I'm ok with just about any kind of questing as long as it isn't the only activity worth doing in the game. If all you have to do are quests don't even make a world, just have doors at one hub that way it isn't false advertising. I get pissed off when there is a so called "world" but it's just a walkspace to quest entrances.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Originally posted by filmoret First would you explain what you call linear questing and then tell us what exactly is the alternative? The only thing I can figure is a zone mixed with all kinds of level mobs. I don't see how a mmo can exist if it doesn't have zones that have certain level mobs in those zones. How would you feel as a lvl 20 running into a level 90 group of mobs? I think the market has done an excellent job in placing super strong mobs in every area. But mobs that are unkillable is more realistic however do you really as a lvl 90 want to visit a level 20 area just to kill that group of mobs placed there?
The problem is not linear questing but lack of imagination being put in those quests.
I don't mind killing X or collecting Y as long as some though process has been put into those tasks. look at TSW for example. That is how questing is done. I have played every MMO on market but TSW questing is genius.
You still pretty much follow somewhat linear storyline which leads you from oen zone to another.. but TSW has raised the bar when it comes to quests.
There is the type where you move from zone to zone, complete all the quests that you care to and then move to the next zone. You can do part of the levels in one zone and part in another etc. This isn't great but it works ok.
Then there is the newer WoW and Terra style where you literally get led around by the nose from spot to spot. You get 3 quests, you do them, turn them in at the next quest spot and get 3 more. People refer to this as quests on rails. Games with this are just awful and to me unplayable.
Bottom line for me is that quests should supplement the game, not drive the game. If PvE is primarily spent doing the laundry list on your quest tracker it is not a well developed game.
Linear questing doesn't bother me so long as it's confined to quest hubs, and not one long single narrative that controls my whole journey through the game.
Linear character progression is, I think, played out and tired. After ten+ years, I think the genre is ready to revisit something like what SWG tried. That is, a more horizontal, customizable character progression, where your stats don't increase ridiculously, but you just pick up new skills instead.
Characters shouldn't become superheroes as they advance-- they should just have more tricks at their disposal. I've always thought a level 100 should be very killable by ten level 1's.
I think of it this way. You have a skeletal zone where you have mundane undead creeping about the countryside. Then there is a largeish palace where the skeletons start to get tougher as you scooch in towards it.. Once on the palace proper they start getting armor and have swords. Then inside the palace hall there are undead mage skeletons and further in there are undead kings with undead body guards. On further exploration you find a basement with catacombs that are swarming to the point no one has succesfuylly explored it all!
The same can be done for lizzardmen in the lizzardmen zone and the elemental zone and the badit zone and so on.
The main thing here is each zone has a specific "questline" and a particular set of drops and or reagents that can not be obtained another way.
Each zone should be able to take you from 1-cap but moving around is rewarding.
I still think vanilla WoW had the best questing experience in all themeparks to this date. I wouldn't mind if it had been a little slower, more grindy, and more gear dependant for all classes, not only for a warrior. The journey to level 60 was awesome nonetheless.
Let's not go overboard. Vanilla WOW's quests had worse flow, almost nonexistent quest 'events', which resulted in worse story-telling and an overall boring leveling experience.
Linear questing zones do suck, but let's not go overboard. It's enough simply to say that the game should support more than 2 characters worth of leveling, since quite a few players have more than 2 and would like more variety to questing. I think with just 2 chars in WoD you could probably achieve 30-40% quest overlap by choosing different paths inside a zone with two different characters, but in Vanilla the overlap was a much lower percentage and probably supported 3+ characters.
Honestly the two are partially related. One involves spamming crappy quests across multiple zones (resulting in less linearity) and the other involves really awesome quests in fewer zones (more development time per quest to make them awesome, which leaves no time to spam side quests.)
Everyone seemed to love vanilla questing because it was a novelty feature. Wow was the first mmo to have so many quests and to drown you with them to the point that there were 5 times more than you would ever need to get to max level. Also for its time wow questing was years ahead of the competition. Wow was just fun to play because the alternative was grinding mobs. Every other mmo prior to wow relied mainly on grinding mobs.
Wow never felt linear to me. There was always more than 1 zone to quest in. Sometimes you would have 3-4.
@op, a lot of people on these forums want the oldshool way of levelling. Grinding mobs like in EQ. I personally don't share this view. For me EQ and other mob grinding MMOs were boring as hell to me. wow is the bes mmo I have ever played. So yeah I loved the questing.
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Pre-PoP EverQuest is a great example in my opinion. It focused on your freedom in what you wanted, without being chained to having to do a quest. You went out and hunted and went where you wanted in your level range, you would come across a mysterious object, usually marked No Drop so you knew it was used for something, and have to go research, ask around or whatever to figure out what it was for. None of this quest items only drop off the next x amount of mobs when the quest is active. You just went what you did, if you came across a quest or quest item, you could fulfill that.
