Breakfast Topic: Easy to Miss Quests
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 27th 2006 at 8:30AM
There's been a thread making the rounds on the forums about the game's easy to miss quests, which started me thinking about the game's questing system. For the most part, quests are difficult to miss - NPCs in need of help stand around with large yellow exclamation points over their heads that are hard to ignore. In a game that's so intentionally user-friendly, what indeed is the point of hard to find quests, that few may ever see? Having played the game through to level 60 on both Alliance and Horde sides, I'm always amused to find some bit of game content that's previously escaped me. But as to the point of these hidden quests - is their benefit in adding replayability to the game? In rewarding the persistent explorers who may find them? And how do you like your quests - straight up and in the open or a hidden gem in an obscure place?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Quests
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Coanunn Jul 27th 2006 10:08AM
Well I think the devs are trying to cater to all of the player base. There is a large section of my guild dedicated 100% to cartography, another section pride themselves on always moving at walk speed unless needing to run and acting "in character" at all times. The idea of hidden quests makes sense for the curious explorer types, as do quests like the long chain starting from Van Clefe's letter for the alliance for the hard core lore driven rp'er.
I like the replayability as well so that I can experience something new when I don't feel like raiding or running something with my level 60. Anything that gives me a reason to keep paying them $15 a month once I've reached 60 is worthwhile in my estimation.
My biggest complaint regarding the quest system is the quest marker disappearing once you are "too high" to gain xp from the quest. There are tons of quests that you can't find in one play through due to the different races and the sheer size of the game world because even if you go looking for them you have out leveled them already. I'd like to be able to have a setting that allows me to turn those back on so I can experience more of the game with my main whom I enjoy playing the most, even if I will 1 shot some of the monsters.
PodMonkeys Jul 27th 2006 10:28AM
I like having both easy to find, and hidden quests. Also, a system where you specify the level range of quests that are visible would be nice. Have it default to how it behaves now, but let uses select Min and Max level ranges, or allow setup a +/- above and below current level.
James Jul 27th 2006 10:37AM
What would be nice to have would be a marker on your mini-map for quest givers that have a quest you can get. THAT would be handy! During my first horde-character past level 10, went through WC before I even knew there were quests on top of the opening.
Michael Jul 27th 2006 1:06PM
I definately must say that having both is a great idea.
I find that I actually feel a bit of a giddy rush when I discover a "non-advertised" (no exclamation or question mark over the NPC's head). It adds to some ecitement and desire to "get to know" the NPC that otherwise would be little more than eye-candy.
On the otherside, I have played MMORPGs that did not give you any clue to who might have a quest for you, and you either spent forever talking to NPCs that just had a canned respoce until you actually qualified for thier quest or you gave up on quests and just went Hack-n-slash mass PVE slaughter to level up. The only other ways were to annoy other players with questions asking for who to tlak to next, or went online multiple times while playing to get hints and spoilers inorder to get anywhere.
So BOTH advertised and non-advertised are an excelent balance that makes the game fun, playable, challenging and still offers excitement as your character(s) progress.
boneyard Jul 28th 2006 3:19AM
how more easy do you want it? want to be walked automaticly to every quest also? want to be walked through it step by step?
the current system is fine, so not everyone does all the quests if they don't put some extra time in it to explore, that is fine.