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Why quest based MMORPG are not fun
Johnhost
Member Posts: 146
So the next MMO comes out of the beta shoot and into game store shelves. World of Rings Hammer. It's built for the masses and claims to have new and innovative features. But really here is the basic formula...newbie starter area, quests, quests, raid.
Where did they get the idea from? Well from SOE of course. Originally back in '99 an MMORPG game out that defined MMO's. It was an open persistent world where you could finally game with thousands of online players and you couldn't "finish" the game in X amount of hours. The game was very successful for it's time.
When EQ2 came out they tried and address the concerns of the vocal minority on the forums. And I think try and build in features to eliminate allot of their top customer service issues. Hence the instancing, lack of trains, etc.
WoW released and took EQ's post-planes of power formula and mass marketed in their already huge IP. It of course was a success. But why is it gamers are burning out and complaining about being bored? Because they have forgot why we play these games to begin with.
Without going into the casual vs. hardcore debate, Everquest originally was a sandbox. Very few limitations on what you could do, and only the rules of the world to keep players in check. Want to attack that banker? Sure, but you will likely die! In fact it was through this sandbox much of what we take for granted was developed. Raids were not planned originally, they simply came about when players decided to attack something to big for any one group and won. Devs stood stunned. But the concept was very cool. Let groups chain together in a raid and attack larger then life monsters like dragons. However this wasn't the main thing that made the game cool.
The thing is EQ was very short on quests. The quests were mostly hard, for items not really worth it. And the [text] system was dated for getting quests. Players did want more options for quests that were relevant and accessible. EQ2 had that in spades. Trouble is, it made it the central core of the game, not for flavor.
Soon the concept of getting a quest, kill X of Y and get Z reward became the norm. But this too is basically a grind with a story. You still have to do repeat kills of the same thing over and over. That really isn't what made the original EQ fun.
What made EQ so much fun has been debated since it's first expansion. But I would say it was the sandbox experience. No rules, no one holding your hand. You made your own adventures, decided which path to take given the boundary's of the world. There was a loose path of progression to follow, but it didn't come slap you in the face, nor FORCE you to take it. It was simply there.
Players are generally going to take the path of least resistance. And so when devs set up these quest based games, it simply means to keep up you need to follow the lemmings through the quest path to the end raid game. Honestly no one really likes that.
What MMO's are missing is not only a true sense of community, but the ability to give players control over the game itself. let them decide what town they will visit, what shops to frequent. The only thing devs should do is make it a level playing field. But they FORCE quests or obvious progressions, and they make it a penalty for not taking the well traveled road.
The reward and purpose for playing a fantasy MMORPG used to be to simply be in a world, explore, advance a character and do so with other people. It was something to do with friends. Take on an alternate personae, one with magically powers or mighty skill with a blade. This was somehow considered to be grinding. Everyone likes a good story, but people simply are grinding quest to get the best rewards. They often skip the dialog and lore.
I fall of the MMORPG is in going the route of quest based progression, and removing all need for players to create their own adventure.
Bring back the sandbox! SWG had it, EQ1 had it. Sadly development changes keep moving them towards obviously quest based progression paths. The games are turning into console games.
Comments
I totally agree...I remember my necro killing the guards in the commons then being bitched out by the low levels for killing their guards lol. That's what made that a fun game...also the trains in like say blackburrow added an element of surprise to the game....yeah it wasn't fun when you got killed by a train but the fact of not knowing what is in store around the corner was fantastic....
I will argue about the grind though......everquest was all about grinding.....remember lvl 30....oh my god that sucked
so if they could make a sandbox game like that and maybe leave out the huge grind or the insane camps for rare items they would have a hit on their hands..
I don't think it would be a hit personally... And I'm certainly not biased towards quests... constant quests bore the HELL out of me... I'd rather mindlessly kill mobs than do crappy quests with badly written stories ala WoW
I just think the majority of the buying public have no imagination and would rather play a "roller coaster" game... where their path is all laid out for them.
The creative ones among us (ie the original MMO fans) all would prefer the sandbox feel... A sandbox game sets your creative side on fire and your mind goes wild, it's fun as hell! But unfortunately, most gamers are not so creative and would rather just play a game where there is a set path..
