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Give me REAL quests...
Pale_Fire
Member UncommonPosts: 360
This is a bit of a rant but I thought it might create some discussion. First, I’ve played quite a few MMORPGs. I started with AC when it was beta and then live for a couple of years, then AO, DAOC, AC2, EQ2, SWG, CoH, WoW and maybe one or two others. I’ve also tried a number of free trials. In fact, most of my computer gaming is MMORPGs until very recently. I picked up Oblivion a couple of weeks ago and noticed something interesting. There were no quests to kill 10 Weak Long-fanged bats. The quests in Oblivion are really unique and interactive. They were much more involved and engaging than the standard MMORPG fare.
Keep in mind, I’ve been away from non-MMORPGs for a couple of years, for the most part. I’d forgotten what a really great quest was. Now, I’m not going to hype Oblivion. It has its lovers and haters. But the quests seem to me to be much more immersive and part of a larger story. The tasks in themselves are more complicated, involve more NPC interaction and seem to have a greater story behind it. MMORPGs usually have one or two quests that are really engaging and interactive, but most aren’t, in my observation.
There are good reasons for the difference between MMORPGs and one player games.
- It’s difficult to tailor a quest to an individual experience when you have thousands of people playing, many who need/want to do that same quest. Nobody likes to stand in line while you follow an NPC around waiting for that NPC to commit a specific action that is your queue to either interrogate or kill that NPC.
- There’s no “do over” in MMORPG quests, for the most part. If you killed someone and you should have questioned them, sucks for you. In a one player game, just go back to your last save.
- It may not be what the typical player wants. Game companies may have determined that the quick and easy is better than the long and complex. If most of the community prefers killing 10 weak long-fanged bats over solving a riddle in order to get a password for a complex lock, then its weak long-fanged bats ftw.
I’d really like to see more immersive, complex quests in MMORPGs. I want to be something more than just a delivery boy or a bat hunter. Anyway, those are my thoughts. I realize many MMORPGs offer a few fairly interactive quests, but few too many, in my opinion. I’m not sure if it could be accomplished in an MMORPG, for the reasons I stated above.
Comments
Under Light
Best Quest system implemented.
Play guild wars, or city of villains.
In city of heroes you'll notice alot more kill xx xxxxxx, in villains they realized everyone hates them, and are generally more involved then coh storylines. If you want a example start cov and choose burke as your contact.
And honestly i wasn't too impressed with oblivion overall... its really just a "lite" version of rpg and a "lite" version of fps(the combat sucks in the game im afraid... if you want to see how a medievil fps wannabe check out dark messiah of might and magic)
Back on topic though, I see your point. Like I keep saying in the majority of my posts, I am hoping the future generations of MMORPGS evolves things.
Killing 92 razorblonde crickets type quests are boring.
I think a main goal should be to take out the tedium and time sinks in these games by development/conceptual teams. DDO had something fresh, new, and different, but I feel like they dropped the ball with it big time. The forced grouping wasnt my thing. I like independence - its more conducive to the time I am able to dedicate playing. I do enjoy grouping, but only when I have the time for it. And when the ONLY way to progress in the game is to group, then its not for people like me.
One thing I noticed, it seems that some MMOs revolve around the philosophy of creating things to do in order to take your time. IE - craft 100000 blasters to get to the next lvl. And some people (like me!) will go ahead and do it in order to achieve that next lvl to make better blasters as well as develop a bad case of carpul tunnel syndrome. But the MMO devs believe that as long as the goal can take a LOOOONG time, then they are assured your monthly payment. I genuinely believe that the thing they FAIL to see is that this tedium philosophy is exactly what is making so many MMO players yearn for something different.
"...and with that cryptic comment, I'm off to bed!"
Ya I think Guild Wars has the best quest system right now; not much in the way of amount, but very immersive due to the instancing.
I would look into Hero's Journey since alot of the quest areas are going to be instance. This means the graphics are more georgeous and the quests are built more the the individual or small group. Also since they are using a strange strategy nowadays; getting free staff to generate content. They literally have the possibility of getting a huge game content wise.
But right now, atm, Guild Wars has the closest quests to a Single Player game out of any MMO out there.
don't click this link...
you got it all wrong. Its a hexidecimal number. Its kill XX XXXXXXXX like kill 20 a009c25f
-oops I got it wrong. The first XX is also hexidecimal, so its
Kill XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
like Kill 00000015 a009c25f
Kill XXXX XXXXXOJYYGOOGOGDVVDNK
Try that on for size.
don't click this link...
