Please form an orderly queue

[swirly]

So I'm not in the World of Warcraft beta, nor do I have much MMORPG experience. I have however heard alot about camping monsters in some MMORPGs (ie: everquest) and have noticed in the Lineage 2 beta that there are already lines forming for certain quest monster spawns that spawn one at a time or in very small groups. So that seems to indicate to me that camping will become a problem in Lineage 2 since one can see the problem growing even in the beta. My question is about how World of Warcraft is with these types of things?

I know the instance system is designed to alleviate alot of these problems, but do some of them still exist or do you see them happening when there are more people? For instance, in another post Jarulf meantions a disable a machine quest. It occurs to me that if there is only one of these machines and the game gets more popular, then it could become a bit crowded around that machine. What happens when 10 people want to disable it at the same time? Right now it isn't a problem, but could it become one? I guess my basic question is how do you think World of Warcraft will scale to having a mass of people playing at once? Will it not be a problem, will clans start to have members camping at locations so that their members can get quests quickly (with Player vs Player requiring consent this might not happen for them since I don't know how they could interfere with you), or will the masses just kill/disable quest things so fast that you have to wait in line for things to respawn. How is this handled outside of the instance system? Also just in general, do you think that current monster spawns are enough for when the number of people playing grows?

[Ruvanal]

The camping is a problem already in the beta and sometime even when there is no other groups competing for the monster spawns. You see some of the quest require that each player collect so many of a certain item from the monsters (say 6 Gnoll Paws). Since the paws are not on every monster that spawns and a party of 5 would need 30 paws to drop before everyone has theirs, it can take quite a bit of camping to finish a quest like this.

This type of situation does have one bright spot in how these items are handled on the drops. Once a player has reached his quota, the item will no longer appear for that player during looting and another player that still needs one can see the sparkly graphic that there is something to loot and go and get the one that dropped on that kill after the first player is done looting.

[Jarulf]

Wehn it comes to activate or manipulate objects, I don't think there is a problem since it won't affect others what you do. You simply have to go and operate some objects in a set order (or in the machine case, three wheels could be turned in any order although I think there ws some bug related to it). That does not mean others will get the effects I see. It can be a strict "per player" basis.

The problem can be individual monsters though, especially if you have to kill them. I have not seen it so much yet though. But then, I have no idea how many people Blizzard plan for each world.

[Nystul]

I had heard for years about the camping in MMORPGs, but I got to really experience it for the first time when my warlock decided to accept a quest to kill 20 harvester watchers. I was in a small party of 2 or 3 people (parties max out at 5). There were 2 other parties in the same field. In this field, 3 or 4 harvester watchers spawn. So you can imagine it: each group of adventurers is just sitting at the location of *their* harvester watcher waiting for it to reappear, which they will need to repeat 20 times if they wish to complete the quest!

Generally speaking, this type of thing has not been a big problem in the beta. I do think that it may be a big problem in the release. I have no idea how they plan to handle it, or if a plan even exists. I assume that there will be a number of realms, whereas all beta players are in the same one. There also will be a bigger level spread, and a lot of game that is not currently available (all the of the Horde-based quests, for instance) will help to spread things out. They also may simply increase the number of monsters and the rate of respawn once the game is released. That is a mixed bag right now, because there are times during off-peak hours when I may be soloing a cave with absolutely nobody else around it, and in that context the number of monsters and the respawn rate are already way too high.

The good things are A) instanced dungeons, B) drop of final quest items (from boss mob, for example) are available to every member of the party that completes the quest, so an individual party doesn't have to camp on the same boss for each member, C) in "kill x monsters" quests the monster count applies to all party members, and D) the rotating looting system, as described in a post above, helps all party members to find their scalp-like quest items. These things do help to some extent. Yesterday I was doing a quest that involves an elite boss monster which I probably could have soloed, but ended up inviting 2 other people to the party so we wouldn't have to wait for the boss to respawn.

[swirly]

While not a bug technically, it seems to me something that would be good suggestion material. If you have problems completing a quest simply because of spawn numbers or rates being too low for the number of people wanting to do them then I would say that maybe sending off a suggestion involving the specific quest and any other useful information would be a good idea. There is a suggestion system in the beta correct? (I recall reading that somewhere.) At least then you know that they are aware of the problem. : )

They also may simply increase the number of monsters and the rate of respawn once the game is released. That is a mixed bag right now, because there are times during off-peak hours when I may be soloing a cave with absolutely nobody else around it, and in that context the number of monsters and the respawn rate are already way too high.

