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Quest chains / Quest nodes are a good thing
tugowar
Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Hi,
In an open world game, having predictable quests is a good thing. For example, you are just starting out in the starting area, and you have to run over to node A to do quests 1 and 2 before it then sends you to Node B to do quests 3, 4 and 5. One of the by products of this is that you see other players who are doing the exact same thing as you are, and it presents the opportunity for you to reach out to that person to say, "You want to group up to complete this?" And then you can group up with that person and do nodes B, C and D together before one of your mom's call you to go and eat your mac n' cheese dinner before bed.
In an open world game, having predictable quests is a good thing. For example, you are just starting out in the starting area, and you have to run over to node A to do quests 1 and 2 before it then sends you to Node B to do quests 3, 4 and 5. One of the by products of this is that you see other players who are doing the exact same thing as you are, and it presents the opportunity for you to reach out to that person to say, "You want to group up to complete this?" And then you can group up with that person and do nodes B, C and D together before one of your mom's call you to go and eat your mac n' cheese dinner before bed.
Virtue is the only good.
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Why is that a problem? (I assume we're talking theme park versus sandbox, but just clarifying.).
That being said, I understand AOC was going to have "narratives" or something that were effectively theme park like.
Virtue is the only good.
I like the ideas I’ve read of quests appearing dynamically based on how a node develops. You can’t just Google quest walkthroughs because those quests come and go. You have to find them. I like the idea of that extra challenge, I hope it works out well in practice.
If there's a (largely) predetermined path to get your character from level x to level y then the game world stops feeling like an actual world and starts feeling more like a, well... themepark. You lose the feeling that your character is an individual living in a world and it's replaced by the feeling that your character is on a guided tour.
I don't have a problem at all with connected narratives and there's absolutely a place for them in the game, but I'll be pretty disappointed if there aren't equally viable and efficient ways to progress your character. Whether that's solo content (grinding mobs out in the forest, solo class quests), pvp content (raiding/defending caravans, faction conflict), or something else entirely. I just don't want to feel like my character's path has already been chosen for them or that my character will have the exact same experience as other characters.
I believe that's the kind of game Intrepid is trying to create and that's why I backed them years ago in the kickstarter. I just hope they can pull it off!
Swtor had interesting main storylines, only issue is they gave you only illusion of choices, and no real choices. It could differ in what character says (still in most cases he means similiar thing, so what you pick doesnt really matter lore wise, outside of light side/dark side choices which also dont have much impact outside of which cutscene plays, which points you get, and what people say during that quest), or if someone will be there at the end of cutscene, but not for example different quest rewards, different companions or anything that changes the game world, since all players from certain class had the same storyline. Also it did not had any long term effects if i remember correctly. So, it were quests that were kinda interesting but lacked actual impact on game world, every player could have same story of being a hero/villain, not unique at all and without responsibilities. It made me not want to play it ever again
I'd much more prefer quests that change anything. That if you won't do them in a certain timeframe, and nobody else does, things won't be the same. And give players reason to talk/have emotions, things which when not done properly can even never be repaired. That is very important, that you can actually fail quests, on which people/nodes/guilds issuing them are dependant on. And will not give them to anyone. Not just take a high level quest, and respawn endlessly when killed, with boss standing kinda hopelessly, having choice to die or for you to stop this quest with a possibility to come back. Other players probably killed that boss anyway before, and many will
Most important issue is not design (kill 10 zombies vs go there and then there) but impact. I never saw a mmo with quests that had real impact, and that if you lost, lore would still progress. King's quest (new) had option of losing in chapter 2 but later you found out it was artificial. Maybe some npcs would die if you wont help them or fail them (and gain corruption, also whole node loses something) or perhaps make a real addition to your node (flowers in front of certain npc building, if one player finishes rewarding quest helping one npc find rare flowers for other, those flowers visible for everyone and that quest could be even one time). That would require real work from intrepid, but it is possible. Eve had those invasions lately for example, i know there are games with real lore explored by players, and because it's so rare and requires dedication to find those 'easter eggs', it helps that game to be recognised too.
So this is kinda an essay, but i think Steven thinks pretty similiarly - players can't be heroes when they can't play. Make rewarding quests hard. I'd like to see some kind of quest economy, presumably with 1 quest for 1 group or 1 player, with freedom how you do it, but really challenging to do it. Add to it possibility of someone stealing your quests (think of hunt showdown), maybe some quests will be generated by game masters, and some put by players
Example: certain mobs are destroying a node. There are too few players to protect that node themselves so they issue a quest and set a reward whoever gives them certain mob items that can also be looted from other players (add possibility of robbing in exchange for saving life and not gaining corruption/gaining less, and it even more encourages some players, to hunt down adventurers)
Second example: player needs to take something from point a to point b but can't really do that because of bandits in forest, so he puts up a escort quest for himself or quest of escorting item (quest can be bought to prevent item loss, or make that item unlootable/despawning when certain time passes/player dies)
Third example: player needs to go to certain place to speak with someone (guild master/tax collector/mandatory voting far away/some other bureaucracy like counting people from town), so he issues a quest of doing that thing for him, maybe even transmits his 'id' as in second example. That buraucracy might also be a result of some bad player (leader of a node) decisions. Afterall, AoC is political/economical mmorpg, right?
