Quest log limit

[Jarulf]

Is the limit on number of quests in the quest log still as low as in Beta? For me, that was one of the most annoying things in the game, that you constantly got a full quest log and had to ditch quests to get a new one.

I liked doing multiple quests at the same time. A gather quest for example, could be VERY booring if I had to do nothing else than kill for gathering, instead, I would do those killings a few at a time when passing by travelling arround, perhaps to finnish another quest. Similary, once one got up in higher levels, many quests involved traveling further away to nea areas to finnish a quest, then one was not able to pick up a few new quests there since the quest log was full. NOthing more annoying than haveing to go far away to an area to finnish a quest but noth being able to pick up a few old ones. That made it so that one travelled arround just finnishing quests and not being able to do other quests at the same time.

The other problem was remembering were all those old quests one had ditched to pick up latere actually was so that one would find them again, or even remember there existed some. For example, did that town I used to visit long ago still have a quest I never finnished? Since I liked to also do and finnish quests that slipped far below my level, I also found myself high enough so I did not even get the yellow exclamation mark making it even harder.

[Tal]

Is the limit on number of quests in the quest log still as low as in Beta? For me, that was one of the most annoying things in the game, that you constantly got a full quest log and had to ditch quests to get a new one.

I liked doing multiple quests at the same time. A gather quest for example, could be VERY booring if I had to do nothing else than kill for gathering, instead, I would do those killings a few at a time when passing by travelling arround, perhaps to finnish another quest. Similary, once one got up in higher levels, many quests involved traveling further away to nea areas to finnish a quest, then one was not able to pick up a few new quests there since the quest log was full. NOthing more annoying than haveing to go far away to an area to finnish a quest but noth being able to pick up a few old ones. That made it so that one travelled arround just finnishing quests and not being able to do other quests at the same time.

The other problem was remembering were all those old quests one had ditched to pick up latere actually was so that one would find them again, or even remember there existed some. For example, did that town I used to visit long ago still have a quest I never finnished? Since I liked to also do and finnish quests that slipped far below my level, I also found myself high enough so I did not even get the yellow exclamation mark making it even harder.
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Its still a hard limit of 20 quests. I usually have my little laptop running while I'm playing and will make notes in a journal of quests I need to pick up by area.

[Jarulf]

Its still a hard limit of 20 quests. I usually have my little laptop running while I'm playing and will make notes in a journal of quests I need to pick up by area.
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Is there any specific reason for that cap and why it is so low?

[Guest]

I agree the cap is unreasonably small at higher levels.

Up through 35 or so its just fine. At those levels you arent flying around 2 contenets daily.

But when you have quests sending you across the world its just not enough. So many quests interconnected by zones and you just dont have room to keep track of them.
Its silly that you end up abaondoning them and wriiteing down on paper where you got then so you can go back.

[Xanthix]

Is there any specific reason for that cap and why it is so low?
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Blizzard has said that this is intentional and will not change. They feel that it forces you to make meaningful choices about which quests you are pursuing.

I would be more inclined to agree with this idea, if you did not so many quests like, "Hello there, little level 10 character... can you ferry this package to my friend in Death Land, a level 35 zone you won't be going to for 3 months? Your reward will be 10 silver!"

[ehertlein]

I haven't found it to be a terrible problem. It actually helps me get quests done. If I were able to hold more then 20 quests I wouldn't have room in my packs for all their quest items anyways! :)

[Quark]

Two possible solutions in the form of AddOns here.

QuestBank was the original mod that stored quest information. So if you abandon a quest, maybe that will help you pick it back up without forcing you to take notes.

QuestHistory is a newer, more expansive mod. It supposedly has more options and information.

I haven't tried either of these, as I haven't had too much of a problem yet with quests (Many times I'll ignore one zone until I finish up with another), so I cannot give a personal recommendation.

[rocdog]

It's my belief that the time-consuming features of the game like cross-continent quests are there for the simple reason that Blizzard wanted to create timesinks.

If they made questing more efficient, by, say, allowing you greater flexibility in how many quests you keep open, this purpose would be defeated. If you could have 50 quests in your log at once, it would be possible to level through quest-XP much more quickly than you can now. This would mean many more high-level toons hitting the level cap more quickly who would all be clamouring for a lot of new high-level content, hero classes, battlegrounds, etc.

[LochnarITB]

QuestHistory is a newer, more expansive mod.  It supposedly has more options and information.
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I'm gonna take a look at this one. Thanks for pointing it out. Anyone that watches guild chat on Stormrage will surely have seen my frequent complaints of LoL (Lack o' Log). I find that I end up keeping quests that I have gotten at out of the way places and tend to abandon the ones picked up in places I frequent. Even so, I have a lot that "disappear" on me because I'm traveling to all points of the world and may not get back for a few levels. I also have a question for players. Has anyone else noticed that the bang goes away at least one level before they go gray? I have, at times, talked to someone that didn't have a yellow bang and got a quest that was still green. It seems there is a 1-2 level disparity.

[MongoJerry]

Blizzard has said that this is intentional and will not change. They feel that it forces you to make meaningful choices about which quests you are pursuing.

