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

[Madrona Tree]

----- Original Message -----
From: <the_logos at www.achaea.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

> I am shocked I didn't comment on this when it was posted back in
> December. This attitude strikes me as one of the worst examples of
> trying to tell players how to play that I can think of.

Woah hang on there.  I'm not telling players how they should play; I'm
giving my opinion about how Verant screwed up on making their quests.
I *did* make the assumption that Verant wanted players to do the
quests from start to finish.  McQuaid keeps saying there are a ton of
quests in Everquest.  But really, what's there are a ton of no-drop
loot-flags and everlore.com.

I don't think it's the players' fault at all.  I think it's Verant's.
I think players are playing the game as it was designed, but not as it
was intended.

Of course, my theory only stands if Verant did in fact want to make
Quests in the "regular" sense of the word.  If they just wanted to add
kewl lewt, why not just add the loot itself?  Why do I have to go
through the rigamarole of figuring out that the lens is special, and
that there is a gnome to give it to?  And then once I find him, and I
hold out the lense to him, something like this happens:

Gnome: "Please find me a lens, I have to complete my telescope!"  Me:
[Thinks: Bob the Orc Slayer just gave him one yesterday, and now he
wants another one?  What - did he break the last one?]  <hands Gnome
the lens> Gnome: Thank you!  Here, have a staff!  Me: Hail a gnome.
Gnome: "Please find me a lens, I have to complete my telescope!"

> Listen, if I need to go on a quest because I'm craving some lemon
> pie (and I mean, who doesn't often find himself in such a situation? 
> Lemon pie is good.), how would I go about it?

> Apparently what you'd have me do is wander about stupidly until I
> find some guy who happens to know where I can get lemon pies. You
> seem to want to ban me from just calling up my friend Bob the Lemon
> Devotee and asking him where I can get some lovely lemon pie, or,
> better yet, just hopping on the web and doing a search for lemon pie
> shops in the Bay Area.

Nope, actually, that's not what I want you to do.  I mean, I suppose,
you could get your Lemon Pie from a quest.  But you should also have
some lemon pie dropped from mobs, and perhaps lemon pie should be
player craftable, if your game supports cooking.

Basically what happens in EQ, with regards to the Aviak Charm quest is
this: You're out killing Avocets.  You find an aviak charm.  Aviak
charms are not "regular" drops.  So you think to yourself, "I think
I'll keep this aviak charm and log, look it up on Everlore.com, and
see if it's quest related."  That's what I think is kind of silly.  I
just think that if people are going to have quests, they ought to have
them so that you can read the story from page 1, rather than page 47.

I don't care where you get your lemon pie.  Gosh yes - find your lemon
pie without doing quests.  Having to quest for everything would be
frustrating, I think.

> Likwise in a game. It seems batty to me to pretend that a player is
> the first one to do a quest when it's been done a thousand times
> before and every other person in the land knows how to do it. It
> seems even crazier to tell me that I DON'T know how to do the quest,
> when my best friend Bob the Orc Slayer just told me how to do it.

Exactly.  Which is why I think static quests in multiplayer games
stink.  :)


Madrona Tree.
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