As I do with most MMO discussions, I have strong opinions about the changed the Shattering of Azeroth wrought on quests.

There have been several blog posts and twitter discussion about it and as usual I have not engaged in them.  I don’t engage, because I can’t seem to be succinct or quick enough to reply in a timely manor.  Nor can I partake in a fashion that will allow me to record my thoughts, to look back on in the future and chuckle.  So instead I took my lunch to write this short entry.

I Approve Shattering Azeroth

I approve of the the changes made to World of Warcraft questing: appearance schedule, actual quest text, rewards, NPC locations, flight master locations, geography changes, and everything else related to the leveling up experience.

• Is WoW the end all MMO for everyone? No.
• Is it even the game I would have made? Still no.
• But, is it a game I enjoy? Yes, very much.

Yet, are these changes I would have made to this game? As a start, Yes.

Why?

Because the changes not only make playing an alt, for us veterans, fresh again but they also made the game much more accessible for beginner players.

Time warp back 4 years.

My wife wanted to see what the game was all about so she joined me.  She played a few characters up to around level 15 and one up to 28 before she stopped.   She stopped because she got tired of being lost, having to running cross entire zones several times to complete quests, and most importantly she would get confused on what to do or where to go next.   My wife is a smart woman, and wow is a form of entertainment for her, as soon as was not entertaining she lost interest.

Fast forward to a month ago.

I invite her back and we start up a couple of characters and things are going well, do in great part to the built in quest helper. But when her quest log started to fill up and she started to re-live the cross zone runs in Teldrasil and Elwyn forest,  history was starting to repeat.

Then the shattering occurred:

In response I had my wife start a new human character, one is she is playing alone, and the result thus far:

I knew things were better when last night as she sat down to watch TV with me and apologized for her delay.  “Sorry it took me a bit longer than I thought to bash those gnolls.”

I smiled and asked her what she thought of the changes, since she had just before the shattering played through the human starting 1-15 content.   Her answer;  ” Things are much better than before.  Its easier to get around and its much clearer on what to do next.   I look forward to playing again tomorrow night.”

Conclusion

I believe that is why Blizzard made the changes they did; keeping beginning players playing, and paying.

As a bonus all of us veteran players get to see the game’s world time-line advance, and when I play an alt I get a fresh experience.