There's one other thing that Runescape does with its quest rewards that I don't see other MMOs doing. They give you rewards that are good forever. In WoW you'll get a cool helmet that you'll wear and enjoy, but you'll swap it out in 5 levels for another helmet from another quest which you'll wear for 5 levels and the cycle repeats. But I'm a pretty high level in OSRS and I still get around with fairy rings, I still wear my cooking gauntlets, I still manage my kingdom, and I still visit Tears of Guthix once a week.

Putting Romeo and Juliet on screen while talking about the good writing in osrs quests... A+

many people hate the leveling phase but it is the favorite phase for me. usually when I get to max level the game becomes less intriguing to me.

I started playing OSRS as a F2P a couple weeks ago, and have honestly really enjoyed most of the quests! I love that they AREN'T just following a glowing light on a minimap, I feel like I genuinely have to think and experiment to solve some of them. Now there have been a few nasty fetch quests like you mentioned, but by and large they've been awesome.

Ah yes, early FFXIV ARR. Where everything just feels like a side quest, until a narrative actually forms dozens of hours later.

Guid Wars 2 approaches quests unlike any of the MMOs you mentioned. Its F2P till lvl 80 so you can try it easily. But I get it, theres no chance to play every MMO, but Id say GW2 is big enough to deserve to be mentioned

Types of MMOs quests: -Go kill X, Y amount of times -Go loot X, Y amount of times -Go to place X -Go interact (or use item Z) with X, Y amount of times -Bring Y amount of X Now you can combine these in any order. That's 90% of MMOs quests. I actually don't mind this, if the gameplay of exploring, killing and looting is fun; sadly is usually not the case. If you send me kill something make sure is something worth killing, if you me to go talk with someone make sure they have something interesting to tell, if you want me to interact with something make so it is a challenge or at least pretty to look at and not just a chore; if you want to make me go somewhere make sure it is a place worth exploring. That's it, the quests don't need to be convoluted, massively scripted or huge narritive driven advetures. Just don't made me go kill 20 of the same guy of which none of them is engaging in any way.

I've played SWTOR since release, and back then the game was alot harder. Companions wouldn't keep your health bar topped off no matter what and HEROICS were impossible alone. You also had to do all side quests in an area to get enough xp to stay relevant on the planet. Now you can skip all of them. I used to enjoy running all sidequests with friends, you would all participate in the conversations and this really felt like doing quests together. I think they changed this to appeal to a larger player base, and back then it was a little bit harder to really get into your main story quests because you were doing 6 quests at the same time, all with fleshed out stories. But questing used to be a lot of fun with a group of friends back when SWTOR just released.

ESO is my favorite MMO largely because of its quests. Fully voiced and often very interesting. One that i always remember is in the Summerset zone where a guy turned all his classmates into characters from various books. You have to read the books around the characters to figure out which book they are based on and disrupt the storyline so they snap back to reality. Its a very fun and creative quest

I think you’d like Guild Wars 2. The “massive multiplayer online” aspect is real, and organic.

Since you’ve gone to more MMO focused content (instead of only Runescale), you’ve become one of my favorite content creators to listen to. Keep up the amazing work

WoW actually ends up having some (maybe kinda earthshattering) main storylines, but very few, and you only encounter them very late level. Some of them come in the form of raid attunement - a string of very difficult quests that will take you through multiple dungeons to unlock the ability to enter a raid. The one for Onyxia's Lair, for example, will take you through all kinds of quests relating to the black dragonflight, and finally rescuing a hero from one of the end game dungeons, only for him to reveal that the Mother of the black dragonflight is Lady Kastrana Prestor - the main advisor of the king of Stormwind! You find out she has been manipulating the alliance behind the scenes for many years, and she was actually THE REASON THEY DIDNT PAY THE STONEMASONS, just to sow more conflict. You go face her and accuse her, and she turns into an enormous black dragon and summons dragonkin guards in the middle of Stormwind, that will actually anyone stupid enough to interfere. She teleports out and says something like "Come face me at my lair", and if that ain't one of the coolest reasons to go into a raid, idk what is.

