04-15-2006, 05:44 PM
Some remarks, comments and thoughts, from someone who has played a LOT solo up until 60 (yeah, just reached 60 the other day!!!).
Far to many quest lines that are very fun, sooner or later or in the middle end up as requiering you to group up, and involve going to elite places (a place with elite monsters). Depending on the time of day, this is good or bad, at prime time, just run in as tons of people clear the way, at low hours, instead do those quests were you need to kill someone wihtout having to camp for an hour to be lucky to be one of the 100 people close by that go for the same monster. but many of the larger quest lines will sooner or later come to a halt as they are elite and require several people to group.
I don't know when it happenee, but the feeling of your being of a specific race was lost somewhere along the road. At the start, you was at your own race's place, there was stories and quest about it, and how it related to the world. That was lost as soon as you hit about level 15-25 and suddenly turned into a horde player. A bit later, somewhere in the 40-50 gap, I got the feeling you lost your hord identity as well. True, you often still had seperate quest towns in an area, but basically, the hord and alliance did the same thing and quests, just different quest NPC handing out the quests, but at that time, you sudenly started to meet dwarfs, night elves NPC and such that was friendly and was the one giving quests (yes, I play Horde mostly) and somehow I feel I lost the hord identity as well. In part it was made up by creating "neutral" factions such as Cenarion Circle (is that the name?) and Argent Dawn, that had both Alliance and Horde NPC, but it also meant alliance and horde have the same quest givers and identical quests. There is no longer any identiy or noticable effect of the two sides, hord and alliance. yes, I am sure that on a PvP server, it might be a bit different, but still, the NPC are all neutral, players fight out of town and then go to the same town in peace or something (no idea about the details).
This is something bad in my opinion and the game loses identity and charisma as you improve in level. Not sure what to do about it though since it would require double or more content to avoid it. Lets move to some areas (late game areas).
The problem I see with Fellwood is that it is a lot of travelling arround. The quest givers in the south are just so far away from any flightpoint. Winterspring is just a flight hub/town with some goblins, not really much to do in my opinion, some quests and the main quest give tucked away on the far corner of the map. As someone said, these late areas have less polsih, you frequently come by ruins, abandonded camps or special places, yet, nothing heppens there, it seems like just consmetic.
This is even more noticable in Azshara, you quest a little bit at the entracne of the area and do one or two trips up north for some quests (and some on the beach), that is it. There are tons of strange structures, small temples and yet, they are all empty of any special content. Have travelled the LONG way out to the waterlord for some quests (and after two or three of them it turned into a elite instance/multiplayer quest and I abandoned that line) but the south side of the area has tons of interesting palces....that are all empty. There is some sad attempt at an interest area with quest of some marooned people but it is just one pointless quest that doesn't continue and some people tossed out at various places.
I have yet not been to Burning Steppes and very little in Blasted Lands and other southern high level areas of that continent but the Plaguelands are in my opinion decent.
Something I have often wondered is why they don't populate all those remote (and sometimes not so remote) places, ruins, caves, hill tops and whatever with random interesting loot, for example a an abandoned chest or some hidden niche with some item and so on, it can be decently rare spawns. Put in occationally good items, and add quest items that you can turn in in various ways and drive some seperate story. The bones on the shore of Darkshore is a hint on how it could be. Now THAT would be a "grind" I could like, collecting strange are rare objects from obscure places. It leads back to my "explore quests", for alliance, the expeditionary dwarfs are the given quest givers, but no idea for horde. Have the players travell arround to a lot of obscure places and have some rewards for those that manage to go to all those strange places (without having to bring a whole raid group to fight some elite dragon to get there). Similary, it can be a quest to find some special bones from various pre historic animals that spawna a bit randomly over the world. Something that make travell in otherwise empty areas some meaning. There are tons of other ideas. One such can be for underwater stuff and so on.
Someone mentions the "tier 0.5" items and how they are "good". I am not into the whole raid/instance thing but to me, it seems that the good items are basically sets and they come in part from raid encounters (outside or in instances) and these were added for those that "only" want to run normal instances becasue from what I have seen, they require you to run a lot of special bosses in instances and are not even close to be soloable even in part. I am not saying that everything should be soloable, but there could be SOME content that is. I do understand that it is a MMO game and not a single player one, but that does not mean it is an absolutely nessecity to find some great guild for people to have fun in the game, which is alsomt a requirement now and I am just lucky to have the great guild of us lurkers that are quite informal anddoesn't require you to do all specific stuff to be in it, with ranks and such and targets to fulfill and whatever they figure out.
Part of the problem with the game as it is, is also in my opinion a very bad item system. I will probably make a seperate post about it in some more appropriate thread but from the "legendary staff" thread I was directed to the thread on item creation and now it is my opinion that Blizzard failed completely with item creation and its system, despite having the experience from games like Diablo and Diablo 2. I know understand why I have felt a bit frustrated and felt something missing in that area something I never understood before and lets face it, after level 60, the game is about getting better items, period. Better reputation is ONLY to get better items (or recipies which give better items).
