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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
SWTOR managed to create different paths and storylines that felt impactful. You felt your character grow as quests progressed.
It was me and my brother and a couple of friends from school. We had gone to the Plane of Nightmare, and we were just chilling in what we thought was a pull free zone. Chilling near this lake minding our own business when all of a sudden a giant freaking alligator comes out, and proceeds to swallow my brother up.
Scared the crap out of me.
To this day I remember that fondly because it was the unexpectedness of that raid that I fondly remember. And you guys seem to have it.
I love the fact that its not the oven mits kind of game, you walk around and you might find something super tough where it shouldn't be. That sense of adventure is what I have missed since those early EQ days.
Something like in gw2 but with more cutscenes. There is humor and tragedy, the character can speak, you can choice which path you want to go sometimes, depending which race you chose they treat you differently. I think it makes the quests less boring since you can watch and hear not just read 20 lines of text.
Also quests that require effort and make you use the brain and give you great rewards. All this increase immersion. And please, useful npcs, not that bunch of lazy who can not do anything on their own because they took an arrow in the knee.
Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?
Normally all my first time in dungeons. I like those that take us hours to complete, with mechanics, teamwork and every class being useful in their own way, even when there is no reward because you toke too long to finish.
I used to like raids/dungeons in Tera, I always prefered pvp on others games, but Tera changed my mind. I loved the action combat, the mechanics, boss fights were amazing, the party needed coordenation and communication, even the open world bosses were fun. Then all this turned too easy, boring, full of **** and cancer class, so i quitted.
Dungeons & Dragons quests, there is one that i loved so much, it was in a mansion and you need to find out what is going on, cause there is something wierd happening something supernatual, you need to find objects and stuff, fight some monsters and even interrogate some people just to find out at the end it were some vampires or demonic thing. Funny and intersting.
Raids or events that i will never forget
A raid, I loved the WoW Siege of Orgrimar, because of the story and you really feel like you're doing something big, you really feel like you're doing a siege, the way you get to port, the way you need to fight against the enemies, how you make your way to the city, then fight against the generals and military forces of the Horde and continues to deepen more and more until you reach Garrosh. You can feel all that.
A Event, well Rift Online have, in my own opinion the best event in a MMORPG, the rifts, you can be walking calm in any place, and in one moment, BOOM! a rift open and monsters come out of it and you need to fight against them to close the rift, its awesome. people can open rift all over the world and other players join you is a really nice activity.
What made them unforgettable?
I think for the quest it was the story and all the things you need to do to get done the task and are intersting stuff, since is a good enterteiment, you cannot forget that moment.
For the raid, it was the story and how things were done so you can feel like you were really a part of the siege, like you were there in that moment, how everyone work togeter and scream when done it, like OMG we did it! like something big happened for real. And last, for the event i think it was the randomness of it, the surprise you get when that happen and that make you feel curious.
Ashes of Creation will be an MMO but the quest lines shouldn't feel like they are in an MMO. They should feel connected to the world and while every quest doesn't have to impact the world at large it should impact the people involved. Whether the reward is the emotional story telling or good loot it feel rewarding to the player. Difficulty should tailored for the type of quest involved. If the core is emotional maybe the difficulty doesn't need to be as high to keep focus on what is important. If the quest is about overcoming a difficult task/monster then dialing it up to make the player rise to that skill level and feel the accomplishment is warranted.
Beyond that another good lesson can be seen in how FFXIV takes some steps to keep the player as the protagonist even when grouped. When doing content it tells me to gather other heroes I know, and when we beat content the "win screen" is me standing at the front making sure that while there are other players I am still the main protagonist. Also, while there are other notable characters in the world, if I am supposed to be something special I should feel that way. Look at how World of Warcraft is set up, where everyone of note is more famous than you, and in multiple cases are the ones who actually do the heroic deed, with your "help" and you rarely ever get to enjoy your time in the spotlight as it is always shifting to their cast of NPCs and the story-lines they are driving. Every time it happened it was like running a D&D character in a campaign only to be saved by Drizzt Do'urden and company because things got a bit tough and the DM wanted you to see someone cool from a book they were reading!
