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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
[Wall of Text Disclaimer] Beyond the what... why?
Hasorko
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So a lot of the inputs we get are 'what' related. What can we do? What things can we see in Ashes and so on. However, if I think back to any of my favorite MMOs, which also are still active after many years, I think of the 'why' I liked them not the 'what' I was able to do there. The 'why' that justified, why I was grinding, working hard, competing with others...
So I read a lot about, gear, gold, professions, dungeons in ashes ... and now I think about the why. Why do I need gold? To buy a certificate to siege a city? Why would I do that? To open up new content? Why would I be interested in content? For gear? What do I need more gear for? More content? Some might think now, well you can always ask why and never get to an answer. But I think in the games that stick in memory did find a why at some point.
So what was the 'why' in other games?
Disclaimer: The following focuses a lot on prestige. And not everyone cares about that. Some might even think its silly. Or compensation for something. But this is just an example. Other players have other things they want to experience in games. So don't get hung up about this being an aspect that isn't appealing to you. This post is more about how things interact and how a feature becomes more than just another feature.
Tibia
So Tibia is a very odd and old MMO, some of you might heard rumor about or even ... well experienced. It is a very grindy game. Its base setting has basically no quest other than some tasks which give access to certain areas or are one time treasures. It has close to no quest pointer to those few quests and you actually have to talk in chat with NPCs to accept/ turn in Q. With that, the player is basically left with nothing but slaying monster/ discovering all day. There is no level cap to achieve and no real story line to follow. So why would one sink countless hours into the game?
Prestige (there are more reasons I just want to focus on a certain aspect)
In Tibia there are treasures of varying rarity. Some items were only given out a few times our could only be found for a very limited amount of time. So by today in this 23yr old game there are some unique items. Some of them are worth several thousand US$ considering there is a currency in the game which can be bought with real money. However, having rare items alone in a game doesn't make them worth several thousand dollar. Because the question remains... why? Why are they so good? Are they powerful? Short answer no. They are trash. Some of them are even deco only. However, Tibia has a very interesting housing system, which are the key to their value. Houses are similar to Ashes out in the world as actual spaces in the world. So far Ashes and Tibia are at equal footing. However due to Tibias TopDown perspective, you dont need to enter a house to be able to see inside. You pass through the city and automatically see inside peoples houses. Also you can display ANY item just by dropping it on the floor. Now we are talking! Your personal advertisement space, which you can rent, in the world for everyone to see. Owning an item in your backpack for yourself to see has nothing against displaying it for the whole server to see.
This might not look like much, but this would pay most peoples rent for probably well over a year or even more.
Of course there are also in game available rares. And they have a similar effect (so this isnt about "a game needs items that you need to buy for huge amounts of real money" XD). If you are the guy with the coolest house in your group, you can be sure, when you login some of your buddies will already hang out outside your house, because they wanted to show, that they know such a "cool" guy (why people would just hang out in town randomly is another story, but they were). So long story short, having a nicely decorated house in a good neighborhood was the best feeling in the world. And that is the why. Being admired by people and being the central meet up point of your friends group feels amazing. So you need a house in a good location (which costs a lot of gold) and nice rares to attract people > you want to lvl up to get stronger to get gold faster and be able to kill bosses that drop rarer loot > you want to kill monsters to get levels > you want to do a stupid repetitive tasks for hours. There we go a 'why' of Tibia is uncovered. And now we also see, why Ashes Housing might not fulfill the same purpose. First of the need to walk into a house to explore it, versus passively seeing it just by walking from your hunting ground to the depot, is a huge factor. People wont explore 20 houses to find one cool one by chance. Also while a specific way of decoration might be incredibly artistically pleasing, if anyone can obtain the same set of deco just like that, its just not that special. Also while you were offline, your avatar would lay in bed in your house, so everyone would also see that it was your house quite easily. Next: if the process of getting cool decoration isn't tied to what players are supposed to be motivated to do such as craving for power (i.e. fighting other player, fighting stronger monsters...), searching for rare bosses or grinding for that super rare drop, then all these things will be pointless. (ofc there are more systems that can add value to grinding not just housing XD, but there must be something, that creates a great feeling for at least one part of the players).