Well... that's only part of the reason. The primary reason they gave was a technical one involving the fact that as you run along and meet NPC's, there's a check on the server to see if that NPC has any quests that you would qualify for -- i.e. it determines if it needs to put a yellow or grey ! or ? over the NPC's head. Allowing more quests to be in one's quest log somehow slowed down this process significantly. (Don't ask me how. I'm just the messenger). At least, that's why they say they won't allow a huge expansion of the quest log. Still, increasing the size to, say, 30 would be helpful.

For myself, though, while the quest log limit used to be a huge annoyance for me, I've gotten better at handling it. For one thing, I've gotten better about actually finishing up quests in a given area instead of flying off to new areas the moment I get some net quest to take me someplace new. Second, when I do need to abandon quests, I always pick quests that will be easy to find again. For example, when I had to abandon some quests in my 30's, I abandoned the ones in Grom'Gul and Booty Bay, because I knew I could find those easily enough. Just last night, I abandoned some quests given at the Bulwark (border of the Western Plaguelands) to make room for some Blackrock Spire quests. Again, I know that if I intend to go back to the Western Plaguelands, I'll be passing through the Bulwark anyway, so getting those quests again won't be a chore. It's annoying, but tolerable. I wish they'd expand the log to 30, though.

[Icebird]

I haven't found the 20 quest limit a problem so far, but then again. I haven't hit the higher levels where it seems to be more of an issue.

The 20 quest limit does give an incentive to actually complete quests to tick them off. I hate the quests that hang around forever because you never get round to visiting that particular zone. I guess the trick is abandoning the quests that will be easy to pick up again later.

Chris

[Sled]

I am the type of player that likes to completely finish a zone before I move on to another. Problems begin around levels 25 to 35, when quest goals begin to be in far-off areas killing monsters 5-7 levels above me. As an example, some quests in the Shimmering Flats area of Thousand Needles ask you to kill elite mobs in the Vile Reef on the other continent, or travel to the Searing Gorge to talk to someone who then asks me to kill things way above my head. Chances are that I won't be able to do this for another 5-6 levels. So my quest log fills up with mostly red quests that shrink the effective size of the quest log down to 4-5 orange quests that take a long time to complete. Making an expansive world with lots to explore and do is great, but placing arbitrary limits on what you can keep track of negates part of that greatness. I don't think Blizz should try to have it both ways-either contain quests for an area to zones adjacent to that area, or allow a wider scope of quests.

My grandfather always said not to complain about a problem without a solution, so how about this-every level after 20 increases your quest log capacity by 1. This would makes sense in that as your character travels the world more his horizons would become gradually broader.

Sled

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to.

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Bolty]

For myself, though, while the quest log limit used to be a huge annoyance for me, I've gotten better at handling it.  For one thing, I've gotten better about actually finishing up quests in a given area instead of flying off to new areas the moment I get some net quest to take me someplace new.  Second, when I do need to abandon quests, I always pick quests that will be easy to find again.
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I can second this. When I was new to WoW, I constantly railed against the quest log limit, and it drove me nuts.

Now, I will go from levels 1-30 without ever maxing the log out. This doesn't mean it's not a problem; it just means that with experience, and knowing where the quests are (or taking good notes if it's your first time through the game), you won't be fighting that log all the time.

Finally, avoid that fear of the Abandon Quest button. You can always go back to it later - ditch the quests you can get from towns if you need to, because the next time you stop by that town, you can just grab them back up again. You don't need to remember the particulars, just that there were 4-5 quests in Town X.

-Bolty

[Jarulf]

It's my belief that the time-consuming features of the game like cross-continent quests are there for the simple reason that Blizzard wanted to create timesinks. 

If they made questing more efficient, by, say, allowing you greater flexibility in how many quests you keep open, this purpose would be defeated.  If you could have 50 quests in your log at once, it would be possible to level through quest-XP much more quickly than you can now.  This would mean many more high-level toons hitting the level cap more quickly who would all be clamouring for a lot of new high-level content, hero classes, battlegrounds, etc.
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At least for me, the time sink doesn't work. Do I rather spend tons of times, travelling far arround to complete a single quest and then going back, or stay in a zone doing something else?? I stay, I simply tend skipping the quests that are time consuming instead.

EDIT: Thinking more on it, I think it is more a time sink to actually allow more quests since that mean I do travell arround more, instead of staying put and ifnnish of the ones I got. I travell alot depending on the mood and what quest I want to finnish of for the moment.

If they feel the game can't handle you doing many quests at once due to high XP; the obvious solution is to lower the reward no? Not force you to do LESS quests. After all, one of the main points of the game is their quest system.

Since quest rewards are level related anyway, it would not be so much of an issue anyway since you soon end up getting very little XP for all those extra quests you want to finnish. There are enough quests for you to level efficiently anyway.

[Jarulf]

Well... that's only part of the reason.  The primary reason they gave was a technical one involving the fact that as you run along and meet NPC's, there's a check on the server to see if that NPC has any quests that you would qualify for -- i.e. it determines if it needs to put a yellow or grey ! or ? over the NPC's head.  Allowing more quests to be in one's quest log somehow slowed down this process significantly. (Don't ask me how.  I'm just the messenger).  At least, that's why they say they won't allow a huge expansion of the quest log.  Still, increasing the size to, say, 30 would be helpful.