Would be my idea MMO again if something came out similar to that without all the quests shoved in your face to lead you where you were supposed to go.
If I wanted to quest in EQ I was not given that option. People make it sound that EQ gave you freedom of choice but that's not true. If I wanted to level up only by doing quests that was not possible. Actually vanilla wow gave more options. You could only grind mobs and still level up or you could do lots of questing.
You have to go and research a mysterious object? Well you could always Google things now. TSW is much better at the whole discovery and mystery thing.
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I loathe linear quest lines.. SWTOR and RIFT played exactly that way.. I don't have a problem with, or mind level appropriate zones like what EQ did, and WoW semi did.. But having a singular breadcrumb trail that players are almost forced to follow is choking. When a game strong arms you into going from point A > B > C > D > E > F > G, etc etc.. and penalizes you for not being on rails, I call that linear..
I always find such games very SOLO minded and anti-social by nature.. 90% of the time players will NEVER be on the same quest.. They will be spread all over the place where some are on #78, one might be on #79, while another is on #80, and more on #81 and #81.. Players that have already done previous content often avoid grouping up with players not as far along the quest line as they are.. And because too many of the quest are "chained" players on #78 feel penalized to group up with players on #81, because that quest can't be shared since it isn't unlocked yet..
BTW, have I said how much I hate, despise, loathe quest chains? I don't want to feel like I'm part of an assembly line waiting my turn.. I want freedom of choice.. If I had my way, games should have 6 or more zones PER character level.. So If I'm level 37, there should be a minimum of 6 zones I can go into and have fun.. Furthermore, I think all characters should be subject to flex leveling like GW2 has.. If I take my lvl 37 Ranger into a lower level zone, my power is reduced appropriately so I can team up with others.. NO GOD MODE.. One last thing.. NO MORE quest chains (!), I encourage repeatable bounties instead.. Go kill wolves if you want and turn in wolf pelts for reward.. If that isn't your cup of tea, and you like going after the bandits, go for it.. This removes the artificial walls quest chains put up.. Now players have the option to group up anytime they want..
Originally posted by filmoret First would you explain what you call linear questing and then tell us what exactly is the alternative? The only thing I can figure is a zone mixed with all kinds of level mobs. I don't see how a mmo can exist if it doesn't have zones that have certain level mobs in those zones. How would you feel as a lvl 20 running into a level 90 group of mobs? I think the market has done an excellent job in placing super strong mobs in every area. But mobs that are unkillable is more realistic however do you really as a lvl 90 want to visit a level 20 area just to kill that group of mobs placed there?
You're kind of talking about 2 different aspects, tbh.
The first (linear questing) is a pretty interesting topic, and there are a few examples of games that have branched away from that type of design. Most noteably would either be sandbox MMOs (SWG, Eve, etc.) but also some of the more recent themeparks (GW2 for example) have more open questing.
The 2nd problem you refer to is levels / leveling / difficulty pacing. While this can be a result of poor quest design, it is indeed a separate problem all together.
1) If you want to learn more about quest design here is an interesting video that talks about this topic. It is a 2 parter, but I linked you the 2nd part, as it gets more to the point. However, part 1 also has some pretty valid points if your interested and cites the original everquest as an example of non-linear quesitng. Simply put, the alternative to linear questing is to not use questing as a method for guiding players through a vertical level grind. Instead, use quests as a means to engage players within the world, to encourage discovery. As tools that players have to actually discover / find on their own, without the super obvious ! above everything. It requires more engagement by the player, but when done right you get games like EQ and TSW which both have some great quests in them.
2) Difficulty pacing is a somewhat complex issue, and there are a number of ways around it. One is to scale the encounters to a players level. Another is to do away with levels entirely (which is harder to do these days, as everyone wants levels because it makes them feel powerful, and that they're accomplishing something at all times). Another way is to have lose guidelines, but also provide some higher lvl encounters in each zone. Games like FFXI and Dragon Age 3 have done this for example, and it's actually not a bad thing. It gives players a reason to return to old zones, and gives them early hints that 'hey, there is something bigger going on here that I'll have to come back to'.
- There are alternatives out there, you just have to look for them.
In my book, Linear questing is when you are forced to do certain quests to be able to progress in the zone or to the next zone.
If right done it can still work, but in a MMO should be able to pick the content you like and progress without being forced to do the stuff you think is boring. Forcing a PvP player to do a zillion PvE quests as example is just bad design.
Most MMOs offer XP for a lot of different things and the gameplay can have many options, forcing everyone to do the same content is as bad as forcing PvE players to PvP (unless they play on a PvP server but then they already made choice when they rolled).
Most MMOs offers quests, crafting, story instances, dungeons, raids, open PvP and arenas. Some offers even more stuff like DEs, minigames and RvR. Let us pick the stuff we like besides the tutorial.
