Is it just me or is leveling TOO scripted?

[Ron Burgundy]

Talk about linear pathing and guard rails...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

[Gestopft]

It can be at times, but I prefer leveling today over having zones with no coherent story, or barely any quests, or quest chains that sent you across five zones to complete, etc.

Luckily, in SL, after you do the guardrails the first time, you can opt to level in a more free form way for alts.

[Neuroticaine]

As opposed to what, grinding ad nauseam?

[ArMeD_SuRvIvOr]

It is. Ignore people who say otherwise. It is objectively on rails. One thing is to like sterilized, repetitive, mindless questing on rails and another is to deny its existence.

It is a sin to say this in these parts but eff it, I'll say it: vanilla leveling was better. You interacted with the world, you saw the world, the story and more. Sue me.

[Throwme]

Talk about linear pathing and guard rails.

Talk about intentional design.

[Selastan]

Yeah, I feel ya. I miss the days when the emphasis was on the world you explore. It wasn't a linear narrative, it was a zone that had some towns. Those towns had people, some people needed help. It was like they built the zone first, then thought 'who would live here, what problems would they have? This town is close to a troll village, maybe they are having trouble with them, and this is a big ruin over here, maybe there is a camp of explorers nearby?'

Now you can just feel it. You go to a place, you get three quests. Do those three, go back, pick up another. It's so inorganic it hurts. (Especially because I feel like the ideal number of quests to have at one time is two. Every 'wave' of quests that ends up being three ticks me off just a tiny bit, and it adds up)

I suppose the game has just been going on for so long now that they have it down to a science. They have a bigger team with more experience. They don't just dump their cool worldbuilding on a table and let you play with it, they want to 'construct a narrative', and I'm certain they have people who's JOB it is to guide players paths through the zone and construct breadcrumb quests to guide them through it. It's a lot like interior design, I suppose. Some people like 'real' and rustic, stuff hand built or roughly used. Others like clean and modern, function over form, and there's a reason why the former mostly shops at antique stores. As time goes on, things get more efficient, for better or worse.

[Gestopft]

Yeah, I feel ya. I miss the days when the emphasis was on the world you explore. It wasn't a linear narrative, it was a zone that had some towns. Those towns had people, some people needed help. It was like they built the zone first, then thought 'who would live here, what problems would they have? This town is close to a troll village, maybe they are having trouble with them, and this is a big ruin over here, maybe there is a camp of explorers nearby?'

I think to a certain extent it's much easier to do it that way when there are half a zillion zones as there were at (Classic) launch then in the expansions, where they are adding 5-6 zones at a time.

[Jazzhands]

Talk about linear pathing and guard rails...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

Classic WoW is a thing if you like walking 20 minutes to talk to a guy to walk 20 minutes to talk to a guy to....

Blizzard wants to tell stories now, and stories have to be told in order. The game was also a massive mess and leveling was a huge barrier for new players, which are a necessity to keep an MMO going.

What exactly was fun about non-linear leveling? Tons of traveling, story lines never got finished, everything was disjointed. They didn't change the expansions themselves, it's all the same shit, now it's just all neatly in order so we can eat it more efficiently instead of having to dig for it at random but marked locations.

[rhorle]

Talk about linear pathing and guard rails...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

There are people that level with out even leaving the Pandaren starting zone. It is only as scripted as you want it to be but if you choose questing then of course it will be on rails and a linear path because that is how the zone flow works. But you can still mix and match if you want.

[Th3Scourge]

Talk about linear pathing and guard rails...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

I quit after Wrath and came back at the end of WoD and that was the biggest change that I noticed. Before it was go out and explore, find quests and stories and now the game just holds your hand every step of the way.

I do like the Chromie levelling now though. At least now I can go back to BC/Wrath levelling, which while is a bit slow, is a far more engaging experience

[PixelFox]

It varies a lot by expansion. do BC if you want somewhat less on-rails. More running around as quest hubs are a bit less focused. Each expansion is mechanically a bit different in level questing.

[Selastan]

I quit after Wrath and came back at the end of WoD and that was the biggest change that I noticed. Before it was go out and explore, find quests and stories and now the game just holds your hand every step of the way.

