It's a fair point. I remember my very first foray into MorrowWind. I got the quest to go and see the spymaster almost immediately. It took me about a month and a half (real time) to actually *get there*. I tried walking. It's a long way. There is a ton of stuff in between. I found things to do. *LOTS* of things to do. When I actually did finally reach Balmora from Seyda Neen, I came in via mage teleport from Caldera - I'd missed the city completely - and I didn't go there to see the spy-master. I was there on other business, and noticed that I had the spymaster quest waiting, so I did it while I was in the area. At that point, I'd pretty much forgotten that I even *had* a main quest line, and it was a bit of a surprise to discover that I was on one. I'd pretty much evolved into just wandering around talking to people and doing stuff - you know - adventuring.
Skyrim was considerably more linear - in the run from Helgen to Whiterun, there were only a few things to distract me from my main purpose, which was to get to Whiterun. But once in Whiterun, getting to the keep wasn't the first thing on my mind, either. The main thought in my mind at the time was to get to the Companions. I needed to find a bed, and keeps aren't generally known for their take on the hospitality industry. I eventually reported to the Jarl - about a week later. What can I say? I was busy. In Skyrim, I periodically clean up my quest log just because it's getting hard to find stuff.
I'm playing one now, called Firefall (in Beta) where there isn't actually *any* main quest line - at least not that I've been able to determine. It's a straight sandbox MMO. Oh, there's a ton of stuff to do - so much so that I have to deliberately tune out the advisories from my lieutenant if I want to actually go someplace in particular, because there are invariably about a hundred things that I could do en-route. I could, effectively, spend the entire game just ping-ponging from one incident to another, with no real objective in mind. But before long, I started making my own objectives.
But in all of these, there is a distinction. It is a simple one, but a very important one. For that kind of mechanism to grow, you can't have a limited queue of unresolved quests. In the other MMOs, that is the limiting factor. i'm more than a little Completionist - I don't like to get rid of anything by dropping it if I can finish it instead. So if there are, for example a maximum of 25 open quests, I tend to run that list up to 25 and then start chewing holes in it to make room for new stuff. As a consequence of that, I *MISS* a lot of quests. I have no room in my quest log, so I'm obliged to drop them.
An unlimited quest log in a single-person game is easy enough - the only thing you're eating is your own disk drive. In an MMO, though, the same concept translates into database space *on the servers*. Thus, it is not quite as easy. In Firefall, you basically don't take a 'quest' until you actually start executing it. They're all over the map, and if they're done for one they're done for all - they're all dynamic. So your 'quest log' is just a list of the half-dozen or so things that are currently at the top of the local pile of stuff to do. If you move, the list changes to match the new local pile.
It might not be an easy thing for the ESO developers to implement. They have things that have to be balanced against available resources. So they may actually have to place a cap on the number of available quests simply because of resource constraints. It would be great, though, if they could find a way around that particular problem and make the quest system more Elder-Scrolls-ish and less World-of-Warcraft-ish.
i totaly agree that it should be an advanture game like or Tes but you say you want to go where ever you like i agree and i want it to but i want to own what ever i like i mean i think you should be able to own a horse and a home all things that seams easy to get in skyrim will be expensive but only youres i would like to have the ability to lockpick into a reach guy home and steal and if i have a house i want to be able to put traps for ppl who try to come in and steal thats being able to do what i want and when a player die he should have money left so the killer will earn sumthing this things will make eso great maybe it will make u angrey but its being able to buy what i want and do what i want
Comments
It's a fair point. I remember my very first foray into MorrowWind. I got the quest to go and see the spymaster almost immediately. It took me about a month and a half (real time) to actually *get there*. I tried walking. It's a long way. There is a ton of stuff in between. I found things to do. *LOTS* of things to do. When I actually did finally reach Balmora from Seyda Neen, I came in via mage teleport from Caldera - I'd missed the city completely - and I didn't go there to see the spy-master. I was there on other business, and noticed that I had the spymaster quest waiting, so I did it while I was in the area. At that point, I'd pretty much forgotten that I even *had* a main quest line, and it was a bit of a surprise to discover that I was on one. I'd pretty much evolved into just wandering around talking to people and doing stuff - you know - adventuring.
Skyrim was considerably more linear - in the run from Helgen to Whiterun, there were only a few things to distract me from my main purpose, which was to get to Whiterun. But once in Whiterun, getting to the keep wasn't the first thing on my mind, either. The main thought in my mind at the time was to get to the Companions. I needed to find a bed, and keeps aren't generally known for their take on the hospitality industry. I eventually reported to the Jarl - about a week later. What can I say? I was busy. In Skyrim, I periodically clean up my quest log just because it's getting hard to find stuff.
I'm playing one now, called Firefall (in Beta) where there isn't actually *any* main quest line - at least not that I've been able to determine. It's a straight sandbox MMO. Oh, there's a ton of stuff to do - so much so that I have to deliberately tune out the advisories from my lieutenant if I want to actually go someplace in particular, because there are invariably about a hundred things that I could do en-route. I could, effectively, spend the entire game just ping-ponging from one incident to another, with no real objective in mind. But before long, I started making my own objectives.
But in all of these, there is a distinction. It is a simple one, but a very important one. For that kind of mechanism to grow, you can't have a limited queue of unresolved quests. In the other MMOs, that is the limiting factor. i'm more than a little Completionist - I don't like to get rid of anything by dropping it if I can finish it instead. So if there are, for example a maximum of 25 open quests, I tend to run that list up to 25 and then start chewing holes in it to make room for new stuff. As a consequence of that, I *MISS* a lot of quests. I have no room in my quest log, so I'm obliged to drop them.
An unlimited quest log in a single-person game is easy enough - the only thing you're eating is your own disk drive. In an MMO, though, the same concept translates into database space *on the servers*. Thus, it is not quite as easy. In Firefall, you basically don't take a 'quest' until you actually start executing it. They're all over the map, and if they're done for one they're done for all - they're all dynamic. So your 'quest log' is just a list of the half-dozen or so things that are currently at the top of the local pile of stuff to do. If you move, the list changes to match the new local pile.
It might not be an easy thing for the ESO developers to implement. They have things that have to be balanced against available resources. So they may actually have to place a cap on the number of available quests simply because of resource constraints. It would be great, though, if they could find a way around that particular problem and make the quest system more Elder-Scrolls-ish and less World-of-Warcraft-ish.
Well Written. Loved the review.