I second this, but only if you throw in AOL and Brittney Spears analogies as well.Twobit Whore said:
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
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But if you were a person that started in the MMO space with EQ, like me, you recognized that the fed-ex and kill x quests were more "Trip Ticks" or "Map Quest" features than real die hard quests.Daezuel said:
You spend millions of dollars creating content, you want players to see and live in that content, you have to give them reasons to be in that content.
You also need ways to "show them around" beyond the even worse than Fed-Ex quest, the dreaded TOUR GUIDE quest!
I thought, that even while a tad boring, the launch of EQ2 had many quests that had you running all over Freeport for no other reason than to show you what was where.
They added discovery experience to actually make you want to go see things. What would have made that awesome would have been a seamless, zoneless world. The zoning became a nightmare and really screwed those early quests up imo.
But every game needs a basic set of "get used to and see our world", it"s all about what you make them and how you execute them. They have to be fun, and most that early game fun isn"t even the quest itself, it"s being IN something totally cool looking as a totally cool looking character that"s part of the new game fun factor for me.
You hear people complain about the so called "fed ex" quests, but I never had a problem with them. It was better than just straight grinding and it moved me along. Chain quests can be more frustrating since sometimes you get to the point of screaming "when the hell does this end already." One nightmare questline example was from LOTRO where a quest giver sends you killing a buttload of spiders to return an item, only to send you back through those same spiders for another item, then rinse repeat again.
I absolutely hate having to go out and back again to the same person to do a multi-step quest. Even more so when that person is a zone or more away....Maxxius said:
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Fed-ex quests are such a waste of time, in my opinion. They are boring, granted they show you new places, it just feels so empty and "blah."
I would like to see quests that actually mean something but nowhere near the plethora of quests as EQ2 did. I hate fighting to get rid of the insane amounts of quests per zone. I like the idea of very few quests that actually mean something and are pretty difficult with large rewards.
But the again I"d rather xp grind than quest grind anyday.
I would like to see quests that actually mean something but nowhere near the plethora of quests as EQ2 did. I hate fighting to get rid of the insane amounts of quests per zone. I like the idea of very few quests that actually mean something and are pretty difficult with large rewards.
But the again I"d rather xp grind than quest grind anyday.
Multi stage quests are awesome and have a much more epic feeling to me. Fed-Ex quests are just fluff and are boring for the lazy and brain dead who can"t explore on their own. But there are many ways to stop the tedium or returning to the same npc over and over.
1. make the next step of the quest from a different npc ion the area the previous npc sent you to, there is nor eason it has to be the same guy over and over. Maybe the waork for the same organization or are from the same npc guild or whatever.
2. Have them give items that elt you warp back to them, the quest with the huge fire elemental in the blood elf area does this.
3. Just use the damn mailboxes every game has now! If jo shmo send me out to get 8 bear pelts, let me mail them to him from a mailbox and update the quest from there. Why do they have to be hand deliverd?
Obvisouly there are many more ways of doing it, but simply making every quest short or single steps because you dont like to walk would be very short sighted.
Does anyone even read the quest text in WoW anymore? The quests seem so meaningless to me for the most part there is no reason to even read them.
1. make the next step of the quest from a different npc ion the area the previous npc sent you to, there is nor eason it has to be the same guy over and over. Maybe the waork for the same organization or are from the same npc guild or whatever.
2. Have them give items that elt you warp back to them, the quest with the huge fire elemental in the blood elf area does this.
3. Just use the damn mailboxes every game has now! If jo shmo send me out to get 8 bear pelts, let me mail them to him from a mailbox and update the quest from there. Why do they have to be hand deliverd?
Obvisouly there are many more ways of doing it, but simply making every quest short or single steps because you dont like to walk would be very short sighted.
Does anyone even read the quest text in WoW anymore? The quests seem so meaningless to me for the most part there is no reason to even read them.
Daezuel
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^^ I get your points, however, how about scripted events that move the story forward instead of quest text that will get ignored by a large percentage of players.
Say a character reaches a certain level or a certain area of a zone, a script is engaged that has an NPC or two, or 10 (whatever) that drive forward the story. An brigand knocks down the player, stealing his main weapon, then starts booking off to the new area...player chases mob to new area, only to find that the brigand has been mauled by a nasty looking spider.
While retrieving your sword you notice that the brigand also has a note that leads to further mischief.
So on and so forth...provide your level/quest designers with robust scripting tools and use them. I did this sort of thing frequently on my own NWN persistent world and the players loved it.
