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Open-Ended MMOs vs. MMO based on a Quest System
Maxl
Member Posts: 7
How do you feel about MMOs with more open-ended character progression (think Asheron's Call, EVE, SWG) versus MMOs based on a quest system (think WoW, AO, CoH) for character progression? What are the pros and cons of each? For example, on one hand a quest system gives direction and keeps things moving forward, but the progression is almost linear. Games without a quest system give more freedom but might be too open-ended or may become repetitive over time. Please feel free to give me some input on your opinions of each and which you prefer. Thanks for your time and consideration!
Comments
I really prefer a mixture of the two, I find linear quest based MMOs to have very little replay value but I dislike having no direction at all. I'd like bits of various MMOs thrown together I'd say.
The problem I have currently is the sheer number of quests thrust upon you, pages upon pages of mindless meaningless quests. I'd like the ability to explore dungeons UO style, the accept meaningless missions SWG terminal style and to have a few long, well written, involving quests like some of the EQ2 were. I want it all in other words and I'm probably not alone in this.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
A HYBRID is what is needed. A huge open 'sandbox' style world that has PLENTY of random quests, all of which have a REAL story behind them and make actual realistic sense. Also, many exploration/stumble upon quests. BUT they should not be forced upon the player, so a player could just play in the world as they wish.
Personally, I would do away completely with 'EXPERIENCE' and instead have a different kind of progression system which rewards players for things they do, rather than grinding kind of stuff. Overall a more 'realistic' world.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
I don't care if a MMORPG has quests and missions. But the level and loot grind is boring as hell in any game.
So honestly an open-ended game with missions/quests without the level/loot grind would be the best. I'm just sick of grinding
I've yet to play a "quest system" where you couldn't still go out and grind mobs if/when you wanted to, so I fail to see how quests in any way, shape or form detract from "freedom".
Sorry, I'm not getting the whole "linear" argument here. I think you're confusing quests with classes or something.
Oh and btw, I don't know about Asheron's Call, but both EVE and SWG (pre-CU SWG even) have/had "quests" (they just called them "missions").
Play AOC, then you will have.
(Not to level, but to get out of the starter island)
I think MMORPGs need to go the route of single player open ended RPGs. Single Player open ended RPGs have a main objective or problem that you need to solve to beat the game. How you get there is up to you.
In MMORPGs, there needs to be one quest that lasts the entire length of the leveling up process; a goal or a purpose if you will. For example, a good purpose is to free your country from the oppression of a particular dictator and his lackies. You start off in a small town of your choosing and you are currently a weak in experienced adventurer. This dictator's goons has permeated every bit of the land and it is your goal to overthrow this government. You are too weak to take him out, so you start with his weakest goons and free your particular town. This goes on from one area to the next with plenty of twists and turns to make it interesting. You also have the ability to explore the world and defeat natural predators and lesser threats than the regime itself.
So in essense, you can do whatever you want along the way, but you and other players have a common goal...to overthrow a particular regime, dynasty or whatever. You can take care of a lot of things solo, but you will need to group to complete other objectives, such as sieging and taking over a city. You should be able to take on any NPC person 1v1, including the dictator himself if you have the experience, but rarely does his goons travel alone and it is unrealistic to be able to defeat too many goons at once. We aren't super heroes after all.
Character customization and progression needs to have depth. You should be able to weild any weapon with the appropriate training, cast any spell, and wear any armor. Every skill, spell, weapon, and armor should have pros and cons to using them to give the game balance.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
I prefer sandboxy type games, without much overarching direction and plenty of randomness. However, I do know what it feels like to have no direction at all. I think that RvR might fix that problem if incorporated correctly. "Hey, we're being attacked!" or "I'd like to do a mission that will cripple the enemy." In my mind, that gives you a goal to reach, help your Team/Realm/Faction win vs another, but if it was optional, it wouldn't intrude too much into general gameplay.
That's just what I think...
To me being forced to do 1000 quests is grinding. Id almost rather go find a nice spot and just kill things.
Half the quests I see are nothing more than time sinks.
Give me a break already !
One thing I loved about Star Wars Galaxies before all the changes was the few quests around were hidden. The story arc they added each month at launch wasnt available unless you went looking for it (and looted the discs)
There were those Singing Mountain Clan sisters hidden in that cave way up north on Dathomir. You wouldnt find them unless you went exploring. No other quest giver was going to have some silly delivery quest that led you to them. You found them on your own.
Oh and how about those idiot-proof icons above NPC's heads now ! Look at me, I have a symbol above my head so come chat with me. Does anyone remember when MMO's didnt do that, and you actually had to find the NPC's that had quests ?
Doesnt anyone explore anymore ?
Its so much more rewarding to do quests that arent handed to you and lead you around like a puppy.
These linear-based MMO's are like Fast Food now. Quick, somewhat satisfying (not to me anyway), but leave you hungry in an hr.
Sandbox MMO's are steak. And unfortunately most of today's MMO players have never tasted Steak. They accept the Fast Food as standard aceptable fair. They have no idea how much better a Steak is
No matter how much some people SAY (or even BELIEVE) they want games to be open-ended, games without quests cannot hold the attention of the average gamer.
Games without quests do not have to be linear. In WoW, EQ2, CoH, etc., at any given level, you have dozens and dozens of quests and story arcs to choose from. You are never forced down any particular path, and you are never really forced to quest at all.
LoTRO does seem a little more linear to me, but you still have the option of ignoring the quests altogether. You can advance your character through Deeds, for example.