Originally posted by filmoret First would you explain what you call linear questing and then tell us what exactly is the alternative? The only thing I can figure is a zone mixed with all kinds of level mobs. I don't see how a mmo can exist if it doesn't have zones that have certain level mobs in those zones. How would you feel as a lvl 20 running into a level 90 group of mobs? I think the market has done an excellent job in placing super strong mobs in every area. But mobs that are unkillable is more realistic however do you really as a lvl 90 want to visit a level 20 area just to kill that group of mobs placed there?
Linear questing is like ESO, SWTOR, and every other game of its kind. The alternative, is Elite Dangerous, where there are no levels, or anything like it. The missions, or quests are generated by players, and what they choice to do in the game. Such as support running slaves out of a place ,being over run by free thinking people, to a place where the slaves can be kept under slavery. Which would generate a kill quest to stop those people ect....
Another example is I keep running medical supplies to this particular place, and it seems that the port is getting better, and quests seem generated more towards helping the people there. Then there is the News network in the game, which will be generated based on what i said.
So in this world it feels alive, and you as the player have actual effect on the world. Not like ESO, where you see the same 500000000 people, save the same town from the same person, doing the same to the t quests.
There are a couple more games that do stuff like this, like uncharted waters online, does basically the same thing, but the ports there dont have news, so you dont feel part of it, but it works better than ESO. The only problem with that one is its 1000000000 percent dump 10 grand into the game, and your a god. Ulitma online has kinda the same thing, with its towns, and how you can contribute to them, but again UO is pay 2 win, with P 2 P, with a lottery based crafting system.
Lots of good responses in this thread. One thing I would like to ask is why do people consider Rift,WoW as linear questing? You don't have to complete the quests in a zone to move to the next. You can simply walk into the next zone and pick up some quests and carry on. There are quest lines and though they are linear they make more sense to have a quest lead to a few different people. That is why I asked people to identify what it is because most people contradict themselves when they point at a particular game and call it linear questing. SWTOR is an example of what I call linear questing. You cannot move to the next area without the quests.
But if we are to say linear questing sucks then we are saying a main story sucks. Because you cannot accomplish a main story in a quest without being linear, Unless they allow you to skip certain aspects of the story. We see the main story bringing us to different quest hubs and if you want in some cases you ignore the main story and just do random quests if the game allows it.
The only questing game that actually has a story that has departed from this is ESO. All your main story quests unlock at levels instead of quest completion. That allowed the player to move freely without being forced to finish quest lines before they could see the story.
Lots of good responses in this thread. One thing I would like to ask is why do people consider Rift,WoW as linear questing? You don't have to complete the quests in a zone to move to the next. You can simply walk into the next zone and pick up some quests and carry on. There are quest lines and though they are linear they make more sense to have a quest lead to a few different people. That is why I asked people to identify what it is because most people contradict themselves when they point at a particular game and call it linear questing. SWTOR is an example of what I call linear questing. You cannot move to the next area without the quests.
But if we are to say linear questing sucks then we are saying a main story sucks. Because you cannot accomplish a main story in a quest without being linear, Unless they allow you to skip certain aspects of the story. We see the main story bringing us to different quest hubs and if you want in some cases you ignore the main story and just do random quests if the game allows it.
The only questing game that actually has a story that has departed from this is ESO. All your main story quests unlock at levels instead of quest completion. That allowed the player to move freely without being forced to finish quest lines before they could see the story.
I say any main story sucks. I mean its ok when your in a single player game, where your role playing a god basically. In a MMO though, its stupid to have 1000s of people running around doing the same damn thing. You say ESO, but ESO is terrible at linear quest lines. Its like skyrim, with 10000000 dragon born running around. There is just no role playing in that game. You walk up to a guy that you were suppose to kill and save the town, and 20+ people jump him. Then he re spawns haha.
As I said in my other post, the only way around it is to not have levels, and make the game 100 percent skill based, and i dont mean like in game skills where you get better as your character swings a sword. I mean you dont get better unless you can shoot better, and comes real player skill. Then add in a mission/quest system, that generates based on what players are doing in the game.
I still think vanilla WoW had the best questing experience in all themeparks to this date. I wouldn't mind if it had been a little slower, more grindy, and more gear dependant for all classes, not only for a warrior. The journey to level 60 was awesome nonetheless.
Let's not go overboard. Vanilla WOW's quests had worse flow, almost nonexistent quest 'events', which resulted in worse story-telling and an overall boring leveling experience.
Linear questing zones do suck, but let's not go overboard. It's enough simply to say that the game should support more than 2 characters worth of leveling, since quite a few players have more than 2 and would like more variety to questing. I think with just 2 chars in WoD you could probably achieve 30-40% quest overlap by choosing different paths inside a zone with two different characters, but in Vanilla the overlap was a much lower percentage and probably supported 3+ characters.
