Originally posted by shad0w99

What if the story had clues as to the best way to complete the quest. And if you fulfil certain criteria (eg kill the rats with a blunt weapon, not a sharp one) you would get a gold and xp bonus. Then it would pay to read the story and follow the specifics. Alternatively, you could do quests fast and just read the basic goals (ie kill 10 rats) but get smaller amounts of XP

Currently, reading quest text just slows down progress. I want to know stories, but I also want to maximise my progress in each playing session. If you really want to sit down and understand the story of a quest chain it may take up 1/3 of your time in some games with elaborate story lines.

Thats how wowhead, thottbot and allakhazam came into being...
Whats even faster than reading a quest for a shortcut, reading the shotcut online.
 

Originally posted by Loke666

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.

       Theres a couple stories around on why MMOs dont have more puzzle solving......it basically boils down to they dont want to put in things like that because 10 minutes later the solution would be posted all over the net anyway and make it a moot point........For example if you had to solve a riddle to pass a quest in WoW how long do you think it would take before it was posted?? The devs basically consider this a waste of their time and energy.....It probably takes longer to kill the 10 rats than it would to look up the answer to a riddle or puzzle.

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Neanderthal

I would actually say that grouping in EQ was less forced than solo quest grinding is in WoW.  Because, by definition, you don't need people to solo with you.  But you do need people if you want to group and if everyone else is running around doing solo quests you aren't going to have much luck putting a group together.  I'm not saying it would be impossible to put together a group in a quest grind game but the hassle and time it would take to do it each time you played simply wouldn't be worth it.

 

To  me this always seems like a personal failure on the parts of the 'groupers'.  It seems they are not social enough to find other people who like to play the same way as they so they want game mechanics that will force the 'masses' to play that way.    It's handholding at its worst. 

Ultimately it's about knowing what the basis for the gameplay system is in a MMORPG and staying away from those that do not suit your preferences.  I do not like FFA PvP so I stay away from EVE, Darfall or WoW PvP servers.  I learned long ago that whining that those gameplay systems do not suit my play style is useless and lazy.

 

A game is designed for solo play, so if people playing that game complain that it doesn't work well fvor grouping, (even though you CAN group if you want to) it's the fault of the groupers? Doesnt' make any sense.

Originally posted by Josher

I was refering more to EQ's glory days where soloing was painful.  The game wasn't designed at all for soloing until years later and even then, EQ's version of soloing is picking a class that doesn't make it painful.   WOW was designed as a questing game, a solong game, a grouping game or a combination of all of them, from day 1.  Grouping ALWAYS rewarded you best.  You gimped yourself by avoiding them and if your friends in the game prefer to play alone then with you....well, thats your problem.

Getting a group in WOW if you have FRIENDS consists of logging in.  Then the guild sees you and they say, "HEY, whats up!  We're doing a dungeon or were over in zone X or we're doing battleground Y,  wanna come?"  Thats all it took for me.  I had a group in a minute.  It took longer to get to the group;)  If that wasn't your experience, your guild sucked.  Don't blame the game.  Blame yourself.  Playing with the intent to just level as quickly a possible, skipping anything that might slow you down, like CONTENT or in your words, "gimp" yourself, its no wonder.  EQ imprinted some bad, bad playstyle s onto some people.

You're not gimping yourself that much by avoiding quests, but then you're complaining about questing in a game designed around quests.  People LOVE them.  You don't.  Is that Blizzard's fault or YOURS?  Its you.  Its YOUR problem.  Min/maxing ruins games for people in my experience.  Everytime someone starts bitching about EXP per hour or thinks in that mode all the time, you've already ruined the game.  Anyway, good luck finding a new MMO to play.  You'll be searching for a very, very, very long time, because questing isn't going away.  The ability to solo effectively isn't going away either.  I guess you're screwed=)

You really need to find a new insult because that min/max, power leveler insult doesn't sting me at all because it's so far off the mark.  You would probably hit closer to home if you insulted me for exactly the opposite reason.

