I've always felt this way in MMORPGs and apparently I'm in the majority. I don't read quest stories, and I don't want "puzzles" in my MMORPG.

What I don't know is if it's the same reason for most players. I don't read quest stories, because they are meaningless. The worst story in the world, the best story in the world, are the same: Kill ten rats. Why should I read the best story in the world to get to "kill ten rats"? The story isn't going to change "kill ten rats", so if I want a great story I'll read a book.

Now, if you were going to change the game world based on whether I kill ten rats or not, then I want to read the story. It now makes a difference, and I'm interested. "Kill ten rats" or by Thursday your local market will be over run with rats and close down causing you to walk 15 minutes more everytime you need to buy or sell, well I need to know that story.

Or Kill ten rats, and when we get 15,000 rats total we're going to load them into catapults, and toss them over the enemy walls, and they will all get the plague. Well, I"m all for giving the enemy the plague, give me all the details. But you see, those are jobs that will actually change the game world, and NOW the story is interesting.

"Part of leveling quickly means avoiding anything that might require time. Puzzles, word games, and riddles are only acceptable if the answers are already posted in spoilers on fan sites. The hardcore enjoy solving puzzles, but the hardcore aren’t keeping the servers running. The truly dedicated will alt-tab out to a spoiler site and continue playing, but everyone else will simply quit playing. One anonymous source told me that in a zone with a quest completion rate of around 70%, the sole puzzle quest will have a completion rate of 15%. And it wasn’t that high until the answers were on The Brasse and Allakhazam."

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3076/Take-This-Column-To-NPC-X.html

I like puzzles. The problem is that all MMOs with a few PvP exceptions are all trying to cateer to all MMO players. A nice niche MMO with a lot of thinking would be nice, DDO makes a try and scores some points but the game have other problems.

Besides it, we have few if any games where you need to actually think when you play. I hope Bioware will change this however, their earlier single player game sold well so the formula should work in a MMO too.

I actually disagree.  I like trying to figure out puzzles and I like a good story but generally most mmos stories do suck ass so they aren't worth the time.  Granted I probably am in the minority.

I would enjoy it more though if your actions actually had an effect on the world like you mention AND a good story behind it.  No doubt that would be much more interesting.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

I actually disagree.  I like trying to figure out puzzles and I like a good story but generally most mmos stories do suck ass so they aren't worth the time.  Granted I probably am in the minority.

I would enjoy it more though if your actions actually had an effect on the world like you mention AND a good story behind it.  No doubt that would be much more interesting.

If it's actually going to matter, I will read a bad story. It actually has info I need to play the game. Naturally, I would prefer a good story, but if it's going to impact the game world, it changes my interest dramatically.

But I see it like this:

blah blah blah and kill ten rats.

Best story in the universe, written by JK Rowling herself, and kill ten rats.

Best story in the Universe written by a collaboration of RA Salvatore and his three favorite Hugo Award winning authors, and kill ten rats.

They are all the same for me, kill ten rats. I'll read the book by JK and RA, and just skip the story in the game and go kill the ten rats.

I agree.  Personally, I hate questing, absolutely hate it.  It gets in the way of the fun of the game for me, because it's always running to kill ten rats and running back.  Maybe I'll be leveling my upteenth character in the area, and I can efficiently stack quests, but it's still not fun.  It's filler material, the stuff you do when your friends aren't on, or are busy, or you're bored and looking to make a little coin.  Unfortunately, it's turned into the basis of the game...and turned me off of MMOs for the most part.

I've recently been reconsidering the first MMO I ever played-Shadowbane (which, incidentally had NO quests at all, zero, pure sandbox).  Looking at it from today's standards, it has a miserable game engine, poor graphics, crummy interface...but I played that game a long time and had FUN (till the population got too low for my taste).  Excepting the low-population times, I always had fun in that game, and I've been thinking about why.  I didn't have to bother with killing ten rats if I didn't want to.  The leveling was best done in groups, sometimes PL groups that had afk-macros running, but there were usually at least a couple folks on Teamspeak to chat with, or just chat in game if it was random people (yes, that did happen once in a while).  I enjoyed staying at the computer chatting, because it wasn't just chat, I was also busy watching for people to gank my group, picking up loot drops, alt-tabbing to post on forums (while still on TS listening for "Incoming!" calls) or look up build specifics, or what have you.  When I wasn't interested in that, I'd group with some friends and go ganking (or maybe just sologanking, if I felt like it), or camp somebody's town, or whatever.  The most important thing was that I was free to do whatever I felt like doing-I wasn't tied to a grind for weeks/months/forever questing as required by the game to make coin and xp.

