Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

---

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

---

Originally posted by lizardbones
MMORPG started without quests. Companies added quests and they made more money.

---

Yeah UO was 14 years ago. They are still up and running and still able to charge a monthly fee but the facts show the money is clearly in themeparks. 
AoC - oh wait...... they went free to play. 
DDO - oh wait...... they went free to play.
LotRO - oh wait..... they went free to play. 
STO - Oh wait......... they went free to play. 
DCUO - Oh wait....... they went free to play. 
CO - Oh wai........ they went free to play. 
Surely EQ2 - oh wait they went free to play. 
You know...... come to think of it. How many themeparks that have come along since EQ1 are still able to charge a monthly fee?
So sure....... some have made more money by adding quests. WoW, Rift, EQ1.....
But most seem forced to either go free to play or shut down. 
 

---

Making more money is making more money. Doesn't matter if you make more money with box sales, subscription fees or a cash shop.

 

Hey your right, just because players didn't enjoy the game enough to actually stick around and play it that shouldn't mean anything for an MMO. Long as you get that box sales. Most that play free to plays actually don't spend any cash, those that do though tend to spend a good bit so I will have to give that one to you. 

But keep in mind, that model seems to be tanking faster and faster with each release. The markets saturated with Themeparks and this is the biggest reason most themeparks fail to hold people or perform well. 

Also keep in mind some of the best selling games period, Non MMO of course are sandbox. 

While MMO devs seem to ignore this, at least other devs aren't. 

 

1 person paying 15/month versus 100 people playing with 50 paying 1/month actually works out to more money - this is how the F2P model works.  It's about a flexible pricing structure and people not wanting to pay "the going rate" doesn't invalidate the product.  Also, I'm curious about the whole model "tanking faster and faster".  Crap games are still crap games, regardless of the price charged (or not charged) to play them.

I wish they would cut the quantity of quests in half or more and put more time into interesting complex quests.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Quest, except modern mmo design quest are all single player type of quest. It segregates players from each other because, unless you are in a group, quest is single player.

In a MMO environment, EVERYTHING should be group oriented, now I'm not saying you have to party up all the time, but that quest should be open to everyone, if the quest is active, everyone in the environment should be able to part take in the quest and complete it together, same party or not.

Thats why Dynamic events is the answer to this, a lot of people emphasis that dynamic events isn't actually dynamic, but the main point of DE is that, everyone player is group inherently, they are playing together all the time.

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by lizardbones

MMORPG started without quests. Companies added quests and they made more money.

Yeah UO was 14 years ago. They are still up and running and still able to charge a monthly fee but the facts show the money is clearly in themeparks. 

AoC - oh wait...... they went free to play. 

DDO - oh wait...... they went free to play.

LotRO - oh wait..... they went free to play. 

STO - Oh wait......... they went free to play. 

DCUO - Oh wait....... they went free to play. 

CO - Oh wai........ they went free to play. 

Surely EQ2 - oh wait they went free to play. 

You know...... come to think of it. How many themeparks that have come along since EQ1 are still able to charge a monthly fee? How many flops have there been? People are clinging to games like DFO and MO because there really isn't any other option. EvE is doing well still though. 

So sure....... some have made more money by adding quests. Aion, WoW, Rift, EQ1.....

But most seem forced to either go free to play or shut down. 

 

I think this was a great list...of shit games lol. Aion, WoW and Rift are just shit games with accessibility. EQ 1 and Asheron's call have devoted fans but the age of those games are over and, for some reason "Decent" or "Ok" passes for good. Moore's Law really does only work for machines, wish it worked for publishers and developers or just humans in general.

EDIT: Maybe "shit games" went a little overboard I do that sometimes...:\

Originally posted by Lathial

Originally posted by Nerf09

Originally posted by Elricmerren

In even old times D&D games they had quests though most would see them as campains, or adventures and in most of these settings you would gain experince from teh quests after finishing them as wel as gaining rewards. ....

If my Dungeon Master had said, "OK now you go kill 20 Teenage Rats, the reward will be 30 experience points and 1 gold."  I would have walked away and burned my AD and D books.