Please for the love of all that is good in gaming, let me feel important, powerful, clever, emotionally impacted or triumphant in the game when completing quests and/or overcoming the obstacles in my way.
Looking back, the people who were pissed were the ones that didn't ever talk in chat and were the server's first and creator's of the infamous guilds that established the first great turf wars.
I suppose all I'm saying is that I hope the quests are plentiful enough to keep me wandering down some uncertain path towards an achievable goal.
To answer your questions.
1. What makes a quest memorable to me would probably be the sudden situation I'm in that makes me want to read the dialogue. Any sort of action cut scenes like NGE Galaxies started doing and SWOTOR.
2. RvR raids in Galaxies meaning the realm of the Rebels and the Realm of the Imperials going at it. Each realm would chase each other across the galaxy trying to kill each other, it was really an enjoyable experience and I had a lot of fun.
*I just wanted to add that the content release of the planet Kashyyk was very fun in its prime along with new weapons and armor I believe. The quests were really fun as well and challenging. A long time ago, but insanely addicting.
One time I was leveling with my best friend, on our lower level toons, and one dropped next to us. He picked it up and we started freaking out. We knew in the next 10 minutes the top pvp guilds were going to be on us to try to take it. We hatched a plan and tried to last as long as possible. We ran into a large dungeon and killed every player we could before we we're taken down. Was epic! I never got it my self but I was happy I was there for the ride.
Yes, it was a series of "go there, do that" but each step had its own difficulties and obstacles; sometimes just a matter of some gold, others were more combat involved. But when you finally had the key you felt like the effort was worth the reward.
And that's what a good quest reward should be - Make the reward commensurate with the effort that the players are going to put into obtaining it.
My most memorable quest would be "Dragon Slayer". Back in the day it felt like such an accomplishment getting all the requirements to start the quest, and killing the dragon at the end. Then finally upon completion achieving the ability to wear a Rune Platebody.
#Zezima #2006scape #BestMMORPG #OfItsTime
This sounds incredibly fun. Being on either side, and just the sheer childish joy one must experience when blessed with the weapons.
Raids all run together to me. I remember having fun with Gluth in Naxx, and keeping the zombies away.
Real connections with the characters. Even if it was a minor one, the writing was top notch. I really enjoyed the quests in ESO, the writing gave life to what would be otherwise flat characters.
Inclusion in the writing process. There were several quests in ESO that involved LGBTQ partners and it really surprised me. I remember most of the side quests in that game because of that immersion.
Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?
In Blade and Soul and in TERA online they would hold design a costume for in game events.
or draw a loading screen contest. I really enjoyed seeing those.
Humor can make quests memorable at times, but I guess the quest chains I remember the most are those that made me travel, visit different places. There was a quest chain in Vanguard where you had to reunite the unicorns as they could no longer see or communicate with each other over the vast distance as they once could. You had to visit each continent and gain their trust by performing various quests to me the whole storyline was well done and quite epic in scale.
Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?
Vanilla wow when you killed onyxia the dragons head would drop as a prize for one raid member to collect, this unlocked a quest to return the head to the leader of your faction in their respective capitals. Upon completion of the quest, it was announced to the city that onyxia had been slain by the person who had turned in the head, everyone in the city was given a buff that lasted 2 hours and the head of the dragon was hung from the city gates. I believe this could only be completed once per week.
Again from wow is Black Rock Mountain well the whole area of black rock a whole city in that mountain 2 40 man raids plus the whole city to explore full of dark dwarves with so many bosses in there. The epic quest lines that surrounded it all attunements for the raids, keys to get into different parts of the city more easily forges to craft dark iron bars needed for fire resist gear, dark iron ore that was only found in or near the mountain. Crafting schematics that could only be found in the mountain. The quest chain to rescue the dwarf king's daughter on and on it went so many quests, the grim guzzler fighting in the arena just so much to do and it was epic.
