[MUD-Dev2] The Future of Quests

[Paolo Piselli]

From: John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com>

>
> My primary problem with questing in games is that there is no purpose to it.
> Backstory supposedly explains to us why my character is supposed to kill
> another five whatevers but as we all know that doesn't change anything.
> Another five whatevers will be killed by the next character.
>

Playing through Fable 2 I am still surprised that MMOs have not implemented effects as simple as client-specific cosmetic changes to a zone (someone please correct me if this already exists).  Something along the lines of texture interpolation for buildings and foliage between shabby and nice, sunshine coefficients, level of optimism in adjectives used in NPC dialog, etc.  If after a few hours of questing in the zone the player sees that the mood of the whole place has improved, the player can feel that they have significantly affected the  zone (even if its only from their client's perspective) without impacting the narrative experiences of other players.  Heck, maybe its not permanent but on a slow decay so that the player has motivation to revisit after a month to do some repeatables and "clean up shop".  Consider it an ambient UI element that signals to the player their relative activity level in that zone.

-Paolo