TLDR:
Biomes
We have been encouraged to explore, but what for? What gives us the motivation to explore? Certainly not the empty forests and mountains that we see when flying/walking to some town. There is nothing interesting about the terrain. There is so little biome diversity that without coordinates, you couldn’t tell whether you were near Edgebrook or Appleby.
I suggest having different biomes, such as deserts, savannahs, etc. A world should not consist of just forests and plains. Shouldn’t mobs have certain biomes they would live in? If so, why are they all in forests? If everywhere looks the same, why do staff want us to explore? Areas such as Wigtown and Hogsend are exceptions to the similar biomes the rest of the map takes on, so I hope that other parts of the map can follow their lead. Some nice touches were the unicorn forest and dragon area. Though the unicorn forest was still essentially a forest, it at least looked different, and its an obvious teller that there are unicorns. I don’t think the world being based in Europe means that the world is restricted to ONLY European biomes.
Towns
Speaking of towns, they are wonderfully built. Each town has it’s own style, and that’s amazing! What I think could be improved is what’s IN these towns.
NPCs are copy-pasted with only two skins available. This makes them seem more like placeholders than actual NPCs. Though I’ve heard they were added to make towns seem less empty, I think NPCs such as in Hogsend (pre-Revelius, I’m not sure what they look like post-Revelius) were great. They had their own skins and even said a little line of dialogue if you came up to them. They seemed real, and that kind of town, even though there were fewer NPCs, felt less empty than now. I’ve also heard each town has its own lore. If NPCs like these were added, their dialogue could be used as a way to find out more about lore, and even hint towards locations of “hidden” quests that can’t be found in the quest journal.
Furthermore, the interior of the houses could be upgraded. This isn’t really a gamechanger suggestion, but it does make exploring towns more interesting. For example, there could a house decorated in all pink, one that has a secret basement, etc. More info about town lore could be found within a house’s interior, giving more reason to explore.
The Map in General
In the map, you can see unmarked monuments and areas such as the stone circle near the Hobgoblins, the random black island with a house on it, the strange snow patch in the middle of Hogsworth, Rushstone, and Gnollberg, etc. Although they serve as interesting differences to the other thousands of empty forests and plains, what is the purpose for them? Cool to glance at, but there’s no reason to travel there just because. I suggest making anomalies in the map more interesting by adding NPCs or quests that pertain to those locations.
Traveling
It’s been a common outcry that traveling has been heavily changed. Many players have complained that they dislike having to travel for so long to do such a short quest. This is indeed a real inconvenience. Why is it that players have to spend more time traveling than actually playing the game? This makes it much less enjoyable. In fact, I’ve already heard many players stating they would quit just because of the new traveling system. I have a few suggestions to rectify this issue.
The warp key bag should be changed so that it can accommodate more warps than just one. Perhaps it can be made so that you need to do a quest to unlock more slots so you have more places to warp to. There should also be more firedust house-elves/fireplaces so that you don’t need to travel all the way to another town just so you could warp somewhere else. Some places that DO have fireplaces don’t even have a house-elf, so you couldn’t travel even if you wanted to.
I love the hidden passageways that give shortcuts to other towns, such as Hogsworth -> Hogsend and Hogsworth -> London. I hope more secret shortcuts could be implemented between different towns, for example, Longbay to Antrum.
Quests
Currently, the state of the game consists of multiple quests that you can do to level up/earn gold. There is no concurrent storyline. This is understandable considering it’s still the beginning of the Revelius update but with the MMORPG-esque direction that PW seems to be going for, I don’t think this should slide. What about having the main storyline be about the player’s journey to graduating Hogsworth? Though this may not work for those who have already leveled up prior to the update, it does seem interesting for the newer players, and it’s also an incentive for older players to reset their accounts and continue playing. The quests currently in the quest journal could be side quests or slightly changed to be part of the main quest. Having recurring characters appear in both main and side quests could make gameplay more interesting and easy to remember for players.
More hidden quests should be introduced, such as the one for the Chamber of Secrets. It doesn’t exist in the quest journal, so the only way to know about it is by exploring or word of mouth. Having more quests will encourage people to explore more.
There should be fewer quests involving running around from area to area, and more based on actual problem solving and even teamwork if possible. Another alternative is having more running around in the lower leveled quests, and higher leveled quests being more difficult to complete. I enjoyed doing the CoS quest with my friends because it was something we could do together, as well as the Zin quests since it made me actually have to think.
