I think anyone arguing that WoW has variety, especially in its quests, is off their rocker.
WoW isn't popular because the "quests offer variety". The quest system is not copied for its "variety". It's copied because its easy and it keeps casual players strung along.
In quest based games, there is only one way to level up. Do quests. All quests are exactly the same. If you choose to go somewhere the quests don't tell you to go, you get penalized.
Non quest based games you can go absolutely anywhere you want to hunt, you can group up with friends and strangers to make the experience dynamic and sociable. If you get tired of grinding, in DAoC there was also a kill task system, a quest system, and a bounty system you could do. Grouping with people was the fastest way to level but it wasn't the only way. Quest based games don't allow for options or freedom. They don't encourage grouping. This is why its not clear that quests are better. ESPECIALLY for variety.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
If you see me as having my head in the sand, its because you cant see beyond the surface while I see what lies beneath.
We have gone there .. EQ .. there is absolutely NOTHING below the sand but ungodly amount of mob grind at the same point. I have tried it and i passed. Won't play a GAME like that in the future.
I think anyone arguing that WoW has variety, especially in its quests, is off their rocker.
WoW isn't popular because the "quests offer variety". The quest system is not copied for its "variety". It's copied because its easy and it keeps casual players strung along.
Quests have MORE variety than single mob grind. At least i am not waiting and doing the EXACT same thing when the mob spawn 1000 times in a row.
At least i am fighting different mob at different locations. THAT itself is 1000x better.
In quest based games, there is only one way to level up. Do quests. All quests are exactly the same. If you choose to go somewhere the quests don't tell you to go, you get penalized.
Non quest based games you can go absolutely anywhere you want to hunt, you can group up with friends and strangers to make the experience dynamic and sociable. If you get tired of grinding, in DAoC there was also a kill task system, a quest system, and a bounty system you could do. Grouping with people was the fastest way to level but it wasn't the only way. Quest based games don't allow for options or freedom. They don't encourage grouping. This is why its not clear that quests are better. ESPECIALLY for variety.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
Every game has an optimal something. Its even more prevalent in your precious WoW than in games like EQ. Thing about EQ was, people didn't care as much about what was optimal. They were too busy enjoying the environments and the company.
Why do you think WoW is so famous for having "useless" talents? Why does everyone raid/PvP for the exact same gear? Why are there site upon site with character "builds" and leveling guides out there? Because its easy to find whats optimal.
Quests in WoW have no variance. Hell I remember times when I had multiple quests that involved killing X number of the same enemy Y. Its just sad.
In quest based games, there is only one way to level up. Do quests. All quests are exactly the same. If you choose to go somewhere the quests don't tell you to go, you get penalized.
Non quest based games you can go absolutely anywhere you want to hunt, you can group up with friends and strangers to make the experience dynamic and sociable. If you get tired of grinding, in DAoC there was also a kill task system, a quest system, and a bounty system you could do. Grouping with people was the fastest way to level but it wasn't the only way. Quest based games don't allow for options or freedom. They don't encourage grouping. This is why its not clear that quests are better. ESPECIALLY for variety.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
Non Quest based games allow freedom and encourage socializing. I tried playing LotRO with friends and it simply doesn't work. We're all on different steps in different quests for different places. We can't all go in the same dungeons because you have to do quest chains just to go inside. It's an exclusive experience. My choice was - solo quest by myself and level up, or play with my friends and get NOTHING done (because the game gives you next to no xp or items unless you do quests).
DAoC however, none of those limits are in place. I can group with friends, I can go to dungeons, I can grab new quests and put them aside while I played with strangers. The only benefit of a quest based system is it guides people who don't want to ever have to think. Believe it or not, there are people out there who hate freedom and want the game to play itself.
And yes, I say, the vast VAST majority of quests are EXACTLY the same. In DAoC, where quests were entirely optional, and non systemized, quests had a great deal of variety to them, and there were far less of them.
