A friend of mine talked me into playing WoW with him once. He had me spend 4 hours doing fetch quests and skipping an entire encyclopedia worth of dialogue to level up to the point that we could start playing dungeons, then during the first dungeon he told me to just follow behind everyone and collect the loot they left behind. I snapped and couldn’t do it anymore after that. I was genuinely on the verge of a mental breakdown.
I kinda feel the same way about Diablo-style games. I’m only ever encouraged to play by people who have put so much time into it that they can’t appreciate the gameplay loops or the story anymore and only want to rush to max level and do the same loot runs over and over again.
If I play by myself, I can kind of see the appeal, but I’m playing “sub-optimally” and wasting a bunch of time. Eventually, I will have to fall in and keep up or just be satisfied playing alone.
It’s definitely more about the overall journey than the minute to minute gameplay.
In truth, the kill quests are actually great because they trick players into doing optimal gameplay for a little bit. Questing is a lot of downtime where you run around talking to npcs and going places. The best way to level up in Classic WoW is to sit in a valley and carve your name into a creature’s evolutionary line. The lower the drop rate of a quest item is, the more monsters you’ll kill, the more XP/hr you’ll end up with.
You can do that without a carrot on a stick and mandatory kill x. Then you also have to run to the npc 5 times after every quest. Its so boring and unecessary timeconsuming.
Since i have played guild wars 2 i cannot stand these types of quests in any game and even that game still has to use it in its story from time to time. But they at least always put a twist on it at and its never that long thankfully.
Games like WoW are nothing but that for the whole game. It has so many other old design flaws that it always astounds me how many people still fall for that and even pay monthly for a bucket of crap.
Again, it’s about the journey. It is time consuming. that’s the point. You don’t become as invested in a character if it only takes you 20 hours to reach max level. Vanilla WoW is a marathon. It’s a lot of friction, a lot of moving around, and a lot of spending time in the world. What makes that downtime interesting are the people. Quests being really boring and simple isn’t really great for making fun gameplay, true, but it is great for getting two complete strangers to be able to collaborate on the task and work together to complete it.
I become invested in a character if the story attached to it is well written or if i get to make meaningful decisions with it.
If the gameplay attached to it is boring or if i only run around the map hunting bear asses, why would i become attached to that?
Fetch quests just stretch out the game to keep you occupied.
Even hated that in games like skyrim, but you could mostly ignore it and level by exploring. In most MMOs its most of the game which is just awful and outdated. Just like mindlessly killing mobs.
I remember playing back in 0X and even then the quests were silly. I liked running around looking at the geometry and hitting things there, but the quests took the fun out of it once I realised they were by far the more efficient way to level up (so you could go to new geometry to hit new things).
I really dont want to make people upset and usually do not care what people play, but games like wow just make me angry somehow.
There are so many better games and even MMOs out there but thats not even the half of it. You spend money MONTHLY for your savegame basically, on something which is attached with so many bad things in the past and present.
Its only a puppet of microsoft at this point and we all know where that money goes. Not to the devs even if they unionized or whatever. To data centers and war and all riding on nostalgia which was never even that good.
Sorry for ranting but i dont know where else to put these thoughts other than a meme forum where mostly people ignore it anway.
I dunno, it’s pretty and braindead and you can explore stuff and roleplay.
I am not a big mmo person generally but most of the “better” games I’ve tried and overstimulating and exhausting. I used to like everquest a lot, and there’s still a lot other games don’t do better imho. I still get lost in some of everquest’s cities and dungeons when I load up p99 but that doesn’t happen in more polished games.
People spend monthly on things all the time for enjoyment. Freemium games are full of dark patterns (honestly modern wow is a bit too but a lot less than some), single player are excellent value for money sure but also not very social. Running servers does cost money and it sort of sucks, they are profiting but so are freemium products and shit. Community run MMOs are rare and awesome treasures to preserve, they still cost too though since if you don’t donate they die or you’re just leaching off people who do.
I don’t think wow is a terrible game, it’s just different. The people that make up the community suck though :(
You have probably tried Guild Wars 2 already but i think it is one of the only real MMOs since you automatically interact with lots of people if you want to and can engage more if you like, since the community is so nice in there. (Except PvP lol;)
You also have the freedom from the start to do whatever, which i understand puts some people of.
And it is also one if the best examples how f2p can work without screwing you over.
Subs are okay if the company needs money but server costs are not expensive for the big guys. You also pay extra for microtransactions in WoW right?
When I was into MMOs years ago I played its beta. I found it busy, minigame driven, lacking in dead time necessary for social interaction, and a bit ugly. The classes didn’t grab me either, they felt very samey.
Nothing like EQ where a bard can be kiting all around a zone, a wizard teleporting people around, rogues and necros helping people grab corpses etc.
