[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[Lee Sheldon]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> McQuaid, Brad
> Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 3:00 PM
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)
>
> I guess you'd have to be more specific Lee.  The majority of our
> quests DO tell stories AND are 'FedEx'.  Interesting that you point
> out that we might not know how do make a quest more sophisticated
> than 'FedEx'... has ANYONE figured this out yet?  Has any game,
> multiplayer or single player, employed a quest system that, when
> broken down, doesn't involve taking tokens from point a to point b?
> Now sure, the token can be an item, or it can be some other
> triggered event (you kill somebody, you depress a button, you say a
> key phrase to the right NPC, etc.), but it's all the same thing,
> isn't it?  A certain sequence yields a rewarding outcome.  I often
> read RPG designers' essays or statements on how THEY will break
> through to the next paradigm, but to my knowledge it hasn't happened
> yet.  If I'm wrong, please do point me in the right direction :)

Well, as for single-player games, I can give you lots of non-Fed Ex
quests from existing games.  The village plagued by werewolves in one
of the latest Might and Magics (6?  7?) leaps immediately to mind. You
basically go into a dungeon near the town and destroy a crystal or
altar or something that was turning people into werewolves.
Thereafter the townspeople like you, merchant prices may even be
lower, but the "item" you return with is fewer bad hair days for the
local populace.

Your "...but it's all the same thing, isn't it?  A certain sequence
yields a rewarding outcome." is simply to broad too be useful.  It's
so broad, it limits you.  If you start from this premise, there's the
very real danger that all of your quests will look the same.  "There
are only three stories," "All stories are Romeo and Juliet," "All
puzzles are just lock and key," and "A certain sequence yields a
rewarding outcome," are nothing more than distracting non sequiturs
for somebody making up new stories, puzzles and quests on a day-to-day
basis.

Everything in the games we make can be reduced to the passing of
tokens, or the tracking of variables based on a player's actions, but
they don't have to be -literally- the receipt and delivery of items,
phrases, or anything else.  What we're looking for in this case is
structural relief from monotony of action.  Quests are problems to be
solved, challenges to be overcome, or a series of challenges.

A Fed Ex quest to me is simply, "Give this item, message, or password
to Larry."  Or a string of such assignments.  I'm not against FedEx
quests per se, particularly at low levels, or even as pieces of larger
quests.  I use them all the time.  But only FedEx quests?  Anyway, I
started to make one up, but finally decided it would be easier to
illustrate by using a quest already in the game.

Let's look at Journeyman Boots.  This quest is admittedly old and very
simple, but any quest in Everquest, including epic weapons, proceeds
along stark Fed Ex lines, yet could be redrawn accordingly.  (This
quest is also interesting in that I believe it was designed to address
the Najena camping problem.)  Basically there's a little guy speeding
around the Rathe Mts.  His name is Hasten Bootstrutter.

1.  Talk to Hasten, learn he has need of 3 items: a ring from an
Ancient Cyclops, a scimitar from a shadow man, and a bunch of gold.
Why does he need these items?  Nobody knows.  But if you give them to
him, he'll give you his boots that will make you run faster.  (Note:
people usually just skip this first step, and don't go looking for him
- a rare spawn - until they have what they need.)

2.  You kill the AC, and get the ring.  Why did it have the ring?
Nobody knows.

3.  You kill a shadow man, get the sword, but it vanishes if you leave
the world, so now it's time to go find Hasten again.

4.  You stop at the bank for gold on the way.

5.  You deliver the items, get the boots.

Alternative:

1.  Talk to Hasten.  Even though he appears to be moving at a good
clip thanks to his ability to make the J Boots he's wearing, he
actually could be much faster.  However, due to an ongoing feud with
Ancient Cyclopses, one of them in South Ro (He also winters on an
island in the Ocean of Tears) has cast a curse on him, slowing him
down.  Some Ancient Cyclopses are so powerful they can't be killed by
ordinary means, but an orc in South Ro supposedly has seen one downed.
If you kill the cyclops and lift the curse, Hasten will sell you a
pair of J boots at cost.

2.  Find the orc in South Ro (that named one up in the corner).  He
saw an ancient cyclops killed by a group of adventurers wielding
scimitars that vanished when the thing died.  His cousins in West
Commons have told him of such weapons wielded by shadow men.  Those
weapons vanish after awhile.  Maybe they used those.

3.  Player, and however many friends it might take to defeat the
cyclops, kill shadow men until they loot enough scimitars.

4.  Group uses scimitars to kill Ancient Cyclops (Yes, I'd change the
spawn time, based on the quest perhaps).

5.  You stop at the bank for gold on the way.

6.  Hasten can run faster now, and has heard you were responsible
(Just set the flag, why force a physical delivery?), fashions you a
nice pair of boots, and sells them to you at cost.

The moves are very similar on purpose.  I deliberately limited myself
to the same items already in the quest.  The same creatures must be
slain.  But their significance and use are approached from the
direction of story, not Fed Ex structure.  Starting from scratch
there's a far wider variety of ways to approach the structure of
quests.  Even so not one of the steps in the alternate version above
requires a Fed Ex move: Moe asks you to deliver A to Larry, and get B
from him for Curly. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

Lee

P.S. Apologies to others reading this who are unfamiliar with EQ.
I've done a lot of short-handing.




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