NPC random response #A: "That's an interesting object you've found there, perhaps you might check with B, they might know more about it."
NPC random response #B: "Ahh yes, I've seen one of those before many years ago, those are used in X to create Y. I heard C talking about those the other day maybe he/she would know more about it."
NPC random response #C: "Wow, where did you find X? Those are a rare find indeed and used to create X and other items. I've not seen one of those in quite some time, would you like to trade for X Y or Z? I can also make G if you get X Y and Z. I've heard that these might be spotted in the X region, perhaps you might look there."
Is this so difficult to program? Random items used to create random other items? Instead of the same old boring system? Random stats, random similar ingredients with random similar results?
Where has developer creativity gone? Oh that's right, money comes first.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
NPC random response #A: "That's an interesting object you've found there, perhaps you might check with B, they might know more about it."
NPC random response #B: "Ahh yes, I've seen one of those before many years ago, those are used in X to create Y. I heard C talking about those the other day maybe he/she would know more about it."
NPC random response #C: "Wow, where did you find X? Those are a rare find indeed and used to create X and other items. I've not seen one of those in quite some time, would you like to trade for X Y or Z? I can also make G if you get X Y and Z. I've heard that these might be spotted in the X region, perhaps you might look there."
Is this so difficult to program? Random items used to create random other items? Instead of the same old boring system? Random stats, random similar ingredients with random similar results?
Where has developer creativity gone? Oh that's right, money comes first.
NPC random response #A: "That's an interesting object you've found there, perhaps you might check with B, they might know more about it."
NPC random response #B: "Ahh yes, I've seen one of those before many years ago, those are used in X to create Y. I heard C talking about those the other day maybe he/she would know more about it."
NPC random response #C: "Wow, where did you find X? Those are a rare find indeed and used to create X and other items. I've not seen one of those in quite some time, would you like to trade for X Y or Z? I can also make G if you get X Y and Z. I've heard that these might be spotted in the X region, perhaps you might look there."
Is this so difficult to program? Random items used to create random other items? Instead of the same old boring system? Random stats, random similar ingredients with random similar results?
Where has developer creativity gone? Oh that's right, money comes first.
Exactly.
And the rabbit hole can go much, much deeper.
To some mighty cool places I might add.
What happened to possibility? What happened to dreaming up ideas? What happened to the MMO future that should have been?
I feel ripped off and I know I'm not alone.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I think a combination of puzzle quests with traps and monsters would be the best way. The puzzle portion would need an element of randomness so that dumb people can't just go online and figure it out. Solving the puzzle should lead to an area with some traps and monster ambushes, and then some nice treasure. The kill 10 x thing is hardly a conundrum, it is simple laziness.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now! I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
I think a combination of puzzle quests with traps and monsters would be the best way. The puzzle portion would need an element of randomness so that dumb people can't just go online and figure it out. Solving the puzzle should lead to an area with some traps and monster ambushes, and then some nice treasure. The kill 10 x thing is hardly a conundrum, it is simple laziness.
Exactly. The goal should be to create those type of quests where you can't go find the answer on Wiki. Random is where it's at...if you're designing for beyond box sales anyway.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
What about no quests at all, just villagers or whatever complaining about certain monsters. You go out and kill said monsters and the more/faster you kill them, the more bonus xp you get at each kill. The more bonus points you rack up is also correlated to item drop rates, so after killing for 15mins you could have a few nice pieces of armor as well.
Once you have proven yourself to the villagers, the real quest begins, involving the kill of the evil bandit lord/whatever riding around the outer feild of the village... Killing him unlocks a larger overworld quest.
PS: make sure you know to also kill the rare monsters that spawn in the corners/caves, as they are haunting some little kid's dreams...
Quest should be rare and unique. We do not need 100 quest per level. Too much is a bad thing, imo.
I absolutely agree.
Anarchy Online's Quests were good like this. You had only a handfull of quests. And usually one big story line for the zone. The story was made up of many smaller objectives, but it fed into the overall larger quest that culminated in something worthwhile in the end.
Well, maybe except for Sheol, but that was one big example of what might have been.
To bad instead you couldn't simply replace the generic quest system altogether with some type of dynamically occurring event system that was always going on whether or not people were there to participate.
It tells a lot when the OP, in his quest for something new (sorry 'bout that) still has the "Get quest from NPC, do quest, go back to NPC for reward" mentality. It doesn't have to even be that way, and soon it won't.
I don't think KTX quests are the core problem. I think if all you're doing is levelling then no matter how hard you try it's going to feel like a grind eventually. What these games need are distractions from levelling so players take breaks from it e.g. crafting, housing, social, subgames etc, which effect your character but not in a levelling way e.g. raising faction, providing buffs etc.
So you do a few KTX quests for levelling
- stop to bake some pies for the halfling daily faction raising
- do some more levelling grind
- sell the loot for improvements to your house that gives you a house buff or rested exp
- grind a bit more
- get a message that players are needed at the guild base to weed a field that provides one of the components for a guild buff
- grind a bit more
- head off to the wood elf town where you have a daily shot at a 3D platformer subgame where you have to complete a kind of tree-jumping obstacle course for a personal high score
- grind a bit more
etc
The best way to improve the levelling experience for those players not in a hurry to get to max level is to provide entertaining distractions so the players break levelling into chunks.
Anarchy Online's Quests were good like this. You had only a handfull of quests. And usually one big story line for the zone. The story was made up of many smaller objectives, but it fed into the overall larger quest that culminated in something worthwhile in the end.