Something like, "You're NOT obsessed with doing quests?  WTF is wrong with you?  You just want to fart around and smell the roses and shoot the breeze with people and not fanatically push through the levels as fast as possible!!?  WTF LOL!!  WOW PWNED YOU CASUAL NOOB!!11!"

That might not be perfectly accurate either but it would be a lot closer than the other.

Everyone always says that WoW is so casual friendly but I think that's a little misleading.  It depends on what casual means to you.  WoW is defeninately solo friendly.  And it's stupidly easy.  And there is no death penalty.  And you can play in short increments.  But on the other hand the gameplay consists entirely of <RUN RUN RUN RUN, GET THINGS DONE, RUN RUN RUN, NO TIME TO STOP, NO TIME TO TALK, RUN RUN RUN, RUN BACK AND FORTH, RUN HERE AND THERE, RUN RUN RUN>.  

Of course any given individual could take it easy but the mentallity of the player base sets the tone and the game design shapes the mentality of the playerbase.  And in WoW and games like it the game design is RUN RUN RUN.  Hell, leveling up in EQ had a more casual feel to it than WoW because you just explored where your whims took you and when you were focusing on leveling you were basically just hanging out with some people camping spawns.  So I'm going to say, despite the flames which will come down on me for saying it, that leveling in EQ WAS more casual that leveling in WoW.  More casual in the sense that it was more relaxed and social and didn't feel so rushed.  Of course it took about a million times longer to reach max level in EQ but that would only be a negative to the....gasp...min/maxing power leveler.  The person who really is playing a game just for fun and not for Epeen wouldn't care if the leveling process took longer. 

And I was also refering to EQ in it's glory days; 1999 to 2004 or whenever I quit (don't remember exactly when I quit).  

Also, why do you get so damn defensive of WoW every time someone says they don't like the quest grind model?  Nobody is saying WoW should be shut down and it even if we did say that it wouldn't cause it to happen.

And to anyone who points out that if a person doesn't like that type of game design then they shouldn't play that type of game I have a newsflash for you:  EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT ALREADY.  We're just talking about it here.  Just because we're talking about it some people seem to assume that we are playing one of those games and hating it and yet still playing it.    

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Vallanor

Originally posted by MudHekket

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.

 

I prefer exploiting an environment to hiring myself out for pay.  I would rather raid the dungeon because I want treasure than raid it because an NPC will give me something if I do.

I ignore quests and missions in CoH/CoV.  I just run around the streets destroying things and in groups, only follow other people's quests.  In some other games, of course, you have to quest to advance at a reasonable rate.

 

I fully agree.  I may not have made myself quite clear enough.  I definitely don't want my favorite dungeon crawl to suddenly become a quest in which someone rewards me for completing it.  Rather, I don't want to feel as though doing the dungeon crawl is impeding my progress because I'm not doing questlines.  You are absolutely right that raiding a dungeon for treasure and just for the fun of it is far preferable than being tasked to do so by an npc.  We ought to be able to do what we want, whether that's questing or dungeon crawling without worrying about not advancing your character enough.

You can do what you want.  You can still do the dungeon without doing a quest thats connected to it.  How are you being forced?  Oh I see, you're a min/maxer.  You're worried about progress and want to progress in the the most efficient way possible.  You can still kill the big boss at the end of the dungeon without doing a quest.  You just kill him and make up your own reason, just like in EQ.  How is having am OPTIONAL quest attached to him a bad thing?  If you're worrying about how well you're advancing without doing a quest, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.  If just doing the dungeon was all that mattered, than advancement shouldn't matter.  

MMOs are NOT going back to the mindless grind model.  NEVER again.  Quests will always be an option and just like in 2004 with WOW, you never had to do them.   In WAR grinding mobs is actually faster, since quests give you so little EXP. 

