TSW: The style and atmosphere, also the investigation missions can be fun. *
DDO: Every quest is unique, with its own challenges (and traps!)
SWTOR: Choices and dialogues! *
CoH: The vast amounts of missions and the fun storylines! (and to a lesser extent WoW as well for the many, many quests!)
* Not to mention the voice acting and cutscenes!
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
Best questing system I've ever played is in GW2 right now with the DEs replacing all standard static quests.
I've never played TSW so can't speak on the quality of their questing but I see it getting lots of positive mention. Does it use the static method just better written?
Back in the day, probably WoW's quests. I went EQ->SWG->WoW so was really immersed in all the little quests that flavoured the zone and had never seen anything like that before. Elwynn forest and the bandits and kobolds, Redridge Mountains and the creepy stuff in Darkshire. Some of the max level stuff was also epic like Molten Core attunement, or getting the ring to open the door to Upper Blackrock Spire.
Sadly these days I loathe questing. I don't know if it's burnout or if more modern MMOs just suck at making it engaging.
I liked the original everquest quests. They were invloved...took a LONG time to complete one quest, and the reward was very useful. I liked that they weren't just some generic kill 10 rats that took all of 5 or 10 minutes to complete and you get a piece of junk as a reward.
It had Epic Quests that were chain quests that could span the entire EQ world and take days/weeks...even months to complete to receive you're classes Epic Weapons. THOSE were true quests.
Sure, EQ still had those "Kill 10 rate and bring me their pelts" types of quests....but at least even those only gave you vague directions as to where the rats were (In most cases) and made you explore to find them. They weren't on map GPS and only 10 feet away from the quest giver like almost all of the current selectionof MMORPG's.
Not to mention almost every quest reward would be useful to you, and for more than a few hours. Nothing chaps my ass more in newer MMORPG's than playing a class and having entire quest lines give rewards with useless stats to that class.
Mabinogi's G quests and FFXI's cut scene quests. That is not to say I enjoyed every quest in Mab or Final Fantasy. I'm pro cut scenes. Oh, and Mab's puppet quest was hilarious. We'll be giggling about it for years to come.
Best questing system I've ever played is in GW2 right now with the DEs replacing all standard static quests.
I've never played TSW so can't speak on the quality of their questing but I see it getting lots of positive mention. Does it use the static method just better written?
TSW has 3 types of quest. Conventional, Investigation and Sabotage.
Investigation usually has you using the in game browser to look up stuff to figure out puzzles (often quite complex). Sabotage will see you sneaking around rather than rushing through killing everything in sight.
But yes, the main reason it gets so much praise is due to the high quality of not only the quest dialogue, but also the calibre of quests themselves.
Best questing system I've ever played is in GW2 right now with the DEs replacing all standard static quests.
I've never played TSW so can't speak on the quality of their questing but I see it getting lots of positive mention. Does it use the static method just better written?
TSW has 3 types of quest. Conventional, Investigation and Sabotage.
Investigation usually has you using the in game browser to look up stuff to figure out puzzles (often quite complex). Sabotage will see you sneaking around rather than rushing through killing everything in sight.
But yes, the main reason it gets so much praise is due to the high quality of not only the quest dialogue, but also the calibre of quests themselves.
The Secret World. Finding a variety of quests in the world (and not just "kill X" quests) was pretty cool. Too bad the combat is so painfully boring (imo).
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I have played LOTRO, GW1, GW2, WOW, Anarchy Online, DDO and the best quests are in The Secret World, no other mmo with quests like that. Story, voice acting and cinematics like in no other mmorpg. Its story and cinematics is more similar to some very good RPG, adventure games than to mmo games.
I will have to say eq2. There are different types of quest. You have quest arc's, you have heritage quests that tell stories, you have sigiture quest that tell better stories and tie in the lore of the game. You have crafting quest. You have single quests. Some quest have great names like one npc was named Mic Roe he offered a quest called a dirty job. You had one npc that was a kerra (cat) that offered can has cheeseburger. A crafting quest that had 2 npc that were named after the myty busters and the quest that was offered was blowing up dummies.
Eq2 has a rich quest serries and good writing. Most of all we dont have a lot of cut screen crud.
I preferred EverQuest's quests over anything else today. They were totally optional and most of them actually felt like a big quest instead of day to day chores that needed to be done. It was nice because you could be off adenturing, find a drop off of a mob that you were farming and ask around and find out more about the quest.
Even what now is the "Kill 10 x" quests weren't bad, thinking the Crushbone belt and bandit sash type quests. You could go off and farm and turn in when you were finished, only time going to the quest NPC is when you need to turn in your quest pieces. You never had to go pick it up, the mobs dropped the quest pieces all the time instead of just when you pick the quest up...then dropping it off the next 10 mobs you kill, never to drop again (that never made sense to me.)
I even enjoyed the key and flagging quests for new zones. The reward for doing those was great. Usually got you into a group of more dedicated players who knew what they were doing, faster exp and better drops. People cry now about content gating...well it served a purpose.
Then...the epic quests.
Basically I liked when quests were real quests, not just tedious tasks you get sent off to do. I'm an aspiring adventurer, supposed to be powerfull, why do I need to carry your bags of groceries back to your house to progress again?
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others... Currently Playing: GW2
After participating in thousands of quest over the years in countless mmos, I have to say for me The Secret World had the only questing system that didn't make me feel like I was questing. They were very intertwined within the environment (follow trails, pick up clues), intuative by taking in account a player's ability to reference the internet and risky by severely limiting the number of quest players can have at once.
Runner up for me were the class based questing lines in WoW. Paladin mount quest line, Benediction quest line, Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers hunter quest line, etc. I felt these reflected epic journeys or rites of passage you'd expect players to accomplish for their given class. So much more meaningful (at least for me) than raiding gear.
FFXI almost had it right but there was a little too much dependency on others to have enough patience to finish even one part of the journey to get a single piece of AF gear. In all my months of playing FFXI I only gathered 3 pieces. Once I got to the stage where I need a coffer keys (a random drop from high level mobs) and you could not solo the mobs, I gave up because you feel bad that you're taking away so much time from those that could be leveling themselves or getting something of their own accomplished.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Personally, I prefer questing with a ton of backstory, making you feel like you're part of an environment and that your quests actually make a difference (as opposed to 'kill 10 chipmunk' quests). Even though it's gone the way of the dodo, City of Heroes/Villains had a great questing system, with epic villains to fight.
Another great system is Fallen Earth. The backstory in that game is about as in-depth as was in CoH, and is very well thought out. You have your basic quest types (Kill X, Escort, Craft, Go to agent, etc), but they also add the tracking missions (where the spots update as you visit each one, ending with a kill or ambush finale. Another good aspect of the game is the crafting, long rated one of the top 5 crafting systems out there.
For the quality of the quests themselves, I'd say it'd be a tie between TSW and SWTOR.
TSW brought in some brilliant stuff with their investigative quests. They've made more "gameplay" out of quests, which is always good and immersive.
SWTOR has probably the best execution in how the quests are presented. It also brought multiplayer dialogue to questing, which again was another important addition to "questing as gameplay" - one that was innovative in my opinion.
I thought WOW had a nice balance between questing and doing other stuff (in which some characters I'd level through sheer quest-chaining, and others without touching a quest for tens of levels). It also had some memorable characters in the quests. I still remember stuff like The Legend of Stalvan or the "Lady Katrana Prestor" chains.
Comments
my favorite quest system is GW2's dynamic events
best quests are imho investigation quests in TSW
but i have to say i would be quite happy with sandbox game without any (visible) quests
TSW: The style and atmosphere, also the investigation missions can be fun. *
DDO: Every quest is unique, with its own challenges (and traps!)
SWTOR: Choices and dialogues! *
CoH: The vast amounts of missions and the fun storylines! (and to a lesser extent WoW as well for the many, many quests!)
* Not to mention the voice acting and cutscenes!
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Best questing system I've ever played is in GW2 right now with the DEs replacing all standard static quests.
I've never played TSW so can't speak on the quality of their questing but I see it getting lots of positive mention. Does it use the static method just better written?
Oderint, dum metuant.
Back in the day, probably WoW's quests. I went EQ->SWG->WoW so was really immersed in all the little quests that flavoured the zone and had never seen anything like that before. Elwynn forest and the bandits and kobolds, Redridge Mountains and the creepy stuff in Darkshire. Some of the max level stuff was also epic like Molten Core attunement, or getting the ring to open the door to Upper Blackrock Spire.
Sadly these days I loathe questing. I don't know if it's burnout or if more modern MMOs just suck at making it engaging.
Yep my favorite quests in a game
EQ.
It had Epic Quests that were chain quests that could span the entire EQ world and take days/weeks...even months to complete to receive you're classes Epic Weapons. THOSE were true quests.
Sure, EQ still had those "Kill 10 rate and bring me their pelts" types of quests....but at least even those only gave you vague directions as to where the rats were (In most cases) and made you explore to find them. They weren't on map GPS and only 10 feet away from the quest giver like almost all of the current selectionof MMORPG's.
Not to mention almost every quest reward would be useful to you, and for more than a few hours. Nothing chaps my ass more in newer MMORPG's than playing a class and having entire quest lines give rewards with useless stats to that class.
TSW has 3 types of quest. Conventional, Investigation and Sabotage.
Investigation usually has you using the in game browser to look up stuff to figure out puzzles (often quite complex). Sabotage will see you sneaking around rather than rushing through killing everything in sight.
But yes, the main reason it gets so much praise is due to the high quality of not only the quest dialogue, but also the calibre of quests themselves.
investigation quests examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrO_zXURnS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDnNtWlnJv0
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I will have to say eq2. There are different types of quest. You have quest arc's, you have heritage quests that tell stories, you have sigiture quest that tell better stories and tie in the lore of the game. You have crafting quest. You have single quests. Some quest have great names like one npc was named Mic Roe he offered a quest called a dirty job. You had one npc that was a kerra (cat) that offered can has cheeseburger. A crafting quest that had 2 npc that were named after the myty busters and the quest that was offered was blowing up dummies.
Eq2 has a rich quest serries and good writing. Most of all we dont have a lot of cut screen crud.
I preferred EverQuest's quests over anything else today. They were totally optional and most of them actually felt like a big quest instead of day to day chores that needed to be done. It was nice because you could be off adenturing, find a drop off of a mob that you were farming and ask around and find out more about the quest.
Even what now is the "Kill 10 x" quests weren't bad, thinking the Crushbone belt and bandit sash type quests. You could go off and farm and turn in when you were finished, only time going to the quest NPC is when you need to turn in your quest pieces. You never had to go pick it up, the mobs dropped the quest pieces all the time instead of just when you pick the quest up...then dropping it off the next 10 mobs you kill, never to drop again (that never made sense to me.)
I even enjoyed the key and flagging quests for new zones. The reward for doing those was great. Usually got you into a group of more dedicated players who knew what they were doing, faster exp and better drops. People cry now about content gating...well it served a purpose.
Then...the epic quests.
Basically I liked when quests were real quests, not just tedious tasks you get sent off to do. I'm an aspiring adventurer, supposed to be powerfull, why do I need to carry your bags of groceries back to your house to progress again?
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
my best memories were EQ1 dungeons (but that was rarely questing)
for questing, I agree, GW1 missions and DDO quest instances were memorable
EQ2 fan sites
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
After participating in thousands of quest over the years in countless mmos, I have to say for me The Secret World had the only questing system that didn't make me feel like I was questing. They were very intertwined within the environment (follow trails, pick up clues), intuative by taking in account a player's ability to reference the internet and risky by severely limiting the number of quest players can have at once.
Runner up for me were the class based questing lines in WoW. Paladin mount quest line, Benediction quest line, Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers hunter quest line, etc. I felt these reflected epic journeys or rites of passage you'd expect players to accomplish for their given class. So much more meaningful (at least for me) than raiding gear.
FFXI almost had it right but there was a little too much dependency on others to have enough patience to finish even one part of the journey to get a single piece of AF gear. In all my months of playing FFXI I only gathered 3 pieces. Once I got to the stage where I need a coffer keys (a random drop from high level mobs) and you could not solo the mobs, I gave up because you feel bad that you're taking away so much time from those that could be leveling themselves or getting something of their own accomplished.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
^^ A thousand times, this!
Hell I remember playing EQ before you could find a walkthrough of every damn quest online. That made it incredibly fun and rewarding.
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions
in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.
-Glen Cook
EverQuest or DAoC
aka, no systemized forced quest based leveling system. Quests were actually quests.
GW2's weren't bad, except for the heart BS.
Personally, I prefer questing with a ton of backstory, making you feel like you're part of an environment and that your quests actually make a difference (as opposed to 'kill 10 chipmunk' quests). Even though it's gone the way of the dodo, City of Heroes/Villains had a great questing system, with epic villains to fight.
Another great system is Fallen Earth. The backstory in that game is about as in-depth as was in CoH, and is very well thought out. You have your basic quest types (Kill X, Escort, Craft, Go to agent, etc), but they also add the tracking missions (where the spots update as you visit each one, ending with a kill or ambush finale. Another good aspect of the game is the crafting, long rated one of the top 5 crafting systems out there.
For the quality of the quests themselves, I'd say it'd be a tie between TSW and SWTOR.
TSW brought in some brilliant stuff with their investigative quests. They've made more "gameplay" out of quests, which is always good and immersive.
SWTOR has probably the best execution in how the quests are presented. It also brought multiplayer dialogue to questing, which again was another important addition to "questing as gameplay" - one that was innovative in my opinion.
I thought WOW had a nice balance between questing and doing other stuff (in which some characters I'd level through sheer quest-chaining, and others without touching a quest for tens of levels). It also had some memorable characters in the quests. I still remember stuff like The Legend of Stalvan or the "Lady Katrana Prestor" chains.