Questing breaks up the community atmosphere of a game, when it's done to excess (like it always is in games these days).  Often people aren't on the same stage of the quest you are, or you group for 1 quest/instance and then it's goodbye, and you're solo again.  Even with quest sharing like some games have, you're still facing that problem.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating complete quest removal from games...but there has to be another way.  Perhaps just a quest here and there, killing a few rats for a specific and world-influencing goal, that doesn't need to be done for over 9000 levels?

Questing as a leveling method is old, tired, and broken...almost like it was when it was first thought up.  It's just a means of getting players to grind away and become attached to their pixels (HEY, I've spent 80 years working on this character doing quests, I'm bored with the game...but I'm SOoooooooooo invested that I'm not sure if I want to just walk away from that!) instead of actually having FUN, with freedom to do what the player wants to do.  If you want to quest, that's a great option...but we shouldn't be forced into quest-grind to level...over...and over...and over.  I've looked at probably 30 MMOs on here in the last week, trying to find something interesting...and all I see is questgrind after questgrind after questgrind (ok, Eve is excluded, but I've played it already).

Guess I'm just in limbo till GW2 hits the shelves.  At least then I can do pve when I want, pvp when I want, and have a bit more freedom...

Originally posted by Honkie

Questing as a leveling method is old, tired, and broken...almost like it was when it was first thought up.  It's just a means of getting players to grind away and become attached to their pixels (HEY, I've spent 80 years working on this character doing quests, I'm bored with the game...but I'm SOoooooooooo invested that I'm not sure if I want to just walk away from that!) instead of actually having FUN, with freedom to do what the player wants to do.  If you want to quest, that's a great option...but we shouldn't be forced into quest-grind to level...over...and over...and over.  I've looked at probably 30 MMOs on here in the last week, trying to find something interesting...and all I see is questgrind after questgrind after questgrind (ok, Eve is excluded, but I've played it already).

Guess I'm just in limbo till GW2 hits the shelves.  At least then I can do pve when I want, pvp when I want, and have a bit more freedom...

Theres' one game on the way, and I'm sure it's going to be a Quest grind, but it might still be fun.

That game is The Old Republic. I"m pretty sure the Quests will not change the game world in any way. It'll be the same old same old. Rescue the princess, and here's the stupid story behind it, BUT the Princess won't be rescued, she still needs to be rescued by every player in the game.

However, it may ad some interest becasue the Quests will change your CHARACTER, if not the game world. And I don't mean you will level up (skill up) and get loot. You're go either Darkside or Lightside, depending on which quests you do.

Not exaclty what I'm looking for, but it's better than nothing.

I don't want puzzles and I only want quest stories if they somehow reflect choices I make.

Changing the world would be nice, but what I really want is to be able to choose my own jobs.  EVE may not be perfect, but I love the freedom of choice.

Originally posted by Honkie

Questing as a leveling method is old, tired, and broken...almost like it was when it was first thought up.  It's just a means of getting players to grind away and become attached to their pixels (HEY, I've spent 80 years working on this character doing quests, I'm bored with the game...but I'm SOoooooooooo invested that I'm not sure if I want to just walk away from that!) instead of actually having FUN,

...

Guess I'm just in limbo till GW2 hits the shelves.  At least then I can do pve when I want, pvp when I want, and have a bit more freedom...

I think that your idea of f un is a lot like mine, but I think we are in the minority.  I think that questing and grinding is exactly what most players want.

By the way, why do you expect more freedom from GW2?  I think Guild Wars is an amazingly good game, but it is still mostly quest-grinding isn't it?  Will GW2 be very different?