Another feature, where other games have found a 'why' but Ashes might still have to prove they also have a 'why' is gear. Gear can be used to gain power. And power can be necessary for other "whys". However, one direct way to justify gear is to show off with it and I feel like the more direct the why can be answered the better. To me WoW is a great example of a game that had the why for gear and then destroyed it. Originally, gear was a direct indicator of what you reached in game. Basically, you were your personal advertisement space. A full set of an armor set showed others, you clear a certain content regularly. This was further boosted by the fact, that the style of that gear was beyond anything the average player had. YOU STOOD OUT! Also the content was hard enough, that it was considered a feat to have it. The peak of this effect (to me) was the 3rd tier set of Naxxramas. Back in the days (and I dont expect it to play out like that in modern Vanilla WoW but thats a different discussion) only VERY VERY few had the last tier set of Vanilla WoW. And on top it looked so super impressive.
Player would literally follow fully geared characters around in awe.
With the introduction of Transmog (the ability to make your worn gear look like other items) the decline of gears importance as a matter of prestige began. Now everyone could just switch into their most cool looking sets and didn't have to look like they just started the game a few days ago compared to players that actually wore the most exclusive gear. On top of that eventually different difficulties of each content were introduced in an effort to make the content available for any player no matter how unskilled. Player received gear, that literally couldn't even quite figure out where the boss was at. And that gear used the same models as the hardcore settings only in different colors. And quite honestly, the average player didn't even realize which color meant which difficulty stage anyway. So suddenly people wouldn't even notice what the gear one wore stood for. Thus, people also cared having it for that purpose. -> Will Ashes cosmetics have a similar effect?
Another thing is exploration. Why would I want to go out in the world? Again Tibia comes to mind. Tibia was one giant world. It had nothing like level based areas. One hunted some skeletons at lvl 10 not knowing anything about the world and suddenly a raid of lvl 200+ would zoom through the same cave one was minding his own business in on their path down into the depth of the cave, where hidden past several secrets the literal Pits of Inferno were located at. Every spot in this world was magical. You never knew what waited for you. 1. Reason to explore the world was safety. When in trouble it was good to know where safe zones were waiting for you. 2. Finding a lucrative hunting ground. Again due to lack of quests and no indicator such as level based zones, there was literally no game mechanic telling you, what a good hunting location was for you. Striving for lucrative hunts meant to explore and try out other areas. Even if that comes at the cost of sometimes ending up in a room with a giant spider with no way out and certain death awaiting. (Note: the death toll in Tibia is quite grave and was even worse in the past. It is totally possible and sometimes guaranteed to cost you equipped gear and inventory as well as level and skill progress on death, even without being a pvp outlaw). 3. exploration felt meaningful due to the limited forms of travel. Technically you have to walk everywhere and walk speed is mostly tied to a characters level. Thus, the average player takes ages to get anywhere. 4. Uncovering the world map (completionists why). The world map was entirely blacked out, besides a small radius around anywhere the player has been to. (Experienced Tibia players know, it is possible to replace the game files with uncovered once but lets assume that isnt possible). Uncovering the world map also meant the luxury of aimed auto walk, by clicking on the destination on the map.
Compared to WoW: 1. As long as I stay in zones for my level (easily recognized by monsters being my lvl or lower), Im usually safe. 2. Quests point me to the next best hunting ground and in later parts of the game I also know exactly which zones have exactly what I need (certain plants, ore, consumables). Most player have no reason to go to any other zone then the few zones they farm items at. 3. One can easily fly or even teleport very close to any point of interest. Also ANY point of interest comes with a quest guiding the player to it. Thus, exploring holds very little value. There just isn't anything to discover no one else will ever find. (With the exception of finding abandoned/ never completed areas such as caves or islands for the purpose of having ones own little spot/ RP area. :P 4. Most parts of the map can be discovered by riding on the main roads of a zone or even flying over it on the gryphon taxi system (or in later patches flying on ones personal mount at a height one can barely even see the map at.
Much discovery, such WoW!
Okay I guess I might have made my point about 4 paragraphs ago...
So what will the 'why's be like in Ashes? Is there a feature in ashes that really excites you? What do you think is the why behind it? Would you wish for more focus on what the Devs/ Designer think, why player will engage in the games features? Or do you maybe disagree and a game just needs features? What were your favorite "Why"s in other games?
So I read a lot about, gear, gold, professions, dungeons in ashes ... and now I think about the why. Why do I need gold? To buy a certificate to siege a city? Why would I do that? To open up new content? Why would I be interested in content? For gear? What do I need more gear for? More content? Some might think now, well you can always ask why and never get to an answer. But I think in the games that stick in memory did find a why at some point.
So what was the 'why' in other games?
