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General: Jennings: The Quest For Gameplay
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Outspoken MMORPG.com columnist Scott Jennings looks at the convention of questing in MMOS, how it works and whether or not it's really necessary.
The quests in this game suck! Who wrote this stuff!
Thanks to World of Warcraft, which thanks to its approximately 20 trillion subscriber base market share is the only MMO in existence (all other MMOs fading to statistical irrelevance), we've been taught to think of quests as the primary means by which we interact with the MMO that we play. And thus, people pretty consistently complain that quests are boring and need to be improved.
How would we do this? Well, what if we created an MMO without quests? That sounds fairly revolutionary. If we're bored with the same old gameplay, get rid of the same old gameplay.
Read The Quest For Gameplay.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
WoW has some of the most awesome quest lines ever. The problem is that, to me at least, they get a little trivialised due to the fact that there are so many "filler" quests. I think you should only have big, epic quests in a game, and some other form of advancement for your character, XP or skill wise. Make quests give proper rewards, both in fame and fortune, but keep them long, and keep them hard.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
I always thought the title Everquest was ironic. I played that game for several years when it was essentially the only game in town and actual questing wasn't something I did a lot of. The epic quests were great though and I always enjoy long quest lines that have a truly rewarding reward at the end of the chain as opposed to the simple kill 10 x or gather 15 y where you get magic pants.
The solution to the time and resource problems presented in the original article is player-driven content. To my knowledge, only UO, SWG, and Ryzom have ever attempted it. I don't really count CoH's mission architect because like the rest of that game, it's very confining and allows little room for actual creativity beyond kill this, deliver that.
If developers will start giving players the tools to make (even very small) changes to the world, content will arise. However, this will probably never happen because the suits are always behind the curtain dictating that "it must take a long time, we must retain subscriptions."
...
I definitely agree with this sentiment. I think there are too many quests and not enough quality associated with them. Give me a quest that will take me halfway across the world, talking, collecting, fighting, and exploring as I go. It will take me a week to finish? Okay. Will I need friends for some parts? Fine by me, so long as it doesn't involve, "kill ten rats..."
Now that isn't to say there no place for smaller quests in a game game. I just don't want to be forced to do something mundane for a negligible chunk of exp. There are plenty of ways to do something interesting that doesn't take a lot of time. I actually like the daily quest format. If you were to take it and apply it to aspects of a specific community, doing something that helps that community function, a player can feel like they are actually contributing to the larger whole.
For example, a character of mine would be happy to guard a trade caravan that can encoutner a random or scripted attack along the route, making me earn my keep as a guard.
Along that line of thought, take the City of Heroes' "day job" system and apply it in a quest-like manner. If you do a number of daily tasks and help a specific community, you can gain access to positions within that community that provides certain benefits. With a sort of ladder-style progression, and provided you develop the skills to take on the necessary quests, you can gain powerful and unique bonuses that assist in your style of play.
Just spitting out a few ideas... <_<
The fact is that WOW has the abilty to create huge varieties of quests. They can fly - use diffrent mounts - veicles - in other word do billion diffrent quests that are never the same. No other game can do that atm (maybe Vanguard but since its in maintanance mode we all know it wont happen.
MMO games have evolved. Unless these games do MASSIVE variety in diffrent ways of actually doing self driven content (wich no games do now adays) then its a childish dream to think Ultima days will ever come back.
BTW - Somehow I think the writer forgot to realise that EVE is probably the only game in today markets that still is 100% playable without doing any predefined questing.
I don't think an MMO should have self-driven content; not really. When I think of an MMO, I think of a group of developers actively behind the scenes coming up with actions and events to keep the game alive and moving forward. A team that listens to the player-base and develops content that takes into account their wishes (while still maintaining vision and personal flavors), I think, will be more successful in the long run. Of course, this route also runs with more risk; unhappy players being the key risk here.
Now, in regards to player-driven content, I think room should be given for players to have a controlled impact, something that can lend itself to developers creating more content in the long run.
As with the Public Quest in Warhammer it was the drastic over use and cut and paste game play that turned an interesting idea into just a meh by the time you got half way through tier 2. The gamers that are "sick" of this same tired ole verb quest as you label them did not mind doing some of these quest so much back in the day because it was not the entire game as it is now.
As with public quest it is the over use of these, the drastic over use that have made them mundane, boring and frustrating. I would say at best 10% of the player base even reads quest anymore well written or no.
