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What IS an original quest? And other silliness
terrant
Member Posts: 1,683
OK, I have to throw a pair of copper Lincolns into some of the more common MMO debates that still confuse the heck out of me. The first is "XYZ game needs original quests." What IS an original quest? As I see it, any quest can fall into these categories:
1) Hunter/Grinder: kill xxx mobs. The one you all complain about
2) Hunter/Looter: get x number of item y off of mob z. For example, "Go get 10 crushridge belts from orcs".
3) Traveller: Go to x place.
4) Talker: Go talk to X person.
5) Item usage: Go to xxx location with y item and use it in order to (insert random objective here).
6) Crafting: Go make 20 of these thingies.
So tell me....what would YOU make for a quest, that does NOT fall into one of these categories? What do YOU consider original.
The other is the old yarn, "ZOMG this MMO sucks, it's nothing but grind." Um kids..they're ALL grind. Progression=grind. As long as you have a chracter that somehow progresses as a character from one point to anoter, you are going to be spending hours killing/crafting/questing/travelling to achieve this. Why does this surprise any of you? What would you WANT to see MMOs do? And please, come up with something more detailed then "No more grindfest lololol", OK?
Comments
You maybe confused with TASKS and QUESTS. A task is a short errand which an npc ask you to do. Examples are the kill x number of y type of quest or the go fetch quest (go get x) or deliver this to y type of quest. Quests are a collection of task which has a deep and meaningful storyline associated with it.
Eventually, all things become a derivative of something else. Once upon a time, a very smart person (Plato or something..) wrote down the 36 basic plots. A list of all key plot basics from which all fictional works derive something from.
However, the key nowadays is how you work the derivative. I won't harp on about how I'm rather liking LOTRO, but the other day I came across a very refreshing set of quests, that had me smiling for a good couple of hours. The Chicken Run quests. Basically, in one of the Hobbit villages, you can take on a sort of monster play quest line that sees you giving up your normal body for a while and playing as a chicken in the coop. A rooster actually. What do you do? Well, you run from farm to farm warning different coops about wolves, try to find yummier worms for one of the queen hens, and such craziness!
It's all pretty meaningless, considering Frodo and the Fellowship are off trying to get the one ring to Mount Doom, etc etc.. but it is a gas for a few hours. You get some appropriate specials, like a chicken burst run, feigning death, bobbing and weaving, detecting danger, etc, and for a short while, the world of farmyard animals is opened up to you.
While it was your basic run to A and get B for npc-chicken C, it was a most refreshing take on quests, and I really enjoyed wobbling about at warp speed on my wee chicken legs for a bit!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is not so much about trying to find a new way of making quests, but more the substance of the quests you are writing.
I was referring to the word "quest" in the MMO term of "a condition or task set upon you by some element of game design with a purpose or goal for attainment at the end", but you know what I mean.
See, I think this is the problem. To me, I've never seen a game that had no quests with deep meaningful stories. Sure they all have their "Kill 10 wolves" quests, but they all have far more intricate quests too.
I think half the problem is that people don't bother reading quest text. They skip to the bottom, find the objective, complete it, run to get the next one. They complain there's no interesting story involved, when half the time they didn't bother reading the one that's there.
Agreed Terrant.
Most MMO players are in a mad dash to the "end". I am not pointing a finger at those that play that way because I have been there myself. It is easy to get caught up in the race to level cap because most people enjoy being the first at anything that can be the first at.
I have had to actually make myself slow down and read the quests, and it isn't a easy thing to do when you have been use to moving at a faster pace, but I have read many enjoyable stories with my alternate character that I completely missed with main.
I will admit though that some games are filled with filler "tasks" and there are an increasing amount of grinds such as reputations/faction, etc. grinds but that is mostly because the developers are trying to keep up with their player base. We eat up content and spit it out faster than most developers can create it and we are only getting faster as a whole.
oh and you forgot the escort quest type
My problem isn't with the quests, my problem is with the static gameplay. It isn't killing x number of monsters, its that we're killing x number of wolves because the same NPC told us to do it for the same reason. It never changes.
Developers seem to align time progression with your level. As you level and reach higher level zones you proceed further ahead in time, but that just makes the world feel that much more fake to me..
Instead of spending all their time developing expansion packs, how about develop dynamic storylines that progress with time and alter the world around them. Yes new players will miss out on older content but it will give the world a more livelier feel.
