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General: Debate: Quests in MMORPGs
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Jon and Carolyn debate this week as we continue our weekly series. Today, Carolyn takes the position that quests are an important part of MMORPGs, while Jon believes its time for some original thought on that matter. What do you think? Read on, then tell us.
| Carolyn Koh: MMORPGs have their roots well entombed in the role-playing genre. The very first MUDS (Multi-user Dungeons) were based on table-top RPGs (Role Playing Games), and what were they based on? Quests!
Its not an MMORPG without quests. Even if most of the game-play is about killing things, gearing up your character and gaining xp, an MMORPG would not be as immersive without the story-line and the quests. Or as I am debating
Its all about the Quests! Jon Wood: I wouldnt go that far. While quests do currently play a role in most MMORPGs, they are not the be-all and end-all of a game. I think that there are other, more organic means of progressing through a game. Why not allow characters to advance through combat and exploration, unscripted. Allow the players to decide for themselves what it is that they want their characters to do. Its not always fun to run through a game, knowing that all of the people around you are doing the same things as you are, completing the same quests and advancing in exactly the same way. |
You can read their debate here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Excellent article! I love quests myself, good quests... There are alot of awful quests in MMORPG's unfortunately the fed-ex quests in general are just awful, and kill X number of mobs isn't exactly much of a quest either. I do think games like DDO have really made serious improvement in the quality of the quests by bringing the whole strategy idea in with traps puzzles, etc and thats definitely all for the good. The example about the movable rock is also excellent, I would expect the newest games we will continue to see improvements like these. So I am feeling good that we'll only see improvement in the months (and years) to come (I'm thinking Vanguard will have some good quests, going in the right dirrection, I think those people are really right on the ball, I'm really expecting good work from them from whats been written and shown) as these "games" become more interactive virtual worlds and less linear games
In old-time UO you could make progress as you wanted, doing anything you wanted and gain skill increases and loot. Also, GMs would create events, some that were only a one-time thing, but could be participated in by the entire server. All could help whichever side of the quest they wanted, whether it was evil or good (I'm talking of a free server I played now) and the GMs would sometimes enlist players as their story partners, allowing them glimpses of what was to be and the possibility to actually role-play their characters as they wanted... A brilliant system which still glows in my mind as the best MMO time, because all was simple and yet perfect fun
Jon you say you want to get rid of quests and get a extreme makeover
Carolyn you say that quests are great and that totaly nothing should change
what about the middle way?
that what I think...
Quests are ok, but it is never bad to get new ideas, other things then quests in MMO's
Wouldn't it be great to have a MMO that isn't based on quests, but does have quests. A MMO that is based on other things, other things like exploring and fighting or new things.
The Illuminati Gaming Society
I have played all big MMORPG's and reached end game in all of them without reading a single line of lore and avoiding as many quests as possible unless the reward was good. Epic in EQ, Jedi in Pre-Cu SWG.WOW etc...
Quests do not make or break a MMORPG . Carolyn you are out of your mind, go do the westfall stew for the 1 billionth time!
I vote for Jon!
I actualy think that once a few more advancements are made, a unique MMORPG would almost be easier to develop and maintain. I think the main question that will divide/advance the genre will be "why are we relying on NPC's for quests?" If you think about it, they really are a crutch. I'm not saying that NPC's arent useful, we need em in towns and doing other things etc, but as far as content goes all mmorpg's thrive on them to distribute lore. I think a dynamic MMO would be based on a sort of "Lord of the Flies" mentality. Once world manipulations like player crafting and terrain altering are refined, and put into a simplistic system, players can pretty much run the world themselves. It's not really a new concept, it's already happened in Sim games and Spore, but with this system players could make their own quests, be it a verbal agreement, or wanted posters, or some form of player shop AI that gives items/money in return for X item.
Now obviously there needs to be dev content in the world. This could be done based on say a past civilization that left technology or ruins behind to explore. Or just simply rumors at a local bar, it gives information about where a quest likely is but its not as basic as talk to man with ! over his head, get generic quest, do it, return for xp. I also think with some attention taken away from generic quests the devs would have more time to put in these new concepts.
Large scale quests would also be great. I would love to see a rumor about a dragon who was discovered lying deep in a mountain that just woke up. The journey there would be perilous and would take many people, not the 1 or 2 l33t guys who play 24/7, but a good chance for the players in their community (locationwise, players who built their city or county) to band together and stop the threat.
All of this could be done in game, so that no one would ever really know if they had accomplished everything there was to do. The world would be big enough to explore and expand as the player base grows, and the devs would be able to add contenton the fly (I think that is currently possible/ being developed).