Extremely sad, but true... Gone are the days of creative games
Oh wait Oblivion... that game rawks :-P Someone make that an MMO and I'll be happy :-P
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
Just don't participate in quests. You can still level up oldschool by grinding mobs just like the old games you listed. It doesn't matter if a game is sandbox or not you will still be restricted by your level when exploring.
What you see today is the evolution of MMORPGs. Quests allow you to gain xp twice which might be why today's games become boring. I think your problem is the game you are playing, guessing from your sig.
After spending a good year and a half playing EQ2 I got tired of the "gain 10 levels, get a new equipment set and travel to another kill area" stigma EQ2 has. Although I'm sure I will get bored with WoW sooner than I did with EQ2 I am having more fun. There are multiple level range areas across the continents so you have more freedom when choosing a hunting area.
Just not worth my time anymore.
I absolutely hate doing quests of any sort...I prefer to hunt and get exp that way. I remember doing that stupid stein quest in eq just to earn money over and over and over again.....so boring.
Even the epic quests in daoc I couldn't stand even though the rewards were kinda nice.
I LOVE the DAOC epic quests...but no one does em these days
Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice.
Everyone always says that we can't have another sandbox game because there aren't the numbers. Bullshit, I say! I mean, there were enough numbers in Everquest pre-Luclin to run a game from, why won't they, plus more, be there again.
Secondly, players will always take the path of least resistance, as we saw constantly in the prelaunch Vanguard forums. If quests exist, do them. I mean, I enjoy the Heritage Quests in Everquest 2 because they remind me of EQ1, and because they are actually good quests, rather than limited grinding. I avoid quests as a whole, but I've still done a couple of hundred of them, because, in a quest based game, it's impossible.
However, I only think that griding up the levels without quests in only possible in games like Everquest 2, not at all possible in World of Warcraft where solo content is emphasised.
Corrected it for you.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
I'm actually pinning my hopes on gods and heroes at the moment. Not sure though....and war of course will be about the rvr so hopefully not alot of quests in that one.
I think the next dominant game will have a mixture of quests and missions (ala swg mission terminals or eve missions). As a former Diablo 2 player, I understand the importance and fun of a wide arching story line. As you mentioned, wow is different in that it doesn't have a wide arching story line, and in essence, the mission terminal idea has been transferred to quests. I'd like to see a mix of the two. Give us a few broad quest lines for entertainment value and variety, and provide missions for us for leveling and grinding. I think the combination of these ideas opens up a much more sandbox feel to the game while not making the mistake of swg and ignoring questing content altogether.
I see where you are coming from but I have to disagree with this. While I never got the chance to play the original EQ or UO, I still know what a sandbox game is like ala Grand Theft Auto. While I do totally agree that the freedom in a snadbox is totally awesome (I loved to just run around, smack up people, take their money, then jack a car and cruise around jamming to the radio), I still had to do some story or do some other mission every now and then to mix it up.
I guess my point is, while I agree that "sandboxing" is fun, I still think you need quests and story to give you a better variety of activities. I think a good balance between freedom and questing/story is needed to make a really good game.
Grand Theft Auto =/= EQ or UO.
I'm afraid grand theft auto is not what most people have in mind when thinking of a sandbox game. Although I will agree that there are some parallells, grand theft auto does not include many systems that MMOs have such as crafting, player housing, skill systems, etc.
Well I realize that, but it still has the same basic idea of freedom, "Do whatever you want". Unfortunately it's the only game that I've played that has that sandbox freedom, so that is why I used it. It's like when people say you can't compare apples to oranges, when in reality you can, because they are both fruit.
