The Four Fundamental Quests
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2018
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Adventurer! Adventurer! My farm is under attack by level 2 spiders who don't seem to know how quests work! Watch this video and explain to six of them that there are really only four kinds of quests and they might leave us alone!
That Architect bloke was around here a while ago but he told me I wasn't real and to shut up he was recording some footage, I don't know about you but he doesn't seem very helpful.
Reward: Knowledge?
[ACCEPT] [REJECT]
Oh just as a headsup, as much as I talk GW2 up in this video, that doesn't mean I endorse Arenanet's recent firing policies but it's not really relevant so I'll avoid creating a flamewar by discussing it further.
You Saw:
Final Fantasy 14: 2010
Nier Automata: 2017
Guild Wars 2: 2012
Minecraft: 2009
Runescape: 2001
Divinity Original Sin 2: 2017
World of Warcraft: 2004
Endless Space 2: 2017
Super Mario 3D world: 2013
Super Mario Galaxy 2: 2010
Yoku's Island Express: 2018
Interesting Links:
Cool D&D stories without having to go to 4chan!: / dndgreentext
A slightly psycholocially out of date book about the 7 different stories and what they mean, still pretty interesting though: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sev...
An article about some stuff WOW has done wrong in its quests with insight from pre-overwatch Jeff!: www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1... 
Игры
I like the idea of every one of the quests teaching you something in an MMO, even if it is just the best use of a situational item. Sadly I feel like most MMO's don't put that much thought into it.
Or as in many other MMO's, anything outside of combat is highly simplistic. I mean in WOW, apart from combat you don't really have all that much to do (which is engaging that is), crafting is simplistic as all hell, and resource gathering requires you to follow some blips on the map and click some things, there's no challenge, you just click, get your resources, and move on.
Ey fellow splatoon fan
Mow! :3
@@op4000exe Imagine grinding resources for you raid but every time you pick up some iron you have to complete a 15 min mini game. That would suck.
@@patrikpass2962 I wasn't refering to complexity in that way, but rather that there were complexety in finding the resources, and how to extract them, for example that when smelting them it's not just a simple case of x + b = c, but perhaps that there are some chances of other things happening and such.
QUEST ACQUIRED - ask this guy about this thing
"damn idk man but the guy on the other side of the continent might know"
QUEST ACQUIRED - go to that other guy
"yeah sure its all in this letter take it back to the guy who wanted to know"
QUEST ACQUIRED - go back to the first guy
Ahh I can feel the distilled and beautiful worldbuillding
Reminds me of "One small favour"
REWARD: That first guy was actually a thief and stole your entire inventory
The discussion aside, I just want to point out that the Architect's avatar thing is wearing Rincewind's hat and that brought me such joy.
Someone got the reference!
Damn you commented it before me
I had to comment on this even though it's been 2 years because we have the same pfp
@@bcon58 I actually thought you were the original commenter for a sec.
Nice pfp
Notice how these 4 stages mimic the hero’s Journey: Stage one is crossing the threshold and the events leading up to that, Stages 2 and 3 focus on familiarizing your self with and mastering the “Special” world, and stage 4 is the return Journey and climatic final challenge. Upon completion you return with “Elixir”(the quest rewards), and having grown as a player.
A solid insight.
That's looking into it too much. Story plots couldn't be more simple. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can further break them up, sure, but how you structure things isn't really all that important compared to how it makes the reader feel and what ideas they get out of it.
Well-observed!
@@empresslithia > a beginning, middle and end
But there are four phases, and it’s not just that simple of an observation
Runescape quests are the best. Ritual of the Mahjarret, While Guthix Sleeps, The World Wakes, Rune Memories, The Death of Chivalry...these are genre defining quests
To be honest learning how to play RuneScape effectively and eliminate much of the grind (without p2w) is a quest in of itself.
Don't forget the entire Dorgeshuun questline and the entire Myreque questline
Damn I remember that Runescape quest I played that like 15 years ago lol.
Same here! Pretty sure I died to those darn ice warriors too.
I love WoW vanilla's questing because of how difficult every quest is, also the fact that you arent told where the quest objective actually is, just a general direction, leaving you to explore and find the area your self, or even better, get rewarded for exploring beforehand or remembering something. Everything you see might be an objective in some quest, so paying attention (which leads to appreciating the world more) is encouraged and feels rewarding.
As someone playing from the start, seeing the evolution of quests in WoW was very interesting as their purpose and design philosophy evolved with each expansion. Here is a brief recap of how it went, in case you're interested :
1) At launch, quests simply served to give you a reason to explore the world. there was basically four kind of quests : go talk to someone, which made you travel, kill some stuff, which made you fight, pick up some stuff, which made you explore the area and escort quests, which made you want to die. Although some quests were relatively well written, most were simply excuses to make you explore and interact with the world by rewarding you for it. Quests were also quite sparse and you were expected to just grind monsters to level up outside of quests.
