IGN Interview with Jeff Strain re: Quest System

[Signe]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/578/578286p1.html

[Krakrok]

The article lies.

"What's different is that we use quests in a different way than a normal MMO does. These are not Fed-Ex 'go fetch me this' or 'deliver this package' or 'bring me three snake ears' or something like that."

There are all kinds of fed-ex quests including the quest to the Aschelon<sp> Settlement from the Outfitter in Lion's Arch.

But at least they are innovating.

"I have always missed the fact that with a game like Baldur's Gate you could actually go change the world and if you accomplish something and came back out talking to all the NPCs, they knew you did it," says Strain. "That, to me, has been what has been missing from the traditional MMO formula and I'm really excited that we've found a way to bring that back into it!"

[Xilren's Twin]

This is the sort of building on instancing which I think can lead to a much more dynamic experience.  We shall see

No, in fact they have much bigger picture in mind. Including quests that actual alter the world in ways that are significant to the player. The environment will change with the player's actions and deeds. "This is actually something that the instancing model that we've got allows us to do. It's one of the real strengths of it. When we put you in a map, we can completely tailor the content of the map just for you so that every time you go there you see it in a specific state that reflects actions that you've taken in the past."

The impressive part of this is that the game will actually generate the map and what should be there on the fly. When entering a map, the server will take into account everything that you've done including who you've talked to, what missions you've completed, all of the quests you've been given, and more. "Using that information we'll build a huge matrix internally of everything you could see or might want to see. So basically all of the content we've got that would be appropriate based on your history. We will then completely spawn that mission and set up quests, incidents and events based on that matrix."

If in fact you do decide to party up with some of your friends to explore areas or take on a mission or two, you have to wonder what happens when the people in the party may have had different pasts up to this point. "We take in account everybody in the party's history, quest log, and everything that anybody has completed," states Strain happily. "We'll weed out the things that would be impossible for you to see. For example one of the early NPCs that you meet in the game has a strong possibility of dying as the story unfolds. So obviously if you go into one of these one of these explorable areas there could be a ton of quests that he's going to be personally involved in. You won't see those if he's already died for one of the members. We never do anything that explicitly goes against what you've seen or the story you've heard so far."

Little surprised to see this sort of efforts from what I was expecting to be a pvp focus only game, but if it works it will be a nice step in the right direction of dynamism we've been missing.

Xilren

[Furiously]

Oh yea - cutting off content for people that are not uber enough to save a npc. FOREVER....that sounds like a good way to make a game.

[Xilren's Twin]

Oh yea - cutting off content for people that are not uber enough to save a npc. FOREVER....that sounds like a good way to make a game.

I could see you're complaint if a) you couldn't ungroup with the person who had already done the "npc is dead" part and be able try to save him yourself and/or b) the content included such idiocy as "best item X only drops from mob y" and mob y is now non accessible b/c you didn't save the npc.  Since I dont see that being the case here, what exactly is you're gripe again?  So long as the content is interesting whether you success in saving the npc or not, who cares?

If you actually asking they everyone have the same exact content options for the entire game, we already have that: it's called EQ.  And that is the sort of static world the GW team explicitly said they want to get away from.

Just like Vox eternally respawning is immersion breaking, not actually being able to ever fail a quest is equally immersion breaking, b/c it means the quests have no real affect on anything other than your personal stats.

Xilren

[e_bortion]

I think he is referring to this:

"So obviously if you go into one of these one of these explorable areas there could be a ton of quests that he's going to be personally involved in. You won't see those if he's already died for one of the members. We never do anything that explicitly goes against what you've seen or the story you've heard so far."

Missing "Tons of quests" forever because you couldn't save a mob (with a high chance of death early on) sounds a little idiotic. Hopefully you would be able to redo the quest until you can save him.

[Xilren's Twin]

I think he is referring to this:

"So obviously if you go into one of these one of these explorable areas there could be a ton of quests that he's going to be personally involved in. You won't see those if he's already died for one of the members. We never do anything that explicitly goes against what you've seen or the story you've heard so far."

Missing "Tons of quests" forever because you couldn't save a mob (with a high chance of death early on) sounds a little idiotic. Hopefully you would be able to redo the quest until you can save him.

No i got that part, my point was I dont think the GW team is saying you would miss out on a ton quests period, just the specific quests related to this dead npc.  If there's also a "ton" of different quests you can do that only appear when the npc is dead, who cares?

Quest branching isn't that hard a concept, its just not done in game like eq b/c it's easier to just offer the same exact quests to everyone.

Xilren