I don't like puzzle quests either, but I do like to know the storie behind why I'm killing 10 rats for some guy. Unfortunatly most of the time the npc will crit you with a wall of text and you won't even bother to read it. It's even more less read when there is more than 1 npc offering a quest. I found in Warhammer I would find a whole camp full of quests and just accept them all and then read them he way to the big red circle on the minimap. I hardly find that realistic RP wise as the npc has literally given me a note as if I am some errand girl. And if it is a riddle quest it usually only gets alt-tabbed. Even the quests that are 'answer these 3 questions correctly - with a list of 4 possible answers to click' I sometimes don't even read it, I just re-press the npc till I selected the right answer

Originally posted by MudHekket

Originally posted by Honkie

Questing as a leveling method is old, tired, and broken...almost like it was when it was first thought up.  It's just a means of getting players to grind away and become attached to their pixels (HEY, I've spent 80 years working on this character doing quests, I'm bored with the game...but I'm SOoooooooooo invested that I'm not sure if I want to just walk away from that!) instead of actually having FUN,

...

Guess I'm just in limbo till GW2 hits the shelves.  At least then I can do pve when I want, pvp when I want, and have a bit more freedom...

 

I think that your idea of f un is a lot like mine, but I think we are in the minority.  I think that questing and grinding is exactly what most players want.

By the way, why do you expect more freedom from GW2?  I think Guild Wars is an amazingly good game, but it is still mostly quest-grinding isn't it?  Will GW2 be very different?

With GW, you could get pvp at the drop of a hat by simply putting together a pvp character and heading off to do that.  After a bit of unlocking, you're already set for gear and don't need to spend time grinding out gear for each character, or spells, or coin, or anything else.  While it's not 100% "do what you want", it does have the option of avoiding tedious pve aspects of the game (ie quests) whenever you might want to partake in pvp.  Which I liked.  It wasn't perfect, but it was a far cry better than most grind-oriented games.

I certainly don't want a job.  That's something I hate about MMOs... If you have goals to accomplish, at some point it's going to feel like a job.  I'm not even sure I want a MMO anymore.  It would be nice if there were more games like GW, but more action/fighter based.  Really, I would just like something I can jump on and play, kick some ass in pvp (or get my ass kicked) and not worry about leveling or gear.  I don't mind quests, but they really need to step them up at this point.  It's time for voice overs, and results that affect either you or the world.   I never feel any sort of connection to NPCs in MMOs, that's a big problem. 

If only my aim wasn't so horrible I would play a FPS, sadly I'm one of those people that runs in with guns blazing, ony to end up getting killed by a sniper or someshit. 

Quests should get relegated to a "job" kind of thing, for the most part.

Like, bring me 20 rat tails for ten silver, or something similar.

I guess that would put me in a minority too as I don't really even want quests with choices that "change the world". I'm sure I'd do some of them, but it's not my preference. I'd prefer to have a game where the developers instead gave the community tools to generate content ALONG WITH the "change the world" quests.  Those tools, however, would allow the players to change the world as well so I guess it's close to the same thing.

Currently the actions you do mean nothing in the game world - the monsters respawn, the bosses respawn, the instances reset, the escort npcs end up in where they were before, etc.

I have yet to see a MMO in which actions really impact the game world - if I kill that bad guy, leader of an evil organization, then I want to see the organization break up like the quest dialogue said it would happen, or if it didn't happened like that, I don't want the same evil guy there but another guy that took up the position, I hope you get the idea, currently [b]the game world is static[/b], respawns are defined, the monster level/attribute/skills are all defined and only your character develops. 

Obviously in a game world that actions influence it, it will surely require a completely new way to develop MMOs, as quests will not be the same for everyone, it is going to be more realistic.

The only way the developers work to make us stay in the game are exactly your character - you have your levels, your gear and sometimes even cosmetic stuff like titles, achievements. The rest of the content is something you'll never see or only play through once, except if it's the "high end" of the game which is the point in which things are worth being repeated and repeated infinitely, because there's some gear you'll be needing to proceed into the next "end game" area or there's the best equipment drop avaiable in there. When an expansion or update is released, people will just move on to the new "end game".

I'd love to see these static game worlds change and get as persistent and evolving as our characters, MMOs will reach a new degree of immersivity when that happens, you don't play because of your character and end game, you play beacuse of the whole game world (a world like that will have no "end game").

