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Questing then vs questing now, has the everybody gets a trophy crowd ruined questing?
Abuz0r
Member UncommonPosts: 550
So a quest, what's a quest... ? When your mom asks you to take out the trash... is that a quest?
Ok back on topic here, the trophy thing. So, back when MMOs (like year 96-04) were a 'new' thing. There were people who played them and spent a crapload of time, they practiced constantly and spent all their time and effort improving their character and their knowledge of the game mechanics to be better at playing their character.
So, part of making your character good is that cool weapon that you saw some high level dude running around with.
Your immediate reaction:
Wow what did you kill to get that epic item????
OR
Wow where can I pick up that quest???
You see what I'm getting at yet?
You used to hunt really really challenging monsters that could actually beat you. You actually got beat a lot. Sometimes you went with a friend (or 3) and sometimes you went solo, because you didn't want to share the loot. (Yes only 1 person could actually get it not all 4 of you *GASP*).
So losing isn't fun, death penalties aren't fun, challenges aren't fun (especially if you have no clue how to play your character). So questing got completely hijacked.
A quest used to be a really really really long series of things that took you throughout the game world and introduced you to new places and was more of a rite-of-passage you had to complete before gaining access to some content. It was more of a rare barrier that you had to go through and essentially prove that you had mastered the mechanics of your character. By that, I mean, a lot of people would pick up the quest, and button mashing wouldn't cut it, and they actually had to learn how to use their weapon / skills / spells with some sort of intelligent strategy one way or another.
Usually the reward for these quests was some sort of access or content, not some weapon or money reward.
You actually had to farm your own money, you know like do things to earn money, like picking up 4 apples didn't get you 500$ like in some games. You could totally mine rocks or pick flowers and make potions or armor and get money. You could totally slay orcs or goblins and get their money. You definitely didn't get all your money from "quests".
I keep putting "quests" in quotations because a chore isn't really even a quest... it's a chore. I don't go on my computer to do someone else's chores. I want to find a pit of monsters and slaughter them and take their money. If the game allows, I want to slaughter you and take your money too.
So everybody gets a trophy. All that cool gear the guy is wearing? Odds are he got it all these days by clicking the buckets with the sparkles over them and then clicking the guy with some sort of question mark over his head. If he got engaged in pvp he'd totally freeze up or soil himself. The reason people are so scared to pvp is because the game delivers them to max level on a high speed fart-cloud and they have this cool looking champion with no idea how to actually utilize it's mechanics. They know if they button mash the monster will die. Players don't go down like that.
PvP isn't so much a murderous psychopathic experience like you quest junkies think it is. It's our way of putting our knowledge of our character and game mechanic against your knowledge of yours. The avoidance of PvP simply tells me you probably aren't very good at it, no offense. Odds are, you're really good at doing the NPC's chores. You got all that amazing looking gear and the pokemon following you around from doing their chores.
So, you got a trophy, I got mine, your trophy is the "quest" trophy, everyone can get that trophy. The rewards for the hard earned grind / experience / mechanics / pvp have been nerfed into oblivion to make it more fair for the "quest" people. Enjoy your "quest" loot.
There's no more games for us anymore, everything is being made for you, I guess that quest and pokemon follower model works better with item malls. Right now, somewhere, a developer is almost as bored typing out quest dialog as I am clicking next past it as fast as I can. I wish they would just improve the combat and create an alternate leveling path for people like me.
Ok back on topic here, the trophy thing. So, back when MMOs (like year 96-04) were a 'new' thing. There were people who played them and spent a crapload of time, they practiced constantly and spent all their time and effort improving their character and their knowledge of the game mechanics to be better at playing their character.
So, part of making your character good is that cool weapon that you saw some high level dude running around with.
Your immediate reaction:
Wow what did you kill to get that epic item????
OR
Wow where can I pick up that quest???
You see what I'm getting at yet?
You used to hunt really really challenging monsters that could actually beat you. You actually got beat a lot. Sometimes you went with a friend (or 3) and sometimes you went solo, because you didn't want to share the loot. (Yes only 1 person could actually get it not all 4 of you *GASP*).
So losing isn't fun, death penalties aren't fun, challenges aren't fun (especially if you have no clue how to play your character). So questing got completely hijacked.
