Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Ya that's a great idea! I love the thought of quest givers not always standing in their same location, handing out the same quests. But how much do I like it when I'm 'second man in'? And that quest I needed to progress a quest line has an NPC who's 'not home'? I have to wait 45 minutes of game time for him to 'come home'? Huh? Ok that sucks....

This goes back to what I was saying about making quests more heroic.

If you're thinking about this in WoW terms, yeah it would never work and it would just annoy your players when they couldn't go round up all the quests they wanted to do at once. Like others have said, they'd want to get it out of their quest log and move on or something like that.

Let's instead assume we have a game that has fewer overall quests, but these quests have multiple objectives and "mini-quests" built in to them that automatically update as you progress through them. The individual quests are larger in scope, feel more important to the player, and take about as long to fully complete as a couple of WoW-style quests combined. Each step would award XP and some steps would even give rewards, depending on how long of a quest chain we're talking about here.

The end result would be players would move out of the WoW mentality of just grabbing every "!" they see and moving on. Instead, what quests they take on might be different from player to player, or even from character to character if you're playing an alt. Rather than a linear line of progression that you follow, you wouldn't exactly know what the story of your character's life would be like. You don't know exactly who you will run into or what adventure you might find. Of course, if the player knew ahead of time what quest they wanted to take, they could always ask a guard or something where a particular NPC was at the moment. You could implement some system that allowed players to track down NPCs no matter where they were in the city.

My point I'm getting at is in answer to how much you'd like it the second time around. You could have a completely different experience on an alt than your main character had just because you took a few different quests that led you to different areas or told a different story. You could even deliberately try to find a different path than you previously took by visiting different locations, maybe going to the tavern to find a quest or two rather than the local temple.

As for the waiting 45 minutes to progress your quest: like I mentioned above, we'd need some sort of system that allows us to find NPCs at anytime. I realize most MMO players are all about instant gratification these days, so I'm not trying to condone too much "realism" in the sense that a player actually needs to wait all night for an NPC. We need a good mix of immersion and fun. So, if the NPC is about his business in the city, visiting the market square or something, just let us ask people if they've seen them. Or, just implement a QuestHelper type addon into the default UI. Sure seems like enough players want it as it is consistently the most downloaded add-on in WoW. If the NPC is asleep or something, you could allow players to wake them up with a knock at the door, though ideally they would want to be grabbing some quests that are only available at night and wouldn't mind waiting until morning.

[Kuro]

Fewer, Longer quests is something I can totally get behind.

The new generation of MMOs has killed Quests. They're Errands.

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Kuro

Fewer, Longer quests is something I can totally get behind.

The new generation of MMOs has killed Quests. They're Errands.

Precisely. And as long as the player is receiving XP / some reward whenever they complete a major objective, they'll still feel that sense of accomplishment even if they don't happen to finish the entire chain in one sitting. You still keep the benefit of WoW's quick questing, which is allowing people to play for very short sessions if they need to, but you don't need to dumb down the quests as a result.

The fact that they would automatically update as the player advances also gives the feeling that the player/character is smart enough to figure out what is going on and what the next logical step might be. That's part of being a hero. We don't need to run back to town every time and ask some NPC, "what do I do now?"

[orcmauler]

I actually liked LOTRO's chapter system for this type of questing. Your natural leveling progression usually ensured that you were current on your chapter quest progression (with a few exceptions). It fell apart at higher levels with forced grouping, but till then was win. Granted, part of that was the lore.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

So maybe you mean something like a story, that had players involved directly in the outcome? And maybe that outcome had a tangible meaningful effect for the winners? And maybe a tangible meaningful but different effect for the losers?

Interesting.

Stories are good but I would imagine it would take to much development time and effort to maintain that continually. I would think if your game consists of community driven events it will go a long way into creating this effect. Think of the War Effort for AQ in WOW, or what may be the Territory Control mechanic in WAR to siege capitol cities.

Originally Posted by Apostle

I cannot, off the top of my head, remember what the mmo was, but there was one that had community projects.

A Tale in the Desert.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

One thing, that has not been done, but you feel is either a must in next gen or a serious differentiator that could set a game apart.

