Q: How's the "random" element?

[Raziel]

This is a question that's really itching at me, since i'm (obviously) a heavy diablo player with no MMORPG experience whatsoever.

What's the "random" element of the game like? Are there random encounters? Random drops from monsters? etc.. etc..?

I have heard that the quests are excellent. But surely at some point you're going to run out of quests/quest 'bosses' (kind of like Pindleskin/Nilathak), right? Especially if they give the same reward every time. How is their loot governed?

I am essentially asking about the long term replayability.. what do you do when you've hit 30 in the beta?

[JustAGuy]

As far as I can tell, the randomness isn't really random. There are mobs that patrol, and some that are always stationed where they're stationed. I'm not entirely sure if there are any truly random encounters. There are camps of mobs, though, that you can visit whenever you want (whenever you feel like getting smoked, that is). As far as drops go, well, I'm only level 11 (wasn't able to play for the last couple of days!) so my drops have been weak; only rabbits feet, linen, various meats, and copper.

A lot of the lowbie quests are "fetch this" or "kill x of these" or "loot x of y from z". They do offer lots of experience. I find it's much better to do quests than it is to just go out and kill "random" monsters.

Check out this Good Article for a cool encounter with a boss that I can't wait to get in on.

As for getting to level 30, when I get there I'll let you know ;) Seriously, when I hit 30 with my Paladin, I'll probably start a magic-user. I suppose the idea with the level 30 cap is that they want players to test out a variety of characters for all the "low" levels, rather than just work one all the way to 60. That, and I don't think they have mounts ready yet, and they're available at 40 last I heard. Mmmm mounts...

EDIT: Eye kan spel gud

[Nystul]

Not much randomness at all so far, maybe more later. Monster drops are somewhat random, but it's hard to tell how much of a factor that is later in the game. It may not matter that much. To simply do every quest in the game, we may be talking about thousands of game hours (keep in mind that the races have different starting areas, there are class specific quests, and there at least could be quests that are only available depening on factions based on previous quests). And you would probably also spend quite a bit of time just hunting whatever monsters you think are fun, or working on a trade to help yourself and others get equipment. And by that time there will be expansions of some sort or another. As Occhi says, "Fun is where you find it," and this will be a huge game world which offers several different approaches to having fun.

The way monsters spawn in MMORPGs will drive you insane as a dungeon crawler. It is not random, and I could rant for hours about how bad it is. At least the instanced dungeons should be a welcome relief from some of the big problems that the persistant spawning systems cause.

[Bolty]

Check out this Good Article for a cool encounter with a boss that I can't wait to get in on.

Haha, Stitches! I actually did see him yesterday while running a quest to Darkshire. Like that journal writer, I saw that the town guard was yelling that "the Abomination approaches!" and watched as over 12 characters beat on poor Stitches relentlessly. Talk about your gang mugging. All I thought at the time was, "I wonder who gets credit for the kill."

-Bolty