Quest: I want to really be "questing" again.

So wait, it's harder to make a good game than a mediocre one?

I joke because I love.

I have no doubt that longer, more involved quests would take longer to design and QA. What we're talking about is one of those quests taking the place of dozens of the other kind...so the time very well might equal out.

The coding aspect, I would imagine, is like anything else. It's a function of the tools available to the designers. If the company has spent time developing some clever tools that allow a quest designer to more easily implement complex quests...then it probably won't be quite as dangerous as you describe.

It sort of sounds like you're looking from the perspective of a game design that is all set up from the start for the short task-type quests...and then they try to put in big ones. I'm thinking if they start out with the intention of quests being longer, more complex, and few and far between, it would probably not be so bad.

You want to take out a dozen "short" quests and replace them with a single longer quest? That sounds fairly detrimental to me.

Even if they have a tool to "build" the quest, it still takes more time and design behind building a more complex quest. Another drawback of a longer quest is "gamer satisfaction". The longer the quest, the more you run the risk of the game becoming bored and no longer satisfied because they aren't seeing results. There needs to be immediacy.

All I'm saying is that short quests have -- and always will have -- their place in games.

There needs to be immediacy.

And therein lies the destruction of the genre. The mistaken impression that has somehow crept into almost all game design...that grown people are somehow like children or monkeys and can't focus on something for more than 10 minutes without becoming bored. Dumb things down, speed them up, give the player everything right away or he'll quit and go play another clone of your game.

Do people playing Tetris quit if they don't get 1000 lines the first time they play? Do people quit a chess game because they haven't won a commanding lead after the opening moves? This false assumption doesn't hold up in any other game...except those made for young children.

A lot of players will rise to the challenge if provided with a more complex, longer-term experience. Many games end up being addictive solely because you fail, and fail, and fail... before you succeed (Super Mario, anyone?). Why must games be designed for the lowest common denominator?

Also, there's the fact that a well-designed long quest will be an adventure throughout. The road will be as fun and rewarding as the destination. Much like the idea of dealing with the "grind" by shortening the experience curve instead of making the act of gaining experience more fun...designers will often take the easy way out when no ready alternative presents itself. of course it's easier to make short, stupid fetch this quests. Nothing worthwhile is usually easy, and that goes for the design and the play.

If the focus of your game design is on what will require the least effort and thought from your designers, I'm sure you'll have no problem hitting a release schedule, but your game will suck.

Oh yes, short quests are great way to spice up a grind, but what we are saying is we don't need 50 of them per location/dungeon.

We are also not saying that every quest has to be a month long quest with hours upon hours of time investment to get anything from it.

What we are wanting is something more like this. Instead of 10 different rat killing quests of bring me " x many of y body part from a rat" and instead have 1 quest that requires a couple of common drops from the rat and 1 rare one. So you are still killing rats and doing a quest, but instead of all those stupid little quests you have one longer one that you can put more time into and make it interesting.

Little quests have their place, yes sort of. But it is not in a swarm of other little quests bombarding you from the second you step into the world. Little quests like collecting rat tails or gnoll fangs to turn in while killing are little quests that have a place, but you only need one of those per area, if that.

Look it boils down to this, quests should NOT be the focus of the game. The game should be about the combat, exploration and the progression of your character. Quest should be optional and a rarity, if I need a quest in order to go into a dungeon or fight a particular mob, you have a game design flaw. I would rather them spend all their time making combat fun instead of adding a single quest.

And therein lies the destruction of the genre. The mistaken impression that has somehow crept into almost all game design...that grown people are somehow like children or monkeys and can't focus on something for more than 10 minutes without becoming bored. Dumb things down, speed them up, give the player everything right away or he'll quit and go play another clone of your game.

The proof is in the pudding, no?

Do people playing Tetris quit if they don't get 1000 lines the first time they play? Do people quit a chess game because they haven't won a commanding lead after the opening moves? This false assumption doesn't hold up in any other game...except those made for young children.

Those people also aren't shelling out $15+/month to play Tetris or Chess.