Are we talking about a DIKU kind of game? Larger servers for one. Also flexible content which means scaling of dungeons etc. I don't think we have the tech for truly dynamic content in MMOs yet.

[Gecko]

Originally Posted by Grave

This goes back to what I was saying about making quests more heroic.

If you're thinking about this in WoW terms, yeah it would never work and it would just annoy your players when they couldn't go round up all the quests they wanted to do at once. Like others have said, they'd want to get it out of their quest log and move on or something like that.

Let's instead assume we have a game that has fewer overall quests, but these quests have multiple objectives and "mini-quests" built in to them that automatically update as you progress through them. The individual quests are larger in scope, feel more important to the player, and take about as long to fully complete as a couple of WoW-style quests combined. Each step would award XP and some steps would even give rewards, depending on how long of a quest chain we're talking about here.

The end result would be players would move out of the WoW mentality of just grabbing every "!" they see and moving on. Instead, what quests they take on might be different from player to player, or even from character to character if you're playing an alt. Rather than a linear line of progression that you follow, you wouldn't exactly know what the story of your character's life would be like. You don't know exactly who you will run into or what adventure you might find. Of course, if the player knew ahead of time what quest they wanted to take, they could always ask a guard or something where a particular NPC was at the moment. You could implement some system that allowed players to track down NPCs no matter where they were in the city.

My point I'm getting at is in answer to how much you'd like it the second time around. You could have a completely different experience on an alt than your main character had just because you took a few different quests that led you to different areas or told a different story. You could even deliberately try to find a different path than you previously took by visiting different locations, maybe going to the tavern to find a quest or two rather than the local temple.

As for the waiting 45 minutes to progress your quest: like I mentioned above, we'd need some sort of system that allows us to find NPCs at anytime. I realize most MMO players are all about instant gratification these days, so I'm not trying to condone too much "realism" in the sense that a player actually needs to wait all night for an NPC. We need a good mix of immersion and fun. So, if the NPC is about his business in the city, visiting the market square or something, just let us ask people if they've seen them. Or, just implement a QuestHelper type addon into the default UI. Sure seems like enough players want it as it is consistently the most downloaded add-on in WoW. If the NPC is asleep or something, you could allow players to wake them up with a knock at the door, though ideally they would want to be grabbing some quests that are only available at night and wouldn't mind waiting until morning.

I like this line of thinking, and it sounds somewhat like what was announced from the Bioware people for their SW:TOR MMO.

In reference to my earlier post regarding dynamic content, yes it's extreme to want things overtly dynamic, but the failures of dynamic content in the past were more so a design issue with games based around the 'rush' feature and one boss limitaiton. If the overlord of dungeon X dies, then that shouldn't be the end, Demon Lord Z should show up. Or fanatical Paladins. Or a new faction. It's not difficult to have continuity, it just shores up the respawn of the same guys over and over in what I think is lazy design.

If the design were changed so that they had more risk and a sense of accomplishment then the underlying heroic system wouldn't be as necessary. Defend that town from the incoming dragon. Fail? Town's gone. It will slowly be rebuilt but that kind of meaning and even limited dynamic content would make a world alive, instead of the carrot on a stick loot gathering exercise MMOs are today.

I agree with the need to take baby steps into the world of dynamic content due to both the limitations of the content and the maturity of a large number of MMO players, but at the end of that cycle should be a living, breathing dynamic world without respawns and with the depth and challenges of the old pen and paper sessions, allowing for thousands of simultaneous players to make an impact and see an alive world in front of them.

[Tyen]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Are we talking about a DIKU kind of game? Larger servers for one. Also flexible content which means scaling of dungeons etc. I don't think we have the tech for truly dynamic content in MMOs yet.

Larger servers would be awesome if the world could accommodate it. I like having a HUGE community to play with.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Kuro

Fewer, Longer quests is something I can totally get behind.

The problem of fewer/longer quests is that, quite simply, you play even less in groups. Having lots of quests in progress allows you to team with other players, to advance them. If you have 20 quests in progress, your same-level friend may have 6 or 7 in common with you. If you have 3 quests in progress, the odds of having any common ground is close to zero, which makes grouping... more and more irrelevant.