You see this happens, but that is actually in player-driven content games such as EVE, Darkfall, UO, they also have their limitations though.

Originally posted by SaetiaBelle

I don't like puzzle quests either, but I do like to know the storie behind why I'm killing 10 rats for some guy. Unfortunatly most of the time the npc will crit you with a wall of text and you won't even bother to read it. It's even more less read when there is more than 1 npc offering a quest. I

I find that I don't read the quests either.  I don't feel invested in the story because it rarely has to do with any decisions I make.  I want to be a protagonist, but the usual quest systems only lets you watch the NPCs story unfold.  I admit, I did read the quests in LOTR but I had a pre-existing interest in that world.

I want to be choosing between quests on the basis of my short-term and long-term goals, not just mechanically doing whatever is on offer or doing whatever gives the most experience.  Ideally, I would like choice of quests to have long-term ramifications and I would like every quest to involve choices that have long-term ramifications.  Naturally, that is a lot easier said than done and I'm not saying this would be a good business proposition.

I think freedom of choice within a game world that is affected by each players actions is what most MMO players would like.  We don't want to have a quest overkill.  There should be quests, but you should only have to do them if that is what you like to do, and however you perform in the quest will have some outside consequence.  For example, going to collect wood from the nearby forest to help expand the village, if you get the wood, the village can grow into a large capital, but you would also see the size of the forest start to decrease.  I guess it would be like a public quest that everyone can get in on at any time they like.

Players should also be able to go out and create their own establishments that they must keep up and protect from mobs or other players.  One player could go build a small shack in the woods for extra storage and what not, but large groups of players, possibly guilds, could go create entire towns and cities.

I guess what I'm getting at is a game that would have action and reaction, cause and effect, freedom of choice, where everyone would be able to leave their mark on the world.  Sure you'd have tons of gankers and what not, but the nice guys could always go to war with them to protect noobs and what not

...i dunno, just a thought on the types of things I would like in an MMO.

Originally posted by Devour

Quests should get relegated to a "job" kind of thing, for the most part.

Like, bring me 20 rat tails for ten silver, or something similar.

Quests should be something epic as in the early days of dnd.  A paladin would quest to rid the world of some evil.  There should be jobs, which the purpose of is to exchange work for money.  The rat tail issue would be handled like a job or a bounty.

Well personally I like the OP....

I like reading forums when we don't argue about Game A being better than Game B.

People come into a thread and they post what they like "in games" and what they don't.   Ah why do I like that?

Well if you read a long thread where people just talk about things they like.  Then you go read an article from a game/quest designer or a blog from someone that has never designed anything... They will also tell you that players don't like the exact things ... the players just told you they did.

Oh wait that can't be true... then I point to the epic list of recently failed games.

The games are failing (even one from a company our beloved blogger, that the OP quoted worked for) because they are not giving players what they want.  Yet the excuse is.... that players just skip (the crap they didn't want) which is now re-named to content... to get to end game which you didn't bother to test.

The OP makes an interest point about how you could do a simple change to quests... which they would enjoy.  All this would even be is a small short term effect (not world altering event) and it would amuse them.  Yet you never see anyone blog...

"If we had just been a tad bit creative with our quests, then players may have taken part."

Or you never see...  "We made a pvp game and can't understand why people wanted to get to end game and pvp..."

I mean when DAoC launched there were not any battle grounds... there was no darkness falls.. etc  If someone is trying to use data from WAR (a pvp game with um content in between) to dictate the last 10 years of content skipping then something would be wrong.

Here is another take....

You log into WoW probably the highest quest ratio game on the market atm or mostly quest driven for exp.  You run from quest to quest to quest...  that's how you play.

Even in EQ2 the real XP is from quests.  The mobs don't really give enough XP to set up a camp.  In EQ1 and early DAoC you got a group and set a camp.  It was the best way to get XP... while in that group of spending hours to get some advancement your were most likely social with your group members.  Especially in EQ1...  where the downtime for mana regen was fairly high (long before KEI etc)   We talked we were social.