Well, maybe except for Sheol, but that was one big example of what might have been.
The problem was, unless you were out killing mobs in Shadowlands over and over and over and over and over, you had to keep going to hit the mission terminals in Rubi-ka and we all know, it was just the same 4 mission types over and over and over and over and over. Most of us leveled up by grabbing a ton of missions, killing everything, repeat ad nauseum. That's not a handful of quests, it's a crapload, I used to run 30-40 quests a day, every day, just to level.
there is no problem for me with kill-quests, but the problem is, that these quests are not challenging, because they are part of a linear hero-story. and heroes dont fail. it is a must, that even my little sister and my dog should be able to do it, in order to progress and be able to start the following quest. this is how the devs did design their theme-parks. one eternal rule is: never harm the player. so we lost the challenge in MMOs latest with EQ2 and WoW in 2004/5.
so how can we solve this problem?
the questgiver should not say "kill 10 rats". he just says " help with the rats". now a bar appears, if you kill rats and fills up, until you have killed enough rats. there are 3 or more types of rats: little rats (green), mature rats (blue) and elder rats (red). if you kill elder rats it is extremely challenging, just skilled players can do it, and fights last longer, and things can go wrong at anytime. but these elder rats fill the bar faster than the green young rats. and my little sister should go and slaughter tons of these easy green little rats.
make the killquests more challenging. finally every quest is a grind. even if it is well hidden like in SWTOR by story and voiceovers. but there is nothing wrong with it. as long as it is challenging and fun its ok. unfortunately killing rats or whatever isnt challenging in todays MMOs. at least not for me. i tried to do just story-quests lateley in AION F2P and avoid any side-quests, in order to get quests with mobs some levels above me. yesterday i killed a named mob level 17 solo with my summoner level 12 in 10 seconds. so there are no red mobs anymore. we lost the challenge. bring us back the challenging, risky and tricky fights. and give other players the option to do their quests in the beloved easy grindy way.
grind is not, to kill mobs without a reason. grind is killing mobs without a challenge. regardless of good reason via a quest or not!
NPC random response #A: "That's an interesting object you've found there, perhaps you might check with B, they might know more about it."
NPC random response #B: "Ahh yes, I've seen one of those before many years ago, those are used in X to create Y. I heard C talking about those the other day maybe he/she would know more about it."
NPC random response #C: "Wow, where did you find X? Those are a rare find indeed and used to create X and other items. I've not seen one of those in quite some time, would you like to trade for X Y or Z? I can also make G if you get X Y and Z. I've heard that these might be spotted in the X region, perhaps you might look there."
Is this so difficult to program? Random items used to create random other items? Instead of the same old boring system? Random stats, random similar ingredients with random similar results?
Where has developer creativity gone? Oh that's right, money comes first.
Exactly.
And the rabbit hole can go much, much deeper.
To some mighty cool places I might add.
What happened to possibility? What happened to dreaming up ideas? What happened to the MMO future that should have been?
I feel ripped off and I know I'm not alone.
This Quest is a KTX quest. The depth of that rabbit hole, 0.00001 inches. The point of this thread is to come up with alternatives to KTX, not rewording.
Most quest boil down to; do task to gain 15% Xp / level and come back for reward and 30% Xp / level. What alternative task can we come up with. First let me define what I see as KTX, btw I have no problem with KTX myself.
1. Escort NPC from point A to point B. There may be constant mob spawns along the path, or the random mobs that already spawn along the path attack. The number and name ( X ) to kill may not be specified in the quest text, but the intent is there.
2A. Recover item A from location B. This is the example given above that was heralded as revolutionary. The quest text only mentions one item A and a location B. This location may be a farm, cave, field, keep, armoury, or schoolhouse it doesn't matter. The location will be filled with mobs. Now you could avoid the mobs and not kill a single one. You won't get the 15% Xp you were sent to location B to get along with item A, but that is up to you. You will get the reward and 30% Xp for turning in item A. Does anyone remember the Pick-axe quest in Vanilla WoW's Orc starting area?
2B. Take item A to location B. You may be given a bag of magic been, and asked to go to location B and plant 10 been on the planting mounds found at location B. You may be asked to heal 10 wounded soldiers, scan 10 archaeologists, or sample 10 tained deer. Just like 2A while at location B you are expected to kill 15% Xp worth of Mobs, even though the quest doesn't spell it out for you.
2C. Go speak to NPC A at location B. This is the classic delivery / FedEx quest. if this quest is doable in the same city as the quest giver and you go no where near mobs then you can say it is not a KTX. But if it requires travel and you see mobs, then you are expected to kill mobs on your way to interact with NPC / Object ( item ) A. Say the quest send you to a farm to collect a watch from under a bed. But that farm is full of bandits.
3. Defend / Attack location B from mobs A. SWG created "The Village Quests" to become a Jedi, just before the CU NGE. One of the quest in the fourth phase required the player characters to defend the village from waves of elite mobs. These were not mobs that could be soloed. It took about 4-5 max level players to kill one mob, and it wasn't a fast fight either. But I saw a lot of people state that this battle was the most fun thing they had done in SWG. The quest text may say kill 10 of X mob, or it may say be at location B for 30 minutes and defend or attack.
IMO All of these quest types are KTX quests are their root. For the posters who said they prefer sandbox to themepark. If a sandbox is a game that requires you to gain xp to level, and to gain xp you must kill mobs or other players. Then that sandbox is a KTX quest. You may be a non-combat class in a sandbox, but if your xp depends on resources collected in the vicinity of mobs, then it's KTX. I suppose only classes similar to those derived from Entertainer in SWG could say they are not involved in KTX. Their Xp does not require them to Kill Ten X either directly or indirectly.
