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New starting quests feel too linear...
glofish
Member UncommonPosts: 346
I just played the worgen starter race to level 8 on a friend's account. I don't understand why some people rave about the new questing. It seems far inferior to the old school approach. It feels limited, isolated, a simplistic single player experience and I had the sense of being on rails the whole time.
WoW used to be about the great and immersive world. The worgen zone feels anything but.
Comments
The Worgen Zone wasn't one of my favorites either, I only liked it because of the story, but it is extremely linear and you have to do every quest., I definantly wouldn't do it again.
I don't know if the Goblin zone is the same, but all the other beginner zones aren't so linear, they didn't mess those area's up, you can chose to do no quests in those zones, and the order you do them isn't so linear. I was really relieved to go to Darkshore with my worgen, it was a lot less linear, tons of quests that don't require a previous quest, but might be better to do with an old quest, you know what I mean, much like old WoW.
Hyjal seemed a little linear too, not as much, as you can do whatever shrine you want first or whatever, but more so then 1-60 zones. It's more linear, but it is much more hidden then in the worgen zone, you can skip around and stuff, while in the Worgen zone I felt like I had to stay in the same path.
Hopefully if Blizz is going to make more linear zones, they do it more like Hyjal and Darkshore, multilinear, so you still feel like you are in a big world.
-I want a Platformer MMO
I started a new Forsaken character and the entire experience from 1 - 58 until you can start Outlands quests is pretty much on rails. The phasing is so ingrained that missing any of the quests can alter the landscape for you and even cause progression to grind to a halt. To add to this, Blizzard drops experience from killing mobs to 10% in an area once you hit level 60, Level 70 in Outlands, and Level 80 in Northrend. They are going to push you on to level-appopriate content whether you like it or not.
The world is no longer expansive. In fact, it can't really even be called a world anymore, just a series of stage sets.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Someone says this every expansion and yet Blizzards still rakes in the cash. Everyone was using quest helper, tom tom, James leveling guide and so forth so I guess Blizzard decided to cut out the middle man. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it seems that most opinions regarding this seem to fall in line with Blizzard's design decisions.
"For a wounded man shall say to his assailant, 'If I live, I will kill you. If I die, You are forgiven.' Such is the rule of honour..."
I also agree with Really about how it makes little sense to focus on revamping content that with 12 million subscribers, most have already experienced more than once.
WoW has become a great entry into the MMO genre, too bad they decided to not take any risks this time out.
I agree.
I thought it was so weird: what they did with the NPCs (some now are attacking enemies too, instead of just sitting there), made the world feel more like a world, they made the quests more interesting in themselfs, the stories are a lot more entertaining instead of sort of random, the quests connect better with eachother, but the rail system sort of breaks all that those positive things accomplished. Could they not have done all that, but still made it multilinear?
Take Darkshore: The main stories I've done so far are the Shatterspears, Auberdine Survivors, Twilight Stuff, Killing Murlocs, Saving Grimclaw, The Corrupted Animals, but they sort of made it that you had to do this Auberdine Survivors Quest, before you could the Corrupted Animal Quest, before you could do this or that, blah blah blah. They should of made it that all 6 beginning parts of these quests are available at the same time at least. While there are plenty of quests that don't require you to do another quest (about 10 of the 40 I've done so far), it still is bad.
-I want a Platformer MMO
Sorry but WoW has never been an immersive world with most of it either totally instanced or zone instanced. Now i hear its even worse with Cata. Anybody else sick with companies making games with no difficulity at any level?
I mean, there are literally some people defending this new way by saying that before you were just sent to kill things for no reason and now they give you a reason for it. And that just tells me that you never read the quest log because all quests had a reason for them happening. ALL. Each zone had it's storyline before just like there is now.
I think all new starting zones are pretty much like the Worgen one except for some few variations. I level a Dwarf Shaman and it's literally one straight line, and the best part was that one of the quests bugged so i couldn't continue on because the storyline was stuck on that quest that bugged so i just had to go to Loch Modan on my own with no resolution to what was going on.
WoW Sidequests
Agree 110% to the OP.. The game is on rails... What it reminds me of is back in my childhoood of traveling to and from grandmas.. It would be late at night and I'm in the backseat eyes closed and doing the car nap thing.. With my eyes closed I was able to easily tell where I was just by the stops, speed and turns.. WoW plays the same way.. So predictable, no matter how many alts you take thru, you can level with your eyes closed..
ok thats when you know its time for a new game lol.
I'm not trying to flame or troll your post, but WoW's questing has been very very linear from day 1.
It is part of the overall change in the game. Well, it is more of a refinement. As stated, to an extent WoW has always been linear. Yes, you had a few options in regard to the paths you would take and that is limited more by the Cata changes - yet the same is true of the classes themselves.
WoW is a game lobby. Blizzard is a game lobby company. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo... game lobby games. Blizzard does very well with them. WoW is about the pseudo endgame game lobby. They have simplified both the character options and character progression to reach that game lobby.
It is what they intended. It is not broken. If one is disappointed with it... then you may have been asleep at the keyboard as this change has been in progress since before the release.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Really.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Statements like this make the inference that people who have played this game for years couldn't tell when something feels different. Before Version 4.03, questing was really not all that linear. NPCs would send you to different areas to discover, but it was never something you had to do. I often found that I would outlevel an area before I had a chance to do anything there.
