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What can we have instead of questing?
blognorg
Member UncommonPosts: 643
I'm tired of doing game-manufactured quests. I'm sorry, but giving "context" to killing ten boars, picking up shit off of the ground, or any other task that I've had to do in MMOs the last 8 years just doesn't do it for me. I don't need a contrived, developer-created story; that's not why I'm playing. If I wanted a story, I would play a single-player game, watch a movie, or read a book. I go in for complex character development, interaction with friends and strangers alike, and to be part of a world. Unfortunately, I also like slick UI with tons of features, nice graphics, smooth controls and good optimization... i.e. a game with a budget.
I'm not trying to stir up another "I hate this generation of MMOs" argument (though it probably will). I'm just saying that devs put too much emphasis on structured questing instead what's really the meat of an MMO... the mechanics. Even games that try to step outside the box a little, like WAR, Rift, and GW2 just dress up the questing, but what if we just removed it?
I've bitched about questing before, and I often just get told "well, you don't have to do them". In theory, I don't, but I'd be sacrificing tons of the benefits that are associated with them; and also the main problem, what would I do instead? So much of the content is designated to the quests that the game would just feel hollow without them. So, I'm just curious, if there is anyone that thinks this way, what would you do, instead, to fill the questing void?
Comments
As the fellow below me stated player econ!
For one if you want to Rid the traditional quest system I would make a MMORPG a sandbox , and have the Players make their own unique quests and it would be their responsibility to reward you ,and if they don't? Well get revenge on them kill them and loot them, or raid their houses.
I would make a MMO that was like Minecraft BUT with realistic graphics and a RPG Theme tied to some of the MMO themes we had in the past, basicly add dungeons that are either buried , on another continent or underwater , and have hundreds of them stattered around and the devs would'nt indicate a new dungeon from patches ect, so you have to go out exploring , and while you are out exploring you run into player built cities and maybe those players hired NPCs that have quests for you , or a bounty board if you will, complete the quest gain xp ( adventure XP ) that caters to your social skills and combat , magic skills ect, some Rewards can offer mats for helping that player out or armor weapons , spell tombs ect ect ect, they can even have their own shops that you can trade ( Barter ) goods with.
So in my opinion , to make way for new kinds of quests you kinda need to build anew game up from the ground, those are just some examples of a mmo I would build , but I would also add three different types of combat as well not just your traditional one type , first person view like elder scrolls , third person view combat like witcher and a more traditional style turn combat kinda style if you want to make it interesting.
There is SO Much you can do if you put your mind to it, also would add live events like what GW2 has because those are simply put the best I have ever seen, you can even make player events!
Man wish I had my own studio!!!! :P
Sticking with a Themepark MMO.
Log In for the first time and you see an NPC with the usual giant yellow question mark above his head. He has one Quest for you..."Bring me the Legendary Sword of .... whatever". The reward for this quest is an Epic Sword/Staff/Weapon of your choice.
No instructions on how to complete this quest but as you explore the games zones and speak to the NPC's you find many of them have heard rumours about the sword. Many of these rumours turn out to be red herrings. Occasionally you will follow up on a rumour which will get you closer to your goal.
Eventually you will enough bits and pieces of information, skills learnt and materials gained to enable you to craft this legendary sword.
Find your way back to the first NPC you met. Complete his one quest. Take collection of your epic reward and voila...you have reached endgame.
Just dont read the walkthrough.
How about exploring instead of questing? You have to find all the secrets on the map to get XP. Like there could be a coin in a riverbed and you get big XP just for finding it. Or there could be a goblin den hidden in a rocky area. Or you find one tree in a giant forest that can talk to you and it gives you XP and an item. No markers or waypoints for any of this stuff and the spawn points for them are random so you can't cheat by going to a player wiki guide. Also there would be danger everywhere. Never know when you will run into a giant or band of orcs. It should be no rails, pure freedom, do what you want from day 1. None of this I have to do this stupid questline that is just a copy paste from the every other MMO.
Character development? Could you be more specific here? You mean stats development, story development, phyical appearance development? Generally you get all these in a quest based story line.
Interaction with friends. So your friends and you are all standing around around in this big virtual world. Hmmm, what do we do now. Kill each other? Go pub hopping and regale ourselves with stories of previous virtual world gaming heroics? Build something? I guess what I am asking is could you be more specific, please?
To be part of a world. The only game that has given me that feeling is Skyrim and it has quests. Maybe if you were more specific....?
