Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
So what would truly meaningful quests be like?
Zindaihas
Member UncommonPosts: 3,662
So many people have posted the, "I'm sick of the kill "x" number of snakes quests" that it has practically become a cliche. These mundane tasks are simply experience grinds disguised as quests. They are boring, silly and lazy on the dev's part.
So I ask you, let's look at it from the opposite angle. Does anyone have some constuctive criticism? Can some people list some examples of what would be truly meaningful quests? I think of the epic quests that EQ introduced in its Kunark expansion. They were quests which consisted of about 15 steps or so and stretched across several zones. They involved both killing and crafting. There were tasks like escorting NPCs to safety and recovering precious items.
EQ is the only game I can think of that had quests like this. Can someone list some other games that had (or has) great quests or post some ideas of your own?
Comments
LOTRO had epic quests that revoled around a story. They could involve anything from solving a puzzle to what the most valuable resources for a culture were, to traveling across zones to fighting an epic battle. Most were quite interesting.
GW:EN started to have some more meaningful quests even the ones that did not revolve around the story. A few kill the boss of this dungeon, few find an epic item in a dungeon etc. etc, I did not play too much with side quests in GWEN but they were supposed to be a bit more meaningful least the dev team said so.
GW:2 sounds like it will have (if promises are met which I believe they will) some very meaningful quests. Many of them sound as if they will be random as well... the dev team gives this as a constant example. You are exploring a zone, there is a giant canyon and the only way across is one bridge. All of sudden, a dragon comes out of the sky and destroys the bridge. You are stuck on one side of the canyon. The nearby town sends builders to help repair the bridge but the local bandit gangs decide that keeping the bridge down and out of the picture. You can either run for your life leaving the poor builders to die or defend them so you can once again get across.
I think besides these examples a good idea for a quest would be if you had to steal an item out of a castle we'll say. You can either storm the castle killing as much as possible, and steal the item. Go stealthy and only kill when you have to or just go plain stealthy and not have the guards notice at all. Perhaps as an altertnative you could steal a guards clothes or perhaps go into the castle as a guest and learn the wherabouts of everything so that you can steal the item right under their noses. Now I think for a quest like this it would have to be instanced and since not many people like instancing---we have a dilemma. Creating meaningful quests that everyone can do without being hindered by other players is difficult to do. It's not neccesarily lazy on the devs to make the quests that they do... it's challenging otherwise. If my example were not instanced you could have 10 guys running around the castle killing everything, another 10 sneaking around and another 10 just waiting.... Could run into problems...especially when there is only one item they all need. Now if AI in MMO's was a bit better it might still work. The 10 guys attacking could suddenly draw the attention of all the guards and the other 20 guys are left with a defensless castle in which they could plunder. Still hard to tell if it would work.... MMO's are just plain hard to write and plan quests for without the use of instancing or other forms that can help tell a story and with brain-dead AI, it's difficult to make things challenging for different playstyles...stleath, aggressive, passive etc. Pretty much impossible to role-play a completly passive character in any MMO these days since you have to attack something.
*sorry bit long and blocky
I think for the genre to develop, quests and player actions in general have to have a semi-permanent affect on the game.
T
Imagine:
Towns that can be overrun with orcs (or whatever - maybe it's space outposts overrun with aliens), and liberated by humans (the players).
Once all the orcs (or a set number of orcs - even respawns) have been killed, guards will spawn, and eventually merchants. Then its off to the next town or forest or whatever to rclaim the land for the "good guys" (or "bad" if you prefer).
If the players are successful enough, an orc army will spawn and attempt to raze the newly liberated towns.
If the army is defeated or sufficiently depleted, then a "boss" will spawn (Maybe an evil wizard who is controlling them, that's cliche enough) with an elite guard and attempt to retake a portion of land.
Eventually the server population will dip (say at 3 AM server time) and not enough players will be on to fight back against the onslaught.
When we log back in tomorrow , the orcs are back and in greater numbers and only a few of the liberated towns remain in our hands.
Or perhaps the battle has moved to the riverlands, or the mountains. Perhaps flight of dragons has been spotted...
Spontenaity, change, MEANING. That's what quests need.
We need to fight for our gold and our land. If the orcs control the area, there is no way our non-heroic, alternate (weak and non-levelable) profession characters can get in to mine, and harvest the land for resources.
OK - now someone go program it
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
I can't stand the concept of quest hubs. Gather up x quests, go run a route, slaughter/gather/observe, return and cash in. The main problem I have is the treadmill affect this has on exploration.
I think I lack enough imagination to know what "truly meaningful" quests would be. But here is what I'd like to see start happening more often.
