I was just wondering if there were any other MMO's out there with actually enjoyable questing systems. Instead of having to download thousands of GB's of files just to test out games, I thought I'd ask the folks here for a briefing about the game which they think has the best questing system they've played.

Just to give you some background info: I play EVE Online. However, I play that mostly for PvP content which is more than enough for me. I do sometimes feel like doing some PvE but i've more or less exhausted all the PvE content there and it's quite old.

What Game had your favourite questing system? and why (just a little brief description)

I have a soft spot for UO's bulk order deeds. 

You go to a blacksmith and pick up an order to craft X of item Y made of material Z.   You can go out, gather materials, make the items and turn it in immediately for a new quest or you can save it for a rainy day and come back for another order after a timeout expires.  The collected quests, you can save up and do in one huge binge, trade to other players or keep in hopes that you will get a rare large order that asks for a collection of small orders.

It's not that it's crafting (although I did enjoy that), it's just that extra layer of structure that comes from having quests be a collectable thing and having quests to collect subquests.  I would sometimes go out and buy a book of a few hundred surplus orders from another player and that would effectively become a mini-campaign for me.

( a high-end blueprint in EvE feels a little similar to this if you ignore being efficient and using the markets and just focus on gathering the materials yourself )

SWG.  The quests themselves sucked, but the fact that there weren't giant icons or question marks above the NPC's heads made it for me.  I like discovering things and the community building that goes into creating guides outside of the game.  I also do not like cut scenes in a MMO.

I love the questing part in mmo's, especially if it's well-written, with a good lore and story. Actually it's a more important element to decide keep / uninstall a game than any other part of it. So based on that I could list games with good questing, but you asked questing system... which makes it more difficult. :)

I think questing system is pretty much the same in most games, pick them up, follow the to-do checklist, then give them in. My two favourite questing systems would be AoC and TSW, because both tried to somewhat differ from that "standard".

AoC changed the Accept / Decline buttons for actual conversations with the npc's, sometimes with different options based on the home country of your character. Sadly they couldn't ditch the standard entirely for not chasing the wow-crowd away, so (with only one exception) all quests in AoC are pickable with only repeatedly pushing 1. during the conversations...

TSW tried to change the system in elswhere. You take the quest the regular 1-click way (just with cutscene and not with written text), but you can have only 1 main quest and 3 side quests at a time. Next to that FC spreaded the quests all across the area, creating multiple 'questing threads' so with that way changing the regular quest hub system to a much more story-oriented, exploration kinda questing. It gives the questing a nice 'flow' :)

Guild Wars 1 was one of the best I've seen.  Few quests, usually meaningful, and the storylines fit in nicely.

Originally posted by Quirhid
GW had a great storyline missions. DDO was fun too. Some of AoC's quests and dungeons were also noteworthy.

Ditto on the DDO.  I didn't make it far in there, but the quests were memorable.  Also AOC's Tortage.

Runescape, definitely. Runescape's quests are actually storylines that make

sense in the world they are presented in, not just there to let you level up and

not part of some 'you're the hero!' story. They offer little rewards (again, making

sense according to what you have to do to complete them), but mainly help you

understand the lore and the game world better and to have fun. It might have

a smaller amount of quests than most games, but that's understandable :)

SWTOR

Yes, give me the presentation.

Yes, give me the voice acting.

Yes, give me a story that is more than fan-fic level.

Yes, give me Light / Dark side choices.

Yes, give me a good Star Wars story that stays within the lore!.

The Secret World has hands down the best questing system in the genre.  Fantastic voice acting, well written dialogue, interesting NPCs, fantastic locales, investigation quests that make you use your brain, awesome lore, intriguing storylines, adult themes, lovecraftian horror,and challenging content just to name a few reasons.

Runners up are SWTOR and AoC.

Guild Wars 1. It's full of well-designed missions, like, for example...

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Assault_on_the_Stronghold

Pretty difficult at times, too. DDO is a runner-up and I really enjoyed Anarchy Online's randomly generated dungeons back when I played it.

Some of TSW's quests are great, too, but it also has lots of boring kill/fetch quests.

Originally posted by Draemos

The Secret World has hands down the best questing system in the genre.  Fantastic voice acting, well written dialogue, interesting NPCs, fantastic locales, investigation quests that make you use your brain, awesome lore, intriguing storylines, adult themes, lovecraftian horror,and challenging content just to name a few reasons.

 

Runners up are SWTOR and AoC.

true, except SWTOR questing is way below standards. The only memorable quest was getting HK51 which felt like an RPG at times, that´s about it.

For the rest of SWTOR I only remember clicking X crates or killing X mobs.

So for me it´s Secret World followed by Age of Conan