Persistent bad quest design

| Thursday, January 20, 2011
What do you think is the worst quest in WoW, ever? No, it's not that one. Not that either.

I will describe the worst quest ever. Ready?

Okay, first part: this quest is utterly pointless. It contains no story and no reward.

This quest takes up a bag slot for approximately five seconds. This can be a problem since it's in the middle of an instance. Okay, minor inconvenience. I'm keeping it in the list.

This quest is one of those "talk to me, now talk to me again" types. Boring.

I haven't really gotten to the bad part yet. This quest is a pre-req for an escort in an instance. Now do you see the problem?

Once the escort starts no one can pick it up. Not a problem normally since it is shared at the start anyway. Except for this one. The pointless, boring, loreless, lootless pre-req must be done first. Guess at how this plays out in groups.

Yep, one person runs up and starts it early, before others can talk and turn in. That one person in a hurry ruins the chance for the rest of the group. Until the instance resets, they're out of luck.

Heroics may have slowed down and people there have started reading and communicating. But leveling? People rush through. Click click click pull pull pull. So one rushed jackass can easily ruin it for the rest of the group.

We could say that there's nothing actually wrong with the quest. It has no bugs. But content should be designed with the players in mind. If players are rushed, content should either slow them down or keep up with them.

This isn't a new quest. It's years old. How has this managed to avoid being fixed? So many non-problems have been fixed, with a detrimental effect on fun. Yet this remains.

2 comments:

Truny said...

Train of Thought:

Part of an instance: Hmm, which?

Takes up a bag slot: Don't recall...

Talk to me, then again: Wait a minute it's.. IT"S YOU!! THAT QUEST WHERE YOU HAVE TO ESCORT THAT DRAGON IN THAT INSTANCE WITH THE PIGS BUT ITS THE HIGHER LEVEL ONE AND NOT THE ONE ON THE RIGHT!

You're absolutely right, trying to co-ordinate it so that everyone actually GETS the quest is harder than most raid bosses.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it has to be that one escort quest in Razorfen Whatever that our instance group has managed to mess up three times because somebody always goes one step too far and then nobody else can get it.

So you're telling me that we should expect to screw it up again? If so, I'm going to be the one that rushes forward and gets the quest this time.

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