2010-08-08

Solo->Small Group->Group, or How To Make Quest Lines Die

I’ve been noticing as I roll through Telon that many of the quest ‘lines’ I get(even in the level tracks suggested by the honorable Rift Keepers), have followed this pattern of progression wherein you’ll do 1-2 solo quests, struggle to solo a Small Group quest, then be dumped into Group Only mode. Then, you give up and move on.

I can almost see a justification for this.. if I was an adventurer in a strange world like Telon, would I expect to get batches of easily completed jobs to train my skills in one quick pass out of town, then return to get the next pass? No. But by adopting this style of difficulty-centric quest giving, they are giving up a lot of their ability to tell their story.

It seems that, as happened with Everquest 1, Brad & Co forgot that the thing they’re making is a Game and not an Alternate(Really Horrible) Reality Simulator.

On launch month with fully loaded populations, it was hard to get groups for these things. Now? The only thing groups do right now are some ‘key’ quest lines(I’ve seen people doing Trengal Keep) and grinding XP or Tier armor.

Everquest 2 handled some of this by revamping many of their old quests to be soloable. Vanguard appears to have handled it with ‘Screw you’ or ‘you’re an idiot for trying to do those quests anyway, grind mobs, it’s faster.’

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