So what are some alternatives to KTX? Any quest that doesn't expect you to kill to accomplish the goal. You may be able to avoid the kill by stealth, alternate path, or proxy (someone else does the killing). But to me that is still KTX. Bartle tells us that there are four types of players in an mmo, killers socializers explorers and achievers. We have to cross killer off the list because anything that involves killing is a KTX. So now we know we have to come up with non-kill quest of type S. E. or A.
1. Colonization. So long as you don't have to kill anything then this is not a KTX. Go to location B and establish a colony. This could involve resource collection and area preparation. Build farms, homes, road, schools, town halls, and shipyards. This would cover exploration, and achievement. If you accomplished the goal with other or in a group it would cover socialization.
2. Education / google. This is a catch all to me. I include puzzles under this, DDO had some good ones including the Tower of Hanoi. But what if you asked some math, science, reading, and grammar. Even foreign languages. These could be multiple choice, or employ and equation editor. Most likely people will tab out and google the answer rather than learn. what dev would want to teach or create a system to evaluate an answer.
3. Politics, Law, Diplomacy / google. This is another category of Education that can just be looked up on google for the answer. An example of diplomacy, in order to use another factions road, you must marry a member of that factions royal family. Take one faction NPC and care for it for 5 to 7 days and get the Xp.
Are these examples of fun? Probably not.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
The main problem here is the structure of leveling. You have to get XP to level up nad quests deliver them twice. One by killing the mobs, two from the quest giver.
Without pressure to gain XP or leves, just skills, you don't need that many quests. With anything other than level based (time, usage, skill points) you can reduce the number of quests, or rather make quests what they realy should be (KTX is NOT a quest): epic stories of a journey to an end.
The main problem here is the structure of leveling. You have to get XP to level up nad quests deliver them twice. One by killing the mobs, two from the quest giver.
Without pressure to gain XP or leves, just skills, you don't need that many quests. With anything other than level based (time, usage, skill points) you can reduce the number of quests, or rather make quests what they realy should be (KTX is NOT a quest): epic stories of a journey to an end.
I agree with the part about quests being mundane, but the alternative would be simple grinding. Being from the EQ era, I don't have a problem with grinding, but today's breed of MMO player cant stand it. They need their grind hidden from them like a dog'd heartworm medicine cleverly wrapped in delicious tasty tasty bacon (I skipped breakfast this morning ).
Off the top of my head, I would say making combat more fun, interesting, time-consuming would be a step in the right direction. As it stands, killing monsters in most MMOs is as involved as pressing 1 and 2 repeatedly for about 10 seconds. Why not make fights take longer, grant better rewards, and involve better AI? Third person action platformers can do it, it shouldn't be unthinkable for an MMO to do it as well.
More exp per kill with longer, more interesting fights will mage grinding far less....grindy.
I don't mind kill x of y mob quests to much,what really annoys me is the way MMO's have changed where you get arrows and x marks the spot on your map to where to go next.For me this destroys any kind of questing,they all may as well be kill x mob because pointing you in the direction of each part of a quest no matter how many parts or how elaborate the story is showing you all the way to the end makes it pointless.
Edit: At least this way you have to read the text for clues of where to go or in what area x mobs live which helps me at least immerse in the game world.Stop hand holding and catering to players who click NPC,follow arrows,kill x mob,follow arrow back to npc,get reward,without reading a single word.
Personally...I don't overly mind KTX quests. I do prefer some bit of explanation about why I'm killing them (yes, I read Quest Text. All of it. Every time.) but even if it's individually flimsy as a quest, as long as I'm progressing towards some larger goal it's okay. I'm not real demanding that way.
But I also remember a couple games that didn't point out exactly where to go on the map -- however, as many others have mentioned, it'll go up on Google faster than you can say Abracadabra. At that point you're arbitrarily slowing yourself down -- that's okay, there's a place for that! But that can likewise be accomplished simply by putting a checkmark in the Options menu that says 'No Quest Tracker'.
I think in the end, there really is only one good answer for the genre and it's type of quests -- breaking it in two. One should be Persistant Worlds, and the other will specifically use the term 'Game'. KTX quests are ~perfect~ for the 'Game' category...not so much for Persistant Worlds. IOW, the conundrum is most easily approached by splitting it into two easily-managed segments. If the rise of the KTX was primarily because of those who match 'Game' up with 'Not a time requirement', then giving it it's own sub-genre (which has practically been done anyway) will remove the element from Persistant World play.
I don't mind the kill quests much as long as they give a good reason. Most just go about saying "your the hero, kill them" and that feels wrong, to me at least.
Also i haven't seen any MMO give you choices as how to solve problems/quests or even deny a quest in favor of another, and quests are mostly, if not always, static things. SWTOR does it partly but not good enough to be honest.
