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Dev Discussion #1 - Memorable Content

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  • DarakrisDarakris Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    It is a pleasure to be here with all of you. I know it's a little late, but I would like to share my comments on this topic with Intrepid Studios.

    First of all, a mission or content in the game can become unforgettable in a good and bad way. In this case, what you are looking for is to impact the players in a good way, so that they will connect and attract much more for the game.

    To achieve this, the environment and the story must awaken feelings in the players, these feelings can be of different types, joy, emotion, sadness, anger, betrayal, love, attraction, among others. That is what will make them unforgettable. However, what can cause a feeling in one person may not cause it in another, and that is why you must follow certain points.
    1.- Know your target audience and create profiles, in turn to design content and successful stories.
    2 .- Use situations that culturally, or by the human nature can cause emotions, to give an example: that you find an orphanage where care for abandoned and sick childrens, you help them get food etc., have a small dinner where you can enjoy with them and they will show you their appreciation, the next day someone arrives and kill everyone.
    In that little story you can find:
    a.- Characters with whom you can easily relate (children).
    b.- Situation of abandonment, and illness in them, which makes players easily identify with them, especially as children, and want to help them.
    c.- Help mission, to make players feel a sense of satisfaction and solidarity towards those in need.
    d.- A dinner to make the player feel that his efforts were worth it, with some beautiful or emotional scenes.
    e.- Tragic loss of everything at the hands of a third party.
    All this will generate a feeling of hatred and annoyance towards that third person.

    In the same way, stories can be created to generate different types of emotions. It must be a step by step, a plot that will be slowly created where, at each step, the players are identified in one way or another with the mission, so that little by little, they feel within it.

    Another thing that can greatly help create an unforgettable story is music, which in many cases is forgotten. Reducing it only to a generic background music. When the situation merits, music or songs unique to that scene, in order to make the feelings of the players flow even more.

    Finally and changing the subject a bit, I read a comment in this discussion, which talked about unique titles. I want to tell you an idea that I never developed 14 years ago, when I was creating a private online ragnarok server. "Unique Events", these are events that are only held once in the server's history, a type of event that has its own introduction history and which may even temporarily or permanently affect the topography of an area. They are long events in missions, and of short temporal duration. For example, it lasts 2 weeks, but you need at least 20 hours of continuous play to finish it. The event will take you through different and very varied missions, which you will have to do some individually and others in groups, manufacture certain materials, etc. etc. Some of these could lead you to collect certain event material from certain dungeons, or even temporarily modify 1 dungeons, which will now have an extra extension of much greater difficulty.
    To give an example, if it is an event such as "attack of a powerful monster" that must be passed in a group of 6 or 12 people. It could be carried out in a modified dungeon of an existing one or specially designed for this purpose. Where they must pass different tests or riddles, and not only strength of the characters (to make it more fair). When you defeat the final boss or finish the mission, you will be rewarded in 2 ways. 1.- the first party to finish it. 2.- all other pt that finish it. The first pt to finish it will take a unique title, and unique equipment or clothing. That can be only visual, or slightly higher than existing ones. While the rest of the parties, they will get another title, which by having everyone who passed it, will be not so unique, but it will be your achievement for having managed to finish it, in addition to some clothes or equipment, which can be only visual, or of normal strength.

    That's it, thank you very much for reading.
  • influenzainfluenza Member, Founder, Kickstarter
    edited August 2019
    When a game is more than just dailies... actually having meaning to do quests.. having a good reward system such as titles.. we all know lots of folks love their titles.... and of course a worthwhile achievement system... doing some solo quests.. doing some quests you need another person to accomplish.. and actually finishing a decent long but not TOO long... and reaping the nice rewards/achievements/titles, and self glory of actually finishing said questline. Major storyline quests come to mind, why such and such is how the game world began... stopping said evil people.. or... aiding some folks that may or may not be evil in nature...

    Basically.. something FUN... enjoyable.. and you can do a bit here and there, and not feel it is a grind to do just that one quest. Also, if it's too mundane... folks probably won't do it much, or talk about it so other folks, even NEW folks will want to do said questline.

    I'm hoping this is the case, there will be many different kind of quest lines that will intrigue just about everyone possible.. I know not everything will please everyone.. but i'm sure it can come close with the right folks developing said quests.
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    COUGH™©
  • NyxxaNyxxa Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    "What makes a quest memorable? Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?" - Dev Discussion # 1

    A memorable quest to me is one involving a more personal connected story. To learn ones personality through the vocabulary used and actions of a character, then in turn, also learning ones story through their eyes, or perspective. A NPC can come off as boring and fake (as they are), but with a bit of in depth feeling and passion (of which comes out through an authors passion to write the story) makes it real. After all, its the writer behind the character that makes it great, not the meaningless words that give you a task.

