Blizzard should add a Persistent Heroic mode and Public Quest

[snowblind]

Public Quests immediately fail when the population can't support them. Its simultaneously one of the best and worst things I've seen in a game. Every single PQ that wouldn't be in the 1-10 range or 80-85 range would be nearly impossible to complete, especially outside of primetime hours.

Good idea, but it works on a false assumption that populations stay consistent throughout the entire leveling curve... which it doesn't.

[Lord Lichfury]

While I agree with the ideas OP proposes, I think we can all agree that WoW's population will at best remain stagnant should it stick with the same old "level, gear, raid/pvp" regime we've seen from day one. Whether challenging/fun or not, it's going to have to diversify to compete with the competition, and only a fool would take the competition incoming in the next 2 years lightly on the premise that previous competition has failed.

[Gron]

Also, I vividly remember setting foot on Northrend 1-2 days after launch of the game.

Being swamped with players.
Had to wait 20 minutes for a quest to be completed as players waited in queues for dead mobs to respawn.

It was never a skill to play the game, it was a patience game, and players got angry when others hunted mobs down before them when it was their turn.

No more the mobs were a threat.
They were colored pixels, cherries you fought for with other players to be picked from tree.

They were never threatening, which felt like an alarming signal for the whole of WOTLK.

[Herecius]

A form of public quests sounds like a great idea, however, I don't think it should take the form of powerful bosses.

[snowblind]

I think we can all agree that WoW's population will at best remain stagnant should it stick with the same old "level, gear, raid/pvp" regime we've seen from day one.

Actually, I can't agree with that. MMO players, in general, are quite resistant to change, as evidenced by the deluge of complaints from people about just about everything.

A lot of people like the type of progression that WoW has, to the point of requesting that developers of games that don't fit the typical MMO mold (City of Heroes and Champions Online come to mind) implement some kind of similar system.

People generally like the traditional MMO model. It's true that a game could come out that breaks the mold that will be popular, but it won't be popular solely on the basis of breaking the mold. I would venture to guess that if it happened, it would be popular in spite of breaking the mold - meaning the game is stellar in other ways that people don't mind stepping out of the comfort zone they have been sitting in, some (like myself) for as much as 15 years or more.

The gaming industry isn't particularly innovative, if you look at it. Not much has changed since Wolfenstein 3D for the FPS genre. Sure, there have been minor tweaks, setting changes, the addition of multiplayer and its multitude of game modes... but the basic gameplay premise is the same: Run around and kill stuff with ammo and weapons you pick up along the way.

Games that attempt to break a mold and are successful are generally successful because they are good games, not because they broke a mold.

[Bytes]

Actually, I can't agree with that. MMO players, in general, are quite resistant to change, as evidenced by the deluge of complaints from people about just about everything.

A lot of people like the type of progression that WoW has, to the point of requesting that developers of games that don't fit the typical MMO mold (City of Heroes and Champions Online come to mind) implement some kind of similar system.

People generally like the traditional MMO model. It's true that a game could come out that breaks the mold that will be popular, but it won't be popular solely on the basis of breaking the mold. I would venture to guess that if it happened, it would be popular in spite of breaking the mold - meaning the game is stellar in other ways that people don't mind stepping out of the comfort zone they have been sitting in, some (like myself) for as much as 15 years or more.

The gaming industry isn't particularly innovative, if you look at it. Not much has changed since Wolfenstein 3D for the FPS genre. Sure, there have been minor tweaks, setting changes, the addition of multiplayer and its multitude of game modes... but the basic gameplay premise is the same: Run around and kill stuff with ammo and weapons you pick up along the way.

Games that attempt to break a mold and are successful are generally successful because they are good games, not because they broke a mold.

"The gaming industry isn't particularly innovative"
Look up Portal.

[Maharishi]

I hear the alliance needs purple lotus.

[luccadeo]

You do know the definition of the word farming right? It's not supposed to be quick and easy, It's just the instant gratification children like yourself that now own the game who demand it to be. There is nothing wrong with farming taking difficulty, time, or both.

I couldn't agree more.

---------- Post added 2010-09-01 at 04:41 PM ----------

I really liked the ideas of public quests and ongoing pvp areas in Warhammer. It was relatively quick way to pick up some better gear.

[Deleted]

Guild Wars 2, TERA, Final Fantasy, Star Wars MMo, AION, Lineage 3 etc . All of them are supposed to be POTENTIAL(lol) WoW killers because they are so revolutionary. I highly doubt they will surpass WoW any time soon, even with their ultimate innovations of MMORPG as we know it.

[Deleted]

With Guild Wars 2 competition coming along with their event system,

in my opinion, Blizzard should add a similar mechanic to WoW, especially, now that CAT is re-changing the game world.


Persistent heroic Mode-
Would basically be a mechanic in the game that scales high lvl players down to fit whatever level of the zone's level range they currently are in. This basically would work in some way similar to the Sidekick system, and make all zones fun again for Max Lvl players, without getting rid of the motivation for players to level up. Since lvling still gets player better gear,skills, and raid dungeons. (Note: Players scale downward for lower lvl area and dungeons. low lvl players dont scale up for higher lvl areas and dungeons.)