I mean they don't give you this for example;
Scenario 1:
You meet a fleeing farmer while travelling and he sees you walk towards him. The farmer rushes towards you in terror and shouts: Run ! run ! the raiders are attacking the village !
suddenly the farmer gets shot in the back with an arrow and falls dead on the ground. You see a shadowy figure run into the woods, it must be the person that shot the farmer and you now decide to:
A. Run after him in the hope to catch him and get some answers as to what is happening and who he is.
B. Let him run and investigate the farmer's corpse and the village for clue's as to what has happened there exactly.
C. Ignore it since it wasn't your problem to begin with and leave.
D. Loot the corpse for anything valuable and leave.
Scenario 2:
You meet a fleeing farmer while travelling and he sees you walk toward him. You also see a shadowy figure with a bow and yell to the farmer to get into some cover or get down. The farmer quickly get's behind a fallen tree, almost stumbling over it, and the shadowy figure misses his first shot and decides to turn and run into the woods. You now decide to:
A. tell the farmer about a safe spot to hide and quickly pursue the shadowy figure to get some answers.
B. Let the shadowy figure run and ask the farmer what is happening.
C. Tell the farmer that that was all the help you were going to give and leave.
D. Kill the farmer and loot his corpse for any valuables and leave.
Both scenarios could happen to anyone and it would keep questing "fresh"
Of course the choices would have another scenario attached to them expanding the quest even further. Even if you choose not to care you could still be attacked by the raiders on the road/in the forest, making it something personal. Or maybe you run into another farmer or a full squad of battle hardened soldiers and their captain that are about to do the job you didn't want to.
So many things like this could be done to improve the questing process and not just kill quests. It may take a lot of time to create a quest system like that but i'd be hooked for sure.
I would absolutely LOVE a game that instead of telling me "Go kill 10 Gnolls" it gave me NO quest, and I just walked into a gnoll area and killed 10 gnolls because I thought it was fun and adventurous.
Quests are stupid. End of story. Even the best of the best of quests in WoW aren't worth keeping over a sandbox without quests.
DDO, however, is entirely different. Their quests are amazing, and full of adventure, life, etc. I absolutely love their quests, because each quest is actually its own dungeon.
I agree with the part about quests being mundane, but the alternative would be simple grinding. Being from the EQ era, I don't have a problem with grinding, but today's breed of MMO player cant stand it. They need their grind hidden from them like a dog'd heartworm medicine cleverly wrapped in delicious tasty tasty bacon (I skipped breakfast this morning ).
I disagree that games need to revolve around either "grind" or "quest grind." There are other options other than doing the same thing over and over again every 10 minutes with a different monster model.
I've already talked about how dynamically created quests (that is, non-scripted, random/procedurally generated), could solve this issue by making it clear you are doing something important to your character and the players and NPCs you interact with, and providing a real motivation to succeed (other than character progression).
There are other options too. Why not have a zone have a few highly visibile quests that have you go across the entire zone to complete it. It's up to you to figure out how to get there, and you might find many things along the way that spark up mini-quests or tasks. That is no more errand quests.
The problem isn't really that it's a KTX quest, I think we all agree. The problem is that it's a chore with no motivation other than seeing your bar go higher or get a sword with +2 to BS blahblah.
I agree with the part about quests being mundane, but the alternative would be simple grinding. Being from the EQ era, I don't have a problem with grinding, but today's breed of MMO player cant stand it. They need their grind hidden from them like a dog'd heartworm medicine cleverly wrapped in delicious tasty tasty bacon (I skipped breakfast this morning ).
I disagree that games need to revolve around either "grind" or "quest grind." There are other options other than doing the same thing over and over again every 10 minutes with a different monster model.
I've already talked about how dynamically created quests (that is, non-scripted, random/procedurally generated), could solve this issue by making it clear you are doing something important to your character and the players and NPCs you interact with, and providing a real motivation to succeed (other than character progression).
There are other options too. Why not have a zone have a few highly visibile quests that have you go across the entire zone to complete it. It's up to you to figure out how to get there, and you might find many things along the way that spark up mini-quests or tasks. That is no more errand quests.
The problem isn't really that it's a KTX quest, I think we all agree. The problem is that it's a chore with no motivation other than seeing your bar go higher or get a sword with +2 to BS blahblah.
I agree, the problem is Progression for the sake of Progression.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
I don't mind the kill quests much as long as they give a good reason. Most just go about saying "your the hero, kill them" and that feels wrong, to me at least.
Also i haven't seen any MMO give you choices as how to solve problems/quests or even deny a quest in favor of another, and quests are mostly, if not always, static things. SWTOR does it partly but not good enough to be honest.
I mean they don't give you this for example;
Scenario 1:
You meet a fleeing farmer while travelling and he sees you walk towards him. The farmer rushes towards you in terror and shouts: Run ! run ! the raiders are attacking the village !
suddenly the farmer gets shot in the back with an arrow and falls dead on the ground. You see a shadowy figure run into the woods, it must be the person that shot the farmer and you now decide to:
A. Run after him in the hope to catch him and get some answers as to what is happening and who he is.
B. Let him run and investigate the farmer's corpse and the village for clue's as to what has happened there exactly.
C. Ignore it since it wasn't your problem to begin with and leave.
D. Loot the corpse for anything valuable and leave.
Scenario 2:
You meet a fleeing farmer while travelling and he sees you walk toward him. You also see a shadowy figure with a bow and yell to the farmer to get into some cover or get down. The farmer quickly get's behind a fallen tree, almost stumbling over it, and the shadowy figure misses his first shot and decides to turn and run into the woods. You now decide to:
A. tell the farmer about a safe spot to hide and quickly pursue the shadowy figure to get some answers.
B. Let the shadowy figure run and ask the farmer what is happening.
C. Tell the farmer that that was all the help you were going to give and leave.
D. Kill the farmer and loot his corpse for any valuables and leave.
Both scenarios could happen to anyone and it would keep questing "fresh"
Of course the choices would have another scenario attached to them expanding the quest even further. Even if you choose not to care you could still be attacked by the raiders on the road/in the forest, making it something personal. Or maybe you run into another farmer or a full squad of battle hardened soldiers and their captain that are about to do the job you didn't want to.
