"If a quest says Kill 10 dudes. People will say it's boring themepark garbage.
But if Dragonage Origins says, "Fend off the attack!" and throws enemies at you until the attack ends, you likely did not pay attention that you just did a Kill 15 dudes quest, because that's what it is.
Or in Skyrim where you have to go get Item X from some outpost. The quest doesn't say, "Kill 20 dudes in the outpost." But once you get there, you will kill all the dudes in the outpost (all 20 of them) in order to get the item.
How horrible are fedex/talk to so and so quests? Pretty horrible right? Now go play The Witcher (either one). Yeah, nearly everything you do in that game is a fedex/talk to so and so quest. It's obscene. Yet, look at the rave reviews. That's the power of well written dialogue and narrative. "
I totally agree with this one.. How the story unfolds with the quest objective makes a huge difference in how it is received by many players.. I love story line so kill x is awful..but dressed up in a "defend the city" as you say would make it more exciting b.c it means something..
I also agree.
but it's all in the presentation. There is a difference between "go kill 10 of these" when there are clearly more than 10 and more respawning and "go clear out that tower" where you kill 10 and clear out the tower (as Rusque pointed out).
It's how it all relates to the story or the world. And as we have all seen before, Lord of the Rings is just one great escort and fedex quest ; )
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I love exping in DAOC because it has no quests (apart from some optional level1-5 ones and the optional epic quest chain). You simply make a group and go out into the world to find a good spot and camp there for hours. It is social, much more challenging (we always strive to maximize our exp/hour while not wiping), and a lot more replayable. Each playthrough is different simply because the people you group up and socialize with were different.
WoW questing needs to die very soon if we want the MMO genre to move forward.
The worst type of quests are the ones that send you across the damn map to find an NPC surrounded by tons of mobs you end up having to kill. Then you get send back to turn in that quest only to get sent right back to kill those mobs surrounding that NPC.
What cannot do any longer is do quests with !... It feels so dated and boring and makes want to log off. I am not much of a quester to begin with, but its time for a change. I am really like what EQN is planning on doing. If you check out the EQN SOE live 2014 AI video. I hope more MMORPGS follow that direction.
Just because you are online... DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO PLAY WITH OTHERS!!!
This is gaming GOSPEL... some people ass/u/me you have to group up because you're connected to a WAN. This is patently untrue... false... a lie.
Seriously, if you can't get a group and you need others to be forced into hanging with you... Maybe its not the game at all... maybe... just maybe... it's YOU.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
This sounds like a "Democracy is the worst form of Government, but also the best form of Government" argument to me....I agree with what others have said, presentation and overall effect on the game is what makes good quests. I don't want to feel like I am running around just for the sake of a little Exp.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
I hate the quests that want you to beat a mob to low health and then use an item on it. Seems I either end up killing the mob before I can use the item.
We dont need easy quests, i think one or two hard quests and the rest just grind and hard dungeons with different camps... just some challege and painfull deaths
lol, pls tell me, what kind of quests do you want in mmo ?? I play GW2 since beta daily and there are all of this types of quests, kill, farm, escort etc, BUT i never get boring doing them! But its true, that in high level this escort/kill quest goes to some kind of hard grind (due to valuable reward drop etc), and its only things, what i dont like on gw2, cuz Anet says in beta, there will be no grind, but it is, in the end
in compare with wow, i play and enjoy it, but about lvl 52 i got hard boring time and I cant move over and quit, in gw2 i never have this feeling
The worst quests are the ones with poor story / no context; also forced quests. If quests are optional, have some good story and a bit a context to tie them into the world then I don't care what the task is (as long as it doesn't take more time than it's worth).
Actually you don't get it OP, otherwise you would not put group quests on your list. Likewise escort quests and going to talk to npcs, nothing wrong with them.
I'd like to see a MMORPG actually give you a quest without the instructions.
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Example:
The Quest: "The Goblins are planning an attack on the village. Stop them."
That's everything you have. Now you can seek out the Goblin village and kill all the Goblins. Or you ask around town where the Goblin village even is. Or you ask around town what their plans are. Or you steal their plans.
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But the playerbases make something like that impossible, because 1 month after release there's a database where you can look everything up. Then you install an addon that tells you what to do. Because so many MMORPG players aren't enjoying the game. They're just addicted and want to get the chores done as quick as possible.