This makes me wonder if there is a way to adjust spawn rates based on the number of people currently having accepted a quest or the number of people in a certain area or some such like this. Doing something along these lines would make it so that if alot of people were doing the quest (or were in the area, etc, etc) then there would be more monsters spawned (or they would spawn faster or whatever would work best). Meanwhile, if there were not as many people doing the quest then the spawns would be less. Of course there would have to be a limit set on how large or small they could get, but it might help some. I'm not sure exactly how it could be implemented to work best, but its an interesting path to consider I think. Not that I can give them any ideas on what to consider. : )

It is slightly worriesome for me though that those kinds of problems exist already, unless it is something that they plan on tweaking till it is right. Having to wait 30 minutes to even get a shot at killing 1 creature is kind of a turn off. Of course all these problems seem to involve quests that don't really have to be done so you could just ignore them I suppose. It just worries me about higher level things. Nobody can know about that stuff yet of course since its not in the game as of yet.

I suppose all one can do though is wait and see if there are any changes made to solve these problems. It is a beta after all, they could very well solve these problems. : )

[FoxBat]

This makes me wonder if there is a way to adjust spawn rates based on the number of people currently having accepted a quest or the number of people in a certain area or some such like this.

A simpler solution may be making the repopulation rate of an area based on the speed of it's de-population. The game must already have some idea of how many of X monster have been spawned, as it doesn't spawn monsters indefinitely in an attempt to repopulate an area. (IE stop after 20 gnolls are in this area.) So simply track how many monsters die per time, and scale the respawn rate to match this somewhat.

On the other hand, the respawn system might be set up on an individual basis; 1 monster spawns, is tracked when it dies, and then respawns at it's initial location. This would make implementing such a system somewhat more difficult, as there are no real area delimiters, but not impossible. For example one might count monster deaths within a certain radius to adjust respawn rates within a larger radius.



As much of a problem as WoW camping is, right now it means something very different from EQ camping. EQ camping means "high level characters camping a few monsters who are the only ones that can drop rare X item", hence it's something *everyone* wants, all the time, but only a few may have. On the other hand, so far, camps are for quests that are only within a character's interest for a relatively short while. (You succeed in the quest once, you won't be returning to do it again with that character.)

[swirly]

On the other hand, so far, camps are for quests that are only within a character's interest for a relatively short while. (You succeed in the quest once, you won't be returning to do it again with that character.)

Which brings up another question. Are there any repeatable quests in World of Warcraft? Like for instance a leather shop wanting pelts for its goods. A quest like that could have a money or item reward and could be done over and over. There are quests like this in the lineage 2 beta (my only MMORPG experience), but are there ones in World of Warcraft?

[Roane]

I've taken every quest I've been able to find so far on Teldrassil (except two I'm not high enough for yet) and none of them have been repeatable. It doesn't mean they don't exist, of course, but I've not seen any in my first ten levels. Those on the mainland might be able to answer more definitively.

I remember in the Earth & Beyond beta, there was this one real bad camp early on. Everyone of a certain faction and profession needed to do the quest, but it only spawned every couple of hours, and I think only one person could benefit from it each time (though I might be wrong and it might've benefited the whole group). It was a major bottleneck. I do worry about those sorts of things in WoW. They're not a problem for me yet (as there's not much of anyone around at the times that I play) but I can see it being an issue when the population increases.

[Bolty]

I had heard for years about the camping in MMORPGs, but I got to really experience it for the first time when my warlock decided to accept a quest to kill 20 harvester watchers.

Harvest Watchers are a problem currently. They spawn in Westfall amongst all the farms, so there is not any one particular place that they spawn. However, there are at least three quests requiring you to kill Harvest Watchers. As a result, roving bands who move from farm to farm to kill Harvest Watchers are very common, and you'll find yourself always JUST missing a spawn of them.

As far as individual, unique monster spawns, you rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes. One exception is the Defias Traitor quest in Westfall, where you have to escort someone to a location safely. He only respawns every 20 minutes or so, because the quest has him walking quite a way. If you have a party of 5 people ready to go for the quest, and some solo player runs up to him and takes it, you're forced to wait all that time!

Ugh.

-Bolty

[Bolty]

Which brings up another question.  Are there any repeatable quests in World of Warcraft?

So far, I've only found one of those out of the 50 or so quests I've completed. You could kill Harvest Watchers to get Hops so that a dwarf up in the mountains would make you a barrel of beer. You could do it over and over.

-Bolty

[Cryptic]

From what I've seen, the Blizzard team was specifically hoping to avoid repeatable quests, to avoid "area harvesting." This is a sad, boring technique found in other games (cough) where one area is scoured again and again, for experience and/or certain treasures, to the exclusion of exploration. It is also one of the few ways to "grief" other players when you can't outright attack them.

So, they were focusing on widespread quests that move the players out of their initial "proving grounds" and into the wide world beyond; one way to do that is to make no quest repeatable. Players are thus encouraged to go wandering throughout the world, in search of more to do. "Return" hooks (to get players back to old places with a new perspective) are in the form of quests that can be seen, but not completed until a later level.