RS3, while having its fair share of problems, has some of the best quests to ever grace an MMO. Sadly, getting through the many old pre-quests for the new ones is a chore, but god damn they're great when you get there!

Man I could write a whole essay on the mixed bag that is FFXIV questing. For context, I’m not an OG player but I have finished the entire main story up to and including the newest expansion, endwalker. To start with, the game suffers the same problem as OSRS - a boatload of legacy quests that are important for world building, but just, mostly suck to play. Without the ARR quests (what you were playing), a LOT of the rest of the game wouldn’t make sense, but at the same time those quests last something like 50-100 hours and exclusively follow the format of: kill 3 things, talk then walk, or click 3 things. Fast forward to shadowbringers and endwalker and there’s WAY more voice acting, a much more tightly paced story, far more opportunities for your character to voice opinions, and some truly great quests mixed in with the normal stuff - FFXIV veterans will know what I’m talking about if I mention the “my powers got taken away” quest in endwalker. Adding onto that, there are lots side stories like several that unlock raids, that are absolutely up to par with the main story. The result though is that it’s so difficult to convince friends to play the game. The proposition of “bro if you spend 100 hours doing some not great stuff, you get to play the best MMO story that exists” is just a really hard sell. Wish i could say more about that “best story” claim, but i wont be the one to spoil anyone who does decide to pick up the game.

President of MMOrpgs while Josh Strife Hayes is still breathing is beyond insulting but i'll let it slide this time.

Man, FFXIV really need to go back and re-do the first 50 - 60 levels. The problems this video mentioned about FFXIV's quests are definitely true, but in later content they are lessen and counter acted by really cool story beats going on. The early quests don't have those story beats so you end up with all the "bad" with non of the sweetness to help make it okay. I loved the story I played through in FFXIV and still consider it one of my favourite times in gaming that I've had, more so than the similar experience I had with wow but it's an incredibly tough sell to anyone when the opening 50 hours is so basic and bland :(

Mama Mia! I could kill 15 boar and collect 10 red silken bandanas all day. I love mindless mmo quests I can listen to a podcast or watch a video while completing.

I will say, on WoW Classic there is an addon called voiceover that actually uses AI to have the quest giver speak to you. It also continues after accepting so you don’t have to just sit there.

You should try Guild Wars 2 one of these days, it's a pretty good game and I would love to hear your takeaways from it.

I feel like you didn't do the defias brotherhood justice atleast from what i heard about it is that - the stonemasons built stormwind and when they refused to be paid they essentially said they would deconstruct stormwind. "stone by stone" or something like that... which i think is pretty cool.

great vid but kind of strange to complain about WoW not providing enough motivation to read the quest text after intentionally installing an addon which is explicitly for people who don't want to read the quest text

GW2 quests (hearts)+ dynamic event system + main story to me are just far far better than any

For some story-heavy quests, FFXIV actually shows that you will receive a reward but it doesn't show you exactly what just yet, it just shows a little gift box. This is a great little teaser and those quest rewards are generally the most meaningful too because they are usually a reminder from the piece of story you just played through

SWTOR used to have challenge. KOTFE killed it by making companions overpowered and nerfing all overworld mobs. SWTOR used to have quest reward choices like the multiple gear things (For example on hutta you'd see two bounty hunter pieces, one tank, one dps, and one agent piece), and that got killed by KOTFE with a standardization of all rewards and stats, you will only see the tank piece if you're a class who has a tank spec. SWTOR actually used to have people partying all the time, you'd group up in a duo and blaze through an entire quest area and you'd both just do your own class quest solo. They killed that by that aforementioned nerf and now it's literally trolling to play in a party ever. Have I mentioned KOTFE ruined everything? Because this is the tip of the iceberg.