Say a character reaches a certain level or a certain area of a zone, a script is engaged that has an NPC or two, or 10 (whatever) that drive forward the story. An brigand knocks down the player, stealing his main weapon, then starts booking off to the new area...player chases mob to new area, only to find that the brigand has been mauled by a nasty looking spider.
While retrieving your sword you notice that the brigand also has a note that leads to further mischief.
So on and so forth...provide your level/quest designers with robust scripting tools and use them. I did this sort of thing frequently on my own NWN persistent world and the players loved it.
Agraza
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My brother and I have both bitched about the issue of the quest-giver that sends you back to the same location over and over. It really helps to point out how shallow some tasks are and leads to all sorts of related criticism. If you have a quest to kill mob 1 at location A, then return to your quest-giver for a follow-up of mob 2 at location A, then mob 3 at location A2, its just annoying.
On the other hand I"m perfectly willing to accept 3 different quest-givers having an interest in location A, even if said quest NPCs are not located near each other. This also frustrated my brother, but it doesn"t feel anywhere near as artificial and unimaginitive to me.
I hate solo XP grinding, so I put up with this stuff. When something like this happens to my brother he just forsakes questing and begins killing whatever is nearby.
I don"t see why the quest log and quest system has to be used for every little errand, as it is in WoW. And I don"t care for an NPC only wanting 12 lobster pincers from me, and thats all he"ll take, but he also wants 12 pincers from everyone else he meets. If you want bone chips let me get you all the fucking bone chips I can find. The only time that crap makes sense is if you"re making me a lobster pincer necklace and I only want one of them.
I realize this is a bad example, since you could justify all quests being repeatable since every player gets the oppurtunity to do it once, but it only bothers me when its about the piddling little mundane crap.
On the other hand I"m perfectly willing to accept 3 different quest-givers having an interest in location A, even if said quest NPCs are not located near each other. This also frustrated my brother, but it doesn"t feel anywhere near as artificial and unimaginitive to me.
I hate solo XP grinding, so I put up with this stuff. When something like this happens to my brother he just forsakes questing and begins killing whatever is nearby.
I don"t see why the quest log and quest system has to be used for every little errand, as it is in WoW. And I don"t care for an NPC only wanting 12 lobster pincers from me, and thats all he"ll take, but he also wants 12 pincers from everyone else he meets. If you want bone chips let me get you all the fucking bone chips I can find. The only time that crap makes sense is if you"re making me a lobster pincer necklace and I only want one of them.
I realize this is a bad example, since you could justify all quests being repeatable since every player gets the oppurtunity to do it once, but it only bothers me when its about the piddling little mundane crap.
so what happens if you die following said NPC or have to log? you just lost your weapon and have no clue what to do from there? There are many variables I can see screwing a system like that up right down to someone jacking your quest mob if it is a PVP setting.Daezuel said:
Everyone hates solo grind, it is lame. Grinding games are group based for that reason. Hence the reason grinding in wow mostly sucks.Agraza said:
ok I will stop jacking this thread now = )
I can only say thank God Curt is in charge of this game and not some of you commenters in the peanut gallery.
Daezuel
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Each character has a set of variables that can be saved to the server...this structure is already in place concerning equipment and stats. At any stage of a multi-part script the server saves this characters state. You log off, you come back right where you left off.Bongk said:
The above example was just something quick and dirty, there are far more ways to engage players or even groups in scripted content and if I was still running my NWN server I"d show you!
yes thank god a guy who has put out no ideas as of yet and has never made a game is in charge. I am sure Curt is not really in charge anyways. He is a money guy not a game developer. I mean really... so the 8 months a year baseball is goin on he would stop production.Twobit Whore said:
Another meaningless post from 2-bit just trolling and bringing nothing of worth.
There is no discussion here. It"s just a bunch of people QQing about delivery quests and their inability to sit still for 2 minutes and read a quest log.Agraza said:
if thats what you got out of the last page, you are dumber than I thought.Twobit Whore said:
But yea we all know you bow down to the altar of wow and they do everything exactly perfect, we know...
Daezuel
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I disagree...the reason I brought up delivery quests (and generic kill quests) is really the method of delivery that most MMO"s use for telling their stories.Twobit Whore said:
A large percentage of players are interested mostly in leveling fast and to that effect will usually skip through the quest text only to get going on that leveling.
Here you have a guy using a bestselling author to create the lore and story of his game world...now should that story only be told in ways that MMOs have been doing for the past 10 years or should we strive to move the genre forward?
Why waste that talent on something a lot of people wont even read?
Then why not just fire R.A. now?Daezuel said:
Frankly I think the people who can"t be arsed to read quest related stuff are the minority. I read every new quest I get because.. get this, it"s interesting.