Disclaimer: The following focuses a lot on prestige. And not everyone cares about that. Some might even think its silly. Or compensation for something. But this is just an example. Other players have other things they want to experience in games. So don't get hung up about this being an aspect that isn't appealing to you. This post is more about how things interact and how a feature becomes more than just another feature.
Tibia
So Tibia is a very odd and old MMO, some of you might heard rumor about or even ... well experienced. It is a very grindy game. Its base setting has basically no quest other than some tasks which give access to certain areas or are one time treasures. It has close to no quest pointer to those few quests and you actually have to talk in chat with NPCs to accept/ turn in Q. With that, the player is basically left with nothing but slaying monster/ discovering all day. There is no level cap to achieve and no real story line to follow. So why would one sink countless hours into the game?
Prestige (there are more reasons I just want to focus on a certain aspect)
In Tibia there are treasures of varying rarity. Some items were only given out a few times our could only be found for a very limited amount of time. So by today in this 23yr old game there are some unique items. Some of them are worth several thousand US$ considering there is a currency in the game which can be bought with real money. However, having rare items alone in a game doesn't make them worth several thousand dollar. Because the question remains... why? Why are they so good? Are they powerful? Short answer no. They are trash. Some of them are even deco only. However, Tibia has a very interesting housing system, which are the key to their value. Houses are similar to Ashes out in the world as actual spaces in the world. So far Ashes and Tibia are at equal footing. However due to Tibias TopDown perspective, you dont need to enter a house to be able to see inside. You pass through the city and automatically see inside peoples houses. Also you can display ANY item just by dropping it on the floor. Now we are talking! Your personal advertisement space, which you can rent, in the world for everyone to see. Owning an item in your backpack for yourself to see has nothing against displaying it for the whole server to see.
This might not look like much, but this would pay most peoples rent for probably well over a year or even more.
Of course there are also in game available rares. And they have a similar effect (so this isnt about "a game needs items that you need to buy for huge amounts of real money" XD). If you are the guy with the coolest house in your group, you can be sure, when you login some of your buddies will already hang out outside your house, because they wanted to show, that they know such a "cool" guy (why people would just hang out in town randomly is another story, but they were). So long story short, having a nicely decorated house in a good neighborhood was the best feeling in the world. And that is the why. Being admired by people and being the central meet up point of your friends group feels amazing. So you need a house in a good location (which costs a lot of gold) and nice rares to attract people > you want to lvl up to get stronger to get gold faster and be able to kill bosses that drop rarer loot > you want to kill monsters to get levels > you want to do a stupid repetitive tasks for hours. There we go a 'why' of Tibia is uncovered. And now we also see, why Ashes Housing might not fulfill the same purpose. First of the need to walk into a house to explore it, versus passively seeing it just by walking from your hunting ground to the depot, is a huge factor. People wont explore 20 houses to find one cool one by chance. Also while a specific way of decoration might be incredibly artistically pleasing, if anyone can obtain the same set of deco just like that, its just not that special. Also while you were offline, your avatar would lay in bed in your house, so everyone would also see that it was your house quite easily. Next: if the process of getting cool decoration isn't tied to what players are supposed to be motivated to do such as craving for power (i.e. fighting other player, fighting stronger monsters...), searching for rare bosses or grinding for that super rare drop, then all these things will be pointless. (ofc there are more systems that can add value to grinding not just housing XD, but there must be something, that creates a great feeling for at least one part of the players).
Another feature, where other games have found a 'why' but Ashes might still have to prove they also have a 'why' is gear. Gear can be used to gain power. And power can be necessary for other "whys". However, one direct way to justify gear is to show off with it and I feel like the more direct the why can be answered the better. To me WoW is a great example of a game that had the why for gear and then destroyed it. Originally, gear was a direct indicator of what you reached in game. Basically, you were your personal advertisement space. A full set of an armor set showed others, you clear a certain content regularly. This was further boosted by the fact, that the style of that gear was beyond anything the average player had. YOU STOOD OUT! Also the content was hard enough, that it was considered a feat to have it. The peak of this effect (to me) was the 3rd tier set of Naxxramas. Back in the days (and I dont expect it to play out like that in modern Vanilla WoW but thats a different discussion) only VERY VERY few had the last tier set of Vanilla WoW. And on top it looked so super impressive.
Player would literally follow fully geared characters around in awe.