For FFXIV Voice Acting, the early quests had only sporadic voice-acting throughout the MSQ (Main Story Questline), basically just the ones involving major named characters like the Scions or the faction leaders, but over time it became more and more common for the majority of the MSQ to be voice-acted, while side quests and the like are not.

I think it's important to note that FFXIV's side quests have another thing to consider: the job system. In other games, like SWTOR, you make a new character to try out a new job or class. In FFXIV, your character can swap to another job but *still* needs to level it - and that's a great time to do the side quests, as the MSQ helps you level your main.

The quest chain for the Deadmines is actually a bit different. They were not paid by Lady Prestor, the child king advisor, which later when you do the quest to attune for the raid, happens to be Onyxia, Deathwings daughter, and this was her plan to divide and conquer.

in early swtor i remember grouping up for quests often - especially the the HEROIC 2+ or 4+ quests that were basically impossible to solo - they were like open world dungeons kind of

I think what separates the Runescape quest experience from other MMOs is that the runescapes quests aren't really MMO quests at all. They're way more similar to 90s/00s point and click adventure games, complete with a lot of the madman logic which is required for completing those type of games. And it makes sense, because in a lot of ways Runescape is also a 00s point and click adventure game. Whereas most MMOs base their quest design around fetch, escort and 'kill X number of Y monster's. Runescape's quest design is often based more on puzzle solving, whether it be using certain items on objects or other items, or just straight up puzzles, some of which can be solved with a guide, and some of which are designed so you will still have to do some thinking for yourself even if you're using a guide. It can be a frustrating style of quest design because puzzles can often take more time, effort, and trial and error than 'kill x', but it really does set runescape's quest design apart from just about any other MMO.

I've been wondering when a content creator was eventually gonna cover this topic, more MMOs need to look at RuneScape and Guild Wars 2 for quest design. Those who care about the lore and stories in MMOs are sick of the 'Kill X and collect Y' quests.

What’s the song around 1.5min in with the funky keyboard

Swtor will always be one of my favourite MMOs. It does a lot bad for an MMO, but damn are the stories top tier. It's easily one of those MMOs enjoyed by single player rpg players as well, cause it just feels like Kotor. But definitely think it would've been better as a full single player rpg, or a full mmo. The mashup it is has issues

RuneScape 3 has some amazing quests. Would love to see you try some out :)

The remark about classic wow questing feelings “cozy” as ocarina of time music hits was spot on. The way it leads you through the world is great i have tons of nostalgia for those old zones. Also just got to rewards section, havent heard the wow section again but like 15 years ago when i was a noob at rpgs and just enjoying wandering through the world playing sub optimally, some of the quest reward gear was extremely satisfying… what warrior doesnt remember whirlwind axe.

Ffxiv questing in a nutshell is read endless slog for 3-4 hours cause ThE sToRy Is So GoOd and then fight 3 mobs that spawn in a purple ring that can't even hurt you.

I appreciate your change in content and hope you find lots of success with it.

please dont make that noise idyl

Great video! Would love to see more content like this and your last 2 videos.

I'm loving the content branch-out! Next time you do a RuneLite plugin video, can you PLEASE make a plugin that replaces the TOB music with Kamakeen's "Theater of Blood - Oldschool Runescape Metal Cover"?

I mentioned DDO in the last MMO video but I think it would have been interesting in this conversation. All quests in instances? Scaling difficulties for every quest? Lots of complex objectives since it isn't overworld, and pretty much every one is meant to be done in a small group

WoW Classic is funny that it became the standard, but it was all an accident. IIRC, when listening to the devs talk in the lead up to CLassic coming back. The questing was created just as a means to hide grinding. They assumed that the players would just be grinding mobs for levels.

Even though OSRS doesnt have quest grouping... I still did DS2 with a friend! sure we werent sharing cutscenes or even instances.. Yet it was pretty fun to go through the quest together, facing everything side by side and solving our puzzles together

I need someone to do a deep dive on RS3 quests. Like someone to make a chronological quest series for RS3. I cannot be asked or bothered to play RS3 but I'm super intrested in the RS3 quests.

