Quest Fatigue

[Nebu]

In the past, quests in RPG's served a purpose beyond turning the xp odometer.  Quests taught players skills, taught them the geography, and taught them the background lore. 

EQ's quests did pretty much none of this. And I find people's reasoning that faction-grinding one faction into max-KOS and another into Ally is an example of a true open-ended "quest" to be weak sauce. We did that kind of shit as something to fill in the large spaces of empty time when we were waiting to get a group together or only had a short amount of time to play, or so on and so forth. Not because EQ1 was an open-eneded sandbox of a winter wonderland, but because doing fucking anything meaningful by yourself was next to impossible after a time, so you'd go farm faction, or farm a loop of named in Permafrost/Sol A/etc.

You'll note that I used RPG and not MMORPG in that statement.  I wasn't referring to any MMO with my statement about quests having purpose.  I was more stating that in MMO precursors (i.e. RPGs) that quests had a purpose in involving players into the world and storyline.  Quests in MMO's are nothing more than an alternative grind and that's why they feel that way. 

I also never claimed that EQ was a better game than WoW in terms of polish. I was more stating that I enjoyed EQ (at least early EQ) more for its lack of handholding and that it allowed more open-ended play. I think WoW is nothing but a polished turd.  It's still a lousy game by my standards and all the streamlining, loot, and polish in the world won't be enough to keep me playing it for longer than a few days.   

[LK]

Again, it seems the only reason they decided to add Kurenai as a gainable faction is for their mounts and recipes rather than for background or story reasons.

I'm guessing you don't play Horde.

Take a look at the Mag'har and do their stuff to completion, then tell me the same thing about them.  However, I will agree that a faction for the Alliance was added to create an opposite to the Mag'har, and it was the Kurenai for background/story reasons.

[Azazel]

The problem I see with this is that the very definition of being "directed" conflicts with "options" you get to choose - You're being told what to do, and usually how to do it.  And yes of course you can grind faction if you want to, but as I said before you are being penalized for doing something on your own instead of for a quest/drop. You certainly could concievably grind one of the centaur factions in Desolace to Revered if you wanted to, but you're not going to get any shiney, money, or bonus XP that a quest to do something else would have. I admit, all the other factions in the game give you some kind of bonus for grinding them but that is largely due to the fact that Blizzard implemented factions for key groups simply to justify a larger grind. Whereas my example from EQ1 was showing, in a small way, of how there were hundreds of factions that the game kept track of even if they were in there purely for fluff. Seeing faction gains/drops at the end of 90% of the kills you made in that game made me, in a very very basic way, constantly feel like I was having an impact. After grinding MC for the hundredth time to get my faction I still didn't feel like I had "accomplished" anything because I was specifically grinding for it rather than having it given out as bonus while I was hunting random things. Thinking "Whoa, I wonder why this brigand is linked to factions with the guards. Something's not right in Highpass" to myself was an accomplishment in and of itself. Granted that's generally where the story stopped with EQ1, but they were on the right track.

See, this is where we differ in our logic. How are you being "penalised" for having decided to grind re/faction instead of doing a bunch of quests any more than if you're being penalised for not doing your epic quest in EQ1? I never finished my 1.5 or 2 before I left EQ1, was that the game "penalising me" for doing other stuff? You do something and get the carrot, or you do something else and don't. The same can be said of any MMOG quest, as well as any CRPG quest that's considered a "side quest" as in not requred to advance the storyline. Grinding specifically for rep as opposed to getting it for killing random things? Grinding for it, indoors or outdoors was as much a part of EQ as WoW. From Giants in EW to raiding Kael, it's more or less the same shit. If you want to meaningfully advance any faction in either game you gots to grind it, one way or another.

The hundreds of factions that EQ1 kept track of actually touches on my main intellectual problem with it. It's bothered me since the EQ1 days actually, and that's the "Psychic Faction". I know it's a game mechanic, but if I'm in the wilderness of Northern Nagrand and wipe out the ogre camp with noone else around to see it (and no survivors who'd chat with the Kurenai anyway) why the fuck do they now like me better? Why does every Dwarf in Thurgadin know what I look like and love me when I got my last 200 giant kills skulking around the Kael arena with no Dwarfs in sight? I know it's a game mechanic, but it did always bother me. And you're not having an impact on the game world at all. You're just having an impact on your own gameplay, the same as if you'd done those 4 quests, or even, not.

Again, it seems the only reason they decided to add Kurenai as a gainable faction is for their mounts and recipes rather than for background or story reasons. And you say that my gaining faction with the NFP Paladins didn't change anything, that's simply not true. If I went to them to sell loot they gave me better prices, if someone PvP'd me (Yes I was on a Zek) near the bank the Paladins would help generally since not many people bothered working the faction up as high as I did, and like your brother I could then use the bank in the area. Its true that these rewards are generally the same for WoW's factions, but they miss the fluff part of the rewards. When I got my reputation to Revered with the Bloodsail Buccanneers other than one quest for a hat there was absolutely nothing whatsoever. At least the NFP Paladins let me buy/sell stuff with them. The Bloodsails don't even have one single faction vendor, hell they don't have a single NPC that I can just talk to. Just a little "Yarr!!" from the named Bloodsails would've done it for me. Sorry, off on a tangent there. My point is that the bonuses derived from high faction are relatively the same in both EQ1 and WoW, but the former was able to make tons of optional factions seem meaningful by focusing on interaction while the latter simply took a handful of factions and degraded them to a grind by focusing on Item/XP churning.

Don't get me wrong, though... I play WoW. As much as I'll praise the factions/map from EQ1, it didn't win in the end. I'm just amazed that freeform factions dropped off the face of MMO's after EQ1 as its a lot of amazing potential being thrown out. I'm glad WoW is starting to add in more optional factions. That's an example of good faction, whereas the mini-exalted grind in the new races' newbie areas is an example of bad faction.

See, with something like the Kurenai, at least there's a point to the faction. Something like the Bloodsails, or, honestly, most of the ones in EQ1, there's simply no point at all. Whatsoever.

I mean, remember the Deathfist Orcs? Or even, what was the point ofOrc?

Or the Stonehive Bixies? You could gain faction with them by killing Mooto a million times (at one point), but what was the point? You never even got a hat from them! Yes, the Freeport Paladins had some practical use to them, but they were by far the exception as far as those went in EQ1.

My point there was simply to point out that EQ1 was just as full of useless factions as WoW is, and honestly I see no reason to even have these usless groups have their own factions. With some you're leaving it open in case you might possibly want to implement some quests attatched to them one day, but then, who's going to add quests to the Deathfists? Or "Orc"?



@Nebu - yes I wasn't responding directly to you with the EQ1 comments. There are, though fundamental differences between SP CRPGs and MMOGs. The closest I can see to crossing the "world-effecting" divide is with something like LOTRO's instanced versions of the Archet newbie zone.

I'd like to see some mechanic for player-created quests in a game like WoW. Essentially where a player can set up an NPC and some directions to go do whatever, add some items/cash to taste and perhaps a level limit for the quester, and away you go. Allow this to only be set up in a certain number of hubs (single-instance them off of the main world if you need to, like the officer's quarters, so the world doesn't become a ghetto of Player-Quest NPCs). Maybe add one of these hubs to each Inn. And maybe tack one onto the non-Inn zones at the major quest hubs like in Arathi Highlands, Searing Gorge/Burning Steppe.