So many things like this could be done to improve the questing process and not just kill quests. It may take a lot of time to create a quest system like that but i'd be hooked for sure.
TLDR; All this does is delay the KTX.
I'm gonna make two assumptions. First, this is an MMO and not a single player game. Second, this is not done in an instance, so multiple people can interact with the NPCs simultaneously.
A. Run after him in the hope to catch him and get some answers as to what is happening and who he is.
You follow the archer through the woods to an area populated by his gang, The archer "Disappears" into the gang of Mobs and respawns to shoot the farmer back on the road. You and the other five players who chased the archer now grind on Gang Member mobs. Killing Ten of X for 15% Xp.
B. Let him run and investigate the farmer's corpse and the village for clue's as to what has happened there exactly.
A torn Gang insignia is found in the farmers hand. An entry in the farmers journal in the farm house says the village has been threatened by a gang to the North in the woods, along the path the archer fled. You want Xp so you go into the woods and find the gang and begin to Kill Ten of X for 15% Xp.
C. Ignore it since it wasn't your problem to begin with and leave.
Gaining no Xp, and telling the dev that the time spent developing this quest was wasted money.
D. Loot the corpse for anything valuable and leave
You gain 1 point of evil karma, 0.01% Xp, 2 copper coins, 3 seeds (Farming Crafting Item), a torn gang insignia, and a letter to the farmers son that you open and read. The letter is a request for the son to come home and help defend the village from a gang in the woods north of the village along the path the archer fled. You find the camp and the gang sensing your evil karma ask you to join, but first you must Kill Ten hidden villagers for 15% Xp.
A. tell the farmer about a safe spot to hide and quickly pursue the shadowy figure to get some answers.
See A above.
B. Let the shadowy figure run and ask the farmer what is happening.
The farmer tells you the village has been threatened by a gang in the woods north of town. If you follow the path the archer fled, you will find the gang. You find the gang and KTX for 15% Xp.
C. Tell the farmer that that was all the help you were going to give and leave.
You gain 1 point of evil karma, 0.01% Xp, 2 copper coins. Devs realize that the time spent developing this quest was wasted money.
D. Kill the farmer and loot his corpse for any valuables and leave.
See D above.
You could add 15 or 20 more links of quest chain. The final link will always be KTX. You could make an option where the player negotiates a peace with the gang and village for 25 Lbs of beef, 10 loaves of bread and 2 barrels of Ale. You get 5 points of good karma, and 2% Xp. That night the drunk gang returns to the village and kills all the men and defiles the women. You gain 10 points of evil karma, and 3% Xp.
KTX is a goal, completing that goal is suppose to give the player a sense of accomplishment. So do the green items in the loot table of the mobs, and the reward from the quest giver. Now if these triple shots of endorphins don't get your motor running. Then it might be time to see a doctor. I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Comments
NPC random response #A: "That's an interesting object you've found there, perhaps you might check with B, they might know more about it."
NPC random response #B: "Ahh yes, I've seen one of those before many years ago, those are used in X to create Y. I heard C talking about those the other day maybe he/she would know more about it."
NPC random response #C: "Wow, where did you find X? Those are a rare find indeed and used to create X and other items. I've not seen one of those in quite some time, would you like to trade for X Y or Z? I can also make G if you get X Y and Z. I've heard that these might be spotted in the X region, perhaps you might look there."
Is this so difficult to program? Random items used to create random other items? Instead of the same old boring system? Random stats, random similar ingredients with random similar results?
Where has developer creativity gone? Oh that's right, money comes first.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Exactly.
And the rabbit hole can go much, much deeper.
Yea, pretty much. We are just errand boys.
I absolutely agree.Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
To some mighty cool places I might add.
What happened to possibility? What happened to dreaming up ideas? What happened to the MMO future that should have been?
I feel ripped off and I know I'm not alone.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I think a combination of puzzle quests with traps and monsters would be the best way. The puzzle portion would need an element of randomness so that dumb people can't just go online and figure it out. Solving the puzzle should lead to an area with some traps and monster ambushes, and then some nice treasure. The kill 10 x thing is hardly a conundrum, it is simple laziness.
Are you a Pavlovian Fish Biscuit Addict? Get Help Now!
I will play no more MMORPGs until somethign good comes out!
Exactly. The goal should be to create those type of quests where you can't go find the answer on Wiki. Random is where it's at...if you're designing for beyond box sales anyway.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
What about no quests at all, just villagers or whatever complaining about certain monsters. You go out and kill said monsters and the more/faster you kill them, the more bonus xp you get at each kill. The more bonus points you rack up is also correlated to item drop rates, so after killing for 15mins you could have a few nice pieces of armor as well.
Once you have proven yourself to the villagers, the real quest begins, involving the kill of the evil bandit lord/whatever riding around the outer feild of the village... Killing him unlocks a larger overworld quest.
PS: make sure you know to also kill the rare monsters that spawn in the corners/caves, as they are haunting some little kid's dreams...
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
Anarchy Online's Quests were good like this. You had only a handfull of quests. And usually one big story line for the zone. The story was made up of many smaller objectives, but it fed into the overall larger quest that culminated in something worthwhile in the end.
Well, maybe except for Sheol, but that was one big example of what might have been.