Oh, I know what quest points are. They are how much Juna is entertained by your stories, and therefore how long you get to collect Guthix' tears.

SWTOR used to be much, much harder. Where you needed friends to finish content. About five, or six years ago they revamped the companions, and made the leveling very single player.

13:15 there is an Add-on that uses "AI" to "voice-over" all of the Quest text (like a better "text-to-speech") to help with that problem

I'm curious how far you got into FFXIV? The original game was pretty standard, but there is quite the shift in the main story line quest design once you reach Heasvensward and by Shadowbringers it's really unrecognizable. I guess there are still fetch / kill quests, but they feel far better integrated into the story in my opinion.

Doing Rag the Boneman 2 in osrs while watching this. Probably the worst quest in the game so far for me, just "kill X of monster Y, repeat for 27 monster" and then sit at a campfire cleaning the bones, just to turn it all in after 4 hours for 5k prayer XP and a couple cosmetic items.

You're actually a talented speaker and good content creator. Sadly, for a game & genre that's not wildy popular in the grand scheme of content overall. But definitely enjoy the way you speak

Those quests were some of the most fun memories people have of these games. So I think you're wrong in a way. Yes, they're mundane. I don't think they're a waste though. I think they're a necessary part of a good MMORPG foundation. You can skip it. It will make things less mundane. I don't think it will make the game better though.

I'd love to hear what you have to say about RS3 and WoW Retail quests

Funnily enough, the best quests in wow classic are the "Kill x mobs" quests. I just wish Blizzard would have _some_ passion left for wow (they clearly don't). They could have done so much with classic HC, but they did the bare minimum just to satisfy the HC community and milk their remaining player base out of money.

so why is a lav mic duc taped to an elgato mic?

How fun a quest is directly correlates to how difficult it is. More difficult = more fun. I've noticed this playing both retail and Classic WoW recently. *Retail Quest - "Go click 12 items"* ... Mindnumbingly boring. There is no chance of failure whatsoever. You can just run in and 1v10 the entire pack of mobs, click the items, and run back to turn it in. It's busy work and sucks. *Classic Quest - "Go click 12 items"* ... Here the goal is the exact same. However, you will slowly, carefully infiltrate the enemy camp to get the items and then get the hell out. You have to come prepared, with food/water. You have carefully consider where to stand, where to pull an enemy to, and how not to aggro that extra gnoll and die. It's an adventure, like a spec ops mission. You are always considering your tactics Death is much more likely, so that profession you have been working on will actually come in handy -- that engineering bomb that does only like 22 damage might actually be the difference between life and death when you are out of mana. The whole experience is way harder and that actually makes it much better. Also, the difficulty of questing improves the rest of the game too -- because questing is harder, rewards are harder to come by, it feels like more of an epic win to get an item because you aren't constantly getting them, stuff actually has more value overall.

Always look forward to your videos. You've earned a sub. :) Thanks, J2mmy.

To comment on the Bowfa / keris partisan rewards being locked behind quests - FFXIV has this also, towards the end game. There are lots of quests for jobs and dungeons and gear and drops that are locked behind main story quests that aren't a direct reward for any one quest.

OSRS has some great quest design especially a lot of most recent releases but a lot of the classic and early rs2 era a very primitive and chock full of 90's adventure game design where you need to interact with everybody and everything to progress, bring random unspecified items and have only the vaguest of hints to progress