With something like that, you still can't alter the world, and you couldn't add xp for a completed quest (get that from foozle-whacking) but you can certainly alter individuals' playing/questing experience of the game. It could even work as a form of second-tier player economy and minor moneysink, in that you could set up an NPC to buy stacks of Runecloth for 2g a pop, pour 100g (plus maintenence charges) into the NPC and he can then pellet-out 50 Runecloth turnins (auto-mailing you the cloth).

Such quests would also be dynamic by nature, since unlike the lady always standing there with her cat in that tree, that player-quest NPCs would change regularly and could never be counted on to be there anymore than that Enchanter chick who's often in PoK selling C3 buffs. As such they'd be "seek-out" quests that players would have to find.

I'm sure there are flaws in that system, and it still doesn't change the problem that was the reason for the initial post in this thread (you're still collecting 25 nutsacks for someone else, and you're still not changing the world), but it is at least a bit more dynamic and less predicatable.

[Venkman]

This is something I've never understood about requests for player-gen quests. Why do people keep asking for them when they already get them. How many here have made something for someone else, in exchange for an item, money or a service? How often have you helped a guildmate/random-person with a quest? How many times have carted something from point A to point B for a player?

We are quests by virtue of interacting with other people in ways meaningful to the game. The only thing we don't do is dispense XP in these interactions, but by the time you've read this sentence, 17 ways that's a Bad Thing(tm) have already occured to you.

I know it's a game mechanic, but if I'm in the wilderness of Northern Nagrand and wipe out the ogre camp with noone else around to see it (and no survivors who'd chat with the Kurenai anyway) why the fuck do they now like me better?

This has always bothered me too. Sure people can write this off as "word travels". How many East Commonlands Orcs deaths have been witnessed by players running to Freeport or West Commonlands? But, in general I'd prefer some required proof. Like, orc teeth on a necklace. That would grab their attention. Without that, they'd have no reason to attack save you hurling fireballs at them. I will say though that the bi-directional factions in EQ1 did make some sense. They were pure grinds, but at least the rewards were a bit more tangible than WoW's system, which is merely an XP grind.

The other thing that aggravates me is  "social aggro" code. Three Orcs standing next to each other. Me fireball-ing one should always bring the other two. The only way to make that work without screwing balance is to either change that balance to something like CoX (3-to-1), make it group-content or spread the mobs out.

[Rithrin]

See, this is where we differ in our logic. How are you being "penalised" for having decided to grind re/faction instead of doing a bunch of quests any more than if you're being penalised for not doing your epic quest in EQ1? I never finished my 1.5 or 2 before I left EQ1, was that the game "penalising me" for doing other stuff? You do something and get the carrot, or you do something else and don't. The same can be said of any MMOG quest, as well as any CRPG quest that's considered a "side quest" as in not requred to advance the storyline. Grinding specifically for rep as opposed to getting it for killing random things? Grinding for it, indoors or outdoors was as much a part of EQ as WoW. From Giants in EW to raiding Kael, it's more or less the same shit. If you want to meaningfully advance any faction in either game you gots to grind it, one way or another.

When I say "penalized", I'm talking specifically about character advancement. In terms of money, XP, items, faction, or otherwise. Ultimately, I'm playing any given MMO to advance my character in some way. In a quest-based system like WoW or LotRO you are advancing slower than normal if you choose to do anything not related to a quest, thus the "penalty". If you have a quest to kill bandits that rewards both XP and coin, but you'd prefer to kill the lizardmen or something, you'll end up with less advancement in the same time frame than if you had done the quest. I wouldn't really care except for the fact that I don't have much time to spare so when I do put the time in, I'd like to be rewarded an equal amount regardless of what I did with that time. These rewards don't have to be the same, but should be equal.

Your example about side quests in CRPGs doesn't fit here because I'm talking about rate of advancement. Whether you're working on a side quest or the main quest you're still advancing at the same rate (Unless its been badly designed). If you don't do the sidequest you'll end up less advanced overall at the end of the game but that's a different issue.

The hundreds of factions that EQ1 kept track of actually touches on my main intellectual problem with it. It's bothered me since the EQ1 days actually, and that's the "Psychic Faction". I know it's a game mechanic, but if I'm in the wilderness of Northern Nagrand and wipe out the ogre camp with noone else around to see it (and no survivors who'd chat with the Kurenai anyway) why the fuck do they now like me better? Why does every Dwarf in Thurgadin know what I look like and love me when I got my last 200 giant kills skulking around the Kael arena with no Dwarfs in sight? I know it's a game mechanic, but it did always bother me. And you're not having an impact on the game world at all. You're just having an impact on your own gameplay, the same as if you'd done those 4 quests, or even, not.

True, I have issue with the way faction is recorded like that as well. Slaying some random hermit in the middle of nowhere shouldn't alert anyone. For an example of a good way to do faction I'd point you to Gothic 3. You only pissed people off when they saw you kill their friend, or help their enemy. Even if you overthrew a city, only the prominent members of the other cities recognied you while the average Joe gate guard couldn't discern you from any other random traveler.

Impact on the game world, I suppose this depends on definition. Yes, gaining or losing faction may only really have an impact on my gameplay, but it can change the experience of other players as well. That's what I consider having an impact on the game world. I didn't construct or demolish any buildings, permanently remove or add any NPCs. I did, however, change where people could chase me to, change where my group can sell excess loot, things like that. There should be more, of course, I'm just trying to clarify what I meant with the terms I was using here.

See, with something like the Kurenai, at least there's a point to the faction. Something like the Bloodsails, or, honestly, most of the ones in EQ1, there's simply no point at all. Whatsoever.

My point there was simply to point out that EQ1 was just as full of useless factions as WoW is, and honestly I see no reason to even have these usless groups have their own factions. With some you're leaving it open in case you might possibly want to implement some quests attatched to them one day

There are lots of factions in WoW, like the Syndicate, Dalaran, Scarlet Crusade, various others, that would have lots of background and story to them. It is, though, my personal preference that I would rather them allow me to play with factions even if there is no benefit to doing so instead of giving me no option. It makes the world feel less static. That's what I'm getting at I suppose when it comes to the hundreds of EQ1 factions. It made Neriak, for instance, feel more complex. It wasn't just "Dark Elves", it was The Dark Bargainers, The Dread Guard, The Indigo Brotherhood, various guilds, The King, and The Queen (whatever their names were). Finding out that the King's faction was opposed to the Queen's faction and that different guards were linked to one or the other and not both got you closer and closer to the realization that the King and Queen were in open disagreement and the whole city including guards and guilds were ultimately divided by their loyalty to one or the other. It also gave me the feeling that I could make myself part of the story by working those factions up or down. And as I said, that was usually the end of line in EQ, the stories didn't really progress beyond that. But that's heading in the direction of what I think factions should be all about.

I don't think EQ1 did them "right" at all, I just think they were the closest in an MMO and were on the right track.

[Azazel]

This is something I've never understood about requests for player-gen quests. Why do people keep asking for them when they already get them. How many here have made something for someone else, in exchange for an item, money or a service? How often have you helped a guildmate/random-person with a quest? How many times have carted something from point A to point B for a player?

We are quests by virtue of interacting with other people in ways meaningful to the game. The only thing we don't do is dispense XP in these interactions, but by the time you've read this sentence, 17 ways that's a Bad Thing(tm) have already occured to you.

