[Threshold]

If you are going to have quests, I think a combination of "autoquest" types (kill X# of Y, bring me A# of B) along with hand written, more story based quests works well.

I think things fall apart when you get so mired in quest based gameplay that it becomes the dominant way to play the game. I think that's what WoW brought us, and that's just its own type of grind.

I wrote an article about this years ago that covers my opinion in a lot more detail:



I personally prefer mob grinding to questing, but I understand why some people prefer the more directed gameplay approach of questing. I think it is important though for people to understand that quest heavy gameplay is not an improvement upon or a higher level of quality than more traditional mob grinding. It is just its own type of grind, with a little bit of "purpose" to it that some people prefer.