I know that most people probably skip the quest text. You all probably have metrics in place that see how long people spend on the quest accept window, I imagine. But, there are some people like me who do read the quests. In fact, I made it a point to read every single one in Dragonflight, at least on my main.
The entire time, I kept wondering if something epic would happen. You can tell the difference between a filler quest and something that has had some thought put into it. Filler quests are fine - there’s not enough time or creative energy to write out 700 absolutely stellar quests. I get it. But… by the end of it, I honestly felt like most of the questing I did amounted to filler content. It was a lot of inconsequential stuff that didn’t really make a big difference. A lot of it amounted to, “oh no! The bad guys are over there being bad, go kill them please.” type content.
Probably the best quest was the one where you sit on the ledge with the dwarf. It’s odd to me that the quest where you basically do nothing but listen turned out to be the best one. It’s entirely because that guy pulled us in emotionally and we were able to connect with him on a deeper level. But, that was pretty much the only quest where I felt like that was the case.
There were, of course, the big quests where the main storyline is pushed. Those were mostly fine. Bravo.
I feel like hiring a story writer would go a long way with quests. Right now, quests mostly just amount to hurdles players have to jump over to get to the end. If quests instead were used to explore the lore of the area and to LEARN about the environment, it would be a lot more engaging. Here we are on this new island. Doesn’t it have long lost secrets? Isn’t there mystery to be found? Wouldn’t some of the Drakthyr come across things of the past and remember how things were or lament the passing of things lost forever? Some parts of Dragonflight touched on this, no doubt. I would love to see more, however. There surely is a Drakthyr who has been awoken from their stasis that wants to go back home to his family, but will find it demolished. They will wonder what happened to them. Are they still alive? Did they perish? It provides a sense of awe at the amount of time that has passed. You can still be devastated by something that happened forever ago.
Unfortunately, we both know that most of Dragonflight (even the future patch stuff) is probably already done for the most part, so this would have to be applied to the next expansion. I know you all prepare way in advance. My suggestion is to have players connect to the denizens and the environment more. Without it, it’s just polygons and textures.