Honestly the two are partially related. One involves spamming crappy quests across multiple zones (resulting in less linearity) and the other involves really awesome quests in fewer zones (more development time per quest to make them awesome, which leaves no time to spam side quests.)
Up to Wod I leveled with fun questing and great joy ALL of my 22 alts (11 horde and 11 alliance of course). Ok, with horde alts I leveled faster because of playing 5man instances with many, but not all. All my alliance alts has been always leveled only by fun questing. Up to Wod which feels to me like BC2 and lost all interest to play after barely 1 month (instead of usuall 6!! months). Still after 4 maxed out alts in this short time I will return but I'm afraid will never ever have again full set of alts.
But best and most fun questing ever have Swtor for me. Never enjoyed so much listening to superb voicing, having from time to time tough moral choices, i.e. to kill a girl npc or whole bounch of other people, .... There I have 8 maxed out alts since start for unique class quest experience and remaining 8 just for fun, leveling slowly.
And I find liner questing only natural. Not like Oblivion (ok, not mmo) where was always same epic fight killing rats in any area no matter which level player is). And stopped to play after half year Gw2 exactly for questing I do not like at the end.
@op, a lot of people on these forums want the oldshool way of levelling. Grinding mobs like in EQ. I personally don't share this view. For me EQ and other mob grinding MMOs were boring as hell to me. wow is the bes mmo I have ever played. So yeah I loved the questing.
I think there are alternatives.
One is the D3 type of random dungeons + bounties. A lot of the WOW quests are no more than a bounty plus a very little 3 lines "justification". Why not just dispense with the pretense, and just list the tasks. Just make the tasks fun (i.e. combat tasks with good combat).
I think quests should be a one or zero thing. Either put in a lot of resources (like in a SP game) and make it like a movie story, or just get rid of the fluff, and focus on the tasks.
Quests give people something to do or point you to an area you didn't know existed or an aspect of the game you might not have thought about yet. Linear quests are directly attached to leveling up and level restricted zones. Leveling is offensive, not the actual questing. Leveling kills immersion and takes away your personal freedom of directive. Most people are fine with being led around by the nose ring.[mod edit] Mixed in with them are one or two nice people who were just bored and wanted to make friends.
@op, a lot of people on these forums want the oldshool way of levelling. Grinding mobs like in EQ. I personally don't share this view. For me EQ and other mob grinding MMOs were boring as hell to me. wow is the bes mmo I have ever played. So yeah I loved the questing.
I think there are alternatives.
One is the D3 type of random dungeons + bounties. A lot of the WOW quests are no more than a bounty plus a very little 3 lines "justification". Why not just dispense with the pretense, and just list the tasks. Just make the tasks fun (i.e. combat tasks with good combat).
I think quests should be a one or zero thing. Either put in a lot of resources (like in a SP game) and make it like a movie story, or just get rid of the fluff, and focus on the tasks.
There are tons of interesting storylines in WoW even early on. West fall and dusk wood had amazing storylines and I loved them when I did them for the first time back at launch. BRM quest chains were great. I still remember some of those stories 10 years later lol.
I never got far in an MMO if I thoght the quest text was horrible. As soon as I start accepting the quest without even reading through it, I usually quit the mmo a few hours later.
besides it's difficult to compare an mmo to a game like Diablo 3. The reason d3 doesn't getting boring is because it takes 10 hours to hit max level. In MMOs you need to spend something like 100+ hours to hit max level. By that point just grinding mobs or running endless dungeons or questing, they all get tedious. I usually never it to max level in most MMOs.
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Originally posted by filmoret Lots of good responses in this thread. One thing I would like to ask is why do people consider Rift,WoW as linear questing? You don't have to complete the quests in a zone to move to the next. You can simply walk into the next zone and pick up some quests and carry on. There are quest lines and though they are linear they make more sense to have a quest lead to a few different people. That is why I asked people to identify what it is because most people contradict themselves when they point at a particular game and call it linear questing. SWTOR is an example of what I call linear questing. You cannot move to the next area without the quests.
Well if you plan on leveling only by questing in these games right now you have exactly one path to follow. You will follow that exact same path for every character of the same race you make. IT is pretty much the definition of linear. I will state again that questing should be a part of leveling but should not dominate leveling. You should want to go do dungeons, you should want to go explore, you should want to spend time on crafting, you should want to do PvP, you should want to go to places others don't go and grind mobs. Quests should never ever be the most efficient way to gain XP and if you are going to build quests it shouldn't be built in the way where two characters do the same quests when played through the game.
Quests need to be somewhat randomized/spontaneous. They need to be something to do while doing other parts of the game, not the main focus of the game. You should stumble upon the quest while doing more interesting actions. There are tons of ways to accomplish this. Things like giving bonus XP to kills in remote areas where people haven't been recently. Making procedural content that you can discover. Making robust crafting systems. Making dungeons that aren't just lobby instances so you can do parts of them with 1 or 2 or 3 or a full gruop of players, you aren't locked into the perfect group.