I was trying to do quests with the only thing I use quest huide for was what items to bring. Then I ran into the one with the teleportation delivery service whatever thing in ardougne and when I got fed up trying to figure out what to do and looked at a guide and it told me to talk to someone for whom I wouldn't have ever known to talk to that was when I decided to give up and just use quest helper for the rest of my journey through quests at the time. I still took my time to read stuff and appreciate dialogue as much as I could, though. Mamma mia

the thing i love about eso is that even though the quest rewards are garbage and just get deconstructed or used for research and the fights are piss easy as a solo player and i can solo all of it while standing still and only pressing left click, players (myself included) still love questing. the stories are just that great, almost every quest has you doing something unique and interesting and there's almost no "kill x number of monsters" quests (if a quest asks you to do that, it's usually just a part of the quest, which will then ask you to do something interesting after, like gathering clothes off enemies for a disguise before inflitrating the camp). so many quests also not only tell great stories that get referenced in other quests later, but have you make actually difficult decisions quite often, such as whether to let someone live or die, or if they should be banished or executed, stuff like that. a lot of them are actually difficult decisions that there's usually no right or wrong answer to, and they really make you consider your morals or the morals of your character

What's tough about FFXIV's story questlines, is that while the meandering about aspect never completely goes away, you can tell they got much better at quest design and storyline as the game goes on. The story quests from the base game are way more mundane than those in the later expansions.

FFXIV for sure needs more work on the early game. While it doesn't forgive the rough start, it is a remnant of an old rushed reboot of a failed MMO. The main/class story doesn't need a rework (they did cut down a lot several years ago), but moreso the flow. Put a few quests objectives in one quest, put multiple cutscenes together in one. Then again the voice acting could need a replacement.. it's a drastic difference from even the first expansion- when they realized they could actually afford to hire proper VAs. It shouldn't take 20+ hours for a game to become good. While I don't think FFXIV's start is incredibly bad or boring, it does build up to something amazing. While that buildup may be boring to some, I think world building only improves the all important link it has to the story!

song of the elves puzzle room without a guide you say? (great vid btw)

Guild Wars 2 is my favorite questing. Besides story quests which are only a hand full of instances every 10 levels, you walk close enough to the npc, dont have to talk to them, and have multiple options on completing the quest. You wann kill? Go kill things to fill the bar. Dont wanna kill? Go interact with somethings to fill the bar. Kinda wanna kill? Do a mixture of both, they both fill up the same bar.

I remember Everquest questing where you had to literally type shit to npcs and certain words would trigger the next conversation.

Being the president of MMOs is a harder job than US president but you get more influence internationally in return.

I wish retail WoW let you pick from a set of rewards like classic WoW. But they removed that from retail years ago...

Guild Wars 2 players be like: A quest? What even is that?

I don't call TOR or FFXIV mmorpgs. They're single player story games with a multiplayer feature tacked on. Runescape and Classic WoW are mmorpgs, they're made for multiplayer experiences. Studio-made MMORPGs that were developed after 2012 are just another blend of WoW Retail (Wrath and Cata forward) all tried to follow the success of WoW at its peak sales, where it then started to slowly transform away from being a *multiplayer* experience and became slowly a singleplayer game with multiplayer MMA-narrated dungeons (taking away all the ambience that was inspired by DnD and replacing it with generic overdramatized cartoon themes) Play WoW Classic or Runescape without a guide, you'll see how the experience is drastically different to something like FFXIV or TOR where you're guided until the story ends, then there is no game left. WoW Classic is just an open-ended sandbox with stories and great ambience. We won't get games like these again from large studios because every lead director out there can't even understand the roots of fantasy games or have never even heard of DnD.

in swtor the enemies used to deal way more damage when the game first came out. over the years they dumbed the game down so the enemies werent a challenge at all and the main storyline mission gives you enough xp to progress without having to do any of the side quests and heroic quests. you used to need to do heroic quests with other players because the main story would leave you underlevelled.

10:35 I accepted the side quest, I'll totally get around doing that after the main quest.. Someday..