Far to many quest lines that are very fun, sooner or later or in the middle end up as requiering you to group up, and involve going to elite places (a place with elite monsters). Depending on the time of day, this is good or bad, at prime time, just run in as tons of people clear the way, at low hours, instead do those quests were you need to kill someone wihtout having to camp for an hour to be lucky to be one of the 100 people close by that go for the same monster. but many of the larger quest lines will sooner or later come to a halt as they are elite and require several people to group.
I don't know when it happenee, but the feeling of your being of a specific race was lost somewhere along the road. At the start, you was at your own race's place, there was stories and quest about it, and how it related to the world. That was lost as soon as you hit about level 15-25 and suddenly turned into a horde player. A bit later, somewhere in the 40-50 gap, I got the feeling you lost your hord identity as well. True, you often still had seperate quest towns in an area, but basically, the hord and alliance did the same thing and quests, just different quest NPC handing out the quests, but at that time, you sudenly started to meet dwarfs, night elves NPC and such that was friendly and was the one giving quests (yes, I play Horde mostly) and somehow I feel I lost the hord identity as well. In part it was made up by creating "neutral" factions such as Cenarion Circle (is that the name?) and Argent Dawn, that had both Alliance and Horde NPC, but it also meant alliance and horde have the same quest givers and identical quests. There is no longer any identiy or noticable effect of the two sides, hord and alliance. yes, I am sure that on a PvP server, it might be a bit different, but still, the NPC are all neutral, players fight out of town and then go to the same town in peace or something (no idea about the details).
This is something bad in my opinion and the game loses identity and charisma as you improve in level. Not sure what to do about it though since it would require double or more content to avoid it. Lets move to some areas (late game areas).
The problem I see with Fellwood is that it is a lot of travelling arround. The quest givers in the south are just so far away from any flightpoint. Winterspring is just a flight hub/town with some goblins, not really much to do in my opinion, some quests and the main quest give tucked away on the far corner of the map. As someone said, these late areas have less polsih, you frequently come by ruins, abandonded camps or special places, yet, nothing heppens there, it seems like just consmetic.
This is even more noticable in Azshara, you quest a little bit at the entracne of the area and do one or two trips up north for some quests (and some on the beach), that is it. There are tons of strange structures, small temples and yet, they are all empty of any special content. Have travelled the LONG way out to the waterlord for some quests (and after two or three of them it turned into a elite instance/multiplayer quest and I abandoned that line) but the south side of the area has tons of interesting palces....that are all empty. There is some sad attempt at an interest area with quest of some marooned people but it is just one pointless quest that doesn't continue and some people tossed out at various places.
I have yet not been to Burning Steppes and very little in Blasted Lands and other southern high level areas of that continent but the Plaguelands are in my opinion decent.
Something I have often wondered is why they don't populate all those remote (and sometimes not so remote) places, ruins, caves, hill tops and whatever with random interesting loot, for example a an abandoned chest or some hidden niche with some item and so on, it can be decently rare spawns. Put in occationally good items, and add quest items that you can turn in in various ways and drive some seperate story. The bones on the shore of Darkshore is a hint on how it could be. Now THAT would be a "grind" I could like, collecting strange are rare objects from obscure places. It leads back to my "explore quests", for alliance, the expeditionary dwarfs are the given quest givers, but no idea for horde. Have the players travell arround to a lot of obscure places and have some rewards for those that manage to go to all those strange places (without having to bring a whole raid group to fight some elite dragon to get there). Similary, it can be a quest to find some special bones from various pre historic animals that spawna a bit randomly over the world. Something that make travell in otherwise empty areas some meaning. There are tons of other ideas. One such can be for underwater stuff and so on.
Someone mentions the "tier 0.5" items and how they are "good". I am not into the whole raid/instance thing but to me, it seems that the good items are basically sets and they come in part from raid encounters (outside or in instances) and these were added for those that "only" want to run normal instances becasue from what I have seen, they require you to run a lot of special bosses in instances and are not even close to be soloable even in part. I am not saying that everything should be soloable, but there could be SOME content that is. I do understand that it is a MMO game and not a single player one, but that does not mean it is an absolutely nessecity to find some great guild for people to have fun in the game, which is alsomt a requirement now and I am just lucky to have the great guild of us lurkers that are quite informal anddoesn't require you to do all specific stuff to be in it, with ranks and such and targets to fulfill and whatever they figure out.
Part of the problem with the game as it is, is also in my opinion a very bad item system. I will probably make a seperate post about it in some more appropriate thread but from the "legendary staff" thread I was directed to the thread on item creation and now it is my opinion that Blizzard failed completely with item creation and its system, despite having the experience from games like Diablo and Diablo 2. I know understand why I have felt a bit frustrated and felt something missing in that area something I never understood before and lets face it, after level 60, the game is about getting better items, period. Better reputation is ONLY to get better items (or recipies which give better items).
There are three types of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.