I've never been particularly excited by the idea myself. Not that I have anything against it, but I don't much care either. My ideas in the last post were essentially made up as I typed them, and it was in response to all of the posts I've read recently bemoaning the lack of interactivity with a static world. What I wrote up would make "quests" a little less static, although they essentially boil down to either an NPC "buyer merchant" for higher level players who are offline or doing something else, or "charity" from higher-level people for random magic items or spare cash towards lowbies. Not particularly exciting for me, but you know, I keep seeing that people want to set up player-driven quests. I guess the mechanics could be kind of useful to heavy-RP guilds as well.

Players dispensing xp wasn't a point even worth considering.

I know it's a game mechanic, but if I'm in the wilderness of Northern Nagrand and wipe out the ogre camp with noone else around to see it (and no survivors who'd chat with the Kurenai anyway) why the fuck do they now like me better?

This has always bothered me too. Sure people can write this off as "word travels". How many East Commonlands Orcs deaths have been witnessed by players running to Freeport or West Commonlands? But, in general I'd prefer some required proof. Like, orc teeth on a necklace. That would grab their attention. Without that, they'd have no reason to attack save you hurling fireballs at them. I will say though that the bi-directional factions in EQ1 did make some sense. They were pure grinds, but at least the rewards were a bit more tangible than WoW's system, which is merely an XP grind.

The other thing that aggravates me is  "social aggro" code. Three Orcs standing next to each other. Me fireball-ing one should always bring the other two. The only way to make that work without screwing balance is to either change that balance to something like CoX (3-to-1), make it group-content or spread the mobs out.
[/quote]

My point is that only some of the millions of EQ1's had any meaning whatsoever. A huge chunk of NPC factions were utterly pointless, such as the Orc or Bixie ones I mentioned earlier. As far as bi-directional goes, unless you were a Paladin doing Soulfire (I think) then the Freeport Guards vs Paladins thing was meaningless, since you could just grind Deathfist Orcs and Belts till both groups would pretty much not KOS you if you started off KOS to one or the other.

Social aggro is a somewhat broken mechanic in all these games. Aside from the three orcs standing next to one another. What about the second group of three orcs standing and daydreaming only 20 feet away from the first group of orcs that just got fireballed and slaughtered. And the other group of three standing around 20 feet from the second group, picking their noses as they watch the players slaughter six of their buddies, three at a time... It's the whole mechanic of aggro ranges, level differences, linked mobs, social aggro, LOS aggro. Gameplay versus realism.

EQ2's "group-linked" mobs were something I found utterly shit as a former Shadowknight, used to using all my skills in FD pulling in it's various methods. That would annoy me as a WoW rogue as well, with no way to bushwack groups larger than myself and cut them down to size.

[Azazel]

When I say "penalized", I'm talking specifically about character advancement. In terms of money, XP, items, faction, or otherwise. Ultimately, I'm playing any given MMO to advance my character in some way. In a quest-based system like WoW or LotRO you are advancing slower than normal if you choose to do anything not related to a quest, thus the "penalty". If you have a quest to kill bandits that rewards both XP and coin, but you'd prefer to kill the lizardmen or something, you'll end up with less advancement in the same time frame than if you had done the quest. I wouldn't really care except for the fact that I don't have much time to spare so when I do put the time in, I'd like to be rewarded an equal amount regardless of what I did with that time. These rewards don't have to be the same, but should be equal.

Well, honestly, I think it's a case of tough luck. The game isn't a total sandbox, but it's very open-ended. You seem to be demanding that the game lets you do anything you want but still demand the game to min-max to whatever you feel like doing at any given moment. You want to kill Lizardmen despite the fact that they don't drop coin but expect to be rewarded equally as though you're killing bandits? You expect that they should drop rare lizardmen bladders worth the same amount of coin? TS. Not all things are equal.

If you want to min-max your gametime, then ride one of the many rails. If you want to meander and smell the flowers and kill random hobnobs, that's a legitimate choice but not everything can be maxed and "equal."

In all honestly, and without malice I have to say that I disagree with what you seem to be after. I hate to use the term, but it sounds a little entitlement whoreish. To take it to the next step, why not demand equal rewards for choosing to spend your time chilling out in guildchat while sitting in Shattrath? I'm sure you'd agree that would be silly. But then again, if there's a quest to bring the guard captain 10 bandit bandannas I still can't see any requirement for a clone-quest to also bring him or the NPCs standing near him 10 widjets from every kind of local foozle. (And FWIW, WoW comes pretty close to this when you consider it)..

True, I have issue with the way faction is recorded like that as well. Slaying some random hermit in the middle of nowhere shouldn't alert anyone. For an example of a good way to do faction I'd point you to Gothic 3. You only pissed people off when they saw you kill their friend, or help their enemy. Even if you overthrew a city, only the prominent members of the other cities recognied you while the average Joe gate guard couldn't discern you from any other random traveler.

Impact on the game world, I suppose this depends on definition. Yes, gaining or losing faction may only really have an impact on my gameplay, but it can change the experience of other players as well. That's what I consider having an impact on the game world. I didn't construct or demolish any buildings, permanently remove or add any NPCs. I did, however, change where people could chase me to, change where my group can sell excess loot, things like that. There should be more, of course, I'm just trying to clarify what I meant with the terms I was using here.

Never played Gothic 3, but I agree again with your erm,. agreement with me. I think Fable was a little like this as well, except I think you eventually sprout horns and a demonic aura if you commit too many serial killings in the local bush. Which, for a fantasy MMO is possibly a better way to handle it in some cases. It doesn't quite deal with the fact that you may start off neutral to two feuding factions, and become a hero to one while hated by the other. (Scyer/Aldor, Kael/Skyshrine, Monagues/Capulets, Sunii/Shi'a, etc). "Yes, that guy is amongst our greatest champions/freedom fighers/dog washers and hero of our town/cause/group. Never mind the horns, glowing eyes and black aura around him."

I'd suggest that WoW is closer to EQ1 in terms of affectable factions for banking and selling than you think. Outside of a few starting cities I can't think or any other place where you could actually effect towns or NPCs to a useful extent, with the exception of Coldain/Kael/Skyshrine. I understand what you mean though, as, thinking about it, my SK worked her Cab faction all the way up to completing the Greenmist quest. It meant I could relax and chill with my Iksar homies, and had an extra bank in Kunark, but (perhaps because I wasn't on a PVP/Zek server) it didn't make a difference to other players in any kind of meaningful sense. It certainly didn't have what I'd consider an effect on the gameworld, though I think we're dealing with an issue of differing definitions here.

There are lots of factions in WoW, like the Syndicate, Dalaran, Scarlet Crusade, various others, that would have lots of background and story to them. It is, though, my personal preference that I would rather them allow me to play with factions even if there is no benefit to doing so instead of giving me no option. It makes the world feel less static. That's what I'm getting at I suppose when it comes to the hundreds of EQ1 factions. It made Neriak, for instance, feel more complex. It wasn't just "Dark Elves", it was The Dark Bargainers, The Dread Guard, The Indigo Brotherhood, various guilds, The King, and The Queen (whatever their names were). Finding out that the King's faction was opposed to the Queen's faction and that different guards were linked to one or the other and not both got you closer and closer to the realization that the King and Queen were in open disagreement and the whole city including guards and guilds were ultimately divided by their loyalty to one or the other. It also gave me the feeling that I could make myself part of the story by working those factions up or down. And as I said, that was usually the end of line in EQ, the stories didn't really progress beyond that. But that's heading in the direction of what I think factions should be all about.

