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Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Story hindering gameplay
Wired News has a satire, WoW: The Text Adventure which starts like this:
Welcome to World of Warcraft: The Text Adventure.Does this look familiar to you? I bet it does. Many players of WoW don't read the stories told in the quests, or in the books you can sometimes find. The background story is often simply not relevant, and with WoW having several thousand quests, very few of them could possibly be considered as literary gems. Even Blizzard is making fun of themselves in this area, there is one quest description telling you "You will also need to collect 10 Intact Elemental Cores from the Ragereaver Golems and Warbringer Constructs protecting Argelmach. You know this because you are psychic."
You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is an elf with an exclamation point above her head here.
> Talk elf
"Alas," she says. "There is a great darkness upon the land. Fifty years ago the Dwarf Lord Al'ham'bra came upon the Dragon Locket in the Miremuck Caverns. He immediately recognized the ..."
> Click Accept
"Hey," the elf protests. "This is important expository. Azeroth is a rich and storied land, with a tapestry of interwoven ..."
> Click Accept
"OK, fine. Bring me six kobold tails."
Most people don't mind there being a story, and everybody being free to read or not read it. But unfortunately I'm now in a quest series where the wish of the developers to tell a story makes the quest less good than it could be: The tier 0.5 (or Dungeon set 2, as Blizzard calls them) upgrade quest series.
A story is linear, and thus the tier 0.5 upgrade quest series is linear too. You first upgrade your bracers, then simultaneously your belt and gloves, then simultaneously your legs, boots, and shoulders (Thanks, Graktar, for that info), and finally the head and chest piece (not sure if together or separate). I've already told how my priest is stuck in the series, because he has the belt and not the gloves. Now imagine somebody having everything except the bracers, and not even being able to start the quest series, and you'll see how linear story telling is hurting. The story, involving some ghostly attackers, ectoplasm, and engineering devices to make ghosts visible, isn't good enough to be worth the negative effect on game play.
If I had designed the tier 0.5 upgrade quests, I would have done 8 parallel quests, one each for each piece of the set to upgrade. The principle of making the better upgrades more difficult to achieve isn't bad, although I probably would have tweaked things like the 45 minutes timer on the Stratholme UD run to a value which is more likely to be achievable by an average player after two or three tries. But I certainly wouldn't have strung all the upgrades into a linear quest chain, just to tell a story.
As it is, there won't be all that many people ever finishing this quest series. Getting a complete tier 0 set is so hard and time consuming that most people get better, epic loot from Molten Core before they get their set together, if ever. The people who would like to have the "Dungeon set 2" armor are unable to get it, because it is incompatible with a casual play style. And the people that would be able to get the Dungeon set 2 armor don't want it, because they can get something better with similar effort.
As for me, I'll finish the quest for gloves and belt with Raslebol, and if I ever get the opportunity to get the gloves for Kyroc, I'll upgrade him too to that step. But neither of my characters is likely to get legs, boots, and shoulders of the dungeon set 1 together, so upgrading it to set 2 won't be possible. What a waste of new content.
- posted by Tobold @ 10:27 AM Permanent Link
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I have the same exact problem on my mage. I don't know about all servers but magisters bindings on my server are somewhat rare. I've never even seen them drop in the spires (where they're fabled to drop). So my mage is stuck in the cold w/ no way to even start the .5 quest chain because the few times I have seen the bracers on the AH I didn't have or didn't want to pay 100g to get them. So I'm just happily going on my way using the bracers from ZG.
# posted by 
: 5/4/06 16:30
: 5/4/06 16:30
Well you gotta understand the simple principles of supply and demand and log into WoW thinking the following thought... "How Can I Make the AH Work For Me?" :)
Right now its going to be expensive to buy anything related to Tier2 Dungeon set.
Good Luck
Right now its going to be expensive to buy anything related to Tier2 Dungeon set.
Good Luck
# posted by : 5/4/06 17:11
: 5/4/06 17:11
Your response is that casual players shouldn't have to work more than 90 or so minutes on one of the stages? There's only 2 challenging bits to the quest line from what I've read, and it's the 45 minute run and then the final boss.
