DK Starting Zone
DK Starting Zone
The system definitely adds to the (for lack of a better word) authenticity of the story-lines. It’s always a little silly complete a quest involving the killing of an important figure only to have an unrelated quest send you back in his/her/its general direction and see him/her/it standing there waiting to be killed again.
However, the way they are avoiding said silliness is locking players out of content that they may want or need to gain access to at a later time. I see three possible solutions:
(1) Quest chains need to be designed with this in mind, and make world changing events impossible to do unless all the content in a previous phase is cleared. (This would be bad since it would mean some unrelated quests would, in effect, be required since electing to skip them prevents you from accessing the next phase.)
(2) There can be a means of moving between unlocked phases in order to keep old content accessible. (I’m not sure how this can be done elegantly.)
(3) All content from previous phases remain accessible via alternate methods in a way that is consistent with the story-lines related to the area. (This may not be possible depending on the particulars of the story involved. i.e. – The mobs you have to slaughter for a quest in a previous phase are no longer present in a later one for story reasons.)
How does Blizzard intend to reconcile the freedom the game world allows on live, and the immersiveness of the new phasing system?
Filed under: World of Warcraft