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Choose My Adventure Live: Questing in Winterspring
Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator, or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) every Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT. Today, Roblinator is questing in Winterspring, as per your votes. Though you and my normal band of enablers are welcome to come quest at the same time, I will be in my own group in the hopes that any "collect 10 Yeti bellybuttons" quests will go a bit more quickly. Since I stop to read the quests out loud, fall into crevices, get lost when I have no one to follow, etc., questers beginning when I do should be way ahead of me by the time I actually make it to the quest area. So please join me in game or by watching the stream above and participating in the chat after the break. Also, I rant about battlegrounds later in this post, if that is of interest to you. Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay by clicking on the image above.
Choose My Adventure: Da udder half lives
I remember thinking quite distinctly that I was ready to be done with the Tier 1 scenarios, oh, forever ago. It's not that Nordenwatch is inherently a bad scenario; it's just that when you see it often enough, you start to get sick of it. So I was very happy when the voting closed on last week's poll and I saw that I had a very different list of scenarios available to me in Warhammer Online. That had probably happened several levels ago, sure, but I hadn't been queueing. Unfortunately, I found out that Oscar Wilde's old chestnut about the gods granting our wishes when they want to punish us proved entirely accurate. Jump on past the break for this week in Klurgind's somewhat less than epic adventure, with the caveat that it's going to be just a wee bit depressing in places. But hey, I never promised this story had a happy ending.
MapleStory's Chaos updates kicking off with the Age of Heroes
It's been a while since we've heard from MapleStory, but today the free-to-play side-scroller from Nexon has taken the wraps off its Chaos summer update plans. The next two months will bring major content updates to Maple World courtesy of the Age of Heroes patch that drops on June 29th. New quests, zones, and a new high-level boss are all on tap, as is a battle through the Henesys Ruins and the Knight Stronghold that Nexon's press release describes as "the most formidable challenge in the entire game." The Age of Heroes update will also bring about a hero class re-balance, and restrictions for creating Dual Blade, Aran, and Evan classes will be lifted. Explorers, Cygnus, and Resistance classes are also being tweaked, and players will find them "more powerful than ever" due to main skill enhancements. Later in the summer, the Age of Artisans update will unveil a new level-based crafting system, and the Age of Battle will bring a PvP mode to MapleStory. Head to the official site for all the details.
Gods & Heroes releases estate system screens
Current-gen MMOs that ship with player housing options are seemingly a dying breed. Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, debuting next week courtesy of Heatwave Interactive, is bucking that trend by launching with something the devs are calling an estate system. In a nutshell, your Roman hero will inherit his very own ancestral estate. Unfortunately you'll take possession of the place after it's been razed to the ground by the evil machinations of the Telchinist cult. Part of the Gods & Heroes progression experience involves rebuilding your home, which in turn affects the power and quality of your NPC minions as well as other as-yet unnamed benefits. The rebuilding process takes the form of various quest lines throughout the game, and you'll get a glimpse of what's in store by checking out our new estate system gallery below. %Gallery-118322%
Dev Watercooler: Content for the casual 85
The newest Dev Watercooler column gives King Crab a break and instead lets us peek into the mind of Dave "Fargo" Kosak, lead quest designer for World of Warcraft. You might remember Fargo from Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth and GameSpy days. Fargo's Dev Watercooler is all about experiencing World of Warcraft as a non-raider and what Blizzard's expectations are for level 85s who aren't bashing down Ragnaros' door. One of the weirdest statements that I have to make to many people who are new to the MMO genre is that "the game begins at 85." While we know that isn't factually correct, since there are 85 levels of content previous to hitting the magic number, it still makes sense from a "never-ending world" point of view. There is no end, so the game begins at the "current" end. Fargo makes the case that all players are entitled to an epic storyline, engaging content, and a feeling of continual power growth. The new patch 4.2 Firelands daily quest hubs in the Molten Front and the Regrowth are tailor-made to hit these points and provide a personal, continuing experience for players who don't participate in the raid game. With dailies being randomized and your personal tree growing at your own pace, players are rewarded based on their efforts alone. Personally, I like this direction for solo questing experiences. The Molten Front and the Regrowth seem like better, more advanced, and more evolved versions of the reputation grinds we were previously chugging away at to open up gear and other rewards, but with less of a "watch a bar go up" mentality. Here, we have engaging choices and rotating sets of random tasks that keep us coming back for more, all the while physically changing the world around us. Now we just need to care about the cause. I think Firelands is going to push us a good way forward in that regard. Check out Fargo's first contribution to the Dev Watercooler series, after the jump.
