World of Warcraft

[A Black Falcon]

But if you are ignoring everyone, it might as well be a single player RPG, thus, what am I paying this fee for again?

Yes, it is self-defeating... but there are very few RPGs that are that big and open that are single player. About as close as it gets is TES... so in some regards it makes sense even if you don't like partying.

Back to missions, really I can see many ways to incorporate ones like my example. Namely, the key puzzle artifacts hidden in chests respawn. You know they respawned when the open chest closes. The various mechanisms in the cave would be accessible by all. To add to the whole fact that this is multiplayer, having to have people activate them all simultaneously would be nice. Also, to add a sense of control, certain gates must be opened and closed with switches in other areas. Essentially, if you are playing by yourself, you could run to a gate but right then it suddenly closes, while some other gate hidden deep in the cave will suddenly open. Two paths through the expanse, you know, something like that.

Right, it seems like puzzles would be easy to implement. Have the chests with puzzle items respawn, or have it be a word puzzle where everyone can talk to the person or object, or have it with switches... it seems simple, and puzzles are a fact of most RPGs except this kind, and they are missed. I'm not sure why they are so totally gone here. While there are some challenges, it doesn't seem like it's on the level that it necessitates their complete removal from the genre... I love the word puzzles in Baldur's Gate and Torment and the item-based or logic puzzles found in many RPGs and miss them in these games, now that I think about it. It'd also definitely be a way for them to vary the missions up quite a bit... WoW would be perfect for it because the game already has a very strong structure of mission sequence (unlike a lot of MMORPGs), too...

The only issue with gates is that you could just follow other players as they go do the puzzles that open the gates... and I hate to say it but the only way I can see to really avoid that is to make the gates operate by only letting people through with some special item or key. You shouldn't be able to just follow other people past the puzzles. If you're in the same party it should be different, but not for people who just happen to be near eachother... so you get some key from the location, go to the area with the switch, hit it, and then go quickly to the door (on a timer, to make it more challenging (same reason that there is the additional step of going to the switch -- it's like the item gets you through the magic barrier in the doorway, but you need to hit the swithc to open the physical door barring your passage.)), go there and go through to progress...

Areas that require multiple people should be very cautiously implemented. Not everyone likes partying and in higher level areas there will be far fewer random people around. Also, in most of these games (that is not Guild Wars) you cannot have AI teammates so you can't have someone else hit the other switches (you can't in GW either but at least if they wanted to they could probably implement it)... it's a good idea for a game based strongly around team-based play, but WoW is not that game, so I'm hesitant. Have it instead be a case where parties are advantageous because multiple heads thinking together can figure out the puzzles faster than a single one can (which would be especially true for dialogue and logic puzzles).