Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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Lonin_foh

shitlord
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Azzikai said:
Nope, that isn"t what I want at all.

If I have a quest journal I want it to have notes on actual quests. Not a list of "Bob the grocer likes bear meat, get him 5". That sort of shit should be more dynamic, for lack of a better term.

I kill a bear. I get a nice fluffy pelt from it. Someone in the city is going to want that pelt, maybe I should go ask someone about it. Maybe there is a trapper NPC out in the wild who will trade me for it. The end result will be the same but instead of "quest 7, retrieve 5 pelts...done!" I get to interact with the NPCs that inhabit the game world. Tie it into faction, get a better price, have it like the stupid curscale quest and get some crap armor from it. Something, anything other than "Bear pelt 7/10" showing up on my screen.

If you"re designing a game for a playerbase that is too stupid to equate bear meat to the butcher in the local village and retain that information then why bother? They already have that game, as has been said previously, it doesn"t need to be duplicated.
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Supposedly, WAR has quests that are somewhat like that, but I can"t speak from experience. I totally agree with you though, the menial task-style quests should be much more end-loaded. IE, you go out and kill shit that you would normally, or because it"s necessary to complete a more involved quest, and get random items from the mobs. Then when you get back to the city, an NPC you pass by will start shouting that he"s looking to buy X item that you just picked up, or maybe the NPC tells you that he heard the local merchant was looking for that random item. I"m not sure how the coding would work on this, but it seems like it would be pretty straight forward. Does character have bear pelt while in vicinity of NPC? If yes, NPC shouts shit at him, if no, do nothing.

This leads me to something else, MMO"s need cities like Assassin"s Creed. When I walk around Qeynos or Freeport, why the fuck do I only see 20 people and another 20 NPCs? These are supposed to be gigantic, bustling centers of commerce in the game world, and they are always ghost towns. I don"t care if 90% of the NPCs do nothing but walk around like in Assassin"s Creed, but it does a lot to add immersiveness to the game world.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
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Because Creed is a single player game and (insert MMO here) is not. 1000 NPCs+Players all milling around sounds leet, but unless the game servers + the players comp can handle that, it just makes for an unplayable lagfest.
 
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Twobit_sl

shitlord
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Just come to my server and hang out in Stormwind. Always like 50 people in the main square between the bank, flightmaster and auction house.
 
D

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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Lonin said:
Supposedly, WAR has quests that are somewhat like that, but I can"t speak from experience. I totally agree with you though, the menial task-style quests should be much more end-loaded. IE, you go out and kill shit that you would normally, or because it"s necessary to complete a more involved quest, and get random items from the mobs. Then when you get back to the city, an NPC you pass by will start shouting that he"s looking to buy X item that you just picked up, or maybe the NPC tells you that he heard the local merchant was looking for that random item. I"m not sure how the coding would work on this, but it seems like it would be pretty straight forward. Does character have bear pelt while in vicinity of NPC? If yes, NPC shouts shit at him, if no, do nothing.
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This is a great idea. I like it. But after a while it"ll turn into repeatable quests WOW has. You go out and farm X and you know NPC A.B.C need it. It"s ultimately the same thing but just worded differently and executed differently. You"re still collecting bear asses, but you"re "selling them" after the fact instead of going out and picking them off a list.

Same result for an experienced player. But for me I"d start to get pissed off if I"m out doing story line quests and all of the sudden I find that a guy in town need X amount of pelts and I only haver X-2 and I have to go back to where I was and waste time getting 2 more of those things. I"d rather know ahead of time.

And yes WAR does this to some degree. It was in one of the podcasts.
 
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etchazz

Trakanon Raider
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i wouldn"t mind a combination of EQ like quests and WoW"s. i really did like how obscure EQ"s quests were. there was no, "okay, you gave me 3 rat tails now go visit so and so in kaladim for the next part of your quest." i like that you had to figure some shit out for yourself. i didn"t like how lame most of the quest rewards were and i do think that some of the EQ quests were too obscure (as in, what the fuck do i do next?) but i like that i wasn"t hand held through the entire quest.