And the worst case scenario, say the devs cant add content fast enough. With enough tools players will be able to make their own storyline. All out wars could be fought for a city location by a river delta. Caravans and shipping should be implemented as a big part of trade (say for constructing new cities/ bringing supplies that players cant realisticly carry) and right there is content for rogures/bandits. I can tell you I'd personally love that system coupled with terrain altering. Standing on top of a cliff with my crew, sighting a caravan moving below and at the right moment pushing boulders down onto the road and ambushing it. That would require a lot of work if the caravan was NPC controlled and scripted for EACH instance, but once tools are developed for players to do it, it can be repeated again and again, dynamicly,
Maybe this type of tech is a year or so down the road, but I believe it IS possible in the near future.
What are these peoples credentials? I can tell the Carolyn is an achiever looking at all MMORPG's as just games, while as Jon Wood seems to come form more of the explorer perspective looking to them as an experience or hobby.
I'm more of an explorer myself, which is why I still go back and play UO sometimes.
There were absolutely no quests in UO, and it has pretty much been the only MMorpg I have been 100% satisfied with. There is virtually no endgame and yet people have played for 5 years or more and still enjoy themselves a lot. Eve online also shares the attitude of Uo but does include quests for those inclined to be guided through and take it more as a game.
I would love to see more games were the player isn't made "epic" by game mechanics, but may make his name on his own. Will wright, the maker of the famous Sims games, has the idea. he said during a demo of his game spore that he believes gamers will have more of an attachment to what they make themselves, than any game mechanic or script someone else made.He used San andreas as an example, He basically said "are you going to tell your friends about that really cool scripted cutscene that your character went through in the game, or are you going to tell them about something really unique you did that was funny and that you did on your own?" you can't honestly say you played San andreas without just goofing around for hours with people and riding bikes and finding wierd little unique things that you can do with the game mechanics.
I mean, are you going to single out someone in wow and be like "wow, you were one of 5 million players to totally expose the defias brotherhood! omg." or are you going to reconize the guy who kited kazzak into stormwind and caused a server reset? Destructive as it may be, and done by a true killer personality, Im sure people were telling stories about that experience for a long time.
40xp for a kill, 700xp for a quest... You really don't have a choice. You should be allowed to survive by hunting alone. Or by crafting. You shouldn't have to live off of the items dished out by some guy who wants to take out the mangy nightsaber, ten at a time.
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What I am saying is that we should at least have the illusion that our
characters play an important and unique role in the game world, and I
think that generic quests are a hindrance to that[/quote]
This debate is a bit silly, because they aren't really debating questing as a whole, they are debating canned generic quests. Every game needs some sort of quest to give reason to all of your actions. Running around in gta doing random stuff is fun for a while, but eventually you do try to take on the quests. MMORPGS do need more of that sandbox gameplay though, rather than the pre-set class paths for advancement, and the repeatable quests. Even something as basic as tackling a dungeon and killing a boss could be considered a quest. And more dynamic things like tracking down your stolen valuables (the theif took it to the pawn shop here, the pawn shop owner sold it to the guy with the scar, who went to the east, and you find out when you get to a town in the east that he is a resident of the town, and you track him down and get it back) are quests too.
But repeatable quests have got to go. Give newbies an epic quest that has several pieces as an extended tutorial, maybe it can be randomized slightly so not everyone does the same thing at the begining ("der I d0na no h0WW 2 find this general gi, whar is EHHEEEE??"). Then let this be the last canned quest the player finds. And killing regular monsters is not even a quest to me. It's just pointing directions to an area to farm some xp. It doesn't even matter what kind of writing you do or how interesting the npc's description of the quest is, if in reality the npc is just a "go level up here" sign.
Oh my stars...what's wrong with both avenues being viable in a game? I've got 13 mmorpg's under my belt. I love the questing, especially WoW's questing as it tells lore, and it has a function in pulling your character further and farther into the landscape of Azaroth. I'm an RPer and I enjoy game lore that makes one game world different from the next. Other people, however, who would rather grind and raid, have their options too.
Just as there are a myriad of games out there and more to come, there are a myriad of player styles and preferences. Develop both in a game and you get a great game that appeases a bigger audience. There's got to be a way to develop a game that caters to both.
If not, hey, a game that is heavy questing vs. a game that is open world grinding doesn't make one game better than the other. It makes one game better for a particular player vs. the player next to them.
As long as the quests are not enforced, I usually like them, the more the merrier.