You are putting words in my mouth that I didn't say at all. In fact I had the impression that the stages of the tier 0.5 quest I did were much too fast, not too slow.
What I am complaining about is that you can't do the steps in any order. For example the devout gloves are very hard to get, harder than later devout pieces, and that just prevents my priest from doing this quest chain.
The 45 minutes Stratholme run is not "challenging", it is impossible to do for the kind of people who could use the tier 0.5 armor. Some guild mates tried it in a group which had several experiences raiders with some Molten Core armor, and a good group composition for 5-man. The best they achieved was killing the Baron in just under 1 hour, they never met the 45 minutes target.
You can't expect casual players to have a social network which would allow them to try the Stratholme run 10 times with the same group, until they manage it. Chances are that after one or two tries the group splits up, and you have to find a new group the next evening, and start the learning process all over again. That way you never get the Baron killed in 45 minutes. The raiding principle of "lets wipe against this boss a dozen times, and then we learned how to do it and can beat him" is *not* something which should be part of a quest chain for casual players.
But some of the steps that I had to do were far too short and ridiculously easy. It took me longer to travel to the Burning Steppes than it took me to collect the ash there, or kill the elemental there. I really would have preferred for those parts to be more challenging, not a mix of trivial and impossible steps.
You are putting words in my mouth that I didn't say at all. In fact I had the impression that the stages of the tier 0.5 quest I did were much too fast, not too slow.
What I am complaining about is that you can't do the steps in any order. For example the devout gloves are very hard to get, harder than later devout pieces, and that just prevents my priest from doing this quest chain.
The 45 minutes Stratholme run is not "challenging", it is impossible to do for the kind of people who could use the tier 0.5 armor. Some guild mates tried it in a group which had several experiences raiders with some Molten Core armor, and a good group composition for 5-man. The best they achieved was killing the Baron in just under 1 hour, they never met the 45 minutes target.
You can't expect casual players to have a social network which would allow them to try the Stratholme run 10 times with the same group, until they manage it. Chances are that after one or two tries the group splits up, and you have to find a new group the next evening, and start the learning process all over again. That way you never get the Baron killed in 45 minutes. The raiding principle of "lets wipe against this boss a dozen times, and then we learned how to do it and can beat him" is *not* something which should be part of a quest chain for casual players.
But some of the steps that I had to do were far too short and ridiculously easy. It took me longer to travel to the Burning Steppes than it took me to collect the ash there, or kill the elemental there. I really would have preferred for those parts to be more challenging, not a mix of trivial and impossible steps.
My biggest issue with the so-called "upgrade" quests (aside from the annoyance of doing 1 piece, then 2 pieces, then 3 pieces, then 2 pieces simultaneously) is that the upgrades JUST AREN'T WORTH IT.
Many pieces are very minimal upgrades, and the epics . . . aren't epic. The gloves for most classes are terrible as they dropped the item level from the blue version and made it purple. Presumably Blizzard assumed non-raiding players would just go "ooh purple" and not notice that many of the pieces are steaming piles of . . .
Someone on the forums calculated that if the gloves from the quest were BoE, based on their stat allocation they'd be equippable by level 50 characters.
Thanks Blizzard, for this "endgame" content for non-raiders.
Regarding Tobold's comment, I agree that the quest series is a bizarre mix of the absurdly easy (gather 25 ash from burning steppes), absurdly hard (45 minute strat run?), and just absurd ("I need this rod from an imp, spend 12 minutes flying there from here, 5 minutes running to him, spend 50 gold, 5 minutes running out, then 12 minutes flying back.").
Most of it is neither challenging nor fun, but rather pointless grinding and running around that feels like work. Raiders will state that raiding is the same way, but their rewards are vastly superior, and I'd contend the idea that collecting the entire dungeon 0 set and doing the upgrade quests takes significantly less time than raiding for the tier 1 set. More time may pass due to the instance timers on raid dungeons, but more actual PLAY time? I seriously doubt it.
