Quote Originally Posted by Gramul View Post
You misunderstand. I'm not exactly against quest hubs. I'm against bureaucratic systematized progression and the kill 10 X quests. I like the sound of that WoW quest you mentioned earlier in another thread. The one about sneaking around. But so many other MMO's take the same "influence" from WoW and end up doing this maneuver over and over instead of making quests interesting and allowing for more organic world based progression with high demand for community based play.

And so many other MMO's have these "standard features" already, I'm concerned that the games originality will be obscured by the fact and like those many other MMO's, fade into obscurity. Themepark MMO's are a dime a dozen these days and it's pretty clear that customers aren't all that interested beyond initial hype. Even when Star Wars added a strong narrative it wasn't enough to hold interest for terribly long. That being said the 'failure' of that game could also stem from a lack of endgame content and abysmal customer support than just being the same thing with more new features and a coat of Well Recognized and Popular Theme Paint.

I just think they could have explored the sandbox idea more instead of scrapping it for the 'sure thing'. And who knows, maybe it won't be a complete abandonment of those ideas either. I'm more than willing to try the game out first and see how I like it.
Even that quest I mentioned, it still had the standard "quest archetype."

-Gather 10 leaves
-Gather 10 piles of fox poop (yes, lol, fox poop!)
-Kill 10 dudes to get some item
-Get key from main boss
-Funny fifth thing

The thing is, it's how it's given to us that makes it interesting. The thing I absolutely love about World of Warcraft over Final Fantasy XI/XIV is the feeling that you aren't just immediately the hero of the universe. You're always a small cog in a small thing, that ultimately leads up to something much bigger. The quest I mention was basically me rescuing a bunch of dudes from the Horde, who then want to get revenge, so we destroy their stuff. At the end, a dragon is summoned, and everyone but me died. I got to go on and give the bad news that the entire team didn't make it.

I enjoy that MUCH more than what we had in Final Fantasy XIV. You're a guy with a power like everyone else. Snore.

I really hope the questing system in A Realm Reborn makes me have the feeling I do in World of Warcraft. That this world isn't just one gigantic disaster. Having smaller quests you can get involved in is nice. We had stuff like that with the class quests in 1.0, but those were so spread out, and hardly worth the effort unless you were into story. I want the entire game to play out like I'm a nobody working my way to the top, not just a nobody who is already there.