There is no difference between a big quest with many sub-parts, and many quests that form a quest chain.
You just call them with different names. Still it is a series of objectives that form a bigger story line, which is the norm in many MMOs anyway.
To bad instead you couldn't simply replace the generic quest system altogether with some type of dynamically occurring event system that was always going on whether or not people were there to participate.
It tells a lot when the OP, in his quest for something new (sorry 'bout that) still has the "Get quest from NPC, do quest, go back to NPC for reward" mentality. It doesn't have to even be that way, and soon it won't.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I don't think KTX quests are the core problem. I think if all you're doing is levelling then no matter how hard you try it's going to feel like a grind eventually. What these games need are distractions from levelling so players take breaks from it e.g. crafting, housing, social, subgames etc, which effect your character but not in a levelling way e.g. raising faction, providing buffs etc.
So you do a few KTX quests for levelling
- stop to bake some pies for the halfling daily faction raising
- do some more levelling grind
- sell the loot for improvements to your house that gives you a house buff or rested exp
- grind a bit more
- get a message that players are needed at the guild base to weed a field that provides one of the components for a guild buff
- grind a bit more
- head off to the wood elf town where you have a daily shot at a 3D platformer subgame where you have to complete a kind of tree-jumping obstacle course for a personal high score
- grind a bit more
etc
The best way to improve the levelling experience for those players not in a hurry to get to max level is to provide entertaining distractions so the players break levelling into chunks.
get rid of standard type quests entirely.
make the "questing" not need a bunch of clicking/scrolling in dialog boxes, get rid of those almost entirely.
and make the "quests" be like "adventure game" puzzles.
if you want them to kill x many mobs, then put that many mobs around the items they need to collect, or the gateway to the next area or whatever.
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Corpus Callosum
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The problem was, unless you were out killing mobs in Shadowlands over and over and over and over and over, you had to keep going to hit the mission terminals in Rubi-ka and we all know, it was just the same 4 mission types over and over and over and over and over. Most of us leveled up by grabbing a ton of missions, killing everything, repeat ad nauseum. That's not a handful of quests, it's a crapload, I used to run 30-40 quests a day, every day, just to level.
It gets old really quick.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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there is no problem for me with kill-quests, but the problem is, that these quests are not challenging, because they are part of a linear hero-story. and heroes dont fail. it is a must, that even my little sister and my dog should be able to do it, in order to progress and be able to start the following quest. this is how the devs did design their theme-parks. one eternal rule is: never harm the player. so we lost the challenge in MMOs latest with EQ2 and WoW in 2004/5.
so how can we solve this problem?
the questgiver should not say "kill 10 rats". he just says " help with the rats". now a bar appears, if you kill rats and fills up, until you have killed enough rats. there are 3 or more types of rats: little rats (green), mature rats (blue) and elder rats (red). if you kill elder rats it is extremely challenging, just skilled players can do it, and fights last longer, and things can go wrong at anytime. but these elder rats fill the bar faster than the green young rats. and my little sister should go and slaughter tons of these easy green little rats.
make the killquests more challenging. finally every quest is a grind. even if it is well hidden like in SWTOR by story and voiceovers. but there is nothing wrong with it. as long as it is challenging and fun its ok. unfortunately killing rats or whatever isnt challenging in todays MMOs. at least not for me. i tried to do just story-quests lateley in AION F2P and avoid any side-quests, in order to get quests with mobs some levels above me. yesterday i killed a named mob level 17 solo with my summoner level 12 in 10 seconds. so there are no red mobs anymore. we lost the challenge. bring us back the challenging, risky and tricky fights. and give other players the option to do their quests in the beloved easy grindy way.
grind is not, to kill mobs without a reason. grind is killing mobs without a challenge. regardless of good reason via a quest or not!
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
This Quest is a KTX quest. The depth of that rabbit hole, 0.00001 inches. The point of this thread is to come up with alternatives to KTX, not rewording.
Most quest boil down to; do task to gain 15% Xp / level and come back for reward and 30% Xp / level. What alternative task can we come up with. First let me define what I see as KTX, btw I have no problem with KTX myself.
1. Escort NPC from point A to point B. There may be constant mob spawns along the path, or the random mobs that already spawn along the path attack. The number and name ( X ) to kill may not be specified in the quest text, but the intent is there.
2A. Recover item A from location B. This is the example given above that was heralded as revolutionary. The quest text only mentions one item A and a location B. This location may be a farm, cave, field, keep, armoury, or schoolhouse it doesn't matter. The location will be filled with mobs. Now you could avoid the mobs and not kill a single one. You won't get the 15% Xp you were sent to location B to get along with item A, but that is up to you. You will get the reward and 30% Xp for turning in item A. Does anyone remember the Pick-axe quest in Vanilla WoW's Orc starting area?
2B. Take item A to location B. You may be given a bag of magic been, and asked to go to location B and plant 10 been on the planting mounds found at location B. You may be asked to heal 10 wounded soldiers, scan 10 archaeologists, or sample 10 tained deer. Just like 2A while at location B you are expected to kill 15% Xp worth of Mobs, even though the quest doesn't spell it out for you.
2C. Go speak to NPC A at location B. This is the classic delivery / FedEx quest. if this quest is doable in the same city as the quest giver and you go no where near mobs then you can say it is not a KTX. But if it requires travel and you see mobs, then you are expected to kill mobs on your way to interact with NPC / Object ( item ) A. Say the quest send you to a farm to collect a watch from under a bed. But that farm is full of bandits.