I do think if anything classic wow does well is to be honoured, its good rememberable quest rewards. As a rogue getting your blue sword from completing the scarlet monastery quest lines feels like great pay off for the effort you put in to get there to see that tab of 4 shine rewards to choose from. In classic wow a lot of quest rewards feel like milestones as you grow to learn which quests offer a bit upgrade, maybe one that will last you the entire leveling process (light of Elune on HC realms is a great example) PS - I was lying, as a rogue I never pick the sword I go with black malice from that quest line im a dagger boi and thats just how i roll :)

Something about wow classic: Rewards are uneven, and sometimes a leather piece at the end of a shorter questline will be the best reward for heavy armor users for 12 levels. Usually theres a better drop off a boss, but it's sick to sometimes get a reward that is way stronger than it has any right to be. You feel pike you got a huge bonus and not some focus tested percentile upgrade to drip feed engagement forever.

ESO should have been part of this video.

I joined WoW at the end of WotLK and I got HOOKED! I tried numerous times to get into Classic when it launched and the delivery of the story was my only issue. Over the years I had played ESO and SWTOR and I fell deep in love with voice acting in my MMOs. That being said, I actually recently actually got into WoW Classic ONLY because there is an addon that uses AI to add voice dialogue for all quests in Classic. I am hoping it eventually expands to Retail but I know that is a BIG ask. But seriously, I cant recommend the VoiceOver addon for Classic enough!

I was so baffled that the sponsor wasn't Brilliant. SNHU is advertising through... An MMO KZfaqr?

I'm going to say this as a mythic raider in World of Warcraft. Quests are a waste of time to hardcore players, and players who just want to do raids/dungeons/PvP. Quests are crucial for casual players and new players. I remember my first time running around in Teldrassil as a feral druid. I had no idea what numbers were, much less stats. I thought any time I obtained a new item, it was an upgrade no matter what. I was one hell of a feral druid, running around in gray cloth items or greens that had int. That initial period of getting over the sensory overload is so important to people who are brand new to MMOs, or even just people who are getting used to WoW's UI and basic mechanics. The GCD, for instance. Now what I don't approve of is forcing hardcore players to screw around with quests to get shit done. I'm glad Dragonflight has added so many robust skips and honestly I'm really impressed by it. However, the story of Dragonflight is still embarrassing and for the most part, I see no other reason to engage with quests other than story. I really doubt new players care about the story either. WoW needs to go back to the drawing board when it comes to how they approach quests. Not the skipping part, but the quests themselves. The dialogue is boring, the story is below amateur, and nearly all of the characters have no flair or charm. It's like eating cardboard. I don't think quests should be removed. I'm always excited about things that will hopefully hook and retain casuals and new players. But I don't think the quests are currently doing a good job of that and that sucks. Keep the world populated in fun ways, please!

Big fan of the Partisan. It’s not best in slot, but it’s niche is NEAT and it looks cool.

Mamma mia! Great video, man. I've been enjoying your content a lot. You should try Dungeons and Dragons Online sometime, I think you're going to have a great time with it. That's the MMO I've been playing since 2010.

Tbh I think we should see more of glasses Idyl on the channel. He seems really smart, and I bet he would have good insights on MMOs.

AQ3D: Kill 500 boars, 500 of some other thing, 500 of another thing. Rewards: Scraps

runescape quests were designed like point and click adventure games, but forgets that in those games you usually have every item youve ever collected on you at all times.

TBH, 1 great adition for MMOs about quests is The Elder Scrolls online, probably the best one...

FF14 you really need to be DEEP into Story driven games. Like those unimportant, tedious Mainstory Quests, those NPC's you meet most likely come up later in the MSQ again and be like "Ohh hey Main Character, long time no see, thanks again for saving me back then!" - so apart from just padding questing and leveling time they add a tiny bit of that in there. I personally loved it when I met characters I defeated or saved at level 15 or sth xD But that's not for everyone I do agree!

It's titles and subjects like this one that makes me wish I could still see the like-dislike ratio on vids. :) Thanks for another great vid Idyl.