In LotRO, quests are the only way to level up meaning, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of boring filler quests. Maybe once in a blue moon you get a neat instance you can go to (where you can't bring your friends) but then its back to filler filler filler filler filler. Even the exciting quests are limited by how systematic quests are. There's no exploration because everything is marked for you. There's no problem solving because that'd be too difficult. It's just go there, kill this.
There is little to no real variety in most games, only those with a great deal of social interaction as a driving mechanic can provide as such. And yet plenty of people play games with next to fuck all variety.
This is extremist drivel.
And what's important is that we're comparing games you call "little to no variety" with games that have even less variety.
Run raid, run instanced pvp. Run raid, run instanced pvp. Run raid, run instanced pvp.
Kill 10 rats, kill 10 zombies, kill 10 ghouls.
Sure is endless variety in here.
The more structured a game is, the less chance there is for randomization and freak events, then the less potential variety there is. Amazing that you can't see that.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
The standard quest has variance in monsters but their variance is meaningless. There is no difference between my actions vs generic monster number 10 and generic monster number 37. When I was doing kill quests in WoW I was at the correct level and I never once changed my strategy. I followed an identical move rotation regardless of my target.
Don't you know that it doesn't matter how different the "mehcanics" are if I am not responding any differently to them? If my response is always identical then the difference in the creatures is effectively irrelevant assuming I am as obsessed with "gameplay" as you.
And as for graphics, aka flavor, variance, that is meaningless unless you are not smart enough to see beneath the surface.
Just because you change a skin and alter the mechanics doesn't make the quest any different, assuming as we can with WoW mechanics that your response to kill quest monsters is the same regardless of cosmetic changes.
1. If you always used the exact same rotation without variance or interrupts, you advanced slower than you could have.
2. The fact that WOW mobs reward some adaptive play is good, but clearly the game would be better if they rewarded even more than that. But I've yet to find a MMORPG whose PVE content was anywhere close to WOW's in terms of rewarding adaptive play, so even if we point out WOW could be improved upon we need to concede that it's the best one so far.
3. The mechanics in WOW quests actually provoke quite a few different responses.
Not all WOW quests are kill quests. Between bombing runs, and kill quests, and fedex quests, and object finding quests, and plants vs. zombies quests, and chased-through-a-forest-on-horseback quests, and horse wrangling quests, and quests where you reenact the liche king's combat prowess, and quests where you put out fires....between all of those and far more, WOW has way more quest variety than any other MMORPG I've tried.
4. Graphical variance isn't meaningless to players' enjoyment of games. You seem to feel that if gameplay doesn't vary players would be fine with 1 monster type with 3 animations (walk, idle, attack) when they could have 500 monster types with 10 animations each. Very obviously players would prefer greater visual variety, even in absence of gameplay variety, because experiencing the different visuals feels like a different experience.
I suppose you only ever look at one single piece of art, and refuse to look at new pieces of art because the interaction between viewer and art is always the same.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In quest based games, there is only one way to level up. Do quests. All quests are exactly the same. If you choose to go somewhere the quests don't tell you to go, you get penalized.
Non quest based games you can go absolutely anywhere you want to hunt, you can group up with friends and strangers to make the experience dynamic and sociable. If you get tired of grinding, in DAoC there was also a kill task system, a quest system, and a bounty system you could do. Grouping with people was the fastest way to level but it wasn't the only way. Quest based games don't allow for options or freedom. They don't encourage grouping. This is why its not clear that quests are better. ESPECIALLY for variety.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
Every game has an optimal something. Its even more prevalent in your precious WoW than in games like EQ. Thing about EQ was, people didn't care as much about what was optimal. They were too busy enjoying the environments and the company.
Why do you think WoW is so famous for having "useless" talents? Why does everyone raid/PvP for the exact same gear? Why are there site upon site with character "builds" and leveling guides out there? Because its easy to find whats optimal.
Quests in WoW have no variance. Hell I remember times when I had multiple quests that involved killing X number of the same enemy Y. Its just sad.
This for the most part I do agree with. Not the variety part, I have found more variety in WoW quests than in any other game I've played - flying, stealth, escort, kill, some just plain silly - easily more variety.