I call that a bad excuse and sloppy coding. Since they want to send the exclamation mark, they might as well just send available quest info and left the client sort out the colour if any and type of exclamation mark to render on the screen. Perhaps someone can come out with some absue, I can't off hand. Still, even processing it on the server, I can't see the big technical obstacle slowing it all down.

[Jarulf]

I haven't found the 20 quest limit a problem so far, but then again. I haven't hit the higher levels where it seems to be more of an issue.

The 20 quest limit does give an incentive to actually complete quests to tick them off. I hate the quests that hang around forever because you never get round to visiting that particular zone. I guess the trick is abandoning the quests that will be easy to pick up again later.

Chris
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Of course one can work arround it, of course one can keep notes, of course one can come back to pick them up and so on. The question is why one should have to go through all that and what it adds to the game play (except frustration, at least to me). Sure, one can say that one should "finnish" an area first before moving on, but that is really not the way the game seems to be designed. Quests frequently send you off to new areas, should I then just "be allowed" to do that specific quest and then return? Why are the quests for particular levels spread out over so many areas then? In my experience, far to few areas have enough quests to allow you to finnish them all off without going to other areas inbetween and I doubt they have added that many more quests to all areas. I started to run into full quest logs at arround level 15-20. Sure, I travell arround a lot inbetween, might not be time efficient, but that is far more joyfull than staying put in an area endlessly trying to finnish off all quests, some of which might be hard for whatever reason.

[Jarulf]

I can second this.  When I was new to WoW, I constantly railed against the quest log limit, and it drove me nuts.

Now, I will go from levels 1-30 without ever maxing the log out.  This doesn't mean it's not a problem; it just means that with experience, and knowing where the quests are (or taking good notes if it's your first time through the game), you won't be fighting that log all the time.

Finally, avoid that fear of the Abandon Quest button.  You can always go back to it later - ditch the quests you can get from towns if you need to, because the next time you stop by that town, you can just grab them back up again.  You don't need to remember the particulars, just that there were 4-5 quests in Town X.

-Bolty
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The thing is, I then need to start making notes on were quests I ditched can be picked up. If I don't play for a weekm, or perhaps play in some far area on the other continent (perhaps du to some quest sending me there), then when I get back, I have absolutely no clue which quest givers I ditched and should be picked up, especially if the quest have gone to a low level and there isn't even an exclamation mark. That is particulary bad if the quest is in a serie so that one end up losing it all because one don't remember a ditched quest and it won't show up any more. Besides, how would I pick up quests ina town if I don't know there is any more if there is no other incentive to go to the town. I am level 30, should I go back to Brill??? Is there ditched quests there? Sure, might have appeared some new ones since I was last there at level 22 but running arround to every single town, area and other areas (like a remote place where a NPC happened to stand that gives you a quest) just to see if you had a ditched quest is simply way too annoying and adds absolutely nothing. Just because one can work arround it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. If that was the case, why not skip exclamation marks and names on NPC? You can always go to talk to them and make notes by yourself on their appearance and so on.

[Ruvanal]

The thing is, I then need to start making notes on were quests I ditched can be picked up. If I don't play for a weekm, or perhaps play in some far area on the other continent (perhaps du to some quest sending me there), then when I get back, I have absolutely no clue which quest givers I ditched and should be picked up, especially if the quest have gone to a low level and there isn't even an exclamation mark. That is particulary bad if the quest is in a serie so that one end up losing it all because one don't remember a ditched quest and it won't show up any more. Besides, how would I pick up quests ina town if I don't know there is any more if there is no other incentive to go to the town. I am level 30, should I go back to Brill??? Is there ditched quests there? Sure, might have appeared some new ones since I was last there at level 22 but running arround to every single town, area and other areas (like a remote place where a NPC happened to stand that gives you a quest) just to see if you had a ditched quest is simply way too annoying and adds absolutely nothing. Just because one can work arround it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. If that was the case, why not skip exclamation marks and names on NPC? You can always go to talk to them and make notes by yourself on their appearance and so on.
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It was already listed earlier here, but I would recomend for you to have the QuestHistory mod. It will allow you to track all quests that you have started, completed or abandoned from the time that you install the mod. If you are going back into an area that you think you may have abandoned a quest in, you can sort out the quests for that area and see if it is listing any that you abandoned there. It uses the same sort of display of idvidual quests as the normal quest log, so you can look over the quests in question to see if you remember why you dropped them and see what sort of rewards that it offers at that step. It also uses the Thottbot location system to help identify the location of the NPCs where the quests were taken at which can ease some of the problem of locating them again.

[maggellann]

Another nice site for quest information:

Allakhazam


Greetings,


Maggellann

[Jarulf]

It was already listed earlier here, but I would recomend for you to have the QuestHistory mod.  [right][snapback]65725[/snapback][/right]

Well, considering I don't even have the game..... :) But if I ever get it, I will for sure look out for it. I love having tools that keep track of all I have done :)