Like you said it's not something the player base wants. Gone are the days when it would take days or weeks to sort out what a quest meant, if you ever did at all. And before databases guild members would just walk you through quests as they do now. I really can't remember a game where some players wouldn't give help with quests if asked.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I was going to ask what does that leave, then I remembered the entertainer quests in SWG. ESO has a quest where you have to jump to your death in order to complete it. Some games have drinking contest quests.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I don't play MMOs anymore because I haven't been able to find satisfying group based quest content. It is either non-existent or it is far to easy for a group. If you create interdependent skills then make the quests challenging enough so a group has to use them. For me Anarchy Online and some Age of Conan group quests were the last good ones I found. Granted, for the last 2-3 years I just haven't tried anymore after a number of solo-based MMO disappointments.
How many times in my life will I get a chance to go into a dungeon with some friends, overcome a series of challenges together, defeat the dragon and come out happy and excited that we did it, that we were challenged and had to work together to achieve a goal. Yes this shouldn't take me more that 2-3 hours or so as I dot have time for whole day events but it would be great to feel that again.
Some AOC group quests were really choreographed events where you are all performing moves like in a dance, run, hide, hit, rotate, hide again etc and that can get a bit monotonous but mostly they were designed as boss fights with a short run up to the boss. Not bad but the sense of adventure is missing when you just steamroll through the rest of the dungeon to get to the boss as fast as possible.
You don't seem to like questing much. I don't agree with your group quest, i think we should have the choice to have the same quest solo or group version but with better reward for the group quest. That way if would force people to group up cause of the better loot and that way meet more people in-game. group quest or mini raid quest are my favorite quests in games.
How the hell did groupquests end up on that list ???
I understand it when a solo storyline end up with a big group quest, like the personal storyline in GW2 ex. but in general groupquests are a lot of fun imo. If you don't like them, then don't do them.
At least change the headline to "mandatory groupquests" then I might agree. However I don't mind mandatory groupquest to get the keys or get "attuned" to do other types of groupcontent.
Getting the key ex to scarlet monestary was a pretty long quest, even involved a lot of travelling, but I didn't mind. Some of the quests back in classic wow involving stratholme and scarlet monestary were grerat. Thinking especially of the quest to kill ras frostwhisper (not 100% sure that was his name)
Even mandatory groupquesting can be great. Just keep the quests separated so you know when you pick up a quest it's a groupthing. And don't tag a groupquest to the end of a personal story or soloquest without giving some warning when you pick up the start-quest.
I think we all understood that to mean when your running your quest line hub to level and sudenly you get one that says kill this elite that takes 5 people to kill. In games like GW2 where there isn't tagging this isn't so bad but in other games they can be completely immersion breaking especialy a while after launch when you can't get anyone to kill the mob with you. Its poor design to force people to group once for something and then there is no incentive to do it ever again limiting the number of people willing to help.
Those who unfamiliar with it. This is a quest chain for an armor set, which was decent back in it's days. For each part, you had to purchase an item and complete the quest in order to get the piece. Now, we had everything in it.
-Talking to countless npc's, many of them with time window, meaning you had to wait hours for the npc to spawn.
-Killing mobs, one step was fix 300 mob, the other was 600 item from mobs, with around 75% drop rate.
-Collecting items which also have time windows to spawn. With each spawn location having x% chance to even spawn.
-Crafting an item that has super low success rate, and it's material is one of the most expensive things within the game.
-Chose to run the same instance (which was a 3 hour long instance, and even the smallest misstake resulted in instant wipe) 30 times, or to kill 40-120 mobs / round, depending on your luck with the drop rate, 30 times.
-Group instanced pvp in order to finish the quest. Though participation wasn't enough, you had to win and beat the opponent in the instance in order to complete the quest.
All of this within the same quest chain.
Many people were quitting the game back in the days, due to the frustration, being unable to craft the item after 30 try.
So ugh, yeah, you mention FFXIV here, but it's nowhere near Aion if it comes to annoying quests. I also forgot to mention, that back in the days there were no mounts. If you had no boots with running speed (which was prety common due to the super low drop rates) and/or running scroll. You spent hours, if not an entire day, with just running from here to there, until you managed to crawl to 50.
But im prety sure there are even worse quests out there, in games i don't know about.
I'm sorry but you forgot the worse of all...REP GRIND THROUGH DAILY QUEST..worse idea ever. I'm sorry but if you can't give me enough regular/story quest to get me to max rep with said faction then why bother. Especially when there are like 3-4 quest that are almost the same and give you a shit amount of rep per day just to extend that long laundry list of things needing to be done soon as you login.
I'm sorry but you forgot the worse of all...REP GRIND THROUGH DAILY QUEST..worse idea ever. I'm sorry but if you can't give me enough regular/story quest to get me to max rep with said faction then why bother. Especially when there are like 3-4 quest that are almost the same and give you a shit amount of rep per day just to extend that long laundry list of things needing to be done soon as you login.
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I also agree.
but it's all in the presentation. There is a difference between "go kill 10 of these" when there are clearly more than 10 and more respawning and "go clear out that tower" where you kill 10 and clear out the tower (as Rusque pointed out).