Well you really hit on the core issue of MMO's.
Of course they are only games but for good examples of "quest" you need to look outside of the MMO genre. Other game genres do it much better.
But to design a "quest", you need to have a better understanding of what a "quest" is.
Basics, here is the Webster definition
Main Entry: 1quest
Pronunciation:
'kwestFunction: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French queste, Vulgar Latin *quaesta, from Latin, feminine of quaestus, past participle of quaerere
1 a : a jury of inquest b : INVESTIGATION
2 : an act or instance of seeking: a : PURSUIT, SEARCH b : a chivalrous enterprise in medieval romance usually involving an adventurous journey
3 obsolete : a person or group of persons who search or make inquiry
Here are some other references that will help
The Quest for the Holy Grail
http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Holy-Grail-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140442200/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8543221-9391814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191952361&sr=1-1
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
http://www.amazon.com/Gawain-Green-Knight-Signet-Classics/dp/0451528182/ref=sr_1_1/103-8543221-9391814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191952515&sr=1-1
Beowolf
http://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-New-Verse-Translation-Bilingual/dp/0393320979/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8543221-9391814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191952567&sr=1-1
Gilgamesh
http://www.amazon.com/Gilgamesh-English-Version-Stephen-Mitchell/dp/0743261690/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8543221-9391814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191953491&sr=1-1
Best pop culture reference - Lord of the Rings. (yes the entire thing was one epic quest) What was the quest and what choices did the characters have to make along the way?
http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0007136587/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8543221-9391814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191952728&sr=1-1
So to be blunt, kill task and such are mindless chores to keep unthinking and careless players busy with trinkets and shiney objects and an XP boost to help propel them through the math of the game mechanics.
A quest has nothing to do with strictly bringing farmer bobs laundry to him and being his bich of the hour or cleaning oatmeat off the floor, killing 10 water bugs or delivering vomit pie...IF...its not part of a greater story or purpose. Another factor is that MMOs leave out one of the critical elements of a quest and that is choice and consequence of action. What if I choose to..........without choice or temptation or consequence, it isn't much of a "quest" now is it? Not at all. No more then taking the garbage out at night is a "quest".
Everything you listed could mechanically be part of a quest, yes. But the parts do not equal a whole in the case of MMO design. They are still missing the key componant...greater purpose. Some quest are never completed or not meant to be completed. Its the Journey (or Adventure if you will) What you listed as you intended to bring across was meaningless and empty nothings and asked us what do you expect. Well, I think many players are looking for an actual quest. Which you can find in numerous other games outside of MMO's.
Takes some classic Literature classes if you can to really understand what a "quest" is. Once you do, you will see that although some of these games go through the motions they are no more "epics" or "quest" then a Ford Escort is a Porche.
Then you wouldn't need to ask questions like this
EDIT
and quest are not suppost to be easy. This idea that a "quest" to kill 10 field mice is a challenge is silly. Read some of the epic quest of literature. They involve dramatic choices, dire consequences, they frustrate the protagonist, they test the foundation of their moral character in most cases. They usually involve sacrific of some sort and suffering to a point and sometimes death. (oh my)
1) New players. You said it yourself, they'll miss out. And alienating newcomers by telling them they can't see all the stuff the old folks did because "it's gone now, sorry you didn't join up sooner" is a bad idea. It tends to keep you from getting new players
2) To do this, to constantly update the world's content as player's progress, would mean a ridiculous amount of time and effort. You're talking re-patching over content as it's beaten, and writing replcaement content just as fast. Re-making the game on an almost daily basis. Too expensive and time-consuming to ever be viable.
Well, an original quest to me would be a couple things.
Something along those lines. Not sure how feasible 2 is but it would be interesting.
AKA - Bruxail
I always liked random quests, ones that I never encountered more than once. The only game I can think of that did an alright job of this was Diablo, although after playing 3 different characters I did encounter the same quests.
I think one possibility would be to create instances in the world that occur once in a great while. These could be designed for specific areas in the game world, such as the "newbie" land or areas for more advanced players, such as a strong monster is terrorizing farmers fields or a disease broke out and your character needs to find a cure.
