World of Warcraft has changed dramatically since it was released at the end of 2004. Say what you will about the PvP and PvE changes, there are numerous aspects of the title that are undeniably better. You've the numerous tweaks to the user interface, the inclusion of the top add-ons, constant tweaks, bug fixes and optimization, and small graphical upgrades with each expansion (shadows, lighting). All these fixes are very much appreciated, but nothing tops the feature with the most notable changes,
questing. Be it direction, design, story or implementation, the way quests are handled these is a far cry from the distractions that they were in the first 20 levels of alpha/beta (originally they barely existed past that point).
I do not know what changed at Blizzard to cause this reboot. Perhaps the company had more time to craft more intriguing stories? Maybe the developers were just handed better tools? They decided to start taking quests more seriously? It's likely some combination of the three, but whatever lit a fire under their collective asses, I love it.
I love it so much that I wish there was a way to see the teams that worked on specific quests. Case in point, what genius wrote the
Sholazar Basin story arcs that
I raved about earlier? There's even some funny "Kill 10 foozles" quests, including
one that Solidsagart just completed in
Storm Peaks. Ricket totally had me going for a minute. Who penned that goblin to employ such spot on tongue-in-cheek humor?
The way I envision the feature would be a simple check box in the Quest Log's UI that is default off. Therefore, the immersion would be preserved for players worried about such things, or who couldn't care less. But those who wish to recognize crafty writing, good design or a cohesive story would know who to worship. Not to mention an added bit of information to help filter through "trash" quests. No need to backlog every quest - most of the old stuff is disappearing with Cataclysm anyway - just the new stuff will do.
The tales of
Adventure's secret room, and the ultimate birth of Activision taught me one thing; the little guys need to be able to receive credit for their hard work as much as the big fish (Greg Street, J. AllenBrack, Tom Chilton). Yes, I realize that such a thing could be a slippery slope, it may lead to names being
everywhere. So long as Blizzard can find a tasteful way to inject credits in to the game, I'd be more then happy to see them. After all, when have you ever looked at the credits of the game you spend countless hours in?
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