What I would like to see in Cataclysm. Part 2: Quests

If you read my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, you'll know I am not a fan of the way Blizzard does solo content right now. Quests, an intrinsic part of solo-ing, have become repetitive, trite, and boring. Although I frequently do the Argent Tournament dailies, the only thing that keeps me doing them are the pets. Although I think Blizzard had an interesting idea with the jousting mini-game, it isn't that great. The rest is basically kill stuff or collect stuff. Like the profession design, the current quest design in boring, lazy, and unenjoyable. This needs to change.

Now I personally have nothing against dailies; I just think that Blizzard needs to put a bit of effort into inventing creative ones. I have fond memories of Bomb Them Again!, Disrupt the Greengill Coast, and The Booterang: A Cure For The Common Worthless Peon, specifically. I looked forward to doing these dailies, since they were fun, really and truly fun. I think Blizzard can take some valuable lessons away form these dailies.

I may be looking back on the past through rose-tinted glasses when I look at Bomb Them Again!, since it made extensive use of flying mounts, something that was very exciting in the Burning Crusade, but I think there is something to be said for quests involving flying. They were exhilarating, and they actually took skill. The closest thing we have right now is Get Kraken!, and it's a horrible replacement. Flight-path-based quests will never be as fun as genuine flying quests since they take away the element that makes the quests fun: control. They also sometimes force the player to take the flight path multiple times if they don't complete the quest the first time around, which can be really inconvenient if the area of the quest is far away from the spot where you mount (Distraction at the Dead Scar, I am looking at you).

That said, even Distraction at the Dead Scar had something that made it redeemable, something that Disrupt the Greengill Coast especially displayed: skill made the quest easier. The quests these days hardly reward skillful playing. There is little dexterity required, and little motivation to put in any sort of effort to doing the quest well. Why did this not apply to Disrupt the Greengill Coast? Because you needed to use fewer Orbs of Murloc Control if you could get more murlocs in the area of effect of your orb. Thus you needed to kill fewer Darkspine Sirens, since you needed fewer orbs. Most people probably needed four orbs their first time around, but with a bit of practice, you could free ten Murlocs with three orbs easily. Distraction at the Dead Scar was especially like this, since you needed to be quick with the bombs to kills all of the enemies you needed on the first trip. Most people needed two trips when they first did that quest, and it was a very long trip. With practice, though, we could get all of our enemies in one trip. That was the key, though: we needed practice in order to get to that level of skill. These dailies directly rewarded skilled playing, something that is lacking in today's dailies.

So what can be learned from The Booterang? Mainly, quests don't need to involve killing or collecting. Slaves to Saranite is one quest that comes to mind that breaks out of this mold, but its still a far cry from the fun that was Booterang. The Booterang was a great example of creative quest design because it involved no collection and next to no chance of engaging in combat. It could also be macro'd, making the whole experience very simple and enjoyable. Still, the creativity is the most important part, and I wish we could have some more creativity in daily design.

What do I want to see in the future? I was to see quests that involve us flying into areas on our own mounts to do them, quests that actually provide a challenge. I'd also like to see these quests be more challenging for people with epic flying, since an epic flying mount made Bomb Them Again! a joke. I want to see more quests that take less time if you actually think about what you are doing, like trying to aim a bomb strategically. I want to see quests that don't involve killing or collecting. Perhaps these quests could involve giving aid to people in distress or rescuing people, or just throwing things at them. Truth be told, the current quest design is quite lacking, and anything short of a complete reversion to quests that only involve killing will be an improvement.

Finally, as a personal note, I really wish Blizzard would change the cooking quests to what they were like in the days of Burning Crusade, when each one required different meat that needed to be farmed on the day of the quest and cooked close by where they were farmed, and also rewards meat and fish, not just spices and recipes or tokens for them. The way cooking quests are now, the challenge is in collecting the non-meat ingredients, not the meat itself. This is fine if they ingredients are collected by a spot where meat can be farmed, but they aren't. Please, Blizzard, make the cooking dailies like they were before.