However, the day I feel compelled to do a quest rather than just do a camp, is a day I feel shafted honestly. I mean, there is nothing FUN in camping 1 spot, but if the quests are completely trivialising the camping, I think they go too far.
So basically, it all come down to the rewards they give. On this topic, I like CoH/CoV. The main reason to do a quest is to read the story and get a different experience, the reward is there, it is sensible, but nobody will feel obligated to do it, since there are downtime as well as the reward, so it is hard to figure what would have been better XP wise, yet there is no doubt, doing the quest is funnier than doing camp 02.
But if the quests take a WoW approach, they lean on the enforcing side and it is annoying me. EQ could have use more quests, many of my friends call it: NeverQuest. Yet, in the same time, EQ quests have all the flaws I dislike, they where sooo much better than your other option, you should have done them (unless you got raiding stuff, which is another point altogether).
I like to play a game where I see Bob, Bill and Bear doing camp 07 over and over again. I like that in the same game, Mark, Mel and Mean are doing quests endlessly. Me I am wondering what is better for my character, I try both and I am not 100% sure sooo...that tilt me!
I lean more on Carolyn side, but I think she is too much of an enforcer on the quest aspect...so I would reluctanctly side with Jon if I had to take camp about what was written.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Ok I have to dissagree with Carolyn on this. I DO beleive that there is a place for quests in both the beginning ( tutorial) and middle game content. In the beginning there are too many people who need their hands held thru the first few moments in a game so they can get their berrings. If there were more players out there that like the challenge of finding their own way then you would see more games like EVE and SWG would never have had changed as much as it did.
Quests are good for getting a player motivated to do things and use items that the devs had worked sooo hard to put in the game. They are also an easy way to give the players in game money or other rewards.
Me I am defintly a gamer that likes to find their own way, I tend to ignore most quests unless there is a major disadvantage to NOT doing them, like in the latest build for SWG.
This is a easy debate for anyone who looks at the whole picture.Mr.Wood is killing his own arguement with his debate on the issue.If he is worried about killing the same "Farmers daughter" over and over ,what would the game be without the quests?...answer killing the same orc OVER and OVER a billion more times than the quest calls for.
A second reason you want WELL DONE quests is because you know the developer has put more effort into his product than just a simple grindfest.Why on earth would you want to pay a developer for a product they put little to no effort into?Any no brainer developer can make a grindfest.Add 1 part game engine 1 part mapping and 1 part Mob.Everything you need is already in a game engine,all you have to do is change the meshes and the hit points,add a texture set and sell to public.
Just because you may have run into quests that were done horribly with no effort,doesn't mean they can't add a ton of gameplay and ALOT to the STORY.We just need to be harsh on the developers and quit paying them to play sub par efforts.Like i said anyone with cash can buy a game engine,what they do with it ,is what determines effort.
When i played EQ2 there were quite a few well done quests,i had over 600 quests done by level 45-50.The only problem is that they didn't really try to follow a storyline[majority] so they coulda been better.FFXI tried to stay true to the storyline ,however in a very weak manner[for the most part]some of the quests really endowed into the storyline.
All and all questing just adds ALOT more to the gameplay and shows that the developer at least tried to put out a little effort before begging for our money.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I saw someone touch this topic somewhere else (it eludes me where) is it possible to have crippled old man is looking for his granddaughter, he is wanting you to get A B or C, but there is an item D that establishes said grand-daughter is still alive, because of item D, or alternatively, NPC X you can use A B and / or C in an entirely different manner than grampa intended, whether that be selling the items to an NPC that uses it to establish daughter has been kidnapped, item B is part of a key to that treasure over there, but B is destroyed in the process....
just because a game is quest based, those quests don't need to be linear......
/shrug, what do i know, i'm just a Cow in WoW atm lol
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
ya. ok. whatever.
but what do i know, i'm only a vanbois i'm told.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
I'm more in agreement with Jon. What's the use in playing a game where everyone's the same, everyone's doing the same thing. I'd rather order an Ant Farm from MAD magazine and watch the ants all day. A MMORPG has to have individuality in order to thrive. Example, SWG was thriving before the NGE. NOw the game has been dumbed down and made everyone equal. No fun in that. That's why the masses left. Quests are important for a game, to make it interesting, exciting and fun. However, if everyone does the same monotonous quest, same actions, same reactions, that's kinda dumb and people will be bored after doing the quest a few times, IMO.
Role-playing is good for a game as well, but I fail to see the connection between role-playing and quests. Fankly, quests have nothing to do with role-playing. Role-playing is acting out your char. Bottom line: If I had a choice between playing a game Jon or Carolyn developed, I would go with Jons. He seems to have more of an idea of how MMORPG's should be, from an adult view anyway.
