Rusty swords, new mysteries · how Forever is rethinking quests

For us, Forever’s most interesting quest promise is not a large number. It is the possibility of getting lost in a familiar world again. When did you last stop to read why somebody in Azeroth needed help, rather than checking the next waypoint?

A thousand quests cannot measure an adventure’s quality

More than a thousand new quests across levels 1–60 already appear in Blizzard’s official introduction. The fresh discussion concerns their design, not a number revealed today.

In Eddie Makuch’s GameSpot interview, Josh Greenfield discusses expanding quests in Wetlands and Azshara. He emphasizes grounded stories in which the player is an adventurer, not the centre of everything. He hints at continuing The Missing Diplomat’s mystery, without providing a confirmed resolution. We read the interview through Yahoo’s republication.

Our view is that extra quests would prove their value through the journey. A good detour can give you a reason to spend another evening in a zone, or return later. A longer quest log cannot do that alone if every addition sends you to collect different objects from the same place without a compelling reason.

An old mystery deserves more than a familiar name

The Missing Diplomat is a useful conversation starter, but we would not turn that hint into a guaranteed plot reveal. Our hope for returning stories is that a new player can understand the situation without years of background knowledge. A familiar name may reward a veteran’s memory; the same scene should still offer a newcomer an interesting encounter.

When judging the implementation, we would look at three things: does the quest give a character an understandable motive, does a discovery change our understanding of a place, and can we work out the next step inside the game? Those are our review criteria, not a checklist Blizzard has promised to deliver.

Travel deserves the same scrutiny. A long journey can establish a sense of place when something memorable happens along it. Empty backtracking does not become a good story simply because it resembles an older game. Nostalgia can spark interest, but the actual experience must sustain it.

You do not have to solve the first journey in advance

Our suggestion for a story-minded group is to agree on one small thing before starting: can everyone take time to read quest text? That choice can shape the shared experience more than a perfectly optimized route. Nobody needs to investigate every corner, but an interesting detour should be a chance to pause rather than a source of pressure to hurry.

Our earlier world and story coverage explores the setting. If you want to make the journey with one life, read about Hardcore’s plans too. Both raise the same question for us: will the journey create memories that cannot be reduced to a final character level?