But I do agree that every game has an optimal something and WoW is worse for this than EQ ever was. Partly blame developers for putting focus on that, partly blame players for obsessing over it and posting optimal builds...
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
There is little to no real variety in most games, only those with a great deal of social interaction as a driving mechanic can provide as such. And yet plenty of people play games with next to fuck all variety.
This is extremist drivel.
And what's important is that we're comparing games you call "little to no variety" with games that have even less variety.
Run raid, run instanced pvp. Run raid, run instanced pvp. Run raid, run instanced pvp.
Kill 10 rats, kill 10 zombies, kill 10 ghouls.
Sure is endless variety in here.
Yeah .. much more than kill 1 gnoll gain 10 xp, kill 1 gnoll, gain 10 xp, kill 1 gnoll, gain 10 xp .. repeat 100000 times.
In quest based games, there is only one way to level up. Do quests. All quests are exactly the same. If you choose to go somewhere the quests don't tell you to go, you get penalized.
Non quest based games you can go absolutely anywhere you want to hunt, you can group up with friends and strangers to make the experience dynamic and sociable. If you get tired of grinding, in DAoC there was also a kill task system, a quest system, and a bounty system you could do. Grouping with people was the fastest way to level but it wasn't the only way. Quest based games don't allow for options or freedom. They don't encourage grouping. This is why its not clear that quests are better. ESPECIALLY for variety.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
Every game has an optimal something. Its even more prevalent in your precious WoW than in games like EQ. Thing about EQ was, people didn't care as much about what was optimal. They were too busy enjoying the environments and the company.
Why do you think WoW is so famous for having "useless" talents? Why does everyone raid/PvP for the exact same gear? Why are there site upon site with character "builds" and leveling guides out there? Because its easy to find whats optimal.
Quests in WoW have no variance. Hell I remember times when I had multiple quests that involved killing X number of the same enemy Y. Its just sad.
This for the most part I do agree with. Not the variety part, I have found more variety in WoW quests than in any other game I've played - flying, stealth, escort, kill, some just plain silly - easily more variety.
But I do agree that every game has an optimal something and WoW is worse for this than EQ ever was. Partly blame developers for putting focus on that, partly blame players for obsessing over it and posting optimal builds...
You know all those nice varity of quests in WoW? The cool stealth missions, flying, escourt? Now, cut out all the fluff, all the useless garbage of "bring back 10 goat horns" and make it so that questing was optional. Oh my god... now ALL the quests have variety and are worth doing!
The problem is that WoW is systemized. There's no random chance, and all the good quests are buried under THOUSANDS of useless boring quests.
Non Quest based games allow freedom and encourage socializing.
We are talking about variety.
Plus, non quest leveling has LESS freedom since you are killing the same thing over and over again. Sure you get to chat more because of the down-time and the need to find a group maually.
Originally posted by Alasti I have so many, I could fill up this page....but I'll start with one...and I know there will be MANY people who disagree with me on this, but thats the difference between what I'm looking for and what most of the "enjoyer's" of the current crop of MMOs are looking for....I like there to be consequences for your actions...to fear death.... to give people choices in games etc. Anyway...I digress...
In Ultima Online there were people who primarily (along with other things) played what we nowadays would call crafters. I remember standing around a Forge, waiting my turn to pay exorbitant amounts of money to the Master Blacksmith to repair my gear. There was always a crowd around him....he was a MASTER blacksmith and he was coveted! If you didn't get your gear repaired by a Master, then it would degrade...a LOT. If you let your gear break and didn't have another set (usually inferior), you had to either repair it yourself (unwise), get someone who was NOT a Master Blacksmith to repair your gear (degradation), or you did without.....DANG...I miss those days....It is situations like that that created impromptu quests....Not quests created by the game, but created because of the circumstances of the game! I LOVE that stuff!
What are some of the things YOU miss?
Ignorance ....
My first MMO was EverQuest a few months after it released. No one had any idea what to expect, there weren't a million websites explaining every little detail, and the world was still being explored.
