Godmotherfuckingdammit

[CmdrSlack]

Well now, that doesn't bode well for my point, then. 

Naw, I just find that my own reason for playing MMOs has little to do with my peen, e- or real. I play them for fun. If being unable to get the trait == irrevocabally unfun for someone, then so be it. However, from a purely mechanical perspective, there's no way that being unable to attain that title leads to being gimped.

[d4rkj3di]

Pie-Eating Champion. That's the best title. Especially since I play a Champion. And I like pie.

Please forgive me for this but, quitting a game because you made your own play experience pretty fucking miserable and then had a bit of bad luck that negated that entire miserable experience is the brightest shining example of being a whiny-ass piss-baby I've seen in quite awhile (Paris Hilton not included). I can completely understand that you really wanted that title, but you seem to have made it your end-all-be-all of self worth within the context of the game. So, in effect, getting that title became your endgame. I think that soon after getting it, you would have quit anyway, seeing as how you had already done everything in the game you had set out to do.

[Venkman]

I personally go for the "Champion/Defender of the <zone>" titles as achieving those usually unlocks an Advanced version that leads to some really nice Traits.

And btw, damn the Minstrel and their One Class Trait. I know not every Minstrel eats that slot with Medium Armor. But I don't prefer to kite in this game (way very possible with Minstrels though it is) because I inevitably hit some new spawn. So I'm sitting there eating damage from 2-3 mobs at a time (assuming I've been able to fear one away). I needs me my better armor for the better stats that let me do this.

[LK]

It's important because some people play these MMOs to collect.  I was pretty upset that I missed out on a newbie title in City of Heroes that you can get from killing 200 of the infected in the newbie zone, and that you had absolutely no way of knowing about it as a new player, thereby gimping your character if you wanted to play with a "Gotta Catch 'em All" mindset.  If I lose the ability to catch them all, then that severely hampers my experience and may even do so to the point of quitting.  If I lost out on Undying because of a situation similar to bob's, I'd probably quit too.

There was a newbie mission I really wanted to complete that wasn't working in Beta of Earth and Beyond.  I waited for the game to go live and the quest was still a broken piece of shit, and wasn't able to be completed if I leveled past it (because for some reason having too high a level restricted you from even accepting missions), so I contacted CS, they couldn't help, and quit in disguist.

It's important that if you have a collection aspect of your game that you don't gimp it by making something permanently unattainable.

[Lightstalker]

It's important that if you have a collection aspect of your game that you don't gimp it by making something permanently unattainable.

So for undying it would reset the counter at each death until you went 20 levels without dying.  Maybe you die a couple times on your way to level max and have to wait out an expansion, but you still have that (faint) hope for all time that maybe this time will be different. 

I'd still delete and reroll, since I'm lazy and it looks like a lot more work going from 18to to 38th without dying than another go at 1-20.

[DraconianOne]

It's important that if you have a collection aspect of your game that you don't gimp it by making something permanently unattainable.

This could seem to go against the grain of roleplaying though: iirc there was a quest in the Trials of Obi-Wan addon for SWG (sorry, lowered the tone!) where you had to make a choice at the end of a quest.  Each decision would grant a different title but you couldn't get them both.  Great for roleplayers (well, great in a it really doesn't make a difference) but "gimps" gameplay for collectors.

[Mesozoic]

What's interesting about the undying title series is simply that it is so un-MMOG.  In every other metric - in every single other way your character is measured - you can attain whatever you like simply through persistence.   Every quest can be re-tried after a failure.  Any amount of repair debt can be worked off eventually.  Even a spastic 5-year old can kill 120 orcs given enough time.   

But the undying titles?  Die once and its over.  It won't happen.  You can't try again.  Move on.

MMOG players are not accustomed to being told "no."

[DraconianOne]

MMOG players are not accustomed to being told "no."

Yes, I know.  It explains a lot! 

[LK]

It's important that if you have a collection aspect of your game that you don't gimp it by making something permanently unattainable.

This could seem to go against the grain of roleplaying though: iirc there was a quest in the Trials of Obi-Wan addon for SWG (sorry, lowered the tone!) where you had to make a choice at the end of a quest.  Each decision would grant a different title but you couldn't get them both.  Great for roleplayers (well, great in a it really doesn't make a difference) but "gimps" gameplay for collectors.

That's perfectly fine.  As long as a player is able to collect X of X titles, where X equals the total number of collectible things *possible* for him.  X would be a value of 1 for a series of titles that you could only obtain one of.  I saw the particular title you were talking about when browsing the title list with my SWG character I recently started up.

