[MUD-Dev2] RANT: The Future of Quests

[Mike Sellers]

Mike Rozak wrote: 
> ...
> And, to tell the truth, if you can generate enough emotional 
> attachment that the player cares about the old woman, you 
> don't need to use the "Saving the world from the evil 
> overlord" card at all. Saving the world is kind of like the 
> ultimate emotional cop-out for poor writing/design because, 
> by implication, saving the world saves everything in the 
> world.

Ding!  We have a winner!  "Saving the world" is a huge crutch just as you
say.  The key isn't to find more and better ways for players to save the
village, kingdom, or world, but to find more and better ways for the
individuals (PCs and NPCS) in the world to mean as much to them *as if* they
were saving the world.  
 
> While procedural quests work as filler, you can't create a 
> procedural quest with the impact of the old-lady quest 
> because your procedural-quest-generating algorithms don't 
> sufficiently understand emotions and human reality.

Until they do.  Others have written about the NPCs themselves generating
needs and tasks (aka "quests" -- I've really come to dislike that word in
this context) that are meaningful to them and to the players.  Having a bona
fide emotional connection between the player and the NPC(s) is part of this.

 
> Procedurally-generated quests have the emotional depth of an 
> obnoxious male teenager on a power trip.

Could that be because most of them are written primarily by those who are
emotionally still obnoxious male teenagers on power trips?  

> Because MMORPGs have degraded into catering almost 
> exclusively for such players, people that play MMORPGs (and 
> worse, people that design MMORPGs) think that all there is to 
> a quest is a contract: "You kill X, and I give you Y."
> 
> PS - This rant was inspired by Warhammer Online.

Good rant.  As with the best rants, this one also highlights the way out of
this particular design cul-de-sac. 

Mike Sellers