I think I'm understanding what you're getting at here, faction messages as a means to understanding the great back story to the game. The problem with EQ's system was that it was horribly implemented, and despite the sometimes very interesting backstory and lore behind the world, it was incredibly hidden and obtuse. Since the game lacked any real meaninfgul manner of interacting with NPCs besides killing them and playing guess the "what trigger?" "what is the trigger word?" "trigger word" "start the quest you fucking trigger fucker turd" "trigger phrase".

WoW I think does a much better job, in that it's full of books with lore in them, a lot of NPCs will have a meaningless-in-terms-of-progression chat with you that will reveal background and lore to the area/NPC/etc.

It seems that you'd like a little more sand in your sandbox by being able to work your Scarlet Crusade/etc rep up and do some quests for them? I'm not terribly opposed to that sort of thing, but I'd rather see it in more of a Velious kind of situation. I think the Scarlet Crusade is always-KOS except for the few in LHC because their upper-tier corruption is such an integral part to the stories of WPL/EPL/Strat/SM. Playing against them is part of the narrative of that region of the world and I guess fits into narrative vs sandbox (as opposed to game vs world).

There are some big flaws in WoW's setup though. It's far from perfect! My gnome met and hung out with an Orc Blademaster and brought about peace between his ogre tribe and the Kurenai. Well, except that his Ogres are still KOS to me, and I still get Kurenai rep from killing them, even when I slaughter them right next to the Blademaster who stands there picking his nose while he impassively watches me slaughter his ogre followers about 3 feet away from him.

I think adding more meaning to some of these factions in the game would be a good thing - Dalaran, Syndicate, Ravenholdt, but by the same token, some (especially "monster factions") should just be "the enemy" and that's that. Murloks, Fel Orcs, etc, even the Defias - though I'd have liked to see more of their backstory/struggle in Stormwind and the corrupt nobles extended, because "Onyxia is in charge", while a cool revelation the first time, isn't enough after awhile. The next patch is supposed to be adding a new rep for us all to grind. Some friendly Ogres. Becaue not all Ogres are arseholes. 

[Rithrin]

Well, honestly, I think it's a case of tough luck. The game isn't a total sandbox, but it's very open-ended. You seem to be demanding that the game lets you do anything you want but still demand the game to min-max to whatever you feel like doing at any given moment. You want to kill Lizardmen despite the fact that they don't drop coin but expect to be rewarded equally as though you're killing bandits? You expect that they should drop rare lizardmen bladders worth the same amount of coin? TS. Not all things are equal.

In all honestly, and without malice I have to say that I disagree with what you seem to be after. I hate to use the term, but it sounds a little entitlement whoreish. To take it to the next step, why not demand equal rewards for choosing to spend your time chilling out in guildchat while sitting in Shattrath? I'm sure you'd agree that would be silly. But then again, if there's a quest to bring the guard captain 10 bandit bandannas I still can't see any requirement for a clone-quest to also bring him or the NPCs standing near him 10 widjets from every kind of local foozle. (And FWIW, WoW comes pretty close to this when you consider it)..

Yes, I suppose I do sound a bit overzealous on the min/maxing time thing. I would never suggest that anything someone does be completely equal. In games like EQ and DAoC where quests were few and far between, I didn't have a huge problem with it because even if I did all the quests I could concievably do in one timeframe, I wouldn't be that far ahead of where I'd be if I didn't do any of them. It allowed me to pick and choose. Deciding not to get the Pristince Carapace for the Dwarf wasn't that bad, it just meant I got to kill a couple extra mobs to make up the difference. Then you get to a game like WoW where doing a simple 5 minute FedEx quest amounts to 45 minutes worth of killing mobs and the imbalance is so great that NOT doing it, even though its the most boring thing in the world to you, is very bad decision. And to make it worse, every quest has that kind of imbalance and there's hundreds of quests! I just feel like that's very bad game design, but I suppose its not a flaw with quests in and of themselves.

Also I'll admit that I'm probably a bit soured by my experience with the Bloodsails. While grinding on the opposing goblins, they dropped absolutely nothing in coins, cloth, or otherwise and did not grant me experience. It was almost literally wasted time, all because I was doing something unrelated to a quest. Now if Blizzard had put in a quest to kill these goblins, you could be sure they'd load them up with loot and make sure the quest gave even more coin and items.

I'd suggest that WoW is closer to EQ1 in terms of affectable factions for banking and selling than you think. Outside of a few starting cities I can't think or any other place where you could actually effect towns or NPCs to a useful extent, with the exception of Coldain/Kael/Skyshrine. I understand what you mean though, as, thinking about it, my SK worked her Cab faction all the way up to completing the Greenmist quest. It meant I could relax and chill with my Iksar homies, and had an extra bank in Kunark, but (perhaps because I wasn't on a PVP/Zek server) it didn't make a difference to other players in any kind of meaningful sense. It certainly didn't have what I'd consider an effect on the gameworld, though I think we're dealing with an issue of differing definitions here.

Yeah, I'd bet that being on a Zek made the "which NPCs can you seek shelter with?" reward a lot more tangible and carry more meaning, like the whole NFP Paladins deal. But there were actually quite a few "monster" merchants out there linked to faction. Various bartenders, bankers, and general merchants inside Runnyeye with the goblins, brownie merchants that sold spells and things in Faydark, the Aviak merchant in the Karanas, but yes they were few and far between.

I think I'm understanding what you're getting at here, faction messages as a means to understanding the great back story to the game. The problem with EQ's system was that it was horribly implemented, and despite the sometimes very interesting backstory and lore behind the world, it was incredibly hidden and obtuse. Since the game lacked any real meaninfgul manner of interacting with NPCs besides killing them and playing guess the "what trigger?" "what is the trigger word?" "trigger word" "start the quest you fucking trigger fucker turd" "trigger phrase".

WoW I think does a much better job, in that it's full of books with lore in them, a lot of NPCs will have a meaningless-in-terms-of-progression chat with you that will reveal background and lore to the area/NPC/etc.

It seems that you'd like a little more sand in your sandbox by being able to work your Scarlet Crusade/etc rep up and do some quests for them? I'm not terribly opposed to that sort of thing, but I'd rather see it in more of a Velious kind of situation. I think the Scarlet Crusade is always-KOS except for the few in LHC because their upper-tier corruption is such an integral part to the stories of WPL/EPL/Strat/SM. Playing against them is part of the narrative of that region of the world and I guess fits into narrative vs sandbox (as opposed to game vs world).

You're getting it. I would actually be much happier if an MMO found a way other than faction messages to show me that the world is full of different political powers. WoW has a great deal of stuff like this in the background. The Syndicate is a huge power in Azeroth that actually threatens the Alliance a great deal. The problem is that you (Or at least, I) don't get that feeling when I encounter them. I just think "Meh, more rogues" when I show up at their keep as opposed to "Uh oh, its the Syndicate!" or what have you. The faction messages in EQ1 from killing some random dark elf hidden away in High Keep helped you connect that it wasn't just "some random dark elf" but actually a member of an organization, giving further proof that this organization has far-reaching influences and a real place in the world. Essentially a crutch picking up where the NPC interaction left off.