2) With the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, almost all the new quests were created for the Outland, the newly added continent, meaning that they were addressed to high level players who all entered the new zone by the same point and followed roughly the same path. This means it was easier to structure quests and lead the players in a certain way than previously where you could be doing a quest for someone at the other side of the world and then go and do another one in a completely different region. Now, most quests where locals and, although you could do quests wherever you wanted, there was only 2/3 zones appropriate for your level at the time.
An other important change was that the original game usually shied away from using important lore characters, keeping them safely tugged in their capitals where they didn't do anything. With BC though, we faced a bunch of very important lore characters that any WC3 player would have recognized, meaning there was a greater emphasis put on story. That being said, since the core philosophy of the game was still more mechanically than story driven, and the quests still had for main goal to guide the character rather than tell a story, a lot of these quests didn't make much sense. In fact, Blizzard has since done its best to retcon as much as possible from this expansion since we had no real reason to do a lot of what we did.
3) The second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, was a huge improvement in the quality of the quests and the moment where storytelling began to take more importance than exploration. This time, the expansion had a clear villain from the start, we knew why we were here and we knew that everything we did was to take him down. Quest variety started to flourish, offering missions where you had to control a vehicle, to spy on a character, to jump from a cliff to impress a god, to torture a guy soon before having to kill your best friend... They were still mechanically quite simple (this actually never changed) but the added context made them feel way more varied and rewarding.
The way they were presented also changed : in the previous content, you would find "quests" hubs with a group of NPCs offering a dozen of quests. If you were strong enough to explore a new zone, one of these quests would send you there, to another hub, but you could keep questing where you were and finish all your current quests if you wanted. With WotLK, quests became way more linear. You wouldn't arrive to a village and find 10 quests, you would find 4, 3 of them leading you to the same place, you would finish them and get 3 more, leading you to a different place to continue the story. Then, you might get 1 more that finished that area's storyline before sending you to the next place. There would be some branching paths (the fourth quest) leading you to optional areas, but they would lead to a dead end and you would have to go back to the main path to continue, meaning the experience was a lot more linear.
This expansion also experimented with making your quests feel more meaningful and unique by adding in game events, in game cinematics and by implementing a phasing technology which meant that your quests could have an impact on the world. You could arrive in a village that was fighting to push back an attack, you would take a quest to fight back the assailants and, upon completion, they would have all disappeared unlike before where the fight would just keep raging on for ever even though the town was supposedly safe.
4) If WotLK was an expansion that experimented with changes, Cataclysm, the next one, was when these changes were refined and implemented on a large scale. The main thing was that all the original zones were revamped, modernizing all the quests. The worgen quest chain shown in the video is also from that time. quest variety was improved again, using all the tools introduced in the previous expansion. An other major change was the focus put on convenience. In the early days, the focus of the game was on the levelling experience, but by then it had shifted to the max level and levelling was just a means to get there where all the "real content" was. Quests were now supposed to be easier, faster and more rewarding. While it wasn't rare in vanilla WoW to have to kill 30 enemies for a single quest, you know never had to kill more than 8. The accent was thus put on telling a story and having fun instead of giving you an excuse to grind.
This new focus also means that group quests basically disappeared outside of dungeons since, as levelling was just supposed to be a transitory experience, you didn't want to spend time on your quests, and thus, taking the time to look for a group for an elite quest wasn't worth it. After all, even if you earned a rare item as a reward, you levelled fast enough that it would be outclassed in a matter of hours.
Regarding the story structure of the quests, there was also an evolution. In WotLK, each quest chain was centred around a hub and going to the next hub meant that you would change the quest chain. Sure, it tied all together, but these were still different sub-stories. Cata made the chain go though an entire area, meaning that you could follow the same story for 10 levels and multiple zones. This lead to longer, more linear, more structured stories that felt way more immersive. Adding to that immersion were the NPCs whose role was increased. A quest giver might follow you through the area, talk to you during your adventure or rescue you when in danger.
5) the next two expansions, Mist of Pandaria and Warlord on Draenor, mostly kept refining the model from Cataclysm. They also ramped up the spectacle, adding cinematics, massive battles and big scripted sequences to make all the important events feel more meaningful. MoP also introduced the idea of scenarios. Small, instanced quests chains that focused on telling a story and tied together the big plot elements as they were introduced. These expansions, while keeping Cata's linearity, also introduced more optional zones to encourage exploration. Cataclysm was probably Wow at its most linear, but by WoD, a good balance had been found between telling a consistent story and giving the player the opportunity to branch off and do something else.
