Vanilla Questing: Was it Good?

[Scrysis]

With the exception of a couple of quest lines, such as the Battle of Darrowshire, quests were rather pointless, disjointed, and a pain to do. There was almost no consistency between zones or between quest lines in the zone. Some zones just straight up didn't have enough quests either, so you ran into a drought at certain levels. Other quests required a TON of traveling (*cough* sprite darter hatchling). Traveling took FOREVER. I think it took me 15 minutes to go from Darnassis to Tanaris.

[Sastank]

I thought it was "good" sure, because it was new just like MMOs in general were to me in 2004. But it was slow af. The drop rates for some quests were also unbearable back then.

Top kek for self promotion

[SethRoguen]

Kind of a mixed bag in my opinion. At the time I thought it was amazing having to travel the world, work with other players to take down the tougher elites, use professions to make certain quest items and such. It sucked if you were on a low pop server or could only play during off peak hours. Quest rewards were usually straight ass while leveling so you had to go stand in /Trade and spam chat for hours...or pay a high level if you had the money. Not to mention all the bugs and low drop rates.


Basically I had a blast until my 4th or 5th alt. Then it just became torture. I have a far better experience questing today than I did then. I guess with the classic servers coming we get to have the best of both worlds.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

if you didn't like lore than no if you did like a story then kinda! but it def wasn't anything special in hindsight

[Deleted]

So recently I made a video about Vanilla WoW’s quest design and the possibly unintended brilliance behind it.

To summarize the video, Vanilla WoW’s non-linear quest philosophy exposed players to unpredictable adventures that were tackled differently through each playthrough. Additionally, I think the incorporation of professions into ‘regular’ quests brought life and an organic feel to the world.

What do you think? Do you think vanilla questing was good, or terrible compared to today’s modern quest design?

Video reference in signature.

Vanillas quest design was really bad and a Big reason so many nevet made it to 60. The time it takes to level isnt a problem the problem is the travel time you spendt on nothing. Literally just sitting there waiting for a zeppeliner or your guy to Walk for 20 straight minutes.

[Siglius]

Outside of a few gems like Linken or the Tirion questline it was complete garbage.

[Kaleredar]

You want a taste of vanilla leveling?

Go to hellfire peninsula.

[Alkizon]

It was good enough, the only thing that really could spoil you questing time is your impatience, restlessness, inattention and a little ignorance.

All zones were separated by stories (there were always several alternative zones that many missed out here and so don't take into account now - hence all their problems, they were too lazy to ask for help, advice or time to try to figure it out on their own) + quest chains connecting zones, there was an open world, through which it was possible to travel for a long time and with interest (there was no mob on mob with deficit of spawn space). There was no universal evil, which is hidden under every stone, which every NPC brings to each task. There were small villains, there were passing travelers, there were casual acquaintances. Empty areas were a pleasant place for role-playing players' pastime, PvE life boiling in a place of concentration of living creatures and tasks. Factions opposition, competitiveness, interest and social activity permeated all this with PvP component. It was a living, whole, connected world that made you understand, adapt to, travel in it = interact with it => adventure... but new system don't.

ps. Given all of the above - shame on most people that wrote here.

Also some comments in the light of recent changes in open world organization:

An alternative opinion/proposal, also while getting rid of phasing (aka individual visual progress of location, leaving it be server based)... and at the same time together with direct "constant" scaling (scaling is not necessary if each of expansions has adequately distributed levels' ranking (type of... first 10 levels are always starting location, and then you go by expansion's choice) that allows you to reach necessary, taken as maximum, point, also, in absence of system assuming/based on phasing, changing expansions in the process, with special desire, will be absolutely painless; scaling is always bad, it's censor's constant). In other words - no auto teleports/"motionless"-dungeons'spam, but they're always available "with your feet" (even if you have to go through part of location with mobs that are quite dangerous for a lone traveler, or already easier with automatically suggested "set" of fellow travelers), albeit not with entire volume of quests that can be "taken out of somewhere" due to direct and adequate organization of quests/lvling (without utilitarian degenerate simplification mechanisms).

Considering all of above, there won't need to be afraid of "between expansions" problems availability of dungeons and their level requirements. In fact, most of work they have done recently, if not worsened situation, then at least was useless.

How about that, huh?

*barely audible recalls with unkind word this organization in Cata*

Choosing MMORPG, I probably choose to interact with living mutual world together with other people and not just with set of menus/moving personal textures imitating my (actually absent one) participation, don't I? Otherwise, I'd choose a single player.

[Echocho]

It's probably the biggest selling point of vanilla along side the slow rewarding character progression. On-rails questing that we see from TBC onwards is a lot more boring.

[cparle87]

It was okay, except you didn't have tracking like it is now. And many people didn't have their first mount till later.

Don't forget you couldn't get them until 40 and they had a 3 second cast time.

- - - Updated - - -

It was slow and certain aspects of it (boars not dropping livers? raptors somehow not dropping heads?) took away from the immersion a lot. However, it was also enjoyable on a first play through, albeit just flat out exhausting on subsequent play throughs. The questing system is also leagues better IMO in the modern game, and has been improving from expansion to expansion. While WoD sucked, the questing was actually decent. Legion questing got stale after a few times through, but the storytelling was some of the best Blizz has done, especially Suramar even though that wasn't a leveling zone.

Basically, I found Vanilla questing to be fun back in 2005. I don't anticipate finding it fun in 2018-19 when live will provide a better alternative and better endgame.