"I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB
I agree, you see too many kill and collect quests. Through 90% of World of Warcraft you levelled up by killing things, and doing quests to kill things. This works, but it gets boring quick, after a while you stop reading the background story of why you kill them and just read the “kill 10 magic lanterns of evil” and then go kill them. Though this is an obligatory part of any RPG and has always been, it should not be the only kind of quest available.
A thing that would be great fun would be to have quests to kill a specific player. It should not be a random player though, but someone who PKs a lot and is aware of the risk. Maybe even have small “Wanted: Dead or Alive” signs around. This will probably not happen though, since he would be pretty annoyed that the entire server is hunting him.
One of the most interesting solutions is to hire a full time writer team and provide a ton of quests each update. Instead of announcing every quest in the release notes then let the players find them for themselves. That way people stop thinking about grinding the quests and starts to live more in to the game and have a positive experience when they find a new and exciting quest. The problem with this is just the cost of having extra staff, but I definitely think that it is worth it. Even a team of two or three writers can whip out a lot of quests. This way you can also have a more realistic quest system so instead of having Baron Von Evilgoose die 1000 times then just have him die once and then the quest is gone. A random name generator for the mob would be another good solution for that one.
Another thing is events, the thing we all love. There are many kinds of events, both for killers and crafters. An event could be having a town under siege by an army of orcs where the players are called upon to help defend it. Having a huge creature spawn which the entire server then will hunt down, often with huge rewards. For crafters, a quest could be having the server gather x amount of material, then craft something out of them for example gather a huge amount of wood and then have the carpenters crate a fort which would stay in the world forever. Then maybe it could be attacked so the killers would be involved too. This will contribute to the immersion of the game and make the players feel that they make a difference in the game world. The problem with the events I have seen in recent game is the lack of originality; most of them are just like normal quests, just bigger.
Puzzles, traps and the complex design of dungeons, like the ones you see in Dungeons and Dragons Online are not directly quest related, but they make it a lot more fun to do the quests since you have to think and use teamwork to accomplish your goal. Combining good level design with a good original story is the recipe for creating a good quest.
Things that I miss a lot and rarely see in mmorpg are quests that can be solved in different ways and by having a high charisma or other stat. For example:
A bandit has kidnapped the daughter of the local fisherman. You are to rescue her. When you find the bandit you can then choose
A: to fight him and take the key to her prison
B: speak to him and convince him to release her (bribing or high charisma)
C: speak to him and snap his neck while doing it. (High Dexterity)
This way you do not have to be a good fighter to do the quests and they are much more fun in my opinion.
But of cause, you do not HAVE to have quests in mmorpgs to play them. The core of the genre is that they are role-playing games, so it should really be build upon the social aspect and not the questing. But the broader group of mmo players came to kill stuff and get that Uber sword of killing. And they expect there to be quests to spend they time with and get nice rewards for doing them.
Personally I like roleplaying WHILE doing quests
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
Lots of opinions and good ideas in this thread.
Ultima Online didnt have any built in quests. They are not needed. The community made up their own or the GM's would throw in some content from time to time. It was great. Stuipid quests where you just walk from one NPC to another is boring and brainless.
Quests are just an easy way out for developers. They are not innovative or creative. A MMORPG without built in quests is the way to go. Quests really only work well in SOLO RPGS like Oblivion. When it comes to MMO games I prefer less hand holding and more of a raw open experience. Until we return to the roots of Ultima Online I'm not playing any new MMORPGS.
One more point. If everyone can take part in the same quests, whats the point? So in the end everyone has done quest #33 and everyone has recieved that unique Helm of blah blah blah. Big freaking deal. Its just time wasting, your arent really interacting much with the community. Sure maybe a group of 5 might interact but looking back to Ultima Online, we might have a town attacked by lizards and everyone on the server would rush to defend that town.
I think what im getting at is that MMORPGS need SERVER EVENTS not static quests. But the problem is, server events take more innovation and more effort on the part of developers. Their effort in this matter is not enough.
Basically you make a raw game. Let the community dictate gameplay, develop guilds , war, content. Then the developers feed in events from time to time to spice things up. Thats what was great about Ultima Online.
I agree that there is something lacking in Questing nowadays in MMORPG's. However, I think you have missed what it is. Quests are very important because they give the player a task to accomplish, otherwise it's just grind. The problem is 99% of all quests nowadays is the "Fetch me this, Kill me That" kind of thing. If it isn't kill 10 rats and bring me some whiskers, it's delivery quests where I feel like a paperboy.
