How many quests do you actually read in a quest based MMO?

Creslin321

I've played a good deal of quest based MMO's and I have noticed that the more I play, the less I wind up actually reading the quest descriptions.  I've got to that point where I realize that every quest will boil down to something like "Kill 10 X" or "Transport X to Y" and I just don't care about the fluff attached to it anymore...yeah it's funny sometimes, but for the most part quest descriptions just get in the way for me.

So how many quest descriptions do you read?  I'm interested to see if I'm the exception, or the rule for the community regarding reading quest descriptions.

Mobidik

serisouly if a just take LOTRO or WoW OR EQ2, it will take you a year until your reach maxed level so whats the point of reading the quest and say how the story is beautiful etc to reach the final point and than only grinding your items because there were story binded to them?

GTwander

None, I skip to the part where I get the basic goal structure of "kill that, deliver this" and just do it. If you want players to absorb something you don't hand them an essay, you give them VO or overhead bubbles and emotes to help drive points home. If you have someone to listen to, or something to "keep up with" (the overhead chat thing) then people are more likely to actually read it.

Creslin321

Originally posted by GTwander


None, I skip to the part where I get the basic goal structure of "kill that, deliver this" and just do it. If you want players to absorb something you don't hand them an essay, you give them VO or overhead bubbles and emotes to help drive points home. If you have someone to listen to, or something to "keep up with" (the overhead chat thing) then people are more likely to actually read it.

Yep, I do the same thing.  Personally, I know I would read the quests more if I HAD to read the quest in order to complete it.  I think that the excessive hand-holding with respect to completing quest goals diminishes the experience.  I never read the quests because I KNOW that there will be a nice radar pointer telling me exactly where I need to go to complete the quest..

In my opinion, I really think that the current quest paradigm is played out.  Games can still have quests, but they should be involving and meaningful, not just exp boosts.  One way to do this would be to have quests be "spawned" based on the actions of players in the world.  For example, in an FFA PvP game, if a player kills other innocent players, then maybe quests to kill said player starts to pop up.  There could even be quests that involve negotiations with other players.  If a player has been strip-farming a group of sentient MOBs, then there could be a quest to convince said player to stop killing said MOBs for a certain amount of time.  This could be done by diplomacy (asking), bribery (I'll split the money with you), or force (kill the player if he tries to kill the MOBs).

I think that moving to a dynamic, player-driven but game supported quest paradigm could really freshen things up a bit.

Esther-Chan

On my first play through in a game I take the time to read all quests. I like to take it slow, enjoying the scenes.

junzo316

I read all the quests.  I'm one of those weird people that enjoys being part of a story.  It does take me a while to level, but I enjoy every minute of my level. 

svann

Life is too short to just work the quests in a game.  I read them.

gorgogorn

For me it totally depends on if I'm enjoying the story or the quest texts. I always start games reading the quests and then seeing how it goes from there.

ForceQuit

I used to read every quest.   But something happened and I just don't have it in me to read all the quests anymore.  Maybe it's burnout, or most of the quest writing is sub-par, or something else, I don't know.

 

I read some of them these days, but in my mind there has to be developed a new method of telling the story besides the text box.  The entire quest system is antiquated as is the dialogue box.  Somebody needs to push the boundaries here and make the story engaging again.

Goatgod76

Who really needs to anymore...they are all the same, and are unimaginative, so therefor dull to read....like most magazines found in a doctor's office.

SgtFrog

none, unless they are the book/story quest like in Lotro and Aion

solocrono

Well, in the 5 years I played WoW, I actually never once remember reading a quest.  The only games I read quests in was the short time I played Aion, I read the quests.  Now that I've started SWG, I actually read all of the quests, because it's just conversation, so it actually makes it a little more interesting to read, and the quest lines I've been following have actually meant something.   It's kinda nice.

Squishydew

I usually read the tuturial quests / first few quests,

Then when i find out It's all the same i just look at the final objective and go for max XP gain.

sn0wblind00

haven't played any recent games that require you to read the text, let alone offer any original dialogue.  the writing is very stale and half-assed throughout the mmo market lately, as you just walk up to the glowing NPC, hit ok a few times, and go collect 10 <enter item here>.

EQ 1 was nice back in the day where you found yourself reading a lot of the dialogue, not only to be able to continue the conversation, but to get hints on possible other quests.  the writing was pretty decent on average, as well.  There was some quests my race could not do, not only because my faction wasn't high enough, but because i couldn't speak their language.  I had to sit down with another player and have them teach me their race language(via just typing anything in it over time)!  just don't get that anymore...I enjoyed some of the quests then....but current games make the grind too transparent and lose the immersion and polish attributes.

Reklaw

Read all of them and if they not fun to read then I rather not play the game.

Not reading them would result in feeling like it can become a grind and I don't like the grind playstyle so chose not to grind.

I see no use to just skip to the part of what needs to be done, it makes up for a boring experiance to just go to the marker or X on the map without the story that is told to go there.

Yes it makes me enjoy the game much more and I definitly take my time, cause MMORPG are not time limited and are suposed to be played for a long time, obviously if they are enjoyable. So why rush thru th content to end up bored due to the lack of actually knowing the story's of the world.

And it shows that many don't take the time to read, playing Fallen Earth and we keep seeing question constantly about things that are simply explained in the missions, but for some strange reason people can somehow read in the /helpchannel, yet not able to read the mission text.

onetruth

I read two quests, because that's exactly how many there have been in the whole history of this genre.

Quest #1:  Deliver this.

Quest #2:  Kill this.

Teala

Originally posted by Esther-Chan


On my first play through in a game I take the time to read all quests. I like to take it slow, enjoying the scenes.

 

qft - First play through I read all the quest and take my time to enjoy them.

japo

I read them all. 

To me, a MMORPG is a book that I'm a part of.  I never skip pages or paragraphs when I read a book, so why would I skip quest text.  If given multiple options to answer, I'll pick the one that fits my character...not just the simple answer.  I've even skipped quests because the quest or answer tree didn't fit my character.

I love quests in games and I'm grateful to the writers that put them in.

dirtyjoe78

First time through i read all the quests if it is an alt or something i dont bother to read them i usually remember where the stuff for the quest is.

GTwander

Originally posted by japo


I read them all. 
To me, a MMORPG is a book that I'm a part of.  I never skip pages or paragraphs when I read a book, so why would I skip quest text...

 

Real men don't have time for words... or steak sauce... or napkins.

theAsna

I answered: none

 

The reason: You don't need to read the quest beforehand. Afterwards you have a lot of "quest helpers" in shape of  checklists of things to do. Most utilities are already built-in. Instead of quest texts they could just provide an NPC name or Monster type or the type of object to return.

 

UnsungToo

For me, alot of it depends on how it's done... Usually if it's a mission or quest i've already done, I won't read it again. 

Dave3216

if its another generic fantasy, no i dont read them but interesting ip's like warhammer, star wars, star trek ect I do read them because they are generally more interesting and i might find a little lore nugget or piece of info that references to something else i know about the ip and can be quite fun.

toddze

 

In quest based mmo I just look for what i need to do, I only read it if what I have to do is embeded withing the discription, but 99% of quests have the tldnr version just plain flat out tell you go here or kill this.

Lasastard

 I started to realize that I was skipping more and more quest descriptions and that was basically when I decided to give up MMO gaming (for now). Because if you don't care for the story, what's the point in playing. There are other types of games that are less tedious and much better crafted experiences. Unless of course you have a game that doesn't really rely on quests to experience the content (early DAoC was such a game, for example. But it it's all about stringing together hundreds of brainless quests - I'm out ^^

GhostSever

When i was playing CO and WoW my answer would be not a single one.

But i have read every quest while I have been playing Fallen Earth.

It all has to do with immersion for me. I could care less about the WoW or CO lore, but I do care about the Fallen Earth lore. So much so I have written short stories using the Fallen Earth universe.