OMG son you are bordering on delusional! Now lemme take you back, ... way back to EQ1 we used to get quests that would take days or weeks, maybe even months to complete. when we were frustrated with that we went out and killed some mobs that were level appropriate. If we got a good group going we would go hit some dungeons. In time you would learn your character and the skills if you were so inclined and had sufficient skills you could apply to a raiding guild and maybe get through the initiation then proceed in this path.
 

When you say "not going back to the mindless grind model" WTF do you think you are at now other than even more "Mindless". Now you get a quest that shouldn't take more than 15 to 30 minutes you are told a short story about EXACTLY where to go and what to do when you get there, in addition your addons immediately start flashing big red arrows with lablels to the effect of "THIS WAY TO THE FASTEST WAY TO GET TO MAX LEVEL!!! press ok to autocomplete this quest while you sleep". before you get a chance to click that you get another pop up tot he effect of "You have won the auction for the UBER DUBER PURPLE item to help you win the game, please enter your credit card # to win the game"

F ing BS!!!

Some quests over the years have blown my mind (stories, puzzles...ect) but they are few and far between.  I think people do want these but the writers and devs are incapable of creating enough to fill (even 50% of) the game.

Of course i am a big RP (in my head) and i will gladly go out and kill 1000 orcs in a battlefield so long as i am free to do it the way i want (not just in that specific camp ontop of the hill for example).  But hey thats just me...

People just want the next level as quick as possible. Killing mobs has been boring since day 1 of mmo 1. We want to play with new powers and ability points, end of story.

Originally posted by drDamage

Now you get a quest that shouldn't take more than 15 to 30 minutes you are told a short story about EXACTLY where to go and what to do when you get there, in addition your addons immediately start flashing big red arrows with lablels to the effect of "THIS WAY TO THE FASTEST WAY TO GET TO MAX LEVEL!!!

I can remember playing I guess it was Wizardry 6.  It took me over a year to get through the game (no hint book.. aka I didn't buy it).  I would get stuck and a week would go by maybe two... I literally would wake up and think "hey let's try..." and I would advance some until I got stuck again.

When I move forward into the world of MMO's...  Ultima Online and EQ1 people seemed to think that way.  People who were lost I'd offer advice to etc  (I didn't play AC1 is why I didn't list it.. so others probably saw people with the mindset of explore and learn there as well).

At some point later I noticed when a game launched... You would see this world spam (general chat.. shout /ooc etc) about.. "How do I..."

and I would think to myself its the first day of a new game.  What happened to explore your world... figure stuff out.  What is the point of having someone just tell you everything right off.

These aren't the lessons learned by a seasoned player... things that you could tell a new player to avoid certain things.  You know advice...  People just wanted to know how to get from Point A to Point B... fast and without having to figure it out.  After I first saw it.. every game was like that.

Then you move forward to WoW and eventually the add-on with the big arrows etc that tells you not only where all your quests are.. but the fastest order to do them.  I don't question people wanting to get somewhere fast... people take shortcuts all the time.  What I always found odd was... why go into this fantasy world .. when you don't want to know anything about it.

For example... I wouldn't buy crossword puzzles if I didn't want to do crossword puzzles.  What would be the point of buying them.. just to turn around and get a guidebook with the answers.... that's what this seems to me..

and this started before WoW... tho I can't honestly say what the first game was... where I saw someone spamming for the answers to everything. 

Originally posted by Antarious

Originally posted by drDamage

Now you get a quest that shouldn't take more than 15 to 30 minutes you are told a short story about EXACTLY where to go and what to do when you get there, in addition your addons immediately start flashing big red arrows with lablels to the effect of "THIS WAY TO THE FASTEST WAY TO GET TO MAX LEVEL!!!

 

 

I can remember playing I guess it was Wizardry 6.  It took me over a year to get through the game (no hint book.. aka I didn't buy it).  I would get stuck and a week would go by maybe two... I literally would wake up and think "hey let's try..." and I would advance some until I got stuck again.

 

When I move forward into the world of MMO's...  Ultima Online and EQ1 people seemed to think that way.  People who were lost I'd offer advice to etc  (I didn't play AC1 is why I didn't list it.. so others probably saw people with the mindset of explore and learn there as well).