- Exploration
- Add more biomes
- Change NPCs to have their own skins, dialogues, names, and be used to find lore and hidden quests
- Town interior should be improved to find out about lore & hidden quests
- Make the random structures in the map more interesting
- Traveling
- A feature so that you could unlock more warp slots in the warp key bag
- Increase fireplace locations + firedust house elves at every fireplace
- Add more secret passageways that teleport to other towns (like the cabinet in the Room of Hidden Things)
- Quests
- Have a main quest storyline
- More hidden quests
- Fewer easy quests, more hard quests (ex. Zin, CoS)
- Alternative to this: easier quests for lower years, harder quests for higher years
Biomes
We have been encouraged to explore, but what for? What gives us the motivation to explore? Certainly not the empty forests and mountains that we see when flying/walking to some town. There is nothing interesting about the terrain. There is so little biome diversity that without coordinates, you couldn’t tell whether you were near Edgebrook or Appleby.
I suggest having different biomes, such as deserts, savannahs, etc. A world should not consist of just forests and plains. Shouldn’t mobs have certain biomes they would live in? If so, why are they all in forests? If everywhere looks the same, why do staff want us to explore? Areas such as Wigtown and Hogsend are exceptions to the similar biomes the rest of the map takes on, so I hope that other parts of the map can follow their lead. Some nice touches were the unicorn forest and dragon area. Though the unicorn forest was still essentially a forest, it at least looked different, and its an obvious teller that there are unicorns. I don’t think the world being based in Europe means that the world is restricted to ONLY European biomes.
Towns
Speaking of towns, they are wonderfully built. Each town has it’s own style, and that’s amazing! What I think could be improved is what’s IN these towns.
NPCs are copy-pasted with only two skins available. This makes them seem more like placeholders than actual NPCs. Though I’ve heard they were added to make towns seem less empty, I think NPCs such as in Hogsend (pre-Revelius, I’m not sure what they look like post-Revelius) were great. They had their own skins and even said a little line of dialogue if you came up to them. They seemed real, and that kind of town, even though there were fewer NPCs, felt less empty than now. I’ve also heard each town has its own lore. If NPCs like these were added, their dialogue could be used as a way to find out more about lore, and even hint towards locations of “hidden” quests that can’t be found in the quest journal.
Furthermore, the interior of the houses could be upgraded. This isn’t really a gamechanger suggestion, but it does make exploring towns more interesting. For example, there could a house decorated in all pink, one that has a secret basement, etc. More info about town lore could be found within a house’s interior, giving more reason to explore.
The Map in General
In the map, you can see unmarked monuments and areas such as the stone circle near the Hobgoblins, the random black island with a house on it, the strange snow patch in the middle of Hogsworth, Rushstone, and Gnollberg, etc. Although they serve as interesting differences to the other thousands of empty forests and plains, what is the purpose for them? Cool to glance at, but there’s no reason to travel there just because. I suggest making anomalies in the map more interesting by adding NPCs or quests that pertain to those locations.
Traveling
It’s been a common outcry that traveling has been heavily changed. Many players have complained that they dislike having to travel for so long to do such a short quest. This is indeed a real inconvenience. Why is it that players have to spend more time traveling than actually playing the game? This makes it much less enjoyable. In fact, I’ve already heard many players stating they would quit just because of the new traveling system. I have a few suggestions to rectify this issue.
The warp key bag should be changed so that it can accommodate more warps than just one. Perhaps it can be made so that you need to do a quest to unlock more slots so you have more places to warp to. There should also be more firedust house-elves/fireplaces so that you don’t need to travel all the way to another town just so you could warp somewhere else. Some places that DO have fireplaces don’t even have a house-elf, so you couldn’t travel even if you wanted to.
I love the hidden passageways that give shortcuts to other towns, such as Hogsworth -> Hogsend and Hogsworth -> London. I hope more secret shortcuts could be implemented between different towns, for example, Longbay to Antrum.
Quests
Currently, the state of the game consists of multiple quests that you can do to level up/earn gold. There is no concurrent storyline. This is understandable considering it’s still the beginning of the Revelius update but with the MMORPG-esque direction that PW seems to be going for, I don’t think this should slide. What about having the main storyline be about the player’s journey to graduating Hogsworth? Though this may not work for those who have already leveled up prior to the update, it does seem interesting for the newer players, and it’s also an incentive for older players to reset their accounts and continue playing. The quests currently in the quest journal could be side quests or slightly changed to be part of the main quest. Having recurring characters appear in both main and side quests could make gameplay more interesting and easy to remember for players.
More hidden quests should be introduced, such as the one for the Chamber of Secrets. It doesn’t exist in the quest journal, so the only way to know about it is by exploring or word of mouth. Having more quests will encourage people to explore more.
There should be fewer quests involving running around from area to area, and more based on actual problem solving and even teamwork if possible. Another alternative is having more running around in the lower leveled quests, and higher leveled quests being more difficult to complete. I enjoyed doing the CoS quest with my friends because it was something we could do together, as well as the Zin quests since it made me actually have to think.
