06-29-2004, 08:11 AM
Here is the picture you are painting: We have a casually played character who always meets up with his group, a bunch of characters who all play considerably more than he does. This character almost never solos, skips most of the quests in every zone he visits, is always grouped with these others who are generally a few levels higher than him, relies on the rest state to keep his experience level close enough to them, and relies on them to give him gear so he can keep up. And this is fun for him?
This is the antithesis of how I approach games. At least I think it is; I don't know what antithesis means :D At any rate, I could not stand to play a game like that. Whether I would be playing 2 hours a week or 120, I need to feel like my character is carving his own niche in the world, and being an essential part of any party he may be involved in. To always be feeding off the table scraps of characters who play two or three times as much as me, and have the game "reward" me for this by pushing me up closer to their level, would not be enjoyable at all.
And as for the quest skipping... If you put aside any pretense that this is supposed to be a roleplaying game, or have some concept of a plotline, it really doesn't matter what quests you do. But to me, one of the nice things about the early game is the fluid nature in which the quests and zones are interconnected. Instead of "Hey, I just leveled up! I wonder if I can handle Westfall now!" you can follow the story line from Northshire to Goldshire until doing a sequence of quests results in you getting sent to Westfall to speak to the commander there. Or maybe you get a quest in Goldshire which sends you on a delivery to Stormwind, and then a delivery to Loch Modan, thus leading you into dwarven lands. In this manner, your character has a purpose for everything he chooses to do, and it helps to disguise the fact that almost every quest in the game fits neatly into one of four categories. If the rest state bonus/penalty is significant enough to make a real difference, then it becomes impossible to create this type of flow for all gamers. Either the power gamers consume side quests before they are far enough into the main line to move on, or the casual gamers have to skip quests and may not even realize what the "main line" is. It seems to me that Blizzard is trying to split the difference, and I do believe that makes it less enjoyable for just about everyone.
As far as inns go, that is a problem for casual gamers to be sure. If you can only play for about an hour at a time, it is essential that you can log out wherever you want, whenever you want, with no strings attached. If you are spending 25% of your total gaming time traveling from inns to the battlefields, and having to warp back to inn in the middle of a quest because you are out of time, you are losing far more than you are gaining from the rested bonus. But, it's not a fundamental problem with the rest system. Blizzard could easily remove the inn concept and keep the rest state. (This should not be confused with the hearth stone, which is surely a casual gamer's best friend, as long as he isn't being *forced* to use it to get the benefits of rest.)
This is the antithesis of how I approach games. At least I think it is; I don't know what antithesis means :D At any rate, I could not stand to play a game like that. Whether I would be playing 2 hours a week or 120, I need to feel like my character is carving his own niche in the world, and being an essential part of any party he may be involved in. To always be feeding off the table scraps of characters who play two or three times as much as me, and have the game "reward" me for this by pushing me up closer to their level, would not be enjoyable at all.
And as for the quest skipping... If you put aside any pretense that this is supposed to be a roleplaying game, or have some concept of a plotline, it really doesn't matter what quests you do. But to me, one of the nice things about the early game is the fluid nature in which the quests and zones are interconnected. Instead of "Hey, I just leveled up! I wonder if I can handle Westfall now!" you can follow the story line from Northshire to Goldshire until doing a sequence of quests results in you getting sent to Westfall to speak to the commander there. Or maybe you get a quest in Goldshire which sends you on a delivery to Stormwind, and then a delivery to Loch Modan, thus leading you into dwarven lands. In this manner, your character has a purpose for everything he chooses to do, and it helps to disguise the fact that almost every quest in the game fits neatly into one of four categories. If the rest state bonus/penalty is significant enough to make a real difference, then it becomes impossible to create this type of flow for all gamers. Either the power gamers consume side quests before they are far enough into the main line to move on, or the casual gamers have to skip quests and may not even realize what the "main line" is. It seems to me that Blizzard is trying to split the difference, and I do believe that makes it less enjoyable for just about everyone.
As far as inns go, that is a problem for casual gamers to be sure. If you can only play for about an hour at a time, it is essential that you can log out wherever you want, whenever you want, with no strings attached. If you are spending 25% of your total gaming time traveling from inns to the battlefields, and having to warp back to inn in the middle of a quest because you are out of time, you are losing far more than you are gaining from the rested bonus. But, it's not a fundamental problem with the rest system. Blizzard could easily remove the inn concept and keep the rest state. (This should not be confused with the hearth stone, which is surely a casual gamer's best friend, as long as he isn't being *forced* to use it to get the benefits of rest.)