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Great vid on why Vanilla WoW questing was remembered
GrappLr
Member, Alpha One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvGX3gnarckI'm not saying that this is anything new to the Devs, but it's a great watch to remind us why we get so attached to the leveling process, when it is done well.
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if it was that good, why did it change later on?
I like that kind of design, but I doubt that current gaming populous would. Oldtimers will whine that they have 10 kids to feed, while those 10 kids will whine that they don't have a tiktok running alongside the game's screen to keep their attention on the quest window. Oh, and any "gamers" will just skip any and all reading, because they'll just look up how to do stuff, because it's ALL ABOUT THE OPTIMIZATION BABYYYYY
And there's even more hype for HC WoW, which is literally only leveling.
I know this because I've been playing on "classic" version of L2 for 2/3 of my 12 years of playing it. People simply know what to do and like to do it over and over again. And afaik Classic WoW is also way easier than current version, so anyone who's shit at the game right now might be slightly better in classic.
Brother, that's what people said when Classic first launched. That was literally more than 4 years ago. And it's still strong.
It's a better game.
And I say this as someone who never played WoW decades ago. I first played both Classic and Retail relatively close to each other. Retail sucks compared to Classic.
Now, I'm aware this is somewhat subjective, and some people prefer Retail. But I'm definitely not one of them, and I think most people waiting for AoC are also not.
And the entire HC version of the game is literally "play this starting cycle over and over".
I'm sure classic (vanilla) is a better version of wow than the current one. That's literally the reason why WoW exploded in the first place. But I'd be really interested in seeing how many newcomers stayed in the game for a very long time after the first waves of oldtimer hype died down.
Are they still playing? Which version of classic are they playing, if they are? And how many such players are left in the game?
Even if progress is reaaaaally slow, I'd imagine 4 years of proper gameplay should've let you hit the ceiling, right? So what are all of those players doing in the game now?
I'm asking all these questions for WoW, because I know all the answers for L2. People would hit a certain lvl of progress and would go look for a new private server that was just about to open, because they wanted to perfect their progression methods to a point where they'd always "win" in the end. And this would be repeated for YEARS by the same people, and this was back in early 10s.
Now I'm simply seeing the same thing happen on official servers of WoW (cause I think smth semi-similar was happening with private servers there as well?). So it's nothing knew to me.
Yeah, that's exactly how it is. People wait for new fresh starts once they "beat" the game. Classic WoW runs out of content after a year easily for most people.
But that's where expansions happen, and what every MMO does. AoC will have expansions.
My point is, you were arguing that the modern approach is more popular, and I'm saying that Classic WoW is a good counterpoint to that, that people actually do prefer the older approach.
What do you think makes Classic a better game than Retail?
I think it's a combo of good original game and nostalgia that builds the hype for others.
Ok, then better question, what makes Retail a bad game in comparison?
One aspect of what makes Retail bad is they try to make it accessible for everyone. Got 3 minutes to play a week? Sure, we have something for you. Oh, you want to turn your brain off but not suffer any negative consequences? We got you!
I'd prefer if Ashes had both short-time and brainless content. I just don't want it to be all that meaningful. Doing a short quest/task that gives you something small could be enough content for someone who only has 10 minutes to spare, but the impact of that content is miniscule. Killing some super easy soloable mobs (or picking up flowers) is a brainless activity w/ super low risk of negative consequences, but the loot/xp gains are also non-existent.
But both of those actions should be possible in Ashes, because even hardcore players might not have too much time one day or just want to completely shut off their brain, but still want to play the game.
The game will already weed out anyone who always doesn't have time or wants to always be brainless, because you'll need to travel to your POIs and majority of mobs will be hard (and death penalties exist). To me, even classic wow was brainless enough, or at least you could play it brainlessly and still progress. Mainly because compared to other games at the time WoW was seen as the casual mmo, which was also the reason for its success.
Extrapolate that to our times and you have yourself the super casuals with 10 minutes of brainless gameplay a day. Ashes is not targeting them as their audience, but it could still have some gameplay that they could participate in. And it would then be their own decision if that gameplay is worth $15/m.
I liked the slower leveling speed, the lore, the tie in to a broader arcing storyline, and the weird humor. It was a solid formula to camouflage a fairly homogeneous set of tasks: kill x things, go to this point, deliver y to z, escort NPC from a to b.
WoW had a better mixture of these ingredients than EQ2 for me, which made it a better experience, and defined where my $$ went.
I'm not trying to say that every single piece of content should be designed to be 30+ minutes. I'm saying that, in the kind of MMORPG I want to play, it's designed around longer gaming sessions in mind.
Obviously some quests might be fast, obviously some activities might be fast. But the average session should be considered 1h+
yes but which version has more players? thats the key part.
only a handful of people liked it, not the majority.
Only mmorpg i cared about questing is star wars the the old republic because I felt like I had control of the story and it pulled me in more. And that game still had trash questing it was just the story.
So 100% nostalgia, amazing at the time the game came out. By todays standards questing is compete trash and people are bored + nostalgia loving the ip and their memories. I'm not even going to sugar coat it when I say it is bad.
*last edit
Release that game, remove the memories and IP I guarantee you no one is playing it.
It could also be because you're used to "braindead" questing from playing "modern" games with braindead questing. One thing I enjoyed about the questing in SWTOR was the story and the choices you got to make a long the way for different dialogues and what not depending on class and light or dark implications.
