group-quest
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The Daily Grind: What do you think of group questing with NPCs?
I'm very ambivalent about questing, I have to be 'in the zone' or motivated by some reward, be it loot, lore, money or the kudos of helping out a guildie. Some days I just can't face seeing another giant yellow question mark floating over an NPC's head as I wander Azeroth -- which makes me glad to be level 80. There were times when group quests were more like mini boss fights and the call would go out across the server to an able band of players to help kill one of Gruul's kids or that giant spider in the corner of Terrokar Forest.However recently, as I worked my way though the Wrath quests, I noticed that rather than making you collar your friends for the group quests, WoW has taken a few leaves out of Guild Wars' book and provided you with the occasional elite NPC or army of earthen to help you down giant elites which would probably pawn you and your friends otherwise. It's a nice mechanic that gets just enough usage in WoW to stop group quests feeling nightmarish. But I wonder, is this mechanic something you'd like to see used in many different MMOs or do you think this works best in Guild Wars? Do you prefer it to the old fashioned group quests or feel like a group should mean a group of players rather than a bunch of NPCs? Speak up, constant readers, and tell us in the comment box.
Breakfast Topic: I get by without a little help from my friends
Lane is facing a problem I face quite a bit in World of Warcraft, and I bet you have, too: she needs a group but doesn't have one. I don't care how many friends you have or how awesome your guild is, there are just going to be some times in game where you have a quest to do, or you have something that needs to be done, and you don't have four other people to do it with.So how do you get things done? Me, I usually just sit in LFG while grinding or doing something else, and then just hope I get a group together eventually. But my Hunter has had to run Ramparts for a long time, and no one's jumped up to take me, so I may start offering incentives soon. You'd think the incentive to get some loot and have a good time in a group would be enough, but no -- if you're trying to do a quest that's months old in game and happen to be on your own on a server, you're often times out of luck.So how do you get a group together when you don't have one? Do you ping the major cities and try to pull an expedition together? Do you just ignore the quest and go without? Or do you have to have a guild or friends on the same server to get certain things done? What do you do when you need a group, but just don't have one?
