The evolution of world content.

[Pua]

This is a TL, DR. If you don’t like such things, it’s probably best for you to find another thread.

So, to the topic.

I’m excited about Legion’s world content, given what was announced at BlizzCon. Diablo 3’s adventure mode was something that worked well for a dungeon crawler, but I couldn’t come up with a reason why it shouldn’t work in an MMORPG. I view it, largely, as the solution to a long-term problem with use of the world, something Blizzard have obviously wrestled with for a long time, and potentially a large shift in the genre is about to become reality.

A quick history lesson, then.

In vanilla, “world content” meant levelling by and large. It took longer, it was harder, and the game sent players (often somewhat randomly) all over both continents in order to pick things up or move them around. No mounts until 40 and no flight at all meant that your two feet took you most places, and no quest objectives on maps largely meant there was an explorative nature to the world that is inordinately difficult to recreate synthetically.

For The Burning Crusade, the world was big enough to house people but clearly not as big as the original vanilla world. How could it be? It was an expansion pack rather than a game launch. But world content still involved decent levelling and questing time, some effort expended into daily quests that started with things like Orgi’la and Netherwing, then concluding with Quel’Danas, but a substantial number of people were still new and levelling up from scratch.

Wrath’s launch brought arguably the biggest continent to the game, a lot of players got involved as Arthas was the most well-known character in the franchise (probably), and Northrend itself had lots of content. Daily quests played a bigger part due to “necessary” items and, like The Burning Crusade and vanilla, you had to travel to dungeons and raids in order to participate in them. LFD happened at the end of Wrath, and it was with this queue that Cataclysm launched.

Since Cataclysm, world content has been a problem. A new development team undoubtedly made its presence felt, but there’s a compelling argument (most eloquently made by @Jessicka) that more people than ever before were already at the level cap and that essentially forced Blizzard into making endgame “the game”. The old world was redone, levelling was sped up dramatically, and new zones were added to the old world rather than a new continent being created. The world, however, was substantially shrunk by the LFD queue, flight from the start, and the inception of LFR at its conclusion. The obligatory dailies were in place, and Blizzard used the Molten Front as a “personal progression” path for solo players rather than the server-orientated version of Quel’Danas.

Mists of Pandaria moved us back into the continent expansion delivery, and a beautiful world was created. The approach to world content this time was simple; overwhelm players with daily quests. This worked in getting players into the world, but many resented the fact that reputations gated their currency gear and some of them were double-gated behind the Golden Lotus. In 5.1, the Krasarang Wilds introduced daily reputations that also had one-time quest content and story development behind them, an evolution of the personal progression system seen in the Molten Front. The world itself also changed in Pandaria as the Timeless Isle was added and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms was destroyed.

This brings us largely up to date with Warlords of Draenor. Daily quests were largely removed, but daily objectives took their place in high-level sub-zones. These solved the problem of saving Lao Softfoot from 100 cages in 100 days, but removed a lot of the niche storytelling that was possible via Operation Shieldwall/Domination Point/The Molten Front. This was the first time the world itself was so widely used for endgame content, but it wasn’t especially well directed and players struggled to find value in repeating unrewarding content.

So, to sum this up:

- World content in vanilla was levelling.
- World content in Outland was levelling, and dailies (including max-level zones).
- World content in Northrend was levelling, and dailies.
- World content in Cataclysm was the new zones, but LFD had an impact.
- World content in Mists was overwhelmingly daily quests, and the world changing.
- World content in Warlords was objective based, using max-level zones.

If we accept that moving into Cataclysm the game needed to shift focus to end game (and Blizzard have the stats on that; we don’t) because fewer new players were coming in, and more players were at level cap, then we can understand why we ended up where we are. A great many things have been tried since the game largely abandoned levelling as a world content delivery tool, an issue somewhat necessitated by expansions never being big enough compared to the original launch of the game.

We’ve had dailies that have been repetitive, dailies that have been server-progression based, dailies that have been personal-progression based, and dailies that have had individual quests and scenarios weaved into them. If I were to come up with a “perfect” daily approach, it’d be Frankenstein’s monster weaved out of all of that and probably hit with turn-ins in order to round it out. The problem, however, is that once you’ve done the reputation grind for these dailies… There’s no incentive to go back. Equally, there’s no incentive to do it all again on an alternative character, particularly if you’ve got several of them.

But there were loads of problems to solve. An expansion world can never be big enough to house players for weeks, players at level cap have no reason to hit the world up, LFD shrunk the world itself by providing a queue to content, extremely prescriptive quest objectives in the minimap removed explorative experiences, completing a daily reputation grind doesn’t reward repetition and any number of other issues can crop up depending on who you are.

I believe, however, that Legion’s world content solves the majority of these problems, if Blizzard really go all in on it – and that’s why I’m desperate to see its first iterations on the alpha/beta.

I’m going to make a couple of assumptions… And I know that’s bad, but here they are:

Wild-arsed assumption 1:

This system could be spread across every continent, and not just the Broken Isles. There is easily space in every questing zone to put max level mobs in and have them be objectives for players. We also have phasing and scaling flex-technology to help out individuals and groups if need be. Rewards can be based on continents, if you chose to do them all, similar to Diablo 3’s bounties.

Wild-arsed assumption 2:

This system can be scaled up, depending on gear. A player with a specific item level can “unlock” higher difficulties of objective, just as a higher-average item level group could do. This means that, rather than consume and abandon, world content becomes something players can do for the entire expansion… And, actually, the entire remaining duration of World of Warcraft!

So if we make these assumptions, and they’re easily within the design spectrum, what Blizzard are potentially about to do is entirely redefine how the MMORPG genre manages its world content in a age of queues, smaller continents, and instanced content. Daily quests that incorporate the story are easy to weave into the system, personal and group progression can be a part of it as can server progression, a new delivery mechanism for world bosses becomes apparent, there’s an endless amount of content for players to get involved in, and the system lends itself to easy implementation for future patches and expansions while making use of all of the previous artwork that’s been lovingly created.

Oh, and there’s an added bonus – PLAYERS COULD BE PART OF THIS CONTENT CREATION.

I know, I know. Tuning would be a problem, players are shit at doing game design, and individual areas shouldn’t be messed with but… Think about it. Freeform gameplay in this sense lends itself, very easily, toward player-made content given the appropriate zones, item level tuning and phasing tools that Blizzard could provide.

As you might have guessed, I’m HUGELY interested in seeing how this plays out because I think it could be a real game-changer.

And for those who stuck to the end – are you excited about how this is going to be implemented?

[Deleted]

And for those who stuck to the end – are you excited about how this is going to be implemented?

To be honest i am more afraid that excited.
On paper this could be the greater and best addition the game has had ever, but i am very worried about the implementation of this, because if the quests involved are the same kill 5 bees quests we already have in end game zones and the rewards are not worth it, well i guess you get it.
But i agree that if done right, because the world zones are so amazing and the total quantity of locations it is so huge, it has the potential to even supply us with content for the long no content times at the end of expansions.
BTW the possibility of player created content it is a VERY BIG added bonus.

- - - Updated - - -

players are shit at doing game design

I strongly disagree with this as a usual player of elder scroll series, and after having played a throng of player made modules in neverwinter nights; Some players are amazing developing this kind of content.

[Pua]

I share your concerns, absolutely. If the system is half-arsed, then it could end up doing more harm than good. Hence why it needs to find its way onto the alpha/beta realms soon, and get tested for feedback.

Equally, I agree that a lot of players are great designers. I was being a bit sarcastic with the comment you quoted, given the penchant on this forum for people to just dismiss the ability of others outright.