I really liked the cut scenes in FFXI for advancing the storyline also. They were a very nice touch that I always paid alot of attention to as they were very well done.
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because there is far more to a storyline than quest text. Why do you always have to argue everything in such extremes? Yes some of the quest text is interesting, but 90% of the stuff is meaningless fluff that is not very well written currently.Twobit Whore said:
I mean really is there a single person besides 2bit who has not turned of quest text scrolling yet? I know you will argue this 2bit also because it is how you are. But why are we even reading quest text, shouldnt this shit be voice overs by now?
Daezuel
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Did you play Lotro at all? They started the game off in just the sort of scripted experience I was talking about...this is what Lotro actually did very right.Twobit Whore said:
Then you get to the quest hubs...YAWWWWNNN...oh boy we haven"t seen this before have we. 20 NPC"s standing around with exclamation points over their heads. Now you"re in a group, you"re on a roll, you have to collect those 20 quests and get going. Sure, everyone will spend their time reading all of that quest text before setting out to kill 20 boars.
Its cheap and lazy and get this, its boring.
discussion is a 2 way street, you don"t see me mocking the other people here with ideas they are putting forward do you?Twobit Whore said:
Make a post of substance and we can discuss. Until than you are just a troll and treated as such.
Stop it ladies. Get back on topic. We are talking about some cool stuff here, questing and what"s cool and what isn"t.Bongk said:
I think we can all agree on the "don"t send me to the same guy 12 times to go to the same spot to kill the same mobs" sucks.
I"d ask this though. If Tolkien had written the story for a game, and you knew that going in, and you had a year or two lead in to the world from a story standpoint, would you read the quests?
if they were delivery quests and fedex quests that had nothing to do with the actual storyline or substance of the game? probably not.Ngruk said:
If they were vital to the importance of the game - yes.
well written and engaging - yes.
Required to have the knowledge to finish the quest and you dont have a bullet list at the bottom telling you every step - yes
The quests need to feel important to me personally. farmer bob saying that bats are attacking his crops and that he wants me to head to the west farm and bring him proof I killed 8 bats - no
I think you can see where I am going with this
The only reason to have delivery and fed -ex quest are to get you to new areas or you are lazy. I assume you won;t be lazy so to get people to new areas i much prefer approaches as shown above by Daezul
For me, it"s not so much "Do I want to", but "Does gameplay allow me to".Ngruk said:
I enjoy reading WoW"s quest text but it"s difficult to do so when the rest of your group has already mounted and started racing towards the quest target.
Most of the time, I take the quest and read it while I"m riding to my destination, else I don"t get a chance to read it at all.
I think cut scenes, in the style that FFXI presented them, are a fantastic way to show key parts of a storyline. That said, even cut scenes are skipped, and you end up with most of your group waiting on you.
I"m not sure if there"s a good solution to allow for those who want to enjoy the story to do so, without hindering those that do not. I think that"s the main issue.
tyen
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The only quest that ever meant to me in anygame and that I will never forget were epic quests.
Hell, the VP, and Sebilis keyquests beat the crap out of anygame.
It seems to me like every single game has a "shit ton" of delivery, protect the npc, kill 10 orcs, and visit the village quests.
Game mechanics are the ones always trying to be revolutionalized.
Why not figure out some revolutionary lore, quests, and raid content beforehand.
Hell, the VP, and Sebilis keyquests beat the crap out of anygame.
It seems to me like every single game has a "shit ton" of delivery, protect the npc, kill 10 orcs, and visit the village quests.
Game mechanics are the ones always trying to be revolutionalized.
Why not figure out some revolutionary lore, quests, and raid content beforehand.
Daezuel
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I still say you can do better than this...Ngruk said:
Instead of having an NPC standing there waiting for you to see whats going on say your group is involved in a tavern brawl started by some rowdy drunks. You get arrested, the magistrate then comes to the cell and requires you to perform services for him. Why would there have to be a scroll box with quest text for this? If anything, this should be acted out by the NPC.
You want a living, breathing world? People should be confused on whether that NPC over there is another player character or a nefarious NPC, plotting against his king.
I"m of the belief that every quest should have an epic feel, they don"t all need to start off that way, but they sure in the hell should end that way. No more, go over there and get me 12 bat wings, why??? I dunno, I didn"t read it.
It"s nice to have epic quests, but the reality is that these large quests (and the example you mentioned) require way more scripting and manhours than a regular fetch/kill quest.Daezuel said:
That said, I think the world would feel much more alive and meaningful if there were 100 epic multi-chain quests that each had a compelling story and cutscenes, instead of, say 3000 fetch/kill quests.
biggest thing with cutscenes is make sure you cannot be attacked while watching them. This pissed me off to no end in FF that I was getting attacked while watching a cutscene.
How am I supposed to enjoy it and give it my attention when all I can think is shit I am dying there goes an hours EXP if I keep watching this.
How am I supposed to enjoy it and give it my attention when all I can think is shit I am dying there goes an hours EXP if I keep watching this.
If you want a perfect example of quest hubs and progression please go ahead and do every quest in the WOW Draenei newbie area. They put together a story and lead you along the different areas at a perfect pace. I think there was a perfect mixtures of collection quests, miniboss kill quests, fedex quests, and storyarc quests. Never do you feel like grinding or are you bored the first or second time through. There is also a pretty damn cool scripted event that"s pretty neat when you"re all done.
Extremely well done.
Extremely well done.
Daezuel
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Ah but when you are designing your game from the ground up you put in the necessary scripting tools to make this sort of design easy. Cutscenes rendered by the engine, events triggered by location/quest progress/randomness.Laerazi said:
Are we talking about a next gen, take the world by storm type of MMO, or are we talking about a rehash of whats been done in the past?
I"d frankly rather have a sandbox with zero quests instead of generic quest hub #15 and 20 npcs standing there for no plausible reason.