Player characters can acquire various "items" in the game, which can aid in character customization, or which can otherwise be of aid to them. Items can vary from resources such as herbs or raw ores to items to be retrieved for quests. Player characters can also equip different weapons and armor, either to customize their character or to improve abilities (such as better attack or defense skills).[29] Items improve character effectiveness to a level where this makes acquisition of these items necessary and highly desirable for progression. World of Warcraft’s item mechanics are complex.

(If you can think of one on the spot, otherwise leave blank) But if the quest is "collect 10 foozle ears", two players need to kill twice as many foozles as one player, and in many cases they end up not getting enough foozle ears from killing all the foozles around and end up having to wait for respawns. And because the xp for each kill are divided by two and only a very small group bonus added, the experience points per hour gained by questing in group are lower than if they had soloed. When was the last time you grouped up for a quest that wasn't marked "group" or "dungeon"? And as there are enough quests around to skip those group quests, many players simply solo all the way up to the level cap.

(In the sense of setting: fantasy, sci-fi, pirates vs. ninjas, etc.) What the whole thing taught me is that I'm a public figure now as well, in the small universe of MMORPG discussion, of course of lesser importance than Dr. Bartle. Massively had a Richard Bartle vs. Tobold headline. The thought frankly scared me a bit, because as a public figure you can get away with less. This blog is a non-commercial venture, a labor of love. I write because there are things that I feel strongly about, there are things that make me angry, and there are things I have totally subjective opinions of, and I want my opinions to be heard. The whole process of loving or hating a game is not very rational. Me writing not very nice things about a game I don't like, or about a person who said something provocative (intentional or not), is me being human, being angry, being emotional, being irrational.

(Especially the unique selling point, what makes your game special) I have neither the superhuman willpower nor the editorial oversight necessary to prevent that from happening. I write what I think. And I hate the thought process where I catch myself thinking "Oh no, you can't write that, its going to cause too many angry comments". It is a perverse system in which the more you have the means to express your opinions, the less you have the right to do so. So now I'm a bit at a loss what to do. I could pull a "reverse Lum" and turn into "Tobold the Mad", with an angry rant blog, and not care about all the comments with foul language that would undoubtedly attract. But that isn't really my style. I could write much less, or shut down the blog for a long period unless I'm out of the public eye and thus regain the ability to say what I think. Or I could shut down the blog completely and open a new one as "Dlobot", without telling anyone, and escape scrutiny that way.

(Monthly fee, free-to-play with micro-transactions, advertising, etc.) But I think the most rational is a mix in which I use the current summer MMORPG slump and holiday period to write less, try being myself without self-censorship, and wield a heavy banstick if that causes the language in the comments to deviate from my Terms of Service. And blacklist the kind of blogs that tend to call me names. What I don't know can't hurt me, because the internet is just words. To give an example, here is the game I'd develop with $50 million. I mentioned it before. The goal would not be to abandon the quest system completely, as it has been shown to be better than a pure grinding system. The goal would be to improve the quest system to encourage playing together, not to discourage it. Besides simple fixes of improving group rewards, one also would have to look into quest organization, so that it becomes more likely that several people want to do the same thing.