One of my fondest memories was my buddy and I standing in EC looking at the cave that led to the desert wondering what was inside. We came to the conclusion that it had to be some giant ass dragon that would kill us if we went in there, so we totally avoided it for a long time. I don't think I went in there until a lot of people started standing around in there to trade. haha
I miss a lot of things from the oldschool style of mmorpgs.
Player run actual economies (not the magic gold - gold sink theme park "economies") When someone calls themselves a crafter in a game like WOW or one of its clones, I laugh. What a waste of time.
Death Penalties: When death is something feared then combat is much more meaningful. In modern themeparks death is either a free warp or a 15 second inconvenience (see SWTOR and the absolutely disgraceful self rez)
FFA PVP with looting: it may sound scary to some but getting an adrenhaline rush when you fight someone really can't be beat. Many players in EVE online call it the shakes
Guild Politics: In oldschool style games, guilds are an active presence in the game world. They could control areas through either game mechanics or through applied player killing. Death penalties and player looting quickly make this kind of pvp meaningful and a guild can actually inspire fear. Guilds were more than just glorified raiding groups or chat rooms.
Roleplaying: In an open game system with guild politics and ffa pvp, everyone pretty much roleplays even if they don't realize it. If you use EVE for example, a pirate may blast your ship down to structure and then ransom you. That is RP. But it's also game mechanics. The player is allowed to be a pirate with no artificial restrictions so they behave as a pirate would. Just because there isn't any "thees" or "thous" or meaningless chit chat doesn't mean it isn't RP. When a mercenary leader brings his band of mercs to fight a pirate group on behalf of a beleaguered group of miners, then that is RP. When a game lets you do anything, suddenly RP is everywhere.
Anyway, I still play EVE so I don't really miss all of these things that much, but I do regret that there are not other game options for this kind of experience.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now! I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
Variety...I agree variety is good. It seems pretty hypocritical that you spout off about variety, but continue to think everyone wants the same thing. Where's the variety in there being only one style of gameplay? Truth of the matter is, the genre lacks variaty as a whole, and this is exactly why threads like this one get made.
We say "give us variety". You say "make every game WoW". Suddenly you say WoW IS variety? Do you realize how absolutely insane you sound?
If you see me as having my head in the sand, its because you cant see beyond the surface while I see what lies beneath.
When have I said make every game WOW?
I point out the ways Blizzard makes games the right way, which translates to successful, interesting, well-loved games. But making games like Blizzard does not translate to copying Blizzard. The design fundamentals are important, but those fundamentals actually suggest making things different in delightful ways.
WOW obviously has variety. More content variety for a non-player-driven game than any other MMORPG out there, honestly (and they still have a good chunk of player-drive stuff too.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In quest based games, there is only one way to level up. Do quests. All quests are exactly the same. If you choose to go somewhere the quests don't tell you to go, you get penalized.
Non quest based games you can go absolutely anywhere you want to hunt, you can group up with friends and strangers to make the experience dynamic and sociable. If you get tired of grinding, in DAoC there was also a kill task system, a quest system, and a bounty system you could do. Grouping with people was the fastest way to level but it wasn't the only way. Quest based games don't allow for options or freedom. They don't encourage grouping. This is why its not clear that quests are better. ESPECIALLY for variety.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
Every game has an optimal something. Its even more prevalent in your precious WoW than in games like EQ. Thing about EQ was, people didn't care as much about what was optimal. They were too busy enjoying the environments and the company.
Why do you think WoW is so famous for having "useless" talents? Why does everyone raid/PvP for the exact same gear? Why are there site upon site with character "builds" and leveling guides out there? Because its easy to find whats optimal.
Quests in WoW have no variance. Hell I remember times when I had multiple quests that involved killing X number of the same enemy Y. Its just sad.
This for the most part I do agree with. Not the variety part, I have found more variety in WoW quests than in any other game I've played - flying, stealth, escort, kill, some just plain silly - easily more variety.
