There are group quests sure, but if you didn't play Warhammer Online at launch you haven't experienced PQs in all their glory. After a PQ, you got points for how much work you put it and with a spin of a random number generator select people were rewarded loot. It was an immense amount of fun and it's truly unfortunate the game didn't work out.

I wouldn't say the last DK quest is a group quest. All I remember was my buddy Mograine whining about his sword while I wailed on Rayne, doing little to no damage and there being zombies and yellow-holy light EXPLOSIONS happening all around me.

"What is this?! My... I cannot strike... "

I love the change they made for Problim. No more begging to get into groups, just help kill him and you get credit and a share of the loot. It would be awesome if they did this to more parts of the game.

Warhammer group quests are one of the best game mechanics I have ever seen. That ability alone was enough to keep me playing it. The fact that you automatically join a pseudo-group and can jump right in is so much fun.

Those quests aren't how a Public Quest works. A public quest is more like a non-instanced Trial of the Champion, that progresses as dudes are killed, or other things are done.

@Aquaroko

Exactly. Battle for Light's Hope was more like an interactive cut scene. You weren't rewarded in any way for doing well and you couldn't fail... you just had to show up.

I really enjoyed the Public Quests in WAR, but they worked because (comparatively) there were so much less people than in WoW. I think the most people I ever saw in a PQ in WAR was 7; could you imagine in WoW? On some of the more populated servers you could have upwards of 15 people easy. I'm sure Blzzard could scale them up a bit for this, but then they'd have to somehow scale rewards up too.

I think it could be done and would be a great addition to the game, but I personally am having trouble imagining PQs in WoW (so it's probably a good thing I'm not on the WoW Dev staff :P).

@Aquaroko

I believe kerese was actually referring to the quest after Light's Hope, where the rebelling Death Knights storm Acherus and drive out the Scourge. Specifically the part where everyone gangs up on Patchwerk.

@CDave
I'm sure Blizzard could separate the people into phases depending on when they joined the quest. They'd have to. The Gnomer and whatever the troll even was called was unplayable laggy.

That said I still see three problems with implementing group quests in WoW. :

One: Since the rewards were based on how much you participated, the people who miss the start of the quest cannot qualify for the best rewards. That sounds good on the surface (after all who wants to carry a slacker) but it could cause problems. After all, why should I help you with "your" quest when I'd just have to do it again anyway (assuming they're even repeatable)?

Two: I'm actually more concerned about a lack of people available than too many. The DK starting zone may have been flooded with people at the start of Wrath (don't know), but now you're lucky if you see one other person at light's hope chapel. If you had to wait for 5-10 real people to show up, you could be there for hours.

Oh, and you can die during that quest...unfortunately. It usually happens just before the fight or right after, but I think my DK died 5 times before it was over.