Why Suramar City Worked Where Others Failed

Community General Discussion
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Suramar City is a great example of how to do a great experience in any game.

No only because the story is compelling, but also because the quest design is better than the standard for all modern MMOs.

And while maybe the quests are the generic kill , collect, escort, and interact. Many quests aren’t just simply just that.

Like killing couriers with a hidden blade, the making of arcwine mini game, and colleting arcwine and delivering it one by one to a boat to smuggle out side of the city are not only good because of the extra steps, but also because you have to wear a disguise that if you lose, you attract every enemy in the city.

Which not only slows you down but also in the beginning of Legion can be a real fret to you.

That sneaking around disguised not only enhances the quests with more steps but also the more simple ones as well.

Saving people cornered by the guards, putting posters on walls through the city, giving weapons to cities, helping a little girl to go home, rescuing people from prison by taking the keys from the guards, giving arcwine to the ones in need in the city, and even killing elite enemies and bosses is enhanced by the sneaking with a disguise.

This works not only because you have the extra step , but also because you don’t want to further complicate the world quest.

After all, who wants to be constantly be in a fight with the guards and demons?

This isn’t just a problem with World of Warcraft, but all modern massively multiplayer games, as all of them believe that they can cover up how generic the quests are with NPC dialog or making them public quests; allowing others to make it faster.

This doesn’t work; because killing worms, stopping bandits from burning haystacks , and dancing with cows in some one’s small hobby garden…
Or
Killing spiders, collecting apples from the spiders and apple trees you interacted with to give them to an NPC just standing in one place outside the orchard, and occasionally killing a bigger spider…

Are boring because they’re just kill, collect, and interact quests and nothing else, and NPC chattering pointless exposition off screen or other players being able to make it faster doesn’t change that.

Though I have to preface that aesthetics, when done right, can enhance the experience

Suramar City is alive and active. Cities talk to each other, work, walk around the city with other NPCs, sleep, eat, drink, sit on chairs in front of tables, and run away when a fight starts. Enemies patrol the city, escort prisoners, look around for disguised or stealthed players, fighting other NPCs, and guard prisoners.

Even the elite bosses have their routines. They patrol as well, perform rituals, perform stage plays, and help escort prisoners to a boat.

They’re not just earth elements gormlessly standing next to a dam, bandits gormlessly standing in front of a cave, or centaurs gormlessly standing on a green field next to a castle wall menacingly eating grass while the NPCs stare gormlessly at the them.

And let me say that the world bosses are interested as well very well into the city and its story. They have their own little animations, events happening around them, and are place in locations fitting the story. Like casting spells, having NPCs around them ,and on top of building holding a party, and aren’t just a rat standing gormlessly on top of a destroyed tower or a giant guy standing gormlessly in the middle of a frozen lake waiting to be killed.

Fun fact: the quest that you escort the little is enhanced by the patrolling because enemies outside of the quest won’t attack her, but only you outside of disguise. That makes it more than a NPC running blindly on green field while enemies run cycles around them.

Can it be improved?

Of course.

Making losing the disguise be dangerous even later in the expansion, adding more routines, behaviors, and animations to both enemy and friendly NPCs, adding more elements to a quest, or even adding a little bit of risk to things can make things even better.

Other types can be adding other than just kill and collect quests. For example: healer challenges and tank challenges.

4 Likes
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IMHO the point of Suramar is that what you do has a PURPOSE, and advances you towards a goal. The stealth technique is nice and fun because it serves a story (and a mechanical) purpose, but it’s not the only solution.

When I played there I felt like I was playing a real videogame, which is… meaningful, if you think about it. Plus, the city itself has an identity, rather than being the generic wood/cave/ice landscape we always get.

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Orgrimmar is nestled into a system of valleys on the northern edge of Durotar, Kalimdor.

4

Yeah I agree, Suramar was a high point. It had a lot of stuff going on. Addiction, class conflict, the importance of small acts of rebellion, the build towards bigger rebellion, a lot of good stuff came together. Runas the Shamed still gets me when I request.

The set up was perfect - you need X or you suffer a gruesome fate, but supplies of X are controlled by an elite… hard to go wrong with a background like that. Since then things have tended to rely on rare encounters, samey open world events and currencies. It’s a shame. But it’s easier than making a good story, so… here we are.

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We should revisit Kezan someday and have it revamped and rebuilt into a big gobling metropolis, so we basicly will have gta in wow

6

I wished Suramar City was main city in Legion.
But sadly they dont like outsiders

7

Suramar is an amazing place, such a shame they didnt do anything else with it.

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Suramar was a fantastic zone, i got hooked on it like a piece of bait. I only wish wow didnt have an “abandon ship” approach to old content. I visit there sometimes but it’s not fun to oneshot the mobs, and there being nothing of endgame relevance to accomplish there.

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I don’t think you’re wrong necessarily, but for me it’s something entirely different: That city is interesting.

It looks good, for starters, but the main reason is that it doesn’t unleash every secret it has at once, and it encourages you to explore. There are different factions, much of it is hostile, and almost every class fantasy is somehow explored, even though it isn’t restricted by class. Whether it’s stealth, standing up to evil, helping those addicted, or even being evil yourself, the truth is that the place just has a lot of layers. Not to mention there’s an underground and even two dungeons that deliver some story there.

It then layers on top of that with a quest chain designed to give some structure if you’re unable to find something to do on your own.

It is a textbook example of how to do something open world right. It’s actually got precious little to do with whether or not it’s a kill or collect quest, and everything to do with intriguing lore and guided open-endedness that doesn’t hold your hand.

2 Likes
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did it work though ? it was mediocre experience epsecialy those stealh bs there were not that fun .

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I totally agree. I’d give up 4/5 new zones for even just 1, but well built.

I think it had many problems and it was far from perfect, but it certanly was a step (IMHO) in the right direction. I think Blizzard is capable of doing better and improving, but for some reason they seem not to like that kind of world building.

I mean take TWW: what if they created just 2 zones, the first one and the Spider city + an Arathi outpost, but made the spider city something big like the castle in Prince of Persia: warrior within. You would keep discovering new rooms and sections after months if not years, and it would be easy to hide castle parts behind closed doors and open them through questlines or subsequent patches. I’m not saying this is the solution, but man how would it be fun to play world content?

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“Thanks” to “dragonriding” from day1 we will never have Suramar city again. Cause then forums will be flooded in tears of people who got used to skip everything on their mounts on day 1 of new expansion.

1 Like
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Unfortunate reality. It’s impossible to block off areas for exploration in the presence of flying mounts unless you put it underground.

I prefer dragonriding to flying, but I’d rather the game had neither.

1 Like
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