Limited to one per day, these quests serve as a way to gain reputation or items and regents for end-game raiding consumables, flasks or potions or epic reputation items. Whilst some aspects have improved a lot hasn’t and speaking to veterans of the game including my own experience there are some fundamental aspects as to why WoW feels like a slog you don’t want to do but have to, rather than a smooth and enjoyable experience: World of Warcraft is incredibly grindy and we can’t forgive the excuse that it was one of the first accessible MMO’s to market, it’s been 18 years! A lot of ex-players' complaints are that WoW seems like a chore or job, one that means sacrificing real-life commitments, such as personal hygiene and care. Granted, watching the in-game cutscenes for the umpteenth time gets a bit tedious, but the first time around they are mesmerizing and give an incredible sense of grandeur. These are 4, 8 and 24 person parties where you face off against Boss’ that the MSQs, sidequests and lore has pertained to throughout your character's questing experience in wonderfully imagined, vast and fleshed out settings and scenarios (a lot of them are cameo appearances too, such as Ifrit, Diamond Weapon, Knights of the Round, Hades etc). The Final Fantasy XIV story-arcs too are sprinkled with exhilarating Trials, Dungeons, Raids and Alliance Raids. If the quests don’t pertain to the main story-arc then I can guarantee that they’ll serve as a vehicle for world building by introducing lore throughout the NPC’s dialogue. In stark contrast we have a compelling, narrative driven MMORPG where players can lose themselves in a story that is presented, and I can’t emphasize this enough although italics will have to do, beautifully! I would argue 75+% of the side quests in Final Fantasy XIV add to the main flavor or ‘end-goal’ of the game title and these are packed full of interesting script, memorable characters, sometimes voice-acted and sometimes presented via in-game sequences. Still, the normal quest givers are something to be desired and whilst there are certainly some stand out characters the lack of others leaves players wanting. The story arcs are fantastic, but the delivery is lackluster: sure we have cinematics, more voice-acting and better interaction with storyline quests that give you an overall feel and ‘vibe’ to what the theme and direction of the expansion is going in. World of Warcraft of course improved upon this within Shadowlands and the story has become more compelling as expansions have been released (with the peak in Wrath of the Lich King in my opinion). More to the point I couldn’t even tell you what the main theme of Vanilla was - arguably this changed with the introduction of Naxxramas but the raid was such a high level that only the best guilds were often afforded the privilege of delving into the floating Necropolis as most other guilds were still on Molten Core or Blackwing Lair even fewer completed the entire raid which was a shame because it had two very important lore rich characters - Sindragosa and Kel’Thuzad - and one very famous weapon: the legendary Corrupted Ashbringer…but to reiterate 90% of players wouldn’t have seen or enjoyed this content and that isn’t being elitist…my Guild back in the day had to put 30+ hours into WoW. The gameplay differed vastly from its predecessor Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne where quests, characters and scenarios were completely fleshed out with incredible voice acting and in-depth lore accompanied by inspired script-writing, the whole sha-bang! I understand that for a new MMO, at the time, the budget for fully-fledged voice acting and all the extra fluffy detail would have over-stretched an already tight budget, but the world felt lifeless and quite frankly boring apart from a few characters like Mograine, Inquisitor Fairbanks, Hogger (because of the meme) and Onyxia being a chad in Stormwind - later expansions obviously brought us key characters from the Warcraft 3 series, but I’m talking about NPC’s. I played World of Warcraft back in Blizzard’s BETA release…so 2004 (Gosh I feel old). These themes are not the main catalyst for why people are leaving WoW but I sincerely believe they are one of the many contributing factors, it was for my friends and me at least. how they are presented, not only from a story perspective but also a development perspective, are integral to the differences of each title. I’m going to be bold and say that I think the main themes of the two MMO’s, i.e.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |