Breakfast Topic: Would you enjoy building your own version of WoW?
by Jesse Disbrow 
Mar 25th 2011 at 8:00AM
Reading up on the World of Starcraft mod made me think about something. What if the map and scenario building tools that have been parts of every Blizzard RTS game since Warcraft II were available to us as players of World of Warcraft?
The idea is not completely unfounded. Superhero MMO City of Heroes uses the Mission Architect. This lets the player build and create their own content in the way of a series of missions that create a story. When I first saw the plan for this feature, I thought this was the future, as it takes pressure off the designers.
Creating a quest creator or an even more powerful editor would let us examine the creativity of the community and could give roleplayers a better tool to tell their stories. It's certainly better than the very illegal alternative of hosting a private WoW server.
Say there were some Well of Possible Timelines in the Caverns or Time to access instanced, player-created quests ... What would you do with a WoW quest creator? Would you make quests where you take control of lore characters, like The Hunter and the Prince? Or would you try to put your own twist on the kill 10 boars quest? Would you create quests where you fly around the Emerald Dream? Would your RP quest to help find your long-lost father go over well with your RP buddies and the general public? What would your idea for a quest be?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
zainwolf Mar 25th 2011 8:09AM
A quest to visit the Ethereals would be awesome.
MusedMoose Mar 25th 2011 8:13AM
I'd do my best to design some quests for the worgen in Silverpine Forest. Like many others, I wasn't pleased that their storyline ended with "Run away! Run away!" after about 12 levels of "FOR GILNEAS!" ...I know I'm oversimplifying things, but still.
Also, I'd like to make some (and by "some", I mean "a few dozen") quests revolving around what the draenei are actually doing on Azeroth and Outland. Perhaps investigating some Burning Legion incursions or those who might be trying to get the Legion here, or maybe something low-key but still fun like getting a talbuk breeding program started with some ram-breeders from Ironforge. What would really be nifty would be investigating some very minor thing on Velen's word, then finding out it's part of a major conspiracy, so you have a long questline to unravel the whole thing and bring it to an end. And naturally, when you return to Velen, he tells you he knew that would happen. ^_^
wow Mar 25th 2011 8:49AM
I like this idea, I wasn't happy with the Worgen story either. I'd also take it a step further and take the Silverpine quests into Gilnaes itself and have epic questing there. Of course, we'd have to repopulate the zone, but that would be the fun part of it. Maybe even have Sylvanas make an appearance and you get to duel her or something. I love using creative tools to add stuff to games. Did it with Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age.
Shinanji
Mitawa Mar 25th 2011 8:55AM
@wow
The undead quests spill over from Silverpine to Gilneas and into the city proper through phasing. The questlines you're looking for exist, but from the wrong side.
After playing through the new undead experience I was really excited to see it from the other side, to go into the Liberation Front camps and help out and was very disappointed when I ended up killing troll in Darkshore.
Noyou Mar 25th 2011 2:00PM
@Mused
Please post your ideas on the official forums. They are beautiful :)
Ice Mar 25th 2011 8:15AM
No question about it. I would add ton of visual effects to current spells and more animations and update models.
When it comes to quest maker like that, yes again.
I would totally love to make actual quests with game mechanics for RP for example "Kill 20 orcs and plant banner to specific location".
Or heck even tutorial type for raiders in dungeons.
The ideas would be endless and this actually spawned ton of ideas now that I would wish to suggest to blizzard.
Hmm.. if only they still had the suggestion boards still..
ThunderMonkey Mar 25th 2011 8:19AM
I would like to drum up something similar to "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks".
Eris Mar 25th 2011 8:24AM
You can already do that with the addon Total RP 2: it allow you to create (and share) your own quests and items.
Ryan Mar 25th 2011 8:58AM
Total RP2 thanks for pointing me in the direction of this.
Looks like an incredible amount of work went into this addon.
Phil Mar 25th 2011 9:37AM
Wow I am definitely going to have to check this out when I get home tonight.
Marcosius Mar 25th 2011 3:03PM
TRP2 is a cool addon, but it's rather a handful to learn to use + it tries to take on some RP addon properties that for example Gryphonheart Items does a lot better. IF it ever becomes less cluttered and confusing I'll adopt it fulltime, for the moment it's just too much hassle. In the meantime I'll stick with MyRolePlay..