For me I would prefer quest NPC's not talk or have a story, and god forbid video cut aways of bad dialog. I really no long care or want any reason for doing what is asked please just simply say go kill me 10 rats, or gather 10 rocks and come back and I will reward you with 5,000 exp and pants that are not really useful because the games itemization system sucks but that is another article all together.
Give us a few epic story lines quest (think Aion Chapter Quest but done much better) that reward throughout the game progression with exp and items along the way instead of 10,000 bad ones. You could do one for say your class, one for your race/faction, and have 1 for the game lore. 3 Quest lines with good stories that take us through a game. A lot of times more is not better.
I miss games like that. I wish someone would develop a game and combine the best aspects of Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, and old school pre-NGE, pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies.
I used to think that those games would be the yard sticks to measure future games against, but that didn't happen. Instead we get the McDonald's business philosophy wedged into the genre.
I enjoyed quests as they were done in Anarchy Online. Almost all epic in scope, tons of lore, and some unique reward at the end like a class defining ability or an armor piece with properties not found elsewhere (not necessarily better than alternatives, but very different). Randomly generated missions were an alternative to mindless grinding. They may not have been any more interesting than the quest grind in current MMOs, but at least you could pick the location, the difficulty, and the reward, and whether you wanted a team or a solo mission. Since most of the xp and loot came from killing the mobs in the generated instance, teams stuck together until the end, and often stayed for several missions. It wasn't just a matter of completing your objective, leaving the team, and running off to do your own thing.
It was quite a shock for me to play WoW after that. For a while, I enjoyed the quest based game play. After a few days, I stopped caring about the quest texts as only a fraction of them were worth reading and the "run from exclamation point to exclamation point" race made me feel distanced from the world rather than being immersed. Most players seemed more focused on quest objectives than enjoying the ride, and other players just became a means to complete quests faster, or get through quests that couldn't be soloed. At least when doing "pointless grinding" there was time to socialize.
Anyway, I don't mind quests in MMOs, but as a primary means of advancement they become an annoying mechanic. In a game where experience points are needed to advance your character, I prefer if you get most of it from killing and/or crafting. Having tasks to do to help guide you to good hunting areas etc. is fine, but there's no need to slap a poorly written story on it and call it a quest. A farmer asking you to kill some wolves and giving you some money for the job makes sense. The actual killing is what should give your character combat experience, though, not telling the farmer the job is done, and you should be able to repeat it until wolves aren't a problem anymore, or until the farmer is unwilling to keep paying you. The difference between this and a "kill 10 wolves" quest may be subtle, but no quest xp reward means doing the task is optional, and just gives you some money in addition to what you'd get for mindlessly slaughtering anything you encounter. If most of the copy and paste quests in MMOs were replaced by such repeatable tasks, the epic storyline quests would stand out much more, and feel so much more special.
Totally agree with you on WAR. Public quests became pretty much like any other mobs in the game since they were all over the freaking place. Instead they should have gone for diffrent methods for them. For example a public questline where you do one and then you go to the next and so on. Then you can actually build up a group of players to do the harder an more rewarding ones.
But even now after they have changed them to easy, normal and hard - you still really feel the same about them all. 3 phases - kill this - kill that next and then kill the boss... Thats WAR public quests pretty much done. No wonder the game is kinda dead too.
I am 1000% on board with a company that isn't indy and has the capital to do a game like UO or as some others mentioned Asheron's Call or PreNGE/CU SWG. I certainly love the more "virtual world" or "sim" type gameplay (which is as you pointed out more dependent or totally dependent on other players). There are more than enough games being made by these houses that have the money to do an MMO in the first place that cater to the gamer who doesn't want "a game that's a job" as they label these sim/v-world games. Some diversity with getting some more modern developed games out there would only serve this genre of gaming in a good way. There is indeed a significant audience out there for these type MMOs despite what some forum pseudo-financial analysts will try to tell you.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Why why WHY has nobody yet created Ultima Online with an updated graphics engine?! No, Darkfall doesn't count.
I tried to go back. I did. I just couldn't. The isometric PoV made my aged self dizzy. *cries*
I believe the quest-heavy gameplay really started with EQ2 before WoW came and really ensured that expectation was set amongst many players.
Anywho, as always, a very entertaining and enjoyable read from Jennings.