6) Legion, the latest expansion, mostly brought a new innovation : level scaling. This makes it so that, wherever you are on the new continent, the enemies will be at your level. This allowed to let the player experience the new zones in whatever order they want. Although all are tied together by the story, there is no more the need to do things in a certain order. That is a big deal and Blizzard recently decided to apply this level scale to the whole game, meaning you can ho wherever you want, whatever your level and still find an appropriate challenge and rewards.
So, yeah.. things changed a lot, to the point that someone who hasn't played WoW since Vanilla would harldy recognized the game if he played now, especially the questing experience.
This comment is 1396 words. You should start yourself a blog.
I normally read long comments, but this one is a bit to loooong.
well I liked it :P and I agree with much of it (I haven't played since Cat but it looks like it continues to evolve well)
TL;DR Escort quests are coded by Satan himself.
Well written.
I believe that both nier automata and the Witcher 3 are the best games when it comes to quest, by literally filling them with a narrative. Nier makes their quests interesting by offering a twist. Almost every quest subverts your expectation one way or the other. The lovers quest is the one that hit me the hardest on that.
The witcher doesnt pull a plot twist ofenten, but instead, fills every quest with characters. It made the tasks of dealing with a bank burocracy and finding a pan interesting for god sake, that deserves a prize in itself.
Then bethesda gives you a literal dmv simulator and makes it super boring as a way to poke fun at you as you suffer.
Gane recently went pay2win yesterday so w/e
The witcher 3 quests often combine the 4 things into one quest:
- explore an area to find clues as to what happend
- expand your knowledge by talking to people and reading books
- exploit what you learned by making potions/weapons
- exterminate the monster
Late, but to add to this, Witcher quests have consequences. Doing certain quests that may involve one of the NPCs dying means they literally can't be used again. This alters certain other quests where if the NPC was alive could have lead to a different outcome.
I think The Stanley Parable has really good questing personally.
I think Nier questing is really good beacause it is practically the main way of understanding the world, the story itself would be pretty bare bones if you didn't do certain quests before that made you understand how the world really is , especially since Humanity and being Human are a big focus, and the quest all give a different view of what being human is or is supposed to be,it can also foreshadow certain future plot points, like the Red Hood one, people that didn't do that quest would never understand where "that " comes from, so depending from how you play,the games can be very criptic or very clear( well,not "very" ,but at least somewhat clear).
I used to read NPC quest dialogue. As I moved from game to game, the sentences on why I needed to hunt 27 Bristling Boars turned into paragraphs, then into pages.
One of my favorites was in Dragon Nest. The quests were entertaining, and items you had to find or use would reoccur, giving the world a sliver of coherence.
Ahh, time to play Morrowind again. Where questmarkers are made on your own, printed map and to figure out what you have to do, you have to read a book worth of lore that the NPC tells you.
I'll have to pick up morrowind sometime.
FFXIV's 1-50 (Version 2.0, A Realm Reborn) are famously bad. One minute you're being told that a god of earth made manifest is ravaging the Lominsan's with Earthquakes, and within the same breath you're being told to hunt down a cheese recipe from the Goblin Illuminati. Level 50-60 (Version 3.0, Heavensword) Sees a lot of improvement on the storytelling aspect of quests, and by the time you reach 60-70 (Version 4.0, Stormblood) they've grown into something truly worth experiencing.
The Reason for this, is because Version 1.0 of the game was almost literally unplayable. So much so that they re-released the game under 2.0, and basically spent all of their time making the game as serviceable as could be. Things like lore and interesting stories was kept to a minimum as they allocated all of their resources into just fixing the damn game. Over time as more of the game got fixed they had more resources to allocate to the storytelling and getting experimental with quests.
I liked ARR :(
@@freeliks arr isnt to bad, untiul you hit the 120 quests between ARR and heavensward a couple of my freinds struggled with this and some of my freinds took even longer because they went though everything in lore order meaning they did the raids and such before doing heavensward
heavensward and onwards was where i got hooked on the story in full rather than little snippits hear and there
@@treemover7259 Rejoice! They're cutting down the number of ARR quests in the next patch.
I guess it's come a little too late for you and your friends, but still.
ARR isn't "famously bad" it was just bog standard and a huge step above what 1.0 offered. It's only after you get into Heavensward and beyond that you realize how lackluster ARR questing was/is. The recent change in 5.3 to condense ARR has helped a bit in the main storyline but the old quests still feel pretty dated when you compare how genuinely interesting even mundane quests are in Shadowbringers. Also I will fight anyone that argues Shadowbringers isn't the best goddam MMO story ever written. EMET-SELCH DID NOTHING WRONG.
@@Ashtarte3D late reply, but you can clearly see the difference in quality of ARR's story compared to any other mmo without getting into heavensward. You certainly see a more direct comparison given that arr and HW and onward are from the same game, but even in the video these comments are posted under, adam talked about how he couldn't get into ffxiv because of how he didn't like the msq, and he was instead comparing it to other mmos.
