There's a debate on the forum about quest text and content and in it someone said that repetitive and unimaginative quests were down to lazy developers and lazy quest makers. My response was large enough to make into a blog post and flesh out here.
I disagree. It's not that they're lazy; it's that the vast majority of MMO players are.
We here at MMORPG.com might want clever quests and original game mechanics and all that jazz, but we're the minority, the small hand stuck up the back of a room full of angry, shouty types. The majority of MMO players want a simple and familiar way of levelling beause if they don't get it then they have to go to the hassle of looking the answer up on Allakhazam. Devs and quest makers are simply providing what's asked for by the majority because the majority are the ones who will decide if, in the eyes of the moneymen, the game is a success or not. You could argue people who make the decisions high up in MMOs are greedy but I don't think it's fair or accurate to say devs and quest designers are lazy.
And the other problem is Allakhazam and it's ilk. The majority of MMO players want the endgame and they want it absolutely asap. That's where the phat loot is and that also, perception would have it, is where the big and interesting quests are. This probably comes from the 'endgame' perception of movies, where the special effects and 'wham, bam' payoff stuff comes at the end. Why blow your wad in terms of story, graphics and 'ooh, wow' game mechanics early on when people are burning through content? People get stuck on a puzzle or a search for who drops what and when need only look up one of the endless sites tha will tell you everything you need to know. Solutions, walk-throughs, answers and who, where, what, when and how and all of it broken down into percentages and hit rates and dps and XP given.
The biggest group in the game, the casual players, just want to play a game with all the texture and consistency of babyfood and the second biggest group, the hardcore players, just want to play a game where they can grind out weapons and armour in order to get a few more dps.
And between those two camps lie the third group; people who want quest text worth reading and original, if not revolutionary, game mechanics. They'd be the same people who want open-ended, 'choose your own adventure' style sandbox games, too and aren't likely to get that to their satisfaction either.
Amd it's the devs and quest makers that are lazy for not pandering to a minority? Sure.
MMORPG.com writes:
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