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Has MMORPG's Ruined Questing?
nate1980
Member UncommonPosts: 2,063
The Problem:
I am sick and tired of questing. I've only been gaming for about 10 years, and the majority of those years were dedicated to MMORPG's. Most RPG's I played were not class based, and were pretty open-ended. Even the first two MMORPG's I played, DAoC and SWG were not heavily quest based and there were plenty of choices for class advancement and exploration. This isn't a rant against classes or quests, because there's some great games that use both, such as NWN. The problem is that when WoW introduced mass produced questing, it ruined questing for me, because every game since has been about doing thousands of quests. Now, I'm so sick of quests, that I can't even play a single player game that makes you do quests, such as Fallout 3, Witcher, and so on. Questing is all the same is all of these games. They're collected at a NPC, you go do the quest, which is short compared to a quest in a novel, and then you return to the NPC for the reward for completing the quest. It doesn't matter how the objectives of the quest are surrounded with a great story, because the act of questing is the same. It isn't epic at all like I envisioned questing to be when I first started RPG gaming.
I have friends that have gamed for decades, and believe they aren't too old for games. They enjoy RPG's still, to this day. How can I be so sick of them, when I've played only a 3rd of the time they have? I love games. For instance, Shot Online is a very fun game, and provides me with all kinds of enjoyment, and the ordinary person would look at that game and laugh. I just don't understand what went wrong. I got my start with RPG's with KoToR and I am a huge Bioware fan because of that game, and all their other RPG's. But I can't even find the motivation to buy Dragon Age, even though I looked forward to it for 2 years, because I know it'll be all about questing. I haven't even finished playing all the rest of the open ended RPG's I have, so what makes me think I'll finish another open ended RPG, just because it's new? I mean, I got tired of both NWN and NWN 2, due to the constant questing.
The Question:
Has the mass production of quests, mostly meaningless, ruined your appetite for RPG's that rely heavily on doing quests?
Comments
Yes and No.
Average RPG takes around 70 hours to 120 hours,Something like two weeks or three weeks if you want to complete everything it takes a bit longer.
For some reason people expect mmo to last months and game makers like mmo lasting longer because they make more money for the company.So make the game longer we get these bs quests and boring uninspired quests.
I have not finished Oblvion,Mass effect,Fallout 3 and Fable 2 but it is not because of quests but because i have so much fun with different styles of game play that i keep making alts.I would have probably reach futher in those games if had some friends to play with but i can't blame quality quest for not playing game.In most mmo i dread leveling up an alt because i know i wll have play throught some awful senseless quest.
Me personally i prefer playing a mmo that takes maybe 3-6 weeks to reach max level and game depends on great player created pvp content to fill time until the game makers can fill more content
than
It takes 3 to 4 months to max level but they have to stretch the content which leads to bad quests.
I rather make alts and replay good shorter content rather than longer game with bad quests but i am in the minority.
Questing can only be ruined be 1) a boring story or 2) the person playing the game just wanting to level up in the game and not care about the story. Every MMO I have played, thus far, has a great story (art is hard to judge, btw) but people are way too concerned, nowadays, to level up and I think it is because MMOs are very common now then they used to be. I always read the story because it makes the game more fun and worth it. If I am not a fan of the story I will swtich to another game.
If the story is presented in a lazy way, that ruins the quest as well. If I wanted to read the story as text I'd go to library and grab a fantasy book- when I'm playing a 3D game I expect to see the developers take advantage of that fact with cutscenes at least. Few boxes of text and a "Yohoho adventurer, bring me some bat wings!" one-liner only makes me disgusted.
1) a boring story is what I meant by your argument. If a story is not interesting then it will lose a gamer, but not all. As for cutscenes I am with you there; "phasing" is being used more, as are cutscenese but after a few times people want to skip them (which you can, sometimes). Cutscenes can intensify a game, like final fantasy (still prefer the old ones still).
