Rude Hero, I think it shows a failing when the answer is "go find another zone".


Before, let's make up an example, going to make up some fake quests, say you are in Westfall, and you want to help the farmers bake a pie. You can go right there and help them. Quest done, no follow up. You find another quest hub, do some quests, you are done, breadcrumb quest to another hub. Hub gives you several quests, you are free to take any that you want, or ignore any that you want. You check WoWhead, see a nice item for another quest, you go to that quest, and do it. You are free to pick and choose any quest in that zone you want to do, or ignore. It may not flow together as smoothly as a story, but it's your pace.

Now, when you enter a zone, you are given a quest, you go from that quest, to another quest, to another quest. You no longer choose which quests you want to do. You either do the ones laid out to you in that order, or you don't. Say you don't want to do a bunch of piddly little quests, but one which used to be by itself offered a nice reward. Now you have to do them all to get to it. What if you can't stand a certain type of quest? Had too many "go collect 30 objects that drop off critters in low amounts", and you would rather just skip that one? Well, you just can't finish the zone now.

And when you add in phasing, it just compounds the problem. When people want to quest with you, you have to make sure they are in the same phase as you. You are 30 quests in in the zone? Good luck to them, they have to do everything up to you to get to you.

It should be a quest chain or a few quest chains, and some individual quests here and there, not one long chain that never stops until you are at the end of the zone. It seems like it goes from being a theme park you walk around yourself, to a guided tour where you aren't allowed to stop, and you have to go exactly where the tour guide takes you.