What I'd like to have happen instead is to choose a quest line. Each quest cascades to the next, and that set of quests takes me through the content chain of the area I'm in. I'd like to see this choice be different from others, so I have to make a choice that has impact on future choices. If I start with Quest Giver Bill, I can't do the Quest Giver Sally chain. This means later on I have more limited choice, but greater rewards.
The main thing I want to be able to do is start in a town with my quest giver, and end up in another part of the world when the quest concludes. Lead me on this adventure, quest to quest along the way, without making me yo-yo back and forth to the hub.
Class quests like DAOC had. Maybe at level 10, your Paladin can go on a quest to get his special Paladin sword. At level 50, he can work for his Epic Quest weapon, but it will take raid-level support and diligence.
In between, he can undertake long arduous quests into dangerous areas in order to have a chance at getting a special item, such as the Ghoulbane or Flaming Sword in EQ1.
And a few quests in-between. The main thing is quests are additional things you can choose or choose not to do, not unlike crafting is. But, quests should probably not be a page ouf of your dayplanner with a daily list of things to check off like some laundry list; then quests become meaningless.
Now those are excellent ideas. It's like taking the Realm-vs-Realm from PVP and using it in PVE. Very good stuff.
Besides the story/reasons behind it, what is that diferent from "go kill 10 orcs" quests...?
_________________
Senhores da Guerra
For example you have one quest where you have to go kill some Vanir people and collect their teeth for a guy to make a necklace out of. You just dont have to kill X amount of people because the human mouth contains lots of teeth. So you may only need a few as each drop of teeth can be different each time (smashing peoples heads will lose some teeth!)
I think these types of quests are here to stay.
There are also some moral quests im experiencing in AoC too. Quests where I have the choice of who lives and who dies, based on the decision you have as a player, your quest reward is based off your choices. Much like EQ2 too, it has quests that are branching and take you over several different area's, asking you to do different things in these area, plus the escorting people to safety.
Im also enjoying, getting blood from a prostitute and replacing it from sacrificial Virgin blood causing a volcano to erupt. Killing a Chicken Handler on behalf of the Cock Handler, having 20 topless NPC bold Egyptian style women running for cover when they saw me, Swimming under water to burn boats and seek treasure etc etc.
If you like EQ2's quests I think AoC's are worth a look. They have the same old stuff mixed in with some 'done differently' ones.
You actions have meaning. If enough orcs aren't killed something bad will happen (The city will be overrun). If enough players kill 10 orcs then some thing good will happen (the city will grow and merchants will spawn and you won't have to run all the way back to that last town to "sell your stuff" or train or whatever).
The bounty on 10 orc scalps is offered as incentive only. The orcs could also be slain without completeing the bounty- but why not keep it? If I wanted to protect my city form orcs, I would pay you 10 silver to slay 10 orcs... it makes sense
As it stands now, in most games at least, you get a quest to slay 10 orcs and you go to the same spawn sites (or chose from a few) and slay 10 orcs and go back and getsome XP and a reward. The orcs respawn and the cycle repeats until the end of time or the server shuts down, whichever comes first.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
You actions have meaning. If enough orcs aren't killed something bad will happen (The city will be overrun). If enough players kill 10 orcs then some thing good will happen (the city will grow and merchants will spawn and you won't have to run all the way back to that last town to "sell your stuff" or train or whatever).
The bounty on 10 orc scalps is offered as incentive only. The orcs could also be slain without completeing the bounty- but why not keep it? If I wanted to protect my city form orcs, I would pay you 10 silver to slay 10 orcs... it makes sense
As it stands now, in most games at least, you get a quest to slay 10 orcs and you go to the same spawn sites (or chose from a few) and slay 10 orcs and go back and getsome XP and a reward. The orcs respawn and the cycle repeats until the end of time or the server shuts down, whichever comes first.
Something like this here.
But I would think there should be a good story line, yes even in a pvp game. And that in that segment the end could have a story arc that would have a big ending with a quest. In that quest the PLAYERS get to choose what happens.
This actually occured in Asheron's call, back in the days when teh dev's would hold big battles with the heroes and villains of the story. And in one of the events the players took control and helped asheron defeat one of the villains, which the dev's didnt expect. But from there they actaully created additional parts to the story, including some of the names that did the most damage or even the allegiance names.
They tried it again later in the story with a battle between asheron and Bealzharon. Where you had to fight one or the other. The Non-pks chose asheron while the pk's chose bealz. In the end Asheron was able to injure bealzharon enough that his last ditch effort was to kill himself and mortaly wound asheron, which lead into an additional story arc of Asheron missing hte world going into chaos.
Long story that shouldve been shortened long ago. I think it should be up to the players as to what happens next, this is coming from a fan of player "owned" worlds.
