It has been interesting in Guild Wars 2 to only have one quest in my quest “log”.  Rather than collecting yellow exclamation marks, you are approached by NPCs in the areas you pass through, asking for help, and are informed when an “event” is happening near you.  It’s a pleasant change in that it feels more organic and free.

I haven’t been a big fan of World of Warcraft’s revamped questing in Cataclysm.  There is so little choice, little chance to find group quests (almost everything is solo now), and you’re forced down a certain route.  My son and I found this when we levelled characters together. I’d been keen to show him some of my favourite zones, and flew him to Feralas, only to find that we were unable to pick up quests because we were below the level for the zone.   The only way to level through questing in WoW now is to do easy quests, solo.

Although I haven’t grouped officially since beta in GW2 (the guild still seems bugged, and I can’t join it, so have been solo-ing while waiting), the “quests” seem ideal for groups of two or more.   Just turn up and join in.  If my son’s laptop was up to it, this might have been quite a nice game to play together.  I believe that levels are adjusted when you enter different zones, so a high level player can group with a low level player.
World of Warcraft’s system works very well now in the sense of telling a story.  Because you’re led down a defined path, you have no choice but to follow the story of the area.  I wondered if GW2s quests would lack story and a sense of purpose?  But so far, I think there’s a sense of purpose with the  quests.  A village is in danger, for instance, and you’re trying to protect it by fighting off invaders.  Or you’re trying to escort somebody (I do sometimes miss the point of the escort quests, often joining in late).  There is the opportunity to feel that you’ve achieved something.   The personal story involves more, well, story.

However …. there’s something not quite right about the system at the moment.  The actual meat of the quests is usually pretty banal, consisting of killing things, talking to things and picking things up and either using them or handing them in.  To be fair, that’s probably not much different from most MMOs.  The main problem was that I seemed to run out of “hearts” long before I’d outleveled the starter zone.  I realise that you’re not supposed to run from quest to quest, completing them, as you might do while leveling in other games.  But I was spending quite a bit of time on exploration, gathering and crafting, and some of my leveling had come through those activities.   Not wanting to have to grind, I went to the human starter area.  I picked up the heart quests, went for some vistas and skill points, got a couple of levels and returned to the asura area.

Two problems with that.

One, I’d been planning on making umpteen alts.  GW2 may be free to play, but I’d always allowed for buying extra character slots, as I did in GW1.   I was going to have at least one character of each race.  But now I don’t feel quite so inspired to create a human as I’ve already played through the starter area.

Two, it started to dawn on me that visiting the other areas is mandatory.  I’m going to need those skill points for every character.  Some of the heart NPCs sell cooking ingredients that I need, so presumably I’ll have to go to all the starter areas if I want to “unlock” all the ingredients.  Maybe I’ve missed something and I’m wrong on these points (perhaps there are so many skill points that you don’t need to go looking for them, and perhaps what unlocks at the heart vendors adjusts to your character to make sure you get everything you need in your area – I don’t know).   But at the moment, it looks as if every character is going to have to “do” every zone, even picking up skill points and unlocking particular heart vendors.