Its not quest or the lovingly created content that players want to skip.   Its not even that players don't want Puzzles or Quests or Stories...  Its the fact that when you turn the path of advancement into what it has been turned...  Its like you've made it so there isn't room for anything else (the frantic race to turn in the quest and grab another).

Quest used to be a more rare event... and the first time through you might have read the story.. and they lead to things that would later be called "heritage items" or some such.  They have become so common now... the fodder for xp advancement that *I* hate quests...

I used to design quests... I would be embarrased to have created the crap I see now.

I don't want a job in game either...    I pretty much miss the days of forming a group and having at least a semi social experience.  Current design drove me to hate quests... to not want to group... in fact pretty much to not want to pay for another MMO.

Sorry if this streamed off topic...  its what I think of when I see the discussion of game design lately.

*edited note*  When I use the term "failed games" its relative to the expectations the companies seemed to have for those games before launch.  As opposed to say the game failing and not making money.. which is two different things or even the idea of failure from the perspective of players.

So that term is used purely in the manner of the expectation the developer had.  Which I guess I'm going to assume was based on number of servers "up" as opposed to number of servers "needed"... and I apply that in the generic to "recently failed gameS".

Originally posted by rozenblade1

I think freedom of choice within a game world that is affected by each players actions is what most MMO players would like.  We don't want to have a quest overkill.  There should be quests, but you should only have to do them if that is what you like to do, and however you perform in the quest will have some outside consequence.  For example, going to collect wood from the nearby forest to help expand the village, if you get the wood, the village can grow into a large capital, but you would also see the size of the forest start to decrease.  I guess it would be like a public quest that everyone can get in on at any time they like.

Players should also be able to go out and create their own establishments that they must keep up and protect from mobs or other players.  One player could go build a small shack in the woods for extra storage and what not, but large groups of players, possibly guilds, could go create entire towns and cities.

I guess what I'm getting at is a game that would have action and reaction, cause and effect, freedom of choice, where everyone would be able to leave their mark on the world.  Sure you'd have tons of gankers and what not, but the nice guys could always go to war with them to protect noobs and what not

...i dunno, just a thought on the types of things I would like in an MMO.

That sounds like EVE to me.  You mine asteroids rather than cut wood, your shack might be a whole solar system and the gankers will be flying starships, but the characters each leave their mark on the world.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

 Theres' one game on the way, and I'm sure it's going to be a Quest grind, but it might still be fun.

That game is The Old Republic. I"m pretty sure the Quests will not change the game world in any way. It'll be the same old same old. Rescue the princess, and here's the stupid story behind it, BUT the Princess won't be rescued, she still needs to be rescued by every player in the game.

However, it may ad some interest becasue the Quests will change your CHARACTER, if not the game world. And I don't mean you will level up (skill up) and get loot. You're go either Darkside or Lightside, depending on which quests you do.

Not exaclty what I'm looking for, but it's better than nothing.

I'm hoping TOR is different but what you are describing is nothing different from all MMO's that reward faction for completing a quest. You have the dark side faction and the light side faction...nothing new or different here.

I keep seeing people say that TOR will be different because every decision you make will have an impact on your character...just like every other MMO released that gives or takes away FACTION for your decisions.

I didn't hate quests untill I played the later generation of games in which you are buried under truckloads of quests which aren't even really quests in the traditional sense of the word.

I would probably like quests if, instead of 50 quests of the "kill ten rats" type, you were given ONE quest at a time and it felt more like a quest should and maybe even encouraged some grouping.

It would end up being a kill or fetch quest probably but if it were more involved and dangerous and took longer I could probably get into it more.  Something like; traverse the swamps of despair, then climb over the mountains of lost hope, then trek through the forest of dark imaginings.  In the middle of the forest you will find a pyramid and in the central tomb inside the pyramid you will find the ______ thingy you must recover.

Ok, so you frolic off to the swamp of despair and start through it and BAM, some big nasty thing kills you.  You try and die several times untill finally it occures to you to ask that other guy who keeps dying if he would like to group and maybe the two of you together could make it through.

And...well, there's no point in going through a whole made up thing.  The point is that the quest be designed to be challenging.  Not that, "Trot a hundred yards south and kill some weak arse crap and trot back" kind of stuff.  And the other point is instead of a truckload of simple, easy quests give people just ONE long, hard quest at a time.