Being part of a world equates to time consuming, IMO. Which is obviously why you are rarely seeing these games anymore. Most people now want their games to be fun and not time consuming, which "virtual worlds " tend to be, IMO. Perhaps someday your game will come along but i would not be holding my breath.
I can empathize with what you are looking for, though in a vague nonspecific way. Good luck in finding it.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
We had the discussion before: one cannot have a niche game with the budget of a mass-market game. Either you learn to enjoy mass-market games or you learn to enjoy less polished niche titles. Your decision.
It's clear by now that the large majority of people buying games prefers the developer-created quest and arena and instances and battlefield entertainment approach, i.e. providing fast "fun" for people that like this sort of things. Thus that's what the games with large budgets will try to provide.
There are plenty of non-quest driven niche games around for people that prefer other styles of gameplay.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
OP:
How about this.
building focused.
You want to build a house, to build a house you need various items which you can get from loot but you also need some tools which you get not from a quest but by exploring for them.
Naturally that can be extended to making just about anything. Basically look at real life as a comparision. Most of us have little mini projects we are doing and we dont need a quest to tell us to go get xyz because we already know we need it for something.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
ok a few points.
1. I read an article that said gaming industry profits has been falling.
2. plenty my a$$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tthere isnt plenty of non-quest driven niche games where the f8ck did that comes from!?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I reckon something like this:
You start out as a young noob and you have to spend a considerable amount of time learning skills from tutors and you have to choose one of several career paths.
Once you earn your career certificates, you then have to travel around looking for mission givers. Eventually once you prove yourself and gain enough XP, one will offer you a place in their corporation, with benefits such as health bonuses, dungeon access and regular gold.
You still have to carry out missions, but you now have spare gold to save up and purchase cool items, such as armour, a mount and eventually player housing.
It takes a while to get enough gold for player housing, as there will be limited plots, but you can do epic mission arcs that will boost your gold, like one where you must do several missions in different areas from different questgivers, whilst being chased by a mob that 'taxes' your gold if he catches you.
From then, you can begin the social sphere of the game, where you must begin a family. This is difficult, as you still have to complete corporation missions, so you have to do it in downtime between them. A series of minigames must be completed to attract a 'mate', the best one being a casino type, where you must stake a majority of your gold each time against the possibility of 'impressing the mate'. Should you succeed, a portion of your gold is deducted from each mission to keep the 'relationship' XP.
This is when the game gets hardcore: You must run missions now for your corporation and the relationship, else you lose XP. So it becomes a kind of treadmill. Most players burnout at around level 40 and rage quit, but the game has a permadeath feature where you lose all your gold, XP and player housing to the relationship mate should you do so. The relationship mate can accumulate this loot for the next player to start a relationship with, but the mate will require a higher purchase cost than before.
The player at this point will usually be dropped by the corporation and will have to start over again, but at a much higher level, meaning they can't access all the mobs and most of the relationship mates are greyed out to them.
Player must choose then either <Permadeath> or <Alcohol>, which takes the player into a sub-game that's kind of confusing and ends quickly.
... I'll stick with Quests
i am sticking with instanced group quests.
There is really nothing else .. all PvE games are excuses to kill lots and lots of mobs for loots .. either group or solo. The key to do the combat well. Some context and scripted events are good to spice up the gameplay.
KIll 10 rats may not be fun .. but kill 1000000 goblin rushing you forms exciting combat gameplay.
There are 22 games on this List of Sandbox MMORPGs alone. I'd say that's plenty.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I could be more specific, but I'd end up just getting into all the details of a game that I would want to play, and they would not necessarily resonate with the everyone who is anti-quest. I'll give you what I can. When I refer to complex character development, I'm referring to the mechanics (as I alluded to). I don't find the idea picking a skill tree particularly interesting. In my opinion, games focus too much on balance; it makes the experience dull. I played both WoW and Rift, and every time that I'd try a new class or a new build, it would feel the same. Games try to make every build viable. Let me screw up a build; let me learn from it. Also, because there aren't really any other aspects to combat besides the rate of damage, every skills is essentially measured on the same metric, and there's really only so much you can do with that. There need to be more aspects and different types of damage that can be done. The combat itself needs to be more interesting, rather than simply giving it context.
My main problem with quests is that I don't feel like the goals in the game are being set by me. You mentioned Skyrim, but I hardly did any of the quests in that game. The ones I did do were boring and disappointing. I focused more on building an optimal character and exploring the world. The problem with Skyrim (and its successor), in my opinion is the level scaling. It tends to trivialize the character goals that I set for myself. While MMOs don't have level scaling, I get that same feeling of dissatisfaction from so much contrived content that I can really only conform to what the game wants me to do. The goals I set, aren't necessarily complicated ones, but they're still something that I think of for me to do. I don't want to go into a cave because someone wants me to; I want to into it to see what's in there.