 

At some point later I noticed when a game launched... You would see this world spam (general chat.. shout /ooc etc) about.. "How do I..."

 

and I would think to myself its the first day of a new game.  What happened to explore your world... figure stuff out.  What is the point of having someone just tell you everything right off.

 

These aren't the lessons learned by a seasoned player... things that you could tell a new player to avoid certain things.  You know advice...  People just wanted to know how to get from Point A to Point B... fast and without having to figure it out.  After I first saw it.. every game was like that.

 

Then you move forward to WoW and eventually the add-on with the big arrows etc that tells you not only where all your quests are.. but the fastest order to do them.  I don't question people wanting to get somewhere fast... people take shortcuts all the time.  What I always found odd was... why go into this fantasy world .. when you don't want to know anything about it.

 

For example... I wouldn't buy crossword puzzles if I didn't want to do crossword puzzles.  What would be the point of buying them.. just to turn around and get a guidebook with the answers.... that's what this seems to me..

 

and this started before WoW... tho I can't honestly say what the first game was... where I saw someone spamming for the answers to everything. 

Let's say you enjoy doing a crossword puzzle because you like filling in all the little boxes while you chat with a friend. And maybe your friend fills in a box, and passes the puzzle to you, and you fill in a box.

However, the word for all the boxes is "cat". Now, there are clues for every part of the puzzle.

1. What says Meow?

2. What's furry and has whiskers?

3. What has four legs and likes to eat fish?

Now, would you just take the puzzle and start filling in "cat" in every box, or read every question before filling in the boxes? I'm going to just fill in the boxes, but that's just me.

The MMO is "story that doesn't change the game world" and I get some crappy boots, or a few silver pieces.

It never changes. It's always "cat". No matter what the story is, I get some crappy boots or a few silver pieces. Why would I read the story? I already know the outcome. I get some crappy boots and a few silver pieces.

Oh yeah, that question turns my stomach "what the fastest way to ...?". where is the fire?, I mean really. I think a big part of the problem is that you can actually make "max level" in many of the newer games in a matter of weeks even at a casual pace. In EQ1 you new (at one time) level 40 meant someone did a lot of work and as such knew their way around some parts of the world at least and they definately knew how to play their character. Like people just simply didn't log on and announce stuff like "come grind this quest tonight, I need three more levels to max out" or "were gonna farm the crap out of boss XYZ cause he's dropping purples that are selling for 1,879,250 gold in the AH right now"

Some of the people that came to EQ say from 2002 onward din't really get to see the game in a good light, by that time the economies were screwed and LDON had totally screwed the PVP element. all the veterans were two and three boxing and it was difficult for a new person to get groups to do the old world stuff.

I will say this tho, IF Sony started a brand new server and didn't allow the economy to get F'ed up, I would sign up in a heartbeat and I would also pay twice what a WoW subscription costs. It would be really cool especially if they timed the "re-release of the expansions on the new server>

i used to be boared to death by mob grinding. now i am bored to death with quest grinding.

i am wondering what will i be bored to death by next?

at least mob grinding was social. wow is such a lonely game until you start begging people for a spot in a raiding guild.

Seriously though it seems like everyone is severe ADD afflicted now though. if you take much longer that 5 - 10 minutes to get going you will already be losing players because there is literally NOTHING to do in the meantime. before you could keep 3,4 or 5 people happy and together "grinding mobs" or trying to crack a new zone/dungeon untill you got a party built that could do what you wanted, but now if it takes 10 minutes everyone is like "WTF I could have done 2 courier quests by now and got way more XP.... I'm out"

Originally posted by drDamage

Seriously though it seems like everyone is severe ADD afflicted now though. if you take much longer that 5 - 10 minutes to get going you will already be losing players because there is literally NOTHING to do in the meantime. before you could keep 3,4 or 5 people happy and together "grinding mobs" or trying to crack a new zone/dungeon untill you got a party built that could do what you wanted, but now if it takes 10 minutes everyone is like "WTF I could have done 2 courier quests by now and got way more XP.... I'm out"

I completely agree with this post.  In EQ I can remember exploring or visiting merchants or the bank while the group leaders tries to get a full group together.  Hell, sometimes if our healer left in an already established group, we'd just sit there for 20-30 minutes talking to each other while the leader tries to find a new healer.  We didn't mind.