A quest used to be a really really really long series of things that took you throughout the game world and introduced you to new places and was more of a rite-of-passage you had to complete before gaining access to some content. It was more of a rare barrier that you had to go through and essentially prove that you had mastered the mechanics of your character. By that, I mean, a lot of people would pick up the quest, and button mashing wouldn't cut it, and they actually had to learn how to use their weapon / skills / spells with some sort of intelligent strategy one way or another.
Usually the reward for these quests was some sort of access or content, not some weapon or money reward.
You actually had to farm your own money, you know like do things to earn money, like picking up 4 apples didn't get you 500$ like in some games. You could totally mine rocks or pick flowers and make potions or armor and get money. You could totally slay orcs or goblins and get their money. You definitely didn't get all your money from "quests".
I keep putting "quests" in quotations because a chore isn't really even a quest... it's a chore. I don't go on my computer to do someone else's chores. I want to find a pit of monsters and slaughter them and take their money. If the game allows, I want to slaughter you and take your money too.
So everybody gets a trophy. All that cool gear the guy is wearing? Odds are he got it all these days by clicking the buckets with the sparkles over them and then clicking the guy with some sort of question mark over his head. If he got engaged in pvp he'd totally freeze up or soil himself. The reason people are so scared to pvp is because the game delivers them to max level on a high speed fart-cloud and they have this cool looking champion with no idea how to actually utilize it's mechanics. They know if they button mash the monster will die. Players don't go down like that.
PvP isn't so much a murderous psychopathic experience like you quest junkies think it is. It's our way of putting our knowledge of our character and game mechanic against your knowledge of yours. The avoidance of PvP simply tells me you probably aren't very good at it, no offense. Odds are, you're really good at doing the NPC's chores. You got all that amazing looking gear and the pokemon following you around from doing their chores.
So, you got a trophy, I got mine, your trophy is the "quest" trophy, everyone can get that trophy. The rewards for the hard earned grind / experience / mechanics / pvp have been nerfed into oblivion to make it more fair for the "quest" people. Enjoy your "quest" loot.
There's no more games for us anymore, everything is being made for you, I guess that quest and pokemon follower model works better with item malls. Right now, somewhere, a developer is almost as bored typing out quest dialog as I am clicking next past it as fast as I can. I wish they would just improve the combat and create an alternate leveling path for people like me.
Comments
Then people tossed their money at "small bits" of storied content now, and not needing to grind it out.
Where are you tossing your money to counter the second group. Knowing this forum nowhere, which means you aren't a customer and you aren't voting.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Probably the problem with many thread. It's hard to find perfect game.
Someone says Archeage is perfect for them... but the cash shop stops them from playing.
I really like a few of the niche game, but the cash shop drives me away. Some of my favorite mmorpg are niche games.
But there is no point in blaming players of other types of games than you like for your niche not being lucrative enough to be targeted by big titles.
It's not their fault, they are just playing whatever they like, and that's perfectly fine even if you don't like those same things. Taste is subjective. To each their own. They are just lucky that they have the numbers to be targeted.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
In what MMORPG are quest rewards amazing enough to be considered "trophies"? The reality is most quest rewards are just regular, functional items. I can't think of a game where they were really amazing.
Nobody ever thinks of people in quest gear as having, "all that cool gear the guy is wearing." It's widely considered to be mediocre sub-par gear.
What possible benefit do you get by creating this strange fantasy that quest gear is amazing? It's not. This thread is ridiculous.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Kill 50k mobs of this type, than go kill another 20k of that, etc... keep them suckers grinding mindlessly >.>
All the more power to the OP if that's his kind of thing, but I'll take my money elsewhere.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Now back to questing, the only game that I ever played that sent a person to the far winds was EQ2, didn't like EQ1 to much myself, and most of those "heritage quest" the rewards you had most of the time out leveled by the time you got them. Now if you were pointing a finger at WOW no quest rewards are worth anything other than the long legandary quest lines which are simple to complete but require massive amounts of time to do them. So I am truly trying to figure out where these great rewards are coming from.
The only thing I can kinda agree with is the part about getting in game currencies is true, but that mostly happens with xpac's because the games market becomes so inflated that they need to find a way to catch newer players up to actually be able to buy anything off players or the AH. Just log into EQ2 for example and look at the prices of the gear going, a new player would take a very long time to think about bidding to get one piece let alone a whole set of items. And by the time that newer player seems to catch up the prices have triple again.
