Harvey’s latest MMO column is a love letter to the friction that made early MMOs satisfying, and it makes a genuine case for why that friction is worth keeping. The column argues that the quest design that defined the early 2000s — dense hubs, branching chains, and scattered objectives — held up better than we remember. It is a reminder that sometimes the hardest path is the most rewarding.
Harvey has been spending time with World of Warcraft: Forever, an alternate version of the game where the Cataclysm world revamp never happened. Instead, Blizzard poured more quests into the old world, smoothing out the levelling and questing experience. Harvey finds that the oldschool-ness of it is actually elevated by the changes, with every zone feeling like The Barrens, flooded with little tasks for the player’s dopamine-starved brain nugget.
The Three Layers of Friction
The heart of Harvey’s argument is the three layers of questing friction that defined early MMO design:
| Layer | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Ordering | Players decide the most efficient way to complete quests with limited information. Sometimes finishing a batch reveals a more efficient order. |
| Travel | Quests are placed inconveniently, encouraging players to go the extra distance. The journey itself becomes part of the reward. |
| Level Variety | Quests span a small range of enemy levels, forcing players to adapt or group up. |
These layers created a constant decision space. Which quest do I do first? How far am I willing to walk? Who can I ask for help? The column argues that modern MMO design has largely discarded all three. Quests arrive in small batches, travel is trivialised by flying mounts, and level variety is smoothed away by scaling content. The result is a clean, efficient breadcrumb trail of dopamine shots. But Harvey insists that satisfaction has been traded for ease.
The Case for Friction
The column makes its strongest case with specific examples. In Tirisfal Glades, a recent zone of quests sent Harvey way far afield, up a mountain, and across a lake. He still chose to do it because he was already halfway there and his hearthstone was almost off cooldown. That moment captures the essence of the old design: the journey matters as much as the destination.
The level variety layer also encourages grouping. Zalazane in Durotar, a level 10 mob compared to the surrounding level 8 enemies, forces players to either come back later, find a group, or develop a cheese strat. Harvey notes that grouping in this case isn’t a strict requirement like an “elite” quest, but it saves time in the long run.
Harvey acknowledges that Vanilla WoW was not perfect. Sometimes all that friction gave you ropeburn, feeling more accidental than deliberate. But that accidental quality is precisely what the column celebrates. The exercise of Forever is to polish out the friction just a smidge, plugging holes and gaps in a zone’s quest design while keeping the overall structure the same.
The Old Design Remains Compelling
The column’s central claim is that the structure of early quest design — dense hubs, branching chains, and scattered objectives — remains compelling. Harvey describes the good ol’ days of WoW, where questing hubs flooded your journal with anywhere from five to fifteen tasks, some with their own branching storylines and quest chains. You were then faced with a map and a decision of how to complete them.
The quest markers on a map are new, but Harvey points out that players had quest helper AddOns back in the day anyway. The difference is that those tools were optional. You could choose to ignore them, to navigate by memory or instinct. The column argues that the freedom to make inefficient choices — to turn in the wrong quest first, to miss a side objective — is part of what made the experience satisfying.
Modern WoW, by contrast, delivers quests in batches of two to three, often while following a character through a linear narrative. No ordering required. Travel is nixed because you have a flying mount, one that has become far faster with Skyriding. Level variety isn’t a thing anymore because everything scales. The result is a smooth, comfortable loop where numbers go up steadily, but the sense of achievement comes from completing the task, not from navigating the space.
Ease vs. Satisfaction
Harvey frames the modern approach as a trade. It is smooth, a nice little breadcrumb trail of dopamine shots to keep you blissed out in a “numbers go up” loop. But it is trading ease and comfort for satisfaction. Harvey asks readers to look at the old design again and see what they miss. Then he offers a specific example:
“I think I speak for us all when I say: God. God yes. Ugh, that’s the stuff.”
Forever eases up on the friction a little bit by giving you more to do, but it still keeps that core satisfaction of coming up with your own routes. The journey to the distant quest is often just as interesting as doing it, and you can put even more quests on the other side of that journey to make it feel worth it in a surprising way.
The Social Component
The level variety layer creates a social dynamic that modern MMOs have mostly eliminated. A level 10 mob in a level 8 zone forces players to group up or return later. That decision — asking if anyone wants to kill the guy now — is a social transaction that modern design rarely requires. Harvey notes that grouping in this case isn’t a strict requirement, like in the case of an “elite” quest, but it saves time in the long run.
The column argues that this friction encourages players to engage with each other more often. It turns a solo task into a shared one, and that shared effort feels more meaningful than a solo kill. The column suggests that this is part of what makes the old design satisfying: the social component is baked into the quest structure itself.
The Journey Matters
The column is persuasive because it is specific. It names the zones, the mobs, the mechanics, and it ties them to concrete feelings. Harvey is not nostalgic in the abstract. He is describing the pleasure of a particular kind of decision-making, the satisfaction of a poorly planned route, and the joy of a long walk to a distant quest. These are not vague memories of youth. They are the textures of a game he still plays.
The column also acknowledges the trade-offs. The old design was imperfect. It gave ropeburn. It felt accidental. But the column argues that the accidental quality is part of the appeal. The friction is the point. The modern design removes that friction and replaces it with comfort. The numbers go up steadily, but the sense of achievement comes from completing the task, not from navigating the space.
The Balance of Forever
The column’s final argument is that Blizzard has found a balance. Forever eases up on the friction a little bit by giving you more to do, but it still keeps that core satisfaction of coming up with your own routes. The level variety thing also encourages you to group up more often — sure, you could come back and knock Zalazane over later, or you could ask if anyone wants to kill the guy now. Grouping in this case isn’t a strict requirement, like in the case of an “elite” quest, but it saves you time in the long run.
Harvey’s column is a reminder that the games we play today are built on choices we made years ago. The design decisions that shaped the early MMO era — dense quest hubs, branching chains, scattered objectives — created a particular kind of satisfaction. The column argues that that satisfaction is worth preserving, even as the industry moves towards smoother, more efficient experiences.
The column’s final image is a player choosing a distant quest because the hearthstone is almost off cooldown. The journey is worth it. That is the stuff.
Source material: “World of Warcraft: Forever's convinced me that we lost too much to modern MMO quest design,” PC Gamer.
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