I enjoyed vanilla wow at the time but I don't care to play classic more due to replacing those great memories i made. Preying on consumers with nostalgia is one of their marketing tools lol but it will never change the fact of how soulless the game is at it's core due to turning it into a theme park game in retail with MTX, P2W, BOOSTS, CARRIES ETC. To say retail wow is better is subjective because the demographics and target audiences are a lot different these days. Retail could be better but it's not the same game made by gamers for gamers. Even Metzen isn't going to "fix" the game and i got nothing against him. He may be able to guide the story and what not in a better direction with the cards he is dealt but to think he is going to fix the game is delusional nostalgia manipulation.
The IP of warcraft still appeals to many especially if you grew up with it, but the game isn't what it was which is the problem.
EDIT:
blizzard lost over 80% of their max total active subscribers from wotlk to current. Many players i knew left because of what the game was becoming, life happening and even the market saturating with more MMORPG's but it doesn't excuse the fact that the design choices from when activision acquired them influenced them to where they are today. The more subscriptions they lost, the more MTX and whatnot got implemented. MOP was a big breaking point for them as some "loyalists" stuck around through cataclysm which is still dwindling.
Anyway on topic here i dont think it necessarily quests that made it memorable Vanilla WoW was the start of a major shift in development direction when it came to MMORPG let me explain
Old school MMO like Everquest, Runescape and so on design philosophy was making a world where players exist in
Compared to modern day MMO where there design philosophy is player first and world later.
Old school mmo vanilla wow and before felt like you were in a world not in a game, nowadays everything is so streamline and stripped anything that could be a inconvenience from the world which made the world feel like a game and not the feeling of being in a different world.
The removal of inconviences i think was what killed the magic of MMORPG world WoW was the beginning of the end of the magic of MMORPG, they added a couple of conviences that older games didnt have and with every expansion/patch they slowly removed more and more inconviences and all game companies also follows this path and the magic that was once there is no longer there anymore.
Ashes of creation seems to be branching off and modernising the oldschool MMO and i hoping they manage to capture the magic once again with creation a world over a game.
its not the quests that did it older games game design were creating a living world that players exsists in where modern games are all about making games not a world.
They stripped the inconviences out of the game and tbh thats what gave MMORPG the magic they once had Vanilla wow was the turning point here where the started taking out inconveniences every patch and the magic of the world started dieing slowly
What I do remember of retail questing is how much more full of people the world was, even though the world was static and boring.
I want to get rid of the nostalgia argument (which plays an obvious role) to focus on what makes classic lvling better for some players than retail.
First, to say that quests are better at classic than retail seems complicated to me: less well narrated, less varied, less rhythmic, etc. But then, why do I prefer them? Simply because the way are they are incorporated into the world force the things that an MMO is supposed to bring to me :
-On retail I can solo mob packs without thinking. On classic 2 mobs are difficult, 3 are suicidal in early game. This favors team play, since other random players will make powerful allies
-They are slow, which gives me time to observe the world, and allows my brain to rest. (seriously, retail is brainless yet exhausting because of constant solicitations)
-They do not allow an optimized path because of many returns, and all the necessary indications are present in the text, without requiring an addon. I stopped minmaxing to enjoy the game, and for me it’s a joy.
Then the universe, and that’s where I think classic is excellent. In a word I would say: consistency!
Each of the dozens of classic regions responds to its own aesthetic, without ever swearing with the other regions. But when I switch from classic to BC, from BC to WOTLK, I feel like I’m changing worlds. This is logical because the assets are different, and the theme of the extension too.
Really this lack of coherence between the aesthetics and the theme of the extensions gives me the impression of a bad patchwork.
Finally: the sobriety!
With the accumulation of content, retail looks like a fun fair. In fact, the term MMORPG Theme Park has never been so well named. With each motorcycle, with each mamouth... It is the immersion which is broken.
I will not even bother to mention the 60 currencies, calls to the shop in EUROS, etc.
Small apartment for dungeons: in classic a dungeon is preparing (quests) and is the purpose of several hours of quests in a region. At retail, we are summoned to a random dungeon without any relation to our current activity.
In short, VS adventure service. Accessibility VS investment
^ this game is a pretty spot on example of what im talking about here. I think theres a nice middle ground you can reach between Everquest's style of quest dialog, and this new A.I. stuff.
Below is a string of dialog you have to play through in order to do these quests. You have to type out these responses to get to the next part of the quest. Now imagine you are talking with an a.i. that can work with vague or round about questions/answers.
you can do that without AI, and its easier and faster T_T
then it wouldnt be what im asking for because I dont see how you could have it respond and talk to a person in that manner without a.i. having set responses to set queries is not the same as having information that can be negotiated for.
you said they have their own personalities, likes, dislikes, and discoverable quests through dialog. that can be done without ai.
well, in your example, you said that you have to type out specific things to continue the dialog and discover the quest. that can be done easier and faster without ai. i dont really see the chatbot part here unless you type random things and they respond appropriately, like hey tell me the square root of 4. hey bumble reminjar, teach me python.
also, a lot of people think that ai will magically generate an infinite amount of quests that will be fun, infinite possibilities, etc. yeah go kill 1 rabbit at the other end of the map then come back. now go to the same spot and kill 100000 lvl 1 rabbits. now go to the same spot and jump 50000 times. slash this target dummy 348574574 tmes. those are possible quests generated by ai. so you have to limit them to generate quests that people like..which you can do already if you are a quest designer lol and faster, less work, no ai training, less resources, etc.
This is a great post, and I absolutely agree with it. The removal of inconveniences is absolutely a big part of what made MMOs feel more like games and not worlds. Also, Runescape was my first ever MMORPG, so maybe that shaped how I view them in general.
I feel this sums up alot of the issues tbh why modern day MMO are terrible