Yes­ter­day I decided to try down­load­ing the nearly 10 GB test client so I could access Bull­roarer. Nor­mally I would not have both­ered, but I thought at the very least it would be good to see first­hand how the new quest guide works.

I know this has been a point of con­tention. Per­son­ally I fall in the camp of peo­ple who feel that the quest text in the game is almost always detailed enough to get the job done. I have found that some peo­ple do not feel this way for one rea­son or another, how­ever. Sur­pris­ingly I’ve even seen some peo­ple describe the quest text as “hor­ri­ble” on the forums, which is some­thing my mind can’t even really grasp. I guess it just shows you how much opin­ions can dif­fer on almost anything.

In the long run I feel this is a good idea. It will encour­age more peo­ple to try out the game, it will end frus­tra­tions for those who have found many quests to be a bar­rier and every­one else can just turn it off entirely. I am not remotely con­cerned that this will lead to “bad” play­ers, but you know it’s like any­thing else. I could go play base­ball and there will be peo­ple far bet­ter than me and peo­ple far worse than me. I can live with it.

When the quest guide is enabled, you’ll notice a few dif­fer­ences to your radar, quest tracker and world map. These new abil­i­ties only affect tracked quests.

If you aren’t near a quest’s goals, a small yel­low arrow on the radar will point you in the gen­eral direc­tion you need to go. When you are in the vicin­ity of some­thing related to your cur­rently tracked quests, the name of the area below your radar will glow gold. The radar does not con­tain lit­tle icons show­ing you where items are to pick up or ene­mies are that need to be killed.  It does noth­ing but point you toward the area you need to go in and show gold rings for quest NPCs (just as it did before).

The world map is a bit more direct about things. Gen­er­ally for tracked quests you still have yet to com­plete, the world map shows a white cloud that rep­re­sents the approx­i­mate range in which you’ll find the items or ene­mies you need. A cou­ple of quests I’ve got­ten so far have had a smaller white cloud that’s a bit more direct. If there is a spe­cific NPC to return to, they will be rep­re­sented by a blue X emblem. Within these clouds, it’s still your respon­si­bil­ity to find quest items or the appro­pri­ate ene­mies. I still found myself hav­ing to run around for quite a while to gather wood for an early quest, as an example.

Hon­estly, I’ve found the quest guide very unob­tru­sive. Quite often I didn’t even think to pay atten­tion to what it was doing to the radar as I was still caught up in read­ing the quest text and run­ning around enjoy­ing myself. Peo­ple will have the abil­ity to rely on it heav­ily and oth­ers will have the abil­ity to just turn it off com­pletely. I think Tur­bine has struck a nice bal­ance with its design as it doesn’t rip your atten­tion from what you’re oth­er­wise doing in the game.

I also think there are a few ben­e­fits of Tur­bine han­dling this sys­tem them­selves. First, it’s not quite as direct as similar-minded add-ons for World of War­craft. There isn’t a gigan­tic arrow point­ing you in the right direc­tion telling you how long you’ll have to run, nor are there way-points show­ing you the most direct route. It shows you the direc­tion as the crow flies, ignor­ing any impass­able objects that might be in the way. It’s still your job to find the actual route.

Sec­ond, it gives Tur­bine the abil­ity to con­trol what the quest guide does in every sit­u­a­tion. It will not aid you on spe­cific quests that are explo­ration based. A spe­cific exam­ple given was Bilbo’s rid­dle quests. For those that haven’t done those yet, Bilbo and a friend tell you rid­dles and you have to bring an item to them that fits. If this was sim­ply an add-on, I don’t think these deci­sions would have been con­trolled as well. I’m happy to hear it won’t ruin sim­i­lar minded quests.

My only com­plaint about the quest tracker is minor. I like that you can turn it off or leave it on. I just wish you could turn off cer­tain aspects of it. For exam­ple, I don’t nec­es­sar­ily want to be told where I can ful­fill my quest goals, but I would def­i­nitely love to be told where to turn those quests in once they’re com­plete. Sev­eral times I have found myself in sit­u­a­tions where I have no idea where the per­son who gave me the quest actu­ally is. The quest text is gen­er­ally very help­ful with this, but there are times when it offers no infor­ma­tion as to where exactly in Bree or the Shire (etc.) they actu­ally are. It dri­ves me nuts and this, I think, would be a nice compromise.

If you’re not much for read­ing, Under the Ban­ner has also posted an excel­lent video explain­ing the sys­tem and show­ing it in action. I really sug­gest check­ing it out.

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