It'd be annoying though if those unclaimed titles remained on your "possible" titles list.  If I collect #2 title of a set of 3, I'd like #1 and #3 to be removed from my list.

What's interesting about the undying title series is simply that it is so un-MMOG.  In every other metric - in every single other way your character is measured - you can attain whatever you like simply through persistence.   Every quest can be re-tried after a failure.  Any amount of repair debt can be worked off eventually.  Even a spastic 5-year old can kill 120 orcs given enough time.   

But the undying titles?  Die once and its over.  It won't happen.  You can't try again.  Move on.

MMOG players are not accustomed to being told "no."

So imagine if you had 150 possible Pokemon and you could only collect 148 no matter what you did.  That would really hurt the "Gotta Catch 'Em All" aspect.

I actually hated the Undying title something fierce.  It creates more conflict for people who have to be super careful about their deaths for the first 20 levels and potentially biting the dust in a cheap fashion (as bob did and I almost did during the Beta) rather than a good reward for playing the game skillfully.  It would have been more prudent to do something that wasn't tied to your levels.  Death in an MMOG with a permanent consequence like that, ESPECIALLY in the earlier levels, could leave a bad taste in someone's mouth.  For some people it doesn't matter, but for those that do, you create a potential to irk.

[Johny Cee]

What's interesting about the undying title series is simply that it is so un-MMOG.  In every other metric - in every single other way your character is measured - you can attain whatever you like simply through persistence.   Every quest can be re-tried after a failure.  Any amount of repair debt can be worked off eventually.  Even a spastic 5-year old can kill 120 orcs given enough time.   

But the undying titles?  Die once and its over.  It won't happen.  You can't try again.  Move on.

MMOG players are not accustomed to being told "no."

Actually...  I think some of the "protect/free such and such person" quests are one-shot.  I goofed "freeing Dori" when I tried to solo it,  and that removed the entire book from my quest journal.

[CmdrSlack]

Actually...  I think some of the "protect/free such and such person" quests are one-shot.  I goofed "freeing Dori" when I tried to solo it,  and that removed the entire book from my quest journal.

Holy crap. That sounds rather like a bug to me. Hell, of the three racial quests at that part, Dori is the toughest, IMO.  I know I've been able to repeat the "save so and so" quests you find in goblin camps and such. It just makes no sense to kill your Book 3 and make you start over (or worse yet, keep you from advancing to book 4, which I thnk requires the triggering quest from completing Book 3).

[pxib]

You just have to go back and find the person who started the quest. As you wander from person to person in involved quests, sometimes (rather than receiving an experience reward) you'll just have a request that you continue to some other person. The button at the bottom even says something like "confinue quest" rather than "finish". You cannot return to those people and expect to find the quest again, only the person who initiated the quest can give you the quest.

Trace your steps back and you'll find a ring over somebody's head. No quest is a one-off. I ran into this with Falco's Garden when I failed to protect Constable Bolger. Bolger himself had no ring... nor did Falco. In fact it was Gammy Boggs who began the quest.

...

While we're on the subject of bad quest design, motherfucking wolves in the old forest. Everyone starts trying to kill wolves and gives up because wolves are a random spawn which can also spawn other things... bears, oak roots, bats. There are quests -after- the wolf quest that require the killing of bats and bears, but nobody gets that far because they give up while hunting wolves. Dozens of people starting the quest are always killing every wolf they see and -avoiding- the bats and bears because they're a distraction towards their goal: Killing wolves. So eventually the forest fills with bats and bears and oak roots.

Two quests from Adso's camp also require killing wolves for pelts and hides. There are numerous nearby bears and boars (the other quest requirements from Adso's) but the nearest wolves are in the Old Forest... and that is where the quest-givers direct you. The "kill 25 wolves" quest is a considerable distance away in Buckland. Indeed, human players will likely not encounter it until after they've completed Adso's tasks. MORE wolves they have to find and kill. Yawn.

Worse yet, there are specific places in the Old Forest that have specific and numerous spawns of bats, bears, and the last quest goal... spiders. There is no place with such a spawn of wolves... so the players who ARE looking for bats, bears, or spiders simply go to those locations rather than clearing the random spawns of non-wolves. The wolves just can't compete... so nobody does that sequence past the wolf-killing phase.

Grrr.

[Phred]

The "kill 25 wolves" quest is a considerable distance away in Buckland. Indeed, human players will likely not encounter it until after they've completed Adso's tasks. MORE wolves they have to find and kill. Yawn.
Grrr.