This made me crack up!  Thank you!  Also, you know- this got me thinking:

 

This should be the "litmus test" for game designers when adding quests to their games- they have to ask themselves: "If my dungeon master gave me this quest would I walk out and burn my D&D books?"

 

Lath

 Yet you went out to retrive an item, find a person, or investigate some occurance that happened in a town or village. Campains in D&D were really a story driven set of quests with either you gaining gold, items, or favors from the people that needed you to do them. These thigns giving you exp was a side feature yes normally from either you doing thigns that were either based to yoru alignment or differnet. Really how offen in a D&D grou did you not come into a city and find out that somethigns was happening, with them looking for someone to investagate it. I remeber being a paladin in my 2'nd edition games getting asked by my order to retrive a manual that had een hidden in a temple that was later destroyed, and now had cultist coming up upin it. Now yes never saw generlized quests of going and killing rats, though i remeber gettng sent out to kill goblins or trolls that had seattled in a cave near villages threatening to attack. It is all in presentation of the quests/missions that matters. Most of the filler quests in mmos are well filler they were ment to fill the gaps between story quests that propell you forwards, i used those in my groups on nights with only partial attendance as a way of enjoying without leaving people behind. Saddly you cann't get the same customized feel fo campain quests from D&D in mmos mostly becase they were created over a week or more to tell a story, as well as adjusted to the group on a group by group basis. With having how many people playing these it would need a dev team completely deticated to creating new qests weekly that get added as the old quest from the last week are removed to keep it fresh. I could see somethign like a quest wheel that would rotate in new quests into the areas each week, while removing the old from last week to keep it somwhat fresh.

Originally posted by Lathial

Originally posted by Nerf09

Originally posted by Elricmerren

In even old times D&D games they had quests though most would see them as campains, or adventures and in most of these settings you would gain experince from teh quests after finishing them as wel as gaining rewards. ....

If my Dungeon Master had said, "OK now you go kill 20 Teenage Rats, the reward will be 30 experience points and 1 gold."  I would have walked away and burned my AD and D books.

This made me crack up!  Thank you!  Also, you know- this got me thinking:

 

This should be the "litmus test" for game designers when adding quests to their games- they have to ask themselves: "If my dungeon master gave me this quest would I walk out and burn my D&D books?"

 

Lath

Most DnD campaigns ARE like that.  There's just no ? over the NPC's heads, and the "kill" quests are done on an encounter by encounter basis.  Heck, the old school books even had "wandering monster" tables!  That's the PnP equivalent of the trash mobs standing out in the field.

Most DM's I played with didn't just award monster XP.  They awarded RP XP, XP for finding intelligent solutions to problems, as well as some completion XP.  Again, much like MMO's do, though the "intelligent solution" bit is usually done via puzzle solving or surviving a raid bosses special attacks via some tactical element.

Now, I'd like to see ? NPC's go away as much as anyone, but that's not the same thing as wanting quests to go away.  I just would like to see the quests unfold in a less vulgar manner.  That's why I'm watching GW2 development with mucho interest.  Questing has been a S&S mainstay since the dawn of RPG's.  They should always be in MMO's, but I'd like to see them unfold in a much more immersive way.

Games shouldnt remove questing mmos should remove anything at all they need to ADD things.

a game should have quests, if you dont want to do themthey should offer you something else.

Themeparks are just a easy way to create a mmorpg and the mmorpgs we call a sandbox are infact a real mmorpg in my opinion only the current sandboxes out there are also missing certain elements.

If you want to explore, quests do not prevent it.  They've never stopped me since it's one of the most important aspects of any game I've played.  Although it's true that developers may choose to stuff an empty world full of quests to cover the fact that their world has absolutely no personality of its own, those are games that I won't play, or at least I won't play for long.  There are others that will give me my magellanic fix.

Quests are not inherantly bad, just the way they've traditionally been implemented.  Quests are still a common feature of tabletop RPGs, but those are usually designed to be long and involved mini-stories, requiring planning, coordination, skill, time, sometimes money and sometimes luck to complete.  They can take anywhere up to several game sessions to complete, although usually it can be done in just one. 