(for this discussion's purpose, I call "quest" any quest step. A "grand quest" is simply done by stringing a couple dozen individual WoW-style quest, each requiring the previous step to be completed)

In fact, if you only have a few "grand" quests, they all have to be soloable. If all your quests are now at a "need a group" step, then you're stuck, until you can find teammates at the same quest steps to progress, and people will find that situation unacceptable while levelling.

[Ngruk]

I am not sure I agree with this. If there is a smaller quest pool, then doesn't it stand to reason that more players will have more quests in common if there are fewer to choose from? The key is going to be allowing you to group up on these quests regardless of phase or step you are currently on.

Longer quests that you don't have to do in exact sequence is partially a key to making this fun, viable and at the same time allowing you either style of play, group or solo imo.

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

I am not sure I agree with this. If there is a smaller quest pool, then doesn't it stand to reason that more players will have more quests in common if there are fewer to choose from?

I should clarify that while I said fewer quests, I mean that in a game-wide sense. WoW truly has a ridiculous number of quests, it wouldn't hurt to cut that global number back a bit in favor of more involved multi-step quests.

Just to give an example, a quick glance at WoWHead shows me 136 quests for Zangarmarsh. Would it really be so bad if that 136 was cut down to 65 or so, but with multiple steps and progression. The different steps each giving exp would allow you tune the progression of leveling however you like, and you could focus on delivering a really solid questing experience and story, only using however many quests you wanted.

By doing things like making certain quests start from a dropped item (WoW already does this) or other ways aside from simply conversing with NPCs, you could end up with a lot of variance and ensure that most players have a different experience depending on which quests they choose to do.

Originally Posted by Ngruk

The key is going to be allowing you to group up on these quests regardless of phase or step you are currently on.

Longer quests that you don't have to do in exact sequence is partially a key to making this fun, viable and at the same time allowing you either style of play, group or solo imo.

I definitely agree with this. While I didn't play LOTRO much, I remember some complaints from players about always being on a different step of a major quest.

I'll give some thoughts on potential solutions a little later, I'm at school at the moment. Glad to see some good discussion on this stuff going on though, as it really interests me.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Longer quests that you don't have to do in exact sequence is partially a key to making this fun, viable and at the same time allowing you either style of play, group or solo imo.

True, but to achieve that, you break down the "good ole rpg" model. Doing so requires people to know, in advance, what quest steps they need to do. It enshrines spoiler sites as "good gameplay", which is a detriment to a mass-market game (most people do not read spoiler sites). If someone invites you to kill Named Soandso, will you have him as a quest objective, or is that for a different quest line which you won't get (to go back to the person who wanted lots of alternative quest lines a-la-oldrepublic, so each character would have a different way of doing the content)?

You end up deconstructing the quest narrative. You killed Soandso, yet you only learn later that why he's important and needs to be killed. All the artifices that you use in the narrative to induce players to go there to do this have to be carefully rewrapped so it doesn't clash when you have already done so. You can't be sent to spy on those bandits, learn the identity of their chief, and then go to kill him, if you've already killed him and are recognised as having done it. You have to find some other excuse to tie the story together.

(and if you remove the story, why do you have fewer and longer quests anyway?)

An alternative is to offer various parallel advances. Your quest is to forge the Sword of Doom, so you have to find the pommel, the magic gem, the rune formula to inscribe, the strange green met... hmmm, maybe not the strange green metal. Your epic quest translates into many parallel subquests, allowing multiple intersection points with other people. Clumsy, but probably better (the clumsiness becomes apparent when you have to fork your main quests after each major advance, almost every time).

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

1) The one core basic feature would you 100% expect to be in, and expect to be perfected at launch, bug free and 'cool'
2) What one thing that hasn't been done well, or at all, in any MMO, would you most like to see as a thoroughly fleshed out mechanic/content piece/UI feature?

1) The entire game. This "expect bugs to be patched later" thing is bullshit. Always has been, always will.

2) Customer Service. If my company had the same customer service as Blizzard or Sony or Mythic or etc...had we'd be out of fucking business. It's shameful.