Don't forget hoofless zhevras, and featherless raptors even though you can see them wearing them. =-)

[klaps_05]

Perhaps the first time you play it through, as you had no solid sense of direction. That is the reasons why "areas" of each zone also award XP to this day - the point was you might get lost doing some quest, but at least you get some xp for exploring. But once you have to do it more than once or figure out that there is a lot more content at the end of the level grind, your perception changes.

[Blackmist]

Vanilla questing was... different.

Quests themselves didn't actually award much XP, most of it was from killing mobs. It was probably more efficient to grind to 60.

Zones would have a wide level range. You would do part of Stranglethorn Vale at level 30-ish, then have to go somewhere else in order to level up enough to continue. The last quests there were close to level 50 iirc.

They would very often send you to the same place repeatedly. One example of this was the demon cave in Felwood. You'd spend so long clearing into it over and over.

[Zigrifid]

For the year classic was released it was good,coming from a game like Lineage 2 that we had to farm mobs to lvlup and we lost exp when we died, wow was a breath of fresh air :P, was it slow? hell yeah it was but it was fun specially with friends,im not gonna say that the game was better back then, cause it wasnt but the lvling was good "for that era".

[Alex86el]

No.

Questing and leveling in wow was and still is shit, compared to some other mmos.
Useless back-and-forths constantly. Find npc, get quest, travel half the map, do the chore, travel half the map, deliver.
Missing out on chainquests-leading-to-chainquests.
No voiceover. Poor indie company blizzard surely couldnt affort it until WoD.
And most quests make you feel like a useless errand boy.

The completely dead world design helped as well.
In most other mmos there are things happening and npcs fighting.
While in WoW, enemies seem like patrolling pinatas. With the exception of a few tiny areas in a couple maps.

WAR, SWTOR, and the holy grail of questing and leveling GW2.
They all did it better, and most importantly, they made it fun.
While in WoW it always felt like a chore and a waste of time.

[Jujudrood]

The quest itself, where you had to kill X this, or collect Y that, or go to <insert random zone/dungeon> to get <insert random item> is the same as today's quests because there are about 5 total types of quests, with varying flavors to them to try to set them apart but are ultimately the same because that's how MMOs work.
Whether or not you feel it epic to traverse multiple zones just to finish one quest, all while running/using FPs, is totally up to you, but for me, maybe the first time through they were cool because I got to see zones for the first time, but that's about it.

To say those multi-zone/dungeon quests were convoluted and disjointed would be an understatement.
I think the best work they did were the quests that remained in a single zone and told a complete story, not those that you did a step here or there then it sat in your log and turned green/gray because you didn't go to the other continent for X, just for you to eventually do it and forget what you were even doing it for in the first place (personal experience).

[Deleted]

Yes, it was good because the mobs dealth more damage and were harder to kill and the experience was low. this meant every quest had fun gameplay and exp it rewarded felt like an actual reward because it was hard to get...

Dificult and slow leveling makes for a fun and engaging game, easy and fast leveling makes for a boring experience...

[Agrias2x]

Short answer: It was amazing, by far the best game ever at that time since it was 14~ years ago so back then it was something really new and there was nothing even close to it. If they release Vanilla now it won't be even half as good as it was sadly.

[Demithio]

Vanilla questing was amazing and grindy all at the same time. Perhaps a bit too grindy. Compared to today its a major contrast, probably too much grind and running around to gimmicky, theme park, on rails questing. Given the choice I would go with vanilla style questing, at least you felt like you were in an open, dangerous world.

[Deztru]

Short answer: It was amazing, by far the best game ever at that time since it was 14~ years ago so back then it was something really new and there was nothing even close to it. If they release Vanilla now it won't be even half as good as it was sadly.

The new game experience was like 80% of Vanilla. You're not going to discover it a second time without having a stroke first, people can claim it's gonna be dope as shit but it most likely isn't.

[arkanon]

I found it awkward, clumsy, and time consuming for all the wrong reasons. Personally, i found challenging combat far more exciting than 'i cant find this godamn rope for this godamn quest'

i would happily spend an hour with a group of 2 on an elite quest designed for more players, trying every trick my class had to offer to try and bring the beast down. I learned my class very well, i learned my own limits, my classes strengths and weaknesses, and i learned how to be patient and work in a group.

Trying to find an obscure item for a quest, with no real indicators or markers, only to learn it was in some little cave with an entrance hidden by trees, that does nothing for me. I realise for some that is classed as 'exploration', but for me, thats tedious.

Grinding with the more recent incarnations of class design is not quite so painful, but in vanilla it was a real chore for me, with constant eating / drinking, constant wanding on casters etc. I quested very efficiently so it was rare for me to run into this situation, but when i did, it was very frustrating. I found the pacing to be very poor overall because of this.

The sence of discovery and excitement was high though, and because everything was a 'first' it was all fresh and enjoyable overall. With more 'milestones' paced throughout lvling, such as mounts, core spells and abilities, access to dungeons etc, there was always something to work towards besides max lvl, and i think that is probably the key for more.

Even if i was bogged down in a certain zone not really enjoying lvling, there was a key moment coming up, whether it be access to a new spell, or dungeon, or finally getting that mount (for those lucky enough to be able to afford it), there was always something to look forward to.

Currently the only real milestones are:

- start new character
- powerlvl to max lvl asap
- start unlocking artifact asap (almost instant now)
- start farming easy content to get gear
- use higher ilvl to access better gear
- use that gear to gain access to higher content to get better gear
- eventually start doing the content you actually want to be doing with the people you want to be doing it with.

So i guess what im saying is that although the lvling experience has been streamlined and for many is completely bypassed with boosts, the grind still exists, its just all frontloaded into 'endgame'.