Luckily for me I have a pretty damn good imagination that'll carry me over until some MMO figures out how to implement Baldur's Gate style NPC interaction.

[Azazel]

Yes, I suppose I do sound a bit overzealous on the min/maxing time thing. I would never suggest that anything someone does be completely equal. In games like EQ and DAoC where quests were few and far between, I didn't have a huge problem with it because even if I did all the quests I could concievably do in one timeframe, I wouldn't be that far ahead of where I'd be if I didn't do any of them. It allowed me to pick and choose. Deciding not to get the Pristince Carapace for the Dwarf wasn't that bad, it just meant I got to kill a couple extra mobs to make up the difference. Then you get to a game like WoW where doing a simple 5 minute FedEx quest amounts to 45 minutes worth of killing mobs and the imbalance is so great that NOT doing it, even though its the most boring thing in the world to you, is very bad decision. And to make it worse, every quest has that kind of imbalance and there's hundreds of quests! I just feel like that's very bad game design, but I suppose its not a flaw with quests in and of themselves.

Also I'll admit that I'm probably a bit soured by my experience with the Bloodsails. While grinding on the opposing goblins, they dropped absolutely nothing in coins, cloth, or otherwise and did not grant me experience. It was almost literally wasted time, all because I was doing something unrelated to a quest. Now if Blizzard had put in a quest to kill these goblins, you could be sure they'd load them up with loot and make sure the quest gave even more coin and items.

See, there's a big and fundamental difference between WoW and EQ's handling of quests besides the reward aspect. The biggest part, certainly early on in EQ was that quests were more or less hidden from the playerbase, you had to go and seek out the quests by either hailing every NPC in sight and hoping to find a trigger phrase or hearing about them from another player or eventually just looking up the "quests by zone" list in Allakhazam. WoW shows you the quests, and encourages you to do them, and even gears you up from them to the extent that you're not forced to go camp named mobs in a dungeon, etc. I mean, if you were ever on the PGT list in Highpass all the way down to the FBSS or Fabled Mithril Breastplate, you know exactly how ridiculous the EQ mechanic could be as well. I think I catassed for something like 12 or 13 hours in Lower Guk for my Fabled FBSS - since I wasn't a higher-end raider at that stage, it was my only way to get an item that good.

The fact that I enjoyed a lot of it was basically because I was with some cool people for much of the time who's guild I eventually joined. That and the fact that we WTFPWNED LGuk.
But at the same time, let me complete a chain quest to kill 10 ogres warriors, then 12 ogre warlocks, then the Ogre Big Cheese to get an item upgrade. EQ1's long ass camps are a been there, done that mechanic for me now.

BUT. If you're not concerned with min-maxing your time, and are more interested in the sandbox freeform journey, you can do that to an extent instead with usually quite a good few zones that yeild xp-and-cash-giving mobs, and always a decent chance of a green upgrade, or even a blue (and very occasinally, a purple). There's piles of mobs scattered throughout the game though that don't have quests attatched to them yet still drop loot. With the Bloodsails and specifically the Goblins, I guess I'd say that it's because you're not supposed to kill the booty bay goblins rather than there not being a quest linked to them. The fact that the game lets you, however, is an example of that sandbox in action.

Yeah, I'd bet that being on a Zek made the "which NPCs can you seek shelter with?" reward a lot more tangible and carry more meaning, like the whole NFP Paladins deal. But there were actually quite a few "monster" merchants out there linked to faction. Various bartenders, bankers, and general merchants inside Runnyeye with the goblins, brownie merchants that sold spells and things in Faydark, the Aviak merchant in the Karanas, but yes they were few and far between.

Quite a few of those NPCs were on the beta neutral faction actually. The Aviak was, as well as the Runnyeye Banker. Basically if you could slaughter your way to him, you'd be able to bank with him. The Aviak merchant was also not based on faction at all, as we sat up in the penthouse slaughtering the aviaks, then selling the various bits and bobs that his dear departed brothers dropped to him. Then watching some new guy attack him, mistakeningly thinking that he was a named, only to be slaughtered.

You're getting it. I would actually be much happier if an MMO found a way other than faction messages to show me that the world is full of different political powers. WoW has a great deal of stuff like this in the background. The Syndicate is a huge power in Azeroth that actually threatens the Alliance a great deal. The problem is that you (Or at least, I) don't get that feeling when I encounter them. I just think "Meh, more rogues" when I show up at their keep as opposed to "Uh oh, its the Syndicate!" or what have you. The faction messages in EQ1 from killing some random dark elf hidden away in High Keep helped you connect that it wasn't just "some random dark elf" but actually a member of an organization, giving further proof that this organization has far-reaching influences and a real place in the world. Essentially a crutch picking up where the NPC interaction left off.

Luckily for me I have a pretty damn good imagination that'll carry me over until some MMO figures out how to implement Baldur's Gate style NPC interaction.

See, here I both agree and disagree with you. I agree that more could/should be done with many of these factions in WoW, and the problem seems to be that with having decided on the "endgame baddies" pre-BC to be the Scourge and the Silithilid, most all of the other world intrigue, and especially "single-side" stuff (ie Alliance-only or Horde-only) becomes relegated to "Levelling up backstory", though to be fair a lot of it loosely tied in with other higher-end stuff. Like the undead in duskwood are scourge. And the various trolls tie into ZG/ZF/Eriankus/World Boss Dragons, but yes, it mostly feels unconnected.

Where I disagree with you is that the faction messages in EQ were/are overused for every bloody thing in the game, and after a time meant nothing at all compared to if they were used much more sparingly. Killing a random DE in the forest somewhere and finding that somehow the "your faction with the Indigo Girls has gotten worse." really means nothing to you when you also see that "your faction with Orc has gotten worse." and your faction with Dervish Cutthroats has gotten worse." constantly. This only got worse with later expansions - killing one stupid-looking mob could net you something like:

your faction with Yaxxta Maxta has gotten better.
your faction with Matta Muram has gotten worse.
your faction with Gatta Muram has gotten worse.
your faction with Yaxxta Baxta has gotten worse.

I mean, what the fuck is that supposed to be?

That doesn't mean anything at all when three of the factions that just got worse are nothing but KOS-mob factions that have no point to them and you can never even find out anything about them besides perhaps a google search turning up some of the worst fan-fic level dross passing for story that you'll ever seen written by a 9th-grader. Except a dev essentially wrote it.

I can't even pretend to care about a faction message like that.

[LK]

Then you get to a game like WoW where doing a simple 5 minute FedEx quest amounts to 45 minutes worth of killing mobs and the imbalance is so great that NOT doing it, even though its the most boring thing in the world to you, is very bad decision. And to make it worse, every quest has that kind of imbalance and there's hundreds of quests! I just feel like that's very bad game design, but I suppose its not a flaw with quests in and of themselves.

Shenanigans!

I actually played LotRO to see how they did quest experience, and I would agree that you get gobs and gobs and gobs of experience from quests, such that you would be a silly newt for trying to not do the quests to level up.  However, I only made it to Level 13, and the amount of experience between the levels seemed low, but the amount of experience you got for a quest was still pretty high.  There wasn't much balance on the quest experience, even at that level.  They did have other activities to pursue (Deeds, mainly), but quests were your primary impetus to move forward.  I think the idea behind that is, since quests were so tied into the linear story progression, that they'd have more control over what your level is in most cases (sans grinding) as you moved through the game's story.