This is what questing should be.  Rather than stuffing a log full of banal tasks to accomplish (like a list of chores pinned to a fridge door), make quests important and require more than just the most rudimentary of preparations to complete.  Make each one an achievement of importance, not a way to kill time.  Only set a grand goal for the player and let them decide how best to accomplish it.  If they decide that certain menial tasks will help them reach their goal, that's fine, so long as it's not the only way to get there.

Quests aren't bad, they're just usually designed as time sinks rather than adventures.

Originally posted by Elricmerren

Originally posted by Lathial

Originally posted by Nerf09

Originally posted by Elricmerren

In even old times D&D games they had quests though most would see them as campains, or adventures and in most of these settings you would gain experince from teh quests after finishing them as wel as gaining rewards. ....

If my Dungeon Master had said, "OK now you go kill 20 Teenage Rats, the reward will be 30 experience points and 1 gold."  I would have walked away and burned my AD and D books.

This made me crack up!  Thank you!  Also, you know- this got me thinking:

 

This should be the "litmus test" for game designers when adding quests to their games- they have to ask themselves: "If my dungeon master gave me this quest would I walk out and burn my D&D books?"

 

Lath

 Yet you went out to retrive an item, find a person, or investigate some occurance that happened in a town or village. Campains in D&D were really a story driven set of quests with either you gaining gold, items, or favors from the people that needed you to do them. These thigns giving you exp was a side feature yes normally from either you doing thigns that were either based to yoru alignment or differnet. Really how offen in a D&D grou did you not come into a city and find out that somethigns was happening, with them looking for someone to investagate it. I remeber being a paladin in my 2'nd edition games getting asked by my order to retrive a manual that had een hidden in a temple that was later destroyed, and now had cultist coming up upin it. Now yes never saw generlized quests of going and killing rats, though i remeber gettng sent out to kill goblins or trolls that had seattled in a cave near villages threatening to attack. It is all in presentation of the quests/missions that matters. Most of the filler quests in mmos are well filler they were ment to fill the gaps between story quests that propell you forwards, i used those in my groups on nights with only partial attendance as a way of enjoying without leaving people behind. Saddly you cann't get the same customized feel fo campain quests from D&D in mmos mostly becase they were created over a week or more to tell a story, as well as adjusted to the group on a group by group basis. With having how many people playing these it would need a dev team completely deticated to creating new qests weekly that get added as the old quest from the last week are removed to keep it fresh. I could see somethign like a quest wheel that would rotate in new quests into the areas each week, while removing the old from last week to keep it somwhat fresh.

I agree with you on your points and would like to also point out as a current pnp DM that my gaming has changed over time- I dont want to start a old gen vs new gen battle here but I will add these points-

When I started DM'ing (around age 13) my friends were less interested in the story and more interested in the killing and loot.  I learned this very quicky as any story or mystery I tried to create would fall apart pretty quickly.  So, I would make these pretty easy encounters which consited of you travel to a town and they need you to clear out the trolls from the caves nearby.  This would lead you to the next town where they needed you to clear out the cemetary of undead.  

However, now, my players are more interested in the journey, story, and challenge.  I have to work extremely hard to create stories and or mysteries that are interesting and can be approached from many angles (afterall, my players prefer more shades of grey in a dark world- as opposed to playing the lawful good fella charging in on his white horse)  One thing we also do is make magic items very rare- as in that chain +1 is compairable to t1 raid value- and fights are a 50/50 situation were winning takes tactics and the use of all the skills available.  Also, exp and loot is very slow to keep the challenge level high.  Instead of a high exp and loot system i use a reward system that I made up using homemade "get out of jail free cards" that give things like "Double Attack" for those times when you miss and want to re-roll.  Or "Adrenaline Life" where you get extra hp's (one or two attacks) past your normal death...these are just combat examples but there are a lot and I try to reward them based on the characters actions which can include diplomacy etc..  I allow my players to only have one card at a time and they earn them as rewards.

Anyways, my point, I think, is-  what my friends and I look for in pnp games has evolved with age.  The interesting thing is MMORPS's began, IMO, more like my current pnp experience (challenging) and has moved to how my early pnp experience was - just fighting with lots of exp and heavy loot based and very easy-  (I understand all games have fighting and loot but when you get a whole new set of gear each 1/2 level its a little much IMO) .  When UO, EQ and AO, and AC were around I really was hopefull for the future of gaming and thought it would evolve in the same direction as pnp depth and challenge.  It has not.