Over time the game developers could have a vast amount of these random instances and it would be unlikely people would ever encounter the same quest more than once.
the technical limitations of the MMORPG genre will (and always will) never ever allow for individual storylines. The "story" and "quests" have to be catered for mass distribution, tasks that everyone can do and are thus by their very nature not "unique" nor can they have any lasting impact on the world.
if each bear/wolf/orc you kill depletes the population, eventually you will be out of bears/wolfs/orcs. This is fine for those who got a chance to kill these creatures, but not for the new player who now doesn't have the opportunity to kill bears/wolfs/orcs.
One solution is to put things on cycles, where once X number of players do a quest that quest disappears for a time, but comes back later for players who missed out the first time. This is REALLY hard to do with a leveling system because by the time the quest comes back, in a leveling system most players who missed it the first time will now be well over the level requirments for the quest.
creating monthly story arcs as old school SWG used to do is a good idea in theory, but requires an insane level of developer support and work, you'd need an entire team of designers/coders/testers/etc. in order to have a system such as this... but if every month the story arcs are just more kill X hunt Y talk to Z quest types, is this really any different?
Another idea, as used in Guild Wars to a limited extent, is the idea of "chapters." Once players play through a chapter, some big dramatic world-changing event happens. All players who have completed the chapter are now transported to the "new world" and those who haven't remain in the "old world" until they complete the chapter. This is both good and bad, bad because it really splits up your player base and creates "ghost zones" in lower level areas and early game chapters. But still, the quests in each chapter probbaly follow the same kill X hunt Y talk to Z quest types we all know and love/hate.
The "new way forward" in my opinion is quests with options and different paths to take. Ultima Online X: Oddessy promised us this before it was canned. You could choose how to proceed through a quest and how it would end, and based off of your choices you'd gain and/or lose influence with different Virtues. Having high/low stats in different Virtues would give different benefits to you.
This is the way questing needs to go. I don't mind the same types of questing we see in current games if we are allowed to make choices that affect our character and our standing within the world.
Not just one faction is gained or lost for doing a quest, but a multitude of different groups will change their thoughts of you based off of your actions. Kill the bandits instead of turning them into the authorities? Negotiate with them? Bribe them? Join their cause? Each option should be available and have different effects on my standing with the bandits, police, villagers, etc.
I just pray/hope/wish that Bioware will make a MMORPG with this kind of choice-driven quest system, because anyone who has played Kotor/JE (and soon Mass Effect) knows that they are REALLY, REALLY good at this.
a good quest is a quest that requires brain power.
Kill X whatever doesnt require brain power.
Quests with puzzles, riddles etc require brain power.
?
I would like to see a quest that goes some thing as this: "Gather a army of 20 warriors (players) and march up to the fallen stronghold in the mountains. There you seige it and take control. Report back to me when its done"
Or something.
I'd expect "original quests" to contain elements of what you listed but to be long chains that ultimately have consequences.
So instead of "I lost my toothbrush, one of the wolves must have it, go and kill them until you find it and i'll give you an item and some rep" i'd like it to be something more like "winter is coming, the orphans need coats or they'll die, go and kill some wolves" and then if you don't, the orphans die but some goblin needs some orphan souls so it opens up a series of quests from the goblin OR if you kill the wolves the orphans live and you continue along that quest series, never hearing from the goblin.
I'd love it you could redo the game from scratch several times and do quests you never even saw depending on what choices you made last time round...
Also i like the thought of puzzles... not like a completely random "play tic tac toe to save the old mans life" but like quests that revolve around you being observant, maybe a treasure hunt type quest but its not as obvious as following your map marker. Maybe you have to visit locations in a certain order dependant on where the light shines at different times of the day... Maybe you need info off someone and you have to work out where you'll find them.
I'd just like some depth and consequence in short.
AC1 had the best quests of any MMO I've played. You went through huge dungeons, solving riddles at times, avoiding traps, jumping across pits of acid, dodging rolling balls of death, and at the end you got to fight a boss (not in all cases.. sometimes your reward was just at the end of the dungeon, which meant getting through the dungeon was sometimes the hardest part)
Then you'd either get an item from the boss, or a key that opened a chest somewhere, or a piece of a quest that you needed the other pieces in order to complete and get your final reward.
I miss what that game used to be.
*Random Late Night Post Warning*
Your Quest: To die in 10 seconds after receiving a buff that triples your current hitpoints and gives you float so you can't just jump off a cliff. Gluck.
Now thats original.
Kazer
"Baning Smokers from public places is like baning people from water who like to pee."