It’s a Main’s Main’s Main’s World

But it would be nothing, nothing without a twink or an alt.

Bhagpuss said goodbye to Legion before he started it and in his post he has links to other people who are stepping away from the game or criticizing various mechanics. This is nothing new for World of Warcraft as if you look hard enough {sarcasm] many posts on this blog have also been critical with decisions Blizzard has made over the years on their flagship title. This is all healthy debate and interesting to see the different thresholds various bloggers have for the new things in the game and the tweaks and twists on old mechanics.

In a most simple of viewpoints: when discussing politics I have made the argument that where you are in your life at the time can have a huge impact on how you lean politically. For example, many young people who are optimistic  lean left (life should be fair) as they get older and go to school and start building a resume to enter the workforce they may start to move to the centre (life should be fair, but I have worked hard, and should get benefit) if they own their own business often they lean right (I pay a lot of taxes and create jobs and I should get a return). This is the Canadian spectrum. Of course the person who lost their job to an immigrant may go hard right, and there are various other personal situations to change that including family history – I don’t want to get hung up on the political argument but instead using it to set the table for the far more important one (ahem) about gaming.

When I was young and single and could play 40+ hours per week and idealistic I wanted the ultimate virtual world. As my time became more scarce and my friends left me all behind in those virtual worlds I wanted more convenience. And as it became scarcer still I wanted to consume content at a pace and cost that gave value. Yes, I went from raider and GM of a guild to very casual. As my personal situation has changed so has what I want from and look to gaming for.

Play nice, Legion

Legion is not going to be ALT friendly – at least, definitely not yet. The reason why I want to play my ALTS (and make more of them) is to experience the Class story behind each. The Class story- especially once you hit 110 – is a long, patient quest line. Getting to 110 over the exact same content time and time again isn’t going to be a fun slog either. This is the mountain that has to be climbed for that experience, so here I am again, wanting to change the way a game is to better fit my needs. I didn’t say it was fair or right – just my thoughts and feelings.

What I would like to see in WoW is phasing to the ultimate personal experience. The main story is tied to your account not a specific character.

My Rogue can’t get the second Pillar of Creation because my Warrior already did. How can it be retrieved in the same world twice? Did someone take it back? This breaks consistency for me in such a big way, much like how every other druid in the game is also the “chosen one”. The technology exists, let’s use it to make the world feel more like a world and less like a slot machine that hits every time. I think it would be fascinating to build the world around your stable of characters instead of just one – and the best part about it is that it doesn’t detract the experience from people who prefer to play a single character. Leveling for the secondary, third and fourth characters would be new for their class quests and artifacts (they can still be the chosen rogue, or chosen mage) and as long as the main has unlocked the world portion of things (World Quests, aptly named, this expansion) they can participate in those. Better yet, those things could be unlocked with different characters in the account. This way the loot reward (a big motivator for many) from the big story line quests are less important – there are other ways to level up for both xp and gear. This is far less important now with the zone and loot scaling. The person who focuses on a single character would be further ahead in loot and XP but the ALT player would be equal in terms of story progression. Everyone can have their own pace.

You can build a world story with your different avatars instead of each being forced to live the same one. I see little downside except the effort required in the setup. Does anyone really enjoy running planned obsolescence quests more than once? Didn’t someone already kill ten rats for that NPC?

5 comments / Add your comment below

  1. The class quests are often gated behind time-based quests, so you could theoretically run 3-4 of them at the same time. At least, that’s my thinking space currently. I did something similar in WoD, with 4 alts who unlocked the Garrison, then just played farmville til 100 (for the most part), and unlocked the various buildings when required. Won’t be as easy here. And certainly not for a while, until artifact knowledge is of sufficient rank.

    I think we’ve talked about FF14 before. That game really gets the concept of character vs player, in line with what you’re talking about. Then again, it’s less than a quarter the age of WoW and has only 1 expansion. It had time (and a 2nd chance) to think it through.

    One day though 🙂

    1. It’s just a ridiculous amount of ‘maintenance’ to work on one character right now – which might be better shelved a bit until certain things such as artifact research has caught up. (over 6k artifact power for any improvements is steep!). I did dip my toes in some alt options but there is a lot of gravity with the main right now.

  2. Personally I prefer Kill Ten Rats type quests to storyline quests for the very simple reason that i can happily kill ten rats on every character i ever make or, indeed, kill ten rats a hundred times on the same character. Quests like that are analogous to tunes that you can happily hear a hundred times without tiring of them. Storyline quests are just that – stories. How many times can you read the same short story compared to the number of times you can stand to listen to the same song?

    Storyline-driven MMOs work far, far better for people who prefer to play a single character than they do for players who like to have a stable – or an army. Unless, of course, the developers are prepared to provide a full story for every class and/or race. GW2 and SW:tOR both tried that. GW2 quickly gave up and moved to an Account-based model. BioWare, for obvious reasons, are still hammering away at it, but it’s too expensive an option to maintain beyond launch for most MMOs.

    I prefer a mixed economy of a storyline for the first run-through with repeatable KTR quests and good old fashioned mob grinding thereafter. I like getting my xp directly from killing mobs better than I ever liked getting it from quests anyway. It’s simpler, easier and more flexible and, like a good tune, it’s hard to tire of.

    1. I second this.

      I prefer the world to matter more than the quests or story. I am fine with story, but MMORPGs rely too heavily on the epic fantasy beats of their single player cousins and that NEVER works for me. I want to be average joe warlock, not the one true godslayer of the immortal order of one-and-onlys.

      I don’t mind slaying gods, but it really needs to be known that its a sincere group effort and not something I did alone.

    2. I agree on this as well. Put in as many repeatable quests that aren’t story based because you can at least rationalize it somewhat. I see you have a bear problem. I can’t stay all day, but i can help you with some of them and perhaps someone else will also help. As opposed to the retrieve this singular, most important artifact piece. And then go put it back so someone else can too.

      That is what I am arguing here – have the main story quests account wide but plenty to do outside of that so alts and other options can work as part of the story instead of a repeat of the same.

      I do miss xp camps =)

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