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

[Byron Ellacott]

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

> 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.

True.  It's a hard topic.

>   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.

There's five pieces of information conveyed about a task: Where,
What, How, Why and When.  "Story crap" would be Why.  As long as
Where, What, How and When aren't buried in the Why, adding "story
crap" merely provides a bit of flavour.  I can accept that flavour
text is often far too contrived, but I don't think it should be
thrown out.

However, this emphasises that too many quests provide the What and
the Why, but do not provide the Where or How.  The When is only
important if a quest must be completed in a certain timeframe.

I suspect flavour text would be less offensive if the more important
information was also present in every quest. ;)

>   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.

The example you give is, as you say, not changing the world.  A
similar quest would be one in which a monster terrorises a town, and
you must kill it.  It will respawn in a few moments, which
trivialises your accomplishment.  Or, you might need to deliver some
vital medical supplies, but in a few moments they'll need more --
which also trivialises your accomplishment.

Where players must fight to maintain status quo, you also need to
consider what will happen when players are not available to fight,
or are not interested in catering to the world's needs: will
essential services be cut off, potentially putting players in the
position of eternally running the same task(s)?

>   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.

See point one.  People go to Thottbot and similar places when quests
do not have Where, How or When.  As Damion Schubert said, "Go find
Mr Foozle in Foozletown."  That's the What, but arguably not the
Where, and certainly not the How.  So you go to Thottbot to find
Where in Foozletown Mr Foozle is; would've been nice if you could
have asked someone in town, or been told in the quest where you
might expect to see him.

As a player, I know I hate quests where I'm not given enough
information to do the job; I hit up the spoiler sites as soon as I
realise I'm going to have to hunt around a large region for a small
target.  The problem is the quest, not the spoiler site, so as
designers, it is my opinion that we should be attempting to fix the
quests, not make the spoiler sites harder to use.

In other words, look at why people go to spoiler sites, and combat
the problem, not the symptom. :)

>   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.

You would want to be very, very careful about potential
exploitability. Also, it may be nifty, but how would it be more
interesting?  From the perspective of the player taking the mission,
it's still just a mission to hunt down another X of those rotten
monkey paws.

>   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.

See worlds like Second Life and There for this approach.  It's more
suitable to, ahem, lacking decent terms, virtual worlds than it is
to MMO games.  Player created content would surely be creative and
interesting -- but what about balance, server resources, and world
placement?

>   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?

Quests offer short term achievable goals.  Exploration and discovery
is a good reward for Explorers, but not for Achievers.  The reason
to explore in WoW is because you enjoy exploration.  The reasons to
quest are because you enjoy achievement, and because you want the
shiny experience points and/or loot.

(Aside: there's a cave you can see on the flight from Orgrimmar to
Thunder Bluff, up in Red Rocks in Mulgore.  I've tried for hours to
find a way up there.  There's no reward for getting there, yet I'll
probably try again someday.)

--
bje
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