I think ive seen all the ideas here implemented in some mmorpg or other. Problem is not of quality but of quantity. No matter if you like escort quests, conquerable towns, moral quests, class or faction quests or whtever (ive seen all of them except the moral ones implemented in wow btw, which is not supposed to be the most innovative mmorpg). Problem is that devs need a huge number of quests to meaningfully fill a world with, and that means youll finish getting also some simple grindy ones , not only because theyre easier to make but also because you cant have your char all the time making meaningful, world affecting, character evolving decisions without losing dramatic tension . I think the solution to the problem lies more in the mmorpg engine that in the quest writers. Design it so new quests can be easily rewoven into it without messing the code or whtever (much like the heroengine does, i think). Then let players have a hand at writing quests, have a team picking the best ones and implementing them in the game. And change a percentage of quest every week. Players whose quests get selected get a reward possibly in terms of in-game recognition. In other words, create a dynamic world with ever changing quests in every zone, maintaining a small percentage of them as stable ones to keep the lore of the game. Even the best written quest gets stale when you do it 20 times. Wht we need is some change.
I think the solution to mundane quests is simple, its always been simple. You do what you do with any mundane aspect to a game. You offer the player interactivity.
Doing the generic Go A, or Kill B type quests offer no real interactivity except for the player performing a task. What really needs to be done is offer choices to the player with consequences. Let them choose how the quest is done as it will involve them more in the game. Also something done in rescent years is storied instances which is another good aspect. Then like mentioned above there are the epic chain quests.
That's why I'd say trade skill characters should be alts and have little fighting skill. You have to get rid of the orcs before the miners, loggers and foragers(or whatever) will be safe. Then those who want might spend their time working on certain trade skills.
There would need to be a robust system fot things like music, writing, fishing, and crafting of all sorts; even recreational sports and tavern games.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
I'd love to be able to fail quests too- and have to face the consequences. That's a good one.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
Would like to see quests that change the game world.
You get the quest with others to burn down the orc fort as it is endangering the village.
You do it and it is gone.
After an hour or so wild animals /monsters starts living in that area again and after a few hours someone might ask you for a new quest there to keep the village safe/return a citizen/find something/.....
The have a few hundred or few thousand of such quests that can work in such locations (most do anyway) and have them randomly spawn.
So each player can have a different experience when they pass the same terrain and still each left a different mark.
see runescape. the noob ones are lame, but desert treasure is the best quest I've ever done. guildwars missions are good, not sure whether they are classed as quests though.
some of aoc's quests are fun, most are generic.
My blog:
And really, you could apply these same ideas to every type of mob killing in the game. If the players kill a specific type of mob faster than it can regenerate its population, then that mob could become extinct for a while. At the same time, another type of mob (which was in direct competition with the now extinct mob) would increase in population, maybe to the point of over running an entire zone.
Theres many interesting possibilities when you get into this and it really would be a dynamic or "organic" form of content.
I could not agree more. I hated "quest hubs" in Vanguard and POBS. Quests need to be meaningful, like they were in Everquest. You had to hail and chat with every NPC to see if they even had a quest. If they did, you had to say the right things to get the quest. Then, you had to figure out how to complete the quest on your own. It required patience, thought, and interaction.
Current day quests involve:
1. Seeing some npc bloke with an exclamation point above his head (ya, real immersive there).
2. Clicking on him; and clicking about three times. Voila, you have umm, not sure...
3. Pull up your journal; aha, kill 5 enraged monkeys...and cool their location is marked on my map.
Took about 10 minutes...and wow I get half a bar of xp for it. That roolz. (sarcasm)
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
How can the quest giver track if it was you that got rid of all the bunnies on the farm, what method you used; and why would he care? Would be funnier and more logical if he asked you to get rid of all bunnies (killer ones with big teeth) and then whatever method you prefer to get rid of the bunnies if allowed; if you chase them away to the neighbor then sure, he got rid om them so who cares? You maybe wait till someone else picks up the quests and does it for you, then you go and hand it in, leaving him without the quest reward and you didn't have to do anything.
Of course you get a follow-up depending on what you did; if you chased them away then the neighbor will be troubled and ask you to get rid of them and if they were slaughtered they will attract wolves who then need to be chased away. After a while though they will become suspicious if you always chase them to the other farm, or the wolves will be exterminated from the area leaving you without quests.
An example of a more "casual" quest and one that's not tied to the storyline, which is the other - already covered by previous posters - way of doing it. In a game I would prefer to have both of these put together, preferably with the "casual" ones affecting the storylined ones too.