    An event I will never forget was one created within a roleplay guild I was once apart of. We had went on an adventure towards an old castle, one of which Greystone (the guild leader) had birth rights, but had been over run by ghouls and poor outcasts for many years. We we're only just departing from the main city towards a lesser known dock in the neighboring land. The people in that land we're very poor, and bandits typically took refuge in the area, but it was the closest place to the main city the mercenary ship was willing to land, that of which would take us across the seas. It was a quite jaunt for so time until finally reaching a small run down town just a couple more miles from the ship. The villagers all looked either sick or angry and sad, but along side the villagers there seemed to be thugs at nearly every corner just hating it up with other thugs. As a group we decided, as a wealthy target being among our ranks, we'd better take another route, rather than strutting straight through town. Even having taken a more back road like trek, it didn't keep us from running into trouble. We stumbled, quite suddenly, across a camp of bandits. It took all of us (rolling every move) to fight them off. Our group suffered minor injuries, where as the most of the bandits fell to mortal wounds, with the last two fleeing at the last moment. (although this was all DM improv, the imagination and team work we had together while chatting constantly was so much fun.) As we reached the dock it was starting to turn to dusk. Making camp we waited until the ship was meant to arrive the next morning. ((This event alone incited so much joy of creating stories with others so much, that I drew pictures of what I imagined in my notebook while in class the next day. We ended up taking an In-game screenshot together on the dock and used it on our guilds web page. Sadly however, soon there after the GM ran into IRL issues and the guild fell into activity before finally disbanding. The one and only event that guild ever achieved still brings a smile to my face.))

    What I believe made it so unforgettable was the people. Being able to enjoy something we all liked together allowed us to get to learn about each other, our created characters, and invest in each other. Although, the unfinished story and mystery as to the GM's disappearance may also factor into why this event, above all others, has become so unforgettable.
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  • mrwafflesmrwaffles Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    How far back did you go to read this and why?

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  • FuryBladeborneFuryBladeborne Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited August 2020
    What makes a quest memorable? Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?

    Difficulty. The most challenging quests are the only ones that stay in my memory over years. Its what I had really apply some effort to that makes it memorable.

    All raids have been memorable to me purely because of much I had to practice and work at each one.
  • TyrantorTyrantor Member
    edited August 2020
    This probably doesn't scale directly to the question being posed however since some of the devs working on this created EQ it will at least be relatable.

    My most memorable NPC encounter was running through the Southern Plains of Karana and coming face to Toe with a Cyclops. The sheer size and scale of the cyclops was amazing to see when I was such a low level character.

    For early level questing one of my favorite zones for the because of the chaos that always seemed present was Near the woodelf city in the zone of Crushbone. The constant orc NPC dominance in this area for the low levels trying to farm it caused constant NPC trains and group/player wipes. It was probably the first disdain I developed for an NPC that caused me to return at a high level and envoke some revenge on Emperor Crush and his Ambassador DVinn.

    I'll say this for EQ the balance in the game between danger and safety was well done. While you could kite and or escape a lot of danger by zoning, just the constant fear of random high level NPCs roaming zones and the open world PvP aspects of the game created such great exploration memories.

    Frankly I think that the path to reach high level content was so rewarding that once max level the mystic of questing, raiding etc wore off and I truly believe the game was done correctly because of this. It created such an immersive feeling.
    Tyrantor
    Master Assassin
    (Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
    Book suggestions:
    Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
  • BeekeeperBeekeeper Member
    edited August 2020
    My most memorable quests were the class quests in WoW that gave me certain abilities, like summoning my imp as a warlock. I very distinctly remember having to sneak my way into that cave past all those imps to kill the summoner hiding in there. Every time I use that ability it would remind me of that quest.

    Also had the effect of really making my abilities feel earned.
  • Guild wars 2 Had some really good fully optional story quest.
    The way you gather your Allies and attack with a combined force to slowly aproche the enemy citadel and defete the main boss was just Epic.
    And no quest reward were better then The Music of the final Cutscene.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOMQxVtbkik


    Another thing Guild Wars 2 did well were the Open World chain Quest events.
    A group of raiders is attacking a Farm.
    You kill them and drive them off.
    Now you look for clues to find their hideout.
    You find then and go in to kill the remaining bandits.
    At the end a the Bandit Boss comes out and a Boss fight ensures.
    After you win a couple NPC guards of the same level come up.
    After some time they will be attacked by new bandits.
    If no Players help then the Bandits win and take the hideout.
    A bit later they start attacking nearby farms and villiges.