But, for WoW, I think your assessment is highly exaggerated.  FedEx quests in the game typically do not award a substantial amount of experience, and if they did, it'd probably be a bug.  In fact, you'd probably get more from killing two mobs your level, and let's not talk about rest experience.  Now, I will agree that you're better off doing quests in WoW if you're after experience, but looking at how the zones are designed, you're killing and moving through the zone's content at a very, very balanced pace, typically reaching the "end" zones if you started at Lv. 58, and sooner if you start at 60 and clean up all the quests you encounter.  You get a sense of adventure if you're doing quests, rather than just killing mobs over and over.  Plus, quests tend to have some memorable experiences.  Did you have a good time killing that 100th mob for experience? Or did you have a good time bombing the hell out of Legion troops, or controlling a pet robot to fight a bigger robot with your group? Maybe getting shot out of a gnomish cannon to traverse a zone?

WoW's quest experience reward distribution is very balanced based on the difficulty of the activity that is being conducted, especially if you take into consideration if you've got a huge chunk of rest experience to work off.  You're also not thinking of a team of players working together, using AoE tactics to gain experience from mobs to level up.  LotRO, I don't know if it is, nor if the AoE cheese is as prevalent.  And that's the only two primary examples you have to work with as far as a WoW-style game goes, unless there's some foreign entry I'm not familiar with (I'm pretty sure I'm not aware of all MMOs of this type).  It's not very bad design at all, and you must not be seeing the bigger picture or what most people appreciate if you think that.

If leveling up was easy from monsters alone in WoW, there'd be a lot more max level characters.  Someone would find a way to exploit it.

[krazyk]

I think there needs to be more of a distinction in these games between tasks and quests. I think tasks should be something like WoW's system where you seek out npcs who send you on trivial errands for exp/gold/faction.

Now quests on the other hand should be meaningful. I think back to the EQ 1 days and the monk headband/sash quest, or the soulfire quest. Those were actually quests that took place over a characters lifetime and they did a good job drawing the player into the story, and the world. Quests should be very hard to come across and players who explore and talk to npcs, or search out lore should be the ones to find quests and this is where I think there is room for EQ's guess the trigger system. Simple tasks can be found by looking for the ! over an npc's head, but actual quests need to be hinted at and then it is up to the players to explore and figure them out. Think of how cool it would be to walk into a tavern and overhear a couple of npcs talking about a mythical flaming sword. This would give the player the hint that there is a flaming sword and then the players have to discover how to do the quest for it.

One of my fondest memories in EQ was when all of the epic quests were implemented and people were scouring the world trying to figure the quests out, trying to piece together all the riddles, and the lore. Once they were spoiled all the fun was gone, but still to take part during that time was fun. Also another thing that EQ did right that most people never took advantage of was identifying items. You could find out all kinds of cool stuff about items with the lore tag by identifying them. This is how some quests were figured out/discovered.

As for some of the useless factions in EQ it is impossible to say, but at one time maybe it was the intention of the developers to offer quests dealing with those factions. I remember hearing somewhere about there being over a thousand (I can't remember the specific amount) quests in EQ that were never discovered (or more likely they were never implemented fully). It is pure speculation on my part, but it could be that the bixxies offered a quest just noone figured out the keyword (and in this case this is a waste of dev time, and content), or more likely there was intended to be a quest from the bixxies but it was never implemented, but the faction was already in place. Now one downside to this as you can see is there were hundreds if not thousands of undiscovered quests, but in a system that separates quests from tasks this could be avoided because in EQ like WoW there was no distinction between tasks (trivial shit) and quests (epic lifelong character journeys). Tasks are something that every player should be able to partake in if they choose, and quests should be something that only a few experience (those willing to put in the time/effort etc.)

There is one other thing I think EQ did very well that WoW didnt do very well and that is player freedom. The players in EQ constantly found ways to play that made the game more fun and challenging. Ever do something unconventional in EQ like an AE group, using charm to kill named mobs, kite groups, shakerpaging, fear kiting, swarm kiting, quad kiting etc. These were all ways to play the game that the devs never intended, but they were fun as hell. For some reason devs nowadays want to limit the players imagination and put us on a linear rail and it sucks. If there were more creative ways to play WoW it might have more long term appeal. I don't want to just quest for exp, sometimes I want to grind, and when I have the right combination of competent people playing certain classes I want to try unconventional ways of gaining exp.
 
In the end though count me in as one of the people who want less handholding, and more adventure, exploration and epic feeling as opposed to being some npc's errand bitch.

[WindupAtheist]

Think of how cool it would be to walk into a tavern and overhear a couple of npcs talking about a mythical flaming sword. This would give the player the hint that there is a flaming sword and then the players have to discover how to do the quest for it.

Yeah, for like the first week.  Of beta.  After that it's on a spoiler site and such common knowledge that your average player couldn't avoid hearing about it if he wanted to.  C'mon, did you just fall off the turnip truck?  What's the point?  You may as well put exclamation points everywhere and save people the time it takes to tab out and open their browser.

[Margalis]

Maybe if they were randomly generated to some degree. At least the "tasks." Daggerfall games do this no?

[WindupAtheist]

Maybe if they were randomly generated to some degree. At least the "tasks." Daggerfall games do this no?

SirDrizzt:  sup?
PwniusMax:  sittin in teh tavern, waiting for quests
SirDrizzt:  NEthing good?
PwniusMax:  keeps talking bout flaming swords
SirDrizzt:  lol, flaming swords are like 20s on the AH
PwniusMax:  yeah I know lol
SirDrizzt:  just sit til he sez where a hammer of acknot is at
PwniusMax:  wut 4?
SirDrizzt:  dude HoA is like ownage
PwniusMax:  ya?
SirDrizzt:  ya, but the quest only liek spawns once every 8 times
PwniusMax:  wtf, this sux, why do i gotta sit here?
SirDrizzt:  just sit there til a HoA tavern quest pops, its awesome
PwniusMax:  ok, guy says to find HoA being held in ogre cave
SirDrizzt:  man, ogres are hard, the boss in there is like level 54
PwniusMax:  ya so?
SirDrizzt:  so just wait for the HoA quest to pop for the orc camp, its easier
PwniusMax:  wtf no, i dun wanna wait anymore

[rk47]

Maybe if they were randomly generated to some degree. At least the "tasks." Daggerfall games do this no?

SirDrizzt:  sup?
PwniusMax:  sittin in teh tavern, waiting for quests
SirDrizzt:  NEthing good?
PwniusMax:  keeps talking bout flaming swords
SirDrizzt:  lol, flaming swords are like 20s on the AH
PwniusMax:  yeah I know lol
SirDrizzt:  just sit til he sez where a hammer of acknot is at
PwniusMax:  wut 4?
SirDrizzt:  dude HoA is like ownage
PwniusMax:  ya?
SirDrizzt:  ya, but the quest only liek spawns once every 8 times
PwniusMax:  wtf, this sux, why do i gotta sit here?
SirDrizzt:  just sit there til a HoA tavern quest pops, its awesome
PwniusMax:  ok, guy says to find HoA being held in ogre cave
SirDrizzt:  man, ogres are hard, the boss in there is like level 54
PwniusMax:  ya so?
SirDrizzt:  so just wait for the HoA quest to pop for the orc camp, its easier
PwniusMax:  wtf no, i dun wanna wait anymore

pure win.  :-D

[LK]

Think of how cool it would be to walk into a tavern and overhear a couple of npcs talking about a mythical flaming sword. This would give the player the hint that there is a flaming sword and then the players have to discover how to do the quest for it.