What happens when all these interactive dynamic quests can't be completed because all those other dynamic quests are effecting the consequences? You'll have people qith quest logs full of quests that can't be finished because the NPC they got it from is dead or moved. Then what? How often do you think people will tolerate not knowing why a quest can't be completed? Or, do you just get a message in your log, "This quest can't be completed because Bill the Butcher decided to hang up his cleaver and become a farmer instead.:"?
Everything mentioned here works VERY well in a single player game or in a very Non-massive RPG with only a few people playing together. Muyltiply dynamic quests by an average 15k different players all completing and begining these at different time and you've only brushed the surface of what happens when quests don't have some sort of static nature to them.
I think that a good quest would be to first, find the area where to take the quest and find out whom you have to speak too. It should also set an interesting story with the quest including key loctions, clues to where to go next, valluable information off people who are part of the quest and many unique items to find along the travels.
ALL quests i think should be completable and not impossibl to complete, not too hard, not too easy but the level difficulty in the middle. The easier the quest, the worse items you recieve, the harder the quest the more amazing items you should recieve. If you complete the quest in a certain amount of time, you shopuld get a bonus reward or if you find a hidden item you get a bonus reward aswell.
There should be monsters to face, puzzles and challenges along the way for the player to figure out on how to solve the puzzle using ones mind. Locked areas in which you need a certain object to progress, for example: there are locked gates and you need a large gold key to enter the area and so continue on the path to victory.
There should be specific element area locks in which you need magic spells or items representing that element. water, fire, ice and lightning so you could have to somehow guide lightning towards a lock using special items only once you have done another part of the same quest. The player can also decide if to take a few other members as a group to enter in the quest with them instead of having a specific amount set already for the player to find to enter the quest.
You also need to set good locations and amazing scenery, different types of monsters to defeat with different elements and health and levels. Also try to uinclude interactive scenery.
To me, this is what a quest should include, a good example of this is the online game called Wonderland Online which includes many, if not all the features i have mentioned above.
TSN
Honestly, I still dont see the issue. As long as these quests take the combined effort of many players and as long as there are new quests to replace the completed ones there should (in theory) always be something to do.
IMO, it would be more about creating a game world where there are actions and reactions. Like I said in my other post, if players kill too many of one specific mob, that mob becomes extinct for a while (or maybe just in that zone). However, a competing mob will now spawn at a higher rate and could potentiallyover-run the zone.
Of course, thats just one example, but I think it goes along with the idea of dynamic quests. Could it work in an MMO? Who knows. But, we do need something more interesting than whats out there now.
Don't think there are no dynamic quests.
Simple form of dynamic quests are ALREADY implemented in WOW.
In the new isle, when enough people completed certain quests, new quests are open up and the place does change (for example, this building is no longer guarded by certain mobs).
You can argue they are simplistic, but these are dynamic quests where you actions affect the environment.
Josher-
I hear what you're saying. I agree that it's a lot easier to come up with an idea than it is to implement it. I, myself, tend to have blinders on when it comes to my own ideas and not see things things that make it difficult to accomplish.
That being said, the ideas and goals presented here are still valid.
Are they difficult to achieve? certainly. I'll accept that. I'll even go so far as to admit that I can't begin to fathom the difficulty involved.
But I will not accept that it is impossible to do.
I began playing video games on my TV with PONG in 1976.
I'm about to log on to EVE Online.
What is Impossible one day is commonplace another. I think these ideas should definitely be discussed at leagth and ad nauseum--- until they happen--- until they become commonplace.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
Just as Beauty is in the eye of the beholder a truly meaningful quest is in the head of the quester. A good system would adjust to the needs of the individual player. That could be done by allowing the player to "build a quest" to suit his needs within the framework of the game. Another idea would be to gather information on the player's playstyle and automate choices based on that.
I was a fan of the ol EQ quests that brought about (for the time) large scale battles between dwarves and gints, etc. Since then, most games have taken huge steps backwards. The kill X quests, or Deliver X, etc are so tired now. I am in a small minority for what I would like to see, but aside from games suh a WAR where your game play will have an impact on the world it would be nice to see quests institute loss versus reward quests. Village counsel wants you to go kill the local tyrant who plagues their countryside. If you o, they will reward you with a shiny sword. That is fine. If you go to fight Bob the Bandit and lose, HELLO! He is Bob the BANDIT. He should take a random item or two from you that he finds particularly shiny also. I find the spoonfed trend of MMO's to be leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I am from the "Old days" where dying in EQ meant you would lose half a days worth of XP gain, or the days of UO where dying meant you lost your gear coz the person who killed you would comb through it. Gaming needs to start taking SMALL steps back toward that sort of game, until a happy medium is discovered.