Recently I purchased Oblivion for my Xbox360 (hey, there is a lul in MMO's right now)... anyway, I have really enjoyed the "Theives Guild Quest line" not only are they pretty well thought out quests, but I feel like I am advancing in a specific story that gives me a great achievement at the end of it. Sure this has been done with lots of Epic quests in other MMO's but it the guild quests are really great in Oblivion.
... Then something really different happened in Oblivion....
I was walking around exploring and came across an Inn on an old docked Pirate Ship... kind of a Seafood restaurant that has a pirate theme. In order to level in Oblivion you have to rest overnight then you level. So I paid my 10g to buy a room for the night and went to sleep. When I woke up the ship was floating out in the ocean and it had been taken over by 4 bandits who believed the "made up" story the Inn owner was telling everyone about Gold Buillion and took over the ship and took him hostage to try and get to the gold. It was instantly my quest to "take out" the bandits and return the ship to the Inn owner.
It was one of those moments when I was just amazed that no one had done this before. The world was suddenly very different. It was the first time when a quest had happened to me, instead of some NPC asking me to go take a letter to so-and-so or kill 10 rats. I was instantly sucked in, and if I didn't figure out a way to kill the 4 bandits I would be stuck on that damn boat for good. It was NOT easy, I really had to use some strategy on the leader of the bandits but it was extremely satisfying. WHY HAVE I NOT SEEN THIS IN AN MMO YET?
Part of the reason Oblivion is able to do this is because everything in the game world "scales" with you so while each quest is difficult and takes thought and strategy, it is not impossible unless you have really screwed up your character somehow.
Bottom line, this concept could easily fit into any MMO on the market but I have yet to have the OMG feeling of being surprised by a Quest, where the quest found me, and not the other way around.
...maybe it's just me...
HUH? Quests are basically a grind. You just follow your ABC's over and over again. If you want to just do quests, buy a solo rpg, why pay monthly fees?
I guess unless you experienced Utlima Online at its pinnacle, I'll never get people to truly understand. I should just give up. Quest A, Quest B lol. Half the time they dont even intersect with a common goal. So pointless.
I like quests in MMOs and always will. I would like something more dynamic though. My character never truly feels like mine in 90% of the MMOs I have played. It is going mainly on quests and getting the same stuff as everyone else. This is where I have a problem with quests. I like advancement from them while getting story, I feel most are there just for advancement.
I would like to see more opportunities of quests that occur occassionally. I like the idea of suddenly finding a drop that shows the local goblin clan is going to attack. These drop only for a short time and people who turn it in to the local captain of guards gets info about if more have been brought in. Then that would trigger the call out for adventurers to help create a large enough force to repel the goblins. This then could trigger where certain goblins that are defeated drop something leading to a quest to find out who got the goblins organized enough to attack and why. This is something where not everyone would necessarily would get all the quests but most would still have a chance to participate.
I see many ways quests are good and bad. I don't think I like the idea of no quests though.
Quests are important in a mmorpg, the problem is not that developpers are not so bright to create good quests. It's more of a fund problem. Look at DDO it has the best quests over every otehr mmorpgs, but creating a quests in a game like this takes up so much effort and time that you will have 0 or so quests when the game releases (DDO had about 50 quests when the game released). That's where the real problem lies, only SoE and Blizzard would have the fund to do a game with enough compelling quests, but they would loose so much money and would take up so much time before they make it back that it's not viable for them to do so. So they just make up generic quests.
Virtually it is the same about letting someone become king or archmage or whatever title like this, they'd have to build a complex series of quests that would be achievable for only one person... what would you catter for? one person over 1000 that plyas on the same server? or each of them?
An answer to this would be to limit servers to 100-200 persons at most (there could be guidelines about how to handle populations and make it so friends could join the same servers at any time) sure the servers could grow over the set number at first, but without ever reaching too high... this could be a way to let peoples be able to achieve something important in the world. There would be chance for peoples to become king or leader of an organization in the world or what's not...
Someone pointed out "when you play San Andreas you doesn't talk about that cutscene but about what you did that wasn't relevant to the quests in the game" (well they said that but in other words), what if I talked about the way I achieved this certain quest? no one can achieve it the same way. Maybe I killed a certain bandit by throwing a car that is about to blowout and ejected myself just before the explosion. Quests can also make up stages for you to do something that no one else won't accomplish the same way even if the same basicly. I say quests are important and more often lore in worlds aren't really helping anything at all as they are irrevelant even in the game, this should change for the better.