Tigole spoke at the Game Developers Conference last week and discussed what he felt are WoW’s nine major flaws. This is where you say, “This is a lore site, why should we care?”
You’ll find it interesting, because it all has to do with quest design and lore implementation. Enjoy!
(Article courtesy of ShackNews.com)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
while I think there are certainly valid points, a significant amount of the game content is actually driven by the stories nobody reads, and a lot of the content referenced is from “vanilla wow” (not that the expansions and patched content are perfect – there is significant improvement in the player experience though)
take ulduar for example, it’s build based on the story of the titans and the problems thorim had. i didn’t read shit for quests in storm peaks, and I know there’s probably some cool stuff written in the quests if i read it. doesn’t change the fact that whatever story they made and character development exists and gives a preface to bosses whether or not you want to read it.
that and who wants to play a game where you click on a dude and he just says “go kill 5 wolves” and then you go back and he says “here’s some crap thanks”. i don’t read the quest text, it’s just not my thing, but i think seeing that some guy has something to say gives you the understanding that this guy has a story why he wants you to do something. for 90% of the population i’d guess that’s enough.
my gripe is mostly in the books and wall scrolls and tapestries and shit that lay all over and are hidden in places like the SM library or stratholme side-rooms with the book shelves. there’s probably awesome stuff written in those and some good story. there’s achievements to go read a bunch of books all over. given what they did with wrathgate and the sunwell 5-man mini-cinematic, I think there’s a lot of room to eliminate those, and just make a few awesome in-game cinematics like there are that people will actually watch and listen to, and be done with it.
hopefully that would give the quest designers some time to tweak out some new quests or events to immerse the player. I know i’ve never read a bombing quest’s dialogue, but it sure is fun to fly around and drop bombs on clumps of mobs from above knowing they can’t do shit about it and see a lot of numbers fly up and kill 100 things in 2 minutes or whatever. it’s quite a different experience than running around pressing moonfire to kill 10 wolves.
Well said Kesak! I think I agree with you entirely. I find the books are too long to read mid-instance when my allies are ushering me owards, and cinematics worked in in some other way would be an excellent alternative…perhaps with that patrick stewart fellow reading the text from the book aloud. Or, someone else with an equally captivating voice. If the quests became as abbreviated as this shmuck suggests they should, then it may well drive me away from the game entirely. I don’t always read quest text, but when I do, I greatly enjoy it.
And when I don’t read it, I still believe it’s important enough for me to do, since it was important enough to write a book report on. And besides, my next character can read it.
But Kaplan does have a few valid points. More effort put into less predictable quests would be excellent, and would be more enjoyable for players. However, his presence in the Blizzard company makes me fear for the quality of future blizzard games for one reason.
“We need to stop trying to write a book into our games.” Or whatever he said…
To me, this is what sets Blizzard apart from most other companies, they fill every nook and cranny with story, lore, and obscure cultural references. Characters have development, stories have lines, worlds have maps, races have languages!
I love being immersed in a fantasy world, but most games don’t give me enough to sink past my knees in. In WoW, I feel like I’m an ocean.
So, shorten the quest text to five words or less, and burn down Azeroth’s libraries. I can keep an open mind to that being a step forwards. But if you don’t work those words back into the game somehow, in cinematics, more elaborate quests, pick-up-able books, or some such…wow is simply going to start losing players. And I guarantee that if my immersive ocean of lore becomes a mere mudpuddle, I’ll be the first to set out in search of clearer waters.