It's perhaps a bit ironic that this thread came about just as I was one of the only two voters to vote 'no' in a person's poll to bring LHC party play back at MSEA and I don't care to state my reasons either as the people there have never been much for quests or for actually good reasoning either.
I think I was one of the few people out of my world (Bootes) to get the Quest Specialist Medal before Big Bang when I wasn't even above level 120 simply because I loved quests that much and I'm disappointed that not a lot more of lore seems to have been added (I'll search with my Phantom though, it's more fun finding new quests with a new character). Even with the lack of Scarecrows and Jesters it hasn't stopped MSEAers from finding any way they can to level up without caring for the experience of doing things differently (Quests? What's what? I guess I don't care unless it's related to the job advancement), and I find such an experience to very empty.
If you ask me what I hope to get out of the game, it's a unified story that highlights the fun of playing a new character, doing things I can't do by playing other characters. While the Heroes getting their own storyline helps a bit it's still not nearly enough to cover a full journey from level 1 to level 200 (Perhaps Phantom comes closest as he receives an odd kind of closure at max level). I don't want to keep going to CDs or bash the Mushroom Kingdom boss. I don't want to see Zakum merely as a punching bag when it's so much more than damage fodder. I want people to see the beauty of inner Ludibrium and just hang around there to appreciate the music, or open their eyes to see how gorgeous Time Temple is. Yet sadly I'm much alone in this as everyone talks about EXP EXP EXP or DROPS DROPS DROPS or EMPRESS EMPRESS EMPRESS, not realising that they've locked themselves in a pattern they refuse to break out of and eventually quit because they think there's no content.
This brings me to the next part of what I want to say: How pineappling hard can it be to develop actually relevant content, anyway? As I'm not a person who plans to do ridiculous things like solo-ing Cygnus my main goal now is to fully explore Stronghold but I can tell that it's not going to take very long to finish every quest that doesn't have to do with defeating Cygnus so that means I'm stuck with nothing to do again once I'm done with SH. I'll come back later with suggestions because I remember some SPians posting good ideas on expanding content but I can't recall the gist of it right now.
I think I was one of the few people out of my world (Bootes) to get the Quest Specialist Medal before Big Bang when I wasn't even above level 120 simply because I loved quests that much and I'm disappointed that not a lot more of lore seems to have been added (I'll search with my Phantom though, it's more fun finding new quests with a new character). Even with the lack of Scarecrows and Jesters it hasn't stopped MSEAers from finding any way they can to level up without caring for the experience of doing things differently (Quests? What's what? I guess I don't care unless it's related to the job advancement), and I find such an experience to very empty.
If you ask me what I hope to get out of the game, it's a unified story that highlights the fun of playing a new character, doing things I can't do by playing other characters. While the Heroes getting their own storyline helps a bit it's still not nearly enough to cover a full journey from level 1 to level 200 (Perhaps Phantom comes closest as he receives an odd kind of closure at max level). I don't want to keep going to CDs or bash the Mushroom Kingdom boss. I don't want to see Zakum merely as a punching bag when it's so much more than damage fodder. I want people to see the beauty of inner Ludibrium and just hang around there to appreciate the music, or open their eyes to see how gorgeous Time Temple is. Yet sadly I'm much alone in this as everyone talks about EXP EXP EXP or DROPS DROPS DROPS or EMPRESS EMPRESS EMPRESS, not realising that they've locked themselves in a pattern they refuse to break out of and eventually quit because they think there's no content.
This brings me to the next part of what I want to say: How pineappling hard can it be to develop actually relevant content, anyway? As I'm not a person who plans to do ridiculous things like solo-ing Cygnus my main goal now is to fully explore Stronghold but I can tell that it's not going to take very long to finish every quest that doesn't have to do with defeating Cygnus so that means I'm stuck with nothing to do again once I'm done with SH. I'll come back later with suggestions because I remember some SPians posting good ideas on expanding content but I can't recall the gist of it right now.