Games like EVE / old SWG / AC / UO still had "quest" however the "content isn't in the quest, its mainly in the community and what they did / do and create.
Games like WoW and such are "quest" driven in the sense that it's solely designed for you to follow that kill task path and nothing else until you get to the raids at the end.
It depends on how you define the term "quest" - in MMO gaming it has pretty much come to mean "kill 10 rats".
The problem in many of todays games isn't necessarily in the quest, many are actually much better then in the beginning, the main issue is the lack of tools for the community to actually do anything but the linear quest. The scope of MMO's has narrowed to the point of tunnel vision on level progression and artifical endgames.
MMO have moved away from community driven interaction and more toward arcade "tell me what to do next" play.
The quest are not the core problem, its inability of the player to do anything BUT what the NPC directs him to thereby losing any sense of freedom.
some of the older MMO's did give the players tools to create their own entertainment. I wish that was still the case.
I recall that Star Wars Galaxies did this. There was a droid your guild could purchase and use it to sell Lottery tickets. It was a way to raise funds and gather players together. And of course there were all those non-combat classes...and I dont mean the lame secondary class junk...actual classes entirely dedicated to just social things like playing music, dancing, styling hair and tattoos, being a Mayor of a town. Dam I miss the old SWG.
Anyway, maybe Fallen Earth MMO will give us this kind of game experience !
With open-ended character progression (i.e., pick your zone and exp grind), I find the social atmosphere is better and the game world feels more alive.
With the quest-system designs, I feel gameplay is constrained and the world feels more like a movie set than an actual environment. And quest-grinding is the worst grinding of all.
110% correct.
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A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
Order of the White Border.
While I like quests, they come off as one demensional. Imagine a quest to snatch some nasty item from a bad guy where you tell the quest giver, sorry I am keeping this for myself and thus completing the quest. What if you go to save the village from invading fire giants only to screw up and have the village get wiped out? Allow branching, if you fail the quest open up new quest progression.
Absolutely. The more options players have the better.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
When "imagining" how something is designed you have to imagine it at a fundamental level. Branching quest lines in a multiplayer game, where every user can effect the outcome is a disaster and cluster^%&$. Any negative outcome that can be influenced by other players will be considered griefing. That just won't be accepted in todays market. Johny ain't gonna be happy when he can't get his sword because the NPC in the village that was going to give him his sword is dead;)
What you can have are public quests like WAR. Read up for more info.
By the way, there are quest lines in WOW that continue through all level ranges with loads of sides quests that relate and interconnect the story lines. Of course its impossible to know this if all you do is read "kill 10 boars". You have to read why you're doing it only to realize those boars have something to do with that letter you delivered which has something to do with that town that always has a bad harvest because the tomatoe crops are haunted, blah, blah. You have to connect all the dots and the backstories, which requires actually READING the text and not going to thottbot or WOWhead like a robot.
In WOW, you don't have to read the quests, you don't have to know the back story, you don't have to "know" anything. All you need do to is follow the linear trail of bread crumbs (in the form of tedious quests) and you will be fed.
WOW got the simplicity, polish and combat/class/magic systems right. Which was enough to lure noobs into the realm of MMORPG-gaming.
WOW got everything else wrong. Just ask about the game world and you will get few responses that it feels like a living breathing world, and many that it feels like a guided tour through the kiddie section of an amusement park. WOW is just about the characters' gear and levelling, because its world is trite, cartoonish and forgettable.
Well, IMO, I'd rather have the game tell me where the quest holder is, and where the quest items/mobs,etc are...than to spend an hour finding them.
It has nothing to do with being lazy or not exploring. As much as it has to do with most MMOs having huge gameplay maps, and expecting to find one mob about 5000 is not realistic, well, not in today's MMOs.
If it's so forgettable, why are you still complaining about it?
But it's only a SMALL portion of you RPGers who want that type of play. WoW is obviously the largest MMO, and it's again obvious people are content on the system WoW has.
People don't want an open ended game. People are totally satisfied on following the "yellow brick road" as you haters put it. Again, I'd rather do that than walk around for hours attempting to find one quest NPC. There's no direction, there's no help, and progression.
It's a system that works. And WoW is NOT the only one that uses it, and for some reason, the game takes the brunt of abuse.
Imagine being a new player to WoW. You're thrown into Elwynn Forest. What now? If there's no Quest Give you're supposed to talk to. WTF do you do? Walk around the 100 NPCs in Elywnn Forest until you find the quest giver? Gimmie a break. That's a very unrealistic gameplay, that isn't suited to the masses. You will never find a game with the popularity of WoW, and the system of this deadend no help, "open-ended" world.
That's adventure. It worked. Being new, not knowing where to go or what was around the corner created fascination. The sting of dying (i.e., experience loss) created fear and excitement. Making the run from Halas through Blackburrow and beyond was scary and exciting. In contrast, trekking across Netherstorm in WOW is "yawn" boring. Anything in WOW is "yawn" boring.
Why? No surprises, no penalty for dying (no significant penalty, anyway), no fear.
WOW-kiddie questland is NOT adventure, except for those who have never seen a real MMORPG. WOW is McDonalds. The great MMORPG's of yesteryear are legendary steakhouses that are no longer in business.
Yea, and many of those people that are "content" with WOW wont be too hyped on playing the same shit over and over once they finally leave WOW. The genre needs variety and innovations too...
Yea, and many of those people that are "content" with WOW wont be too hyped on playing the same shit over and over once they finally leave WOW. The genre needs variety and innovations too...
Yea, that's why there's a million posts saying AoC didn't work, going back to WoW. You're right!