I was super-excited about GW2 before the betas. It got rid of quests, it kept content fresh with level scaling, and teaming up with people was effortless and intuitive. Once I got in, though, I didn't find myself having all that much fun. In fact, I could hardly play for more than an hour without getting bored. It still felt like I was having the same experience that I'd been having for the last few years. I was just being herded around, being told what to do. They promote freedom and exploration, but I just didn't feel it. The zone felt more restrictive than I had anticipated and practically every square inch of the game was coated in structured content. It didn't feel like a living, breathing world as I had hoped. I think that comes down so much of the content being NPCs and repeated, game-run scenarios. Even the player interaction felt pretty stifled. I hardly spoke to anyone, and vice versa. In fact, many of my interactions with other players in the events just felt like other NPCs.
You talk about games becoming about constant "fun", but I don't think constant stimulation is the key long-term fun. Sometimes less is more. It's like the different between chess and some other board game that has a lot of rules and bells and whistles. I'm not sure that extravagant content is the key to enjoyment. Simpler concepts which allow more player freedom seem more appealing to me. And example is that in one game that I played there was this drop that, when used, spawned a random monster. It was simple, but I had more fun using those than any quest I've ever experienced. Another thing would be more flexible character development (using the same definition that I established). This goes back to my other point about the lack of combat diversity. Different character builds could utilize completely different damage types and strategies. I think pre-battle strategy can be just as fun and important as the execution itself.
Wouldn´t it be nice if there was a random MMO generator? One where you could just tick off the boxes of the things you wanted. Genre , sandbox or theme, questing or no questing , skill tree or no skill tree, housing, crafting etc, etc...
Except the problem is, there just isn´t one yet. I like your point about balance. How many people do you see complaining ``I was playing Swords of Awsomeness recently but I quit because the combat was just too balanced, and I really wanted to get my ass kicked!`` But to take your point further, would it not be interesting if instead of a skill tree, the game would just give you a random skill. Then you would be forced to adapt to what the game gives you. Likely this would require co-oping with someone whose skills complement yours in order to survive. And yet you would still have to adapt because the next skill could completely change your character! Just tick that box for that feature. Do you think many people would choose it?
I haven't got too far into Skyrim, but I had a character started and felt that I didn't like the way he was shaping up. I was completely aghast at the thought of running through previous content again with a new character. But I was incredibly surprised when I found myself doing things differently and I actually enjoyed Bleak Falls Barrow better the second time I did it. Skyrim is a vast improvement over Oblivion where it really did feel like you were simply running the same dungeon or crypt over and over. I see that as hope that game developers are trying to broaden the experience as much as they can.
I have no experience with GW2 as of yet. You mentioned that you wanted it to feel like a "living, breathing world". Would you not say that you were setting yourself up for failure there? It is not a living breathing world. It is a developers attempt at a living breathing world that will appeal to a large majority of gamers. Why? Because it has to! That it the nature of the business. Look how long it took to develop and how much it cost! Did you think that if they made it imbalanced and with no story or at least some type of quest progression that it would be popular?
So many people are looking for the same thing as you, something diffrerent. The problem is, that different, is different from you and all the others. So until we have that MMO generator, I don't see how we are going to solve your problem in the near future. Perhaps soon there will be another game that you are at least able to tolerate. GW2 will be successful, no matter how many people on these forums say it sucks. But with people complaining as you are for the last 5 years or so, to stop giving us the same old same old, maybe someone has heard the message and will give us something fresh and new in the next 5 years. And I will be as happy as you when that happens.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
One way, IMO, is instead of questing (NPC requests in some way that you do x, then y, then get reward), is to have events happen in the world. The world then changes based on what you do, or don't do. These can be triggered by things you do while exploring, interacting with NPCs, finishing (or failing) another event, or just by random action. Random to you, anyway, there very well could be an underlying reason for the event (invasion, etc.).
Couple that with the downtime activities like exploring and crafting, and throw in a good amount of player usable content (manipulating the world, such as building, etc.) and I think you could go a long way toward getting rid of the typical questing system.
Most importantly, though, is to make even the questing seem to the player to have an actual effect on the world.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
GW2 doesn't just give it a new skin, it gives it a dynamism that hasn't been seen before (oh other companies have tried, but didn't quite hit the mark I'm afraid). It happens all around you in the world, not because you ran into the area or triggered some heart guy, it's just there. And there are consquences for not participating or for failing at a task. It's not just, oh i'll drop and retry it again. What everyone has seen and posted videos about in the beginning of this title is not what's at the end.
