Alpha First Look: Video 5 - Quests and Combat

[Shurrikhan]

See I agree. When you initiate a levequest you go and fight the same mobs at the same level over and over again. Take away the leve initiation and you're still fighting mobs over and over again. Same thing with the "WoW Method." They are all different methods to the same end, grinding.

So what is the something special then? If all experience is a series of triggers and killing, what could make it unique?

The directorship? The interconnectivity? How interesting the plot points and fights are by themselves?

I don't disagree that be it mob grinds, leve grinds, or quest grinds, the only difference to the xp-expedient is amount of time between killing ex-reward triggers.

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On a side note though, just a small example with no defense intended, I enjoyed mob grinds over leve grinds because I was able to focus on my learning additional bits and practicalities of combat. In leves it simply felt unnecessarily mangled, distracting. In 1.0 quests, I really felt connected with the story. Regardless of xp, that was worth something to me. And if the mere triggers that compose those quests could be more widely used, so that they further felt a more fully integrated part of the world-exploration and leveling experience, that's just one of many ways they could be something really great.

And... a side note from the other side...
When going through generic WoW quests (in WoW, in this case), the less directed quests were often more fun. In other words, I'd often take the "kill large number of X" over the quicker, more story-based quests. This might sound contradictory to my enjoyment of 1.0 quests, but trust me, it's not. When given the length of time to really play around with a setting, or combat with a certain type of mob, etc, I was able to develop something more of my own. Often, the simple rare mob and slightly humorous dialog (if there were enough possibilities) added much more than the text leading to the quest, though this was especially true when the quest-text and those features coincided.

Back in those days, my interest was more on developing each quest as a setting for an experience, rather than a requirement checklist for experience points. I still believe that, while difficult, this is an admiral target for development.

Use of concept in mob-grinding

Real quick though: given all that, I do think this same kind of improvement can be done with mob-grinding too. When mite-grinding for the first time, there did seem to be enough unique between the party and the playing field that I felt I'd have the chance to progressively master this kind of fighting. My second time mite-grinding was a loop-system instead, through Copperbell Mines, and simply by switching classes it too felt highly different. I think there's a lot that can be done to vary the way these grinds can progress, perhaps with newer mechanics in un-instanced dungeons.

Let's take that same underground mite-grinding environment but add these:
- More types of mites, spawning due to relatively intentionally triggers (shouldn't be accidentally popped)
- Quick sand fields from large mites fleeing, some of them (noticeably different) leading to different areas
- Different mobs within the dungeon killable for
- War-horns mounted to some of the pillars, some meant to bring in mites, others meant to repel them.
--> leads to some mad retreats from horn to horn, or taking a center position to moves all mites to your location before diving down a hole to a different area, etc
--> A small percentage of mobs in type and number will try to get through anyways and destroy the horn to stop you from blowing it.
- In general, the entire instance is an intelligent enough computer, rather than just a spawning-zone, if you so choose (and trigger), and challenge should come with fair reward. These are simple enough ideas, but with good design they can make the previously tedious a highly enjoyable, highly replayable experience.

[Genjuro]

So what is the something special then? If all experience is a series of triggers and killing, what could make it unique?

The directorship? The interconnectivity? How interesting the plot points and fights are by themselves?

I don't disagree that be it mob grinds, leve grinds, or quest grinds, the only difference to the xp-expedient is amount of time between killing ex-reward triggers.

I don't know if such a thing as unique will be accepted by the majority of the population. I have stated in other posts before that we tried different and unique and that went down the crapper in 1.0.

I believe that having multiple methods would allow for people to explore their characters to the fullest extent in much the same way that you have had your experiences. Some may want to just grind as I have done in the past and am used to. Some may want levequests and the "WoW Method" to mask the monotony of grinding.

This is a game therefore the concept of "having fun" should be embedded into it's soul somewhere. What "having fun" means is personal to each person, therefore presenting all avenues would temper the water for everyone to explore the methods of each.