A lot of people complain about how they hate how quests are all the same. "Go Here, Kill X", but they never suggest a solution. And after thinking about it, I can't really think of anything to suggest either. When looking at quests, there are three quest types: Kill Quests = Must kill X amount of said creature. Gather Quests = Must gather X amount of said item. Travel Quests = Go here, talk to this person. Now, I dare you to think of a type completely unique from those three. In fact, I welcome any new type that makes sense, but I know, that even new types will eventually be considered the norm and boring.
Tabula Rasa had a pretty good answer to this, although unfortunately only in a very limited number of quests, is that during the quest, you could make decisions (usually ethical decisions) as to what to do. For example someone will tell you to kill some alien, and then the alien himself will tell you to not kill him and give you all these reasons about maybe why hes doing what hes doing and then you could choose what to do. Based on your choice, it would affect later quests in the game. However, you could see where this would become hard to really fully incorporate into a game, which is why TR only managed to do it for a few quest groups. The only possible bad thing about this is probably that alot of players won't care about the "decision" and will instead look at some guide at the rewards or easiest mission path and will just make all their decisions based on that which of course takes out the whole purpose of the ethical decision.
Also, as someone said earlier, I thought Anarchy Online's mission/quest system was incredibly good. You choose through missions based on what reward you want then it randomly generates an instanced dungeon filled with mobs and a boss and you could solo or get a party to complete it.
Thats true. We all know theres only 10 rats in the entire world and they certainly can't breed.... Oh wait
Okay, bad example. However, you needed 10 rat tails for soup. You just received 10 rat tails. Why do you need 10 more? Do you really need more rat tail soup? If you do, shouldn't you have thought of that beforehand and asked that person to collect 20 instead of asking two people to collect 10 each? Especially since that person has proven themselves capable of killing the rats and harvesting their tails, why bother asking someone else that might be incredibly slow or might even forget about the task?
The thing is, there's no more 'reality' to this stuff. Especially when they somehow know you've killed those 50 boars without watching you/asking for evidence (ie. tusks, skulls, etc.).
Thats true. We all know theres only 10 rats in the entire world and they certainly can't breed.... Oh wait
Okay, bad example. However, you needed 10 rat tails for soup. You just received 10 rat tails. Why do you need 10 more? Do you really need more rat tail soup? If you do, shouldn't you have thought of that beforehand and asked that person to collect 20 instead of asking two people to collect 10 each? Especially since that person has proven themselves capable of killing the rats and harvesting their tails, why bother asking someone else that might be incredibly slow or might even forget about the task?
The thing is, there's no more 'reality' to this stuff. Especially when they somehow know you've killed those 50 boars without watching you/asking for evidence (ie. tusks, skulls, etc.).
Well, you hit upon a good reality with your first quest, kill rats to prevent disease. Or cockroaches, or bunnies. Theres plenty of fine examples that the more you kill the better. Just because you can think of bad reasons to have a quest doesn't mean that there aren't good ones.
I'm not saying there aren't poor examples. I think the guy explaining WAR gave a really hilarious example of this sort of thing. But don't throw out quests because some guy ran out of ideas.
The asking 10, then 10, then 10 more reminds me of how Gandalf got the 13 dwarves into Beorns house. If he had said 13 from the start, Beorn would have said NO. But by bringing up 1 at a time, he managed achieve his goal.
I also think that (like WAR has), that your killing 10 before getting the quest should count towards your total, all things being equal.
To answer the OPs idea for quests, you often see NPC guards in the newbie area. I think it would be cool if a PC could get 'guard the noobs' as a quest. You succeed if no noobs die on your watch (and they stay in the area).
i haven't read the thread so sue me ... i think quests should be quests. but I don't want to screw over the soloer so i think they should add ... "chore NPCs"
these are special NPCs in each Hub, that has chores for you for coin/exp ...
Go kill 20 spiders and come back
go pick up 30 pieces of garbage and come back
go get me 10 pristine bear claws and come back
then have "hidden" quests in other NPCs that you have to trigger by saying certain words, like back in the day of EQ1.
all other quests in the game would be the hidden type. the chore NPC would be the only one with a ! over his head.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
Let's see... Uncover a conspiracy that involves a faked plague and a condemned West Ardougne (pronounced Ar-doyn), travel through a trap-ridden, evil-infested Underground Pass to kill a disciple of chaos, rediscover the separated land of elves, overthrow a (seemingly) corrupt king trying to conquer the land of elves, rediscover a Temple of Light that holds secrets to the creation of the world, and find a way to reconstruct the elven capital city... and who knows what after all that? That's just one quest chain and it hasn't been finished yet. Do you agree that's how quests should be? There's a reason why players in Runescape are called adventurers. They go on adventures, or quests in the truest sense of the word. Funny, eh?
There's a reason why 99% of people playing Runescape are immature, pre-pubescent 10 year-old kids. Funny, eh?
Yeah, it's called Jagex marketed to the younger market before realizing their mistake and easing up a bit. Do you really think more complex quests attract stupider kids?
LOL i do believe he just tried to use "stupider" in a sentence....that speaks wonders about your post...
Oh no! You can't come up with a good response, so you attack one word. That speaks wonders about not only your post, but your ability to debate.
They could utilize animation screens and triggers.This all takes a lot of work,but hey either yo uare designing a great game or a cheap one.There is scenarios we have seen many times that also ad fun like being part of a support cast in a raid,you have to keep someone alive or maybe join a force of NPC to take down a boss.You can have puzzles that again utilize animations like secret entrances.You can have a whole slew of things to do within a time frame,like perhaps you have to star out by crafting something,FFXI did this,and you would have to be familiar with crafting recipes,no time to look it up.You could have it so you have to find the recipe items by killing/searching/unraveling clues to secrets.Then after you have the craft you might have to do something with it,like maybe it's a medi pack to aid a fallen NPC.
You could tie everything all into one quest like a siege on a NPC post,then if someone dies you can only raise them utilizing secret crafts within the quest.Perhaps there is a lot of items around to construct different choices of weapons,how you fight the mob or boss or raid depends on the weapon you construct.After you kill them you have many items that offer clues or to opening secrets to continue the quest.I do not think it should straight up goi here follow the arrow,i enjoy quests that make you think.
FFXI utilized a sort of simple idea in one of their GENKAI/level cap quests.They would give you hints.then using those hints you had to find the proper NPC's throughout the world,heck they could be anywhere.Most of these developers have people dedicated to quests,they shoudl earn their wage by updating the quests,so they are always fresh and don't become automatic google fodder.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Neanderthal, you sound like you want to address exploration. I salute you! *salutes*
Yes, absolutely. And because I think free roaming exploration is such an important part of these games there is another part to my little daydream that I'll mention.
In order to do a quest you don't have to "get" the quest first. In other words you don't have to actually talk to any NPC before you can do a quest. The NPCs are just there to tell you about it but there is no game mechanic attached to them which requires you to talk to them.
So you could just head out exploring the world and happen to see an ominous looking mountain and decide to check it out. You come across a nasty wizard there and kill him. Well there you go, you've completed that quest just by stumbling across it. Nobody told you to do it you just happened to find it. In some cases you might have to return some item to the NPC in question but you don't have talk to him before you can retrieve the item, you don't even have to know that the item or the quest exists. If you find yourself in possesion of some strange quest item you might have to ask other people, "What the heck is this thing for?" but you don't have to have the quest in a quest log before you can even get the item.