As I've already mentioned before, RuneScape (for all its flaws) has one good aspect: its quests. Yes, RuneScape is a sandbox, so +1 for sandbox lovers; I think really good quests can't be in a themepark game (though hopefully TOR proves me wrong). Sure, some quest chains can be good, but individual quests themselves are usually lame. There's an epic one here or there, but mostly... meh.
RuneScape, on the other hand, has far less quests than other MMOs, but each one is pretty well done. Some of the easier quests may feel a bit trivial, but they usually lead to new places, new items (like other MMOs), new storyline/lore elements (which are always enjoyable), and usually provide some comic relief. Easier quests in other MMOs give you a stick or maybe a pet rock or something stupid. The harder quests feel much more like an adventure, which is what quests should be anyways - you need to have certain stat requirements (because weak noobs can't fight evil demi-gods), items must be prepared beforehand (you don't climb Mt. Everest without supplies), and quest dialogue must be paid attention to. Obviously, you could use a walkthrough, and many people do. But they're only ruining the experience for themselves, and the fact that they use one has no effect on my choice of not using one. In fact, my questing experience is enhanced by the difficulty.
If there were flaws, I'd say that Jagex doesn't have enough good storyline in their quests/quest chains, and most of the quests have a general feeling of being geared towards younger gamers (as the rest of the game was for a long time before Jagex got a new head honcho). After the head honcho change, the quests have been getting cooler and cooler (especially the Mahjarrat quest chain). Jagex plans to tie up some storylines this year with big, fat, juicy quests, so we'll see how those turn out.
Is it perfect? Naw. But it's a hell of alot better than questing in most other MMOs. LotRO comes close only because of fluid writing and the rest of the world, which is immersive.
erh they came out at the same time, and original eq2 did have alot of quests, but wouldnt call it quest heavy at the time. . bet tho WoW players would say the same about that game.
one thing is for sure tho, EQ2 never had more quests plastared all over the game world, than echo of faydwer (3rd expansion) and forward.
and on topic the "kill 10 rats" stand lookin right next to questgiver, is just pointless and with the excessive use of them just makes them so incredible boring. have some single objectives send you to the bottom of a dungeon and the questgiver can rest assure we have killed alot more than 10 rats otw. (the new dungeon in EQ2 is actually filled with rats)
I don't mind quests. The first MMO I really played was Asheron's Call which I do not think it had any quests. If it did I never found or did them.
AC did have a world so vast that the act of exploring put you into conflict with enough mobs to level you a good bit. Like all games of that time I did eventually have to grind mobs. I would say games need to become larger where simple exploration helps with leveling. Fewer generic quests but more interesting epic string quests.
I really like some of the long string quests in WOW but I kinda wish for the old days where I could run my toon 20-30 mins into the wilderness, find a hidden house with a dungeon in the basement. A realm so large that if you don't know exactly where you are going you might not find it, thats what I would like to see replace quests.
Not likely to happen but It would be nice.
Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft.Waiting for SWTOR
EQ2's heritage quests and the prismatic quest lines were amazing in my opinion. I really wish more games had long quests like that. You really felt like you were following a story and solving a mystery.
I think the reason for the short, pointless quests in recent MMOs is because the devs want to give the casual players a sense of progression in a short play session. EQ2s longer quests still had this covered though: I remember a good few of them started by giving you a decent piece of equipment that you could gradually improve by following the quest, the further you got the harder the quest got (moving from soloable to groups, dungeons and raids) but the bigger and better your piece of gear could become. There is a gradual sense of progression throughout the quest after each stage, despite the quests often taking several days, or even much much longer, to complete. The gigantic xp rewards were nearly always worth it on their own, even if you couldn't use the item reward, but if you could use it you usually held onto it for a long time.
This also sparks that nostalgic attachment to items so many MMO vets go on about: if you have to really work to get a piece of awesome loot then you'll always remember it. There is something much much more rewarding about getting powerful items from a long quest chain as opposed to a drop in a raid. If it just drops randomly in a raid you don't really feel like you've worked towards it; you just got lucky.
I'm surprised that the epic quest lines in LOTRO haven't been mentioned. Its a lot more meaningful to have a series of quests that are connected to a story line than just have random quests scattered around.
Probably the hardest part of designing good quests is making the player feel like they are making any difference in the virtual world. You can kill a 100 rats in a farmers field and there will always be more spawning. It would be more meaningful if you were asked to protect the field for a period of time and then were allowed to harvest produce from the field as a reward (probably more realistically done as an instance).
