs haven;t done it for us.
Where there is a will there is a way.
phasing isn't the future. Look at the most hyped games in development right now (disregarding the value of this site's hype system). If that is any indication, it is actually moving towards a more public type of quest giving, where the quest is happening for everyone whether you decide to do it or not.
In my mind, it isn't really important that WoW wants to improve itself, or that they have improved a small amount with the last expansion. It isn't even important to me that WoW is using phasing, or whatever you wish to call the mechanism of showing quest progression for a single player. WoW is still fundamentally WoW, and whether you like WoW or not probably won't change. Given that I don't enjoy WoW much at all, I suppose that I am biased, but I try to be a fair judge of what I can see. All in all, new quests == old quests.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I know its a content nightmare to try and create, but I can hope that one day we'l have games to play like this.
The man stays murdered for all those who did the quest chain. Forever: he'll never wake up and your avatar has to solve the case of the mysterious woman behind these crimes.
It does exactly what you ask for. You are hoping for something what already has been delivered: a programmer's nightmare.
No, you're not quite grasping my point, if I solve the mystery, I want to be the only person who solves the mystery, and not the person who did it for the 33,298th time.
I want the game world to be unique and dynamic, that we all actually live in, however the amount of content generation far outstrips our current technology, but one day we might have such an interactive environment.
youd either need 100 devs working 24/7 creating characters and stories on the fly, or a game angine with crazy god ai that created its own content and never loop or be predictable.
in either case, theres no point in bashing wow just because its not doing the impossible (right now).
the phasing in wow is a lot of fun and even more so when you group and do a zone's story arch. my gf and i are enjoying it, but i dont agree that this is the standard. there are a lot of fun and interesting ways to do leveling content, im looking forward to swtor, gw2, and rift as they all have their own twist on leveling content.
the fact that there are devs making multiple ways to level up is a good sign. the phasing style is fun as im sure the other styles will be too.
u dont think the phasing system should be the standard just as i dont think dynamic vents should be or a fully voiced srpg storyline. they all have their strengths and tbh, whether you like any or not, its showing that the genre is indeed evolving once again.
The last bit is already there but not in games yet. a dutch student developed an program that can write novels on its own.
All he has to do is add some keywords to steer the direction the novel is heading and that program do the rest.
To use it in a game to write quests etc can be still quite a bit away but deffinetly not impossible
Phasing is way better than instances, and both LOTRO and to some degree EQ2 have used it too. It makes the world feel more populated even if we seen some odd things with it like mobs spawning from nowhere to attack the guy next to you and similar things.
But I am not sure I would call it "upped the standards", they just used phasing instead of instance the whole thing.
To up the standards you would have to make quests different, even if it is great that Blizz are cutting down on rat killing quests.
WARs public quests and GW2s Dynamic quests is a very different thing, that is something no one else has done before.
Wows motto have always been "Do what others have done before but better". If they have made or not is up to everyones opinion, but it is at least clear that they have improved Wows quests a lot.
U know grimaxe is not bugged i killed him no problem i dont know what your issue is man. U wanna hate on blizz go for it but this quest worked fine for me and i did it day 1 of the new patch. I used in game map follwed it and got right wher ehe was. NO issue. Maybe the issue is u arent going where these quests are suppose to go.
I for one think blizzard has done a great job with flow. I have played wow for 5 yrs and the flow of quests is much smoother since the shattering. most of the quests are new as well. Grimaxe wasnt hard to find at all. Hell they usually have a nice skull on map for any boss in cave so if u scroll your map out u can find it easy enough as well.
...?
All Blizzard did differently was put giant exlamation marks above quest npcs heads
Lol, this might explain all poorly written rat killing and Fedex quest that seems to plague every single MMO out there.
He might bug sometimes, not uncommon in newly released content. Happens in most games from time to time.
But just because it works for you doesn't really means it works every time, and many people are playing Wow so even an extremely rare bug will happen for a bunch of people.