Pretty much everything about these most recent theme park games is just backwards and awful and downright poorly designed.
EQ 1 had the Oasis of Marr, a lowbie area with mobs called Hill Giants that would kill anyone level appropriate for the zone in under 5 seconds if it wandered close enough. It also had a group of undead spectres that would do the same. Someone could accidentally wander into the spectre group, escape by running but the spectres would follow for awhile. On the spectres' return trip to their spot they could aggro lowbies and wipe them out. A mummy could wander by and give you a disease that would slow your HP regen to an absolute crawl for 45 minutes unless you had a friendly cleric around to clear it.
It made the zone intense. People communicated in shouts letting everyone know where the Hill Giant was or if the spectres were loose. Dying was a pain in the ass and could set you back twenty minutes in XP loss and corpse retrieval. I loved it, but I know there is a large majority of gamers today who don't like setbacks and intensity like that. To them it is tedious, to me it is tedious to play a game without risk and community born of a common danger.
I guess I can sort of see their point of view but I don't really understand how something can be rewarding to accomplish if it isn't difficult. The two seem inextricably intertwined to me. If the game is easy, how could it be rewarding to do well?
EQ 1 had the Oasis of Marr, a lowbie area with mobs called Hill Giants that would kill anyone level appropriate for the zone in under 5 seconds if it wandered close enough. It also had a group of undead spectres that would do the same. Someone could accidentally wander into the spectre group, escape by running but the spectres would follow for awhile. On the spectres' return trip to their spot they could aggro lowbies and wipe them out. A mummy could wander by and give you a disease that would slow your HP regen to an absolute crawl for 45 minutes unless you had a friendly cleric around to clear it.
It made the zone intense. People communicated in shouts letting everyone know where the Hill Giant was or if the spectres were loose. Dying was a pain in the ass and could set you back twenty minutes in XP loss and corpse retrieval. I loved it, but I know there is a large majority of gamers today who don't like setbacks and intensity like that. To them it is tedious, to me it is tedious to play a game without risk and community born of a common danger.
I guess I can sort of see their point of view but I don't really understand how something can be rewarding to accomplish if it isn't difficult. The two seem inextricably intertwined to me. If the game is easy, how could it be rewarding to do well?
I think people don't like the hole premise that you lose progress if you die. What you are describing is not difficult. Those Giants and spectres one shot because they are much higher level. Other genres don't need to rely on unnecessary time sinks. Time sinks and situations where mobs 30 levels above you one shot you are not difficult, they are just frustrating for people who have limited time to play. EQ was never a game for anyone who couldn't dedicate a bare minimum of 4 hours a day, usually people would play it for 10 hours plus. This is why people often joked that people who played evercrack were basement dwellers
In other genres games are difficult and exciting because they require skill and they are actually difficult. The MMOs of old were not difficukt per se, they just took ages to get anything done.
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I guess I can sort of see their point of view but I don't really understand how something can be rewarding to accomplish if it isn't difficult. The two seem inextricably intertwined to me. If the game is easy, how could it be rewarding to do well?
I assume because most people don't try and look for 'accomplishments' while playing a VIDEO GAME?
I can understand trying to look for an 'accomplishment' while doing a marathon or losing weight or writing a novel etc.
But playing a video game?
For me video games are an entertainment product like a 'movie' or 'book'. I generally don't look for 'accomplishments' in those either. I'd say the majority of people look at video games the same way I do.
That doesn't mean people like you don't exists, Dark souls sold millions. But there's more who think like 'me' than 'you'.
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
I guess I can sort of see their point of view but I don't really understand how something can be rewarding to accomplish if it isn't difficult. The two seem inextricably intertwined to me. If the game is easy, how could it be rewarding to do well?
I assume because most people don't try and look for 'accomplishments' while playing a VIDEO GAME?
I can understand trying to look for an 'accomplishment' while doing a marathon or losing weight or writing a novel etc.
But playing a video game?
For me video games are an entertainment product like a 'movie' or 'book'. I generally don't look for 'accomplishments' in those either. I'd say the majority of people look at video games the same way I do.
That doesn't mean people like you don't exists, Dark souls sold millions. But there's more who think like 'me' than 'you'.
wow .. this is eerie .... you almost sound like me. (although i probably will say "I don't look for "accomplishments" while playing a video game?" instead .. since i don't know if most people do).
Comments
The problem is not linear questing but lack of imagination being put in those quests.
I don't mind killing X or collecting Y as long as some though process has been put into those tasks. look at TSW for example. That is how questing is done. I have played every MMO on market but TSW questing is genius.
You still pretty much follow somewhat linear storyline which leads you from oen zone to another.. but TSW has raised the bar when it comes to quests.
Well there are 2 types of linear questing.
There is the type where you move from zone to zone, complete all the quests that you care to and then move to the next zone. You can do part of the levels in one zone and part in another etc. This isn't great but it works ok.
