Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map : World of Warcraft General Discussions

Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map
We've heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don't know anyone that didn't still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent "east" to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you'll have it marked on your map the entire time.

Larisa waxes nostalgic over at the Pink Pigtail Inn, and says that this is just farther down a sliding slope that leads to a ravine where we all just have two spells and need to kill three boars to level to 100. Kinless Chronicles straight out says "Patch 3.2 will play for you" with some funny tongue-in-cheek analysis. But since I do it so much anyway, I'll play the Devil's advocate here: let's face it, we all used the addons and coordinates while leveling up alts, if not even while leveling mains. It's easy to be nostalgic, but I never did like hunting around for that little pixel of brown you had to click on to finish a quest, and if you really do want to stumble around in the dark the old way, just don't look at your map and/or close the minimap down. I've recently played two other console games, Fable 2 and Dead Space, that also offer glowing line navigation straight to your quest targets, and I did feel a sense of exploration in both -- if I wanted to wander off the path, I was welcome to (and usually rewarded for it), while if I just wanted to get to where I was going, I could do that, too.

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Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Blizzard, Quests

Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Author: SUPPORT@WEBLOGSINC.COM (Mike Schramm)
Category: coordinatesdumbing-downeasyglowingiconskinless-chroniclesmapmapspatch-3.2patch-3.2-changespatch-3.2-wowpink-pigtail-innquest-itemsquestssearchingtoo-easyworld-of-warcraft-patch-3.2wow-3.2-changeswow-new-patchwow-patchwow-patch-3.2wow-patch-newswowhead
Publish Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EST
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