It's how it all relates to the story or the world. And as we have all seen before, Lord of the Rings is just one great escort and fedex quest ; )
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I don't agree group quests are great I liked them in GW2.
the quests I could not stand was in FFXIV a real reborn,to go and deliver letters and cookies to mpcs,
and the quests where you had to pull a npc with it following you for a x amount of meters -SO BAD it made me quit the game.
I will try FFXV hope they cut that bad stuff out,its like quests just to waste time no innovation from devs.
Quests are the cancer of the MMORPG genre.
I love exping in DAOC because it has no quests (apart from some optional level1-5 ones and the optional epic quest chain). You simply make a group and go out into the world to find a good spot and camp there for hours. It is social, much more challenging (we always strive to maximize our exp/hour while not wiping), and a lot more replayable. Each playthrough is different simply because the people you group up and socialize with were different.
WoW questing needs to die very soon if we want the MMO genre to move forward.
DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
#4 -- AMEN!
Just because you are online... DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO PLAY WITH OTHERS!!!
This is gaming GOSPEL... some people ass/u/me you have to group up because you're connected to a WAN. This is patently untrue... false... a lie.
Seriously, if you can't get a group and you need others to be forced into hanging with you... Maybe its not the game at all... maybe... just maybe... it's YOU.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
lol, pls tell me, what kind of quests do you want in mmo ?? I play GW2 since beta daily and there are all of this types of quests, kill, farm, escort etc, BUT i never get boring doing them! But its true, that in high level this escort/kill quest goes to some kind of hard grind (due to valuable reward drop etc), and its only things, what i dont like on gw2, cuz Anet says in beta, there will be no grind, but it is, in the end
in compare with wow, i play and enjoy it, but about lvl 52 i got hard boring time and I cant move over and quit, in gw2 i never have this feeling
Umm, isn't that all the quest types in MMOs?
The worst quests are the ones with poor story / no context; also forced quests. If quests are optional, have some good story and a bit a context to tie them into the world then I don't care what the task is (as long as it doesn't take more time than it's worth).
Like you said it's not something the player base wants. Gone are the days when it would take days or weeks to sort out what a quest meant, if you ever did at all. And before databases guild members would just walk you through quests as they do now. I really can't remember a game where some players wouldn't give help with quests if asked.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I was going to ask what does that leave, then I remembered the entertainer quests in SWG. ESO has a quest where you have to jump to your death in order to complete it. Some games have drinking contest quests.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I think we all understood that to mean when your running your quest line hub to level and sudenly you get one that says kill this elite that takes 5 people to kill. In games like GW2 where there isn't tagging this isn't so bad but in other games they can be completely immersion breaking especialy a while after launch when you can't get anyone to kill the mob with you. Its poor design to force people to group once for something and then there is no incentive to do it ever again limiting the number of people willing to help.
Aion miragent quest, before it's "nerf".
Those who unfamiliar with it. This is a quest chain for an armor set, which was decent back in it's days. For each part, you had to purchase an item and complete the quest in order to get the piece. Now, we had everything in it.
-Talking to countless npc's, many of them with time window, meaning you had to wait hours for the npc to spawn.
-Killing mobs, one step was fix 300 mob, the other was 600 item from mobs, with around 75% drop rate.
-Collecting items which also have time windows to spawn. With each spawn location having x% chance to even spawn.
-Crafting an item that has super low success rate, and it's material is one of the most expensive things within the game.
-Chose to run the same instance (which was a 3 hour long instance, and even the smallest misstake resulted in instant wipe) 30 times, or to kill 40-120 mobs / round, depending on your luck with the drop rate, 30 times.
-Group instanced pvp in order to finish the quest. Though participation wasn't enough, you had to win and beat the opponent in the instance in order to complete the quest.
All of this within the same quest chain.
Many people were quitting the game back in the days, due to the frustration, being unable to craft the item after 30 try.
So ugh, yeah, you mention FFXIV here, but it's nowhere near Aion if it comes to annoying quests. I also forgot to mention, that back in the days there were no mounts. If you had no boots with running speed (which was prety common due to the super low drop rates) and/or running scroll. You spent hours, if not an entire day, with just running from here to there, until you managed to crawl to 50.
But im prety sure there are even worse quests out there, in games i don't know about.
I'm sorry but you forgot the worse of all...REP GRIND THROUGH DAILY QUEST..worse idea ever. I'm sorry but if you can't give me enough regular/story quest to get me to max rep with said faction then why bother. Especially when there are like 3-4 quest that are almost the same and give you a shit amount of rep per day just to extend that long laundry list of things needing to be done soon as you login.