    A circle of activitys

    Now you could use this in many different ways to make interesting Chain Quests.




    The Witcher 3 also has some aswome quests.
    The way the Character Talk and jab at each other. The Way that sometimes all the choises you have are bad and you can only minimize the dmg.
    Sometimes Evil wins and good People die. Thats just the way the world works.


    Both However come down to 2 things.
    Good Writing and Good Voice Acting.

    Also the best antagonists are those who do evil for good reason. Those you can relate to.



    I know AoC will not have Many voices NPCs as its really Expensive.
    But i hope that as Money flows in during launch more Quests will be voiced


    Ah good memories.

    On the Negativ site
    Escord quests have allready been mentioned but reading the quest really isnt a thing for me anymore.
    For me Quest NPCs have to talk or i cant get immersed into them anymore.

    Bad Voice acting is a quick way to drive of your player base.
    Gold coins and Gear from Beasts.
    Like how the hell did this Wolf boss drop a full plate Amor?
    At least have Bosses Guard loot piles for immersion.


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  • 3am3am Member
    edited August 2020
    gnarCia wrote: »
    On an old mmo called silkroad online they had a caravan system and we would wait and ambush caravans. They had player guards for the caravans and it’d be like an all out war. If the theivs won we would steal their loot and go to a black market buyer. Good times

    Silkroad players unite!!!! We know the caravan game inside and out. Hunters, thieves, traders. Guild trade runs and guild heists!

    Also the quests i remember most were cool puzzles. Like the first treasure maps in eso.
  • SussurroSussurro Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    I like storylines that exemplify one of the Joker's famous quotes, "All it takes is just one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.". I love to see
    how characters, who are sound of mind, completely snap when they are pushed to their extremes. It makes for memorable content. :)
    “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” - Terry Prachett, Reaper Man
  • Ashes is already planning on doing what I enjoyed the most about quests in MMOs. Players combining their efforts and resources to change their environment. They're doing this through nodes which is a great system imo.

    In WoW it was the Sunfire Peninsula daily quests. I remember doing those monotonous quests then one day the area changed or upgraded if you will. Vendors showed up and had new items to offer. I thought it was great that my doing these meaningless quests helped improve the area for everyone.

    The other type of quest that was most memorable was the public quest in Warhammer Online. They were timed events where players could run up and join in the fun. Rewards were given based on your participation. They were quick quests and a great way to get players all in the same area all trying to accomplish the same goal through teamwork.
  • SendbackupSendbackup Member
    edited August 2020
    What makes a quest memorable?
    This is something Star Wars The Old Republic MMO did well and WOW Classic didnt.
    SWTOR Quest chains were always interesting because every part had a story that kept building on is itself mainly because of key interact able NPC's that you meet along a quest chain that were voice acted and you also had options to converse with different outcomes. You flirt with them and romance them or be cheeky and enrage them. Now this was memorable as the cheeky banter and romancing was comical, but also you choice of outcome mattered in some instances if you got rewards or not.
    Even though AOC will not have voice acting, it doesn't mean you cant have optional outcomes and cheeky banter to make quest more than just go here collect this or kill them or switch that type quests.
    WOW CLASSIC Just about every quest was a constant chore of running backwards and forwards over places you were just at to collect 10 skins or kill x amount of monsters. And that was it. Making quests a chore to make levelling take a long time is not a great way to go about it.

    Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?
    Raids are memorable because of bosses having mechanics and room mechanics that have to be worked out as a group in order to beat it with a degree of trial and error. If you just have a boss that has 2 or 3 attacks and pretty much stands there with no additional room mechanics other than a pack mob of npcs to fight, the fight is tedious and each boss is nothing more than a reskin of the previous boss.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pn-h3q6Uhg
  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Quests:
    I literally don't have a single memorable quest experience that is positive in any MMO outside of DDO. I only say that DDOs questing was positive because 100% of the content is technically a part of a quest outside of crafting. I just flat hate quests. I have been hating quests my whole life, and I don't think AoC will change that.