Lath

While I do not appreciate quests basically leading the players throughout the world in a rather linear pathway, your measures would simply be too radical. I find it crucial to provide the players with a reference point, a realistic goal that the player can log in and try and accomplish. That is why abolishing quests would not work out well. Players would feel rather stranded, their adventures would lack any meaningful purpose, and their overall connections to NPC's and locations would be severely limited. Storytelling would also suffer greatly from the loss of quests. How would you find out about the world and its inhabitants without quests, without some sort of storyline?

A questing system that makes the players feel attached to the game while not guiding them every step of the way would be ideal. Furthermore, questing can't be the primary focus of a game. They should be used, but not in the exorbitant fashion present in most modern MMOs. Also, decisions within quests should matter. In that, I believe SWTOR hits the mark. The players need to be given the opportunity to approach a quest the way they see fit and not the way the game intends them to. Regarding quests that actually impact the world in persistent and significant ways, I believe those are hard to implement within an online scenario, yet perhaps one day it will be possible with more advanced technology.

problem here is not quests per see, its the way they are using then, we had quests back there normally was important ones or just something you had to do to mantain your alignment if that was the case, but back tehn we had to type what we wanted, we had to read and ask for quest, one thing would like this

you : hello <npc name>

npc : huh? who the hell are you? .... ah sorry i'm a little worried with a problem I have.

y: problem?

npc tell the problem, and you offer to help him, you go resolve the problem and go back and say I did what you ask and so on.

back then you had to read quests and quests had a meaning, and you had to read too to know what you had to do, now is just click npc enter enter, follow arrows, quest done rinse and repeat. if you are like me who read all quests you know the lore and even can complete quests faster and easyer,  but you don't need do it anymore, so its became another kind of grind.

I agree, they should make fewer quests that are more significant. EQ2 has all the small quests but they still have the huge epic quests that require you to do a lot of work and sometimes even form a raid.

Problem is, the instant gratification people have become accustomed to. I don't think that will go away.

Originally posted by Lathial

 

I have played (and tried) pretty much every MMO from UO to Rift and one thing that has become more and more predominant in games is questing.   In most games these days you can quest from level one to cap.  In my opinion, game companies used the single player quest driven games (like Oblivion, Balders Gate etc) and just added a multiplayer option to them.  With SWTOR coming out soon and taking questing to “another level” with voiced actors etc it got me thinking: I think this might be the wrong direction for MMO’s

 

Below are some ideas of why this may be the wrong direction and maybe some suggestions of how to correct this.  (This list of ideas is not complete nor is it about one game.  It is my opinion of how questing is “hurting” MMO’s) suggestions, additions and comments are welcomed-

 

-questing is “grinding”.  It is grinding with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.  You still have to kill 1,000 rats but at least you are doing it for a reason. Unfortunately, the reason you are killing rats is so bland that most people do not read or do not care to read why.   Most of us have done this so often that it hurts our eyes to read the quests.

 

-quests have no impact on the game.  In single player RPG’s you kill the rats and “poof” you can see the results and now all the rats are gone from the sewers.  You can re-visit the sewers and all the rats are “still” dead.  You made an impact on the game.

 

-questing hurts exploration.  Questing guides players through a predetermined set experience.  Everyone does the same thing from start to finish.  Games do not have to be “worldly” if they have a lot of quests that guide players though the experience.  For example, RIFT, is a very small world.  There is not a lot of exploring to do in the game and it is so packed with quests that each zone zooms by without impacting your experience.

 

-questing ruins “your story”.  I think this is the most important point of them all.  “Your story” is being created by the quests.  Your character is the result of quests- not the story you created for your character.   In single player RPG’s your story is usually grand and you “save the world” and the things you do have an impact upon the game (you killed all the rats in the sewer. Now, there are no more rats in the sewer).  In EQ1, UO and other older games, I can only remember a handful of quests.  I think there was some basic “turn in rat pelts” and the other quests were epic quests for “epic” rewards.   In the in-between-time the player created their own story by exploring and experiencing the game by weaving their own characters quests and story. 