I don't know how much better it would be but the way quest grinder games work right now I can't stand it. 

I like quest stories that have a continuation. If its a a lame fedex, or slaughter quest I'd rather grind or explore.

I don't bother reading why I need to get 10 wolf pelts, or why Joe needs this letter. That's boring. Quest stories that are more than just gathering materials are great, and I do read them. One quest line that will stick with me forever is the Feerott quest line in EQ2. Also the starter isle in early EQ2 was awesome. The quests had a point, and it wasn't just generic bullcrap. Other than that I don't really think there are too many awesome quest lines out there in the MMO world. Its all boring fedex crap.

People do want quest arcs. They don't want a story about why Mary needs 20 lamb hides. We are smart enough to figure out its a lame attempt by devs to be cheap.

There is no single playstyle that will appease everyone. Over-generalization, even if that generalization overlaps a majority playerbase, is always fraught with exceptions and looks foolish.

Originally posted by Antarious

You log into WoW probably the highest quest ratio game on the market atm or mostly quest driven for exp.  You run from quest to quest to quest...  that's how you play.

 

Even in EQ2 the real XP is from quests.  The mobs don't really give enough XP to set up a camp.  In EQ1 and early DAoC you got a group and set a camp.  It was the best way to get XP... while in that group of spending hours to get some advancement your were most likely social with your group members.  Especially in EQ1...  where the downtime for mana regen was fairly high (long before KEI etc)   We talked we were social.

 

Its not quest or the lovingly created content that players want to skip.   Its not even that players don't want Puzzles or Quests or Stories...  Its the fact that when you turn the path of advancement into what it has been turned...  Its like you've made it so there isn't room for anything else (the frantic race to turn in the quest and grab another).

 

Quest used to be a more rare event... and the first time through you might have read the story.. and they lead to things that would later be called "heritage items" or some such.  They have become so common now... the fodder for xp advancement that *I* hate quests...

I agree 100%. During VG beta testing players kept asking for the quest EXP to be increased because they weren't being rewarded enough for their time. I argued that giving smaller rewards for quests and larger rewards for killing NPCs in dungeons would promote exploration and give players a reason to spend more time in a dungeon instead of running between quest-givers.

One of best MMO communities I have ever been a part of was in EQ, where you spent more time hanging out with a group of people and you had time to sit and talk. Now we have quests that give massive amounts of EXP and whoever can run around between the mobs and quest-givers the fastest sees the largest reward so people have no need or desire to interact with other players.

EQ quests also made a huge impact on you and the world. You could kill the final boss in your EPIC quest and the mob wouldn't respawn for 7 days. It made it harder for others trying to complete the same quest but it truly made it feel EPIC because everyone knew SoandSo just got his EPIC. Woot! Grats! Quests today offer little to no sense of accomplishment.

I agree with a lot of what's been said here.  My game of choice for quite some time was EQ2.  Because of the level "grind" without any real direction in EQ1, they added a ton of questlines for each level tier in EQ2 to take you to max level solely by questing if you so chose.  Unfortunately, because quests became the best source of experience and achievement points, you were more or less required to do them.  While I fully support having a large number of quests available so no one feels lost or without direction, creating an environment in which questing is required is completely unacceptable.

I used to really enjoy running through dungeons such as Fallen Gate or Ruins of Varsoon at lower levels, but because I wasn't advancing any questlines by doing so I was afraid I would level too quickly and miss out on an opportunity to improve my character.  In actuality, dungeons crawls should be as encouraged as questing.  If I choose to grind out levels on my own or with a few friends, I should feel free to do so.  Instead, I felt pressured to do the same questlines that everyone else at my level was doing.

The key point is that what is a grind to some (i.e. killing mobs in a dungeon for several hours) isn't necessarily the same grind to others (i.e. "forced" questlines from level 1 to max level).  In reality, slowly crawling to the bottom of a dungeon and defeating the evil necromancer boss is as much a quest as any "kill ten rats" nonsense that we are constantly subjected to.  Hopefully, developers will understand that we want freedom more than busy work that keeps us progressing the way they want.