3. Defend / Attack location B from mobs A. SWG created "The Village Quests" to become a Jedi, just before the CU NGE. One of the quest in the fourth phase required the player characters to defend the village from waves of elite mobs. These were not mobs that could be soloed. It took about 4-5 max level players to kill one mob, and it wasn't a fast fight either. But I saw a lot of people state that this battle was the most fun thing they had done in SWG. The quest text may say kill 10 of X mob, or it may say be at location B for 30 minutes and defend or attack.
IMO All of these quest types are KTX quests are their root. For the posters who said they prefer sandbox to themepark. If a sandbox is a game that requires you to gain xp to level, and to gain xp you must kill mobs or other players. Then that sandbox is a KTX quest. You may be a non-combat class in a sandbox, but if your xp depends on resources collected in the vicinity of mobs, then it's KTX. I suppose only classes similar to those derived from Entertainer in SWG could say they are not involved in KTX. Their Xp does not require them to Kill Ten X either directly or indirectly.
So what are some alternatives to KTX? Any quest that doesn't expect you to kill to accomplish the goal. You may be able to avoid the kill by stealth, alternate path, or proxy (someone else does the killing). But to me that is still KTX. Bartle tells us that there are four types of players in an mmo, killers socializers explorers and achievers. We have to cross killer off the list because anything that involves killing is a KTX. So now we know we have to come up with non-kill quest of type S. E. or A.
1. Colonization. So long as you don't have to kill anything then this is not a KTX. Go to location B and establish a colony. This could involve resource collection and area preparation. Build farms, homes, road, schools, town halls, and shipyards. This would cover exploration, and achievement. If you accomplished the goal with other or in a group it would cover socialization.
2. Education / google. This is a catch all to me. I include puzzles under this, DDO had some good ones including the Tower of Hanoi. But what if you asked some math, science, reading, and grammar. Even foreign languages. These could be multiple choice, or employ and equation editor. Most likely people will tab out and google the answer rather than learn. what dev would want to teach or create a system to evaluate an answer.
3. Politics, Law, Diplomacy / google. This is another category of Education that can just be looked up on google for the answer. An example of diplomacy, in order to use another factions road, you must marry a member of that factions royal family. Take one faction NPC and care for it for 5 to 7 days and get the Xp.
Are these examples of fun? Probably not.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
The main problem here is the structure of leveling. You have to get XP to level up nad quests deliver them twice. One by killing the mobs, two from the quest giver.
Without pressure to gain XP or leves, just skills, you don't need that many quests. With anything other than level based (time, usage, skill points) you can reduce the number of quests, or rather make quests what they realy should be (KTX is NOT a quest): epic stories of a journey to an end.
I agree with the part about quests being mundane, but the alternative would be simple grinding. Being from the EQ era, I don't have a problem with grinding, but today's breed of MMO player cant stand it. They need their grind hidden from them like a dog'd heartworm medicine cleverly wrapped in delicious tasty tasty bacon (I skipped breakfast this morning
).
Off the top of my head, I would say making combat more fun, interesting, time-consuming would be a step in the right direction. As it stands, killing monsters in most MMOs is as involved as pressing 1 and 2 repeatedly for about 10 seconds. Why not make fights take longer, grant better rewards, and involve better AI? Third person action platformers can do it, it shouldn't be unthinkable for an MMO to do it as well.
More exp per kill with longer, more interesting fights will mage grinding far less....grindy.
I don't mind kill x of y mob quests to much,what really annoys me is the way MMO's have changed where you get arrows and x marks the spot on your map to where to go next.For me this destroys any kind of questing,they all may as well be kill x mob because pointing you in the direction of each part of a quest no matter how many parts or how elaborate the story is showing you all the way to the end makes it pointless.
Edit: At least this way you have to read the text for clues of where to go or in what area x mobs live which helps me at least immerse in the game world.Stop hand holding and catering to players who click NPC,follow arrows,kill x mob,follow arrow back to npc,get reward,without reading a single word.
Personally...I don't overly mind KTX quests. I do prefer some bit of explanation about why I'm killing them (yes, I read Quest Text. All of it. Every time.) but even if it's individually flimsy as a quest, as long as I'm progressing towards some larger goal it's okay. I'm not real demanding that way.
But I also remember a couple games that didn't point out exactly where to go on the map -- however, as many others have mentioned, it'll go up on Google faster than you can say Abracadabra. At that point you're arbitrarily slowing yourself down -- that's okay, there's a place for that! But that can likewise be accomplished simply by putting a checkmark in the Options menu that says 'No Quest Tracker'.
I think in the end, there really is only one good answer for the genre and it's type of quests -- breaking it in two. One should be Persistant Worlds, and the other will specifically use the term 'Game'. KTX quests are ~perfect~ for the 'Game' category...not so much for Persistant Worlds. IOW, the conundrum is most easily approached by splitting it into two easily-managed segments. If the rise of the KTX was primarily because of those who match 'Game' up with 'Not a time requirement', then giving it it's own sub-genre (which has practically been done anyway) will remove the element from Persistant World play.
I don't mind the kill quests much as long as they give a good reason. Most just go about saying "your the hero, kill them" and that feels wrong, to me at least.
Also i haven't seen any MMO give you choices as how to solve problems/quests or even deny a quest in favor of another, and quests are mostly, if not always, static things. SWTOR does it partly but not good enough to be honest.