With the introduction of Transmog (the ability to make your worn gear look like other items) the decline of gears importance as a matter of prestige began. Now everyone could just switch into their most cool looking sets and didn't have to look like they just started the game a few days ago compared to players that actually wore the most exclusive gear. On top of that eventually different difficulties of each content were introduced in an effort to make the content available for any player no matter how unskilled. Player received gear, that literally couldn't even quite figure out where the boss was at. And that gear used the same models as the hardcore settings only in different colors. And quite honestly, the average player didn't even realize which color meant which difficulty stage anyway. So suddenly people wouldn't even notice what the gear one wore stood for. Thus, people also cared having it for that purpose. -> Will Ashes cosmetics have a similar effect?
Another thing is exploration. Why would I want to go out in the world? Again Tibia comes to mind. Tibia was one giant world. It had nothing like level based areas. One hunted some skeletons at lvl 10 not knowing anything about the world and suddenly a raid of lvl 200+ would zoom through the same cave one was minding his own business in on their path down into the depth of the cave, where hidden past several secrets the literal Pits of Inferno were located at. Every spot in this world was magical. You never knew what waited for you. 1. Reason to explore the world was safety. When in trouble it was good to know where safe zones were waiting for you. 2. Finding a lucrative hunting ground. Again due to lack of quests and no indicator such as level based zones, there was literally no game mechanic telling you, what a good hunting location was for you. Striving for lucrative hunts meant to explore and try out other areas. Even if that comes at the cost of sometimes ending up in a room with a giant spider with no way out and certain death awaiting. (Note: the death toll in Tibia is quite grave and was even worse in the past. It is totally possible and sometimes guaranteed to cost you equipped gear and inventory as well as level and skill progress on death, even without being a pvp outlaw). 3. exploration felt meaningful due to the limited forms of travel. Technically you have to walk everywhere and walk speed is mostly tied to a characters level. Thus, the average player takes ages to get anywhere. 4. Uncovering the world map (completionists why). The world map was entirely blacked out, besides a small radius around anywhere the player has been to. (Experienced Tibia players know, it is possible to replace the game files with uncovered once but lets assume that isnt possible). Uncovering the world map also meant the luxury of aimed auto walk, by clicking on the destination on the map.
Compared to WoW: 1. As long as I stay in zones for my level (easily recognized by monsters being my lvl or lower), Im usually safe. 2. Quests point me to the next best hunting ground and in later parts of the game I also know exactly which zones have exactly what I need (certain plants, ore, consumables). Most player have no reason to go to any other zone then the few zones they farm items at. 3. One can easily fly or even teleport very close to any point of interest. Also ANY point of interest comes with a quest guiding the player to it. Thus, exploring holds very little value. There just isn't anything to discover no one else will ever find. (With the exception of finding abandoned/ never completed areas such as caves or islands for the purpose of having ones own little spot/ RP area. :P 4. Most parts of the map can be discovered by riding on the main roads of a zone or even flying over it on the gryphon taxi system (or in later patches flying on ones personal mount at a height one can barely even see the map at.
Much discovery, such WoW!
Okay I guess I might have made my point about 4 paragraphs ago...
So what will the 'why's be like in Ashes? Is there a feature in ashes that really excites you? What do you think is the why behind it? Would you wish for more focus on what the Devs/ Designer think, why player will engage in the games features? Or do you maybe disagree and a game just needs features? What were your favorite "Why"s in other games?
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Comments
In DayZ before maps with all the loot's spots were made available for everyone on third party websites exploring was epic because even though you'd run for miles and see absolutely nothing or some stupid village with nothing in it, the extremely powerful feeling of why drove me to spend 6 hours everyday in just running directionless. To uncover secrets deep in mountains, woods and deserts that no player has found yet. To find the best loot spot to outgear players. To find a great place to establish and build your base, where no one can find it and at the same time be in a convenient place, close to a high-loot place or high population(pvp) place.
And even after the maps in third party websites ruined that experience, DayZ did a great job at still giving a "Why to explore" to the player by using the randomly spawned helicopter crashes which gave top-military gear. So again exploring made tons of sense.
Gear in WoW showing how far you've progressed definetly gave me a strong why to play the game. I PvP'd in Arenas a lot just to be able to get the gear to show off. I PvE'd for the same reasons, and invested lots of time to explore and find hidden quests which gave fun/powerful items that not a lot of players were aware of. Then again third party websites, hand-hold mechanics etc. ruined that part of PvE and exploration.