Today if the healer or tank leaves the group the whole group collapses within minutes.

Also in UO it would take an hour or more to get everyone together that was going on a scheduled dungeon crawl, we all waited for everyone.  Today either half the group starts without the other half, or after 10 minutes they just say forget it and leave the group to go do their own thing.

It almost makes me cry.

Originally posted by Neanderthal
 

Everyone always says that WoW is so casual friendly but I think that's a little misleading.  It depends on what casual means to you.  WoW is defeninately solo friendly.  And it's stupidly easy.  And there is no death penalty.  And you can play in short increments.  But on the other hand the gameplay consists entirely of <RUN RUN RUN RUN, GET THINGS DONE, RUN RUN RUN, NO TIME TO STOP, NO TIME TO TALK, RUN RUN RUN, RUN BACK AND FORTH, RUN HERE AND THERE, RUN RUN RUN>.  

Of course any given individual could take it easy but the mentallity of the player base sets the tone and the game design shapes the mentality of the playerbase.  And in WoW and games like it the game design is RUN RUN RUN.  Hell, leveling up in EQ had a more casual feel to it than WoW because you just explored where your whims took you and when you were focusing on leveling you were basically just hanging out with some people camping spawns.  So I'm going to say, despite the flames which will come down on me for saying it, that leveling in EQ WAS more casual that leveling in WoW.  More casual in the sense that it was more relaxed and social and didn't feel so rushed.  Of course it took about a million times longer to reach max level in EQ but that would only be a negative to the....gasp...min/maxing power leveler.  The person who really is playing a game just for fun and not for Epeen wouldn't care if the leveling process took longer.

Thank you for this post!  You spelled out exactly how I've been feeling for a few years now, but I haven't been able to explain it to anybody nearly as well as you've explained it here.

Cheers

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

Originally posted by Dameonk

Originally posted by drDamage

Seriously though it seems like everyone is severe ADD afflicted now though. if you take much longer that 5 - 10 minutes to get going you will already be losing players because there is literally NOTHING to do in the meantime. before you could keep 3,4 or 5 people happy and together "grinding mobs" or trying to crack a new zone/dungeon untill you got a party built that could do what you wanted, but now if it takes 10 minutes everyone is like "WTF I could have done 2 courier quests by now and got way more XP.... I'm out"

 

I completely agree with this post.  In EQ I can remember exploring or visiting merchants or the bank while the group leaders tries to get a full group together.  Hell, sometimes if our healer left in an already established group, we'd just sit there for 20-30 minutes talking to each other while the leader tries to find a new healer.  We didn't mind.

Today if the healer or tank leaves the group the whole group collapses within minutes.

Also in UO it would take an hour or more to get everyone together that was going on a scheduled dungeon crawl, we all waited for everyone.  Today either half the group starts without the other half, or after 10 minutes they just say forget it and leave the group to go do their own thing.

It almost makes me cry.

The key difference between EQ and WoW, is that it takes a lot of effort to get a group going, and an even greater effort to fight the way into a camp.  Once inside a camp, it is very hard to get out, no kidding.  IF you do not have a druid or wizard, only the casters can bail, the melees will have to fight the way out.

So if you have a group and you lose someone, you tend to wait for him to return, if you are deep inside a zone (not instanced).  You will not disband if you lose a member, you will leave him to sure death and painful corpse run if you bail, you wait, and you fight out or train out (and die on the way) if he does not come back.

Ok so we chat, not b/c I love you, but b/c we are in the same boat of deep sh*t.