One other thing I did enjoy with vanilla wow and that was the epic quest chains to obtain the warlock and paladin mounts both very different and so epic in scale and you needed help to traverse different dungeons to obtain what you needed and the lore behind the quests was really well done.
There are many memorable moments from the MMO's I have played over the past nearly 20 years so much so that I no longer play any other games, there is no sense of community in other games and they just feel hollow and empty to me now.
One of my most memorable quest is HK-47 quest from SWTOR. it's a series of quest chain: look for intel, finding map, scavenging droid parts etc. you gotta travel the entire galaxy, kill many bosses and solve many map puzzle to complete this quest chain. And in the end the mission reward is you obtain HK-47 as your companion. Reward is worth it.
Another memorable quest is from The Secret World, currently known as Secret World Legends. Quest name is Last Train to Cairo. It is a series of quest, part of the main story line of SWL.
Also i asked my roommate with whom i played the WotLK expansion since it was launched(mostly on private servers) and his answer was the Lich King fight on 25 man Heroic. We had played a lot of mmo's but this is the one that stands out from the rest with none coming close to it.
PS.
And ofc this amazing trailer to start the expansion(Also the best in my opinion
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BCr7y4SLhck
The game called Revelation Online had a new patch that came with new raid content (or dungeon). And all the top guilds were running it with their premade statistics. The first couple of weeks were a bit of a pain and it was considered impossible to clear with a pug group due to the mechanics and communication required.
After being called out by @Shaze I took on the challenge, found myself a random group of people whom I then ended up clearing the "impossible to pug" -dungeon. Took us a couple of days though, lucky for us the dungeon saved progress if one or more players stayed inside.
Definitely, a raid to remember and up to this day, there's still players from the raid in other guilds that I greet in games if I see them around
The group
Checkmate〡EU〡#1 Player〡God Complex
In Dark Ages by Nexon, there was a quest chain to defeat 4 of the end-game bosses at the same time by a single group to unlock the new continent patch that increased the end-game content by 50% or so. Naturally everyone was trying their hardest to defeat them, and when a group finally managed to do it, when the patch went live they had statues of their group set up in the docks to enter the new land. That quest was abolished immediately after the first group completed it.
Sort of related, but one of those bosses quest chains, separate from the quest above, made you navigate through a huge maze filled with enemies with a shovel to dig up the remains of mini-bosses, locations that the players had to discover for themselves. After that they had to find their way through the entire maze to the summoning altars just to fight mini-bosses that'd drop parts of the summoning stone. You'd then forge all pieces together, make your way back to the end of the maze and fight the end boss. The rewards for these bosses were end-game gear and Grand Master status, so it made all the digging and mapping worth while, and selling the completed summoning stones lucrative lol.
The first was memorable for obvious reasons; the entire population was engaged in this one monumental task that pit everyone against each other for bragging rights. The second was due to the sheer amount of dedication it took to plot every point, and the reward that came with completing it. Not to mention how relied on you became in your community for knowing how it was done and helping others.
For me there are several aspects that make a quest or raid memorable. But I think one of the most important points is diversity. To have not all quests require you to do the same thing like follow that arrow to that point and kill that monster, then go to that point over there and kill that other monster...
Of course such quests can be fun when there is an engaging storyline involved but I'd really like to have quests that require you to do a lot of different things instead of running from point A to point B.
Example:
You have to first kill a monster to aquire a specific item to open a closed door to ancient ruins. But after you've obtained it you realize that it won't be enough to open the door but you need a special scroll with a magic spell as well. That scroll however is currently locked away in the tower of a dark wizard who is so powerful that you are in your current state unable to defeat him. So you have to sneak inside, evade his traps and steal the scroll without getting into a fight that you can't win (that would require patience and being alert to one's surroundings) and once you have it, it ends up actually being a riddle that game does NOT tell you how to solve but you have to figure it out on your own. (I love when games do that! FFXIV has a few of those but sadly they are quite rare). So you have fighting monsters, sneaking and stealing and puzzle solving as part of one quest.
