Jul 2
Why I Love Quests And Quest Journals
Here’s the deal: quests and quest journals are the reason I like Massively multiplayer games now. I played EQ and SWG and etc, etc, before World of Warcraft, just like all the other jaded MMOG hags. I thrilled to the social gaming, the hackery and the slashery, the obtaining of loot, the joy of a new expansion, and all the other things that make Massive games great. But I didn’t realize how much I could love Massive games until I played World of Warcraft and grabbed my first proper quest. It was in Dun Morogh, of course, and I remember it clearly: Dwarven Outfitters, given out by Sten Stoutarm. Here’s the quest text:
“What do we have here? You look as though you might need something to keep your hands warm, hm? I’ll tell you what would help: a pair of nice, warm gloves. And, being the kind soul that I am, I’d be more than happy to provide you with a suitable pair. I’ve one condition, however. I need you to go get me some wolf meat. Nice arrangement, hm? You bring me some wolf meat, and I’ll make sure you don’t lose any digits to frostbite. Well, what do you say?”
Yeah, it’s a ‘whack the foozle’ quest, with an item requirement no less. Thankfully, the drop ratio for that wolf meat is near 100%, so eight wolves later and you’ve a.) finished your first quest and b.) dinged level 2. It’s cheesy, and it’s lame, and WoW doesn’t offer you a ‘completed quest’ journal so you’ll quickly forget about it.
For me, though, ‘Dwarven Outfitters’ was my first step into a wider world. Sten’s offer was novel, because it didn’t require me to guess what he wanted. It didn’t require me to guess what he’d give me. If I needed a reminder of what I was supposed to do, it was instantly checkable. And, most importantly, it gave me a clearly understandable goal rooted in a story.
That story part is enormously important for me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about what’s a critical element for me in a game, and that story bit is tantamount. Bioshock and Mass Effect are two of my most anticipated games of the year not because of game mechanics (though I like what I’ve heard) or graphics (thought I like what I see). I ‘m looking forward to those games because of their different and engaging stories. Story makes the difference for me between meaningless exercise and fun.
Thousands and thousands of quest like this later, I’ll admit that sometimes I read just long enough to determine “you want me to kill how many?” That said, there is a story here. A cold newbie adventurer wanders up to this dwarf, and the guy offers this bum a chance to kit himself out with new gear. It’s short, it’s to the point, and it works. The very next quest you get, though it’s just another whack the foozle quest, begins to set up the Dwarf v. Trogg conflict that is pervasive in the Dwarven zones for the rest of the game.
From the get-go, WoW roots you in the story of the gameworld with a simple quest structure that grabs the player. Does this ’suck’? Thousands of kill ten rats later, I can understand why a player would be bored by such a thing. That said, I’d much much much rather have nice simple quests like this in the game than not. Not every quest can be gryphon bombardments.
Quest designers are already coming up with better alternatives. DDO’s dungeon-based experience system is an improvement. WAR is working on several improvements to multiple kinds of quests. PotBS will have a bunch of quest variants, from the sounds of things quests that EVE players will be a bit familiar with. One can only assume that the folks at places like 38 Studios, Heatwave, Colony, and Bioware are working to bring together all-new ways of having fun and telling story to players in a Massive setting.
Fundamentally, though, I shiver at the blanket suggestion that ‘quests suck’. It all comes back to ‘Dwarven Outfitters’ for me; I don’t want to go back to my days before I met Sten Stoutarm, and you can’t make me.
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Very nicely put mate. It’s easy to forget the first time you do this style of quest (I know I do), and at the time you do kinda appreciate their simple straight forwardness. Even after playing MMOG’s since the mid to late 90’s I still find those first few steps in a new world a tad daunting, and getting a few “kill ten rodents” is sort of like the MMO version of “Hello World!” :o)
I love quests (and exploring, but I see them as kind of related). I’m playing VG atm and my mate keeps asking me to kill off any quests that are 10 levels below me so we can both get the same quests (my journal is almost always full), and I HATE having to delete them. I’m one of those weirdos that will do a quest even if the reward is so low it’s not even worthwhile vendor junk. Why? Cause most (well done) quests are about lore. Lore is what makes these virtual worlds “believable” and “deep” as opposed to some RPG version of an FPS ladder.
I’m really looking forward to two MMOG’s, and a lot of the anticipation is due to how they’ll be handling quests. Warhammer (And excellent pod on the quests is on http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/media/podcast/ dated May 2007). They’ve mixed up the “kill” quests and public quests sound amazing. The other MMOG is Tabula Rasa. 1. cause it’s RG (the man has a real knack for making a story actually mean something) and 2. quests sound like they’ll be a lot more story focused and “meaningful” than most other MMO’s (see http://tr.warcry.com/news/view/72517-Hands-On-Preview-Interview-with-Richard-Garriott-Part-1-of-2 for an overview).
I get the feeling we may be coming into a “Golden Age” for MMOG’s as you pointed out, these two aren’t the only ones that are trying new stuff out.
I would agree. Quest journals are overall a good addition to the genre. Some of the advantages/uses you didn’t point out…
I really don’t get a chance to play very often, for very long. If I accept a task on Wednesday, then get invited to a group, for example, I may not get the opportunity to pursue that task until Saturday. It is just a game, after all… I’ve probably forgotten a couple of the details in the press of other, RL business. The quest journal allows me to reconnect to what I’m supposed to do, and gives me at least some idea of why.
The same basic logic applies to quest sequences, but over even longer periods of time. It might be a month from the beginning of a particular quest to the end of it. The journal gives you an opportunity to reconnect, review, even bask in the accomplishment a little bit if you choose to.
On the other hand, I didn’t find WoW’s quests to be exceptionally engaging in most areas, although I certainly appreciated the attempt to build a story of some sort… it was one of the best attempts to date, I would venture to say. As I sat and tried to analyze why it failed for me, it boiled down to three factors: 1) it was patently obvious that everyone else was doing exactly the same things: this wasn’t _my_ story, it was _the_ story; 2) I had no previous connection to or knowledge of the personas I was interacting with, and further being indirectly shepherded from one to another in quick succession; and 3) even adding story into the mix, the tasks quickly became repetitive in nature.
Much of that is tied to the specifics of technical issues and the boundaries imposed by the set of mechanics implemented, I agree. I would also agree that the quest journal helps significantly more than it hinders in terms of giving a player a chance to engage in the story. None of that changes the bottom line, however: the game failed to engage me, and I am someone that is actually looking for a story-driven game as opposed to striving toward the hit-max-level-and-then-on-to-the-next-game goal.
It was good, a positive step, but I’d like more… and I do believe it is possible to do. I am far from certain it would be a blockbuster hit like WoW, however.
Well, that got long-winded… sorry to chew up so much space in a single comment. Til later…
What buggers me about WoW is that there are too many foozle quests, interspersed with some truly great quests like the Alliance quest that has you collecting materials for the mad goblin; who in turn creates an abomination that terrorizes the area.
That is the first quest I saw in WoW. That is the quest that got me hooked on WoW. It was the coolest thing ever. To this day, level capped players go back and watch the mayhem that this quest creates. And WoW could easily have done more! That is where WAR seems to be heading, just make the quests cool all the time and allow players to complete a quest without ever actually being on it.
Overall though, WoW gave reason to everything you did. That is the importance of story. Otherwise John Q. Hero is just another farmer who left one day.
WoW also did it in a way where you didn’t have to be a scholar to figure the stuff out. DAoC had quests. I used spoiler websites to figure the quests out. They were that horribly confusing, all of them. Oh, and the whole ! thing in WoW; BRILLIANT!
In WoW you can just push through the quests ASAP or you can actually enjoy reading through and finding the hints at other things you should watch out for on your quest. Even without reading through the quests, you get a sense of the story. Like you stated, the Dwarf vs. Trogg conflict, is easily discovered through reading the quests or just doing them.
Quests can be a really great thing and a fun experience that drives the story forward. There are two things I feel that quests shouldn’t do though.
1) Drive your character advancement from minimum level to maximum level. I have a lengthy post up about this. I feel that it kills replayability by putting your game on rails.
2) Be so numerous to the point where you don’t care about the quest text. Quests in bulk aren’t quests anymore. They’re shopping lists.
I kind of like what DDO does with collection items, and I’d like to see it adapted for the KTR style quests (similar to what Warhammer is talking about doing). If someone needs boar meat, cool. They don’t need to send me for that, though. Why not just list who’s looking for it on the item itself?