There is a quest on the innkeeper at the prancing pony called trouble in buckland that,  I believe, sends you right to the quest giver.

[Numtini]

While we're on the subject of bad quest design, motherfucking wolves in the old forest

This to me is less of a bad quest design and more of a way we have become accustomed by WOW to everything being served in correct size portions exactly where we expect them to be and to be done in a fairly linear fashion. Yes, the quest is frustrating. I finished it with my minstrel while doing a bunch of other old forest stuff. I never touched the old forest quests with my guardian. One of the things with LOTRO is you will leave a lot of quests unfinished. The dire wolf pelts north of Dol Dinen is another one that's similar.

Load up on quests and if something gets frustrating, move on. A lot of these Kill X quests seem to be oriented around running into a bunch and maybe finishing it and maybe not, but don't seem to be "destination quests."

[CmdrSlack]

Unless you play a hunter.

Then the kill X quests feel almost required. After all, you CAN track them. Even done that way, it takes a hecka long time to get some of them done.

[gravdiggr]

While we're on the subject of bad quest design, motherfucking wolves in the old forest. Everyone starts trying to kill wolves and gives up because wolves are a random spawn which can also spawn other things... bears, oak roots, bats.

In the dumbass category, there's a quest in northdown that require killing wolves. The only problem is that they share their spawnspots with elite non agressive aurochs that nobody needs to kill (actually there's a quest but it doesn't require ethnical cleansing on the bovines). Of course, the followups for that particular quest eventually leads you to kill other wolves.

[CmdrSlack]

While we're on the subject of bad quest design, motherfucking wolves in the old forest. Everyone starts trying to kill wolves and gives up because wolves are a random spawn which can also spawn other things... bears, oak roots, bats.

In the dumbass category, there's a quest in northdown that require killing wolves. The only problem is that they share their spawnspots with elite non agressive aurochs that nobody needs to kill (actually there's a quest but it doesn't require ethnical cleansing on the bovines). Of course, the followups for that particular quest eventually leads you to kill other wolves.

You're talking about wargs, right?

[Bandit]

While we're on the subject of bad quest design, motherfucking wolves in the old forest. Everyone starts trying to kill wolves and gives up because wolves are a random spawn which can also spawn other things... bears, oak roots, bats. There are quests -after- the wolf quest that require the killing of bats and bears, but nobody gets that far because they give up while hunting wolves. Dozens of people starting the quest are always killing every wolf they see and -avoiding- the bats and bears because they're a distraction towards their goal: Killing wolves. So eventually the forest fills with bats and bears and oak roots.

Just had this quest grey out on me lastnight.  Interesting about shared spawn points, seems to happen too much in this game - takes me back to pulling my hair out finding slugs. They should have a similar quest for bats, or roots to counteract this.  I thought I was just searching the wrong areas of the old forest.

[gravdiggr]

You're talking about wargs, right?

Yes, wargs/wolves end up in the same category in my brain.

[LK]

Shared spawn points are fine if you're dealing with a family of creatures, but should be the lower percentage of your spawns while fixed spawns are the greater.  So you'd have 30% wolves, 30% bats, 30% bears, and maybe 10% of all three thrown in for good measure.  That way you aren't playing luck when looking for something basic.  I believe WoW uses this model, and they tend to use it more in areas that are filler and not spawning for areas of interest.

Or, you could design a quest that targets a family of creatures. "Kill wolves, but any wolf will do", and your spawn points have a 60% chance to spawn a Lv. 10 Wolf Pup, a 35% chance for a Lv. 11 Wolf, or a 5% chance to spawn a Lv. 12 Wolf Matriarch, oh and let's say the Matriarch has something special on her.  But killing any will do for your quest.

I like fixed spawns though.  It puts the experience of how the area plays more in the control of the game designer and doesn't leave a player's experience to chance. Chance means you can have an optimal experience or worse when it comes to spawning.  Having it more fixed means it stays closer to optimal.

[Phred]

Shared spawn points are fine if you're dealing with a family of creatures, but should be the lower percentage of your spawns while fixed spawns are the greater.  So you'd have 30% wolves, 30% bats, 30% bears, and maybe 10% of all three thrown in for good measure.  That way you aren't playing luck when looking for something basic.  I believe WoW uses this model, and they tend to use it more in areas that are filler and not spawning for areas of interest.