Tim Mar 25th 2011 8:26AM
I would probably try to put a twist on the kill 10 boar things as I wait for others to make awesome questlines that I would then like to run. It would be cool to see what my fellow geeks are up to. So many smart people play this game and then comment here. Would love to try out their quests! :)
mehehe Mar 25th 2011 8:31AM
I'll make a quest teaching mages to sheep. And ofc I'd give Warlocks green fire, allow them to fly in Meta form. (Like seriously what are the wings for?).
razion Mar 25th 2011 8:29AM
If I had my way with the game, I'd up the system requirements so I could overhaul the graphic's engine--the thing is really old at this point, and deserves an upgrade. Apart from that though, I'd probably fit less out-of-game references in and try to make the actual Warcraft universe more enjoyable (for example, climbing things. We can't climb ladders, and I would very much like to be able to do this)--flesh it and the characters out a bit more in quests, and make them more interactive (no you crazy elf, we're not going to mess with that magic. I'll just beat his head in, you just watch my back. Okay? Okay. Don't pout, you know I'm right).
I'd love to make quests (and the world in general) more interactive (you look under a rock and find the bow of a hunter!), sort of how RPGs give you those dialog text options so you can progress a story differently. Just little things like those to make it feel more like a role-playing game would go a long way of improving my enjoyment of the game.
coville Mar 25th 2011 8:30AM
If they could incorporate something where we could design dungeons that others could run through, with dialog and story features, that would be awesome.
I have played COH and played with their mission creator and it is great. Yes, a ton of what is created is either stupid easy or gutter humor, neither of which is entertaining. But there are a lot of good stuff and the rating system works great to direct people to the better content.
WoW could incorporate a system that would allow the highest rated content to be qued for using the LFD system. Award justice/valor points for running a random user dungeon, that would be awesome.
Phil Mar 25th 2011 9:43AM
I personally think User Created Content would be HUGE for WoW so many people get tired of doing the same old thing in regards to questing and dungeons i think the addition of UGC would breathe a lot of fresh new life into WoW.
Now there of course are potential issues that could arise such as abuse of the system and monitoring of it. For example creating really great gear for really easy dungeons or tons of experience or stuff like that. But i think this could be avoided given given some rule systems that were put in place and good moderation.
The upsides though i think out weigh the negatives.
coville Mar 25th 2011 10:07AM
Gear and other rewards could be defined by the difficulty of the dungeon. The system would measure how many mobs and what type of mobs to determine the rewards (valor, justice and or gold) as appropriate. Then you could pick from a list of pre-made bosses to add and they would have their own drops determined by their difficulty.
This would allow the designer to determine how hard they want to make their content and players would be able to choose if they are willing to do harder content for better gear and rewards.
Adding to my first comment, they could make the type rated content into heroics. Gives designers motivation to make really good content and hope to be chosen. Maybe give designer rewards like gold for everyone that runs their content, or some point system like justice to buy gear only available to content creators.
There is so much WoW could do with this type of system that I hope they take a serious look at it.
Docseuzz Mar 25th 2011 8:31AM
Unfortunately, due to the inherent douche-baggery of the internet - I cannot see this happening... although if phasing were part of the toolkit, some very cool questlines could be done - there would have to be no rewards though - too easy to take advantage of... kill 10 bunnies, get 5,000g... :) It would also be interesting to see what people would come up with with an item editor - would just be tough to have creation of any 'fun' procs and such be available via toolkit..
wow... didn't realize I was so negative on this... I like the idea though.. :)
Gerbera Mar 25th 2011 8:57AM
I think you are incorrectly inferring that custom content would be allowed to exist alongside the official content. This would never be allowed. Not only would there be abuses as you suggested, but there could be lore conflict, even in seemingly simple quests.
No, the only way this could be allowed would be as independent "servers." To play in a custom dungeon/quest line, you might be able to import your character using armory information, but it would ultimately have no impact on the character's gear/achievements/wealth after the import. Think of it along the lines of the PTR character copy.
Shela Monster Mar 25th 2011 8:31AM
"Thank you Hero. But our princess is in another castle!"