It's a testament to the willpower, patience and understanding of gamers that we put up with all the bullshit companies put out. We can ignore the minor flaws for the grander fun.

But time and again some company thinks they can exploit this and get away with a shoddy product and time and again they fail.

Don't be that company.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

I am not sure I agree with this. If there is a smaller quest pool, then doesn't it stand to reason that more players will have more quests in common if there are fewer to choose from?

Not in the slightest. From what I gathered from Grave's idea was that the quests would be quite epic. Instead of doing 30 different mini-quests such as "kill 10 orcs, kill 8 gnolls, get my necklace from the lake" ect.... you get a quest that is multi layered and has many steps to do within the overall main quest that would add up to the level of work that the 30 mini-quests would have been in the old quest systems these games give us.

Lets look at WOW, everyone on the main section of the world kills "Grubber" or whatever that pig is called in lakeshire, they also all do the orc killing, the gnoll killing, ect...

Instead of having 50 generic quests like WOW how about having 5 or 10 large quests that include many mini-quests within the larger quest and have these quests be of the scope that they take up the 5 or so levels that those 50 quests would have taken up? How about having those large quests require you to "kill x number of y" as a single stage of the overall quest, and the travel from some location to another is built into the major quest.

Smaller and less epic variations of these types of quests already exist in WOW. I am sure alot of people would tell you they enjoyed the storyline and ongoing larger quest feel of the "Stiches" questline in Darkshire then the more simple "kill 8 gnoll shaman and 8 gnoll warriors" of lakeshire. The Stiches quest was much longer, it kept you interest, it had a more epic feel to it and made you feel like you were doing something a little more important.

Why not try and create long quest storylines like the Stiches quest, only longer yet with more twists? I mean, you have RA Salvatore there to come up with some storyline ideas. This guy is not writing books where the overall quest of Drizzt is "kill 8 orcs and 8 yeti", that is an aside, that is something that comes up during the overall quest of "find Regis", which becomes some completely different quest when you find him and he tells you of some huge problem you now have to solve, which then leads yet again to something completely different. The orc slayings and gnoll slayings can be part of a much larger quest-line, and in different large chain-quests your options of those smaller side quests can be different which can actually lead to replayability if you make the large quests epic enough to be the single focus of the character during their trip through a specific level range.

I would much rather see far fewer quests and have those quests be much, much more epic in scope such that you cannot do all of the major epic quests in the game in one trip through. I would like to flat out see player choices have to be made, choose to take a certain path and the other path closes off to you, the quest branches off in two different directions and thus if you want to follow both branches that will require another trip through on a alt.

Look at the alternative we have in WOW, we do the exact same tiny quests over and over again and everyone is doing the exact same ones. When is the last time you went through STV with an alt and did not do the hunting quests leading to killing the named raptor and white tiger? Yeah, you probably never missed that one, nor did anyone else. I would rather have had some huge quest incorperate that whole hunting quest line within a much larger quest, and have the fighting in the cave with the militia and that whole quest line be part of an entirely different much larger quest. Put stuff together, give the players more actual storyline and more focus on major long term quests then all of the McQuests these games have right now. Quest lines can last the entire lifetime of your character if the developers put the effort into creating great storylines and reasoning, look at the greenmist quest line of the Iksar SK's in EQ1, that was probably the greatest questline I ever did in a MMORPG and the reason I liked it is because of it's depth and the fact it took up part of my characters time from level 1 all the way through to level 60 as the quest advanced and changed.

Take that kind of quest length yet with more focus and time put into it over each level, and then more plot building ala the stiches quest, and now you are getting somewhere.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Grave

Just to give an example, a quick glance at WoWHead shows me 136 quests for Zangarmarsh. Would it really be so bad if that 136 was cut down to 65 or so,

I suspect those quest are already cut down to less than that. Most of the 136 quests can't be taken out of the bat. They are the "multiple steps" you want to add to the overall quest line. Most of these larger quest arcs are quite short, but you do have some that go for dozens of steps, even in a non-epic Zangarmarsh zone (the Sporelok quest line, for example).