Massively covers WAR Public Quests

Since I’m not allowed to say a lot about the Warhammer Beta, I can at least point you to articles about WAR and obliquely reference something I may be enjoying. Michael Zenke over at Massively does a good job of explaining Public Quests and describing why they’re a good addition to the usual Kill Ten Rats/Fed Ex method of questing.

Quick summary of benefits of public questing from Michael’s write-up:

• Experience for killing mobs in public quests
• A chance to win loot at the end of the public quest (and usually pretty decent loot, at least at low levels).
• Gaining influence, which leads to more loot from Influence NPC’s.

There are a couple things he didn’t mention. First, there’s usually a ton of killing going on, so there’s lots of corpses to loot/scavenge/butcher etc. Second, if you win a roll at the end of a PQ, and you already have gear better than what’s dropped, you get…other options. Michael didn’t mention that, so I’m not going to elaborate further, but it’s not only gear that drops.

And lastly, what I find interesting about PQ’s is the mixing of players. There’s incentive for the person standing next to you to invite you to a group. Buffs, heals, crowd control, it’s all going to help you maximize your contribution to a public quest. Instead of the person standing next to you competing against you, it’s probably to your benefit to team up. Plus, there’s also hidden benefit to this interaction beyond the Public Quest.

Have you ever gone to a dungeon with a pickup group in another MMO, and you’re stunned to find someone who doesn’t know a lot about playing their class in a group? WoW was notorious for this, since it was so easy to push three buttons and level. Making PQ grouping so easy and beneficial in WAR, from such early levels, should help people learn how to play their class in a group.

The same benefit applies to Mythic getting people involved in PvP at early levels. You can PvP pretty much right out of the gate in WAR. This means new players will be able to learn about their class in PvE, PvP, and PQ’s from the start of their career.

That’s not a guarantee you won’t meet someone who soloed their entire career, because that’s still possible, but with Mythic offering so much incentive to group and providing grouping opportunities at every turn, I’m hoping people will become more social and interdependent. That was the best part about DAoC RvR, and I’m excited that Mythic is trying to extend it to the entire game.