Most MMOs still do not have so much diversity when it comes to their quests and therefore get repetitive quickly. Also, letting the player be fully immersed in the story is always a great way of motivating people (me at least XD) I don't even care that much about loot and rare items as long as the experience itself is rewarding.
I also really enjoyed the extremely immersive story of SWTOR with the branching paths. Choosing your own adventure is one of the best things you can implement in a game in my opinion.
And then there is the MMO I probably spent the most time in overall, Wizard101. It is not very widely known but I loved everything about it. It had linear quests but what really got me from the start was that you were thrown right into the story from the start, you were such an integral part of a fairytale-like world plus the game had full voice acting that added an amazing layer of depth to the story. I did not feel like I was doing "quests" in this game but like I was living and experiencing the story with every single task I did. I can not even choose one quest here because almost all of them felt like that.
As for unforgettable raids/events, two come to mind. First time downing Onyxia in WoW. Our guild spent weeks gearing up and getting that fight figured out. I was one of the main healers on my Priest. Our entire raid had wiped, except for me and the tank, and Ony was at 1-2% life. Somehow we pulled it off, and it was unforgettable. The time invested and then the miracle at the end was amazing.
The second is more of a generalization, but events that weren't repeatable. For example, in WoW preparing for Ahn'Qiraj, and then when the gates finally opened on our server that event never happened again. Made an impact on me, knowing that I was part of something that others would never get to experience.
Raid-wise, Karazhan is by far my unforgettable raid for a few reasons:
1) Attunement quest that told you a story and made me LIVE the raid. It wasn't just fun and meaningful rewards, but I felt part of the story.
2) Gimmick boss like the Chess Event, that required the party to organize in an unorthodox way.
3) The map felt organic, spherical (meaning 3dimensional), and well connected.
I hate when raids feel linear like "always go forward in a cavern". I love when the map is vertical, the path is coherent to a real situation (in that case a castle). I also love when you look around and recognize other places you've been, as "Oh I killed that big boss down there, so if from there I look up I can see this tower".
4) Optional, unlockable boss (Nightbane). Its fight arena was also very organic with the map and it was just felt so fantasy fighting a dragon on a castle wall!
Thanks for this beautiful question, I loved answering to it!
So basically I guess if the quests were tied into the story they would be far better.
The other thing that makes quests memorable is obviously the rewards. If there were rare quests that only appear if you have done certain actions or certain quest chains that branch off randomly due to location, npc's nearby, what's in your inventory, etc. ANYTHING that might slightly augment a quest chain into giving a unique reward for being one of the few that had that random sequence of events. Or even some secret quests that you can only find by talking to npc's to learn more about the world your playing in which eventually lead to some epic gear or something of that nature. You can even make it an indirect quest, for example if AoC has a quest log book, said hidden quest doesn't show up and you would have to make your own record of said information and follow it through on your own intelligence.
One last thing I found memorable, in Blade and Soul, they have achievements that once you earned them, you gained stats. Example being: you kill this boss "X" number of times you gain an additional 5 strength points, etc. etc. This is a VERY basic example but this is where developers can be creative. And personally if I had any choice in the matter it would be nice if these "achievements" are hidden AND delayed in their activation. This way depending on how long the delay is, assuming your not a masochist, there should be little to no way of making a guide on acquiring said achievements with stats.
I can keep typing for hours EASILY about ideas for mmo's, probably most which are impossible to program, and so many that are off the wall that no one would take a chance on them. But personally the way I look at it, is if there is a new MMO and there are no risks taken with off the wall ideas... Then what is really being accomplished? No risks, no change, which means no difference than any other copy paste ideas from other mmos.
A MMO has limitless potential, the only limitations are our human imagination. SO if anyone reads this novel of mine, GO NUTS, and post anything you can imagine.