I hit an all time low on the gratification ive been getting out of the MMO's I subscribe to. having gone through all of them, numerous times, resubscribing..im taking a break.
I dont know why i havnt done this sooner. I mean i have a monster PC that almost all MMO's dont even scratch its surface. Single player games really make your PC shine.
i just picked up oblivion 2 days ago and so far Im really liking it. depending on when Im done with it, I may play spellcraft 2 next unless Dark Sevant of Might and Magic comes out first (which.. I hate to say.. will cast a shadow over oblivion)
http://www.mightandmagic.com/us/darkmessiah/teaser/index.html
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
I agree completely about time sinks in MMORPGs. They exist to ensure the company maintains your subscription and their revenue stream. That may be one reason companies don't invest more energy into complex/immersive quests. It could be they feel that they are completed too quickly.
I've played GW and just couldn't stay interested for some reason. It felt too instanced. DDO felt the same way to me. Don't get me wrong, I like instancing in MMORPGs. But too much instancing makes the virtual world seem too disjointed and artificial. They didn't feel like real worlds, so to speak. Unfortunately, that may be the only way to make quests more personal and engaging.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, I suppose.
Unfortunately DDO is ONLY quests... with no other content and the way they're done causes about 10 of them to be super-popular and nobody does the other 2-300 quests in the game... thus it is repetitive and boring. This on top of a $14.95 monthly fee means I advize people to stay the heck away... Try the free trial to see how cool the quests are but don't waste your cash on a subscription.
Guild Wars is free to play and has very involved quests as well, though not quite as good as DDO's. However, no real dungeon crawls as 90% of the game is played on the surface.
But yes, by far, single player RPG's have the best quests.... pretty much because they're mostly linear and they know exactly what you're going to be doing next. In an MMORPG they don't have quite as much control over the players (unless heavy instancing is used, a-la COH/COV, some EQ2 Quests, and DDO)
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
They move clunky, which gets on my nerves. That and there's not that great of amount of exploration and the scenery's not to great as well.
Overall I wasn't a big fan of DDO at all.
But each to his own.
don't click this link...
Generally I agree with you. Quests in MMORPG's are boring, unimaginative, stale things. Unfortunately even oblivian has them. I got the game a couple weeks ago, only played a few hours so far, and I have a quest to kill/gather 12 fish (not fish but pike fish like things). They are all the same.
Venge Sunsoar
MMOs, as ubiquitous as they seem to be becoming at the
moment, are also catering more and more to the lowest common denominator as
they struggle with each other over how the pie is divided between them. Everyone
wants to attract the masses with some supposed shiny "difference from the
others" or another, but then at the same time they have been dumbed-down
so severely to more broadly appeal to the sudden explosion in variation of
audience out there.
I don’t envy the MMO makers, we as players make vague statements as to what we
want but then contradict it or fail to provide definitive suggestions as
possible solutions. We don't want time sinks, but then we do want complex, deep
quests. We don't want class imbalances but then we don’t want cookie cutter
luck of the draw PvP or to have a specific class be non essential in PvE or
raids. We don’t want to grind levels out but we want to feel like capping is
something of importance, and to be able to feel the difference that paying that
time and attention has earned. We want skill based benefits but then when
someone takes a different path and is able to do something we would like to do
also, it isn’t 'fair' because our skill path doesn't have something equal to
it.
I was a diehard everquest nut, for 5 years I played (two accounts on two PCs
side by side after the first year), loving the bad as much as the good because
either way it drew you in and involved you, and I also played everything
else of substance that came out between 2000 and 2005 for at least a little
while on the side (DAoC, AC2, AO, MxO, WoW, EQ2 etc).
I think before we complain about the lack of depth (a VERY valid complaint at
the moment since the release of WoW led devs to think hey people want crap like
this) we need to be able to make solid suggestions of what we do want -
and at what price we are willing to compromise to have it. With every good
aspect of a feature, there is going to be a downside, no way around it.
WoW playability comes at the expense of an utter lack of depth and complexity.
EQs depth and breadth came at the expense of massive grinds and time sinks.
Me, I am just done trying out all the fluff hitting the market every couple
months, until Vanguard, that's going to be my last go at the MMO market. If it
works great, if not that’s fine too, I have Oblivion and there is much more to
it than 'running around closing gates' as someone previously claimed, it has
and will entertain me til the next great single player game, the only thing
oblivion lacks is the in game community to socialize with.