I guess all I'm saying is that a game that is 100% sandbox wouldn't work just as one that is 100% quest wouldn't either. But one with a nice balance (say 50/50, 60/40...) would be the best of both worlds, providing that it's executed properly. Imo, FFXI had a pretty nice balance between freedom and quests. You really only had to do some of the quests depending on what rewards you wanted out of them, yet they had hundreds if not thousands of quests that were optional. It all depended on how involved you wanted to get. Otherwise, you could spend the rest of your game time doing whatever. I will admit though that you couldn't kill any npc's but still. hehe ^^
Good post, I definitely think for me these modern mmorpgs have just become too quest-obsessed and combined with the excess linearity it isn't fun. I think with older mmorpgs it seemed like you had that extra feeling of adventure which has been lost when you have every person in the game with their minds on the quests. Along with this, I think it also taints the game with a very solo-focus having people running all over the world all doing different quests and with them not binding in any way.(although maybe Warhammer may find a way to boost that spark by finding a way of incorporating more 'binding' quests as part of the gameplay)
POLL QUESTION:
Regal
There's nothing to stop you from levelling by standing and one spot and killing stuff in any game that's out. You're perefctly free to level by grinding if you want to. In many modern games it's actually still the quickest way to level.. case in point, when WoW lauched the first 60s did it 90% grinding, 10% questing. Unless you follow a power levelling guide, which most players ddon't, grinding remains a quicker way of levlling than questing. Even with a guide, all the travel time that you incurr means that your not doing a lot better than just straigh up grinding. If you can hit 60 witha guide in 4 days, I'm pretty sure you could do it grinding in 5. Most players take 7+ days played to hit 60, 5 days played is still a lot faster than an average gamer will level.
So if grinding is such a fast way to level in most games, why don't players do it more often? Becuase to the average gamer it's boring as hell. Give them any less repetitive way of levelling, an they will use it. Personally, I don't see how anyone without brain damage could stand to level by killing mobs in one spot for a week, and then moving to another for 50+ levels. But you don't see me starting up idiotic threads where I accuse your preferred playstyle of sucking.
I'm sorry that every man woman and child that fires up a MMO isn't forced to level by grinding. If you really want a game where it's "grind or quit" LI, LII, FFXI, EQ, EQOA, and many other games are available. Some of them are quite popular. Hell that's the coernerstone of Korean game design, "Grind or die bitch!" So if that's what you like, go play one of those gams and stop bitching that games which cater to other playstyles exist, or flaming the "feeble minded masses" for liking something that you don't happen too.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I'm not completely sure what I want anymore. I played UO and EQ originally and had a lot of fun there, but I also enjoyed the ease of WoW and how it didn't require so much time and effort to level or do all the quests. It seemed to find a nice medium until you get to level 60. It's true that this quest system encourages lack of imagination, but it's generally pretty fun for people to have a bit of story as they go along instead of creating their own. I guess thats what they are paid to do. The problem with Sandbox is it's not going to attract as many people due to not being easy to follow. A lot of the learning process is up to you. You aren't show around through tutorials and told where to go or what to do. This is a bit much for most people who just want to kick back and relax. Learning the game in this manner can be very frustrating to the player and with the attention span of most gammers I just don't see it happening. There may be a niche crowd for this type of game, but is it big enough to cover the cost of a modern MMO which costs far more then the EQs and UOs of the world to make.
I think the biggest problem with the current crop of quest-based MMOs is that they're simply not well-designed quests. They're all basically Kill X, Get Y and Go To Z ad infinitum. The story arc and lore behind the quest may be fantastic, but when push comes to shove, I'm still gathering 10 bear pelts.
That's not to say sandbox is my choice of MMO. I'm a quest-fanatic through and through. For me, most sandbox, or quest-lite games, are nothing more than monotonous grinds that force me to pay $15 to use an interactive chat room while I kill faceless mob #5,356,479 so I can get to class level or skill level ABC. I may as well just play a F2P MMO for that service.
I think the future of MMOs (at least popular ones) will stay with quests over sandbox games until a sandboxish Grand Theft Auto Online comes out (that's probably the only potential WoW-killing franchise out there), but I hope to see quests have more uniqueness to them. My ideal would be a City of Heroes/Villains style mission system where the quests didn't just involve going to the end and killing the big bad, but nice little twists such as personalized archvillains and a unique storyline for every character. The technology for that is probably way off, so I'm mostly just ranting at this point.
Anyways, my main point is that WoW opened up the MMO market to people who want, for better or for worse, a more focused and linear approach that removes the clutter and downtime of spawn camping, endless grinds and other hallmarks of sandbox games. Virtual worlds like UO have more or less been replaced by, well the best term is video games, and unless you want to go for a niche title, it's not likely to change.
looking back i somehow took EQ for granted. Had I known the nose dive this genre has taken would occur I would have burried my head in the sands of LOIO for a lot longer.
I totally agree with the OP. I remember when EQ was an escape to another world, an imersive experience. Now each game is basically the same. A lot of it is our desensitization to that first experience. But a lot of it has to do with these new fangled developers and their arrogant belief that they have plateaued to some magical receipe for a mmo.
What is not commonly understood is that players will flock to the games that suit them but that doesnt mean that a most suitable game has been introduced.
I miss the old days of EQ.
After about a 4 year break from MMOs, the quest system in LOTRO seemed like a nice change of pace. Was fairly entertaining and not nearly as boring as grinding mobs. But, after a while it definately started to drag. Instead killing mob after mob youre just doing quest after quest. Sure, its more entertaining if you read the quest text and get into the story a little, but the reality eventually sets in that youre pretty much doing the same menial tasks and they have no effect at all on you or the game world. Some times, I wanted to do a little grinding just for some action.
Ill probably be saying this forever, but as long as MMOs are so focused on character progression, its always going to feel like a grind. Youre either grinding youre way to the end game content ot youre following the exact same narrow story path as everyone else. Honestly, we can do that in a single player game, and it will have better graphics and gameplay. Most of us got interested in MMOs because we wanted to be part of a persistant/dynamic world, and right now no MMOs are offering that.
Also, I do think that a sandbox game could be very successful. The thing is, you need good developers behind it with enough financial backing to pull it off. Just because a bunch of half a$$ed sandbox MMOs failed doesnt mean its hopeless. H3ll, just between the UO veterans, SWG veterans, and the rest of us that are waiting for one, I think a good sandbox MMO could be very successful.
If you get rid of quests, you have to get rid of levels, or just change thew way they're gained, because killing mobs all day for experience is even worse than questing all day for experience. I'm more in favor of getting rid of levels completely and just using skill advancement to progress.
I've been telling people this for years now. It's time to go back to a skill based MMO instead of a level based one. Leveling an avatar gets monotonous very fast. The reason it is so popular now is the allmighty "DING!". There are very few moments in today's MMOs that give a sense of accomplishment. That flash of light and sound event upon reaching the next level is all some people look forward to.
You know I almost never see this said so I am goign to say it since people bring up the EQ quest system occasionally.
Back in the days of MUDs many games had things called "quests" these were not a means to leveling but instead were usually implemented as BARRIERS to leveling. The MUD I played had about 30 or so quests of various levels and each quest gave you a certain numbers of quest points some gave 3 some gave 20. In order to get a particular level you had to get a certain total tally of quest points or you simply could not advance. Quests were secret you were not supposed to tell people how to do them or where they started etc. Unless something was explicitly stated somewhere. You had explore and find and figure out how to do them on your own.
In a sense you had to prove you knew enough and were good enough to get to the next levels.
Most MUDs used quest in this sense and had xp mostly through grinding.
Sound familiar? Yeah it should because EQ was based on a MUD.
Comparing the missions of a game like WoW or LoTR to EQ quests is not actually that great of a thing to do. Even though they share the same name they are coming from completely different ideas and goals.
As a sidenote that MUD I used to play also had you start with no class. You actually had to find the Guildhalls and their locations were also secret. Some of them required quests to join. Anywhere from planting a tree to sacrificing a corpse and some were even more elaborate. Some were easy and had no real test.
Personally I very much disliked the quest barrier system. I did like the hidden joinable classes though, it was just kinda cool, it was a pain but it added a lot of flavor and it was something to look out for. And when they added a new one in it was kind of exciting.
Ima say wth not and go ahead and comment.
I am a fan of eq1's freedoms, but i am not a fan of the game mechanics/design in all aspects.