So all and all I love questing, I wish a game was created that didn't have dungeons and raids with nothing but stories and quest. That would be my dream game.
Perhaps you should stop destroying the games that are created for you or force the PvP servers into a constant battle against attrition as you slaughter your way through the population. Good job destroying your own games .
One for exp to level up and make you feel sick "i quit" after few hundreds of them
other reward you cool trophy that give you a feel " i win a challenge" while make other admit you .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Many of the things the OP obsesses over were things that kept me from playing those MMOs back then. It wasn't all grindy sweetness and light for everyone.
Games like that can still be done, if the devs can make enough money to support themselves while doing it. Personally I think it's a mirage, too many folks with far too specific an idealized vision to make it worthwhile.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I've been wondering about the ingenuity of the people who write mmo quests... and sometimes the lack of it...
I would really like to see mmo quests be more about something else than grinding gear or levels or experience. But I understand that someone pays you money for doing something. That's a quest to me.
So I agree with op mostly even if he sidetracked a bit...
Next are my thoughts about how I would do quests in an mmo.
Daily, half-weekly, weekly, biweekly, monthly quests that would reward only money. Daily quests would reward less money than half-weekly quests etc. Lots of different kinds. Some group quests(5, 10. 20, even 40), some solo. Mostly craft/profession/gathering related and killing/driving away. Killing quest mobs players would loot the monsters for extra rewards, but I wouldn't make a game where a wolf drops money or magical items. These quests would control the money input in the game.
Examples:
Daily: Kill the rats in the basement, they've run it over again, I'll pay you.
Daily: Bring me 5 wolf hides, I'll pay you.
Half-weekly: Craft me 5 silver rings, I'll pay you. I'm not gonna tell you where I'm gonna sell them so don't ask.
Weekly: A wyvern has made it's lair near the village, gather a group and go kill it. It's a danger to the villagers. I'll scrape up something from the villagers to pay you.
Biweekly: Craft 10 armors for the sentinels. The old armors are in quite a bad shape. I'll give you the scrap metal from the old armors and pay you well for the new ones.
Biweekly: A group of giants has come from the mountains. They've made their lair near the river. If you drive them away I will pay you. They have been killing travelers on the road to Highlake.
Monthly: High a top the Nestlepeak a dragon resides. I want you to kill it before it starts eating our cattle and killing people. The king will reward you handsomely.
One-time quests. Race, class, lore related. Would reward character powers, skills, abilities etc. Mostly solo so you would learn the ropes. Sometimes players would probably have to do daily or weekly quest to acquire money to buy better gear to accomplish a onetime quest. Long quest chains from the day the player installs the game to eternity...
I am officially done with these "Now and Then" discussions unless it's a "Remember When" for fun kinda thread. But discussions aimed at sending a message to developers isn't going to work.
RIP
Vanilla what????????? I think the term vanilla was invented to talk about the first release of WoW, I hadn't heard it before that. Wow is basically what set the tone for modern mmo games. It was a novelty, a well made theme park, and it was fun. The rides get boring after a while, now back to original MMO games like before wow, what? Theyre gone?? No more pre wow type mmo games?? Why not??? Cuz everyone is trying to imitate wow!! But that's not fun anymore
As for why no pre-WOW type MMORPGs get made? You've seen how popular good themepark MMORPGs are, and yet developers have slowed down on creating new ones. You've seen how popular pre-WOW MMORPGs were. So if development on a popular game model has slowed, why would you expect more development of an even less popular model?
Early MMORPGs were bad game designs.
You should've figured this out when you admitted that the closest game to what you want is actually too stressful for you to play it much. So the minority audience that's interested in that type of game isn't even actually interested in that type of game.
Also it'd be great if you addressed my earlier criticism, by naming the specific MMORPG you're talking about where everyone stands around gawking at the amazing gear that players got from quests. Because in the vast majority of MMORPGs, quest gear is crap, so this thread feels like you've invented an imaginary game.
Did they get "so much" flak for that?
This is literally the first I've heard someone complain about that PVP loot, apart from some mild jokes about how little money it was.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That is why quests changed, they where inefficient at what they where intended t do. At least at end game.
This have been a good conversation