I mean they don't give you this for example;
Scenario 1:
You meet a fleeing farmer while travelling and he sees you walk towards him. The farmer rushes towards you in terror and shouts: Run ! run ! the raiders are attacking the village !
suddenly the farmer gets shot in the back with an arrow and falls dead on the ground. You see a shadowy figure run into the woods, it must be the person that shot the farmer and you now decide to:
A. Run after him in the hope to catch him and get some answers as to what is happening and who he is.
B. Let him run and investigate the farmer's corpse and the village for clue's as to what has happened there exactly.
C. Ignore it since it wasn't your problem to begin with and leave.
D. Loot the corpse for anything valuable and leave.
Scenario 2:
You meet a fleeing farmer while travelling and he sees you walk toward him. You also see a shadowy figure with a bow and yell to the farmer to get into some cover or get down. The farmer quickly get's behind a fallen tree, almost stumbling over it, and the shadowy figure misses his first shot and decides to turn and run into the woods. You now decide to:
A. tell the farmer about a safe spot to hide and quickly pursue the shadowy figure to get some answers.
B. Let the shadowy figure run and ask the farmer what is happening.
C. Tell the farmer that that was all the help you were going to give and leave.
D. Kill the farmer and loot his corpse for any valuables and leave.
Both scenarios could happen to anyone and it would keep questing "fresh"
Of course the choices would have another scenario attached to them expanding the quest even further. Even if you choose not to care you could still be attacked by the raiders on the road/in the forest, making it something personal. Or maybe you run into another farmer or a full squad of battle hardened soldiers and their captain that are about to do the job you didn't want to.
So many things like this could be done to improve the questing process and not just kill quests. It may take a lot of time to create a quest system like that but i'd be hooked for sure.
I would absolutely LOVE a game that instead of telling me "Go kill 10 Gnolls" it gave me NO quest, and I just walked into a gnoll area and killed 10 gnolls because I thought it was fun and adventurous.
Quests are stupid. End of story. Even the best of the best of quests in WoW aren't worth keeping over a sandbox without quests.
DDO, however, is entirely different. Their quests are amazing, and full of adventure, life, etc. I absolutely love their quests, because each quest is actually its own dungeon.
I disagree that games need to revolve around either "grind" or "quest grind." There are other options other than doing the same thing over and over again every 10 minutes with a different monster model.
I've already talked about how dynamically created quests (that is, non-scripted, random/procedurally generated), could solve this issue by making it clear you are doing something important to your character and the players and NPCs you interact with, and providing a real motivation to succeed (other than character progression).
There are other options too. Why not have a zone have a few highly visibile quests that have you go across the entire zone to complete it. It's up to you to figure out how to get there, and you might find many things along the way that spark up mini-quests or tasks. That is no more errand quests.
The problem isn't really that it's a KTX quest, I think we all agree. The problem is that it's a chore with no motivation other than seeing your bar go higher or get a sword with +2 to BS blahblah.
I agree, the problem is Progression for the sake of Progression.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
TLDR; All this does is delay the KTX.
I'm gonna make two assumptions. First, this is an MMO and not a single player game. Second, this is not done in an instance, so multiple people can interact with the NPCs simultaneously.
A. Run after him in the hope to catch him and get some answers as to what is happening and who he is.
You follow the archer through the woods to an area populated by his gang, The archer "Disappears" into the gang of Mobs and respawns to shoot the farmer back on the road. You and the other five players who chased the archer now grind on Gang Member mobs. Killing Ten of X for 15% Xp.
B. Let him run and investigate the farmer's corpse and the village for clue's as to what has happened there exactly.
A torn Gang insignia is found in the farmers hand. An entry in the farmers journal in the farm house says the village has been threatened by a gang to the North in the woods, along the path the archer fled. You want Xp so you go into the woods and find the gang and begin to Kill Ten of X for 15% Xp.
C. Ignore it since it wasn't your problem to begin with and leave.
Gaining no Xp, and telling the dev that the time spent developing this quest was wasted money.
D. Loot the corpse for anything valuable and leave
You gain 1 point of evil karma, 0.01% Xp, 2 copper coins, 3 seeds (Farming Crafting Item), a torn gang insignia, and a letter to the farmers son that you open and read. The letter is a request for the son to come home and help defend the village from a gang in the woods north of the village along the path the archer fled. You find the camp and the gang sensing your evil karma ask you to join, but first you must Kill Ten hidden villagers for 15% Xp.
A. tell the farmer about a safe spot to hide and quickly pursue the shadowy figure to get some answers.
See A above.
B. Let the shadowy figure run and ask the farmer what is happening.
The farmer tells you the village has been threatened by a gang in the woods north of town. If you follow the path the archer fled, you will find the gang. You find the gang and KTX for 15% Xp.
C. Tell the farmer that that was all the help you were going to give and leave.
You gain 1 point of evil karma, 0.01% Xp, 2 copper coins. Devs realize that the time spent developing this quest was wasted money.
D. Kill the farmer and loot his corpse for any valuables and leave.
See D above.
You could add 15 or 20 more links of quest chain. The final link will always be KTX. You could make an option where the player negotiates a peace with the gang and village for 25 Lbs of beef, 10 loaves of bread and 2 barrels of Ale. You get 5 points of good karma, and 2% Xp. That night the drunk gang returns to the village and kills all the men and defiles the women. You gain 10 points of evil karma, and 3% Xp.
KTX is a goal, completing that goal is suppose to give the player a sense of accomplishment. So do the green items in the loot table of the mobs, and the reward from the quest giver. Now if these triple shots of endorphins don't get your motor running. Then it might be time to see a doctor. I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.