People like freedom of course but i can tell you right now eq1 was hell as a new player to start out in. Too much freedom can be a bad thing in that a player has no idea what to do when they log in, they feel lost, alone, whatever. This was a big turn off for many potential subscribers of eq1 in its first 30 minutes. Its next big turn off was time sinks, the game revolved around them. Every thing from leveling to questing to raiding took rediculous amounts of time, straight time ie continuess non stop. Alot of people can not commit that much time to a video game much less want to. If you really look at eq1 you see it alienated more customers than anything else, in one way or many.
My stint on eq2, when it was announced it was supposed to be a more casual eq expirience then eq1. So i sub on day one to try it out ................ at launch of course the game was in piss poor shape. Now the game wasnt bad becuase of the bugs really, it was this new design they threw at us. When you title a game as a sequel people expect mechanics and design to be the same for the most part except for the proclaimed changes like casual friendly. Now in eq2 it has gotten better design wise to where it actually is casual friendly but problems still remain. The big turn offs ...................
Like i said before people like freedom, its not quest based gaming that turns people off, its when its the only way to play the game successfully it turns people off.
I'll put it this way, when i was a kid i got a new game for my nintendo called Batlletoads ............ it was basically double dragon as frogs ............... i liked this game, it was neat ..................... i like just walking through the levels just beating the bad guys up. This is what i expected to get when i asked for the game so i was happy ............ after a while into the game a part came up where your on a fast moving surf board or something having to move around real fast and jump logs so you didnt crash ........... i hated that crap, it pissed me off .............. i didnt by a walk around beat em up game to play dodge the logs or start the level over. However my friend loved that part of the game, she loved that fast reaction time stuff but hated the walk around beat em up part. Different stroke for different folks.
People want something different they want progressions for if they solo grind or quest, or heroic grind or quest, or raid grind or quest. Grind and quest are the only two real things there are right now, you could say factioning but that is just prerequisits to quest most the time which goes back to grinding faction or questing for it.
I've gotten into this debate many times, ban from soe eq2 forums becuase of these debates. They do the easy fix, why not its easy money and people keep paying for it. But as you can see as they bring in new types of subscribers like wow did, people are gettin bored ................... its simply becuase of what the op said, its the same old idea in a diff wrapper and takes a lil less time.
In eq2 for example alot of the quest are tiered as solo, heroic(group), or epic(raid). We get the option if you solo things take a long time and loot sucks, if you group time is shortend and loot improves, raid time is only kept drawn out by lock out timers and small drops but loot is vastly improved. In almost every MMO this is the setup.
The above can most likely be applied to any RPGMMO and even fake RPGMMOS. Its the easy accepted standard and all they have done to improve this design was create tutorials to baby step people in and give casuals more of a chance to get to more completion out of the game. The design though solo for xp, group for higher level xp and gear up, raid to get pausible gear.
One way, the same way, time the only factor .................. i have to see a MMO that takes a good amount of skill, go ahead name off what ever you believe is an MMO that takes all this skill to be badass at ................... eq1's " skill " was defying the game mechanics ..... fd pulling, kiting ect. Now if they would of fixed that what skills are left? Watching your dps, picking gear that suits your use, controlling aggro ................ hell all mmo's have that so eq1's skill wasnt different just certain aspects were exploited that current games may not allow anymore.
Ima stop here for now and leave this final note .................. all the above is to illustrate that this guy and others may hate questing to progress, some people hate grinding to progress .......................... an MMO has a variety of people so it should provide a variety of content, playstyles, reward sytems, progression systems, ect ect. All the op did was point a finger at what he didnt like and why he didnt like, then said what he liked. That may be a perfect mmo for you so how bout all those other paying people out there? Its time for a big change, i agree skill should be a factor, but then again people so dependant on gear and chances based off dice roles ( who often claim to have skill) may not like that.
I think it would be neat to combine the two. Maybe have a skill based system for crafting, combat skills, and other basic skills, but have a leveling system for stats like stamina, detexterity, intelligence, etc. I also like the 99 level system like diablo 2 where it's relatively easy to get to 80, and do most everything, but takes a very long time to reach 99. So 99 isn't a super huge deal, but something you'd want to progress to eventually.