A lot of players will rise to the challenge if provided with a more complex, longer-term experience. Many games end up being addictive solely because you fail, and fail, and fail... before you succeed (Super Mario, anyone?).

Agreed. SOME will rise to the challenge. Others will get annoyed/bored and quit.

Why must games be designed for the lowest common denominator?

Because you are trying to appeal to everyone, and not just the hardcore players?

Also, there's the fact that a well-designed long quest will be an adventure throughout. The road will be as fun and rewarding as the destination. Much like the idea of dealing with the "grind" by shortening the experience curve instead of making the act of gaining experience more fun...designers will often take the easy way out when no ready alternative presents itself. of course it's easier to make short, stupid fetch this quests. Nothing worthwhile is usually easy, and that goes for the design and the play.

I don't think it's something that should be blamed on the designers. Of course nothing "worthwhile is easy", but who is going to tell the investors that more money is needed because the gold deadline wasn't hit because an extra 50 "longer, better" quests were added in in lieu of the 100 "kill x" quests? Who is going to tell the players who are just itching to go explore this new world that they have to wait another 6 months because QA hasn't been finished? Or, of course, you could always just say "screw it" and release it anyways, bugs or not.

If the focus of your game design is on what will require the least effort and thought from your designers, I'm sure you'll have no problem hitting a release schedule, but your game will suck.

It's not just about making life easy for the devs. It's also about dealing with your investors and the players who are waiting. Either way, I disagree with that statement, regardless. But that's my opinion.

-------------------------------------------

Oh yes, short quests are great way to spice up a grind, but what we are saying is we don't need 50 of them per location/dungeon.

Agreed. I don't think I ever said you need 50 per area. I'm just talking about the short quests in general.

We are also not saying that every quest has to be a month long quest with hours upon hours of time investment to get anything from it.

I know. Also, if it doesn't fall into that category, would it then fall into the "short quest" category?

Look it boils down to this, quests should NOT be the focus of the game.

I have to disagree. They should not be the ONLY focus of the game, but they remain a priority. Quests, and the loot gained from quests, are usually how gamers keep track of where they are, and how far they are in the game.

The game should be about the combat, exploration and the progression of your character.

People SAY they want this, but when it comes down to it, alot of people would actually get bored by having a truely open-ended world. Not everybody, but alot of people.

-------------------------------------------

On that note, I'm done playing devils advocate. I'm also not going to state whether I really agree or not with any of my previously made statements.

I had a feeling, YOU!

Anyway, in reverse order.

Open ended world? I don't think I said such a thing, but in an open ended world, a main story to follow helps players along without them feeling they are on a track. Even better a story they create themselves is even better.

Quests should not be the main focus or primary option for leveling. The should be for loot/spells/factions only. We will just have to agree to disagree on this point.

To define a short quest. I would first have to say that term is wrong. It's not about time involved, it's more about simplicity. "Go get me 10 bear arses!" is the type we are talking about, it might take you days, it might take you an hour. It's stupidly simple and should just not exist like that. Now a quest for "Bring me any bear arses you find" would be more reasonable, but it's not a quest to go do, it's more of a spice to a grind. And even these, should be few and far between, don't need one at every spot. Sometimes, the promise of a drop is all you need for a good grind. FBSS anyone?

As for investors and devs time. It's a moot point. You rush a game, you get large profit loos ala Vanguard. You polish and polish and polish a game, and you get something more akin to WoW. I don't like what they did, but I have to admit, it was and is a polished game.

This is fun, don't stop playing devil's advocate just because you are losing! *laughs*. I could also go point by point, but I suppose we're going to have to agree to disagree on a lot of this (if you do indeed disagree ).

I hope you weren't saying that the WoW model of easier / faster / instant is inherently successful...because the truth is the exact opposite. There was WoW, and...nothing. Almost every other game that has released since WoW has been heavily influenced (read: copied) by/from WoW's design philosophy, and not a single one has come remotely close to WoW's success. In fact, most of them have failed, either outright or slowly over time.