On the other hand, EQ is such a small game that we know most of the guys at the "end game" level.  We tend to know each other somewhat, and so we talk more.  In WoW, we talk even more if its a guild or friend run, b/c the chat box and vent allows better communication.  Unfortunately given the huge population size, too many PUG members are new, and its hard just to warm up and talk all of a sudden when we stopped pulling due to whatever.

Originally posted by Orthedos

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

I think if you read the OP it is clear that "players" means the majority of players in MMORPGs.

The statistics from teh quoted article should indicate that this is what is intended.

Maybe people love leveling up so much because when you level up, you get to make choices that have an impact.  To my mind, the essense of "grind" is that it is mechanical - you just do what you are supposed to do.

Maybe if the choice of quest, or the choice of which mobs to hunt, had more of an impact, it would feel less like a grind.

Originally posted by MudHekket

Maybe people love leveling up so much because when you level up, you get to make choices that have an impact.  To my mind, the essense of "grind" is that it is mechanical - you just do what you are supposed to do.

Maybe if the choice of quest, or the choice of which mobs to hunt, had more of an impact, it would feel less like a grind.

I think you hit the nail on the head. If you were working on a goal that was more than just getting some gear, or making another level, it would change the game dramatically.

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 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

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

Mike Jefferson

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

---

Originally posted by Orthedos
The key difference between EQ and WoW, is that it takes a lot of effort to get a group going, and an even greater effort to fight the way into a camp.  Once inside a camp, it is very hard to get out, no kidding.

---

Agreed. Good summary of an important distinction. EverQuest imposed commitment on the players while World of Warcraft lets players be as fickle as they care to be.

Something that you didn't touch on is that both games place great emphasis on personal goals. It develops an attitude of "I'm only grouping with people because it advances my personal goals." In EverQuest, I had to group if I wanted to pursue my goals, and once grouped I was really locked in. In World of Warcraft, I really don't have to group because I can pursue my goals solo. I don't need a group.

I wonder if the solution isn't to switch from personal goals to community goals. It develops a sense of "we're all in this together". Dark Age of Camelot did a bit of that with its realm versus realm stuff. Players there always viewed realm members as someone that they worked with. They might do nothing more than give them an update on what's happening, or they might group up for mutual defense or mutual attack.

Originally posted by Jefferson81

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 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

 

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

 

Mike Jefferson

 

 

 

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

 

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

 

That is the definition of a quest.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Jefferson81

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 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

 

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

 

Mike Jefferson

 

 

 

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

 

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

 

 

That is the definition of a quest.

So when your significant other tells you to take out the garbage or to go to the store and buy some milk or some orange juice then you are on a quest?

Originally posted by Antarious

Then you move forward to WoW and eventually the add-on with the big arrows etc that tells you not only where all your quests are.. but the fastest order to do them.  I don't question people wanting to get somewhere fast... people take shortcuts all the time.  What I always found odd was... why go into this fantasy world .. when you don't want to know anything about it.

 

You don't get gamers, do you? It is not about knowing the world. It is not about the world at all. It is about power,  hack-n-slash (the use of that power). Pure and simple.

Why is Diablo so much more popular than other RPGs at the same? It is because it discard the unnecessarily elements (puzzle, stories and lore) and focus on what people want the most: kill things in neat ways and power up (level, items, skills, what-not).

All the addons, webites like wowhead, are designed to take the player to the FUN part as fast as possible. Surely one man's fun is another man's grind. However, given the popularity of games like WOW, Diablo, Dynasty Warrior ... many many players found that hack-n-slash is fun.

Originally posted by Jefferson81

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Jefferson81

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 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

 

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

 

Mike Jefferson

 

 

 

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

 

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

 

 

That is the definition of a quest.

 

So when your significant other tells you to take out the garbage or to go to the store and buy some milk or some orange juice then you are on a quest?

 

If I"m going to get a reward for it, sure.

The Quest for teh Holy Orange Juice. I hope I don't end up at Castle Anthrax on the way back!