And yes...one liners suck.....except in action movies
I can understand the sentiment but for me it hasn't. I tend to still get into the quests for the games I play because my main reason for playing most games personally is the games "lore". While NCAA baseball 00 might be a better game I still play MLB 99 because I want to play with major league teams. And likewise I haven't tried every mmo on the market looking for the "next big thrill" as so many gamers do. Often we burn ourselves out because we try every game on the market hoping one will be different and remind us of the first mmo we played as opposed to the last. Without saying wether it is a good thing or not I can say I don't have this problem I loved reading the quests in WOW and I love reading the quests in LOTRO, I also liked that games like SWG had mission terminals that were not quests per se but truth be told I would have loved to also play a rich quest line like LOTRO offers and not just the legacy quest they have now with is extremely limited.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Maybe it has to do with the setting also, and how smart the AI is. For example, I loved the KoToR series, even though there were plenty of side-quests, because I love the setting and IP. I even liked Mass Effect and completed it. NWN 1 & 2, I couldn't complete for some reason. I love the DnD setting, but maybe they didn't pull me in or maybe it was something else. The Gothic series is another RPG I really got into, but the AI in that game was pretty good. NPC's did their own thing and seemed to have their own temperments, which weren't that predictable, so the game was more immersive.
I'm no expert, I'm only a gamer. A gamer who spend hundreds of dollars on games and subscriptions a year. So I can't tell you factually which is the better way to go, but maybe MMORPG's should have stayed as an evolution of MUD's, and never should of gone mainstream. Maybe then the MMORPG's would be more RPG oriented, more world over game, more of a second life, than going to a carnival or themepark. But I'm no expert; the numbers of course state otherwise.
Thats one of the reasons I find that killing mobs should be about as rewarding as questing. So you can just grind away with some good sound when you are sick of questing.
One definition of quest is, NOUN: 1. The act or an instance of seeking or pursuing something; a search. quester
What do you propose that gaming companies do with RPG's, if you don't want them to have quests? How would you know to pursue a specific relic/artifact if someone didn't tell you it existed in game? Who is supposed to tell you that it exists, what it does, why it would be good to acquire it, if not an NPC?
The main storyline in itself is a quest, how would you know that a big bad baddy is trying to wipe out an entire region, country, race, if not for the the NPC that shares that story with you?
As for the side quests, most of those are just ways to make easy money and acquire items as rewards... I say if you don't want/need those rewards, don't do the quest.
Some folks seem to think that sandbox defines RPG... but in my view it doesn't, because the classic RPG has a story that a game master has to tell, which can be linear, but when the PC's start to stray the Game Master has to act on the fly to get things back in line with what's supposed to be happening... My experience with 'sandbox' MMORPG's is that there is very little in the way of story and quest, but that bored me because I didn't want to 'make things up as I went along'... UO is a perfect example, I really found little that kept my interest in that game, I liked crafting but basically all that game was to me was either a PvP, dungeon crawler, item grinding game, with a small group of Thee's and Thou's Role players...
I've said it before in other posts, I didn't create the game so I shouldn't have to come up with my own story/quests and fun.
Just my view.
The only reason I am excited for SW:TOR is because Bioware does great with stories. I am not a SW fanatic, at all. I only liked the very very first two and that was it, nothing else but KOTOR was great. As far as story goes I am sure it will be great, which will make the pve aspect amazing (story = pve and pvp if integrated right). I am also hoping Bioware will use their story skills for WAR to fix up the pve.
Oh, I'm not saying questing is bad, it's how they do it. For example, doing 1000 little quests with short descriptions that poorly hide the fact that it's filler until you get to the good stuff compared to one long quest, that spans many levels, that's rife with exploration, adventure, and forces you to make decisions, solve puzzles, avoid traps, and deal with rather unpredictable things. I've given this example plenty of times over the years on this website, but here goes:
You stroll up to a village, and after talking to the inhabitants, you see that they have problems with bandit raids. You can let the village suffer, because it's not your problem, or you can seek out these bandits and deal with them. The villagers are terrified of the bandits, so aren't going to outright tell you where they are. So you need to use your brain, buy a map of the land, and deduce where they might be hiding. Once you find them, you can try and kill them all, or reason with the bandit leader to stop the raids. Perhaps there's an underlying reason why the bandits are bandits to begin with, and why they are raiding that town in particular.
Now in MMORPG's, a similar quest would be broken up into several smaller things, to make it more time consuming. First, you'd be asked to scout where they'd suspect the bandits to be hiding and return to the NPC. Then he sends you to kill some scouts, and bring bag something as proof, yet not all of these scouts drop that proof, then return to the NPC. Next, the NPC sends you back to the bandit camp to kill some bandit warriors, then return back to the NPC. Then he sends you to kill some Bandit Leutinents, then return...etc. You didn't use your brain at all, you just followed the markers or the very specific directions the NPC gives you. There weren't any surprises, no traps, no puzzles, just back and forth running and killing.