Then there is the newer WoW and Terra style where you literally get led around by the nose from spot to spot. You get 3 quests, you do them, turn them in at the next quest spot and get 3 more. People refer to this as quests on rails. Games with this are just awful and to me unplayable.
Bottom line for me is that quests should supplement the game, not drive the game. If PvE is primarily spent doing the laundry list on your quest tracker it is not a well developed game.
There is. Just do what single player games do (scripting, more writing ....) and put them in instances.
Linear questing doesn't bother me so long as it's confined to quest hubs, and not one long single narrative that controls my whole journey through the game.
Linear character progression is, I think, played out and tired. After ten+ years, I think the genre is ready to revisit something like what SWG tried. That is, a more horizontal, customizable character progression, where your stats don't increase ridiculously, but you just pick up new skills instead.
Characters shouldn't become superheroes as they advance-- they should just have more tricks at their disposal. I've always thought a level 100 should be very killable by ten level 1's.
The same can be done for lizzardmen in the lizzardmen zone and the elemental zone and the badit zone and so on.
The main thing here is each zone has a specific "questline" and a particular set of drops and or reagents that can not be obtained another way.
Each zone should be able to take you from 1-cap but moving around is rewarding.
Everyone seemed to love vanilla questing because it was a novelty feature. Wow was the first mmo to have so many quests and to drown you with them to the point that there were 5 times more than you would ever need to get to max level. Also for its time wow questing was years ahead of the competition. Wow was just fun to play because the alternative was grinding mobs. Every other mmo prior to wow relied mainly on grinding mobs.
Wow never felt linear to me. There was always more than 1 zone to quest in. Sometimes you would have 3-4.
@op, a lot of people on these forums want the oldshool way of levelling. Grinding mobs like in EQ. I personally don't share this view. For me EQ and other mob grinding MMOs were boring as hell to me. wow is the bes mmo I have ever played. So yeah I loved the questing.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
If I wanted to quest in EQ I was not given that option. People make it sound that EQ gave you freedom of choice but that's not true. If I wanted to level up only by doing quests that was not possible. Actually vanilla wow gave more options. You could only grind mobs and still level up or you could do lots of questing.
You have to go and research a mysterious object? Well you could always Google things now. TSW is much better at the whole discovery and mystery thing.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I loathe linear quest lines.. SWTOR and RIFT played exactly that way.. I don't have a problem with, or mind level appropriate zones like what EQ did, and WoW semi did.. But having a singular breadcrumb trail that players are almost forced to follow is choking. When a game strong arms you into going from point A > B > C > D > E > F > G, etc etc.. and penalizes you for not being on rails, I call that linear..
I always find such games very SOLO minded and anti-social by nature.. 90% of the time players will NEVER be on the same quest.. They will be spread all over the place where some are on #78, one might be on #79, while another is on #80, and more on #81 and #81.. Players that have already done previous content often avoid grouping up with players not as far along the quest line as they are.. And because too many of the quest are "chained" players on #78 feel penalized to group up with players on #81, because that quest can't be shared since it isn't unlocked yet..
BTW, have I said how much I hate, despise, loathe quest chains? I don't want to feel like I'm part of an assembly line waiting my turn.. I want freedom of choice.. If I had my way, games should have 6 or more zones PER character level.. So If I'm level 37, there should be a minimum of 6 zones I can go into and have fun.. Furthermore, I think all characters should be subject to flex leveling like GW2 has.. If I take my lvl 37 Ranger into a lower level zone, my power is reduced appropriately so I can team up with others.. NO GOD MODE.. One last thing.. NO MORE quest chains (!), I encourage repeatable bounties instead.. Go kill wolves if you want and turn in wolf pelts for reward.. If that isn't your cup of tea, and you like going after the bandits, go for it.. This removes the artificial walls quest chains put up.. Now players have the option to group up anytime they want..
You're kind of talking about 2 different aspects, tbh.
The first (linear questing) is a pretty interesting topic, and there are a few examples of games that have branched away from that type of design. Most noteably would either be sandbox MMOs (SWG, Eve, etc.) but also some of the more recent themeparks (GW2 for example) have more open questing.
The 2nd problem you refer to is levels / leveling / difficulty pacing. While this can be a result of poor quest design, it is indeed a separate problem all together.
1) If you want to learn more about quest design here is an interesting video that talks about this topic. It is a 2 parter, but I linked you the 2nd part, as it gets more to the point. However, part 1 also has some pretty valid points if your interested and cites the original everquest as an example of non-linear quesitng. Simply put, the alternative to linear questing is to not use questing as a method for guiding players through a vertical level grind. Instead, use quests as a means to engage players within the world, to encourage discovery. As tools that players have to actually discover / find on their own, without the super obvious ! above everything. It requires more engagement by the player, but when done right you get games like EQ and TSW which both have some great quests in them.