Yeah, for like the first week.  Of beta.  After that it's on a spoiler site and such common knowledge that your average player couldn't avoid hearing about it if he wanted to.  C'mon, did you just fall off the turnip truck?  What's the point?  You may as well put exclamation points everywhere and save people the time it takes to tab out and open their browser.

QFT.  Between this and the fact that games with high experience value mobs and the capability for damaging AoE attacks (a necessity for raiding / instances when you have a large quantity of mobs facing a five-man), I think you get pretty close to why things are the way they are in MMOs like WoW.

[Merusk]

Hm.. just quickly browsing this thread has shown how interestingly the tables can turn in just 3 years.

When WoW was first being discussed it was;

 "Awesome! No more straight-grind bullshit! Something to do rather than sit on your ass killing the same 5 mobs for 3 days straight!"
  "Quests that give ACTUAL, USEABLE rewards on a regular basis, and decent coin? Count me in!"
 "Holy crap, you mean I can not only kill something OF my level, but 2-3 levels above me? Fucking hell, that's how it should be!"
 " You mean I don't have to go out to a spoiler site just to know that Mob_102 will give me the quest for the Sword_of_Pwnage(noob version)?  That's a hell of a good idea."

Now, we have people bitching about the same things. 

Face is, folks.  Some of you simply don't like DIKU, and shouldn't even bother with them once it becomes public that's the method they're going for.  Even WUA has one over on y'all in realizing this.  Bitch about how it's the direction devs are chasing, sure, I completely understand that.  Bitching because a DIKU acts like a DIKU is silly.

[trias_e]

Face is, folks.  Some of you simply don't like DIKU, and shouldn't even bother with them once it becomes public that's the method they're going for.  Even WUA has one over on y'all in realizing this.  Bitch about how it's the direction devs are chasing, sure, I completely understand that.  Bitching because a DIKU acts like a DIKU is silly.

There's plenty of different paths a Diku could take.  Obviously EQ1 is much different than WoW.  I don't see all that much bitching about the overarching diku model itself  here.  Alot of bitching about the method of progress, however.  Besides, I don't see why diku couldn't evolve in different ways as well.

[Murgos]

Face is, folks.  Some of you simply don't like DIKU, and shouldn't even bother with them once it becomes public that's the method they're going for.  Even WUA has one over on y'all in realizing this.  Bitch about how it's the direction devs are chasing, sure, I completely understand that.  Bitching because a DIKU acts like a DIKU is silly.

Right it's the players fault for not liking the game.  How silly of us.

Maybe, after 3 years of experience, some people have come to the conclusion that even easy DIKU is still PITA grind and BS cockblock mechanics?

[shiznitz]

I think it is more that a cool world can hide the DIKU longer than a bland one. That and the fact that WoW introduced about a million US gamers to DIKU even if they don't know what the term means. Your first DIKU is always the sweetest DIKU.

[palmer_eldritch]

I played  EQ up to level 56 or so, and did exactly one quest in that time. This was fairly early on (I quit soon afterthe first expansion) and maybe they put more in later, or made them more important or easy to figure out or something. In many ways you have a lot more freedom without quests. You're still limited to places of a suitable level, and by your desire often to go kill something you heard will drop good loot, but it felt like you had a lot more freedom without a list of tasks to complete in your quest book.

LotR is the exact opposite. You need to do the quests, as killing monsters alone gives so little experience and, as far as I can tell, they never drop loot which is anything like as good as quest rewards.

[Lantyssa]

I think it is more that a cool world can hide the DIKU longer than a bland one. That and the fact that WoW introduced about a million US gamers to DIKU even if they don't know what the term means. Your first DIKU is always the sweetest DIKU.

Isn't that the truth!  You cannot go back though.  I tried and I lasted less than a day.

Kind of sad when I think about how much work I put into that MUD.

[Merusk]

Face is, folks.  Some of you simply don't like DIKU, and shouldn't even bother with them once it becomes public that's the method they're going for.  Even WUA has one over on y'all in realizing this.  Bitch about how it's the direction devs are chasing, sure, I completely understand that.  Bitching because a DIKU acts like a DIKU is silly.

Right it's the players fault for not liking the game.  How silly of us.

Maybe, after 3 years of experience, some people have come to the conclusion that even easy DIKU is still PITA grind and BS cockblock mechanics?

Yes, it is.  I can't stand CS, Half-Life or lots of RTS games.  Doesn't mean the games suck, it means they simply aren't for me.

Again, bitch all you want about the direction of development, or the lack of resources spent on things OTHER than DIKU. That's a very, very valid complaint, imo.  Doesn't mean "OMG THE GAME IS SUXXORZ" any more than "GODDAMNED HIGH FPS LOW-PING MOTHERFUCKERS SPAWNCAMPING" is a valid criticism of FPSes. 

Face is, folks.  Some of you simply don't like DIKU, and shouldn't even bother with them once it becomes public that's the method they're going for.  Even WUA has one over on y'all in realizing this.  Bitch about how it's the direction devs are chasing, sure, I completely understand that.  Bitching because a DIKU acts like a DIKU is silly.

There's plenty of different paths a Diku could take.  Obviously EQ1 is much different than WoW.  I don't see all that much bitching about the overarching diku model itself  here.  Alot of bitching about the method of progress, however.  Besides, I don't see why diku couldn't evolve in different ways as well.

But are they DIKU then? Probably not.  DIKUs have been loot-based & "auto attack with specials" since they were text in 1990, yet that's the most pervasive criticism about them out there.  As soon as mechanics are added-in that expand on that, they're just added to the list of bitches, as we're seeing here with the 'omg quest grind' crap.

Different directions requires a different mindset, different mechanics and different focus than level-based restrictions.  Soon as you're off of that you're off of the comfortable and familiar, however, and you require that much more work to design & implement, much less get people to try you out.   Thus, the prevelance of that direction.  Lots of MUDs tried to split-off of the DIKU model, with various levels of  success and failure.  At their core, however, they were still levels, loot & autoattack with specials.   After a while, even the most innovative of the games would still be  getting bitched about as derivative here, because of that core commonality. 

Perhaps if someone implemented a good, bug-free LPmud or some other variant we'd see change.  I'm not going to hold my breath, however.

[Alkiera]

Perhaps if someone implemented a good, bug-free LPmud or some other variant we'd see change.  I'm not going to hold my breath, however.

http://www.secondlife.com

It's getting enough attention that it might warrant more of the industry looking into that kinda of possibility.  Heck, my university apparently owns some land there, and they're almost continually getting into publications.  The latest issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal(a sort of programmer trade journal thing) has not 1, but 2 articles on it.  One being a basic intro to the programming language/model, and how to build objects that forward all local chat to an email or IM account.  The other was kind of a general 2L info article.

--
Alkiera

[WindupAtheist]

Me to Schild a while back:

Random Wii-hate aside, have you tried playing Second Life?  I know it gets lots of media love and is on a huge growth spurt lately, but let's have a little perspective.  According to the Bruce chart (yeah, yeah) it still has a few thousand users to gain before it tops fucking Tibia.  Second Life is ass.

