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

[Mike Rozak]

Sporky McBeard wrote:

>  1) Dump the story crap - Nobody reads that stuff, nobody cares.

Actually, I like playing games with backstory. I also like adventure
games, which include a lot of backstory. I suspect the standard
MMORPG player agrees with you though.

>  2) Change the world - MMORPG quests are fundamentally flawed in
>  that they cannot change the world.

How?

I can design my system so that quests are abstracted an extra level,
into what I've been calling "shapeshifter" quests... When you rescue
Wendy's cat from a tree, Sue's cat needs rescuing. Once her cat is
rescued, Bill's cat gets stuck... If you kill off the "Brotherhood
of the hand", a new one forms called the "Brotherhood of the foot",
etc.

I can further abstract this with auomatically generated
content. But, automatically generated content ends up being less
fun, although players no longer have to pretend they no longer see
the same old quests reappearing.

>  3) Change the missions - Players go through the exact same
>  motions with every quest as just about every other player.

Same question as 2. How?

>  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.

What if I hire lots of low-level PCs to gather monkey paws from the
jungle. When the low-level PCs show up and get killed by the 10th
level monkeys, my friends are waiting there and ready to loot the
dead PCs? Or some other exploit; one will be found. You'd need a way
the quest-takers could rate how truthful the quest-givers are about
the complexity of the quests. I'm sure an exploit would be found
with this too.

>  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.

But then some of the people that volunteer their content may show up
a few years later and demand back-wages...

>  6) Dump the quests altogether - I mean, what purpose do quests
>  really serve.

In non-scientific surveys that I've seen on MMORPG.com (etc.), about
20% of the players claim they play for the quests. Only about 5% for
the PvP. etc. One of the features that players rave about in WoW is
all the quests; it has 700K (approx) players.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev