Originally posted by mindea I get tired of quests and NPC's that are "dumb". But I have a great idea:
I'd like to see players work up to a point where they create quests for others. For instance, I start out as a Hunter. I hunt animals of all kinds and collect skins and teeth and bones. From these things I fashion more and more elaborate gear to sell. When I reach a certain level, I can start creating quests -- I become an employer -- asking other players to go collect skins and bones for me, for which I pay them in coin or merchandise. They go out and harvest stuff for me. I could then stop my hunting and become a shop keeper. But if I don't keep up my skills I could be confronted by a robber (another player), beaten a combat and loose some stuff. You get it? THAT would be the coolest. It's a world run by the players, not by the NPC's.
EVE already does that to a point, and with the upcoming contracts system will be even more like it. Players will be able to make up actual quests or jobs for other players to do and the best part is the missions will actually have a purpose, whether it be a contract to mine a certain amount of minerals, deliver certain trade-goods to a player owned station, escort a supply convoy or any other thing you can think of in game. All of these are needed activities within the game.
This is an interesting debate, and as a die-hard quester (the most immersive of which has been the CoH/CoV games, for me), I probably wouldn't know what to do with a game that lacked quests. However, I do not feel they are "necessary" except in the sense that they, when done well, help me to forget the grind. I love advancing, and yet I want a level up to be a surprise, something that distracts me from the fun I was having with some flashy colors and a triumphant gong sound. I don't care HOW it's done, really, just do it. You've got great quests? Super! It doesn't bother me that others are doing the same ones, especially when those quests are instanced missions. Because, in this case, I don't run into anyone else except for my teammates, and I can more easily convince myself that we are the only ones able to handle this threat. Quests help distract me from the governing mechanic of most MMOGs when it comes to progression, which is combat. I don't mind fighting, but I need to know that I'm not just doing it for that next level, that next upgrade, which will ultimately end abruptly when I've reached the maximum level. Quests still provide, for me, a means of forgetting that I'm playing to level, and let me simply play. If some better mechanic for doing this arises, I'll be very excited, but until then, quests satisfy me, especially those that are good enough to warrant going through again with another type of character.
Originally posted by Eindrachen The next major breakthrough in questing will be to allow players to participate in creating quests for other players to perform. The trick there is to create a system in which the rewards of doing the quest are balanced against the difficulty in accomplishing said quest. But yeah, it would be a miracle if an MMO came out that really gave the players that much control over their game setting.
Already being done in Horizons.
The dev team created a quest editor client that streamlines the process of creating and formatting quests, and is making a public version of it available. Twelve quests that I wrote went live a few weeks ago, and around ten more are awaiting art assets & a few other things before they can be implemented. There are at least half a dozen other players who are learning to use the editor and preparing their own quests for submission.
The quests have to reviewed and approved by the development team, and there are guidelines as to what is and is not going to be considered. It's going to be at least a year before the impact of the quest editor can really be evaluated, but I can't wait to see what our community comes up with.
Anyway, I see both Jon and Carolyn having a great insight on both sides of this debate. I do not think they are actually at as far odds with each other as everyone thinks.
As I understand it:
JW: Does not think QUESTING is the be-all-end-all to the MMORPG, and he’s right. There are a lot more activities that can be presented to a player that will allow for a more unique style of play. Hunting, Exploring, Even gaining the favor of a group (Factioning) are all valid activities for a player to partake that do not necessarily always involve Quests.
CK: Thinks that without QUESTING the game becomes bland and lacks flavor. Its hard to be a hero without Quests. This is also very true and Quests play a critical role in any RPG. They provide a story and adventure for your character to partake in. With out them there is no story really other than what the player makes for themselves. Most people do not want to create the game to play, they want to play the game thats allready created.
Actually BOTH ideas have been tested out there, with some success, and yet some criticism.
City of Heroes: has a very basic questing system. Missions really. You get a mission, you go do the mission, you go get another mission... Rinse repeat. COH is a great game! But it does lack that flavor of wich indepth questing can provide.
StarWars Galaxies: started out with no questing at all. At best, you were dropped in to the world, and had to find your way through. SWG has suffered greatly because of this (as well as many, many, many, other problems). However I know alot of people felt lost in SWG due to no obivous quests.
Worlds of Warcraft: has a great questing System. Most of the quests are fun and creative, and leave the player wanting more. Until you reach LVL 60 that is, and then the quests dry up. Its hard to continue your heroes Story with out these Quests and the game looses something. Some people turn to the Raid (with a lot of Success) or PVP (With some success), but for the Role-Player... the Adventure is pretty much over.
Its Funny, But I think I have an Answer that can give you BOTH what you want. Quests, and Freedom (uniqueness) form the A-B-C-D Questing.
As it is to day (Tried and True) a player gets a Quest from an NPC, completes a task (or several tasks), and returns to said NPC to "Complete" the "Quest".
I think its time to minimize the NPCs Role in this, and yes, we have the Tech for such a possibility.
The Idea is to get the players in on the "Quest Giving Loop". Oddly enough this idea came out of a desire to play more a Role than to improve a Questing System. Sense I originally wrote this idea for SWG Ill use their Character Classes as a standard to illustrate the idea although it doesn’t have to be set in SWG at all. Any Class based system can work.
Lets Imagine PLAYER A plays a Spy Character. PLAYER A Goes to an NPC (Spynet Terminal) Where they get a Mission. The Mission is to Crack a Database in Bunker A and NOT to be Detected. PLAYER A Sneaks their way to the location of the bunker, slips inside, slinks their way to the database deep inside the enemy territory, cracks the database codes, gets the Info, and slips out again.
PLAYER A now has Information on the bad guys which they can sell. PLAYER A heads to the nearest Cantina (or tavern Etc) to sell the Information to an ENTETAINER (PLAYER B) (Price set by the information) thus completing the Quest. PLAYER A Now gets Cash, EXP, and can maybe buy some more secrets off the entertainer, Another Mission terminal, or simply just go out and Spy on what they suspect are Bad guys looking for more secrets to sell... You know... doing Spy Stuff! and who knows, maybe one of these bits of information will lead to him being hunted, or an even bigger "Quest".
Now to PLAYER B. PLAYER B is an Entertainer. Playing Music, Dancing, Etc (that’s all they do in SWG now, which is kind of dull in a big way.) But THIS Entertainer now has SECRETS From PLAYER A's Spy Character that they can Sell (For Cash and Exp), to whoever it is appropriate. Lets pretend the Stolen Data is a set of plans for a meeting of Villain A, and Villain B. This is something that might interest a Solider, Merc, or maybe even a Bounty Hunter type player character. (or the entertainer can sell it to an NPC for 0.25 the cash and EXP).
If PLAYER B Sells this Data to a Merc (PLAYER C), PLAYER B Gets cash and EXP, and PLAYER C Gets a mission. Kill Villain A, and Bring Villain B back alive. PLAYER C Get to the rendezvous Spot where he overhears information for a Cloning Facility (New quest for PLAYER D), that is making new Super Soldiers to ... Etc...
This can keep going... On and on.
The Base Idea, is to get one players quest ending, to start another players quest. Its the idea that Many people play lots of small roles to complete a storyline.
This type of idea can get people heading to a Hub for Quests (interacting) like a Tavern, Cantina, Bar, headquarters, Whatever. It also gives the players the ability to FINALLY actually play their roles. If Im a Spy, Rogue, or just Sneaky type Character, I want to DO Sneaky things. I want my Quests to be of the Sneaky Varity. If I play a Warrior, Soldier, Merc, I want to fight stuff, engage in Combat, Etc.
This idea also allows for Solo, Group play (no reason you cant take a few friends into a bunker with ya, and they may find stuff that THEY can sell as well)
This isn’t really such a leap in tech. its just another way of doing the same thing. You get your Quests (CK), yet everyone has something different and unique (JW) and fresh. On top of that, you play your way, and you interact with other players in a positive, social, and fun way, making the game world as a whole feel alive with activity.
The problem is that the current quest systems is a deliberate time guzzler and not design for enjoyment that would submerge a player in the game.
Developers should not waste their time with doing such things as trying to fill the game with "content."
Developers should be able to create a system in which players are able to supply and manage handling out Task, Quest, Missions or what ever you want to call it. Players should be able to hand out such request to retrieve raw material, information gathering, build X item, expeditions, etc. This way players who like to hunt and kill will see a purpose to do so. They will be rewarded accordingly with equipment, material, experience or in some monetary form.
Players should learn their skills from other more skilled players. They should train these skills by questing as noted in the previous paragraph, or by using training grounds (the grounds can have a ladder competitive system for each school or training and be reward for having the highest score for your school. This could be full of numerous mini-games that can be played depending on skills being trained and should separated into 2 divisions for solo training and pvp) or by going out and hunting and completing player given quest.
A system this robust in any game would keep players in constant communication with each other and a truly diverse and rich player run community can be create which is what Developers want to have.
But what happens when you have trained as much as you wanted to and are tired of questing for components. This where the developers step and offer Story Epic Questing. These quests would not be small things. These would be adventures with subplots, puzzles, and riddles to experience. They would be the kind of quest that should take real-time months to complete in entirely by a vast group of people. This would require constant recruiting of players to finish certain parts of the quest. You want people to actually get into the story you developers are writing? Clues should be imbedded with in the story quest that will help unlock the next puzzle or riddle and not some easy nonsense either we are a pretty educated mass of players ok we can figure them out.
Since the Story Epic Quest would involve quite a few people to complete it and would take vast amount of times. The subplots completed should reward players with Unique skills, key information to unlock other puzzles and riddles or even new sub-sub plots for them to uniquely experience, Extremely rare components to have unique equipment and holdings to be made from, supply initial trails to obtain Status or Rank change which then supplies a player with rights to own deeds for land (also Status and Ranks could give players new abilities with in game such as to be able to settle in an area and start a town with other players, or create a Keep for their guild), Story arc involvement (that individual now becomes a part of the Story), etc.
But this all involves the Developers developing a system that will engross the player long enough and by no means become obsolete as they will have to interact with each other to increase in skill, knowledge, popularity, equipment, holdings, Status, Ranks, and wealth. But will give developers time to really write out some awesome story board Epic style quest.
Developers need to design their game in a form of a Loop where new players have to seek out older players for training, quests, knowledge, equipment, money, etc, and veterans have to seek out new players for advancement in the various areas such as wealth, raw material, popularity (need to create towns, and to rise in ranks and status), assistance on Epic Quest, etc. This would greatly reduce the polarized system between new players and veterans.
Too many games are being designed with the mind set of that you need to get from point A - Z. Rather then made for you to travel from A through Z and then work back down to A.
I've also been trying to find ways to solve this riddle. [Warning: somewhat lengthy post follows.]
Integrated Story-Based Quests
Implementing quests as mere standalone jobs that are often infinitely repeatable is less than thrilling. You do Quest #123 for NPC #XYZ, then you do it again and again, and so do thousands of other players? And NPC #XYZ never learns to recognize you or anyone else?
Pull lever, release reward pellet. Repeat until comatose. Bah! At a minimum, NPCs ought to have "AI" that allows them to recognize players they've encountered recently/frequently.
More importantly, there's a neglected opportunity here to tell interesting stories. Which is that smaller quests should expose story aspects of larger quests, which in turn should open up epic quests that reveal a few emotionally deep stories that tell you something unique about the gameworld (and perhaps even about yourself).
To accomplish this, I'd like to see quests offered in three scopes:
Mission: a simple/local/session task not obviously related to any other task
Adventure: a moderate/regional/multi-session set of missions that exposes part of a larger storyline
Saga: a difficult/global/many-session set of adventures that reveals a key storyline
When you begin adventuring (through missions), you don't really know what's going on in the gameworld. As you take more low-level missions, though, you begin to see that some of them are actually related to each other. At some point, you're given an opportunity to demonstrate that you understand the linkages between certain missions, and that opens up the larger line of adventures to you. Similarly, as you perform adventures that tell a specific story set in the gameworld, you'll eventually see how those adventures reveal aspects of a much larger epic storyline... and that opens up the associated saga.
Missions should be relatively quick to solve -- you should be able to do several in a single play session of an hour or two. Adventures should require more time -- you should need several play sessions to gather all the pieces of the puzzle and fit them together correctly. And the saga should take weeks or even months to complete -- it really should be worthy of being called an "epic."
By integrating missions into adventures, and adventures into sagas, you simultaneously enhance both your gameplay and the immersiveness of the gameworld.
Playstyle-Based Quests
And to insure variety in quests, we desperately need more than the standard types (kill mob A, destroy structure B, make object C, go to location D, escort NPC to location E). Instead of being keyed to what characters can do, quests ought to be keyed to what players enjoy doing. In other words, quests should be less about mechanics and more about playstyle.
Sometimes it's OK to require players to kill mob X. But why must that be the only way to resolve a quest? Maybe your character has different skills that are still worthwhile. You could fight your way of a problem... or talk your way out, or bribe your way out, or sneak your way out, or have NPC "friends" you could call to intimidate your way out, etc. etc. The point being, at least some quests should offer multiple solutions. And some should require specific playstyle-based solutions, and some should require multiple simultaneous solutions (meaning that one player can't do it alone), and some shouldn't require any particular character ability at all, but be up to the player's skill to solve (such as logic puzzles).
Thus:
quests with multiple solutions keyed to each of the main playstyles
quests that require skills from a particular playstyle
quests that require skills from multiple playstyles (i.e., require a group)
quests that aren't keyed to character abilities but can be solved by any player
Combine this with integrated story-based quests, and I believe you'd have enough variety in your quest system to keep people happily questing for months, if not years. You'd still need more than just quests, but at least quests would no longer be just something you do while you wait for your friends to log on.
Player-Generated Quests
And if you really wanted to open up the idea of quests, you could consider letting players give each other quests.
Some years back I developed a relatively simple but powerful design for a Player Contracts feature. Although it was aimed primarily at SWG, it would work for any MMORPG that already offers NPC quests because it builds on that code.
Exchange: swap goods for goods or goods for money Tribute: give another player goods or money for an unspecified reason Transport: move items [or player characters] to a specified location Delivery: give items to a specified player character or NPC Recon: go to a particular location Obtain: take possession of a specified item Heal: heal or cure a specified player character Buff: improve the stats of a specified player character Craft: create a particular kind of object, possibly with certain stats Unlock: pick the lock of a container to open it Destroy: eliminate a specific lair, destroy a unique item, or kill a creature mob Guard: defend a specified player character or NPC for a specified time period Bounty: kill a specified player character or NPC Marriage: marry another player character [allows for divorce, too!]
A Player Contracts system would let players create a wide range of well-defined tasks for each other. That hits the middle ground between expecting a few developers to be able to meet the content demands of tens of thousands of players (impossible) and expecting players to create satisfying content for each other without exploiting that power (unlikely).
With a player contracts system, everybody wins: developers can focus on creating more memorable content; veteran players get to offload their less interesting tasks to others; new players get jobs to do that make them money while helping them learn the world; the economy gets deeper as more needs are satisfied; and those players who enjoy RP can string player contracts together to build engaging stories of their own.
To echo others who've expressed similar ideas in this thread, I'd be happy to see any of these concepts tried in MMORPGs.
Great topic. And timely for me since my wife and I both play MMO's and have been talking the last few weeks about dumping WoW. She wants to stick with it and I'm bored out of my socks.
We've been having this exact arguement. As far as I'm concerned, WoW relies too heavily on quests. I'm sick of doing the exact same thing as everyone else in the game. And what is the final reward? You hit level 60 and hit a wall, the only thing left then is to roll another char and do it all over again from the beginning.
Quests are great and can add a lot to a game. But at the same time, a player needs to be allowed to think for himself.
I started playing MMO's with Shadowbane. The game had a lot of problems admittedly. Mostly the fact that there was very little support from the devs. On the plus side though, it allowed players unlimited freedom to do what they wanted. There were ciities to be built, nations to be formed, wars to be fought. Belonging to a guild meant something in that game because it was almost equivalent with your in-game nationality. Guild A hated Guild C and both worked hard to become allies with Guild B, etc.
With the current technology available, there is no reason that a MMORPG couldn't offer tons of quests while still giving players the freedom to have city building, political intrigue, highly indivualized crafting abilities, and character developement that would allow players to creat a toon that was potentially different in skills and abilities from every other toon in the game.
Comments
This is an interesting debate, and as a die-hard quester (the most immersive of which has been the CoH/CoV games, for me), I probably wouldn't know what to do with a game that lacked quests. However, I do not feel they are "necessary" except in the sense that they, when done well, help me to forget the grind. I love advancing, and yet I want a level up to be a surprise, something that distracts me from the fun I was having with some flashy colors and a triumphant gong sound. I don't care HOW it's done, really, just do it. You've got great quests? Super! It doesn't bother me that others are doing the same ones, especially when those quests are instanced missions. Because, in this case, I don't run into anyone else except for my teammates, and I can more easily convince myself that we are the only ones able to handle this threat. Quests help distract me from the governing mechanic of most MMOGs when it comes to progression, which is combat. I don't mind fighting, but I need to know that I'm not just doing it for that next level, that next upgrade, which will ultimately end abruptly when I've reached the maximum level. Quests still provide, for me, a means of forgetting that I'm playing to level, and let me simply play. If some better mechanic for doing this arises, I'll be very excited, but until then, quests satisfy me, especially those that are good enough to warrant going through again with another type of character.
Nice debate, thanks!
Already being done in Horizons.
The dev team created a quest editor client that streamlines the process of creating and formatting quests, and is making a public version of it available. Twelve quests that I wrote went live a few weeks ago, and around ten more are awaiting art assets & a few other things before they can be implemented. There are at least half a dozen other players who are learning to use the editor and preparing their own quests for submission.
The quests have to reviewed and approved by the development team, and there are guidelines as to what is and is not going to be considered. It's going to be at least a year before the impact of the quest editor can really be evaluated, but I can't wait to see what our community comes up with.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Ahhh my First Post on these boards.
Anyway, I see both Jon and Carolyn having a great insight on both sides of this debate. I do not think they are actually at as far odds with each other as everyone thinks.
As I understand it:
JW: Does not think QUESTING is the be-all-end-all to the MMORPG, and he’s right. There are a lot more activities that can be presented to a player that will allow for a more unique style of play. Hunting, Exploring, Even gaining the favor of a group (Factioning) are all valid activities for a player to partake that do not necessarily always involve Quests.
CK: Thinks that without QUESTING the game becomes bland and lacks flavor. Its hard to be a hero without Quests. This is also very true and Quests play a critical role in any RPG. They provide a story and adventure for your character to partake in. With out them there is no story really other than what the player makes for themselves. Most people do not want to create the game to play, they want to play the game thats allready created.
Actually BOTH ideas have been tested out there, with some success, and yet some criticism.
City of Heroes: has a very basic questing system. Missions really. You get a mission, you go do the mission, you go get another mission... Rinse repeat. COH is a great game! But it does lack that flavor of wich indepth questing can provide.
StarWars Galaxies: started out with no questing at all. At best, you were dropped in to the world, and had to find your way through. SWG has suffered greatly because of this (as well as many, many, many, other problems). However I know alot of people felt lost in SWG due to no obivous quests.
Worlds of Warcraft: has a great questing System. Most of the quests are fun and creative, and leave the player wanting more. Until you reach LVL 60 that is, and then the quests dry up. Its hard to continue your heroes Story with out these Quests and the game looses something. Some people turn to the Raid (with a lot of Success) or PVP (With some success), but for the Role-Player... the Adventure is pretty much over.
Its Funny, But I think I have an Answer that can give you BOTH what you want. Quests, and Freedom (uniqueness) form the A-B-C-D Questing.
As it is to day (Tried and True) a player gets a Quest from an NPC, completes a task (or several tasks), and returns to said NPC to "Complete" the "Quest".
I think its time to minimize the NPCs Role in this, and yes, we have the Tech for such a possibility.
A While back I had an Idea that could Revolutionize Starwars Galaxies, and I think it still holds true any number of MMORPGs out there, or yet to come.
Original SWG Write up:
( http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=ngeentertainer&message.id=11140 )
The Idea is to get the players in on the "Quest Giving Loop". Oddly enough this idea came out of a desire to play more a Role than to improve a Questing System. Sense I originally wrote this idea for SWG Ill use their Character Classes as a standard to illustrate the idea although it doesn’t have to be set in SWG at all. Any Class based system can work.
Lets Imagine PLAYER A plays a Spy Character. PLAYER A Goes to an NPC (Spynet Terminal) Where they get a Mission. The Mission is to Crack a Database in Bunker A and NOT to be Detected.
PLAYER A Sneaks their way to the location of the bunker, slips inside, slinks their way to the database deep inside the enemy territory, cracks the database codes, gets the Info, and slips out again.
PLAYER A now has Information on the bad guys which they can sell. PLAYER A heads to the nearest Cantina (or tavern Etc) to sell the Information to an ENTETAINER (PLAYER B) (Price set by the information) thus completing the Quest. PLAYER A Now gets Cash, EXP, and can maybe buy some more secrets off the entertainer, Another Mission terminal, or simply just go out and Spy on what they suspect are Bad guys looking for more secrets to sell... You know... doing Spy Stuff! and who knows, maybe one of these bits of information will lead to him being hunted, or an even bigger "Quest".
Now to PLAYER B. PLAYER B is an Entertainer. Playing Music, Dancing, Etc (that’s all they do in SWG now, which is kind of dull in a big way.) But THIS Entertainer now has SECRETS From PLAYER A's Spy Character that they can Sell (For Cash and Exp), to whoever it is appropriate. Lets pretend the Stolen Data is a set of plans for a meeting of Villain A, and Villain B. This is something that might interest a Solider, Merc, or maybe even a Bounty Hunter type player character. (or the entertainer can sell it to an NPC for 0.25 the cash and EXP).
If PLAYER B Sells this Data to a Merc (PLAYER C), PLAYER B Gets cash and EXP, and PLAYER C Gets a mission. Kill Villain A, and Bring Villain B back alive. PLAYER C Get to the rendezvous Spot where he overhears information for a Cloning Facility (New quest for PLAYER D), that is making new Super Soldiers to ... Etc...
This can keep going... On and on.
The Base Idea, is to get one players quest ending, to start another players quest. Its the idea that Many people play lots of small roles to complete a storyline.
This type of idea can get people heading to a Hub for Quests (interacting) like a Tavern, Cantina, Bar, headquarters, Whatever. It also gives the players the ability to FINALLY actually play their roles. If Im a Spy, Rogue, or just Sneaky type Character, I want to DO Sneaky things. I want my Quests to be of the Sneaky Varity. If I play a Warrior, Soldier, Merc, I want to fight stuff, engage in Combat, Etc.
This idea also allows for Solo, Group play (no reason you cant take a few friends into a bunker with ya, and they may find stuff that THEY can sell as well)
This isn’t really such a leap in tech. its just another way of doing the same thing. You get your Quests (CK), yet everyone has something different and unique (JW) and fresh. On top of that, you play your way, and you interact with other players in a positive, social, and fun way, making the game world as a whole feel alive with activity.
anyway, just a thought.
Cheers,
Gomph
The problem is that the current quest systems is a deliberate time guzzler and not design for enjoyment that would submerge a player in the game.
Developers should not waste their time with doing such things as trying to fill the game with "content."
Developers should be able to create a system in which players are able to supply and manage handling out Task, Quest, Missions or what ever you want to call it. Players should be able to hand out such request to retrieve raw material, information gathering, build X item, expeditions, etc. This way players who like to hunt and kill will see a purpose to do so. They will be rewarded accordingly with equipment, material, experience or in some monetary form.
Players should learn their skills from other more skilled players. They should train these skills by questing as noted in the previous paragraph, or by using training grounds (the grounds can have a ladder competitive system for each school or training and be reward for having the highest score for your school. This could be full of numerous mini-games that can be played depending on skills being trained and should separated into 2 divisions for solo training and pvp) or by going out and hunting and completing player given quest.
A system this robust in any game would keep players in constant communication with each other and a truly diverse and rich player run community can be create which is what Developers want to have.
But what happens when you have trained as much as you wanted to and are tired of questing for components. This where the developers step and offer Story Epic Questing. These quests would not be small things. These would be adventures with subplots, puzzles, and riddles to experience. They would be the kind of quest that should take real-time months to complete in entirely by a vast group of people. This would require constant recruiting of players to finish certain parts of the quest. You want people to actually get into the story you developers are writing? Clues should be imbedded with in the story quest that will help unlock the next puzzle or riddle and not some easy nonsense either we are a pretty educated mass of players ok we can figure them out.
Since the Story Epic Quest would involve quite a few people to complete it and would take vast amount of times. The subplots completed should reward players with Unique skills, key information to unlock other puzzles and riddles or even new sub-sub plots for them to uniquely experience, Extremely rare components to have unique equipment and holdings to be made from, supply initial trails to obtain Status or Rank change which then supplies a player with rights to own deeds for land (also Status and Ranks could give players new abilities with in game such as to be able to settle in an area and start a town with other players, or create a Keep for their guild), Story arc involvement (that individual now becomes a part of the Story), etc.
But this all involves the Developers developing a system that will engross the player long enough and by no means become obsolete as they will have to interact with each other to increase in skill, knowledge, popularity, equipment, holdings, Status, Ranks, and wealth. But will give developers time to really write out some awesome story board Epic style quest.
Developers need to design their game in a form of a Loop where new players have to seek out older players for training, quests, knowledge, equipment, money, etc, and veterans have to seek out new players for advancement in the various areas such as wealth, raw material, popularity (need to create towns, and to rise in ranks and status), assistance on Epic Quest, etc. This would greatly reduce the polarized system between new players and veterans.
Too many games are being designed with the mind set of that you need to get from point A - Z. Rather then made for you to travel from A through Z and then work back down to A.
Faranthil Tanathalos
EverQuest 1 - Ranger
Star Wars Galaxies - Master Ranger
Everquest2 - Ranger WarhammerOnline - Shadow Warrior
WOW - Hunter
That's right I like bows and arrows.
I've also been trying to find ways to solve this riddle. [Warning: somewhat lengthy post follows.]
Integrated Story-Based Quests
Implementing quests as mere standalone jobs that are often infinitely repeatable is less than thrilling. You do Quest #123 for NPC #XYZ, then you do it again and again, and so do thousands of other players? And NPC #XYZ never learns to recognize you or anyone else?
Pull lever, release reward pellet. Repeat until comatose. Bah! At a minimum, NPCs ought to have "AI" that allows them to recognize players they've encountered recently/frequently.
More importantly, there's a neglected opportunity here to tell interesting stories. Which is that smaller quests should expose story aspects of larger quests, which in turn should open up epic quests that reveal a few emotionally deep stories that tell you something unique about the gameworld (and perhaps even about yourself).
To accomplish this, I'd like to see quests offered in three scopes:
When you begin adventuring (through missions), you don't really know what's going on in the gameworld. As you take more low-level missions, though, you begin to see that some of them are actually related to each other. At some point, you're given an opportunity to demonstrate that you understand the linkages between certain missions, and that opens up the larger line of adventures to you. Similarly, as you perform adventures that tell a specific story set in the gameworld, you'll eventually see how those adventures reveal aspects of a much larger epic storyline... and that opens up the associated saga.
Missions should be relatively quick to solve -- you should be able to do several in a single play session of an hour or two. Adventures should require more time -- you should need several play sessions to gather all the pieces of the puzzle and fit them together correctly. And the saga should take weeks or even months to complete -- it really should be worthy of being called an "epic."