Unlike a single player RPG where a player's action can permanently change things in the virtual world, an MMO has to provide the experience for each player. Thus the dilemma of choosing between a quest target that respawns immediately so other players can complete it (making it feel like you didn't really accomplish anything) and one that will stay gone for a while, but making other players compete for access to it. This is probably why instances became popular, however, instances also create a discontinuity in the game world. The other alternative of generating random one-time quests will make it feel more realistic, but its hard to make non-trivial random quests.
There is probably no ideal way of implementing quests in MMOs as any approach will have some drawback. One thing I can be sure of; regardless of what is implemented, there will be some players that aren't satified with it.
This is a really common topic here at mmorpg.com and I've posted my ideas many , many times.
There was a Game that was developed that REALLY listened to their followers during development. They were a bunch of dreamers and people who longed for something different. They wanted sandbox amongst other things.
When Dark and Light released, it was dead at birth. I think they listened too much to the vocal people in the forums but then failed to produce a community...a major part of this was the terrible physics and graphics.
On open beta launch day, they had a wide HUGE beautifuly crafted world...and UGLY characters and movement animations. ALSO there was this complete feeling of being LOST. You had NO idea what to do or where to go. Mobs had no level indicator (by the fanbase request - to be more immersive) so it was VERY easy to bump into something that would just completely destroy you.
Be careful for what you wish for...lol
I think wow has a lot going for it. Their cartoonish graphics age very well. They''ve retained essentially the same geometry and skins as they did almost six years ago when it started. Other games that try to look realistic using the best graphics available then, now look horribly aged.
Huge world. They've got a lot of room to tell stories.
The first time you play through, some of the quests are truly awesome. The first time I took my paladin, ALONE, to shadowfang keep to try and get my lvl 20 paladin quest reward, was an epic journey that took me accross the continent on foot only to find that I needed a group. I didn't get mad, it only increased my sense of adventure.
Now, I have several 80s and doing that again becomes tedious. The filler quests all feel like filler quests no matter which alt i'm leveling. Theres no cure for this other than to play a different game that has different mechanics...but then...I'm going to have to give up the 100 or so people i've become friends with and have expanded their friendship into person (nongame) friendship rings. Leaving is hard to do.
As far as content goes here is what I would do. Take WoW and make the followign changes. I could go on about HOW to make the changes, but that would be a very long post.
1) make it a sandbox. Levels, gear scores etc are all formulas. Make it so that all creatures are in my level range no matter where I am in the world. Items level with me. Even PVP could be effected as such. A level 1 with a dagger should be fataly dangerous to a lvl 80 who isn't paying attention. Just like a General with a gun is in mortal danger from a Private with a gun.
2) make combat faster. I know WHY they have "weapon speeds" and DPS ratings and such...but srsly...it could feel a lot faster. Make the orcs pour out of that cavern like in Lord of the Rings, return of the king (the game). 1 shot kills possible even for a mob of my level!
3) make the world more malleable. Right now, Nothing changes...ever...unless its a special event...and even then the change is temporary. There is no way to leave a mark, have an effect or anything. I have an top level blacksmith, alchemist, enchanter, etc. I can make potions and sell them. Great. but my Blacksmith cannot repair armor...not even the armor he made himself...ick. There are no guild halls or housing. There is no physical evidence of a player anywhere. There is plenty of real estate in WoW for housing and such...but who wants a house in the barrens? Go back to suggestion 1. If all mobs were around my level then a house in the barrens would be just as interesting and potentially dangerous as a house in icecrown.
Player driven content makes for a better feel of having an effect and investment in a world. Even just customizing the look of weapons and armor would make a lot of people pretty happy. Burnin crusade comes to mind. The upgrade quest rewards given were sometimes very...colorful...and painfully ugly. But the stats were better. So let me dye that bad boy and then I can not be emberassed to be seen in public.
4) Squad - Let me run my alts as memebers of my own squad. A little bit of AI (Artifical intelligence) and setup of default behavious would suffice. My mage should buff with AI (Arcane intellect) and then target my target...or AOE for group damage. Etc ETc.
5) Mob AI - Humans shout to all within hearing range to attack together. ...BUt then...you won't find them evenly spaced out exactly 50 yards apart pathing a 3 yard square patch of earth. Animals typically run...even predators...with a chance of attacking instead. THis might mean that the "tank/healer/dps" trinity gets some rethinking...cause anyone with brains won't ram their head against a brick wall (tank) when the soft underbelly is showing (healer/caster).