And with this sort of system there would be no need to "share" quests with other people. If you are heading for the Ominous Mountian and you pick up a couple new group members along the way all they have to do is go along with you and help with the final objective. Even if YOU dropped out of the group they could still go and do it even though they've never even seen the NPC who tells people about it.
Let's see... Uncover a conspiracy that involves a faked plague and a condemned West Ardougne (pronounced Ar-doyn), travel through a trap-ridden, evil-infested Underground Pass to kill a disciple of chaos, rediscover the separated land of elves, overthrow a (seemingly) corrupt king trying to conquer the land of elves, rediscover a Temple of Light that holds secrets to the creation of the world, and find a way to reconstruct the elven capital city... and who knows what after all that? That's just one quest chain and it hasn't been finished yet. Do you agree that's how quests should be? There's a reason why players in Runescape are called adventurers. They go on adventures, or quests in the truest sense of the word. Funny, eh?
There's a reason why 99% of people playing Runescape are immature, pre-pubescent 10 year-old kids. Funny, eh?
Yeah, it's called Jagex marketed to the younger market before realizing their mistake and easing up a bit. Do you really think more complex quests attract stupider kids?
LOL i do believe he just tried to use "stupider" in a sentence....that speaks wonders about your post...
Oh no! You can't come up with a good response, so you attack one word. That speaks wonders about not only your post, but your ability to debate.
No one does the quests unless they really have nothing more to do. Aside from that, having an intricate plot does NOT make a quest chain 'complex'. It makes it well thought-out. There is NOTHING in RS that is challenging in the least-IIRC, there's some dragon that you have to kill at level 40 to wear rune plate chest, and the dragon is level 80 something. Well, what kind of game allows a level 40 to kill a level 80 unique mob?
@Wizardry: That's the problem. The mass market doesn't like to think. They want "Okay, so to make x, I need y, z, and m". I suppose the only solution is to not tell the public what everything does, but the problem is, fansites will just reveal everything.
I think that the best way to approach this is to make EVERY possibility possible, just like in real life. For example, I want to combine an umbrella with a shotgun. Given the right expertise, I could do so. In the game, I can't craft a broadsword and a frost orb together to make a sword of frost unless it's a specific recipe. Diablo II had the right idea on this (Horadric Cube), but those options were still too few.
However, then you'd also need to implement that into quests. A 'chore' NPC would be great-for example, a wealthy man that had his family slaughtered by x, so for every x head you bring back, he will reward you. That way, there's actually an explanation why the man wants 5810923852385093290 heads. Aside from that NPC, you'd need dynamic ones that change and don't give the same quest to everyone.
@rscott6666: The problem in 'reality' is not that the motives are not realistic, but rather, the NPCs have no way of telling whether or not you did something. I just went halfway around the world and slew a Dragon that is going to respawn in about half an hour. How does he know I did it? A disturbance in the force indicating the Dragon's death? Even if that were true, there's no way he knows that I did it.
About your 'guard the noobs': you're bound to have some idiot start a mega-train. There's also the matter of them wanting to kill stuff-if you need to protect them and save them from mobs, you're bound to have to kill something. They'll probably start complaining about you stealing all their kills.
Because of limitations of modern technology, I think the only way to have dynamic, interesting quests is for those quests to be assigned by people. Those people would be like DMs, but then, you'd need a mature community that won't give you 1218239182490 exp/gold for running 2 meters.
I do believe that once AI has evolved to the point where it can think for itself in a dynamic world, THAT is when we will be able to have a truly immersive, engaging world that will stay fun for decades.
Second Life is the most sandboxy game I can think of.
There are no quests in second life. There are a lot of things to do. There is role play, social interaction, crafting your own stuff including your face even and so on.
Neanderthal, you sound like you want to address exploration. I salute you! *salutes*
Yes, absolutely. And because I think free roaming exploration is such an important part of these games there is another part to my little daydream that I'll mention.
In order to do a quest you don't have to "get" the quest first. In other words you don't have to actually talk to any NPC before you can do a quest. The NPCs are just there to tell you about it but there is no game mechanic attached to them which requires you to talk to them.
So you could just head out exploring the world and happen to see an ominous looking mountain and decide to check it out. You come across a nasty wizard there and kill him. Well there you go, you've completed that quest just by stumbling across it. Nobody told you to do it you just happened to find it. In some cases you might have to return some item to the NPC in question but you don't have talk to him before you can retrieve the item, you don't even have to know that the item or the quest exists. If you find yourself in possesion of some strange quest item you might have to ask other people, "What the heck is this thing for?" but you don't have to have the quest in a quest log before you can even get the item.
And with this sort of system there would be no need to "share" quests with other people. If you are heading for the Ominous Mountian and you pick up a couple new group members along the way all they have to do is go along with you and help with the final objective. Even if YOU dropped out of the group they could still go and do it even though they've never even seen the NPC who tells people about it.
But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=) Basically its what happened in Dragon Age a couple of times. I killed some NPCs and retrieved items, then when I talked to another NPC, it activated what remained of the quest. Unfortunately I never knew what the item was or any of the back story of why so and son needed the thingamabob. Some quest items went unused because I never found the NPCs that the item was attached to. Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.
A MMO that recognized all your actions all the time and can shift the world/NPCs around those actions would certainly make for a more interesting and lively world. But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why it hasn't been done and its NOT due to lazyness or a lack of trying. Some emoting NPCs is only the tip of the iceberg.
Originally posted by Neanderthal Yes, absolutely. And because I think free roaming exploration is such an important part of these games there is another part to my little daydream that I'll mention. In order to do a quest you don't have to "get" the quest first. In other words you don't have to actually talk to any NPC before you can do a quest. The NPCs are just there to tell you about it but there is no game mechanic attached to them which requires you to talk to them......
But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=) Basically its what happened in Dragon Age a couple of times. I killed some NPCs and retrieved items, then when I talked to another NPC, it activated what remained of the quest. Unfortunately I never knew what the item was or any of the back story of why so and son needed the thingamabob. Some quest items went unused because I never found the NPCs that the item was attached to. Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.
A MMO that recognized all your actions all the time and can shift the world/NPCs around those actions would certainly make for a more interesting and lively world. But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why it hasn't been done and its NOT due to lazyness or a lack of trying. Some emoting NPCs is only the tip of the iceberg.
<<<But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=)>>>
If there is an Evil Wizard someone wants killed and you happen to arrive at the home of the Evil Wizard shouldn't he be there even if nobody told you about him beforehand? Why should someone have to tell you he exists before he actually exists.
And you might say it's not a quest but if you read my earlier posts I'm talking about a huge world with very long travel times in which trekking through the world is the main challenge. "Getting there" in itself is the bulk of the quest. So if you "got there" without being told you were supposed to go there you've undertaken the main challenge of the quest anyway even if nobody specifically told you to go there. The majority of any quest in this idea is the trek through the dangerous world. The final objectives are there to give you a reason to trek through the dangerous world.
<<<Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.>>>
I'm not a programmer but I can't believe that would be a problem. These games keep track of thousands of mobs and NPCs all the time already. How would this be any different? In a game like WoW, at any given time there are probably thousands of people all simultaneously doing the same quest. And thousands of other quests being done by thousands of other people. Why would it be any more stressfull on a game to keep track of persistant quest mobs/objectives than it is for a game to be constantly spawning quest mobs/objectives for each and every individual person doing it.
The only real difference with the quest objectives in this idea is that they will be there when you get there whether a NPC told you about it or not. And in many cases this isn't even different from WoW. Many of the quest mobs in WoW are there in the game all the time, they just don't drop the thing you need if you don't have the quest in your quest log.
<<<But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=)>>>
If there is an Evil Wizard someone wants killed and you happen to arrive at the home of the Evil Wizard shouldn't he be there even if nobody told you about him beforehand? Why should someone have to tell you he exists before he actually exists.
And you might say it's not a quest but if you read my earlier posts I'm talking about a huge world with very long travel times in which trekking through the world is the main challenge. "Getting there" in itself is the bulk of the quest. So if you "got there" without being told you were supposed to go there you've undertaken the main challenge of the quest anyway even if nobody specifically told you to go there. The majority of any quest in this idea is the trek through the dangerous world. The final objectives are there to give you a reason to trek through the dangerous world.
<<<Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.>>>
I'm not a programmer but I can't believe that would be a problem. These games keep track of thousands of mobs and NPCs all the time already. How would this be any different? In a game like WoW, at any given time there are probably thousands of people all simultaneously doing the same quest. And thousands of other quests being done by thousands of other people. Why would it be any more stressfull on a game to keep track of persistant quest mobs/objectives than it is for a game to be constantly spawning quest mobs/objectives for each and every individual person doing it.
The only real difference with the quest objectives in this idea is that they will be there when you get there whether a NPC told you about it or not. And in many cases this isn't even different from WoW. Many of the quest mobs in WoW are there in the game all the time, they just don't drop the thing you need if you don't have the quest in your quest log.
Since you want things to make sense, if you just happen to come across him, why are you killing him and how would you know to look for a letter or other misc item that happens to be important to a quest you know nothing about? Why would you search in the dead guys pocket for a gem that has siginificance but looks like an ordinary stone if you never knew it had significance? You'd just leave it there. This is all about immersion I imagine. Seems like you'll end up with a special bag filled with a whole bunch of quest items that have no siginificance until you just randomly bang into an NPC that randomly asks you if you found something. So you answer, "Oh here it is, sitting in a bag with 100 other trinkets=) It makes things convenient, but it certainly doesn't make sense.
As far as the database issues, when you're on a quest you're marked for that particular set of perameters for that quest. Why do you think quests get capped? Its not because its just too many to be on and we're going to arbitrarily decide 20 is enough for your log. Its because somewhere the code required to keep track of 20 quests and everything related to those 20 quests hits a breaking point. In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do. Now multiply that by 15k players on that server all interacting at the same time=) I'm not saying it can't be done, but obviously there's limits. Just like graphics have limitations, AI has limitations, animations and so on. And then you're dealing with a persistent world where everything has to be shared and crammed together to fit into some pre-determined LIMIT so the server doesn't crash=) Thats a whole lot more for the server to keep track of. I'm sure its been tried.
Going back to the op's question, besides the kill, gather, and travel quests, I can think of the following:
- Build quest: besides crafting for weapons, developers should include houses, fortresses, camps. Imagine you can toll a bridge like a troll.
- Puzzle quest: Tetris, mazes, crossing a river with 3 sheep and 2 wolves, quizzes.
- Stun quest: complete a sequence of musical notes, jumping, skill combos, fps, sync up with other PC.
- Social quest: pvp, PC trading of quest items, find PC with certain attributes.
+combinations of these basic quest types.
But a good quest does not have to be difficult. An easy quest is not always boring. A fun quest does not frustrate the players. Developers are just being lazy.
Originally posted by Josher Since you want things to make sense, if you just happen to come across him, why are you killing him and how would you know to look for a letter or other misc item that happens to be important to a quest you know nothing about? Why would you search in the dead guys pocket for a gem that has siginificance but looks like an ordinary stone if you never knew it had significance? You'd just leave it there. This is all about immersion I imagine. Seems like you'll end up with a special bag filled with a whole bunch of quest items that have no siginificance until you just randomly bang into an NPC that randomly asks you if you found something. So you answer, "Oh here it is, sitting in a bag with 100 other trinkets=) It makes things convenient, but it certainly doesn't make sense. As far as the database issues, when you're on a quest you're marked for that particular set of perameters for that quest. Why do you think quests get capped? Its not because its just too many to be on and we're going to arbitrarily decide 20 is enough for your log. Its because somewhere the code required to keep track of 20 quests and everything related to those 20 quests hits a breaking point. In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do. Now multiply that by 15k players on that server all interacting at the same time=) I'm not saying it can't be done, but obviously there's limits. Just like graphics have limitations, AI has limitations, animations and so on. And then you're dealing with a persistent world where everything has to be shared and crammed together to fit into some pre-determined LIMIT so the server doesn't crash=) Thats a whole lot more for the server to keep track of. I'm sure its been tried.
You know, I can't help but suspect that you're trying to find reasons to argue with me just because it's me posting this. You've gotten angry at me in other threads for complaining about questing as it exists in games today and I just get the feeling you want to argue with me just for the sake of arguing with me. But if that's true it's fine, it's about all these forums are good for anyway.
So anyway...your first paragraph is off the mark. No, it's not all about immersion or realism. It's just the way I would set things up if had to design a quest based game. What it does is eliminate a lot of the petty beaurocratic nonsense where you have to run back and forth talking to NPCs and jumping through hoops. The NPCs are still there. You can still talk to them. There is still a benefit in talking to them because they will tell you where to go and something of what to expect...BUT...you don't have to talk to them first. You could just head out and see what's over the horizon and maybe you find something of interest and maybe you don't. And, just to piss you off some more, I'll tell you that I would put in some "things of interest" which no NPCs talk about just so the explorer types would have worthwhile things to find just for exploring. These things would probably be randomly relocated after a certain number of people have discovered them.
<<<In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do.>>>
No it wouldn't. It wouldn't have to mark anyone for anything. All it has to do is spawn the mobs in their spot and when anyone kills them they drop whatever it is they have to drop and reward whatever experience they have to reward. If the quest involves something more complicated like a NPC showing you a hidden door the NPC just stands there untill someone, anyone, comes along and talks to him triggering the action.
The only thing the game would have to track specifically for your character would be quests you've recently done or quest mobs you've recently killed so that you couldn't just sit there re-killing / re-doing them without moving on. That's to prevent the dreaded spawn camping you hate so much. But for the type of game I'm talking about it would only ever have to keep track of the last thing you did because of the distance and travel time between things.
@rscott6666: The problem in 'reality' is not that the motives are not realistic, but rather, the NPCs have no way of telling whether or not you did something. I just went halfway around the world and slew a Dragon that is going to respawn in about half an hour. How does he know I did it? A disturbance in the force indicating the Dragon's death? Even if that were true, there's no way he knows that I did it.
About your 'guard the noobs': you're bound to have some idiot start a mega-train. There's also the matter of them wanting to kill stuff-if you need to protect them and save them from mobs, you're bound to have to kill something. They'll probably start complaining about you stealing all their kills. Because of limitations of modern technology, I think the only way to have dynamic, interesting quests is for those quests to be assigned by people. Those people would be like DMs, but then, you'd need a mature community that won't give you 1218239182490 exp/gold for running 2 meters. I do believe that once AI has evolved to the point where it can think for itself in a dynamic world, THAT is when we will be able to have a truly immersive, engaging world that will stay fun for decades.
I can agree that sometimes getting a justification for a quest halfway around the world is tough, and can be lame at times. And i too would rather have a more organic quest layout where you get paid for results rather than actions.
And i also agree that getting verification to the npc is tough. you can only carry around so many dragon heads. I can see the bigger quests being handled by more fanciful explanations. The npc has a dream of you killing the dragon, and they act on that dream sort of thing. Or the npc prays to god that someone will kill the dragon and the god answers the praryer saying they sent you and you completed that task. Or maybe the dragon cursed the npc and when the dragon dies, the curse is lifted.
Re guard the noobs. They complain about npcs stealing kills already. As long as the areas are well defined, it shouldn't be a problem. This is the sort of quest you could repeat, so failing once doesn't really matter (like if someone trains the mobs onto a noob).
Originally posted by johnmatthais I still love sandboxes for not having predetermined quests. Quests should provide fun, not rewards. Maybe a little look into lore. OR MAYBE DEVELOPERS CAN FINALLY USE INSTANCES LIKE THEY SHOULD BE USED AND MAKE PERSONALIZED EPIC STORY QUEST INSTANCES. GRAAHHHH!! HULK SMASH!!!
NO!! We dont want instances!! we want non sensical watered down content with respawning bosses so we can accomodate the 3d chatroom sandbox game!!
New type of quest, go here, craft item X. Was in DAOC. Next problem?
Bureau of Commisions? An NPC by any other name. That may work for AO, but not for most fantasy games. Furthermore, it still ignores the fact individual npcs will have needs that aren't registered with the bureau.(that would be silly).
Don't like the floating !, give npcs who want to talk to you a unique animation, maybe they'll all be waving you over.
A bureau of commissions where all tasks are shown is not "an NPC by any other name". A building of such kind provides an image of the general condition of a game-world. It takes chores and returns them to its rightful owner, the dynamicity of a virtual world. I don't have problem with collecting and killing, what bothers me is that NPCs have arbitrarily written-up stories that have no connection with the above-said virtuality... in the end it's not really what you do that's the problem, is that you're TOLD to do something you don't care about.
Knowing instead that what you do is perfectly consistent with the whole world-advancement and the main gameplay element is priceless. In Planetside for example you'd open the map, see what spots require people's help, and then simply go there and fight. There's no such a thing as NPC, it's simple dynamicity and virtuality.
That's what Warhammer should have done with quests. They should have given quests back to PvP, which WAS MEANT TO BE its main element, and PvP would have become more complex, varied, interesting... instead they gave in to typical WoW-style PvE, out of weakness and marketing suggestions and it slowly eroded PvP from below.
And that's the same thing that should have happened in Tabula Rasa. Instead of doing nonsense chores(take this heirloom from the dying soldier and give it to his son... for godsake!), the player should have been busy building new defenses for the outposts, customizing and managing them, trading new resources with the factories nearby, supplies(food and medicine), maybe every player, for doing the most strategically important tasks could end up OWNING the outpost he first served, as "house", which would in turn return profit and rewards like the VIPs visiting you, promoting you to commander, participate in "politics"(meetings with the game makers) or what have you!
Inside such an active purpose, collecting and killing would be acceptable... it's basically just the WAY you "take" commissions that's important, whether you just collect random tasks of random stories, or MAKE UP YOUR OWN tasks to make your fortress more secure, aware of the entire world's current situation
The title of the topic is if not "go there kill x" what? My answer is "this is the situation. Where do you wanna go? what to do you wanna kill?''
Originally posted by rscott6666Re guard the noobs. They complain about npcs stealing kills already. As long as the areas are well defined, it shouldn't be a problem. This is the sort of quest you could repeat, so failing once doesn't really matter (like if someone trains the mobs onto a noob).
Well, even the dumbest of gamers realize that NPCs are AI and cannot think right. However, in PvE games, people can grief others by KSing excessively. Most games do ban people for griefing like this, but if such a quest is in place, "they're doing the quest" rather than intentionally being a$$hats.
Originally posted by Josher Since you want things to make sense, if you just happen to come across him, why are you killing him and how would you know to look for a letter or other misc item that happens to be important to a quest you know nothing about? Why would you search in the dead guys pocket for a gem that has siginificance but looks like an ordinary stone if you never knew it had significance? You'd just leave it there. This is all about immersion I imagine. Seems like you'll end up with a special bag filled with a whole bunch of quest items that have no siginificance until you just randomly bang into an NPC that randomly asks you if you found something. So you answer, "Oh here it is, sitting in a bag with 100 other trinkets=) It makes things convenient, but it certainly doesn't make sense. As far as the database issues, when you're on a quest you're marked for that particular set of perameters for that quest. Why do you think quests get capped? Its not because its just too many to be on and we're going to arbitrarily decide 20 is enough for your log. Its because somewhere the code required to keep track of 20 quests and everything related to those 20 quests hits a breaking point. In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do. Now multiply that by 15k players on that server all interacting at the same time=) I'm not saying it can't be done, but obviously there's limits. Just like graphics have limitations, AI has limitations, animations and so on. And then you're dealing with a persistent world where everything has to be shared and crammed together to fit into some pre-determined LIMIT so the server doesn't crash=) Thats a whole lot more for the server to keep track of. I'm sure its been tried.
You know, I can't help but suspect that you're trying to find reasons to argue with me just because it's me posting this. You've gotten angry at me in other threads for complaining about questing as it exists in games today and I just get the feeling you want to argue with me just for the sake of arguing with me. But if that's true it's fine, it's about all these forums are good for anyway.
So anyway...your first paragraph is off the mark. No, it's not all about immersion or realism. It's just the way I would set things up if had to design a quest based game. What it does is eliminate a lot of the petty beaurocratic nonsense where you have to run back and forth talking to NPCs and jumping through hoops. The NPCs are still there. You can still talk to them. There is still a benefit in talking to them because they will tell you where to go and something of what to expect...BUT...you don't have to talk to them first. You could just head out and see what's over the horizon and maybe you find something of interest and maybe you don't. And, just to piss you off some more, I'll tell you that I would put in some "things of interest" which no NPCs talk about just so the explorer types would have worthwhile things to find just for exploring. These things would probably be randomly relocated after a certain number of people have discovered them.
<<<In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do.>>>
No it wouldn't. It wouldn't have to mark anyone for anything. All it has to do is spawn the mobs in their spot and when anyone kills them they drop whatever it is they have to drop and reward whatever experience they have to reward. If the quest involves something more complicated like a NPC showing you a hidden door the NPC just stands there untill someone, anyone, comes along and talks to him triggering the action.
The only thing the game would have to track specifically for your character would be quests you've recently done or quest mobs you've recently killed so that you couldn't just sit there re-killing / re-doing them without moving on. That's to prevent the dreaded spawn camping you hate so much. But for the type of game I'm talking about it would only ever have to keep track of the last thing you did because of the distance and travel time between things.
I don't have any content to add, but I quite like your posts. You make some good points, the guy arguing with you is either an idiot or a troll, either way he's probably not worth your time.
1. I always thought it would be interesting to include PvP style quests like-
Kill "X" player type in Zone "Y".
Steal "X" resources from node type "Y" in player city "Z".
Contact Officer from guild "X" (usually after they paid to have this quest activated) and follow his instructions for XP reward.
Activate/Defend noun X given in one faction vs. Deactivate/Destroy noun X given in the opposing faction.
2. I also like the idea of quests with open ended goals like the "Pirate" quest from the first page. Quests that have multiple ways of achieving the objective.
Stop mob "X" from raiding town "Y" (multiple paths plotted to final objective)
Help town "X" secure trade with town "Y" (multiple paths plotted to final objective)
3. Allowing a quest to change the way the world works for a time would be nice too...
Defeat creature "W" at location "X" to prevent random spawns at location "Y" for "Z" days.
Save creature "W" at location "X" to cause spawns at location "Y" for "Z" days.
Destroy structure "W" at town "X" to raise prices on "Y" product in region "Z".
Gather "W" number of "X" resource to apply to construction cost for building "Y" in town "Z".
4. Finally, if I'm going to be doing one of the base quests, then make it story driven. Having well written dialog and a sense of emotional attachment can make what would normally be a dull quest into something memorable. If you want an example of how to do that, try any bioware game.
Originally posted by rscott6666Re guard the noobs. They complain about npcs stealing kills already. As long as the areas are well defined, it shouldn't be a problem. This is the sort of quest you could repeat, so failing once doesn't really matter (like if someone trains the mobs onto a noob).
Well, even the dumbest of gamers realize that NPCs are AI and cannot think right. However, in PvE games, people can grief others by KSing excessively. Most games do ban people for griefing like this, but if such a quest is in place, "they're doing the quest" rather than intentionally being a$$hats.
This is the way it would work. The guarding PC will have a "Post", he has to guard. If he moves more than 20 feet away from his post, he fails the quest. If a pc dies within his post area, he fails the quest. If he doesn't fail the guard quest in 15 minutes, he is successful.
The post is some distance away from the newbie area, they don't over lap. It will be quite clear the pc is KS or being a jerk.
No developer should waste their time building these types of quests. They should be built into the economy of the "world" with buy orders from players and a want/need driven system for NPC's in the world that can filled by players delivering the goods.
Developers need to spend more time building quests that shift the ground beneath players feet to make it feel like a living breathing world that changes. They should be developing games with deep currents that impact players and npc's in profound, dynamic and fun ways. Stop giving us the same shallow quest system we have now. Give us something that takes the concentrated efforts of a large number of players to complete over a long period of time. Give us mysteries to unravel, cities/fortresses to build(small XP as you go and a big pop when completed), and lands to pacify and colonize.
In other words, take the blinders off and start to dream. The blackboard is all marked up from what's come before that it's hard to see so wipe in clean and take a fresh look at it. I sometimes think developers are worried that gamers are afraid of a learning curve. Fact of the matter is I think we are getting bored at not having to learn new systems. It's essentially turning into the same systems with different art and lore, and thats just not good enough especially for the non-WoW's of the world.
Comments
Thats true. We all know theres only 10 rats in the entire world and they certainly can't breed.... Oh wait
Tabula Rasa had a pretty good answer to this, although unfortunately only in a very limited number of quests, is that during the quest, you could make decisions (usually ethical decisions) as to what to do. For example someone will tell you to kill some alien, and then the alien himself will tell you to not kill him and give you all these reasons about maybe why hes doing what hes doing and then you could choose what to do. Based on your choice, it would affect later quests in the game. However, you could see where this would become hard to really fully incorporate into a game, which is why TR only managed to do it for a few quest groups. The only possible bad thing about this is probably that alot of players won't care about the "decision" and will instead look at some guide at the rewards or easiest mission path and will just make all their decisions based on that which of course takes out the whole purpose of the ethical decision.
Also, as someone said earlier, I thought Anarchy Online's mission/quest system was incredibly good. You choose through missions based on what reward you want then it randomly generates an instanced dungeon filled with mobs and a boss and you could solo or get a party to complete it.
Okay, bad example. However, you needed 10 rat tails for soup. You just received 10 rat tails. Why do you need 10 more? Do you really need more rat tail soup? If you do, shouldn't you have thought of that beforehand and asked that person to collect 20 instead of asking two people to collect 10 each? Especially since that person has proven themselves capable of killing the rats and harvesting their tails, why bother asking someone else that might be incredibly slow or might even forget about the task?
The thing is, there's no more 'reality' to this stuff. Especially when they somehow know you've killed those 50 boars without watching you/asking for evidence (ie. tusks, skulls, etc.).
Neanderthal, you sound like you want to address exploration. I salute you! *salutes*
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Okay, bad example. However, you needed 10 rat tails for soup. You just received 10 rat tails. Why do you need 10 more? Do you really need more rat tail soup? If you do, shouldn't you have thought of that beforehand and asked that person to collect 20 instead of asking two people to collect 10 each? Especially since that person has proven themselves capable of killing the rats and harvesting their tails, why bother asking someone else that might be incredibly slow or might even forget about the task?
The thing is, there's no more 'reality' to this stuff. Especially when they somehow know you've killed those 50 boars without watching you/asking for evidence (ie. tusks, skulls, etc.).
Well, you hit upon a good reality with your first quest, kill rats to prevent disease. Or cockroaches, or bunnies. Theres plenty of fine examples that the more you kill the better. Just because you can think of bad reasons to have a quest doesn't mean that there aren't good ones.
I'm not saying there aren't poor examples. I think the guy explaining WAR gave a really hilarious example of this sort of thing. But don't throw out quests because some guy ran out of ideas.
The asking 10, then 10, then 10 more reminds me of how Gandalf got the 13 dwarves into Beorns house. If he had said 13 from the start, Beorn would have said NO. But by bringing up 1 at a time, he managed achieve his goal.
I also think that (like WAR has), that your killing 10 before getting the quest should count towards your total, all things being equal.
To answer the OPs idea for quests, you often see NPC guards in the newbie area. I think it would be cool if a PC could get 'guard the noobs' as a quest. You succeed if no noobs die on your watch (and they stay in the area).
i haven't read the thread so sue me ... i think quests should be quests. but I don't want to screw over the soloer so i think they should add ... "chore NPCs"
these are special NPCs in each Hub, that has chores for you for coin/exp ...
Go kill 20 spiders and come back
go pick up 30 pieces of garbage and come back
go get me 10 pristine bear claws and come back
then have "hidden" quests in other NPCs that you have to trigger by saying certain words, like back in the day of EQ1.
all other quests in the game would be the hidden type. the chore NPC would be the only one with a ! over his head.
the Evil Raider that outgears you and makes you cry for welfare epics on the forums.
Oooo, say what? I never heard of such a thing, but it sounds pretty cool. Wonder why that hasn't been copied yet.
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There's a reason why 99% of people playing Runescape are immature, pre-pubescent 10 year-old kids. Funny, eh?
Yeah, it's called Jagex marketed to the younger market before realizing their mistake and easing up a bit. Do you really think more complex quests attract stupider kids?
LOL i do believe he just tried to use "stupider" in a sentence....that speaks wonders about your post...
Oh no! You can't come up with a good response, so you attack one word. That speaks wonders about not only your post, but your ability to debate.
Took me 5 seconds to think of a different option.
They could utilize animation screens and triggers.This all takes a lot of work,but hey either yo uare designing a great game or a cheap one.There is scenarios we have seen many times that also ad fun like being part of a support cast in a raid,you have to keep someone alive or maybe join a force of NPC to take down a boss.You can have puzzles that again utilize animations like secret entrances.You can have a whole slew of things to do within a time frame,like perhaps you have to star out by crafting something,FFXI did this,and you would have to be familiar with crafting recipes,no time to look it up.You could have it so you have to find the recipe items by killing/searching/unraveling clues to secrets.Then after you have the craft you might have to do something with it,like maybe it's a medi pack to aid a fallen NPC.
You could tie everything all into one quest like a siege on a NPC post,then if someone dies you can only raise them utilizing secret crafts within the quest.Perhaps there is a lot of items around to construct different choices of weapons,how you fight the mob or boss or raid depends on the weapon you construct.After you kill them you have many items that offer clues or to opening secrets to continue the quest.I do not think it should straight up goi here follow the arrow,i enjoy quests that make you think.
FFXI utilized a sort of simple idea in one of their GENKAI/level cap quests.They would give you hints.then using those hints you had to find the proper NPC's throughout the world,heck they could be anywhere.Most of these developers have people dedicated to quests,they shoudl earn their wage by updating the quests,so they are always fresh and don't become automatic google fodder.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Yes, absolutely. And because I think free roaming exploration is such an important part of these games there is another part to my little daydream that I'll mention.
In order to do a quest you don't have to "get" the quest first. In other words you don't have to actually talk to any NPC before you can do a quest. The NPCs are just there to tell you about it but there is no game mechanic attached to them which requires you to talk to them.
So you could just head out exploring the world and happen to see an ominous looking mountain and decide to check it out. You come across a nasty wizard there and kill him. Well there you go, you've completed that quest just by stumbling across it. Nobody told you to do it you just happened to find it. In some cases you might have to return some item to the NPC in question but you don't have talk to him before you can retrieve the item, you don't even have to know that the item or the quest exists. If you find yourself in possesion of some strange quest item you might have to ask other people, "What the heck is this thing for?" but you don't have to have the quest in a quest log before you can even get the item.
And with this sort of system there would be no need to "share" quests with other people. If you are heading for the Ominous Mountian and you pick up a couple new group members along the way all they have to do is go along with you and help with the final objective. Even if YOU dropped out of the group they could still go and do it even though they've never even seen the NPC who tells people about it.
There's a reason why 99% of people playing Runescape are immature, pre-pubescent 10 year-old kids. Funny, eh?
Yeah, it's called Jagex marketed to the younger market before realizing their mistake and easing up a bit. Do you really think more complex quests attract stupider kids?
LOL i do believe he just tried to use "stupider" in a sentence....that speaks wonders about your post...
Oh no! You can't come up with a good response, so you attack one word. That speaks wonders about not only your post, but your ability to debate.
No one does the quests unless they really have nothing more to do. Aside from that, having an intricate plot does NOT make a quest chain 'complex'. It makes it well thought-out. There is NOTHING in RS that is challenging in the least-IIRC, there's some dragon that you have to kill at level 40 to wear rune plate chest, and the dragon is level 80 something. Well, what kind of game allows a level 40 to kill a level 80 unique mob?
@Wizardry: That's the problem. The mass market doesn't like to think. They want "Okay, so to make x, I need y, z, and m". I suppose the only solution is to not tell the public what everything does, but the problem is, fansites will just reveal everything.
I think that the best way to approach this is to make EVERY possibility possible, just like in real life. For example, I want to combine an umbrella with a shotgun. Given the right expertise, I could do so. In the game, I can't craft a broadsword and a frost orb together to make a sword of frost unless it's a specific recipe. Diablo II had the right idea on this (Horadric Cube), but those options were still too few.
However, then you'd also need to implement that into quests. A 'chore' NPC would be great-for example, a wealthy man that had his family slaughtered by x, so for every x head you bring back, he will reward you. That way, there's actually an explanation why the man wants 5810923852385093290 heads. Aside from that NPC, you'd need dynamic ones that change and don't give the same quest to everyone.
@rscott6666: The problem in 'reality' is not that the motives are not realistic, but rather, the NPCs have no way of telling whether or not you did something. I just went halfway around the world and slew a Dragon that is going to respawn in about half an hour. How does he know I did it? A disturbance in the force indicating the Dragon's death? Even if that were true, there's no way he knows that I did it.
About your 'guard the noobs': you're bound to have some idiot start a mega-train. There's also the matter of them wanting to kill stuff-if you need to protect them and save them from mobs, you're bound to have to kill something. They'll probably start complaining about you stealing all their kills.
Because of limitations of modern technology, I think the only way to have dynamic, interesting quests is for those quests to be assigned by people. Those people would be like DMs, but then, you'd need a mature community that won't give you 1218239182490 exp/gold for running 2 meters.
I do believe that once AI has evolved to the point where it can think for itself in a dynamic world, THAT is when we will be able to have a truly immersive, engaging world that will stay fun for decades.
Second Life is the most sandboxy game I can think of.
There are no quests in second life. There are a lot of things to do. There is role play, social interaction, crafting your own stuff including your face even and so on.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Yes, absolutely. And because I think free roaming exploration is such an important part of these games there is another part to my little daydream that I'll mention.
In order to do a quest you don't have to "get" the quest first. In other words you don't have to actually talk to any NPC before you can do a quest. The NPCs are just there to tell you about it but there is no game mechanic attached to them which requires you to talk to them.
So you could just head out exploring the world and happen to see an ominous looking mountain and decide to check it out. You come across a nasty wizard there and kill him. Well there you go, you've completed that quest just by stumbling across it. Nobody told you to do it you just happened to find it. In some cases you might have to return some item to the NPC in question but you don't have talk to him before you can retrieve the item, you don't even have to know that the item or the quest exists. If you find yourself in possesion of some strange quest item you might have to ask other people, "What the heck is this thing for?" but you don't have to have the quest in a quest log before you can even get the item.
And with this sort of system there would be no need to "share" quests with other people. If you are heading for the Ominous Mountian and you pick up a couple new group members along the way all they have to do is go along with you and help with the final objective. Even if YOU dropped out of the group they could still go and do it even though they've never even seen the NPC who tells people about it.
But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=) Basically its what happened in Dragon Age a couple of times. I killed some NPCs and retrieved items, then when I talked to another NPC, it activated what remained of the quest. Unfortunately I never knew what the item was or any of the back story of why so and son needed the thingamabob. Some quest items went unused because I never found the NPCs that the item was attached to. Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.
A MMO that recognized all your actions all the time and can shift the world/NPCs around those actions would certainly make for a more interesting and lively world. But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why it hasn't been done and its NOT due to lazyness or a lack of trying. Some emoting NPCs is only the tip of the iceberg.
But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=) Basically its what happened in Dragon Age a couple of times. I killed some NPCs and retrieved items, then when I talked to another NPC, it activated what remained of the quest. Unfortunately I never knew what the item was or any of the back story of why so and son needed the thingamabob. Some quest items went unused because I never found the NPCs that the item was attached to. Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.
A MMO that recognized all your actions all the time and can shift the world/NPCs around those actions would certainly make for a more interesting and lively world. But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why it hasn't been done and its NOT due to lazyness or a lack of trying. Some emoting NPCs is only the tip of the iceberg.
<<<But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=)>>>
If there is an Evil Wizard someone wants killed and you happen to arrive at the home of the Evil Wizard shouldn't he be there even if nobody told you about him beforehand? Why should someone have to tell you he exists before he actually exists.
And you might say it's not a quest but if you read my earlier posts I'm talking about a huge world with very long travel times in which trekking through the world is the main challenge. "Getting there" in itself is the bulk of the quest. So if you "got there" without being told you were supposed to go there you've undertaken the main challenge of the quest anyway even if nobody specifically told you to go there. The majority of any quest in this idea is the trek through the dangerous world. The final objectives are there to give you a reason to trek through the dangerous world.
<<<Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.>>>
I'm not a programmer but I can't believe that would be a problem. These games keep track of thousands of mobs and NPCs all the time already. How would this be any different? In a game like WoW, at any given time there are probably thousands of people all simultaneously doing the same quest. And thousands of other quests being done by thousands of other people. Why would it be any more stressfull on a game to keep track of persistant quest mobs/objectives than it is for a game to be constantly spawning quest mobs/objectives for each and every individual person doing it.
The only real difference with the quest objectives in this idea is that they will be there when you get there whether a NPC told you about it or not. And in many cases this isn't even different from WoW. Many of the quest mobs in WoW are there in the game all the time, they just don't drop the thing you need if you don't have the quest in your quest log.
<<<But thats not a quest. Thats just a named mob you killed by accident=)>>>
If there is an Evil Wizard someone wants killed and you happen to arrive at the home of the Evil Wizard shouldn't he be there even if nobody told you about him beforehand? Why should someone have to tell you he exists before he actually exists.
And you might say it's not a quest but if you read my earlier posts I'm talking about a huge world with very long travel times in which trekking through the world is the main challenge. "Getting there" in itself is the bulk of the quest. So if you "got there" without being told you were supposed to go there you've undertaken the main challenge of the quest anyway even if nobody specifically told you to go there. The majority of any quest in this idea is the trek through the dangerous world. The final objectives are there to give you a reason to trek through the dangerous world.
<<<Also, I'd bet there are some programming difficulties with having every quest mob "LIVE" or pre-marked in a persistent world. I bet you'll run into some massive database problems somewhere.>>>
I'm not a programmer but I can't believe that would be a problem. These games keep track of thousands of mobs and NPCs all the time already. How would this be any different? In a game like WoW, at any given time there are probably thousands of people all simultaneously doing the same quest. And thousands of other quests being done by thousands of other people. Why would it be any more stressfull on a game to keep track of persistant quest mobs/objectives than it is for a game to be constantly spawning quest mobs/objectives for each and every individual person doing it.
The only real difference with the quest objectives in this idea is that they will be there when you get there whether a NPC told you about it or not. And in many cases this isn't even different from WoW. Many of the quest mobs in WoW are there in the game all the time, they just don't drop the thing you need if you don't have the quest in your quest log.
Since you want things to make sense, if you just happen to come across him, why are you killing him and how would you know to look for a letter or other misc item that happens to be important to a quest you know nothing about? Why would you search in the dead guys pocket for a gem that has siginificance but looks like an ordinary stone if you never knew it had significance? You'd just leave it there. This is all about immersion I imagine. Seems like you'll end up with a special bag filled with a whole bunch of quest items that have no siginificance until you just randomly bang into an NPC that randomly asks you if you found something. So you answer, "Oh here it is, sitting in a bag with 100 other trinkets=) It makes things convenient, but it certainly doesn't make sense.
As far as the database issues, when you're on a quest you're marked for that particular set of perameters for that quest. Why do you think quests get capped? Its not because its just too many to be on and we're going to arbitrarily decide 20 is enough for your log. Its because somewhere the code required to keep track of 20 quests and everything related to those 20 quests hits a breaking point. In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do. Now multiply that by 15k players on that server all interacting at the same time=) I'm not saying it can't be done, but obviously there's limits. Just like graphics have limitations, AI has limitations, animations and so on. And then you're dealing with a persistent world where everything has to be shared and crammed together to fit into some pre-determined LIMIT so the server doesn't crash=) Thats a whole lot more for the server to keep track of. I'm sure its been tried.
Going back to the op's question, besides the kill, gather, and travel quests, I can think of the following:
- Build quest: besides crafting for weapons, developers should include houses, fortresses, camps. Imagine you can toll a bridge like a troll.
- Puzzle quest: Tetris, mazes, crossing a river with 3 sheep and 2 wolves, quizzes.
- Stun quest: complete a sequence of musical notes, jumping, skill combos, fps, sync up with other PC.
- Social quest: pvp, PC trading of quest items, find PC with certain attributes.
+combinations of these basic quest types.
But a good quest does not have to be difficult. An easy quest is not always boring. A fun quest does not frustrate the players. Developers are just being lazy.
You know, I can't help but suspect that you're trying to find reasons to argue with me just because it's me posting this. You've gotten angry at me in other threads for complaining about questing as it exists in games today and I just get the feeling you want to argue with me just for the sake of arguing with me. But if that's true it's fine, it's about all these forums are good for anyway.
So anyway...your first paragraph is off the mark. No, it's not all about immersion or realism. It's just the way I would set things up if had to design a quest based game. What it does is eliminate a lot of the petty beaurocratic nonsense where you have to run back and forth talking to NPCs and jumping through hoops. The NPCs are still there. You can still talk to them. There is still a benefit in talking to them because they will tell you where to go and something of what to expect...BUT...you don't have to talk to them first. You could just head out and see what's over the horizon and maybe you find something of interest and maybe you don't. And, just to piss you off some more, I'll tell you that I would put in some "things of interest" which no NPCs talk about just so the explorer types would have worthwhile things to find just for exploring. These things would probably be randomly relocated after a certain number of people have discovered them.
<<<In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do.>>>
No it wouldn't. It wouldn't have to mark anyone for anything. All it has to do is spawn the mobs in their spot and when anyone kills them they drop whatever it is they have to drop and reward whatever experience they have to reward. If the quest involves something more complicated like a NPC showing you a hidden door the NPC just stands there untill someone, anyone, comes along and talks to him triggering the action.
The only thing the game would have to track specifically for your character would be quests you've recently done or quest mobs you've recently killed so that you couldn't just sit there re-killing / re-doing them without moving on. That's to prevent the dreaded spawn camping you hate so much. But for the type of game I'm talking about it would only ever have to keep track of the last thing you did because of the distance and travel time between things.
I can agree that sometimes getting a justification for a quest halfway around the world is tough, and can be lame at times. And i too would rather have a more organic quest layout where you get paid for results rather than actions.
And i also agree that getting verification to the npc is tough. you can only carry around so many dragon heads. I can see the bigger quests being handled by more fanciful explanations. The npc has a dream of you killing the dragon, and they act on that dream sort of thing. Or the npc prays to god that someone will kill the dragon and the god answers the praryer saying they sent you and you completed that task. Or maybe the dragon cursed the npc and when the dragon dies, the curse is lifted.
Re guard the noobs. They complain about npcs stealing kills already. As long as the areas are well defined, it shouldn't be a problem. This is the sort of quest you could repeat, so failing once doesn't really matter (like if someone trains the mobs onto a noob).
NO!! We dont want instances!! we want non sensical watered down content with respawning bosses so we can accomodate the 3d chatroom sandbox game!!
A bureau of commissions where all tasks are shown is not "an NPC by any other name". A building of such kind provides an image of the general condition of a game-world. It takes chores and returns them to its rightful owner, the dynamicity of a virtual world. I don't have problem with collecting and killing, what bothers me is that NPCs have arbitrarily written-up stories that have no connection with the above-said virtuality... in the end it's not really what you do that's the problem, is that you're TOLD to do something you don't care about.
Knowing instead that what you do is perfectly consistent with the whole world-advancement and the main gameplay element is priceless. In Planetside for example you'd open the map, see what spots require people's help, and then simply go there and fight. There's no such a thing as NPC, it's simple dynamicity and virtuality.
That's what Warhammer should have done with quests. They should have given quests back to PvP, which WAS MEANT TO BE its main element, and PvP would have become more complex, varied, interesting... instead they gave in to typical WoW-style PvE, out of weakness and marketing suggestions and it slowly eroded PvP from below.
And that's the same thing that should have happened in Tabula Rasa. Instead of doing nonsense chores(take this heirloom from the dying soldier and give it to his son... for godsake!), the player should have been busy building new defenses for the outposts, customizing and managing them, trading new resources with the factories nearby, supplies(food and medicine), maybe every player, for doing the most strategically important tasks could end up OWNING the outpost he first served, as "house", which would in turn return profit and rewards like the VIPs visiting you, promoting you to commander, participate in "politics"(meetings with the game makers) or what have you!
Inside such an active purpose, collecting and killing would be acceptable... it's basically just the WAY you "take" commissions that's important, whether you just collect random tasks of random stories, or MAKE UP YOUR OWN tasks to make your fortress more secure, aware of the entire world's current situation
The title of the topic is if not "go there kill x" what? My answer is "this is the situation. Where do you wanna go? what to do you wanna kill?''
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Well, even the dumbest of gamers realize that NPCs are AI and cannot think right. However, in PvE games, people can grief others by KSing excessively. Most games do ban people for griefing like this, but if such a quest is in place, "they're doing the quest" rather than intentionally being a$$hats.
You know, I can't help but suspect that you're trying to find reasons to argue with me just because it's me posting this. You've gotten angry at me in other threads for complaining about questing as it exists in games today and I just get the feeling you want to argue with me just for the sake of arguing with me. But if that's true it's fine, it's about all these forums are good for anyway.
So anyway...your first paragraph is off the mark. No, it's not all about immersion or realism. It's just the way I would set things up if had to design a quest based game. What it does is eliminate a lot of the petty beaurocratic nonsense where you have to run back and forth talking to NPCs and jumping through hoops. The NPCs are still there. You can still talk to them. There is still a benefit in talking to them because they will tell you where to go and something of what to expect...BUT...you don't have to talk to them first. You could just head out and see what's over the horizon and maybe you find something of interest and maybe you don't. And, just to piss you off some more, I'll tell you that I would put in some "things of interest" which no NPCs talk about just so the explorer types would have worthwhile things to find just for exploring. These things would probably be randomly relocated after a certain number of people have discovered them.
<<<In your scenario the database would have to keep you marked for EVERY possible scenario, every quest you could ever possibly do.>>>
No it wouldn't. It wouldn't have to mark anyone for anything. All it has to do is spawn the mobs in their spot and when anyone kills them they drop whatever it is they have to drop and reward whatever experience they have to reward. If the quest involves something more complicated like a NPC showing you a hidden door the NPC just stands there untill someone, anyone, comes along and talks to him triggering the action.
The only thing the game would have to track specifically for your character would be quests you've recently done or quest mobs you've recently killed so that you couldn't just sit there re-killing / re-doing them without moving on. That's to prevent the dreaded spawn camping you hate so much. But for the type of game I'm talking about it would only ever have to keep track of the last thing you did because of the distance and travel time between things.
I don't have any content to add, but I quite like your posts. You make some good points, the guy arguing with you is either an idiot or a troll, either way he's probably not worth your time.
1. I always thought it would be interesting to include PvP style quests like-
Kill "X" player type in Zone "Y".
Steal "X" resources from node type "Y" in player city "Z".
Contact Officer from guild "X" (usually after they paid to have this quest activated) and follow his instructions for XP reward.
Activate/Defend noun X given in one faction vs. Deactivate/Destroy noun X given in the opposing faction.
2. I also like the idea of quests with open ended goals like the "Pirate" quest from the first page. Quests that have multiple ways of achieving the objective.
Stop mob "X" from raiding town "Y" (multiple paths plotted to final objective)
Help town "X" secure trade with town "Y" (multiple paths plotted to final objective)
3. Allowing a quest to change the way the world works for a time would be nice too...
Defeat creature "W" at location "X" to prevent random spawns at location "Y" for "Z" days.
Save creature "W" at location "X" to cause spawns at location "Y" for "Z" days.
Destroy structure "W" at town "X" to raise prices on "Y" product in region "Z".
Gather "W" number of "X" resource to apply to construction cost for building "Y" in town "Z".
4. Finally, if I'm going to be doing one of the base quests, then make it story driven. Having well written dialog and a sense of emotional attachment can make what would normally be a dull quest into something memorable. If you want an example of how to do that, try any bioware game.
Well, even the dumbest of gamers realize that NPCs are AI and cannot think right. However, in PvE games, people can grief others by KSing excessively. Most games do ban people for griefing like this, but if such a quest is in place, "they're doing the quest" rather than intentionally being a$$hats.
This is the way it would work. The guarding PC will have a "Post", he has to guard. If he moves more than 20 feet away from his post, he fails the quest. If a pc dies within his post area, he fails the quest. If he doesn't fail the guard quest in 15 minutes, he is successful.
The post is some distance away from the newbie area, they don't over lap. It will be quite clear the pc is KS or being a jerk.
No developer should waste their time building these types of quests. They should be built into the economy of the "world" with buy orders from players and a want/need driven system for NPC's in the world that can filled by players delivering the goods.
Developers need to spend more time building quests that shift the ground beneath players feet to make it feel like a living breathing world that changes. They should be developing games with deep currents that impact players and npc's in profound, dynamic and fun ways. Stop giving us the same shallow quest system we have now. Give us something that takes the concentrated efforts of a large number of players to complete over a long period of time. Give us mysteries to unravel, cities/fortresses to build(small XP as you go and a big pop when completed), and lands to pacify and colonize.
In other words, take the blinders off and start to dream. The blackboard is all marked up from what's come before that it's hard to see so wipe in clean and take a fresh look at it. I sometimes think developers are worried that gamers are afraid of a learning curve. Fact of the matter is I think we are getting bored at not having to learn new systems. It's essentially turning into the same systems with different art and lore, and thats just not good enough especially for the non-WoW's of the world.