The Army and Mage quests need a bit of attention.
I believe that I read somewhere the players were, initially, going to pick one of the two quest lines - and if that's the case it sure seems that way. There are a number of times where these two questlines become cumbersome or difficult to players or decrease the strength of the storyline.
For example
1) Getting into Illaneska: It seems as though people taking different questlines were originally going to get to Illaneska at different levels (one via the main boat, one via the ferry guy just north of Crannoch) - which is cool. However, when doing both quest lines it becomes a bit strange. You can travel to Illaneska one way but not the other. Then you're doing quests to get into Illaneska when you already can get there. Which is weird.
2) Illaneska plague quests: These become strange because the quests are literally exactly the same. While in the warehouse you click on each plague barrel one time through for one quest, and then one time through for the second quest. When talking to NPCs (like the harbormaster who gives the quests) you essentially tell him you did something once and get a reward, and then tell him the same thing again and get another reward.
3) Enziostein: In two times of playing through these quests I've managed to go long enough in the army questline to "break" the wall in his room, but then I have to come back for the mage quest to talk to Enzio - and the wall is back. I remember there being a glitch in beta because of this - I think it's fixed now, but it's still weird to see the wall there, and then return again.
In addition there are a few more instances that I've forgot but were similarly weird. (Edit: I remember that the Yaroda Grove quests were weird, too. You essentially destroy the plagued thing twice - and the room changes when you go in. Bad for cohesion/realism.)
Possible fixes:
1) Make players pick one or the other and double the xp gain of both. This might be the best idea. Add in some melee/ranged/mage rewards in the other line incase players decide to choose one and then switch spec. This would also enhance replayability for new players as they would have a somewhat different experience playing through as mage or as melee/ranged.
2) Remove some of the egregious double quests and add their xp and rewards to the "other" quest (i.e., make just one "visit the plagued warehouse" quest that rewards mage/melee/ranged ring). This destroys some of the roleplay of picking to side with army vs. mage. I'm sure that, since it seems like HCS changed the way the army/mage quests worked during development, that this was the intended way for things to go.
Either way I think they need a bit of TLC. Thanks.
Edited by Zshmaendal, 20 March 2014 - 18:08.