I also very much enjoy stuff, or I did when I played, like in EQ where the world is extremely unfair and hostile. Modern MMOs are too much like fairgrounds. They’re afraid to tell you no or let you make bad decisions.
MMOs that have been better are things MUDs, EQ, Darkfall, eve (not by thing but amazing), OSRS (very single player now but when it was just runescape 1 and 2 it was neat), and mortal online.
Happiness writes white, if a game won’t let you get in over your head, lose things, and have a genuinely bad and frustrating time then the illusion of a world shatters and it becomes just another sort or masturbation
It has changed quite a lot since beta and i find it weird that classes feel same when they differ quite alot from each other.
Even more so since every big expansion offers Elite specs that change it another time.
Mesmer can port people and there are guilds specifically to help people with jumping puzzles that way.
The busy stuff is mostly in open world and map metas. If you wait for a world boss or chill in the cities there is alot of chatter and even roleplay.
It is very easy in the starting zones but gets very hard and unforgiving in the first big expac maps Heart of Thorns. I do like the laid back approach that you can do whatever from mindlessly exploring to hardcore raiding.
There are enough unforgiving single player games for my liking and i do not have much time so gw2 sort of values it by not giving me mandatory hurdles. When an update comes out i can play every content without gear grind.
But i know aswell that many people like that sort of thing.
I agree with you but I guess people are too invested to even try to open their eyes and it is a safety for them to have their group of people in the game. The social aspects are often what holds people in wow I believe. Or that is how it was back when i played long ago when there was no cross server or lfg tools.
it’s a loop, you grab 20 kill quests at the hub, you kill you grind, you gather, you go back, turn in and level up, go back to main city and craft and sell and find the next hub.
I played WoW Classic when it first came out. I have not really done much questing at all. Just quickly pushed myself to a level where i can start doing dungeons & then did those to 60, had a pretty good time doing it too.
On retail questing is a bit better, not great but better. Still wouldn’t do it, but Blizzard is basically forcing everyone to do them these days.
I do not understand how people can still play stuff like that. Such an unfun and outdated gamemechanic.
A friend of mine talked me into playing WoW with him once. He had me spend 4 hours doing fetch quests and skipping an entire encyclopedia worth of dialogue to level up to the point that we could start playing dungeons, then during the first dungeon he told me to just follow behind everyone and collect the loot they left behind. I snapped and couldn’t do it anymore after that. I was genuinely on the verge of a mental breakdown.
I kinda feel the same way about Diablo-style games. I’m only ever encouraged to play by people who have put so much time into it that they can’t appreciate the gameplay loops or the story anymore and only want to rush to max level and do the same loot runs over and over again.
If I play by myself, I can kind of see the appeal, but I’m playing “sub-optimally” and wasting a bunch of time. Eventually, I will have to fall in and keep up or just be satisfied playing alone.
It’s definitely more about the overall journey than the minute to minute gameplay.
In truth, the kill quests are actually great because they trick players into doing optimal gameplay for a little bit. Questing is a lot of downtime where you run around talking to npcs and going places. The best way to level up in Classic WoW is to sit in a valley and carve your name into a creature’s evolutionary line. The lower the drop rate of a quest item is, the more monsters you’ll kill, the more XP/hr you’ll end up with.
You can do that without a carrot on a stick and mandatory kill x. Then you also have to run to the npc 5 times after every quest. Its so boring and unecessary timeconsuming.
Since i have played guild wars 2 i cannot stand these types of quests in any game and even that game still has to use it in its story from time to time. But they at least always put a twist on it at and its never that long thankfully.
Games like WoW are nothing but that for the whole game. It has so many other old design flaws that it always astounds me how many people still fall for that and even pay monthly for a bucket of crap.
Again, it’s about the journey. It is time consuming. that’s the point. You don’t become as invested in a character if it only takes you 20 hours to reach max level. Vanilla WoW is a marathon. It’s a lot of friction, a lot of moving around, and a lot of spending time in the world. What makes that downtime interesting are the people. Quests being really boring and simple isn’t really great for making fun gameplay, true, but it is great for getting two complete strangers to be able to collaborate on the task and work together to complete it.
I become invested in a character if the story attached to it is well written or if i get to make meaningful decisions with it.
If the gameplay attached to it is boring or if i only run around the map hunting bear asses, why would i become attached to that?
Fetch quests just stretch out the game to keep you occupied.
Even hated that in games like skyrim, but you could mostly ignore it and level by exploring. In most MMOs its most of the game which is just awful and outdated. Just like mindlessly killing mobs.
Do you enjoy the fights in WoW/Skyrim/whatever? If so, surely an uninspiring quest is still fun because it gets you to engage with a fun mechanic?
If not, then you can at least understand that other people do?
Yeah that is true and i can understand that. Got bored and annoyed with both pretty quick so thats probably it.
