Rest State

[Ruvanal]

Here's what should be fixed: forget inns.  It's too annoying to be forced to log off at specific places in order to build up rest state at a decent pace.  Just let us bloody well log off anywhere.

I remember seeing in one of the posts about rest state when it was first put into the game that this was the primary reason that it was being put into the game. The developers were trying to get the players to go to the inns and cities instead of just logging off all over the place all the time. They wanted the players to spend more time interacting with each other in the game in the non-combat areas more. This is where the real problem with their 'rest state' situation; they are using a force method to achieve this rather than a 'dangled carrot' to get this goal.

Look at the way it was in the second push, you could only gain the rest if you were in an inn the whole 8 hours or you got nothing. Problem there was nothing effective you could do from just inside the inn itself so evey one would just go to the inn and log off. A few who logged on a litle early might just sit it the inn and chat, but in most cases they would just jump to another character for awhile or just go off to the forums (usually to gripe about the rest state system that was interferring with the type of play they wanted).

On the third push (current) they made the penalties less sever by removing the lowest two rest state setting and renaming the remaining three. They also made the game a bit more forgiving in terms of where you could gain some rest at and the rate at which you could get it (inside an inn is required for getting to the best state and getting there the fastest). Also the qualifying area to to earn the 'inn quality rest state' was opened up in the cities so that character could actually do something and while in the cities. As it was in the last push three of the six main cities were veratible ghost towns with the guards out numbering the player count by at least 2 to 1 most of every day (Orgrimmar, Darnassus and Ironforge). While this has helped some in getting players into these cities, it is not really very effective in that most of the players are still left with not much to do that is worth spending the time on. Most players do not care to work at the messy trading game inspite of the what a vocal minority would have you believe; just look at the popularity of something like the Cosmos trading system the automates a lot of the process for you and the desire that they had put in the Auction Houses already instead at some future push (don't kid your self that it will be a smaller patch as they refer to it). The trade skills do not really take up that much time and in almost all cases deliver inferior items than would obtained from the vendors or from the drops (much less the quest rewards). As such there really is not a great incentive to persue the trade skills when you really look at the total game content; cute to do but lacking on the real usefulness.

While the rest state system is more forgiving this push, it is still flawed in that it is bieing used to 'force' the players to go do something that they have not 'desire' to do. They need to take a harder look at how to achieve this in the game and make it more of an immersion in a role playing world than tricks to force the players into doing this stuff with game mechanics that break the suspension of disbelief (like when was the last time a warrior or rouge stopped to drink water while other classes are having to guzzle the stuff constantly).