A little extra XP for your trouble
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 5th 2007 at 1:53PM
Mystic Worlds has a post up about some cool features coming in Warhammer Online that she wishes were in WoW. Basically, it boils down to the fact that WAR will reward you for killing quest targets even if you haven't actually grabbed the quest yet.That would be darn helpful-- there have been times in Azeroth where I've killed 20 boars (for example) and then found out there was a quest to kill them that I just hadn't grabbed yet. MW says she worries that a system like this will mean random, indiscriminate killing across the landscape, but I already kill stuff indiscriminately as I'm wandering around-- it'd be nice to get an extra reward for it.
And while we're on the subject, I'd love to see some player-driven quests in the game. Something like 5-10k XP per week that can be awarded by your guildleader, just to keep you busy. Say, "win 3 AVs" or "run Shadow Labyrinth five times." Not only would it let GLs guide what their guildies were up to, but it would be another nice bonus for people leveling up, and considering there's 70 levels to get through now, quicker leveling is always good.
Finally, Mystic Worlds says she's also excited about their XP handouts for exploration, which Blizzard already does to an extent, but it'll be interesting to see how it's done in WAR. On one more (kind of) related note, someone in the guild recently suggested an awesome idea: see how far you could get a character just by finding all the discovery XP in the game. He said level 20, I say no more than 15. Anyone want to find out?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Quests, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tommysalomi Jun 5th 2007 2:23PM
Pre TBC, you could level to 14 by just revealing areas. This was discovered by GM's finding lots of lvl 14s that had the same amount of exp by teleport hacking across the world
The more you know -~*
Gatowag Jun 5th 2007 2:12PM
Not too long ago I wondered the same question and decided to start a blog over it.
http://golfclap.wordpress.com/
Then I just got kind of bored and lost incentive to finish my explorations...
robot rock Jun 5th 2007 2:13PM
Although I'm not against bonus XP by any means, I don't agree with the sentiment that getting to 70 as quickly as possible is the entire point of the game.
I'm purposely not gaining XP right now with my 49 rogue because of the BGs and helping out some low 40s guildies without it being super boring for either of us...
70+ raiding is not the reason most of us play the game...
Andrew Jun 5th 2007 2:15PM
Back when there were "teleport" hacks in WoW, players were level 14 - 15 without ever killing a single mob.
Neowar Jun 6th 2007 1:46PM
5-10XP per week for running five Slabs? Thats a joke. You can go kill 10 mobs and get this 5k XP.
On the other hand EvE Online offers a completely different approach to leveling, which I would love to see in WoW. Where you advance in the game by learing talents. There are so many talents in there, that it will take you many years to learn them all. You can only learn one talent at a time, and it takes 10-20 mins for Rank 1, and 5-10 days for Rank 5. You select a talent you want your character to learn and it will learn it even when you are offline. This completely solves the problem of casual players. On the other hand, if you are hardcore and want to stand out of the crowd you can do hard missions, grind money (since you can buy anything for money), or just have more fun pvping.
So some kind of version of this advancing is what I want to see in WoW. Basically, your character advances when your are not playing, and you dont need a group for it. On top of that, your character will never stop advancing, there is always another talent to learn, which lets you become whatever you want to be.
Now as far as EvE Online goes - it is a very different MMORPG for which I respect the delopers. I would strongly recommend you checking it our for free for 2 weeks. However, I would not want to play it every day and pay $15 for it. There is a lot of repetition which bores me to death. So its worth checking it out and see the opposite side of MMOs, but not worth playing.
Rod Oracheski Jun 5th 2007 2:25PM
"MW says she worries that a system like this will mean random, indiscriminate killing across the landscape, but I already kill stuff indiscriminately as I'm wandering around-- it'd be nice to get an extra reward for it."
Mmmmm, a serial killer MMO might be just what you're looking for...
Eldiablohijo Jun 5th 2007 2:36PM
"And while we're on the subject, I'd love to see some player-driven quests in the game. Something like 5-10k XP per week that can be awarded by your guildleader, just to keep you busy. Say, "win 3 AVs" or "run Shadow Labyrinth five times." Not only would it let GLs guide what their guildies were up to, but it would be another nice bonus for people leveling up, and considering there's 70 levels to get through now, quicker leveling is always good."
There is something similar to this. It's not completly player driven quest, but in DAoC (The previous MMO by the makers of Warhammer Online, Mythic Entertainment) Guild leaders/officers could go to a specific NPC and choose an objective type for a guild quest. These would range from kill x Enemy guards, kill x enemy players, take x number of towers. Etc.. ANyone in the guild could work towards completing these, and once they were completed the guild and everyone in the party that completed the quest would recieve RPs (somewhat similar to honor in WoW) and Gold/XP. These were repeatable any ammount of times per day/week (but were big and quite hard to obtain) and there were also similar group and solo quests that could be obtained.
Hornface Jun 5th 2007 2:42PM
We have a player in our guild who managed to get all the flight points in Azeroth and Outland (thanks to a summon) without doing a single quest or killing a single mob.
The trip through the tunnel into Winterspring took him like three hours.
Last I saw him, he was like level seven or something, on discovery XP alone.
Personally, I'd love the ability to outsource quests. Kill 20 Scarlet Monastery bad guys to level this alt, you say? Let me just round up a posse of other players who are willing to do it for me in exchange for some extra XP.
Hell, let players put tasks up on the auction house with reverse bidding. The player who'll do the job for the lowest XP wins the right to do the quest.
Blackbolt Jun 5th 2007 5:39PM
My idea was on pvp servers. If you got ganked by an opposing faction member more than 10 lvls above you, that would equate to extra rested bonus. Say 1k per each lvl above 10 per gank. It would be hard to police so people wouldn't exploit this. But I do think it would cut down on some of the ganking and camping in Hillsbrad and STV.
Pingmeister Jun 5th 2007 3:05PM
What kind of database would you need to keep track of every mob you've killed in-game? For every player?
I am assuming that is the reason Blizzard limits the number of active quests you can have.
Lori Jun 5th 2007 3:24PM
Just guessing but wouldn't guild leader assigned XP = more guild drama?
Oomfoofoo Jun 5th 2007 3:40PM
In 2004, Everquest's exp pack 'Gates of Discord' introduced a "leadership experience system, by means of which leaders of groups or raids can direct a percentage of their experience points to go into a special pool that grants these leaders some useful, new abilities."
What would the RL & GL's abilities be ... when their leadership bars ding? Its up to the immagination.
Oomfoofoo Jun 5th 2007 3:41PM
@10
... not if he gains abilities that benefit the raid.
Coherent Jun 5th 2007 5:11PM
I've often thought that it's incredibly stupid that I can kill 50 wild hogs on the way to see a quest NPC, only to have her give me a quest to "Go kill 12 wild hogs" and only after that does she give me the quest reward.
Oh yeah, lady, the fact that I'm streaked with entrail-splatter from the 50 hogs I killed getting here isn't good enough for you?
So it would make sense for you to be able to pick up bounties from kill-quests for having killed stuff before you actually received the quest.
Mystrana Jun 5th 2007 5:48PM
Please. If they made it any easier to get to level 70, I'd have to puke. I understand it's annoying to kill things and find out that you need to kill more, and I do especially hate when I kill some stuff only to learn that they have a horrible drop rate for the quest I pick up later... but in any case, being able to have kills count towards quests you don't already have... well, it's bad enough that people can grab quests for instances and share those and then you have people running around 'how do I turn in these quests for WC???!!'.. so let's just keep things the same way, shall we?
And the great thing about quests is that you don't have to do them. And if you're really worried about killing stuff that might have a quest attached to it, plenty of websites list all the quests for an area so you can just check there.
Paw Jun 5th 2007 6:31PM
Ugh! As a casual player, I have no use for a guild and a guild has no use for me, as I cannot, nor will not, schedule my life around the game nor some basement dweller's authoritarian maser plan.
That being said, and no offense to any basement dwellers specifically who might be here, if you want to create player controlled content, by all means ensure it has no effect on the rest of the game world or players. Maybe a goofy title could be awarded, a-la LOTRO. "Kill 300 murlocs will get you the title '//name// the Amphibian Killer'" Just don't give people who have nothing else better to do an even bigger hammer to smash me with. It's bad enough having to deal with the loser lvl 70's in the uber raid gear camping northern STV, ganking lowbies just out of reach of the guards in BB for example.
I really think that this game could use some serious expansion to the solo game for people like me who solo:PuG ~ 3:1.
As for putting it on easy mode and giving you credit towards a quest before you actually have said quest...there are already quests like that. If you happen to kill meat animals before you get the gather meat quests, you always get credit for the quantity in your inventory. You just don't get that easy-mode heads-up...but I wouldn't want it either.
Ugkul Jun 5th 2007 10:27PM
Anyway, I'm glad WAR is going into Beta. LotRO wasn't quite enough to convince me to switch, but WAR might do the trick.
Ailya Jun 7th 2007 7:30PM
I'll just throw this out there. I don't remember what the mod was, but there's a mod out there that you can install (and your friends too) that lets you create your own quests. Friends with the mod can talk to you, get the quest, (as if you were an NPC) and then they can go do it. Kill stuff or get stuff if I remember right.
You can't give out xp, but you can give out cash and items for quests as quest rewards.