[Calantus]

"Awesome! No more straight-grind bullshit! Something to do rather than sit on your ass killing the same 5 mobs for 3 days straight!"
  "Quests that give ACTUAL, USEABLE rewards on a regular basis, and decent coin? Count me in!"
 "Holy crap, you mean I can not only kill something OF my level, but 2-3 levels above me? Fucking hell, that's how it should be!"
 " You mean I don't have to go out to a spoiler site just to know that Mob_102 will give me the quest for the Sword_of_Pwnage(noob version)?  That's a hell of a good idea."

I'm still there. Except I think the "soft" cap blizzard put on orange+ mobs is still too bullshit for my tastes.

I'll say it since people are still thinking people who like WoW are in denial (not directed at you Merusk). I've been playing games for years, MMOGs since early UO, and WoW isn't the first Diku I've played. I'm not some MMO newbie pulled in by the popularity of WoW and will tire of it once I "get it". I LIKE the EziDiku+Quest formula, and I'll continue to like it for as long as forseeable. Though I would of course still like to see some more games that follow a different formula for some variety.

[Azazel]

Hm.. just quickly browsing this thread has shown how interestingly the tables can turn in just 3 years.

When WoW was first being discussed it was;

 "Awesome! No more straight-grind bullshit! Something to do rather than sit on your ass killing the same 5 mobs for 3 days straight!"
  "Quests that give ACTUAL, USEABLE rewards on a regular basis, and decent coin? Count me in!"
 "Holy crap, you mean I can not only kill something OF my level, but 2-3 levels above me? Fucking hell, that's how it should be!"
 " You mean I don't have to go out to a spoiler site just to know that Mob_102 will give me the quest for the Sword_of_Pwnage(noob version)?  That's a hell of a good idea."

Now, we have people bitching about the same things. 

I like all of those things, but at the same time, WoW isn't the perfect game. The overuse of rep grind as a content extender mechanic isn't to my taste, but meh.

[tkinnun0]

I played  EQ up to level 56 or so, and did exactly one quest in that time.

I played EQ up to level 4 and tried to do one quest in that time. I quit because common loot I started getting was better than the quest rewards were (and the game was ass).

The reason I started with EQ? I had read that of the MMOs of the time, EQ had the best quests.

[rk47]

Hm.. just quickly browsing this thread has shown how interestingly the tables can turn in just 3 years.

When WoW was first being discussed it was;

 "Awesome! No more straight-grind bullshit! Something to do rather than sit on your ass killing the same 5 mobs for 3 days straight!"
  "Quests that give ACTUAL, USEABLE rewards on a regular basis, and decent coin? Count me in!"
 "Holy crap, you mean I can not only kill something OF my level, but 2-3 levels above me? Fucking hell, that's how it should be!"
 " You mean I don't have to go out to a spoiler site just to know that Mob_102 will give me the quest for the Sword_of_Pwnage(noob version)?  That's a hell of a good idea."

Now, we have people bitching about the same things. 

I like all of those things, but at the same time, WoW isn't the perfect game. The overuse of rep grind as a content extender mechanic isn't to my taste, but meh.

That and the random loot generator on instance for 5 man, 10 man, and more. I just hate admitting that I ran the said instance 20-30 times just for the sake of rep grind or shiny, but that's all is there to it. On the developer's perspective if every single run guarantees a reward to every class, then they'll have problems trying to churn out content. I just ran Mechanar twice today, the healer didn't get his mace nor boots, the tank didn't get his sword, and I didnt' get my cloak. 2 hours in total killing the same thing, running the same place, fighting the same boss. The warlock said, 'oh well it wasn't a total loss, we got rep' and the mage quit in disgust after muttering 'i'm fukin exalted'

[Trouble]

On the topic of mobs not chaining agro and useless factions  I give one of the better contributions the WoW forums have made to the forums:

Skinning a bear should aggro every bears

 in a 40 yard radius. It makes sense, you are actually skinning their best friend.

Skinning a bear should aggro every bears.
EVERY. SINGLE. BEARS.
Not one bears, nor two.. every last bears.

[tazelbain]

And when a bear kills a human, it should aggro Stephen Colbert.

[krazyk]

Think of how cool it would be to walk into a tavern and overhear a couple of npcs talking about a mythical flaming sword. This would give the player the hint that there is a flaming sword and then the players have to discover how to do the quest for it.

Yeah, for like the first week.  Of beta.  After that it's on a spoiler site and such common knowledge that your average player couldn't avoid hearing about it if he wanted to.  C'mon, did you just fall off the turnip truck?  What's the point?  You may as well put exclamation points everywhere and save people the time it takes to tab out and open their browser.

You are right people would spoil it. But if the quests were hard to locate, and actually took some brainpower to figure out then that is what I am looking to participate in. Eventually yes all quests would be spoiled, but until then it would be fun to discover them, and figure them out. I don't know if you were in EQ when major quests were being discovered or not, but it is one of the fondest memories I have of the game. The key here is like I said to differentiate between tasks, and quests. Tasks should be done through hand holding and give out trivial rewards. Quests should not be trivial to find, or solve and should give significant rewards. In fact one of the rewards would be figuring out the quest. It took a long time for the epic quests in EQ to be spoiled because it took a long time for people to figure them out. For the people actually putting in the work to figure them out it was a great experience completing those quests and like I said being the first to finish was a reward in itself.

[Nebu]

Quests are only spoiled by fansites if you choose to frequent those sites for answers.  If you want a deeper, more challenging gaming experience, just avoid the shortcuts. 

[Xuri]

One problem is that many quests aren't really "challenging" anyway - it's just a question of how long you have to run around randomly before you manage to find the quest-item/quest-NPC. I look up every single one of those quests on spoiler sites.

[WindupAtheist]

You are right people would spoil it. But if the quests were hard to locate, and actually took some brainpower to figure out then that is what I am looking to participate in. Eventually yes all quests would be spoiled, but until then it would be fun to discover them, and figure them out.

Based on what we see from EQ and UO, a successful MMORPG can expect to operate for upwards of a decade.  Designing major game systems around those first few months of discovery while waving the next ten years off with "Well everything gets spoiled eventually!" is beyond short-sighted.

I don't know if you were in EQ when major quests were being discovered or not, but it is one of the fondest memories I have of the game.

There is a place in the MMORPG world for fond memories of obfuscatory EQ gameplay design.  Unfortunately, that place is in the bottom of a landfill, buried under a mountain of unsold Vanguard boxes.

The key here is like I said to differentiate between tasks, and quests. Tasks should be done through hand holding and give out trivial rewards. Quests should not be trivial to find, or solve and should give significant rewards.

They're all going to consist of killing monsters and/or delivering items, because that's just what gets done in these games.  The only questions are how long it will take, and how obscure it will be.  Arguing that there should be really long quests (or quest chains) that give really good rewards is one thing, but arguing that making the quest itself difficult to locate is a good thing because it gives a few EQ veterans explorer-woodies is lunacy.

In fact one of the rewards would be figuring out the quest. It took a long time for the epic quests in EQ to be spoiled because it took a long time for people to figure them out. For the people actually putting in the work to figure them out it was a great experience completing those quests and like I said being the first to finish was a reward in itself.

Being the first to finish was a reward for a negligible 1% of the playerbase.