Now that we've got that corrected.
Questing, missions, etc there really isn't a substitute because frankly the technology isn't there. If we had computers as powerful as say the U.S.S. Voyager's computer for example (plausible future of tech) then we'd be able to forego any basic system for missions/quests we'd have the ability to rewrite the parameters of anything including novels to include alternate events. Not to mention how cool it would be to be able to walk around in the worlds these mmo devs wanted us to experience in the holodeck no less.
In a nutshell. we don't have the technology yet for a truly living world where anything is possible even npc's being able to make decisions that aren't scripted.
@ Vegetto
sounds sorta like Eve no wonder i didn't like that game
You have to have a game that removes the kdi's gloves and lets the players cause the drama.
You have to permit either murder or kidnapping.
You have to let people gain a lot and then run the risk of losing it all.
Build villages/towns and then watch them get burned down by enemies.
And then you go and kill those enemies.
You have to make a world that doesn't tell the player what to do, but a world that the player tells it what to do.
But I don't see that happening in this genre anymore.
Sounds great evolver except for the fact that it is complete fantasy!
Care to explain how a world will change depending on what you do? Remember there are thousands of other players in this game too. Only 2 things can happen. You can destroy something or you can build something. Thats it. And that describes your basic sandbox game.
Interacting with NPC's is complete fantasy. That would require massive game AI to cope with all possible situations. There is not going to be a game anytime soon that you can interact with NPC's in anything other than a scripted manner. Sorry, we don't have the Enterprise computer just yet.
Always amazes me how people think just anything can be done in a multiplayer game!! Think about it!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
so in other words youd like a sandbox. i could bury some of my cats turds in it for you, would you like that?
only thing i can tell you is look around, or quit spending money on games n save it for your own dev studio.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. I meant the collective "you" rather than the singular "you"
Also, interacting with NPC's isn't a fantasy at all. Many games already do that outside of the MMO world. How hard would it be to kick off an event based on an answer you give to an NPC? Or if you kill that NPC? Obviously at this point those interactions would have to be limited but it's definitely possible.
And, there are some games that do change, at least temporarily, depending on what players, collectively, do. For instance, some games use dynamic layering so that the world is different for you compared to other players that haven't done what you have done already (LotRO comes to mind). There are also other games where if you fail to say, push back an invasion, the invaders will set up camp and push further into the world. Unless you and/or other players rout them and kick them out of there. That then leads to pushing them back further. (GW2 is what I'm thinking here)
These things aren't a pipe dream. They are already here in certain ways. Mostly those ways are even persistent until other players deal with the situation, i.e. a town stays overrun until players liberate it.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
Instead of quests lets have:
1) Missions;
2) Objectives;
3) Goals;
4) Tasks;
5) Honey-do's!!!
Crafting and combat,Make food a MUST in game ,so all players have to craft it for health/recovery and combat stats.
FFXI created Campaigns which were a side content to normal combat.Beseiged was fun to defend your city from invasion.they included that npc's could be captured in the invasion,so protecting them would create interest as well.
Arena battles would add content.tons of ways to make that interesting and useful,battlegrounds is a cheap form of ffa pvp,you could instead have npc's involved.
FFXI also introduced the NPC fellow that coudl fight alongside you,that gives players something else to spend time on.
How about house building and ship building?Again this would take a lot of time to harvest all the materials.Then you need to train the crafting skills needed to make those.I would like to see mini battles to fight npc's for the right to own land plots.Then you pay a tax to that city which woudl also be player created.The city would grow depending on the wares and items players sell to the npc's.Players need to sell wares to make coin to pay tax,it should not be dropping from bears or mice.
How about other ideas we have seen like perhaps you have to catch a mob and then train it and feed it to be able to ride it?How about capturing pets to fight alongside you?
I like the idea of player created dungeons,there is so much a developer can do with that idea.
I would like to see an idea from Silkroad using the traderoute idea and having thieves and guardians.
There needs to be a long term plan for making gold useful from all these ideas.Example armor and weapon repairs.House repairs ,ship/boat repairs ,perhaps hire npc mercenaries at a high cost ect ect.Maybe you need a ton of gold to hire npc's to navigate your ship and perhaps fight on your ship.No gold,well i guess your ship doesn't set sail that day lol.Perhaps a longevity system where if you are able to keep yoru ships crew,they become more skilled at theri abilities.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.