So to me, the proof in the pudding is that making a game designed for the lowest common denominator seems to be a recipe for failure...unless you are Blizzard. That's what the facts seem to support, anyway.

I have to disagree. They should not be the ONLY focus of the game, but they remain a priority. Quests, and the loot gained from quests, are usually how gamers keep track of where they are, and how far they are in the game.

I think you probably know this is a lousy argument, so I won't belabor it much. There are any number of ways players can gain loot and keep track of their progress... many that have already been developed and an infinite number that haven't been thought of yet. The only reason Kill 10 quests are a "priority" is because nobody wants to spend fifteen minutes of imagination on something better.

I also totally reject the idea that investors and players have no understanding and therefore require results regardless of quality. I think a reasonably savvy investor or marginally knowledgeable player would be VERY happy, in this age of rushed out games and failing MMOs, to hear from a dev that the team wants more time to make their game better and more polished. It would very likely mean the difference between a successful launch and a flop, and I'm sure all concerned would want the former.

I think the original discussion comes down to the definition of terms. I think we all agree that if an NPC asks you to kill 10 bears, and the bears are standing 3 feet away from the NPC... it really doesn't fit the definition (strictly speaking) of a quest.

Finding, discovering, exploring, solving puzzles...dealing with adversity and at least the possibility of failure... those things are what quests are made of, in the fantasy / sci-fi setting, at least.

Having to get 369 bat wings and turn them in at a hut in the Commons and then gate back to the bat area (or a vendor, if you're really lazy, which I was for the last 150 or so) and then zone back to Commons to do the turnin....a b'zillion times....to increase faction in order to go to the next step in a quest? THAT is a quest in a quest! Drove ya bonkers, but in the end, it was worth it!

It didn't have to be done all at once, either. Thank goodness for small favors!

Gamasutra - News - GDC Austin: Writing for MMOs: You're Doing it Wrong

News from our friends about quests, journals and writing for MMO's...

Seems like much of what they said could be taken directly from this discussion!

It would be great if it was, talk about listening to your community! Hopefully once Moorgard has recovered from Austin he can come in and tell us if we helped with those ideas.

Avery nice thread indeed. Well firstly i d say that questing in mmorpg is different than in single player rpg .
First of all we must see the truth of our experience and admit that we were not discouraged by kill ten rats quests in the begining of our mmo gaming .
Because it was a new world for us and we hadent tried these ''tasks'' before. Today we are fed up with it as we are fed up with the dullness of mmo rpg fantasy games.

In mmo games devs have to keep the players involved all the time . Even when they are not playing their game .They want them to shave in the morning and think about their game ,eat and think it and so on...
Unfortunately the only way to make them do that is by mainly giving them the vision of being strong and powerfull , by being max level .By letting them think that they matter .When they get bigger and stronger they will be known and so on and so forth .
What is really sad is that the way they found to empower the players is by trivial errands.
So , keep them involved ,breast feed them the dream of power and glory and achieve that through '' labour gaming '' or the endless slave grind as i would say . (No health benefits and pension programmes )

I dumped most games for that reason . When i played for instance Baldur's gate . I had a tremendous story line , fantastic characters to relate to ,intrigue , backstabbing, turns twists darkness light and so on . I had to fight dragons ,lich ,beholders ,dark elves ... It was the roller coaster of rpg's ...
When a compelling story as that transformed into code and game boom! it was a success. So for me it all starts about the story line and how do you keep people involved . Ofcourse with the mmo difficulties and mechanics (single player is far easier ).
I suggest to enrich with story line ,options and imagination . So an errand in an mmo would be go to the dark tavern eavesdrop on the bad trader who has a connection with the dark brotherhood that has a connection to this .Or go and with diplomacy meet him and get him drunk . Ok . These options are difficult to programm .
I really don care if something is difficult to program or not .I am willing to pay more for something that doesnt exist .


And secondly .Make Quests interconnected and bigger .

I would add a third option . Give the players who do not wish the road of battle all the time an alternative.
Make quests about crafting and taming ,hunting or writting books .That in a way they will contribute to the main story line .Meaning professions apart from classes.