I remember playing back in 0X and even then the quests were silly. I liked running around looking at the geometry and hitting things there, but the quests took the fun out of it once I realised they were by far the more efficient way to level up (so you could go to new geometry to hit new things).
People like different things chill and let people do what they enjoy
I really dont want to make people upset and usually do not care what people play, but games like wow just make me angry somehow.
There are so many better games and even MMOs out there but thats not even the half of it. You spend money MONTHLY for your savegame basically, on something which is attached with so many bad things in the past and present.
Its only a puppet of microsoft at this point and we all know where that money goes. Not to the devs even if they unionized or whatever. To data centers and war and all riding on nostalgia which was never even that good.
Sorry for ranting but i dont know where else to put these thoughts other than a meme forum where mostly people ignore it anway.
I dunno, it’s pretty and braindead and you can explore stuff and roleplay.
I am not a big mmo person generally but most of the “better” games I’ve tried and overstimulating and exhausting. I used to like everquest a lot, and there’s still a lot other games don’t do better imho. I still get lost in some of everquest’s cities and dungeons when I load up p99 but that doesn’t happen in more polished games.
People spend monthly on things all the time for enjoyment. Freemium games are full of dark patterns (honestly modern wow is a bit too but a lot less than some), single player are excellent value for money sure but also not very social. Running servers does cost money and it sort of sucks, they are profiting but so are freemium products and shit. Community run MMOs are rare and awesome treasures to preserve, they still cost too though since if you don’t donate they die or you’re just leaching off people who do.
I don’t think wow is a terrible game, it’s just different. The people that make up the community suck though :(
You have probably tried Guild Wars 2 already but i think it is one of the only real MMOs since you automatically interact with lots of people if you want to and can engage more if you like, since the community is so nice in there. (Except PvP lol;)
You also have the freedom from the start to do whatever, which i understand puts some people of.
And it is also one if the best examples how f2p can work without screwing you over.
Subs are okay if the company needs money but server costs are not expensive for the big guys. You also pay extra for microtransactions in WoW right?
Line just always has to go up with them…
When I was into MMOs years ago I played its beta. I found it busy, minigame driven, lacking in dead time necessary for social interaction, and a bit ugly. The classes didn’t grab me either, they felt very samey.
Nothing like EQ where a bard can be kiting all around a zone, a wizard teleporting people around, rogues and necros helping people grab corpses etc.
I also very much enjoy stuff, or I did when I played, like in EQ where the world is extremely unfair and hostile. Modern MMOs are too much like fairgrounds. They’re afraid to tell you no or let you make bad decisions.
MMOs that have been better are things MUDs, EQ, Darkfall, eve (not by thing but amazing), OSRS (very single player now but when it was just runescape 1 and 2 it was neat), and mortal online.
Happiness writes white, if a game won’t let you get in over your head, lose things, and have a genuinely bad and frustrating time then the illusion of a world shatters and it becomes just another sort or masturbation
It has changed quite a lot since beta and i find it weird that classes feel same when they differ quite alot from each other.
Even more so since every big expansion offers Elite specs that change it another time.
Mesmer can port people and there are guilds specifically to help people with jumping puzzles that way.
The busy stuff is mostly in open world and map metas. If you wait for a world boss or chill in the cities there is alot of chatter and even roleplay.
It is very easy in the starting zones but gets very hard and unforgiving in the first big expac maps Heart of Thorns. I do like the laid back approach that you can do whatever from mindlessly exploring to hardcore raiding.
There are enough unforgiving single player games for my liking and i do not have much time so gw2 sort of values it by not giving me mandatory hurdles. When an update comes out i can play every content without gear grind.
But i know aswell that many people like that sort of thing.
I don’t know why you’re trying to sell it. I don’t play MMOs anymore except some p99 very rarely.
I just don’t think wow is a terrible game. It’s not for me, but all modern MMOs are awful anyway.
I agree with you but I guess people are too invested to even try to open their eyes and it is a safety for them to have their group of people in the game. The social aspects are often what holds people in wow I believe. Or that is how it was back when i played long ago when there was no cross server or lfg tools.
it’s a loop, you grab 20 kill quests at the hub, you kill you grind, you gather, you go back, turn in and level up, go back to main city and craft and sell and find the next hub.
I played WoW Classic when it first came out. I have not really done much questing at all. Just quickly pushed myself to a level where i can start doing dungeons & then did those to 60, had a pretty good time doing it too.
On retail questing is a bit better, not great but better. Still wouldn’t do it, but Blizzard is basically forcing everyone to do them these days.
Yeah and forcing stuff to proceed aside from tutorials is mostly outdated design IMO.
Thats why i will never play another GTA. If you build a giant sandbox let players do whatever not get stuck in skinner box loops and cutscenes.