But I do agree that every game has an optimal something and WoW is worse for this than EQ ever was. Partly blame developers for putting focus on that, partly blame players for obsessing over it and posting optimal builds...
You know all those nice varity of quests in WoW? The cool stealth missions, flying, escourt? Now, cut out all the fluff, all the useless garbage of "bring back 10 goat horns" and make it so that questing was optional. Oh my god... now ALL the quests have variety and are worth doing!
The problem is that WoW is systemized. There's no random chance, and all the good quests are buried under THOUSANDS of useless boring quests.
Why would I cut that out, there were integral to the quest and make it interesting and different.
Your argument makes no sense. You could take every quest in every game, movie, book... and if you cut out the parts that make them different than duh they are the same.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Non Quest based games allow freedom and encourage socializing.
We are talking about variety.
Plus, non quest leveling has LESS freedom since you are killing the same thing over and over again.
Uh... only if you choose to kill the same thing over and over. That's the thing, you don't have to. You could replicate your "quest based variety" and kill 10 from that camp, 10 from this camp, 10 from that zone. Nothing's stopping you. In a quest based game, the very mechanics are stopping you.
Even in DAoC they'd reward you with camp bonuses for finding out of the way camps that hadn't been touched in a long time.
Non Quest based games allow freedom and encourage socializing.
We are talking about variety.
Plus, non quest leveling has LESS freedom since you are killing the same thing over and over again.
Uh... only if you choose to kill the same thing over and over. That's the thing, you don't have to.
Uh .. you do or else you will be penalized by non-optimal spawn spots, or have to travel.
Because if you say "you don't have to" .. i can say "you don't have to follow the any quest sequence". There are many quests to choose from .. WAY more variety than kill the same thing over and over again.
Non Quest based games allow freedom and encourage socializing.
We are talking about variety.
Plus, non quest leveling has LESS freedom since you are killing the same thing over and over again.
Uh... only if you choose to kill the same thing over and over. That's the thing, you don't have to. You could replicate your "quest based variety" and kill 10 from that camp, 10 from this camp, 10 from that zone. Nothing's stopping you. In a quest based game, the very mechanics are stopping you.
Even in DAoC they'd reward you with camp bonuses for finding out of the way camps that hadn't been touched in a long time.
So no, I don't think you understand freedom.
The mechanics aren't stopping me, they give me more choice, which means more freedom. I quest when I want, I grind when I want. The choice is completely up to me.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
A true crafting system, ala Star War Galaxies crafting system, the complexity is needed for a real game. I was a pure crafter and loved spending hours "grinding" my proffession, which is what most people consider sitting around crafting while chatting with fellow crafters and customers about wares and materials.
Comments
I think anyone arguing that WoW has variety, especially in its quests, is off their rocker.
WoW isn't popular because the "quests offer variety". The quest system is not copied for its "variety". It's copied because its easy and it keeps casual players strung along.
challenge
meaningfull crafting
community
no instancing
Sorry, those are four, but I already had to restrict myself.
Nah. When i was leveling up in EQ, there is always an optimum spot to level up for that level range. It is an illusion that you can go anywhere. You get penalized if you are not farming xp at the optimum spot.
I can say the same about questing too. There are MANY quests (way more than optimal spawn spots) that you can do in a level range.
Plus, anyone who says all quests are exactly the same have no credibility and is just lying. How can a quest that requires you to kill 10 orcs, is EXACTLY the same as the one that requires you to go into a dungeon and kill a boss?
You can argue you are not interested in questing, but you don't have to resort to lying to back your argument up, do you?
Simple.
The "1st Time Experience"
We have gone there .. EQ .. there is absolutely NOTHING below the sand but ungodly amount of mob grind at the same point. I have tried it and i passed. Won't play a GAME like that in the future.
Quests have MORE variety than single mob grind. At least i am not waiting and doing the EXACT same thing when the mob spawn 1000 times in a row.
At least i am fighting different mob at different locations. THAT itself is 1000x better.
Every game has an optimal something. Its even more prevalent in your precious WoW than in games like EQ. Thing about EQ was, people didn't care as much about what was optimal. They were too busy enjoying the environments and the company.