one of my favorite quests was the staff of the wheel quest i did with my wizard. was long and hard but really fun to do and i felt really good when i completed the quest. i also liked finishing my epic. i like quests that give you a sense of accomplishment, as long as the reward at the end is worth it. i can"t see why a next gen MMO couldn"t implement a very unique and interesting quest system. maybe a few simple ones to start you off with when you"re lower level but then gradually get more complicated and difficult to complete as you get higher in level. i don"t mind a certain amount of collection quests, or kill mob "X" this many times quests, just give me some variety. i don"t want to be doing those same kind of quests when i"m max level. give me something more challenging as the game progresses.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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Too bad I"m not at UMass anymore ;(

i really did like how obscure EQ"s quests were.
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EQ1 had a couple decent quests (I always liked the Qeynos Investigator line), but by and large they were totally shit. Essentially you had "brute force questing" becoming the means to actually find anything. Spam 1000 words or phrases at random NPCs, IDing every piece of shit lore item that dropped, trying to find step 5 so you could figure out where the fuck step 4 was. Plug all this crap into a website or forum, and voila, walkthroughs for everyone! Baibai "hard quest".
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
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Ngruk said:
I"ll throw another "hot topic".
Quest limits?
Why?
I get the tech side of this now, but from a design standpoint is there a reason for limiting the amount of quests I can have ongoing at one time?

I am more interested in players perspectives than solutions.
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I didn"t realize this was a hot topic. To my knowledge most players buy whatever reason devs care to give for their existence. Complaints about their usability are common, despite it being an improvement over the lack of a log at all. Mods for quest logs to make them more user-friendly are common. Regardless of how you limit the amount of quests players are completing, making it a solid tool is in your interest.

There are other ways WoW and EQ2 limit quests. In WoW there are faction requirements and level minimums, as well as nested quests. I believe EQ2 has all of the above and I think they have level maximums as well. Or they may have when I was playing anyway.

As long as I have enough space to obtain and complete the quests in a given area and a little extra room for holding onto stubborn or multi-stage quests, I don"t mind there being a limit.
 
L

Lonin_foh

shitlord
0
0
Draegan said:
This is a great idea. I like it. But after a while it"ll turn into repeatable quests WOW has. You go out and farm X and you know NPC A.B.C need it. It"s ultimately the same thing but just worded differently and executed differently. You"re still collecting bear asses, but you"re "selling them" after the fact instead of going out and picking them off a list.

Same result for an experienced player. But for me I"d start to get pissed off if I"m out doing story line quests and all of the sudden I find that a guy in town need X amount of pelts and I only haver X-2 and I have to go back to where I was and waste time getting 2 more of those things. I"d rather know ahead of time.

And yes WAR does this to some degree. It was in one of the podcasts.
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True enough, I think it comes down to the perception thing. Even though you may know that X NPC wants X item after awhile, it would still be a lot more immersive IMO, especially for new players or new areas. Plus, you could always randomize the needs that NPCs have and make those NPCs accept any number of the items it wants, not just 10, or 20, or whatever. If you only have one or two, you"ll just get a lesser reward until you maybe hit a certain number where you get a final reward.
 
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Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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You don"t have to be enrolled in the comp. classes to be part of this. If you can code, draw or market in the space you can get a team together. You just have to be able to submit a game
BTW please don"t take this as bad marketing or PR but if anyone is interested in talking 38 and different ideas I am trying to narrow the amount of forums I am participating in to give them more of my time when I post, someone started this site and most of our team interacts with subscribers there if you are interested.
38 Fans Forums - Powered by vBulletin
 
Agraza

Agraza

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I can understand your position, but with barely a clue about the core methods and features of the game I don"t have a reason to frequent some stranger"s board. I"m sure the bigger splashes will be posted here regardless, so if anything changes I"ll take a look.
 
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Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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Totally understood.

Just understand that there is no reason for us to offer that up now. For reasons beyond the obvious which are that many things we as players want to know about are not locked in decisions now, nor anytime soon.

Talking about PvP, quests, storylines, features, years out of launch, is an open invitation to be called a liar, lose customers and facilitate damage control of assets and content that may never exist.

It"s a true lose lose when you think it through.

I can assure you that I would LOVE to start talking with players about a ton of what we are doing. I also know that the first time that would happen I"d have Roberts, Danuser and Schwayder in my office Monday morning with pick axes, torches and rope.

We are targeting Comic-Con this year as our first "unveiling of our IP to the public.
 
Agraza

Agraza

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I don"t expect a lot of hype or explanation at this point, false or otherwise. I doubt anyone here does. My message to Gallenite, in the thread confirming his departure from SOE, was to avoid becoming a punchline. We want you to deliver a quality product.

I wish y"all luck at Comic-Con, and we all look forward to digesting the details when you"re ready to give them.
 
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