Many pieces are very minimal upgrades, and the epics . . . aren't epic. The gloves for most classes are terrible as they dropped the item level from the blue version and made it purple. Presumably Blizzard assumed non-raiding players would just go "ooh purple" and not notice that many of the pieces are steaming piles of . . .
Someone on the forums calculated that if the gloves from the quest were BoE, based on their stat allocation they'd be equippable by level 50 characters.
Thanks Blizzard, for this "endgame" content for non-raiders.
Regarding Tobold's comment, I agree that the quest series is a bizarre mix of the absurdly easy (gather 25 ash from burning steppes), absurdly hard (45 minute strat run?), and just absurd ("I need this rod from an imp, spend 12 minutes flying there from here, 5 minutes running to him, spend 50 gold, 5 minutes running out, then 12 minutes flying back.").
Most of it is neither challenging nor fun, but rather pointless grinding and running around that feels like work. Raiders will state that raiding is the same way, but their rewards are vastly superior, and I'd contend the idea that collecting the entire dungeon 0 set and doing the upgrade quests takes significantly less time than raiding for the tier 1 set. More time may pass due to the instance timers on raid dungeons, but more actual PLAY time? I seriously doubt it.
# posted by : 10/4/06 17:19
: 10/4/06 17:19
Hi Tobold. Haven't dropped by for a while, the 1.10 Test Server had me flat out leveling toons to 25 as fast as I could, then once 1.10 went live I crashed and didn't even touch my computer for a week.
Regarding the upgrades, I have 6/8 Beaststalker pieces; I'm missing the Boots and the Shoulders. So if the upgrade order is the same for all classes I could upgrade most of my gear, but to tell the truth I couldn't be bothered doing that. Especially if I have to pay 50g for a minimal upgrade to my gloves, then shell out even more hard earned gold for more minimal upgrades. Of course helping to make that decision was my recent purchase of a Dwarven Hand Cannon (300g) and that my guild just made our first attempt on MC. Why would I spend time and money upgrading to 1.5 gear when Tier 2 gear is just a few Raids away at no cost other than DKP?
However, I don't think I'm a true casual player any more ;)
Even as a casual-hardcore player doing a Strath Baron run in 45 minutes sounds insane. As you've already discovered in a balanced group with Epic-clad players, a 45-min Strath Baron Run is not a task a true-casual player could hope to complete.
I'm echoing someone here.
GG Blizzard.
Regarding the upgrades, I have 6/8 Beaststalker pieces; I'm missing the Boots and the Shoulders. So if the upgrade order is the same for all classes I could upgrade most of my gear, but to tell the truth I couldn't be bothered doing that. Especially if I have to pay 50g for a minimal upgrade to my gloves, then shell out even more hard earned gold for more minimal upgrades. Of course helping to make that decision was my recent purchase of a Dwarven Hand Cannon (300g) and that my guild just made our first attempt on MC. Why would I spend time and money upgrading to 1.5 gear when Tier 2 gear is just a few Raids away at no cost other than DKP?
However, I don't think I'm a true casual player any more ;)
Even as a casual-hardcore player doing a Strath Baron run in 45 minutes sounds insane. As you've already discovered in a balanced group with Epic-clad players, a 45-min Strath Baron Run is not a task a true-casual player could hope to complete.
I'm echoing someone here.
GG Blizzard.
Just did the 45 min run yesterday, first try we got it under 45 min (with mistakes!) Group was lock,warrior,rogue,mage,priest. Our guild is uber casual, if we're lucky we have 20 people and maybe able to run something like zg... most of the time though it's brs, strat, scholo... so we only have blues/greens and some pvp gear. Just have to manage the pulls and not loot anything. Dont' try to rush it but just move quickly and it seemed to work well for us. Got to Baron with 2 min left. Beat him in 1min 10 sec. We did use various pots to increase our dmg and armors and also our priest used a lot of mana pots to keep going... but it is very doable. None of us have ever done MC or any of the other high end instances.