Here are some suggestions which will keep the mystery and immersiveness of the big world, promote more organic player movement, give players more incentive to explore and create a more incentives for players to PvP across the whole world rather than center them in certain parts and add additional exploration/PvE upkeep-tasks for nodes which will again covert later into incentives for players to PvP in different places and diminish the effects of hand-holding thirdparty websites.
-Quests which are not part of the main-quest storyline should spawn randomly across more than one zone. This will make players move more organically in the map and give more incentive to explore and diminish the effects of third party websites like WoWhead have.
-Mobs can have progressions too.
a) Depending on what nodes players choose to progress Mobs could have a change in their AI.
For example - progressing a node where you help npc dwarves with their mining or w/e makes the dwarve npcs more powerful and makes them invade a different node where elves life, taking over their towns and forests.
b) After a faction of mobs (Let's say goblins) has occupied a cave which has seen little player activity for about a week - they should grow in numbers and start expanding - creating new events and new quests for players centered around this faction of mobs gaining power. The goblins could start ambushing NPC and Player caravans, raiding villages during the night and thus destroying or setting back a certain node's progression. This will give guild players an incentive to set up ambushes to stop their enemy guild's players who are trying to drive the goblins back into the cave so that their node can progress safely etc.
c) Factions of NPCs which have more to do with trading, science or w/e (not war-orientated factions) could give certain bonuses to nodes/guilds if the guild/node has helped them or chose them over another faction to integrate them into their node. This again can open up possibilities where other players will try to slow down that faction of NPCs by doing quests to sabotage their mines or cut their transport routes etc. and give even more choices for players to make which choices will make more or less player enemies and give better or worse bonuses.
So I'd assume your key "why" would be having the feeling of trying to solve a hard riddle and then the feeling of accomplishment when its solved (+ maybe the feeling of knowing not everyone has managed to solve this part). Thats a really cool feeling too, I agree! Also content of epic proportion, one self might never even attempt, but knowing its out there and some people do such crazy stuff can feel really cool and give games a certain magic to it.
I feel like this still assumes a few things. Just being able to defend yourself against anyone can be pretty worthless, even if anyone can attack you in theory. I.e. you assume there is any incentive to attack you. Maybe the corruption system is so over tuned that it's really not worth attacking someone. Or reviving yourself is a matter of a single click and you loose nothing. And maybe you can't be killed (camped) by the same guy afterwards. The point to be able to defend oneself is much less important if the game requires you to actually do so. And that is kind of what I mean with the why. It usually isn't just to be able to defend yourself. Because that doesn't state, why you would even have to defend yourself. (Ofc we already know some of these theories of mine aren't true in ashes, but since you assumed a general open world I am taking that into consideration). Also when we talk about being able to go where you want, this assumes traveling is dangerous. Thats a mechanic that could be very easily be completely voided by a single game design decision. This i.e. was completely taken out of the picture when flying was introduced in WoW. While flying, it is very very hard to actually get attacked. Thus the need to have the best possible gear to come out ahead in a encounter was drastically diminished.
These are some nice ideas. However again they are still not guaranteeing they will bring a why. For the quests, if we only think about the a quest NPC has a marker on his head and sends me to the location of interest, I do my task and get my reward, this idea might even discourage exploration. Since in that case, player would know, unless I get a quest in town for an area, there is nothing to find there. So the quest would be more dynamically. Maybe not even a quest at all, but just some random reward, I didn't even expect getting when exploring a cave/ slaying mobs. I.e. a hostage in the cave, I didn't know that was there, which offers me a reward. But the concept of things not being there at all times and also things being generated differently every time, definitely helps having readable walkthroughs!