Not sure how many people would go for this, most people power level to get away from the low level zones and only return to rep farm/help friends. I wouldn't mind something that makes my adventures in low level zones more interesting, but i feel most wouldn't like it or bother with it.

Public Event Quest-
Public Events are simply smaller events scattered across the zones and world. Public Events scale with the number of players joining the fight. Public Events can fail or succeed and change the map.

Did you play WAR? public quest on paper sound awesome and fun and for the first few weeks they are out people do them and its great, after that hardly any bother, i can still remember having to solo grind the PQs in WAR for the rep gear because no body in the zone wanted to waste the time.

World Events-
Well we all know what World Events are. Or maybe you are new to wow and never experienced a World Event. Well for my Idea, World Events are similar to Public Events, but on a much much larger scale. These events unlike the Public Events, would effect the game world, not just a zone. Things could happen such as a Giant Demon Master could attack major cities and send armies of demons and undead to attack the cities similar to TBC's world event. Or a event could have a Enemy Faction General boss elite, lead a army of Enemy Faction Soldier NPC into your city on a mass scale rampage

I like this idea alot, something on a large enough scale that forces people in the zone to join in. I would love to see enemy NPCs attacking towns and cities, it would add the feeling of a war and make it a little less tedious when levelling.

----------------------
Since all High Lvl players can scale down to fit each zone's event type, this idea could make WoW much more interesting.

My comments above in red.

[Einzweidrei]

Aww.

When I saw the title, "persistent heroic mode," it made me think of a hybrid kind of heroic dungeon mixing elements of WoW, DDO, and EQ dungeons...

1) big (a couple times the size of BRD, as there could be several groups in it at once),
2) dynamic (NPCs, including bosses, respawn and patrol constantly and sometimes unpredictably; traps; mini-events),
3) persistent+public (the place doesn't have a reset daily or weekly or ever; the place is open to more than one group of players at a time).

[Nitex]

Public quests sure, everything else no.

[Einzweidrei]

It is cool and all, and great how you all link it and like it - but how come you folks play and pay for the so booring WoW when the revolutionary GW is free and has only a fraction of the WoW playerbase?

That's like asking how come someone who lives in a million-dollar mansion why they don't move into the $40,000 hovel just because the hovel has a nicer coffee maker than the mansion does.

[snowblind]

Look up Portal.

Portal's a great and innovative game, no doubt... there's also Braid, Trine, Scribblenauts, and a handful of other games (that all seem to be puzzle games, now that I think of it...) that are innovative, and somewhat popular because of it... however the vast majority of games make small strides in innovation - a new game mode here, a new way to generate replay value there - and they are successful (or not) based on the quality of a game.

I actually can't think of any games that are popular strictly because they are innovative. A game has to be good first... any accolade for innovation comes after that base fact has been confirmed or denied.

[Solarshot]

and who are you, and where the f*** do you know me to call me a children?
and where the f*** did i complain about being difficult to farm items? y, its boring, did i lie, or does anyone enjoy to do 30 runs of the eye to get the mount?
got to love the internet trolls who think they know ppl, and think they are above all else

judging by your reaction I think he was right

[Garots]

Ehh, no. I don't want Blizzard just saying 'People played Warhammer, let's copy those!'. They will tweak and re-do, the polish the idea until it looks nothing like the previous, but is way better.

[pickley]

"The gaming industry isn't particularly innovative"
Look up Portal.

Portals in gaming were done before, Portal just improved on it.

[Beetlejuice]

What WoW really needs (and maybe that is what op meant with persistent heroic mode, stopped following gw as they started completely neglecting pve) is some kind of group leveling help. It is to easy to outlevel your friends and then basically not being able to do anything together anymore. So a system where you can group up with your lower lvl friend and get scaled down to his level while he gets the majority of the xp (so he can catch up) and you get a smaller part (or none if you are already 80).
Having some more challenges with high lvl gear would be nice too, but simply downgrading your char is completely against wows progression based design. I would rather see a super heroic mode for instances. Something where dmg and health of mobs is scaled for a group equipped in last raid tier. Only problem is see here is to make it worth it over the easy, quickly and wipeproof to farm normal heroics and still not compete with raids. If there are enough high end triumph level badge dumps (gems, heirlooms and the like) just a much higher number of those badges might do it.

[procne]

it would be enough for me if they added "hard" difficulty for a character which simply makes mobs hit that player for 20% more and take 20% less damage from him. Ofc it wouldnt apply to pvp and instances.

I really miss the difficulty of lower levels, when pulling 2 mobs or more was quite dangerous and killing elite alone was quite an achievement. Now on higher levels i can easily take 3-4 mobs at once in leveling gear. The only problem is to find enough mobs to continue with questing :<

[Simonzi]

it would be enough for me if they added "hard" difficulty for a character which simply makes mobs hit that player for 20% more and take 20% less damage from him. Ofc it wouldnt apply to pvp and instances.

I really miss the difficulty of lower levels, when pulling 2 mobs or more was quite dangerous and killing elite alone was quite an achievement. Now on higher levels i can easily take 3-4 mobs at once in leveling gear. The only problem is to find enough mobs to continue with questing :<

Don't use heirlooms.