[MUD-Dev] MMO Quest: Why they're still lousy

[Sporky McBeard]

"Derek Licciardi" <kressilac at insightbb.com> wrote:

> Our medium seems to support experiences and social activities far
> more than we design for.  It would be nice to see some of this
> take shape.  The problem in my mind sits with the suits.  As soon
> as they can see the money coming in from a better design, we will
> have games that are not single-player RPGs with thousands of
> people.

That's too easy of an out. Everybody in the game industry blames the
suits for whatever creative differences they may have. The real
problem is that their ideas just aren't very good. I mean, everybody
knows that MMORPG quests suck... but how do you fix it? I have yet
to see a viable theory on the subject which I believe will make a
huge difference.

You're not going to see money coming from good ideas because most
people don't buy games based on good ideas. WoW was praised by all,
though all freely admitted that there was a severe lack of new and
good ideas in it.  Yet games like A Tale in the Desert get a "Who
what?" from most people despite critical praise. It's not the suits
which are the problem. It's that the people who have the most
exposure are playing it safe. But I can't blame them for that. Look
at the backlash against UO or SWG these days.

You want to "fix" MMORPG quests. Here's what needs to happen:

  1) Dump the story crap - Nobody reads that stuff, nobody
  cares. They see "Find 12 Bloody Monkey Paws" and skip the rest. It
  doesn't matter how you frame a boring quest, it will still be
  boring. Give the plays a tangible reason to do the quest. For
  instance, if you were in a city filled with zombies and the power
  shuts off, a quest could be to restart the generator. The quest is
  already built into the zombie metaphor without requiring explicit
  exposition, and it does something useful beyond netting a player
  more phat loot.

  2) Change the world - MMORPG quests are fundamentally flawed in
  that they cannot change the world. If you kill a certain NPC,
  he'll respawn a minute or two later. What happens is that the
  world is filled with people having the exact same experiences. WoW
  is like a theme park with a conveyor belt that just moves you
  through the game. The solution to this is to give the player
  actions some emphasis in the world. In the previous zombie game,
  you could have a human settlement that constantly needs medicine
  and food which the players have to provide. When that stuff runs
  out, it affects everyone, so the player group which brings in
  supplies in a moment of need will become minor heroes - as they
  should be. Actually, this is more of a case of the world changing
  itself and having the players fight to keep the status quo.

  3) Change the missions - Players go through the exact same motions
  with every quest as just about every other player. Something like
  Thottbot allows other players to look up the locations and goals
  that other players had already discovered. Personally, I think
  that instance missions are the answer here, because you can modify
  the mission based on the player. Most of these procedurally
  created content dungeons (like in Anarchy Online) are simplistic
  at best, but with some serious consideration put into their
  design, you could easily craft some unique experiences for the
  player with just a few inputs. I mean, you could even procedurally
  create the quests themselves, not just the locations of the goals.

  4) Allow certain players to create their own quests - I think it
  would be pretty nifty for a player to post a mission saying that
  they need X number of monkey paws and that they'll pay Y dollars
  for it. Players can accept the quest and fill out the order,
  receiving special experience points used for some sort of personal
  bonus. In Puzzle Pirates, crafting required hours of time to build
  stuff, so the different shops would allow people to come in an do
  time for a predecided paycheck. SWG also has the ability for
  Bounty Hunters to get missions to kill Jedi players, though these
  missions are not player made.

  5) Allow certain players to create their own dungeons - I promise
  you that players are far more creative than most MMORPGs give them
  credit for. It seems that most of the time, their creativity is
  called an exploit and time is spend trying to reign it in. If you
  give certain, proven players the ability to make their own
  dungeons, I think you'll find that they'll use the gift in ways
  you never dreamed of (which some would consider a problem). In the
  past, in games like Habitat, just giving a player the ability to
  create notes was enough to spawn underground newspapers and event
  flyers. Some of the best levels for games like Half-Life or Unreal
  Tournament weren't created by the developers, but by the
  fans. You'd need some sort of peer review before allowing player
  dungeons to go live to prevent exploits (a room with the best
  sword in the middle of it with no monsters), but I think player
  creativity is worth it.

  6) Dump the quests altogether - I mean, what purpose do quests
  really serve. I think of them a tiny little controlled experiences
  - but they tend to be too tiny and too controlled. Why not let
  exploration and discovery be its own reward. I'd find locations in
  WoW that I'd want to explore, but wouldn't because I didn't have a
  quest yet. There is actually no reason to explore in that game
  because the benefits are so small compared to being shown where to
  go next. If you fought through a dungeon, you'd find nothing of
  note, and only have to fight through it again once you picked up a
  quest. Maybe the second we stop actually trying to improve quests
  and start looking for an alternative is when we'll discover a new
  paradigm of online gaming?

As these the answers? Nah. They are just ideas that target specific
areas of questing that I have a problem with and how they could
change so that, at least, the problem wouldn't be as annoying.

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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