I do like the Chromie levelling now though. At least now I can go back to BC/Wrath levelling, which while is a bit slow, is a far more engaging experience

Sounds right, it was cata that did it. In fact, I think Hyjal is the PERFECT example of the new system. Do a few quests, go down the mountain. Do a few more, down the mountain again. Every step has a hub, surrounded by enemy hubs that you quest in one-one-by one. It's so systematic it hurts.

If I had my dream expansion, it would be old-west inspired, and have huge zones. Like, Barrens-sized. Exploration would be a core theme, because it's in a vast undiscovered frontier. There would be small start-up towns scattered, but each zone would only have one real hub, and that hub would lead to breadcrumb quests. For example, one quest would lead to you killing animals for meat, standard stuff. But the area that quest is in has a wounded tauren. You find his lost kodo, and make a stretcher out of nearby materials. You then bring him back, pulling him on the stretcher behind his kodo, avoiding animals and bumps in a vehicle quest. The local healer fixes him up, turns out he was a scout on an important mission. Him being wounded, you go finish this mission for him. You discover some bandits are nearby, based in some old ruins. You beat the bandits and take their stolen loot, and in return their blood or souls or whatever activated a hidden door. You go down the door and...

You get where I'm going with this. Organic progression. Not the 40th variation of 'THIS PEACEFUL AREA IS UNDER ATTACK BY THE FORCES OF EVIL, JOIN US IN OUR VERY ORGANIZED ASSAULT AS WE WORK OUR WAY TO THEIR DUNGEON BASE'. Off topic, we always get zones in states of chaos now, don't we? We never see them in their peaceful state. Before it was always that an unnoticed baddie was gathering strength and we have to stop him, now it's more like that baddie already gathered their strength, whipped out their dick and rubbed it over half the map before we get there.

[Ryzeth]

Is it just me, or do people on these forums have a near endless amount of benign things to bitch and whine about?

[rhorle]

You get where I'm going with this. Organic progression. Not the 40th variation of 'THIS PEACEFUL AREA IS UNDER ATTACK BY THE FORCES OF EVIL, JOIN US IN OUR VERY ORGANIZED ASSAULT AS WE WORK OUR WAY TO THEIR DUNGEON BASE'.

But how is that different from your "organic progression" idea? We would just be going through the 40th variation of a wounded scout that leads to bandits after time.

[oplawlz]

Well for shadowlands specifically I can understand the rails, since they have a very specific goal of you experiencing all the covenants. For the rest of the game it is indeed hand holdy, but I just assume kids these days don't have the attention span to actually go out and do things for themselves.

[deviantcultist]

This site is full of people who desperately search for reasons to complain...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

[cparle87]

It is. Ignore people who say otherwise. It is objectively on rails. One thing is to like sterilized, repetitive, mindless questing on rails and another is to deny its existence.

It is a sin to say this in these parts but eff it, I'll say it: vanilla leveling was better. You interacted with the world, you saw the world, the story and more. Sue me.

States that questing is on rails, which is objectively true. Then implants his opinion into the already accepted objective statement, something entirely subjective.

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This site is full of people who desperately search for reasons to complain...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

No, you're not the only one. It's rather depressing. I've several times logged out and erased mmo-champs off my hotbar. Sadly, once in a while, there's threads worth reading so it draws me back.

[ZazuuPriest]

Talk about linear pathing and guard rails...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

Its been like this since the cata revamp. They decided to tripple down on poop jokes and discouraging exploration.

[MCMLXXXII]

I remember the good old days. Get send to a specific area, 10 minutes of travel time. Finish quests, 10 minute walk to turn them in. Then the questgiver sends you back to the same area!

If it is too linear it's no fun, but the example abov was even more annoying and it happened a lot.

[RCA]

This site is full of people who desperately search for reasons to complain...I can’t be the only one who feels this?

Lol that's the internet for ya, a platform to complain mostly scot free.

Nostalgia BC is working for me with the leveling, fucking had to go back to the pools of aggonor two times because I took a shitty quest route and there were two hubs. So I'm leaning the other direction...diving in the old zones with memberberries not looking up for the optimal walk.