There are a lot of other examples, like quests for doing dungeons that can be picked up by guilds, or killing/talking to dragon for adventurers with more strength or diplomacy skills, or time to do quests, or hunting (real) bandits down, or hunting npc bandits down, clearing waters from monsters, hunting down pirates, pirating certain faction (corsairs/privatees), bounties for one's head, sabotaging, building, helping node to level up, protecting trees as elves and so on
Tl;dr (also pretty long, sorry)
Make quests a economy, with impacting results, not excluding lore, and more easy than eve. Not a grind, but meaningful quests for which there is need and people giving those quests could do them themselves but for some reason are not doing them. This could be also a way of scaling/outsourcing things to certain mercenaries so your empire can grow faster and face less obstacles. And there could be different rewards for different node types. For example no reward for militaristic, people could do those quests pro publico bono, for their fatherland. And gain xp/loot directly from mobs/players. Also there might be a quest leaderboard, so it could help in choosing who is voted in scientific. Or leader of religious node could reward with bonus/his xp for quests. Presumably there could be all types of rewards, but lets say xp is most important value in religious and for militaristics, most important is strength of a node.
My favourite online games are the punishing ones, where you can lose all your work if you do not think. Or you can punish others. Maybe not lose 10 years worth of progress, but 6 months worth of work is fair
Archeage did this, and I wasn't a fan.
I had crafting alts that had never attacked anything, still had their starter gear in, yet were max level. More to the point, I had combat classes at max level that I had no idea at all how to use effectively (not that this was hard in Archeage, but in other games it would be an issue).
I like the idea of it, but I didn't like it in practice.
What I'm hoping for Ashes is a system similar to FFXIV, where crafting skills are leveled entirely separately from combat skills. I believe that's how they've described it working in the past with your Adventuring Class vs your Artisan Class.
Yeah, this is what I'm hoping for as well.
I always liked the way EQ2 did leveling for crafters (though I didn't enjoy the process of crafting itself - too repetitive).
You selected your class and leveled it up completely independently from your adventuring class. The game did, however, offer up specific quests for crafters - initially limited to crafting tasks, but eventually they introduced a few actual questlines that could be completed by a pure crafting character. There were never enough quests to be able to level your crafting up exclusively on them (not even close), but it did provide a good distraction from mindless grinding for the sole purpose of getting that crafter to max level.
God yes, I love crafting quests. They didn't even have to offer up a ton of rewards, but I loved seeing how the crafter NPCs in the world behaved and saw things. It made my heart happy.
I appreciate the nod at least.
Remember when SWTOR had not revealed how to become a jedi, and the first jedi unlocked when they had mastered every crafting class? That was pretty sweet...
I don't know if node governments are supposed to be able to create "quests" per se, but having communal goals is something a node will have in order to advance a particular location. It seems like there should be some kind of incentive tied to that beyond, "if we don't do this, then we won't get our super duper forge of the almighty mcnugget".
The second example you gave is something they have contemplated.
They are locking certain events behind how the world evolves. Unless you unlock Node A, you won't get event 1. I'm not sure if that includes unless you unlock Node A, you don't get lore as well. That would be interesting...
Virtue is the only good.
And I seem to remember that SWG did not have any quests to begin with (maybe they did have what one would call "missions") until World of Warcraft launched and most if not all games copied it regarding quests, due to it's popularity.
The enemies could be alien animals, or criminals with guns, and the nest might be a burrow or a bundle of sticks or a metal hut depending on the enemy type. It was very tedious. That’s why PvP was so compelling; it was something to do that wasn’t just a grind.
Eventually they did have “theme parks”, one that comes to mind (since I played an Imperial) was the Emperor’s Palace, where you talked to an NPC (Luke Darth Vader or Admiral Thrawn) and they sent you on various missions. That may have indeed coincided with WoW being released and finding success, and they felt pressured to compete. I think Endor and Dathomir also had theme parks on them of some kind too. They also had various events pop up now and then with missions included.
I remember when the Jump to Lightspeed expansion was released, and you could build and fly starships, it was a welcome change of pace. I really loved that part of the game and I still miss my heavily modified TIE Interceptor.