# posted by : 11/4/06 20:48
: 11/4/06 20:48
I keep hearing reports of people who've completed this in 45 minutes, but IMO that's just like seeing people with Thunderfury... yeah, it happens - but for casual gamers? I'm thinking it was either ZG or above equipped players - not casuals. The idea of the D2 upgrades was for people who don't do ZG/AQ20/MC/Ony, etc.. I have tried the 45 minute run 11 times, three of the attempts was with two people with heavy epic gear, and two with some epics, and me with full devout. I've yet to get to baron anywhere -near- 45 minutes. And even with my epic-geared guildies, we wiped on Baron because without a mage you can't control the skeles. 5-man baron is not easy. 45 minute baron is just stupid. The "45 minute" baron run has always been over two hours.. the two tries where you wipe and reset, and the third try when the timer expires and the group just quits or kills baron and quits. NOT casual content.
# posted by : 21/4/06 00:03
: 21/4/06 00:03
Now, while I don't know the exact stats for tier 0.5 sets of other classes, I have however done lots of research on Deathmist (tier 0.5 warlock set).
Whomever said that tier 0.5 set upgrades to tier 0 are minimum and that epics aren't even epic is quite wrong, at least considering warlock tier 0.5 set.
After some comparing, I came to a conclusion that Deathmist is far supperior to Dreadweave (blue pvp set) in both set bonus, stats and +dmg bonus. Now here's the real kicker: statwise, Deathmist outclasses WARLORD warlock set and while the warlord set got a bit more dmg, fact that its a 6 piece set and lacks a bloody-awesome set bonus (possibility of enemies hitting you in melee getting 2 secs fear on em) makes Deathmist reign supreme over a rank 13 set.
After makin' further comparations, I also came to a conclusion that Deathmist has stats & +dmg thats comfortably close to Felheart (tier 1 warlock set). It lacks the resistances (except the +8 to all resistances 2 piece set bonus) but again: I'm willing to say that the auto-fear set bonus is somethin' pvp-ers will appreciate.
So, just speakin' in defense of tier 0.5 (at least for warlocks): Deathmist is a bloody awesome lock set with all stats a WoW-satanist needs (stm, int, +dmg, +spellcrit, +spellhit and the nifty fear set bonus) and finaly: it looks bloody awesome... although I hoped it'd be black ;).
As for 45 min run... ye, near impossible really. Me and my guild (all casuals) are getting ourselves Runes of the Dawn (quest reward for Active Agent quest) for that nifty +attack power & +dmg against the undead, so who knows... MAYBE we suceed someday. For now, I'm pvping to get myself some rank 10 goodies and the almighty Ironbark Staff.
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Whomever said that tier 0.5 set upgrades to tier 0 are minimum and that epics aren't even epic is quite wrong, at least considering warlock tier 0.5 set.
After some comparing, I came to a conclusion that Deathmist is far supperior to Dreadweave (blue pvp set) in both set bonus, stats and +dmg bonus. Now here's the real kicker: statwise, Deathmist outclasses WARLORD warlock set and while the warlord set got a bit more dmg, fact that its a 6 piece set and lacks a bloody-awesome set bonus (possibility of enemies hitting you in melee getting 2 secs fear on em) makes Deathmist reign supreme over a rank 13 set.
After makin' further comparations, I also came to a conclusion that Deathmist has stats & +dmg thats comfortably close to Felheart (tier 1 warlock set). It lacks the resistances (except the +8 to all resistances 2 piece set bonus) but again: I'm willing to say that the auto-fear set bonus is somethin' pvp-ers will appreciate.
So, just speakin' in defense of tier 0.5 (at least for warlocks): Deathmist is a bloody awesome lock set with all stats a WoW-satanist needs (stm, int, +dmg, +spellcrit, +spellhit and the nifty fear set bonus) and finaly: it looks bloody awesome... although I hoped it'd be black ;).
As for 45 min run... ye, near impossible really. Me and my guild (all casuals) are getting ourselves Runes of the Dawn (quest reward for Active Agent quest) for that nifty +attack power & +dmg against the undead, so who knows... MAYBE we suceed someday. For now, I'm pvping to get myself some rank 10 goodies and the almighty Ironbark Staff.
# posted by : 26/4/06 18:02
: 26/4/06 18:02<< Home