    Raids:
    First got into raiding in WOTLK. I have such fond memories. I got into it right before ulduar. I remember got the Armageddon from 25man naxx. It was my first ever big boy piece of loot in a game. Then ulduar came out, and I fell in love with raids. They were cool to me before, but in ulduar you could trigger the hard modes. I loved it. I remember my guild was just a 10 man crew and we could only down the first 3 bosses. I would wait for everyone to go offline, and pug the 25-man or the 4th-7th boss in secret. I was hooked. Then trial of the crusader came out and was a let down. I have not had my heart in WOW since. I currently do Savage raids in FFXIV when I have a raiding mood. I like FFXIV for raiding over WOW just because I have the right friends in FFXIV. Savage raids are a blast. Very mechanically dense, and take a good deal of time to learn. I look forward to the new fights every patch.
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    If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
  • LuthienstormLuthienstorm Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Humans remember struggles. My most memorable dungeon was Maraudon from World of Warcraft. We were 2 lvl 46s and 2 lvl 47s and a lvl 52. The lvl 52 tank got disconnected but we decided to continue. Being the druid I tanked, but I also had to let other ppl draw aggro at times and a few fights our healer ran out of mana and it was better that the rogue evasion tanked while I healed. It took a lot of coordination and good play but we made it and no one died during the dungeon. We took down lvl 52 bosses at lvl 46. ( I was an alchemist and used 5-6 consumes) It was epic...it reminded me of a D&D game where we all played our role to our upmost. I think D&D did it right with their XP system. In 20 fights 4 should be easy, 4 should expend 10% of your resources, 6 should expend 20%, 4 should expend 50% of your resources, and 2 should make you wonder if you'll survive. End of act bosses or dungeon bosses should be a 50 percent chance to wipe against players of average skill. Raid bosses and legendary raid bosses should have a much higher grp of wipe potential to average players.
  • What makes a quest memorable for me:
    1. It is personal to my class ( class quests )or there is a choice in the outcome and or reward.
    Raid that I wont forger:
    1.Hard mode encounters Ulduar during progression. Also the epic scale of the raid itself was pretty cool. The mechanics of the fights and the way some of them were triggered was great. The epic size of the raid itself was awesome too.
  • QuanthalamorQuanthalamor Member
    edited August 2020
    What makes a quest memorable?
    Hard to solve quests and quests with great rewards are memorable for me. The most memorable quests for me were hatchling and wolf quests in Lineage 2.

    Are there any raids or events that you'll never forget? What made them unforgettable?
    Castle sieges. Situations need a lot of teamwork makes it unforgettable for me.
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  • DemidreamerDemidreamer Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    A memorable quest: I think in order to remember a quest you have to have a challenge of completing the quest. While you/yourself may not have had a hard time, others may have had a hard time with the completion. There will be chronic chatter long after with newer players wondering the same question you or others had years ago.

    As for event/raid(if I may add, arena): For me, finding a game within a game often leads to hours, months, and most likely lost years of my life playing the side games. One of my favorite, which makes want to reinstall SWtOR for Huttball just thinking about the good times. Rules were: there are no rules. Static poison pits, incinerator plates on catwalks were obstacles that you could use offensively or defensively. Trying to stay on the catwalk with the ball was a very difficult with all the knockbacks from abilities. SWtOR had lots of push or pull type abilities combined with stuns you could REALLY make someone have a bad day. If you used the static features in someone's death the announcer would comment on your kill most likely. Respawn points were behind the goal lines. So killing the other team often sent them right back into your path if you were trying to score. You could throw the ball in two ways much like AoC action/tab system, you could target aoe and hope for your target to run to location(predict where he was going) or tab target to his standing location(which he might move away from the ball and be intercepted). I really miss that game, my beef at the time was the inability to specifically queue for that arena. One could queue all evening and never get the particular arena you were after. =(

    I wouldn't want yall to delay for an arena or event like this but maybe in the Tulnar expansion something like this could happen as the Tulnar passtime sport.

    Thank you Intrepid Studios~
  • TeamVASHTeamVASH Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    The best quests were stories that followed one or two characters that really developed who they were and the impact they made in their little piece of the world. Characters that aren't fodder to be killed off become interesting and leave me always wanting to know what happens next in their adventure. Emotional development and growth <3
  • The best quests I've ever experienced in MMORPG were:
    Lineage 2 noblesse quest:
    Why?
    Because to get the title of "Noblesse" you had to get the guild together to kill raid bosses/monsters etc etc for your quest chain.
    Why they should help you?
    The Noblesse title provided the ability to buff other members with Noblesse.
    + special abilities (example : teleport to locations that others can't) good for checking enemy position and raid bosses availability etc.

    Lineage 2 second and third professions
    During that chain quest I've learned the lore of your race.
    And after the long chain of quests you actually felt why you deserve the title and the new skills and abilities.
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