Mirrored faction questing?

[Deleted]

So I played mists of pandaria's questing on my human, and really enjoyed it. I went on my blood elf and went to do the same zones hoping to get quite a different, more horde centred experience. I have to say, Blizzard really doesn't have much difference in story. Yes you have changes, but either the general aim of what you are trying to do or the sort of quests that you have to do are very much mirrored. Take Jade Forest for example. In Alliance:

• You get lost in the mist
• You have an airship battle in which you fight boats from the horde
• You have to shoot at the alliance from the ship
• You have to go and destroy the horde's hold on a weird looking temple
• You meet the Hozen
• You do a load of arbitrary quests to become liked by the Jinyu

And for the Horde?

• You get lost in the mist
• You have an airship battle in which you fight boats from the Alliance
• You have to shoot at the alliance from the ship
• You have to go and destroy the alliance's hold on a weird looking temple
• You meet the Hozen
• You do a load of arbitrary quests to become liked by the hozen

I am sure that these are done this way simply out of not wanting any faction to appear more important (and not because they can't be bothered to think of two stories where one is not noticeably better than the other), but it really does cut off your options for enjoying questing in pandaria multiple times. You just get a vague but not complete feeling of Deja Vu. Still, its not as bad as when you end up just doing quests for neutral npcs in places like the valley, where your experience is pretty much the same on either faction.

I feel that wow has a lot of opportunities with giving both factions interesting quest lines to do that are not too similar, but it feels a bit wasted. I suppose that it's the best way to avoid QQing over one faction getting more than the other.

What I was concerned about was the possibility that in WoD, this would happen again. The alliance and horde get completely different zones, and each have drastically different aims, whereas in moP they both landed on pandaria with equal footing. What are your opinions on this?

[shoc]

It's going to be a little less streamlined factionwise in WoD, as both factions start on the other side of the continent as each other. Though MoP's questing wasn't as mirrored as I found Cataclysms questing. Wrath had a healthy balance with the factions starting on separate ends of the continent and working towards the middle.

[Auxis]

It's going to be a little less streamlined factionwise in WoD, as both factions start on the other side of the continent as each other. Though MoP's questing wasn't as mirrored as I found Cataclysms questing. Wrath had a healthy balance with the factions starting on separate ends of the continent and working towards the middle.

Wrath had both horde and alliance in the Borean and Howling Fjord, didn't it?

[Shampro]

Well it wont be as streamlined, for example, you're trying to repel the Iron Horde invasion on Karabor as Alliance. As Horde, you're trying to GAIN your city attacking the Bladespire Fortress from the Ogres. So in a sense, you're kinda doing the same thing, you know' a battle over you're main capital, but it wont really be the same. Not to mention the enviorment is completely differant.

[Deleted]

I believe it pushed Horde towards borean and Alliance towards Fjord, but you can really go in either one. Which is lucky, because Borean is pretty bad compared to Fjord IMO.

[Shampro]

Both Factions had settlements in both zones in Wrath yeah.

[ATZenith]

And for the Horde?
You get lost in the mist
You have an airship battle in which you fight boats from the Alliance
You have to shoot at the horde from the ship
I know it was just a mistake but it made me lol

[Mormolyce]

Mmmm, true but this has been the case with other expansions to some extent as well. After the first zone or two most quest content is neutral, so they don't end up spending time making content that only half the playerbase sees.

Wrath had both horde and alliance in the Borean and Howling Fjord, didn't it?

Yeah they were.

[Kyux]

I agree with you they both seem very similar. I think Blizz does this though because if they made on radically different people would say "why is the Alliance intro so much better? Blizz hates Horde!" or vice versa. It's safer to make to mirrors. Having said that I myself would prefer very different ones. make it different every time, that'll get you playing Horde too maybe, it'll keep it fresh and it'll make it more of a big deal when Horde and Alliance come together (a la Wrathgate).

[Grahamington]

I agree with you they both seem very similar. I think Blizz does this though because if they made on radically different people would say "why is the Alliance intro so much better? Blizz hates Horde!" or vice versa.

Screw it. That sounds better IMO. It's almost like starting a new zone in a way if you have opposite quest on each faction. So if you have a 90 horde and alliance you can enjoy two different styles of quest.

[Wyrt]

At the very least Shadowmoon Valley and Orc Iceland should be very different questing experiences. After that we'll probably get mirrored quests.

At least in Jade Forest they didn't just copy/paste NPC text like they did on Isle of Thunder.

[The Flavour Cat]

If faction questing in the same zone was to be different, you'd have to make them both fun to play, because if it was 'X is fun, Y is not', then there might be faction bias. And give us stories that are specific to the faction. I've never fully quested in Nagrand, but I hear you only learn about Oshu'gun's history on the Horde side.