Your mob progression system is very cool. I used to try out such a feature in a game I wrote with a friend in the past. Creatures would level up the longer they'd live. Eventually turning into bosses. (Spiders that can be killed by walking over > to critter > to normal mob > to elite mob > to groups of mobs > to house sized Giant Spiders). Something like that. That can be really cool. It generates random content only available by exploring and is very good material for stories in the tavern
Your Faction idea is for me still too far away from the why. It can be a good addition. But it boosts other features such as the node feature and the artisan feature. Thus it requires there to be a why for the artisan system and the node system. Imagine the node system being completely dominated by few huge guilds and the artisan system being worthless, because mastering it takes ages and players that already mastered it offer all crafts for free. You wouldnt care about either of the two systems and as such would also ignore, the Faction feature. :P
Well, in Lineage 2 days, it was constant struggle to progress, as best hunting grounds were always taken and you'd have to fight over better spot from day one. This would then create revelries, and you would constantly meet people you hate, so that always strived you to get better, to get better gear, higher level and f them up, or take away their castle. I mean, it used to be kind of snow ball effect, where you would start start hating one another over some hunting ground etc, then they would join a guild, you would join a guild, on ocasion he would pk you, then you pk him, then meet him in a party with your party, start fighting, and soon you have full on guild war. And what was best about Lineage was that if you hated someone or some guild, you could influence their game, like i'm not gonna let them take this raid, or this castle or etc. but for you to be able to do so you need to be strong, so good gear lvl etc. I believe that Steven is trying to achieve this constant strugle with AOC. I know it might be hard to understand for some younger players, as since WOW every mmo is about NPC's Mobs, quest etc etc. Then theres stuff like BDO, They say sandbox, but in reality, there's just killing mobs or doing some mini games, such as fishing, crafting etc... without players having freedom to interact with each other without restrictions, theres even no 1 to 1 trading... Lineage 2 was true sandbox game, you had it all, scammers trying to sell you some gemstones instead of SOP, griefers, PVE'rs, PVP'rs, Crafters, Gatherers etc etc. And all of this diversity of different players doing whatever the f they wanted is what made it interesting, made it feel like real living world, worth investing your time into.
Again however, this doesn't start at the why. You said "it was constant struggle to progress, as best hunting grounds were always taken". Why were they important. What made them so important, that player spend most of their time fighting a war to even get to them.
Lets say, I make a game. It has 1 hunting ground (immediately the best hunting ground nothing to argue about). On the hunting ground you slay monsters and you get exp, which gives you level which makes you stronger. Other player can take it from you and then they get stronger and unless you keep struggling at some point the other side will over power you. End of story. It has all the base elements, which you described. However, that would be a boring game, because it lacks a reason WHY you want to hunt these monsters in the first place. What is so great about killing them. You don't just start randomly killing monsters for the sole purpose of being strong enough to defend your right to kill the monster again. You want something from it. Its important to know what that is and to see if a game you are interested in has that.
Otherwise how will you know if a game is Lineage 2 or just a skinner box trap like I described above (without just brute force your way through hours of game time to see if there is something at the end of the rainbow). Both will advertise as hardcore sandbox mmo.
Well my point was, you start the game, you syart doing newbie quest, hunting random mobs etc, why cant be answered as soon as you log in to the new game, but after doing random shit for couple of hours after you run in to encojnters i mentioned, why question will become clearer
Yeah it might become clearer or it becomes clearer that there isnt a why. That the game has no substance and is literally a skinner box. Kill mob get loot and repeat. That wont be fun. Just because you play a game, it doesnt mean there will be a why. People played 11 days (ingame time) to reach lvl 60 in vanilla wow only to immediately realize at 60 there is absolutely nothing that excites them in the endgame. They spend all that time to realize they wont like the endgame. Having some features such as quests, hunting grounds and random encounters doesn't change, that a game (or individual features) can be pointless. That is the point here. You think of games that were fun for you. The goal I had for this discussion was to gather WHY you like those games. It surely isn't because they have quests. They might have really exciting EPIC quests like mentioned above. And that feeling of epicness came with feelings such as challenge or accomplishment. And these feelings you might really crave for. But in the history of gaming I kinda doubt anyone ever saw a quest marker and said "Oh boy quests... I love this game already".
So when we realize its not the quest (or hunting grounds aso) we like, but the complex reaction they cause, if done correctly, we can analyse which features in AoC will have that amazing feeling and which are just what ever. :P So hopefully we can lead the discussion to a more "WHY" based direction, so we can think about whether or not we will like a feature for that reason.
I've always hated the saying, the real game doesn't start till endgame.
It's all about the journey for me, getting lost in the world and discovering new things be it vistas, a big bad boss's lair, a world bosses open world home, or finding a piece of forgotten lore or working hard to find a staff I saw a character equipped while walking through town.
I'm sure I'm in the .05% in this but I have more fun during the in game than the end game, but that's just me.
Thats one of my points is that, many modern mmos unlock pvp, other content once you reach endgame, lineage was one where endgame is very hard to reach and focused more on your journey to reach it, which you basically never did.
especially for an MMORPG - aiming for long term player base, which means the game can never properly resolve.
It's precisely for this reason that I've started hunting single player RPGs - coz they resolve - but then the world is just so much bigger with other people to interact with.