It sounds like they need to put some more spawns of specific monsters in the game, or perhaps make a couple more small instanced dungeons where these quests can be completed quickly. Definitely sounds like something for /suggest.

A bit off-topic, I enjoyed this quote on Penny Arcade today about Everquest 2:
>>There's no contest. On vision, on the manifestation of artistic vision scale which I have just invented, you can't even see World of Warcraft from where they are. World of Warcraft is in a harvest field wading through golden, chest-high wheat. They are in a cold place shivering as they wait for a morning that never comes.

:lol:

[swirly]

From what I've seen, the Blizzard team was specifically hoping to avoid repeatable quests, to avoid "area harvesting." This is a sad, boring technique found in other games (cough) where one area is scoured again and again, for experience and/or certain treasures, to the exclusion of exploration.

I actually don't like repeatable quests. Well maybe that isn't correct. Its not that I don't like repeatable quests, but rather I don't like not having other quests to do. If I can just go from quest to quest with a minimal amount of non-quest leveling then I find the game much more fun. A problem I have seen in my limited MMORPG experience is that sometimes there don't seem to be any quests to do. So far World of Warcraft doesn't seem to have this problem from what I hear and so I'm rather excited about that. I think that as long as there are other quests to be done then repeatable ones aren't really necessary. I do find it funny that the only known repeatable quest so far is one for beer though. : )

[lemekim]

There is another repeatable "quest" that I think is only available to certain classes, such as warrior. In Elwynn Forest, one of the farmers will have an exclamation mark over his head, and he will take spring water from you, and echange it for a red apple, since warriors cannot use mana. Not much of a quest, but the beer quest doesn't give any experience either =P

[BEEFMOTRTON]

A simpler solution may be making the repopulation rate of an area based on the speed of it's de-population. 

This is actually already in the game from what they say, thankfully. It may need to be tweaked some is all.

[Jarulf]

So far, I've only found one of those out of the 50 or so quests I've completed.  You could kill Harvest Watchers to get Hops so that a dwarf up in the mountains would make you a barrel of beer.  You could do it over and over.

-Bolty

Yes, noted that too, but it seems like a bug to me.

[Ruvanal]

So far, I've only found one of those out of the 50 or so quests I've completed.  You could kill Harvest Watchers to get Hops so that a dwarf up in the mountains would make you a barrel of beer.  You could do it over and over.

-Bolty

Yes, noted that too, but it seems like a bug to me.

Not really. It depends on which paths one ends up persuing through the quests. If you go through them by sticking primarily to the Westfall section then you encounter this quest there, do it and either sell or consume the reward. Then what would you do later on when another quest is asking you to aquire a bottle of that Thunderbrew if you could not repeat the quest when you need it. You would be stuck.

I view the Thunderbrew and the farmer that trades an apple for water to not really be quests but special types of vendors that do not take cash only specific trade items for their wares. It is just that they are set up using the games quest mechanics system for how they operate. Personnaly I would not mind seeing a couple dozen of these types of quest scattered around like that. A semi unique item that would not have a great value in return for some gathered items that the players may end up coming across anyways in their regualr adventuring. It is only when the reward item is very unique and much sought after that it will lead to situations as described for the other MMPGs.

[Jarulf]

So far, I've only found one of those out of the 50 or so quests I've completed.  You could kill Harvest Watchers to get Hops so that a dwarf up in the mountains would make you a barrel of beer.  You could do it over and over.

-Bolty

Yes, noted that too, but it seems like a bug to me.

Not really. It depends on which paths one ends up persuing through the quests. If you go through them by sticking primarily to the Westfall section then you encounter this quest there, do it and either sell or consume the reward. Then what would you do later on when another quest is asking you to aquire a bottle of that Thunderbrew if you could not repeat the quest when you need it. You would be stuck.

I view the Thunderbrew and the farmer that trades an apple for water to not really be quests but special types of vendors that do not take cash only specific trade items for their wares. It is just that they are set up using the games quest mechanics system for how they operate. Personnaly I would not mind seeing a couple dozen of these types of quest scattered around like that. A semi unique item that would not have a great value in return for some gathered items that the players may end up coming across anyways in their regualr adventuring. It is only when the reward item is very unique and much sought after that it will lead to situations as described for the other MMPGs.

True, didn't know you could get it anytime. Still, one COULD solve it in that it can be reactivated through another quest. That way one can do it once first time and again as part of quest. Perhaps not a good solution though. Since I needed it for another quest, I really have no idea what it did, I assume something good then.

Oh, I mix quests from all over, don't like staying to long in any one place :)

[Nystul]

I believe that this water-for-apple trade is available to anyone, any time.