By integrating missions into adventures, and adventures into sagas, you simultaneously enhance both your gameplay and the immersiveness of the gameworld.
Playstyle-Based Quests
And to insure variety in quests, we desperately need more than the standard types (kill mob A, destroy structure B, make object C, go to location D, escort NPC to location E). Instead of being keyed to what characters can do, quests ought to be keyed to what players enjoy doing. In other words, quests should be less about mechanics and more about playstyle.
Sometimes it's OK to require players to kill mob X. But why must that be the only way to resolve a quest? Maybe your character has different skills that are still worthwhile. You could fight your way of a problem... or talk your way out, or bribe your way out, or sneak your way out, or have NPC "friends" you could call to intimidate your way out, etc. etc. The point being, at least some quests should offer multiple solutions. And some should require specific playstyle-based solutions, and some should require multiple simultaneous solutions (meaning that one player can't do it alone), and some shouldn't require any particular character ability at all, but be up to the player's skill to solve (such as logic puzzles).
Thus:
Combine this with integrated story-based quests, and I believe you'd have enough variety in your quest system to keep people happily questing for months, if not years. You'd still need more than just quests, but at least quests would no longer be just something you do while you wait for your friends to log on.
Player-Generated Quests
And if you really wanted to open up the idea of quests, you could consider letting players give each other quests.
Some years back I developed a relatively simple but powerful design for a Player Contracts feature. Although it was aimed primarily at SWG, it would work for any MMORPG that already offers NPC quests because it builds on that code.
Player Contracts: A Design Document
Player Contracts: The Short Version
Examples of contract types that could be offered:
Exchange: swap goods for goods or goods for money
Tribute: give another player goods or money for an unspecified reason
Transport: move items [or player characters] to a specified location
Delivery: give items to a specified player character or NPC
Recon: go to a particular location
Obtain: take possession of a specified item
Heal: heal or cure a specified player character
Buff: improve the stats of a specified player character
Craft: create a particular kind of object, possibly with certain stats
Unlock: pick the lock of a container to open it
Destroy: eliminate a specific lair, destroy a unique item, or kill a creature mob
Guard: defend a specified player character or NPC for a specified time period
Bounty: kill a specified player character or NPC
Marriage: marry another player character [allows for divorce, too!]
A Player Contracts system would let players create a wide range of well-defined tasks for each other. That hits the middle ground between expecting a few developers to be able to meet the content demands of tens of thousands of players (impossible) and expecting players to create satisfying content for each other without exploiting that power (unlikely).
With a player contracts system, everybody wins: developers can focus on creating more memorable content; veteran players get to offload their less interesting tasks to others; new players get jobs to do that make them money while helping them learn the world; the economy gets deeper as more needs are satisfied; and those players who enjoy RP can string player contracts together to build engaging stories of their own.
To echo others who've expressed similar ideas in this thread, I'd be happy to see any of these concepts tried in MMORPGs.
--Flatfingers
Great topic. And timely for me since my wife and I both play MMO's and have been talking the last few weeks about dumping WoW. She wants to stick with it and I'm bored out of my socks.
We've been having this exact arguement. As far as I'm concerned, WoW relies too heavily on quests. I'm sick of doing the exact same thing as everyone else in the game. And what is the final reward? You hit level 60 and hit a wall, the only thing left then is to roll another char and do it all over again from the beginning.
Quests are great and can add a lot to a game. But at the same time, a player needs to be allowed to think for himself.
I started playing MMO's with Shadowbane. The game had a lot of problems admittedly. Mostly the fact that there was very little support from the devs. On the plus side though, it allowed players unlimited freedom to do what they wanted. There were ciities to be built, nations to be formed, wars to be fought. Belonging to a guild meant something in that game because it was almost equivalent with your in-game nationality. Guild A hated Guild C and both worked hard to become allies with Guild B, etc.
With the current technology available, there is no reason that a MMORPG couldn't offer tons of quests while still giving players the freedom to have city building, political intrigue, highly indivualized crafting abilities, and character developement that would allow players to creat a toon that was potentially different in skills and abilities from every other toon in the game.