2) Difficulty pacing is a somewhat complex issue, and there are a number of ways around it. One is to scale the encounters to a players level. Another is to do away with levels entirely (which is harder to do these days, as everyone wants levels because it makes them feel powerful, and that they're accomplishing something at all times). Another way is to have lose guidelines, but also provide some higher lvl encounters in each zone. Games like FFXI and Dragon Age 3 have done this for example, and it's actually not a bad thing. It gives players a reason to return to old zones, and gives them early hints that 'hey, there is something bigger going on here that I'll have to come back to'.
- There are alternatives out there, you just have to look for them.
In my book, Linear questing is when you are forced to do certain quests to be able to progress in the zone or to the next zone.
If right done it can still work, but in a MMO should be able to pick the content you like and progress without being forced to do the stuff you think is boring. Forcing a PvP player to do a zillion PvE quests as example is just bad design.
Most MMOs offer XP for a lot of different things and the gameplay can have many options, forcing everyone to do the same content is as bad as forcing PvE players to PvP (unless they play on a PvP server but then they already made choice when they rolled).
Most MMOs offers quests, crafting, story instances, dungeons, raids, open PvP and arenas. Some offers even more stuff like DEs, minigames and RvR. Let us pick the stuff we like besides the tutorial.
Linear questing is like ESO, SWTOR, and every other game of its kind. The alternative, is Elite Dangerous, where there are no levels, or anything like it. The missions, or quests are generated by players, and what they choice to do in the game. Such as support running slaves out of a place ,being over run by free thinking people, to a place where the slaves can be kept under slavery. Which would generate a kill quest to stop those people ect....
Another example is I keep running medical supplies to this particular place, and it seems that the port is getting better, and quests seem generated more towards helping the people there. Then there is the News network in the game, which will be generated based on what i said.
So in this world it feels alive, and you as the player have actual effect on the world. Not like ESO, where you see the same 500000000 people, save the same town from the same person, doing the same to the t quests.
There are a couple more games that do stuff like this, like uncharted waters online, does basically the same thing, but the ports there dont have news, so you dont feel part of it, but it works better than ESO. The only problem with that one is its 1000000000 percent dump 10 grand into the game, and your a god. Ulitma online has kinda the same thing, with its towns, and how you can contribute to them, but again UO is pay 2 win, with P 2 P, with a lottery based crafting system.
Lots of good responses in this thread. One thing I would like to ask is why do people consider Rift,WoW as linear questing? You don't have to complete the quests in a zone to move to the next. You can simply walk into the next zone and pick up some quests and carry on. There are quest lines and though they are linear they make more sense to have a quest lead to a few different people. That is why I asked people to identify what it is because most people contradict themselves when they point at a particular game and call it linear questing. SWTOR is an example of what I call linear questing. You cannot move to the next area without the quests.
But if we are to say linear questing sucks then we are saying a main story sucks. Because you cannot accomplish a main story in a quest without being linear, Unless they allow you to skip certain aspects of the story. We see the main story bringing us to different quest hubs and if you want in some cases you ignore the main story and just do random quests if the game allows it.
The only questing game that actually has a story that has departed from this is ESO. All your main story quests unlock at levels instead of quest completion. That allowed the player to move freely without being forced to finish quest lines before they could see the story.
I say any main story sucks. I mean its ok when your in a single player game, where your role playing a god basically. In a MMO though, its stupid to have 1000s of people running around doing the same damn thing. You say ESO, but ESO is terrible at linear quest lines. Its like skyrim, with 10000000 dragon born running around. There is just no role playing in that game. You walk up to a guy that you were suppose to kill and save the town, and 20+ people jump him. Then he re spawns haha.
As I said in my other post, the only way around it is to not have levels, and make the game 100 percent skill based, and i dont mean like in game skills where you get better as your character swings a sword. I mean you dont get better unless you can shoot better, and comes real player skill. Then add in a mission/quest system, that generates based on what players are doing in the game.
Up to Wod I leveled with fun questing and great joy ALL of my 22 alts (11 horde and 11 alliance of course). Ok, with horde alts I leveled faster because of playing 5man instances with many, but not all. All my alliance alts has been always leveled only by fun questing. Up to Wod which feels to me like BC2 and lost all interest to play after barely 1 month (instead of usuall 6!! months). Still after 4 maxed out alts in this short time I will return but I'm afraid will never ever have again full set of alts.
But best and most fun questing ever have Swtor for me. Never enjoyed so much listening to superb voicing, having from time to time tough moral choices, i.e. to kill a girl npc or whole bounch of other people, .... There I have 8 maxed out alts since start for unique class quest experience and remaining 8 just for fun, leveling slowly.
And I find liner questing only natural. Not like Oblivion (ok, not mmo) where was always same epic fight killing rats in any area no matter which level player is). And stopped to play after half year Gw2 exactly for questing I do not like at the end.