The present "theme ride" system is meticulously calculated to get you from 1 - 58 and has next to no branching off. Instead of a random NPC sending you off into a new region, Blizzard has substituted the bulletin board, where you are offered one of usually two level-appropriate theme rides. The goal, apparently, is to shunt you on into the next expansion content as quickly as possible.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
They saw what Bioware is doing now with SW:TOR and thought to beat them to it.
You know. At least people can now get an idea about how SW:TOR will turn out to be. Even worse.
I did order "Cataclysm" but won't get it until the 12/14/10
You can still wander aimlessly right? It's not all instanced is it? Where you have to wait to travel to the next area. You can still ride from one end of a continent to another. Yeah?
Obviously you dont know your WoW development timeline. In beta the game more closely resembled EQ, with the ability to grind more than quest. Then they changed the game so you could both grind and quest evenly, this is on of the staples of what made the game so popular, it gave the hardcore and casual gamers something to play.
The game now is nothing like Vanilla WoW. Now to say its a bad game after cact would be ridiculous. But to say that WoW has always been, through development, and upon release a "Lobby game"... is just about the most ill informed and ill researched comment you can make regarding WoW.
Theres no indication before introduction of BG's that the game wanted to be a "Lobby game". Even dungeons you had to travel the distance to them before being instanced inside, and on top of that there was open world end game bosses in WoW, remember Lord Kazzak?
Dont make it out to be what its not, WoW has always been trying to find its core audience. Before they were playing a balncing act, with casual and hardcore gamers alike. WoW is now a game for the casual, that doesnt mean it doesnt have hardcore elements at end game, with raiding, etc. But its not a "Hardcore" game, and unlike before theres not even a reminent of its old style around.
WoW is a new game, and yes now it is a closer cousin to a lobby game, but dont try and make up a new WoW timeline and history where the game always was focused on the Casual only audience. If so they would have never crafted such an intricate and open game world from the start, only to put it on tracks now.
Quite possibly the dumbest comment of the day. Bioware's stories are movie quality and with elements of the most hardcore and nerdy thrown in. WoW's stories are about as deep as a puddle and feel written for and by 12 year olds. Cata is more of the same and basically made things from WOTLK even easier (LOL) but really, Bioware's stories cannot be compared to blizzard or any other company. NO ONE is even remotely in their league when it comes to stories, charecters, twists, etc and SWTOR will be a masterpiece of a game. Haters just gonna hate, and if SWTOR's story and using story as a keystone is so bad, what do you think GW2 will be? GW2 won't be able to even contend with the story of SWTOR. Bioware is simply unrivaled
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
It FEELS linear because it IS linear. And, while I agree with the person who said the quests have always been linear, to a degree, you DID have the freedom to not DO a quest or two you didn't want to do and even to hop over to another area. The new started zones are so FLOODED with the use of PHASING technology that there is no way you can skip any quests, and there is also no way to do them with friends unless you stay together the whole time.
I have finally come to the conclusion, and I have never flat out said this before, but now....for me.....I think WoW just absolutely SUCKS. I know others disagree. That's perfectly fine. We don't all have to agree. But for me....they have finally put the final nail in the coffin.
I swore earlier in the year that I was done giving the game chances and then, against my better judgment, I decided that perhaps the hype might mean something and I'd give them another chance. All I can say for me.....big mistake. I've made too many alts, I have too many 80s, and I'm FAR FAR FAR too burnt out on the game for these changes to matter a damn to me.
I'm really not sure why people get offended when someone has been playing a game that they like, but has probably been playing it for YEARS longer than they have, and they get upset when that person is sick of the game and thinks the game changes are not for the better. What difference does it make to YOU if YOU still enjoy the game. Play it until YOU'RE burnt out too, for all I care. I got my money's worth out of it over the course of the years I played, I just happen to think that THIS time around....I didn't, and won't....because I tired of the same thing. It's like eating pizza every day for six years. Eventually you're just hungry for something DIFFERENT.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
You seem to be confusing quest progression, something that is in EVERYGAME, with the rails that Wow is now on.
They are both similar is that they make you progress through the game to other areas, yes, but the rails they have now in some areas make you follow one single path. Before you pretty much did what you wanted to do.
WoW Sidequests
I think I said that. I even stated that before you could skip a quest or go to another area........
EDIT: Sorry. I occurs to me that you're probably not talking to me, even though your post is just below mine. Forgive me.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I agree with the OP the new phasing to do quests sucks, and it makes it feel like you neeed to do x to proceed. I miss wandering around looing for more quests.
They've ALWAYS been ultra-linear. One mini-hub to the next. Now however, they have better flow. Their tech has just improved greatly.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
My thoughts as well. I had an aweful feeling of being railroaded there
At least the story felt good 
But no offense... If you think the Worgen zone was linear... I thought the follow up (Darkwold) feld pretty linear as well. You kinda had to do all quests there as well to progress. It was almost impossible to skip a quest or you couldn't continue on the rest of the content in certain area's there.
Lets hope Fellwood is less linear...