Or, you could design a quest that targets a family of creatures. "Kill wolves, but any wolf will do", and your spawn points have a 60% chance to spawn a Lv. 10 Wolf Pup, a 35% chance for a Lv. 11 Wolf, or a 5% chance to spawn a Lv. 12 Wolf Matriarch, oh and let's say the Matriarch has something special on her.  But killing any will do for your quest.

I like fixed spawns though.  It puts the experience of how the area plays more in the control of the game designer and doesn't leave a player's experience to chance. Chance means you can have an optimal experience or worse when it comes to spawning.  Having it more fixed means it stays closer to optimal.

Ya the worst shared spawn quest I've not done so far was the boar meat and stomachs quest in E Lonelands. After 2 or 3 passes through that area only seeing 1 or 2 boars up, and the drop rate on stomachs sucking monkey balls, I just deleted the damn thing. By the late 20's early 30's there's so many damn quests it's not hard to dump one or two. At least for a while until they all dry up and turn into group only quests.

[LK]

Well maybe they were trying a weak dynamic spawning system.  Kill a bunch of wolves, and more of the other creatures spawn.  That won't be optimal if your creatures are quest targets though, and only leads to player frustration.

[CmdrSlack]

Ya the worst shared spawn quest I've not done so far was the boar meat and stomachs quest in E Lonelands. After 2 or 3 passes through that area only seeing 1 or 2 boars up, and the drop rate on stomachs sucking monkey balls, I just deleted the damn thing. By the late 20's early 30's there's so many damn quests it's not hard to dump one or two. At least for a while until they all dry up and turn into group only quests.

Oddly enough, before this patch, all of the LL boars worked for that quest.  I found this out after spending about six hours of combined playtimes tracking and killing the number required to complete the quest.

[pxib]

The trouble is there are quests to kill bats and bears, but they FOLLOW THE WOLF KILLING QUEST. Since everyone gives up on the wolf killing quest because wolves are killed as soon as they're spawned and the bears, roots, and bats that spawn with them are ignored or avoided (it's dangerous enough in the Old Forest without attacking stuff on purpose), nobody gets to the quests that require the bats and bears. The spawning system randomly picks one, and wolves are the only ones that get killed so the other ones pile up until there are hardly any wolves at all.

That's bad quest design. More specifically, it's bad quest management. Set them all up concurrent rather than consecutive and everything's fine.

What would have been wrong with one gigantic "Kill 25 wolves, 25 bats, 25 bears, and 25 spiders" quest? Or one hobbit directing you to four other hobbits who give you individual quests (which can be picked up simultaneously) and then gives you a big reward once you finish all four of their quests.

...or something.

Tailors need to kill those Aurochs for a quest to up their tailoring level.

[Phred]

The trouble is there are quests to kill bats and bears, but they FOLLOW THE WOLF KILLING QUEST. Since everyone gives up on the wolf killing quest because wolves are killed as soon as they're spawned and the bears, roots, and bats that spawn with them are ignored or avoided (it's dangerous enough in the Old Forest without attacking stuff on purpose), nobody gets to the quests that require the bats and bears. The spawning system randomly picks one, and wolves are the only ones that get killed so the other ones pile up until there are hardly any wolves at all.

That's bad quest design. More specifically, it's bad quest management. Set them all up concurrent rather than consecutive and everything's fine.

What would have been wrong with one gigantic "Kill 25 wolves, 25 bats, 25 bears, and 25 spiders" quest? Or one hobbit directing you to four other hobbits who give you individual quests (which can be picked up simultaneously) and then gives you a big reward once you finish all four of their quests.

...or something.

Tailors need to kill those Aurochs for a quest to up their tailoring level.

Lol, there is a kill an auroch quest for L20 tailoring but you are directed to look for a specific named on that is specially delevled to be soloable. I find with LoTR the only answer you need to remember when asking these kinds of questions is "but it would make too much sense."

[LK]

That's bad quest design. More specifically, it's bad quest management. Set them all up concurrent rather than consecutive and everything's fine.

I've been playing a lot of different MMOs, and most that I've come across seem to have just friggin' retarded quest design.  I really wish more people looked at the subtle design elements of what WoW is doing and not just the obvious "Oh hey quest-oriented gameplay works!"

Maybe there is a disconnect between the spawners and the quest designers? Or maybe the spawners are the quest designers? I don't really know.  Professional and quality quest design seems to be an asset unique to Blizzard, unless someone can cite an example in another game.  But even then, what I'm looking for is consistent quality, not "Oh this one quest chain is great but the rest are bogus."