Why do you think WoW is so famous for having "useless" talents? Why does everyone raid/PvP for the exact same gear? Why are there site upon site with character "builds" and leveling guides out there? Because its easy to find whats optimal.
Quests in WoW have no variance. Hell I remember times when I had multiple quests that involved killing X number of the same enemy Y. Its just sad.
Non Quest based games allow freedom and encourage socializing. I tried playing LotRO with friends and it simply doesn't work. We're all on different steps in different quests for different places. We can't all go in the same dungeons because you have to do quest chains just to go inside. It's an exclusive experience. My choice was - solo quest by myself and level up, or play with my friends and get NOTHING done (because the game gives you next to no xp or items unless you do quests).
DAoC however, none of those limits are in place. I can group with friends, I can go to dungeons, I can grab new quests and put them aside while I played with strangers. The only benefit of a quest based system is it guides people who don't want to ever have to think. Believe it or not, there are people out there who hate freedom and want the game to play itself.
And yes, I say, the vast VAST majority of quests are EXACTLY the same. In DAoC, where quests were entirely optional, and non systemized, quests had a great deal of variety to them, and there were far less of them.
In LotRO, quests are the only way to level up meaning, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of boring filler quests. Maybe once in a blue moon you get a neat instance you can go to (where you can't bring your friends) but then its back to filler filler filler filler filler. Even the exciting quests are limited by how systematic quests are. There's no exploration because everything is marked for you. There's no problem solving because that'd be too difficult. It's just go there, kill this.
Run raid, run instanced pvp. Run raid, run instanced pvp. Run raid, run instanced pvp.
Kill 10 rats, kill 10 zombies, kill 10 ghouls.
Sure is endless variety in here.
The more structured a game is, the less chance there is for randomization and freak events, then the less potential variety there is. Amazing that you can't see that.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
1. If you always used the exact same rotation without variance or interrupts, you advanced slower than you could have.
2. The fact that WOW mobs reward some adaptive play is good, but clearly the game would be better if they rewarded even more than that. But I've yet to find a MMORPG whose PVE content was anywhere close to WOW's in terms of rewarding adaptive play, so even if we point out WOW could be improved upon we need to concede that it's the best one so far.
3. The mechanics in WOW quests actually provoke quite a few different responses.
Not all WOW quests are kill quests. Between bombing runs, and kill quests, and fedex quests, and object finding quests, and plants vs. zombies quests, and chased-through-a-forest-on-horseback quests, and horse wrangling quests, and quests where you reenact the liche king's combat prowess, and quests where you put out fires....between all of those and far more, WOW has way more quest variety than any other MMORPG I've tried.
4. Graphical variance isn't meaningless to players' enjoyment of games. You seem to feel that if gameplay doesn't vary players would be fine with 1 monster type with 3 animations (walk, idle, attack) when they could have 500 monster types with 10 animations each. Very obviously players would prefer greater visual variety, even in absence of gameplay variety, because experiencing the different visuals feels like a different experience.
I suppose you only ever look at one single piece of art, and refuse to look at new pieces of art because the interaction between viewer and art is always the same.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This for the most part I do agree with. Not the variety part, I have found more variety in WoW quests than in any other game I've played - flying, stealth, escort, kill, some just plain silly - easily more variety.
But I do agree that every game has an optimal something and WoW is worse for this than EQ ever was. Partly blame developers for putting focus on that, partly blame players for obsessing over it and posting optimal builds...
Yeah .. much more than kill 1 gnoll gain 10 xp, kill 1 gnoll, gain 10 xp, kill 1 gnoll, gain 10 xp .. repeat 100000 times.
You know all those nice varity of quests in WoW? The cool stealth missions, flying, escourt? Now, cut out all the fluff, all the useless garbage of "bring back 10 goat horns" and make it so that questing was optional. Oh my god... now ALL the quests have variety and are worth doing!
The problem is that WoW is systemized. There's no random chance, and all the good quests are buried under THOUSANDS of useless boring quests.
We are talking about variety.
Plus, non quest leveling has LESS freedom since you are killing the same thing over and over again. Sure you get to chat more because of the down-time and the need to find a group maually.
That is NOT the reason i want to play a game.
Which refutes my original post how exactly?
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Ignorance ....
My first MMO was EverQuest a few months after it released. No one had any idea what to expect, there weren't a million websites explaining every little detail, and the world was still being explored.
One of my fondest memories was my buddy and I standing in EC looking at the cave that led to the desert wondering what was inside. We came to the conclusion that it had to be some giant ass dragon that would kill us if we went in there, so we totally avoided it for a long time. I don't think I went in there until a lot of people started standing around in there to trade. haha
I miss a lot of things from the oldschool style of mmorpgs.
Player run actual economies (not the magic gold - gold sink theme park "economies") When someone calls themselves a crafter in a game like WOW or one of its clones, I laugh. What a waste of time.
Death Penalties: When death is something feared then combat is much more meaningful. In modern themeparks death is either a free warp or a 15 second inconvenience (see SWTOR and the absolutely disgraceful self rez)
FFA PVP with looting: it may sound scary to some but getting an adrenhaline rush when you fight someone really can't be beat. Many players in EVE online call it the shakes
Guild Politics: In oldschool style games, guilds are an active presence in the game world. They could control areas through either game mechanics or through applied player killing. Death penalties and player looting quickly make this kind of pvp meaningful and a guild can actually inspire fear. Guilds were more than just glorified raiding groups or chat rooms.
Roleplaying: In an open game system with guild politics and ffa pvp, everyone pretty much roleplays even if they don't realize it. If you use EVE for example, a pirate may blast your ship down to structure and then ransom you. That is RP. But it's also game mechanics. The player is allowed to be a pirate with no artificial restrictions so they behave as a pirate would. Just because there isn't any "thees" or "thous" or meaningless chit chat doesn't mean it isn't RP. When a mercenary leader brings his band of mercs to fight a pirate group on behalf of a beleaguered group of miners, then that is RP. When a game lets you do anything, suddenly RP is everywhere.
Anyway, I still play EVE so I don't really miss all of these things that much, but I do regret that there are not other game options for this kind of experience.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now!
I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
When have I said make every game WOW?
I point out the ways Blizzard makes games the right way, which translates to successful, interesting, well-loved games. But making games like Blizzard does not translate to copying Blizzard. The design fundamentals are important, but those fundamentals actually suggest making things different in delightful ways.
WOW obviously has variety. More content variety for a non-player-driven game than any other MMORPG out there, honestly (and they still have a good chunk of player-drive stuff too.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why would I cut that out, there were integral to the quest and make it interesting and different.
Your argument makes no sense. You could take every quest in every game, movie, book... and if you cut out the parts that make them different than duh they are the same.
Uh... only if you choose to kill the same thing over and over. That's the thing, you don't have to. You could replicate your "quest based variety" and kill 10 from that camp, 10 from this camp, 10 from that zone. Nothing's stopping you. In a quest based game, the very mechanics are stopping you.
Even in DAoC they'd reward you with camp bonuses for finding out of the way camps that hadn't been touched in a long time.
So no, I don't think you understand freedom.
Uh .. you do or else you will be penalized by non-optimal spawn spots, or have to travel.
Because if you say "you don't have to" .. i can say "you don't have to follow the any quest sequence". There are many quests to choose from .. WAY more variety than kill the same thing over and over again.
The mechanics aren't stopping me, they give me more choice, which means more freedom. I quest when I want, I grind when I want. The choice is completely up to me.
I miss the lack of all these morons who know everything about said game. Was much more fun when we were all n00bs.
Sometimes experience is a bitch and ignorance really is bliss.
A true crafting system, ala Star War Galaxies crafting system, the complexity is needed for a real game. I was a pure crafter and loved spending hours "grinding" my proffession, which is what most people consider sitting around crafting while chatting with fellow crafters and customers about wares and materials.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest