Why do so many people on these forums hate quests?
I see a lot of folks seethe hatred for quests, I just picture the old D&D cartoon Dungeon Master aproaching them and saying something like. "Oh mighty hero, I have a quest for thee!" and then the player spitting in his face and kicking him in the groin for having the odacity to give them a quest.
I guess I just don't get the hatred.
1) Lack of Alternatives - questing is often not just the primary mechanic, it's the only mechanic. WoW has set things up so that players can level using the dungeon system, but that takes players...
2) Out of the Open World - Questing is in the world, but even if the world is open it often creates a linear closed world feeling. Alternatives such as PvP (battlegrounds) or Dungeons do the same thing. They are alternatives to questing, but they may not provide the desired experience.
3) Lack of Depth and General Shoddy Quality - one of the things about questing is that it seems many quests exist simply to fill space. The player does not even need to read the quest to know what to do, and if quest helpers are turned off, they are only reading the quest to get the mechanical details necessary to complete the quest; where to go, who to kill, how many of who to kill and what to collect. Players have a pile of quests that they complete in an assembly line fashion that negates any of the positive, story based qualities of the quests.
That's all I can think of. I am personally OK with quests*, but I would prefer fewer quests with more depth. To me, MMORPG questing should be like playing a single player game's "quests", where you are following the path, but unlike the single player game's "quests" the path can branch, and if you decide to, you can just strike out and find a different path to follow for awhile. Along with all of this, there should be "open world" options as well. Things that might have progression, such as crafting, but which don't necessarily depend on your progression through the quest lines.
* Evidenced by how I can keep playing WoW every so often for a month or two.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
1. Players who complain about grinding and fetch/kill quests telling them exactly what to do.
2. Players who complain when there are no grinding fetch/kill quests because they don't know what to do.
3. Players who figure everything out on their own and learn to play the game.
1 and 2 bring in the most stable subscription and in-game purchase profits.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Why do so many people on these forums hate quests?
I see a lot of folks seethe hatred for quests, I just picture the old D&D cartoon Dungeon Master aproaching them and saying something like. "Oh mighty hero, I have a quest for thee!" and then the player spitting in his face and kicking him in the groin for having the odacity to give them a quest.
I guess I just don't get the hatred.
Sorry but running around delivering letters to other NPCs isnt what i consider a " quest ".
Running around to a giant X on the map to kill 10 what ever isnt a " quest ".
Going into a linear dungeon that a blind person could navigate to the end isnt a " quest ".
They might be considered Quest the first time you do it, but when you have to do the same thing 100 times in each quest hub i dont consider them " quest " anymore. now they are annoying jobs to do for xp.
Would rather do mindless grinding at this point than mindless running around doing UPS work.
Originally posted by kabitoshin Soo.... lets go back to grinding mobs?
Players complain about grinding mobs without any sort of instruction. But they like if the computer tells them to grind mobs. Very strange.
Sorry, Dave, but I gotta kick in here. It's not the computer telling me to, but rather helping me get to know the world that my character is in better. Quests, if done well, have little stories that may have lore or other little tidbits revealed.
Yes, in the most literal sense, the computer is telling players to go kill Mobs. Is there a way that computers do NOT tell a player this? It gives you rewards and XP for doing so, so if you want to reach the next level or get good gear, the computer tells players, albeit more subtly, "Go. Kill. Mobs." Quests just make it more specific
C'mon. You're romanticizing quests quite a bit there. "Go kill 10 deer" is a pretty standard quest and it does nothing to "get to know the world".
You're right, of course. What quests could be and what they usually are are two very different things
Actually.... I'm level 13 now in ESO, and I am going to have to admit, the quality of the quests the last 3 or 4 levels has really gone up a notch. Not your average kill or courier tasks by any means. I'm over on DC, and some of the quests included healing the Wryd Tree, Clearing out a town of its werewolf leader and a bunch of other great stories.
I might actually have to admit.... that I'm enjoying doing these quests......
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Quests rule bro, that's why WoW is the most successful MMO of all time and everyone, even my grandma knows about it. EQ on the other side which had went the grinding way or the high way - failed miserably. When you say Everquest to people, they will be like "Everwhat?" And then you are like "Whatever".Quests = the future!
I thought you were being sarcastic. Then I read your post history. Maybe quests would be a lot better if there was some risk to them. I think devs are sinking too many resources into them and they make them essentially required.
Quests rule bro, that's why WoW is the most successful MMO of all time and everyone, even my grandma knows about it. EQ on the other side which had went the grinding way or the high way - failed miserably. When you say Everquest to people, they will be like "Everwhat?" And then you are like "Whatever".
Quests = the future!
I thought you were being sarcastic. Then I read your post history. Maybe quests would be a lot better if there was some risk to them. I think devs are sinking too many resources into them and they make them essentially required.
honestly if you really wanted to make quests exciting, it wouldnt take much more than a short completion timer...not what Id ask for, but all you need is a feel of time pressure to feel excited p
Originally posted by kabitoshin Soo.... lets go back to grinding mobs?
Players complain about grinding mobs without any sort of instruction. But they like if the computer tells them to grind mobs. Very strange.
Why is it strange? Quests are dressed up excused to kill stuff .. and the dressing up give the illusion of purpose and makes it more fun.
All the SP games do that much better. MMO should learn from that. If you look at a game like Tomb Raider, there are essentially two types of gameplay .. kill everything in sight .. or find the movement/puzzle to get to the other side. It is so good partly because they dress up these two basic "quests" with stories, scripting and events inside and outside of gameplay.
That's why it's strange. You can kill stuff no matter what. Why do you need the computer to tell you do it? You don't need the computer to give you purpose either. Make up your own purpose.
Strictly speaking, you don't need to play video games either.
But the illusion of purpose makes game more fun for many. Otherwise, why would there be a narative in many SP games? Why make up your own purpose when professional writers can do it for you.
Quests rule bro, that's why WoW is the most successful MMO of all time and everyone, even my grandma knows about it. EQ on the other side which had went the grinding way or the high way - failed miserably. When you say Everquest to people, they will be like "Everwhat?" And then you are like "Whatever".
Quests = the future!
I thought you were being sarcastic. Then I read your post history. Maybe quests would be a lot better if there was some risk to them. I think devs are sinking too many resources into them and they make them essentially required.
Some people honestley still don't know how MMORPG's came to form, leave them in their delusional world.
They don't need to put a risk to quests too make it more exciting. They don;t need to do alot to make quests more exciting tbh. Just make them longer and have far far less of em.
i keep hearing people about disliking the grind we did back in the day. But this whole questdesing is a grind at its core the only thing diffrent is that your moving across a map. Nobody remembers a single quest they do in any mmo past WoW. I can still recal events from quests i did pre that era.
And the soul reason for that is that a quest back then was a long chain of events you had to put alot of time in it and in some cases youd had to level up some levels to continue at the end was this massive reward.
nowadays we have kill x talk to y and return to questgiver get massive exp items and gold. whoohoo......
People don't REALLY hate questing. They just hate shitty questing. The problem is people in this forum boil everything down to the design elements.
The quests in Tera for example are shitty mob grinding 'kill ten rat' quests - while the quests in ESO are fundamentally similar but are fun because they are tied up in a story with excellent voice acting. This forum acts like they can instantly tell you if a game is good or bad based on some 'check list' of design features. In reality its not true at all.
It's better to think of games like movies. Almost all action movies boil down to a very simple plot and yet some action movies are great and some are terrible. The design elements do not make or break games. Its the execution. You can take the exact same design - linear questing - and it can be great in one game and terrible in the next. Likewise 'themepark' games can be terrible and they can be excellent.
You can't make assumptions without playing games - unfortunately that's a huge problem around here.
I realize that some people will disagree but my feeling is that 'sandbox' style games (large amounts of go anywhere/do anything freedom) and a coherent story, and fun gameplay is just not something developers can put together at this time. Like another poster said the Matrix is NOT REAL.
I played EQ - I liked EQ. But let's be real here - the story was basically - I killed stuff and went up level. Whereas the linear questing MMOs give you things like - we helped defeat Arthas and stopped the Lich King.
I don't hate quests, I just hate that it's the only way to progress other than PvP. And if PvP is an option it generally consists of grinding the same Battlegrounds constantly which is just as boring, for me anyway. I would like a world (or universe) to explore. To hunt, kill gather or farm, craft and sell my wares. Unfortunately most games don't reward you for this and you have to Quest or PvP to progress.
People don't REALLY hate questing. They just hate shitty questing. The problem is people in this forum boil everything down to the design elements.
The quests in Tera for example are shitty mob grinding 'kill ten rat' quests - while the quests in ESO are fundamentally similar but are fun because they are tied up in a story with excellent voice acting. This forum acts like they can instantly tell you if a game is good or bad based on some 'check list' of design features. In reality its not true at all.
It's better to think of games like movies. Almost all action movies boil down to a very simple plot and yet some action movies are great and some are terrible. The design elements do not make or break games. Its the execution. You can take the exact same design - linear questing - and it can be great in one game and terrible in the next. Likewise 'themepark' games can be terrible and they can be excellent.
You can't make assumptions without playing games - unfortunately that's a huge problem around here.
I realize that some people will disagree but my feeling is that 'sandbox' style games (large amounts of go anywhere/do anything freedom) and a coherent story, and fun gameplay is just not something developers can put together at this time. Like another poster said the Matrix is NOT REAL.
I played EQ - I liked EQ. But let's be real here - the story was basically - I killed stuff and went up level. Whereas the linear questing MMOs give you things like - we helped defeat Arthas and stopped the Lich King.
Actually, the problem is that the current quest mentality is designed around action based gaming where the investigation portion of questing is completely chopped off, leaving a simple call to action. Part of the variation and joy of questing is investigating and finding there is a need for action in the first place. To find out there is a rat problem in a basement, someone should first hear about the said rat problem via gossip and then probe for details.
Actually, the problem is that the current quest mentality is designed around action based gaming where the investigation portion of questing is completely chopped off, leaving a simple call to action. Part of the variation and joy of questing is investigating and finding there is a need for action in the first place. To find out there is a rat problem in a basement, someone should first hear about the said rat problem via gossip and then probe for details.
Obviously that is not needed in every games with quests/missions. SP games are indeed only use quests to dress up call to action .. to great success. No one is complaining about the story in Deus Ex, Dishonored or Tomb Raider .. because they are dressed up better.
If i want to figure things out, i play puzzle games, or point & click adventures like Sherlock Holmes. It is totally fine to have a combat centric game with dressed up quests .. the only problem in MMO is because devs don't dress them up enough, like SP games.
People don't REALLY hate questing. They just hate shitty questing. The problem is people in this forum boil everything down to the design elements.
The quests in Tera for example are shitty mob grinding 'kill ten rat' quests - while the quests in ESO are fundamentally similar but are fun because they are tied up in a story with excellent voice acting. This forum acts like they can instantly tell you if a game is good or bad based on some 'check list' of design features. In reality its not true at all.
It's better to think of games like movies. Almost all action movies boil down to a very simple plot and yet some action movies are great and some are terrible. The design elements do not make or break games. Its the execution. You can take the exact same design - linear questing - and it can be great in one game and terrible in the next. Likewise 'themepark' games can be terrible and they can be excellent.
You can't make assumptions without playing games - unfortunately that's a huge problem around here.
I realize that some people will disagree but my feeling is that 'sandbox' style games (large amounts of go anywhere/do anything freedom) and a coherent story, and fun gameplay is just not something developers can put together at this time. Like another poster said the Matrix is NOT REAL.
I played EQ - I liked EQ. But let's be real here - the story was basically - I killed stuff and went up level. Whereas the linear questing MMOs give you things like - we helped defeat Arthas and stopped the Lich King.
Actually, the problem is that the current quest mentality is designed around action based gaming where the investigation portion of questing is completely chopped off, leaving a simple call to action. Part of the variation and joy of questing is investigating and finding there is a need for action in the first place. To find out there is a rat problem in a basement, someone should first hear about the said rat problem via gossip and then probe for details.
Tha's more of a problem with the games you are playing. Basically quests in MMO boil down to move to certain place and click on certain thing or kill some NPC in combat. This is a bit of an oversimplification.. But I think it holds true.
It's the dressing this stuff up that makes all the difference. For example ESO has quests where you put on disguises and go to talk to different people and they tell a little story. They had some starter quests where there was very little fighting - and plenty of talking and some stealing of items. Its basically move to a certain spot and click on a certain thing quest.
There are quests that have you kill certain NPCs - some while on escort. Amazingly I haven't done really one 'collect 5 things yet" - all of their quests tie into larger stories. I did one where you do collect some potion -ingredients but then the men you feed it to are tricked into a cave - and you have to go rescue them etc etc.
The point is that mechanically speaking though they are combining these two mechanics of kill certain things and/or go to certain places and click certain things (even if that thing is a dialogue choice from another NPC). So its the presentation that matters.
This is hard to do do. I tend to agree that often it does not work. But when you hire AAA voice actors (Kate Beckinsdale is the Queen of the Dominion for example) it pretty amusing. Obviously a matrix like game where the story is organically created around your actions would work better.
But right those games boil down to kill certain NPCs in certain places..without any effort to create a story for the players at all. Rather then create your own story - its just a story of how some guy killed a lot of virtual creatures that quickly reappeared. How this kind of game got mythologized around here is pretty amazing.
i like quests. Not so much the sidequests and bonus quests but the longer quest chains that tells a story. The Onyxia key quest in WoW was a favorit of mine. Also there was a nice quest chain involving scholomance and stratholme where you needed an item from Baron in Stratholme to use on Ras in Scholomance if i remember correct. Thoose types of quests that tells a story and gives lore.
Thoose types of quests are rare though and the normal type of quests to go kill 20 rats or trolls or whatever and when you have done that your get an xp reward and nothing has changed, thoose quest i dont like. Not that i hate them, i just dont find them fun and will choose not to do them unless i need the xp.
Originally posted by iixviiiix Originally posted by Xiaoki As an alternative to questing most people respond "MMOs are supposed to be about making your own story". Ok ....how?
Maybe build up a strong guild and become lord of castle after castle siege .
Or one assassin and a warrior win again 7 man party in open PVP battle base on they skill .
First magician who search highest level .
Kill over 300 players in a single castle siege battle .
First time take down sleeping dragon , i think that's nice story .
Or lord British assassination lol , it may call a bug but that kind of story don't have in any quest .
There are many personal story too , but it not well crafted as nowadays quests , still hard to forget them.
You know like how 2 sword crash give birth for sparks , personal stories are the spark create base on that concept .
So "making your own story" are rare awesome moments that happen once in a great while entirely at random?
And you think that will keeping people playing day to day and paying month to month?
Hey, I have my own moments in all MMOs but thats not why I played them, I simply played MMOs and the moments just happened.
It's not that I find lore, story or quests dull. It wouldn't be an MMORPG without them. It's the fact that ALL MMORPG PvE combat is lacklustre, mundane and braindead. It's not stimulating at all.
It's not that I find lore, story or quests dull. It wouldn't be an MMORPG without them. It's the fact that ALL MMORPG PvE combat is lacklustre, mundane and braindead. It's not stimulating at all.
I agree with that. But almost all RPG's you will encounter have poor combat mechanics. Skyrim is the prime example of this, the stealth mechanics, bow and magic are just so bad in that game. But we forgive the bad mechanics because the focus of RPG's is the world, the exploration, the stories and epic loot. If your a mechanics kinda guy you simply won't like most RPG's, there may be one with the odd good swordplay like the Witcher 2, but in general gameplay is secondry in these games.
They have me run around and talk to people i dont care about
They have me run around collect stuff i dont care about
They are meaningless
They are short
They don't make me fight and USE my toon
They usually mean i am better of solo then in a group
The last two points are my biggest gripes actually. I want to USE the toon i build up and i want to GROUP up. Everquest 1 had quests i loved, epic quests. You did ONE quest for like 3-6 months and where rewarded with a weapon that was truely epic. If you wielded one everyone envyed you and the quest felt meaninfull. It felt rewarding and it was HARD to do. You also could not solo it at all.
I simply like to group up and explore an open world dungeon to level. Getting to know new people, wiping, corpserunning... getting saved by strangers that can become friends later on...saving strangers... getting a reputation (with players!) for being a good puller / Tank / healer / DD / CC...
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
It's not that I find lore, story or quests dull. It wouldn't be an MMORPG without them. It's the fact that ALL MMORPG PvE combat is lacklustre, mundane and braindead. It's not stimulating at all.
Then the solution is to improve combat. There are plenty of SP games with good combat, MMOs can learn from that.
There's nothing wrong with quests. The problem is every single MMO uses them as the only means of progression instead of making any attempt at innovation. No one seems to have the balls to challenge this system even though Everquest(ironically) had much success with a kill based progression.
It's not that I find lore, story or quests dull. It wouldn't be an MMORPG without them. It's the fact that ALL MMORPG PvE combat is lacklustre, mundane and braindead. It's not stimulating at all.
Then the solution is to improve combat. There are plenty of SP games with good combat, MMOs can learn from that.
Combat won't solve it. Less task. More quality quest. Stop strapping the whole game around these quest.
Originally posted by kabitoshin Soo.... lets go back to grinding mobs?
I never stopped grinding mobs. I leveled to 21 in the wildstar beta purely from grinding mobs. It's a lost art.
Yeah, me either. I mean, i do the quests in ESO, but instead of riding or stealthing around the NPC's, I generally just fight my way through them, toe to toe, for no other purpose than just to crush them flat.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
1) Lack of Alternatives - questing is often not just the primary mechanic, it's the only mechanic. WoW has set things up so that players can level using the dungeon system, but that takes players...
2) Out of the Open World - Questing is in the world, but even if the world is open it often creates a linear closed world feeling. Alternatives such as PvP (battlegrounds) or Dungeons do the same thing. They are alternatives to questing, but they may not provide the desired experience.
3) Lack of Depth and General Shoddy Quality - one of the things about questing is that it seems many quests exist simply to fill space. The player does not even need to read the quest to know what to do, and if quest helpers are turned off, they are only reading the quest to get the mechanical details necessary to complete the quest; where to go, who to kill, how many of who to kill and what to collect. Players have a pile of quests that they complete in an assembly line fashion that negates any of the positive, story based qualities of the quests.
That's all I can think of. I am personally OK with quests*, but I would prefer fewer quests with more depth. To me, MMORPG questing should be like playing a single player game's "quests", where you are following the path, but unlike the single player game's "quests" the path can branch, and if you decide to, you can just strike out and find a different path to follow for awhile. Along with all of this, there should be "open world" options as well. Things that might have progression, such as crafting, but which don't necessarily depend on your progression through the quest lines.
* Evidenced by how I can keep playing WoW every so often for a month or two.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
MMOs have three type of players
1. Players who complain about grinding and fetch/kill quests telling them exactly what to do.
2. Players who complain when there are no grinding fetch/kill quests because they don't know what to do.
3. Players who figure everything out on their own and learn to play the game.
1 and 2 bring in the most stable subscription and in-game purchase profits.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Sorry but running around delivering letters to other NPCs isnt what i consider a " quest ".
Running around to a giant X on the map to kill 10 what ever isnt a " quest ".
Going into a linear dungeon that a blind person could navigate to the end isnt a " quest ".
They might be considered Quest the first time you do it, but when you have to do the same thing 100 times in each quest hub i dont consider them " quest " anymore. now they are annoying jobs to do for xp.
Would rather do mindless grinding at this point than mindless running around doing UPS work.
Actually.... I'm level 13 now in ESO, and I am going to have to admit, the quality of the quests the last 3 or 4 levels has really gone up a notch. Not your average kill or courier tasks by any means. I'm over on DC, and some of the quests included healing the Wryd Tree, Clearing out a town of its werewolf leader and a bunch of other great stories.
I might actually have to admit.... that I'm enjoying doing these quests......
Naw.... back to hating.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I thought you were being sarcastic. Then I read your post history. Maybe quests would be a lot better if there was some risk to them. I think devs are sinking too many resources into them and they make them essentially required.honestly if you really wanted to make quests exciting, it wouldnt take much more than a short completion timer...not what Id ask for, but all you need is a feel of time pressure to feel excited p
Strictly speaking, you don't need to play video games either.
But the illusion of purpose makes game more fun for many. Otherwise, why would there be a narative in many SP games? Why make up your own purpose when professional writers can do it for you.
Quests are not hard to do: it is usually just a matter of time. It is a grind that is disguised.
I prefer non on rails play as I like sandboxes and player interaction which means EvE and Star Wars Galaxies are my favorite MMOs.
Quests are simply a graphical window dressing to hide bad game systems.
Some people honestley still don't know how MMORPG's came to form, leave them in their delusional world.
They don't need to put a risk to quests too make it more exciting. They don;t need to do alot to make quests more exciting tbh. Just make them longer and have far far less of em.
i keep hearing people about disliking the grind we did back in the day. But this whole questdesing is a grind at its core the only thing diffrent is that your moving across a map. Nobody remembers a single quest they do in any mmo past WoW. I can still recal events from quests i did pre that era.
And the soul reason for that is that a quest back then was a long chain of events you had to put alot of time in it and in some cases youd had to level up some levels to continue at the end was this massive reward.
nowadays we have kill x talk to y and return to questgiver get massive exp items and gold. whoohoo......
People don't REALLY hate questing. They just hate shitty questing. The problem is people in this forum boil everything down to the design elements.
The quests in Tera for example are shitty mob grinding 'kill ten rat' quests - while the quests in ESO are fundamentally similar but are fun because they are tied up in a story with excellent voice acting. This forum acts like they can instantly tell you if a game is good or bad based on some 'check list' of design features. In reality its not true at all.
It's better to think of games like movies. Almost all action movies boil down to a very simple plot and yet some action movies are great and some are terrible. The design elements do not make or break games. Its the execution. You can take the exact same design - linear questing - and it can be great in one game and terrible in the next. Likewise 'themepark' games can be terrible and they can be excellent.
You can't make assumptions without playing games - unfortunately that's a huge problem around here.
I realize that some people will disagree but my feeling is that 'sandbox' style games (large amounts of go anywhere/do anything freedom) and a coherent story, and fun gameplay is just not something developers can put together at this time. Like another poster said the Matrix is NOT REAL.
I played EQ - I liked EQ. But let's be real here - the story was basically - I killed stuff and went up level. Whereas the linear questing MMOs give you things like - we helped defeat Arthas and stopped the Lich King.
Actually, the problem is that the current quest mentality is designed around action based gaming where the investigation portion of questing is completely chopped off, leaving a simple call to action. Part of the variation and joy of questing is investigating and finding there is a need for action in the first place. To find out there is a rat problem in a basement, someone should first hear about the said rat problem via gossip and then probe for details.
Obviously that is not needed in every games with quests/missions. SP games are indeed only use quests to dress up call to action .. to great success. No one is complaining about the story in Deus Ex, Dishonored or Tomb Raider .. because they are dressed up better.
If i want to figure things out, i play puzzle games, or point & click adventures like Sherlock Holmes. It is totally fine to have a combat centric game with dressed up quests .. the only problem in MMO is because devs don't dress them up enough, like SP games.
Tha's more of a problem with the games you are playing. Basically quests in MMO boil down to move to certain place and click on certain thing or kill some NPC in combat. This is a bit of an oversimplification.. But I think it holds true.
It's the dressing this stuff up that makes all the difference. For example ESO has quests where you put on disguises and go to talk to different people and they tell a little story. They had some starter quests where there was very little fighting - and plenty of talking and some stealing of items. Its basically move to a certain spot and click on a certain thing quest.
There are quests that have you kill certain NPCs - some while on escort. Amazingly I haven't done really one 'collect 5 things yet" - all of their quests tie into larger stories. I did one where you do collect some potion -ingredients but then the men you feed it to are tricked into a cave - and you have to go rescue them etc etc.
The point is that mechanically speaking though they are combining these two mechanics of kill certain things and/or go to certain places and click certain things (even if that thing is a dialogue choice from another NPC). So its the presentation that matters.
This is hard to do do. I tend to agree that often it does not work. But when you hire AAA voice actors (Kate Beckinsdale is the Queen of the Dominion for example) it pretty amusing. Obviously a matrix like game where the story is organically created around your actions would work better.
But right those games boil down to kill certain NPCs in certain places..without any effort to create a story for the players at all. Rather then create your own story - its just a story of how some guy killed a lot of virtual creatures that quickly reappeared. How this kind of game got mythologized around here is pretty amazing.
i like quests. Not so much the sidequests and bonus quests but the longer quest chains that tells a story. The Onyxia key quest in WoW was a favorit of mine. Also there was a nice quest chain involving scholomance and stratholme where you needed an item from Baron in Stratholme to use on Ras in Scholomance if i remember correct. Thoose types of quests that tells a story and gives lore.
Thoose types of quests are rare though and the normal type of quests to go kill 20 rats or trolls or whatever and when you have done that your get an xp reward and nothing has changed, thoose quest i dont like. Not that i hate them, i just dont find them fun and will choose not to do them unless i need the xp.
Or one assassin and a warrior win again 7 man party in open PVP battle base on they skill .
First magician who search highest level .
Kill over 300 players in a single castle siege battle .
First time take down sleeping dragon , i think that's nice story .
Or lord British assassination lol , it may call a bug but that kind of story don't have in any quest .
There are many personal story too , but it not well crafted as nowadays quests , still hard to forget them.
You know like how 2 sword crash give birth for sparks , personal stories are the spark create base on that concept .
So "making your own story" are rare awesome moments that happen once in a great while entirely at random?
And you think that will keeping people playing day to day and paying month to month?
Hey, I have my own moments in all MMOs but thats not why I played them, I simply played MMOs and the moments just happened.
Plus, keeping scores in various ways does not make good stories.
It's not that I find lore, story or quests dull. It wouldn't be an MMORPG without them. It's the fact that ALL MMORPG PvE combat is lacklustre, mundane and braindead. It's not stimulating at all.
I agree with that. But almost all RPG's you will encounter have poor combat mechanics. Skyrim is the prime example of this, the stealth mechanics, bow and magic are just so bad in that game. But we forgive the bad mechanics because the focus of RPG's is the world, the exploration, the stories and epic loot. If your a mechanics kinda guy you simply won't like most RPG's, there may be one with the odd good swordplay like the Witcher 2, but in general gameplay is secondry in these games.
I never stopped grinding mobs. I leveled to 21 in the wildstar beta purely from grinding mobs. It's a lost art.
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I Hate quests because:
The last two points are my biggest gripes actually. I want to USE the toon i build up and i want to GROUP up. Everquest 1 had quests i loved, epic quests. You did ONE quest for like 3-6 months and where rewarded with a weapon that was truely epic. If you wielded one everyone envyed you and the quest felt meaninfull. It felt rewarding and it was HARD to do. You also could not solo it at all.
I simply like to group up and explore an open world dungeon to level. Getting to know new people, wiping, corpserunning... getting saved by strangers that can become friends later on...saving strangers... getting a reputation (with players!) for being a good puller / Tank / healer / DD / CC...
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Then the solution is to improve combat. There are plenty of SP games with good combat, MMOs can learn from that.
Three words: Done to death
There's nothing wrong with quests. The problem is every single MMO uses them as the only means of progression instead of making any attempt at innovation. No one seems to have the balls to challenge this system even though Everquest(ironically) had much success with a kill based progression.
Combat won't solve it. Less task. More quality quest. Stop strapping the whole game around these quest.
Yeah, me either. I mean, i do the quests in ESO, but instead of riding or stealthing around the NPC's, I generally just fight my way through them, toe to toe, for no other purpose than just to crush them flat.
Just how I roll.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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