Spinks had a post up a while ago about in-game magic com­passes, tools that guide play­ers to areas and tasks that suit their character’s power. These days, com­passes come in all shapes and forms. They can appear as quests that guide you into new regi…

“Not only that but when you hit 80, suddenly a lot of new instances are open to a player in WoW. All the old level 80 instances on normal modes, the new ones on normal mode, and probably the old ones on heroic as well.”

That’s too much at once, and there’s no reason you can’t be forced to run the normal instance twice before running it in heroic, eg, or to have run the Lokim quest line before hitting the Halls of Lightening, etc. I just ran a random heroic (Violet Hold) with a GS of 2900 with only one other member less than 4k. And why wouldn’t I? The current system *rewards* me for running this stuff (not that we had any trouble). And I got two purple upgrades from one instance. Crazy. Reward more intelligently, Blizzard, not for making sure everyone’s well geared and 80 in plenty of time for the expansion.

Really, in the days of AdWords, we can’t program a system that queues people of like gear into similar instances in a good, clean, appropriate progression? I’m annoyed enough that I haven’t seen more than one or two random PUGs with someone from my server, which is lame. The way Blizzard has lazily trashed the social aspects of servers along with instance progression with random LFG really is inexcusable.

The LFG system also has a very positive attitude on the skill vs gear issue. It doesn’t seem to care much about gear at all, as I found out on heroic HoR a few times.

Until YOU start kicking them for doing less damage than the HEALER, there is no reason for them to go anywhere else.

BTW on one run I made 42% of the damage. In blue gear. When I suggested to kick the 600!!!! DPS rogue they told it’s not his fault, he has just much worse gear than me. They didn’t even bother to inspect before they told that nonsense.

However, we tend to get soft, and we get set on rails, on a guided bus tour for seniors. They are directly countering free exploration, player communication and also player creativity. Players indeed have an expectation to get guided around instead of going out to search for new quests themselves once they got used too much to the breadcrumbs. Just like this bird that has been fed by my grandma so much that he rather croaks before her window for food than looking for food himself. He does not move one inch till he got fed, just amazing. Still, some breadcrumb quests are needed. Moria could use some more for instance.

This is basically the crux – Kaplan held a speech two Blizzcons ago about quest guided design. There is always the danger to babysit the player too much.