The Secret World was excellent before it became F2P and was renamed Secret World Legends. But anyway, The game had 3 types of quests: Action, Sabotage, and Investigation. Action quests were your generic MMO quests. Sabotage quests were stealth quests in a game without a stealth mechanic. Investigation quests were the best. You had to resolve puzzles and research real-life knowledge to solve them. For example, you had to translate texts that were in Latin, Arabic, and Romanian, you had to find specific books, and Bible verses, decode different ciphers (all of them were basic, like the Caesarian Chipper or binary stuff), decode Morse codes, find constellations, and other things. The game had a web browser embedded into it so you can Google stuff to help you solve the puzzles. It was fun in the beginning, but after a while, the results were the solutions for those quests and it was somehow annoying.

Questing needs to be worth it both lore , gearing & progression, and the gear needs to look epic based on the level of difficulty of the quest. I agree with your take 100% and mad respect.

That slayer skill joke was so perfect 🎉😂

I don't remember the game, but it basically didn't have quests, you had something like an statistics/achievement system where you just went in the world and explored, opened, clicked, talked to and killed beings. Everything you did was logged in the achievement section (f.e. killed x amount of y, where x would have reward increasing steps of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and similar) and awarded you rewards like xp, gold, gear and similar things. When you talked to npcs they sometimes had a wish or "quest" but you never accepted it, you just did it and you got rewarded. Also when you did something and later found someone who wanted that you would just get the reward. The game was made like a mobile game and bad overall, but the "quest" system was nice.

30:43 dude, quest points are TOTALLY useful.. each of them gives 0.6 seconds longer to click on some weird blue things on a wall once per week!!

I think Slayer is nice in Runey because it feels really honest, if you just want to kick back & slam some goons while it still feels like your progressing towards something slayer is there & for something more demanding of your attention questing is always a solid option. Completed A Small Favour recently, getting the key ring as it's reward felt dope af. Thanks for the upload!

UO didn't have quests. The community created "quests" themselves, especially in RP Freeshards. One of the worst things of later years are daily quests to make you log in daily because they can't seem to make the game interesting enough for you wanting to log in and play it. The "don't miss out" design mentality.

32:05 darn he really just said that as I'm leveling my rogue in classic wow, I then alt tabed to type this and almost got killed by a naga.

"There's literally no kill a monster X times quests" Rag and Bone Man 1 and 2 wants to talk to you

I'd suggest trying out wizard101 and only going till the triton avenue quests. The sense that there are other players there is definitely one of the best parts of it. Just wish there weren't so many microtransactions.

Questing and story is what gets me hooked and staying in an MMO. Games like BDO that are all combat and by far the worst story and questing experience of any MMO out there has always left me feeling empty and ultimately uncaring about the game as a whole. With all the warts that WoW has, it's the only universe (besides FF14) that I have ever cared about in all the MMOs I've played. I haven't mainlined WoW for years and yet I still keep up with the lore because it's so compelling to me.

I just want to say that you're clearly a man of taste. Playing priest in wow classic is so good. It's way more busted than most people realize. And shadow is a gigachad in pvp. You literally melt people and there's nothing they can do about it.

I like WoW Classic to vibe. It is one of the few MMO’s where even at a high level you can listen to music or a podcast and perform optimally. I’d wear a headset and jump on Disc for a raid or if friends wanted to talk during a dungeon, but that’s about it. One problem with WoW retail is that the quests are so simplistic they’re worthless. I could have my 5 year old just fly around and complete them if I wanted, just using 2-3 skills. On the flip side, Mythic+ dungeons usually require you to listen for Audio ques and at a high enough level to definitely use voice communication. WoW Classic is what I think most people want in an MMO. It is social, as you play with random people and make friends often. You’re forced to, and it’s nice in the end. Yet it’s laid back enough that you can chill while doing the quests, and the dungeons are a challenge without being hectic like in Retail.

now that's a spicy meatball. nice to find this channel while slowly working through SoD. feels like "mom made pizza rolls" to me.

No way you did Jonah Hill like that 15:43

I always hated slayer. Maybe it’s just my play style but I don’t usually pursue combat skills. I’ve always enjoyed skilling, and chatting with other players. The endless grind of killing creatures in game is mind numbing to me.