My first example of a quest had more mystery and required you to think, and gave you options on how to take care of it. The second example dumbed it all down, seperating 1 real quest, into several smaller tasks called quests.
Now would you rather do 50 of the larger quests, each of them pretty different and grander as you level up, taking a lot of time to complete, or would you rather do these chores and kill tasks for these NPC's, like you see in MMORPG's? So it's not that I think quests are bad or don't belong in MMORPG's, it's that they suck, and hardly qualify as being called a quest. I mean, you're an adventurer, a hero, yet there's guards asking you to kill wolves 10 paces away, which is their job. Or you have some NPC asking you to collect herbs from his garden, because the boars might get him, yet those boars were always there.
I'd rather play a MMORPG with 1 long and challenging quest, that requires me to figure things out for myself, and has a high chance of failure, than do 1000 small kill task or collect task quests.
SWTOR seems to be headed towards a more story driven, less quest grind type of progression. I'm very skeptical of this game though because they are spending a lot of development on making it fully voiced over. Ehh... my gripes are besides the point.
The point is that it seems to be, at least so far, attempting to create an MMO experience unlike any other we've seen to date. It looks like they are trying to hide the grind and focus on storyline. Is it going to be uber awesomeo 9000? I'm personally doubtful, but it definitely does look like it's offering something different.
sorry but i would say 90% of people don't give a shit about a quests story and they just take them because thats the fastest way to level up. if you put auto quest machines (ala SWG) that just randomly generated quests with no story people would still run them.
quests in MMORPGS shouldn't be called Quests they should be called Chores. perfect example of this is Aion, in there your an angel a protector of your realm and a hero to normal humans. so you go to this city and what do you get as a "quest".
"can you find my Cat he's lost"
"my pet likes cheese and wine can you go get me some"
are you kidding me? im a hero of the land and you want me to do this crap for your pets.
give me the epic quests like those back in EQ1.
That is only you.
In Nick Yee's survey, quest content is the #1 feature players request.
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001630.php
because its the quickest and easiest way to level, So of course new MMORPGers brought up on instant gratification and overall laziness that comes with WoW want more and more quests that give much more xp and much better loot.
name them chores because thats all that crap is "go kill 5 wombats and bring me thier spleens" "go kill 7 sheep and bring me thier nutsacks". dumbed down uninteresting content, perfect for this WoWified Genre.
because its the quickest and easiest way to level, So of course new MMORPGers brought up on instant gratification and overall laziness that comes with WoW want more and more quests that give much more xp and much better loot.
name them chores because thats all that crap is "go kill 5 wombats and bring me thier spleens" "go kill 7 sheep and bring me thier nutsacks". dumbed down uninteresting content, perfect for this WoWified Genre.
Nothing wrong with quick. Do you prefer your toon to have no upgrades and no new abilities for weeks?
And someone gives a purpose, no matter how thin, is better than go mob grind for absolutely no reason at all.
Quests are only there for the new audience of MMORPGs: people with no brains.
Think about it, in these newer MMORPGs, you are just doing quest after quest. They have no relation to anything in the game. They are all variations of the following:
Kill X of these
Collect these
Go here
Kill this boss
Etc.
It's really stupid because it made MMORPGs mindless. Questing is part of what ruined immersion / exploration in newer MMORPGs. You don't need to know how to navigate in these MMORPGs. They usually give you maps anymore, and the quests tell you where to go and what to do.
Because of questing, players don't explore things on their own. They just read quests and do what the quests say.
In EQ, I would wander around zones looking for things to kill. It actually required some thought to figure out where I wanted to level.
But in newer MMORPGs, you go from level 1-75 just doing quest after quest. It's useful if you are mindless I guess, and don't like exploring things on your own, and want a linear MMORPG where you don't have much freedom.
I don't mind epic quests, or quests that are actually difficult. The problem is these quests are extremely trivial (Clear Naxxramas, or some other retarded objective.)
In EQ, the quests could take weeks of going to different zones, talking to people, getting stuff from crafters, etc. Now it's all been replaced with trivial bullshit quests.
EQ had real quests. When I got gauntlets of dragon slaying, it took 1-2 weeks of factioning just to do a hand-in. Now when you complete a quest in a newer MMORPG, there is no sense of accomplishment because these quests take 1 minute each. Fucking companies abuse quests as a way to give exp, so they've become meaningless