I think there are alternatives.
One is the D3 type of random dungeons + bounties. A lot of the WOW quests are no more than a bounty plus a very little 3 lines "justification". Why not just dispense with the pretense, and just list the tasks. Just make the tasks fun (i.e. combat tasks with good combat).
I think quests should be a one or zero thing. Either put in a lot of resources (like in a SP game) and make it like a movie story, or just get rid of the fluff, and focus on the tasks.
Quests give people something to do or point you to an area you didn't know existed or an aspect of the game you might not have thought about yet. Linear quests are directly attached to leveling up and level restricted zones. Leveling is offensive, not the actual questing. Leveling kills immersion and takes away your personal freedom of directive. Most people are fine with being led around by the nose ring.[mod edit] Mixed in with them are one or two nice people who were just bored and wanted to make friends.
There are tons of interesting storylines in WoW even early on. West fall and dusk wood had amazing storylines and I loved them when I did them for the first time back at launch. BRM quest chains were great. I still remember some of those stories 10 years later lol.
I never got far in an MMO if I thoght the quest text was horrible. As soon as I start accepting the quest without even reading through it, I usually quit the mmo a few hours later.
besides it's difficult to compare an mmo to a game like Diablo 3. The reason d3 doesn't getting boring is because it takes 10 hours to hit max level. In MMOs you need to spend something like 100+ hours to hit max level. By that point just grinding mobs or running endless dungeons or questing, they all get tedious. I usually never it to max level in most MMOs.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Well if you plan on leveling only by questing in these games right now you have exactly one path to follow. You will follow that exact same path for every character of the same race you make. IT is pretty much the definition of linear. I will state again that questing should be a part of leveling but should not dominate leveling. You should want to go do dungeons, you should want to go explore, you should want to spend time on crafting, you should want to do PvP, you should want to go to places others don't go and grind mobs. Quests should never ever be the most efficient way to gain XP and if you are going to build quests it shouldn't be built in the way where two characters do the same quests when played through the game.
Quests need to be somewhat randomized/spontaneous. They need to be something to do while doing other parts of the game, not the main focus of the game. You should stumble upon the quest while doing more interesting actions. There are tons of ways to accomplish this. Things like giving bonus XP to kills in remote areas where people haven't been recently. Making procedural content that you can discover. Making robust crafting systems. Making dungeons that aren't just lobby instances so you can do parts of them with 1 or 2 or 3 or a full gruop of players, you aren't locked into the perfect group.
Pretty much everything about these most recent theme park games is just backwards and awful and downright poorly designed.
EQ 1 had the Oasis of Marr, a lowbie area with mobs called Hill Giants that would kill anyone level appropriate for the zone in under 5 seconds if it wandered close enough. It also had a group of undead spectres that would do the same. Someone could accidentally wander into the spectre group, escape by running but the spectres would follow for awhile. On the spectres' return trip to their spot they could aggro lowbies and wipe them out. A mummy could wander by and give you a disease that would slow your HP regen to an absolute crawl for 45 minutes unless you had a friendly cleric around to clear it.
It made the zone intense. People communicated in shouts letting everyone know where the Hill Giant was or if the spectres were loose. Dying was a pain in the ass and could set you back twenty minutes in XP loss and corpse retrieval. I loved it, but I know there is a large majority of gamers today who don't like setbacks and intensity like that. To them it is tedious, to me it is tedious to play a game without risk and community born of a common danger.
I guess I can sort of see their point of view but I don't really understand how something can be rewarding to accomplish if it isn't difficult. The two seem inextricably intertwined to me. If the game is easy, how could it be rewarding to do well?
I think people don't like the hole premise that you lose progress if you die. What you are describing is not difficult. Those Giants and spectres one shot because they are much higher level. Other genres don't need to rely on unnecessary time sinks. Time sinks and situations where mobs 30 levels above you one shot you are not difficult, they are just frustrating for people who have limited time to play. EQ was never a game for anyone who couldn't dedicate a bare minimum of 4 hours a day, usually people would play it for 10 hours plus. This is why people often joked that people who played evercrack were basement dwellers
In other genres games are difficult and exciting because they require skill and they are actually difficult. The MMOs of old were not difficukt per se, they just took ages to get anything done.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I assume because most people don't try and look for 'accomplishments' while playing a VIDEO GAME?
I can understand trying to look for an 'accomplishment' while doing a marathon or losing weight or writing a novel etc.
But playing a video game?
For me video games are an entertainment product like a 'movie' or 'book'. I generally don't look for 'accomplishments' in those either. I'd say the majority of people look at video games the same way I do.
That doesn't mean people like you don't exists, Dark souls sold millions. But there's more who think like 'me' than 'you'.
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
wow .. this is eerie .... you almost sound like me. (although i probably will say "I don't look for "accomplishments" while playing a video game?" instead .. since i don't know if most people do).