 

What if we took the quests out of MMO’s? Why not just created a large explorable world with interesting lore and creatures. Where “living” within this world and learning of its cultures and finding ancient ruins to explore was the “quests”.  Remove the predetermined set of experiences (quests) and just release the players into the world and let them create their own stories.  If we do this, we won’t be “cookie cutters” of each other.  We will truly have our own stories of where we have been and what we have seen and done.

 

Lathial

I think it should be a huge diverse world packed full with dungeons ruines mysterious places mythycal creatures also dangerous and would be nice if its all dynamic mobs beast npcs roam around. Dynamic weather system and storms floods vulcano eruptions tornados that chance the shape of surroundings. Just one big exploring world full of secrets.

Darkfall have such a world but there is not much to find or explore mysterious things not much pve and secret places to unravel mysteries.

Morrowind with todays graphics in mmo setting without hold hand and quest im in:)

Bad Idea.  Questing is what made MMO's what they are today.  Say what you want about some of the quality, but questing played a large role in why they are so popular now.

Keep questing.  Every game should have it, to some extent.

I liked the way AC1 and EQ1 did quests.  Very few quests, but they for the most part all had meaningful rewards.  Like EQ1 had the Temple of Solusek Ro which had a boatload of class specific quests offerend in that zone and all of them had cool rewards, then later on they did epics, the Coldain Shawl and Dain's Ring (two awesome quests btw).  Similarily AC had quests like the Sword of Lost Light and other similar quests.

Having quests just for the sake of having quests gets boring, and in games like RIFT it forces you on to a specific path, whereas in EQ and AC you had countless choices of places to go to level and basically every level range.

It also makes grouping with other people difficult a lot of the time because you probably aren't doing the same quests.  Some people will say it is better than grinding but grinding quests and grinding experience points by just killing stuff are both grinding, just different forms.

I hope questing will be better in TOR because it is supposed to drive the storyline, but for most games I'd prefer a system like EQ and AC.

It just sounds to me like the OP wants sandbox games. Fortunately there are some out there. They are not, however, anywhere near as popular or successful as the themepark games. That is why no major developers make them anymore.

I guess that is it really not weither we remove questing, but how much questing is a good match for immersion and leveling purposes. Honestly i would devide up quests into several groups that would give you different thigns based on the group t is apart of. These quest groups would be thigns like wanted/task quests that are about getting sent out to kill or gather things in the areas around the town, and would be daily but would grant little to no experince with a good supply of money incentive. You would then have the story quests most of whhich would be either tied to a class or area/story arc giving you more info and lore on the game as you finsih them; these would give you more experince with no gold but most at some point would give you a nice reward of items or gear (would be like group chain quests.). Then you  would have Elite quests that are basically waned quests for highly dangerous creature and npcs, that would give you more money as well as expence but no lore largely. The last quests would be relic quests things that unvail the secrets and history or lies that are in the game to you, wiht you gaining alot fo bonus and fluff for their completeion even ranks or such. If you limited and made the story and relic quests vary indivigual from zone to zone with them actually feeling interesting you would make them enjoyable with the other quests being a means of keeping yourself fed and in money for what you need when you want something.

I am totally for this no questing idea. There should be a few quests, and made more of an epic "event". as oppose to just, o, I did a "quest". No, a REAL quest should take you days, perhaps weeks for the more difficult ones. and when you are finished, you will feel like you really DID accomplish something

What they need to do is to remove "levels", and by removing levels you'll remove the need to have stupid quests where you go run errands for the worthless NPC statues, that can't seem to do a damn thing themselves!

Originally posted by Joshua69

I am totally for this no questing idea. There should be a few quests, and made more of an epic "event". as oppose to just, o, I did a "quest". No, a REAL quest should take you days, perhaps weeks for the more difficult ones. and when you are finished, you will feel like you really DID accomplish something

Honestly, quests have to remain and I think 99% of us realize that.  Quests need to change, be more dynamic, and have more meaning.  I want looooong, epic chain quests.  I want so many quests that no one can even come close to completing them all.  I want you to have to choose between quests and not know the real outcome.... Throwing out questing isn't an option, but it's definitely time for them to evolve.