MMORPGDot Feature: World of Warcraft Beta Journal #5
Dialogue, 2004-04-06

Collection Quests

There are a good number of individuals who want the help of adventurers to reduce the numbers of dangerous species around them. There are two distinct types of collection quests. They're important to keep seperate in your mind. The first type involves picking up objects that commonly drop off of the creatures in question. To be perfectly honest, this is the type of quest you want to do by yourself. Drop rates don't change based on whether or not you are in a group, so if an item that normally drops from a creature is the requirement for your quest grouping will just spread the required items thinly across the group. The second type involves picking up a quest drop item. When you have these types of quests in your log, each player in a group gets a copy of the quest item. Yes, sometimes this means that two people collect someones head. A small price to pay for actually having fun.

Escort Missions

Probably the least common but one of the most entertaining mission types, escort missions involve making sure an individual gets to where they're going. These missions usually involve looking out for an NPC spawn for the mission. One of the best known in the beta is the Defias traitor, an NPC that spawns near Sentinel Hill and leads adventurers to the Deadmines. This NPC, if successfully escorted to the Deadmines entrance, gives you an added incentive to complete the Deadmines instance dungeon and claim the head of Edwin Van Cleef.

Messenger Services

One of the most common quests that you'll recieve in the course of your adventuring career is a request to get a message to another part of Azeroth. There are many groups across the two continents that need to get messages to one another, and as an adventurer who travels widely you'll have plenty of opportunities to provide that service. The experience isn't ususally terrific, but there is some coin in it and most importantly it gets you out into the world. This "breadcrumbing" ensures that when your level is appropriate, the denizens of Azeroth move you along to another area.

Tradeskilling

A really great type of quest, and a groundbreaker within MMOGs, is the tradeskilling quest type. These require that you craft a certain number of items to hand over to the quest NPC. In addition to improving your tradeskills during the course of completing the quest, these quests usually result in a good chunk of xp.

Bounties

Most of these are marked as "elite" in your quest log. This means that the creature you are to hunt is a "level+" creature, more powerful and dangerous than a creature at the standard level. These bounties are usually on powerful creatures leading dangerous non-human groups. In addition to the strength of the actual creatures, they are almost always surrounded by powerful members of their species. These quests basically require a group to tackle.