6) Non persistent world - Go kill X quests could easily be scripted to change based on events in the area. After 15 people have done the kill 10 kobolds quest, the kobold cave is CLEAR (you've just killed 150 kobolds). And the quest giver now gives a different qeust for the same rewards based on a randomly spawned new set of badies somewhere else and gives the same XP/item rewards.
7) Meaningful factions - Getting fame with a faction is more than the ability to purchase nice gear from them. But have influence...hire mercenaries/soldiers/healers rom them to aid you in an adventure (see AI scripting suggestion and Squad suggestions). Maybe you can now own a home in their capital city. Maybe now you can influence their king to give out certain quests...or go to war with another faction. Lots of fun ideas here.
Anyway. Just spitting out ideas. SO much that could be done. I'd love a game that made me feel like I was playing the paper and dice games back in the day...but with pretty graphics
Currently not playing any MMOrpg --
Lvl 80 paladin WoW
The problem, as I see it, is not that there are hundreds or thousands of oftentmes repetitive and unimaginative quests. Some folks, I assume, like doing those quests.
The problem is that it doesn't matter whether you like them or not. They have been designed as the fastest method for character advancement, and if you disregard them you don't have an equally productive way to level your character.
The solution is to offer viable alternative ways for players to gain experience so that the folks who don't like questing, or that game's version of questing, don't end up having to do the quests anyway or suffer a penalty in their rate of progression.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
By far my favorite quest in WoW is the race against Wing Commander Mulverick. Mostly because it doesn't fit in any of the categories mentioned in the article, it tries to do something unique
I'm surprised that quests like these aren't mentioned. They're not plentiful, but they're there.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
I like how Scott is now the "Outspoken MMORPG columnist."
I think plentiful quests of pitiful meaning is definitely a hinderance to many MMOs, but at the same time, I wished EvE game me a little more to do than just farm money. I'm in the 'fewer, but epic quests' category. I'm interested to see how ToR will do, but I'm not hopeful.
I think this is clearly a "less is more" revelation than anything. Not only have quests been overdone in games like WoW, the overabundance of questing has dumbed down the play as well. If your main method of advancement is quest grinding, you cant make the quests overly difficult or time consuming. Thus you have "kill ten rats" copy and pasted throughout the leveling process. Even without things like Questhelper, the more seasoned players can wade through the quest grind without committing any real thought or skill to the endeavor.
Yet, the sad fact is that nothing will really change until AI progresses enough so that we can have a true dungeon master system where content is created on the fly. But hopefully we can get at least one decently budgeted title that is a throwback to the old days of epic quest lines and progression by camp grinding and good old fashioned pvp slaughter.
"I'm interested to see how ToR will do, but I'm not hopeful."
Not sure if there will even be questing. By the time you sit there and listen to the complete voiceover, youll either be asleep or too bored to consider actually doing the quest.
What they need to do is make quests that are worth making, not just to have them.
There should be no such thing as a non-epic quest, quests should all be intricate, with many steps, parts, etc. even taking days to complete.
What happened to a quest being a quest and not a "task"?
I think the asheron's call series did the best job. Most of the quests were long and involved quests that could take a long time to complete with multiple parts, but you wouldn't really use them as a primary means of leveling.
Quests were more for rewards and bonus blocks of experience / fun / adventure. If you were going on a quest, you were basically giving up leveling time for fun.
Now you have to do quests to level and they aren't even fun. It's like the designers set a quota for quests and xp rewarded per level and then design the quest.
They need to go back to developing the game so that players can progress without any developer "content" and then add quests / activities that provide fun rather than necessity.
I miss wanting to quest, as it is now in most modern games, I despise "quests". I don't need to be told to kill 3 boars, I'll slaughter whatever I see and that should be sufficient, then give me a mission to work towards, an adventure.
Designers should ask themselves if a quest could be made into a movie or short story and if not, they shouldn't bother putting it in.
*Quests should break the grind, not be it. Quests should be an adventure that provide a sense of accomplishment and excitement*
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
I don't think going from having all quests to having none is the answer. And I don't think just having a mix of them is the answer either.
I think there's room for all that and more. The "More" part is the important part... It isn't more of the same thing, it's more of alot of different things.
One of the biggest problems I see is "We don't accept outside contributions" and in my opinion that's where you're going to find the electricity.
But that has it's own set of problems that developers don't even want to touch. And because they don't want to touch it, they are basicly stuck in a loop.
Godspeed my fellow gamer