Enter at Your Own Rift: The no-quest challenge
OK, I know you all probably want to talk about the news that addons are coming to RIFT, but the truth is that it's not that big of an issue for me. My feelings on addons are that I'm for them if they enhance the game and encourage player creativity, but I'm against them if they reduce players to mere statistics in the eyes of others (GearScore) or are absolutely necessary to tackle the game's content. So if you feel passionate about this topic, I give you leave to vent more about it in the comments below, but as for me and mine, we're going to look at quests today. More specifically, not doing them. Now, I generally like quests. They give me a feeling of accomplishment (as I am fond of checking off items from my to-do lists in real life), the stories are occasionally interesting, and they give nice boosts to leveling. But I've come to realize something interesting about RIFT that might run under the radar of most: Quests are superfluous to the game. Well, at the very least, they're optional and not the mandatory tasks that most modern MMOs make them out to be. So I had a thought. What about playing RIFT without questing at all -- taking on a "no-quest challenge" of sorts? Is it not only possible but fun too? Hit the jump and we'll examine this from all the angles.
Choose My Adventure Live: Questing in Eastern Plaguelands
Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator, or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H). This week, Roblinator and her fellow adventurers in It came from the Blog will be adventuring in Eastern Plaguelands. Join us in game or by watching the stream above and participating in the chat after the break. Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay by clicking on the image above.
Choose My Adventure Live: Questing in Stranglethorn
Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H). This week, I get to stop and smell the Fadeleaf and quest some more in Stranglethorn, hanging out with Sassy and the gang. I'll be reading quests, skinning, and following your instructions. So join me by watching the stream above and chatting in the room after the break. Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay by clicking on the image above.
ArcheAge dev diary talks housing, questing, and spreading diseases
XL Games' ArcheAge is starting to pick up a bit of a following here in the West, and that can only be a good thing for starving fans of the sandbox subgenre. Jake Song's fantasy opus is currently undergoing closed beta testing in its native Korea, and as XL's devs post Q&A features on the game's website, dutiful fans translate them into English. The latest set comes to our attention courtesy of ArchAge Online.com, and covers a wide range of topics including questing (both local and regional variants), player housing, the game's achievement system, and player and NPC illnesses. "If you wander into a town that's full of infected characters, you'll probably catch something yourself! Then again, you could get sick on purpose and then pay a visit to someone you don't really like, but that's risky in it's own way," the dev diary explains.
TERA's David Noonan on building smart quests
Quests are such an integral part of current-gen MMORPG gameplay that players sometimes take them for granted. Collecting this or killing that is so ingrained in the gamer psyche that it's easy to overlook the work that goes into making a good quest (or the potential impact that unique quests have on the play experience). TERA lead writer David Noonan has been thinking a lot about quests, and he recently shared a bit of insight with GameZone regarding how the team of writers at En Masse Entertainment is building better quests. Much of the team's effort goes toward ensuring the quality (and relevancy) of a given quest regardless of when a player chooses to accept it. Quests that capture a player's interest before (or after) a villain or boss fight are the ultimate goal. "That's what we call a smart quest: a quest that's designed with an awareness of its emotional, storytelling, and world-building surroundings... When you see a smart quest... it's because someone thought through all the narrative, emotional, and gameplay implications beforehand," Noonan explains.
Forsaken World launch trailer debuts
What's the launch of a brand-spanking-new MMORPG without a similarly wet-behind-the-ears trailer to go with it? In service to that tradition, Perfect World Entertainment has just released a sleek new video that coincides with the debut of its latest free-to-play effort. Forsaken World officially launched on March 9th, and even if you've already played it, you'll want to take a peek at the two-minute teaser that shows off a bevy of lush location shots as well as numerous big bads. If you haven't played the game yet, well, we submit that the launch trailer may very well get you hot, bothered, and ready to do just that. Luckily for you, we've got the clip available for your viewing pleasure just past the cut. Forsaken World is a deeper, darker fantasy MMO from the makers of Jade Dynasty, Battle of the Immortals, and Perfect World International. The title boasted an astonishing 3500 developers during its construction phases and is now available for download via the official Forsaken World website.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Errant
If you've seen The Princess Bride but haven't ever read the book, you have excellent taste in movies but you're missing out. There's a lot that by necessity had to be cut from the film, but the lost detail that stands out is just how much time Inigo Montoya spent training and preparing to hunt down the six-fingered man. It's one thing to be told that he strove to kill this man for years; it's another to be told in detail how hard he fought, how long he quested, and how much effort he poured into his goal until there was almost nothing left. Today's archetype is Inigo Montoya. He is Roland Deschain, he is Alessan di Tigana, he is Captain Nero and James Ford and Depth Charge. He is the Errant, and he is anyone devoted to a singular purpose that drives every second of his actions. And he's probably the most problematic of the archetypes out there, because sooner or later he's going to have to deal with what it means to complete that purpose. So take a seat, and let's go on a single-minded journey.