\You have looted a haunch of boar meat.\
Upon examination: A simple haunch of boar meat. Jon the butcher in Stormshire rewards adventurers handsomely for these, or Wilmer the Hermit will trade you strange items for 10 of them.
Leave the option of what to hunt to the player, and then let them decide what to do with the subsequent loot. They can turn in haunches to the butcher for xp and gold, the hermit for xp and items, or just sell them to a vendor if they don’t feel like traveling.
As Cameron points out:
1) Drive your character advancement from minimum level to maximum level. I have a lengthy post up about this. I feel that it kills replayability by putting your game on rails.
2) Be so numerous to the point where you don’t care about the quest text. Quests in bulk aren’t quests anymore. They’re shopping lists.
I may have jumped the gun and blamed the wrong part of the game, as it is more of the need to fill advertising space with we have x,xxx quests at launch and have added xxx quests since launch or this expansions has xx quests new in it.
There are a lot of quests that do have a great story line, but I find myself getting lost in all the other clutter along the way that it gets hard to follow them at times. While I personally don’t see why players should collect xx quests in an area and then have zero responsibility to complete them in a decent time frame. I mean if this person needs 10 pieces of rat meat for what ever reason, do you think they would have really ask ‘YOU’ to do if if they knew you would be doing other things first before you got back to them with this meat. I know this is a bad example, but we love rat meat, or at least the NPC’s do.
With quest journals, as they are today, I find that players will go in to an area and collect as many as they can find or their journal will hold and then go out and start completing them, so if you don’t have them and the game does not support ‘quest sharing’, then if you want to stay in the group and gain the exp of the grinds, you tend to get lost on this long list of shopping items as the players in the group tick of quest after quest after quest.
I can see good in the quest journals, but I still do not like the ability to collect a hoard of them and then complete them at your will. But that also is another problem in the design of these games. The games are designed as single player role playing games more so than multiplayer persistent worlds. I will be introducing a lot of articles on some new ideals and some old ideals that I feel if all put together could bring forth an interesting questing system and bring multiplayer some merit in the M in MMO.
Again, I just want to say that I do find some good in the quest journals, but not the way they are abused or the ‘exact’ information found inside of them if you decide not to read the text. Its not like the quest journal stopped the spam of where is this or where is that, even though most games put in the quest text the exact direction or location to find such and such.
I agree with the consensus on Quests and Quest Journals. However, just to cast a dissenting thought :)
Where’s the Massive?
Quests are great RPG elements. We’ve been doing Quests in whatever form they’re named since we had to learn how to play that Harpsichord atop the Castle in Ultima III (to get into the room with, err, something I can’t remember). Quests set up tasks, give players something to do, all that good thing.
But this also sets up a wierd and unintuitive comparison, one between games with lots of quests and games that don’t have as many. The latter is deemed as “content light” at face value, until you consider what games would fall into that category, games like launch-day SWG, EVE, ATITD, the default virtual-lifestyle set.
Yes, these games don’t have the density of quests WoW or LoTRO do. But then, they don’t need them because, in the end, the players are the content.
I never understand why so many people don’t get that. You help a friend out, hauling ore, clearing spawn to place a harvester, planting some seeds, you just did a Quest. And you know what? You probably got some advancement in the unit the game uses, whether it’s credits, skill-ups, or food. Your “Quest Journal” maybe was the Contract you entered, or the IM you answered, or the email you read. Ultimately, the fundamental nature of achieving an objective some person set for you is exactly the same as clicking some Exclamation point, reading the text and going to do something about it.
Switch back to WoW. You just helped a buddy clear an Elite tiger, or just helped 23 of your closest friends in some BC instance. You just did a “quest”. The reward probably sucked unless you won a roll, but thems the breaks with truly immersive quests. You can fail in them just as you can blowed up hauling that ore, dying to the mobs you tried to clear or watching your plants die because you missed a water cycle.
People ask for “player quests”, mostly as a way to more quickly advance through DIKUs. I say “player quests” already exist in great abundance.
I love Everquest II’s audio quests. In Everquest II, the quest givers talk to you and tell you their information. It really adds to the immersion of the game to have npcs talk to you. I hope that more mmorpgs use this.
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