World of Warcraft®

So there I was, passing through the Dark Portal once again to experience the supposedly 'epic' experience of the Outlands. I remember the first few times I went there, and doing group quests such as "Cruel's Intentions" actually got me quite a few friends with whom I still play on a regular basis. And so it was very dissapointing to find that Blizzard has transformed every group quest to a regular quest. What's the bloody point of that?!

Those quests were the only aspect of leveling which took a wee bit of effort. It was fun to battle mobs who were stronger than you, it greatly added to the whole experience of being in an epic, dangerous world (and isn't creating that experience what this game is all about?). Leveling was already extremely easy before Blizzard changed the group quests, but to make every single quest easy to complete without having to pay any attention or whatsoever, is just extremely dissapointing.

People who didn't want to do group quests for whatever reason (too hard, no people etc.) already had the option of just skipping the quest, there were lots of other, soloable, quests to complete. The group quests never kept anyone from leveling, and they were fun for those with the patience to cooperate with fellow adventurers. These quests were the only (apart from the oblivious Dungeon Finder Tool) things that added a social aspect to the whole process of leveling. Collaboration is fun, isn't this an MMORPG after all? Working together and achieving something together is the only thing which gives me (and surely many others) a feeling of satisfaction. The Dungeon Finder doesn't give me that because there barely is any social interaction involved, sadly.

Many people have already been complaining about this game being too easy and I'm aware that you want to keep the game fun for the casual players. As I stated before however, those who found the group quests too hard didn't have to do them. Blizzard has lost many subscribers and I believe that that's largely due to the game being made too easy. Nobody wants you to rush to Pandaria so we get all fuzzy about new content, that's not why you're losing subscribers. The only thing we're asking for is a game which takes a significant amount of effort. The removal of group quests pretty much is what made my cup runneth over. Force us to actually pay attention to what happens on the screen Blizzard, or else you will definitely lose even more subscribers.

My guess is they removed them because it was very hard to get groups for them as most people rush through the zone as quickly as possible these days. In the past they did the same with Vanilla quests, where they changed elite mobs to regular ones.

Agree with the post above , the problem was to find peoples for these quests , and i'm glad they removed them.

Depends on what server you're on. On my server and my old one I never had problems finding groups. And besides, as mentioned in the post, you can just skip them if you can't find people, it wouldn't be a problem. They should've let them stayed for the people who were on lively servers rather than remove them for everyone.

When you are on do a /who nagrand and see how many players there are. I'm on a busy server and there isn't usually more than 2 or 3. They won't all be on the same stage of the quest anyway.

/who nagrand.. 16 people.

Really, on the busy servers it's no problem at all to find people for groups. On the dead servers there is, but then again: Just skip them, Blizzard shouldn't remove them for everyone because not everyone has trouble completing them and you could skip them without any problems.

Did you know they have done it to Northrend quests as well?

Yeah, it's ridiculous..

Simple fact: the more content is added the longer it takes to get an alt from level 1 to cap.

Simple fact: this may not be a problem to committed players (or players who should be committed) but is very discouraging to new players and to players who roll new alts that they want to level quickly.

There is an optimum amount of time and effort for levelling a new alt that will satisfy all except those who want to do the same thing over and over again. That optimum cannot be reached by forcing people to wade through all of the content as it was originally introduced in Vanilla and the expansions. Nostalgia is nice but it isn't practical, the game needs to move on. And as a business it needs to avoid losing subscribers unnecessarily or discouraging new players from renewing their subscriptions.

It's not as if this was unannounced. It was plainly stated in at least one and possibly several official articles on this site before 4.3 was released.

they've turned the leveling experience into a bad singleplayer game, i don't see how blizzard could have intended this

it's the same with the world, they've structured the game around siting in main cities while queueing for things.... the world is empty...

the game is becoming a running total of bad design choices which benefitted in the short term but hurt the game in the long term.

On the other hand, when I was first levelling with my hunter the biggest pain of all was people constantly bugging me for duels or other things when all I wanted to do was get on with learning how to play my toon and enjoy the quests. A quiet world has its advantages.

12/12/2011 16:30Posted by Airt

the game needs to move on

I'm not saying it shouldn't move on. I'm just saying that me and many others would still like to have to actually put effort in the game rather than mindless button mashing for 84 levels. And group quests were the only things left that were even remotely challenging.

It's almost impossible to find someone to do the quest with short of a level 85 guildy, so this is a good thing.

12/12/2011 20:42Posted by Nercay

It's almost impossible to find someone to do the quest with short of a level 85 guildy, so this is a good thing

Really, on the busy servers it's no problem at all to find people for groups. On the dead servers there is, but then again: Just skip them, Blizzard shouldn't remove them for everyone because not everyone has trouble completing them and you could skip them without any problems.

There are still some group quests. The end of the wolfcult quests in Grizzly hills for example. Most people I know just got boosted through group quests, a lot of servers are impossible to find groups on.

Not saying I won't miss them though.

12/12/2011 20:56Posted by Boreas

minority of no life players

I don't see how you have to be a "no life player" in order to find this game way too easy. In fact, I think the amount of people who actually find this game, and then the leveling process in particular as that is what this post emphasizes, too hard, is really small.

12/12/2011 21:02Posted by Soxxy

There are still some group quests. The end of the wolfcult quests in Grizzly hills for example.

Fair enough, yes. But considering the current state of things I don't think that will be the case for much longer.

i myself agree the the original poster, for me its not about making the game harder if you fight a elite in the outside world as far as tactics go it should only ever be tank and spank,

but these elite group quests were put in the game to make you group together with other people and make friends, the only friends i have in this game outside the guild are the random people i met doing these said group quests all the way back when. nowadays you very rarely have chance to meet and talk to new people.

dungons/raids and battlegrounds are all x-server so even if your group does talk to one another which is unlikely your not going to keep in contact with them.

i have played this game since the begining and the reason i loved it was due to the soical side of things, i know some people that love the game because they like collecting new and better gear all the time and to make there charcactor the best they possibly can, others like logging in and just pew pew'ing everything with out a care in the world, i'm not going to say who is right or wrong because none us so are we are all different.

but to catering for someone like myself that enjoys meeting are grouping with new people, it would be nice if blizzard had an extra style of server.
one with
no x realm and with the the orginal quest style, i believe it would be a far better way to get the game more social again instead of bringing in new gimmicks like pet battles...

Why should we miss out on nice rewards? Sure we can skip them, but then we skip some good loot. I had to completely skip the Ring of Blood chain in Nagrand on one of my characters, just because there was no-one around to help, and that is a really good weapon for lvl 65.