Learning your role
One of the things that playing other MMOs can do for your WoW experience is get you to question how the game does things, and more importantly, how you do them. Recently I've been flirting with the latest superhero MMO, and it does tanking differently, to the point that I had to start unlearning my WoW habits to play it. This has me going back over the past six years and realizing I've had to relearn tanking four times now. I had to learn how to do it originally in order to start working on Molten Core for my then-guild, and then I had to relearn it in The Burning Crusade (and actually, I had to relearn it twice there, thanks to the awful implementation of rage normalization for warriors and our astonishingly bad AoE threat that whole expansion). In Wrath, I didn't so much relearn it as suddenly find it much more efficiently designed and fun. Finally, Cataclysm has me tweaking how I tank, but I can't really argue I've relearned it from the Wrath era so much as simply refined it. Meanwhile, I've also had to relearn the DPS side of my class every expansion, in much the same way. All of this learning has been done on the fly. To paraphrase a famous quote, World of Warcraft is vast and deep, and I'm swimming forever. Most certainly, there are sources to go to for players who want to learn a new role (one of them being this site), but there's only so much you can be taught before you have to hold your nose and jump in. This makes me wonder two things. First, is there more that the game could do to teach those roles, and two, would it be beneficial or harmful to immersive gameplay if it did?
Mythos quest system detailed
The developers behind Mythos are billing it as "the first worldwide hack 'n' slash MMO" and to that end, the upcoming free-to-play fantasy title is crammed full of randomly generated dungeons, items, and upgrade potential. Mythos is also crammed full of quests according to a new press release dated earlier this morning, and HanbitSoft's game will lead players on a journey across the world of Uld that is heavy on the traditional types of MMORPG tasks with which we're all familiar. Mythos also boasts several unique factions, and raising your character's reputation will grant access to special merchants and a selection of powerful equipment. Mythos was originally developed by Flagship Studios prior to HanbitSoft taking the reins in 2009. The Korean F2P company, in concert with publishing giant Frogster, expects to bring Mythos online in early 2011. Learn more at the official website, and check out our screenshot gallery below. %Gallery-10781%
The Game Archaeologist and the Forbidden RuneScape: The R-Team
The Game Archaeologist is a lazy adventurer-slash-professor who dons his trademark cap for a weekly expedition through some of the most famous MMOs of the past few decades. Each month he chooses a different title to examine its highlights, talk with its developers, and invite its fans to share their experiences. They come from all over the world just for one shot to be the elite of the elite. After a rigorous selection process, the survivors undergo months of hardcore training. Fingers aching from the strain and eyes itchy with sleep deprivation, these ripped warriors emerge to battle evil wherever it rears its ugly head. Budapest, probably. Or Easter Island. They loot with wild abandon, they craft with purpose, and they aren't afraid to jam on the caps lock button to make their voices heard. So if you need their help -- and if you can afford them -- maybe you can hire the R-Team. As we continue our month-long RuneScape safari, it's high past time that we hear from the R-Team members themselves. Four past and present RuneScape players graciously laid out the case as to why this MMO rocks socks off. To make a good thing even better, Jagex sent in five new screenshots for your enjoyment. So what are you waiting for? Hit that jump like you mean it!
The Game Archaeologist and the Forbidden RuneScape: Words with Paul Gower
The Game Archaeologist is a lazy adventurer-slash-professor who dons his trademark cap for a weekly expedition through some of the most famous MMOs of the past few decades. Each month he chooses a different title to examine its highlights, talk with its developers, and invite its fans to share their experiences. Some of you may be old enough to remember comedian Rodney Dangerfield's classic line, "I don't get no respect!" Double negatives aside, Dangerfield's catchphrase resonated with many people -- perhaps even the team behind RuneScape. Despite being one of the most popular MMOs in the world, it's battled a perception of being "that" MMO that's not quite a full-fledged member of the Big Boy's Club. Lord knows that browser-based titles have struggled against such negativity ever since their inception, and RuneScape is no different. But as I stated last week, perhaps it's high time we get over our exclusion of RuneScape from the discussion whenever MMOs are brought up and start giving the game its due. My inbox's spent a busy week receiving all manner of testimonies about RuneScape, and I saw a common theme of fondness for what was many players' first MMO. Next week I'll let these testimonies out of Pandora's Box (if you haven't already, send me your own RuneScape story via email!), but today I've invited Paul Gower, one of RuneScape's founders, to share his perspective on making and running a gaming phenomenon. Hit the jump to level up!
