MMORPG.com is proud to introduce our newest regular columnist, Red 5's Mark Kern. Yep, -that- Mark Kern! In his inaugural column, Mark opines on the idea that a game has finally arrived that deals the death knell to 'quest hubs'. Find out what he's got to say and then weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

They were my fault to begin with, at least partially. You see, I worked on World of Warcraft, the most quest-hub heavy game in existence. I even helped come up with that dang exclamation mark, borrowing it from Diablo 2 and being inspired by Metal Gear Solid. Since WoW, everyone shifted their online quest design to hubs and spokes, and a forest of exclamation marks as far as the eye could see. I, for one, am glad someone finally killed them for good.

Read more of Mark Kern's Quest Hubs Are Dead, Finally!

Welcome, welcome! Have a seat, and try my mead! That'll be 15 silver pieces. :D

Yes, I will agree that "Quest Hubs" have been dealt a Death-Knell in GW2. However, zones are still horrbily linear, and quests are just "Prettied" up by hiding all the relevant data behind a "Progress Bar". However, the grindyness & ease of GW2 lends itself to a standard themepark, of which it fits perfectly into.

I will say that GW2 is the only themepark in the last 7yrs I paid for, and am still casually playing when I'm bored with DAOC, other side projects, and EQ.

At Red 5, a company I founded to try new things, we’ve been cooking up our own version of dynamic world events for a few years now.

Cant really take this article that seriously since its in the writers best interest to have GW2 be as successful as possible in order to better his own company.

I will say that GW2 is the only themepark in the last 7yrs I paid for, and am still casually playing when I'm bored with DAOC, other side projects, and EQ.

So you prefer 2 other MMOs and work before playing GW2.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern
Not that I want to be a doubting Thomas, but weren't the "!" ripped directly from D2?

 

Which were inspired by Metal Gear Solid.

Originally posted by TalulaRose

At Red 5, a company I founded to try new things, we’ve been cooking up our own version of dynamic world events for a few years now.

 

Cant really take this article that seriously since its in the writers best interest to have GW2 be as successful as possible in order to better his own company.

 

I will say that GW2 is the only themepark in the last 7yrs I paid for, and am still casually playing when I'm bored with DAOC, other side projects, and EQ.

 

So you prefer 2 other MMOs and work before playing GW2. Interesting.

 

 

Yea, GW2 was BuyToPlay for a reason. I also don't believe playing a B2P title like it is a P2P title is a feasable outcome. Otherwise you end up hitting level cap and complaining about end-game within the first week (like so many others). I'd rather take my time when I have some to spare than rush to the end.

Silly articles are silly. Daoc had quest hubs long before wow and trying to claim the early success of one game is somehow going to do away with quest hubs is moronic.

[mod edit]

"quest hubs are dead" hmm that's strange because the number one game on this site now GW2 has been released has all the claasic quest and marker hub system of game like WOW.

GW2 system will be short lived,it's just not enough,i good mixture of both is what's needed.Any dev team thinking of doing what GW2 has don't may want to think again,give it another few weeks and many people will soon realise that it really is tedious.

Thanks for having me. Yes, D2 had the marks as well, but both games were in development for a long time, and WoW was being developed even before D2 shipped. 

DAOC had quests, but not nearly to the level that WoW did. During WoW, the feeling was that you always had to have a stuffed quest log that never ran out, so you always had "one more thing to do" 

these are changing times in mmos! and gw2 is leadint the pack!- i hope to see more games take this kind of aproach!

respectively FireFall beign another beast , aside giving missions a fresh look (like sim towers)  i will hope itll have group events! the invasion in the beta are awsome so far!

welcome!

Saying WoW came up with quest hub just underlines the "quality" of the article.

Darkfall also suspended sales (probably too "niche" for the author). 

Anyway, hearts and DEs are actually quest hubs. Quests and quest hubs were not removed, just transformed into automated lore-less zerg fests. 

Originally posted by Thillian

Saying WoW came up with quest hub just underlines the "quality" of the article.

Darkfall also suspended sales (probably too "niche" for the author). 

Anyway, hearts and DEs are actually quest hubs. Quests and quest hubs were not removed, just transformed into automated lore-less zerg fests. 

 

 

 

Hearts are DE's are not hubs. Hearts give you 2-3 tasks which all serve towards filling a bar and completion. DE's are single events. Quest hubs are like 3-8 NPC sitting around a POI that give you 8-12 quests. WoW was the first game to rely soley on quest hubs as the primary means of playing and progression (its the best XP), and really polished them and made them a consistent and dominant form of play.

well i got bored within 2 weeks as the heart quests are some of the most boring pve i have come accross..

Maybe other games will incorporate some things from GW2 but i hope its not the boring quests..

but that at the end of the day is my opinion..

also at the end of the day a GW2 zone is just a quest hub.. with probally less quest content then your average quest hub in other themepark MMORPGs..

My problem with Quest hubs isn't the quest hubs themselves, it is how linear games have made them. After cataclysm I played through the lvl 1-60 quests on WoW. You did quests in a hub, then the quest giver sent you too the next quest hub, and so on. 

WoW has always be somewhat linear, but the new 1-60 quests made it completely linear.

Right now I am enjoying TSW questing. I like that, if you are observant you can find quests,  not every quest is part of the main storyline.  it's fun to just search around and explore, you never know what you may find.

I still haven't tried GW2, but if they are being innovative with quests as well, then good for them.