Breakfast Topic: What are your resolutions for the expansion?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. In the final days of old Azeroth, before the Shattering, my friends were chomping at the bit. They were farming the elemental bosses for JP, taking screenshots of Darkshore and Stormwind Park, and discussing names for their forthcoming gnome priests. Where was I, while all this was going on? Far out in the Bay of Storms in Azshara, fighting a giant "minnow" named Maws. Yes, that's right: in the final hours of Wrath, I was finishing the Blue Shard portion of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest line. A little late? Yeah, you could say that. An eternal procrastinator, I started the entire chain with Only One May Rise exactly three days before the Shattering occurred. As fellow Scepter-chasers will already realize, my efforts were truly epic -- and alas, all for naught. Though I was able to obtain the Blue and Green scepter shards after a mammoth three days of questing, farming, and running all over Azeroth, the Red scepter shard requires a second, fresh lockout of Blackwing Lair, and I did not have one. No Scepter for me. I don't regret doing the quest line, even if I didn't end up with the Feat of Strength; I'm a big quest nerd, and I loved experiencing the lore. I do, however, regret not starting earlier. Therefore, in Cataclysm, I've made myself a promise: I will do every quest available to me, from Hillsbrad to Mount Hyjal, Darkshore to Deepholm. As I go through the lowbie zones on my Loremaster druid, I won't move on when I get the achievement; I'll complete everything available, just to see what happens. Is there anything you were unable to finish before the Shattering? What are your resolutions for playing in a post-Cataclysm Azeroth?
Final Fantasy XIV explains faction leves and server loads
The November update for Final Fantasy XIV brought with it a variety of improvements, and more are slated for the upcoming December update, but there's still a number of concepts within the core game that might be unclear. Previous developer dispatches have clarified a variety of topics, and the most recent one discusses the high-risk, high-reward faction levequests. It also talks about how server loads have been split up for areas, thus resulting in certain consequences for players wandering during regional levequests. Faction leves are familiar to any player over level 10 -- by completing several regional quests, a player may earn standing with a faction that can then be turned in for faction leves. The rewards for completing faction levequests are significant, but they require players to "spend" faction standing to access them. Of course, since successful completion can lead to more advanced leves, there's some motivation for players to take the plunge. Take a look at the official dispatch for the details as well as maps of how Final Fantasy XIV's regional server loads are divided.
Breakfast Topic: How often do you read quest text?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. If you have played WoW for more than five minutes, you have done a quest. It is nearly impossible to avoid doing them altogether. Since the option has been implemented to have instant quest text and the options tracked on the map by Blizzard's default UI now, most players see the exclamation mark, click on the NPC, accept the quest, and go get the items -- whether it be someone's head, 10 rocks, or going to kill a certain number of creatures -- without paying attention to the why. We want the gold, experience, achievement, or perhaps a quest reward, but we cannot be bothered with why we need to commit genocide on a population of wild animals. We would rather crit the mobs required for the quest than be crit by a wall of text. I am as guilty of this as the next person: Oh, bring you murloc eyes ... Sure, why not? Kill a bunch of boars? Whatever. However, when I recently went back and finished off Loremaster, I found myself actually paying attention to some of the quests, and I realized there can be some great stories there. The Burning Crusade, Wrath, and soon Cataclysm have come a long way in terms of making the quests feel like they are leading somewhere, as opposed to killing these random mobs for no apparent reason. While working on Loremaster, I was like, "Wow, that was a neat little storyline in that quest chain!" It made me both impressed and a little sad, wondering about all the possible nuggets of story I had simply ignored just so I could level a couple of minutes sooner. Do you actually read the quest text? Do you ever want to know why we have to kill the creatures we kill and why the NPCs want these seemingly inane items? Or do you just do it for the XP and money and could not care less?
November brings updates to Final Fantasy XIV's travel and questing
The Final Fantasy series as a whole has been marked by a surfeit of crystals, and Final Fantasy XIV's Aetheryte is heir to the tradition. Floating just above the ground, these crystals serve as both a nexus of quests and a point of transportation. Both of these functions are getting a distinct boost with the pending November version update set for the 24th. Teleportation costs are being reduced for both the major cities and three player-selected "favorite" camps, allowing players to zap from place to place faster. Return costs are also being reduced to 1 anima, allowing players who are either lost or in a dangerous region a quick option to get to safety. Meanwhile, levequest functionality at crystals is being improved, with players able to scale the difficulty of a given levequest downward once the quest has been started. This goes hand-in-hand with adjustments to the strength of enemies found in guildleves and improvements to the rewards of leve-linking, giving players more incentive to try to push themselves to the limits of what they can accomplish. The changes should be welcome boons to Final Fantasy XIV players, allowing easier movement and questing under all circumstances.