About GW2, hearts aren't really stand-ins for quests - they are a fill bar to do in between the orange event circles and mark where events are likely to pop up. Yes you can pet the cows and kill worms on the farm, but the heart is there to keep you in the area until the bandits come and the hay needs to be saved.
What you are looking for comes later with the map wide meta events. Some of the early ones were gutted with the "new player experience" and the standardization of the world boss timer, but others remain. The Silverwastes is probably the best example, but there are 2 that open the way to dungeon entrances. My favorite is the push towards Orr. The last 3 zones are linked such that you can defend Fort Trinity then march with the army reinforcements all the way down the coast to the gates of Arah (the last dungeon). Taking the army to the entrance of the next zone meant that you could meet with them in the next one and continue taking defensive positions as you fought the undead, explored the zones, and culminated with the story dungeon at Arah - which unfortunately is not as epic as it could be. But the journey is awesome.
the character name "Notafurry" is rather suspicious (6:31) But anyways great video.
Lmao he did mention that's the introduction for the worgen characters
it's not improved by the name of his runescape character being "notarchitect"
The more I pay attention, the more furries I see on RUclips. I love it
@@Tsugua oh no
*OH NO*
@@warl54961 Right? It's much easier to round them up for judgement if they just tell us who they are!
This 4 ways are in music(specifically in sounds) too. Attack - Decay - Sustain - Release, huh.
It's all connected!
How to write a sonata: Exposore - Development - Reprise - Finale
Ah, the famed 4-act structure of narrative.
WAIT WHAT.
The four basic operations in mathematics.
4 is suddenly a magical number
Thanks a bunch for small edits like saying what MC modpack you're playing. Small stuff like this is greatly appreciated! :) Have a nice day Adam.
"Not a furry"
...Pres 'X' to doubt.
This is why i like the trails games. Even the most boring quests have context, and they fit the games story. In trails in the sky, you play as a junior bracer, and the bracer guild is basically people you can hire to help you. So, your trying to work your way up the ranks in the guild. So, even if you get a basic fetch quest, this is actually you just doing your job, and they give valid reasons. Your not just getting a random herb for a random person, you are hired out by the priest of the local church to get this herb because they themselves can't make the trip, and they need this herb to save somebodys poor grandma. the quests also try not to overstay their welcome compared to some games. Also, this gives a valid reason for the optional side quests, which are also you doing work as a bracer, and getting payment for doing your job.
"There are four fundamental kinds of quests"
Bethesda: "One. Take it or leave it"
Runescape quests are phenomenal! Great stories, engaging, useful rewards, and unique to each other!
I think there's a deeper paradigm to the pacing differences you expressed between FFXIV and WoW/GW2. I get/got burned out pretty quickly in WoW/GW2 because of the pace of quests (specifically the latter). The length of time and relatively larger 'introduction" period for FFXIV quests actually give me time to consider and imbibe the world and scenario. I actually had the opposite reaction: that GW2's world feels gamey because the respawn timers are so quick and everywhere you go there's all this crazy stuff constantly happening - that WoW's quests feel contrived because there' a constant dissonance between the narrative power level and the player's actual efficacy. By retreading parts of the world for quests, I formed a relationship and appreciation for the environment. Unlike similar back-and-forth quests in WoW which become flightmaster parcel deliveries, FFXIV's topography and ecological design is generally denser and more intentional than WoW's (and the non-town parts of GW2), imo, which creates an engaging environment to retread and explore.
The hunting and sightseeing/fishing logs in FFXIV allow you to control your own pace of questing and further explore an area if you come across something interesting while story questing - which is something GW2 seeks to do with its variety of alternate objectives, but that they tied very strongly to completionism, imo, which gives a sense of urgency and competition that I really didn't enjoy.
If I were to summarize it in a single idea: the common theme of the FFXIV players commenting on this video seems to be that they prefer FFXIV's style of questing because it allows you to craft *your* own quest narrative in the context of the general story by choosing when to complete hunting logs, pursue gathering materials, etc; that is facilitated by the openness of the story quest design. While GW2 and WoW may have more commercially entertaining content that walks the player down a satisfying zone experience, it's also "inorganic" in the sense that it is geared towards a specific mode of directed play, imo - which is not why I play MMOs.
I like the downtime in FFXIV - i don't like the uptime in WoW - maybe it's a difference in how I play the games or how I expect to engage with the material, but I feel free to explore, meander, and discover in FFXIV, whereas in WoW and GW2 I feel like I'm on a theme park ride and they want to shuttle me on to the next quest minigame/vista/area ASAP.
So what I guess I'm expressing is that I don't feel that FFXIV's quests are "bad" (or maybe they are, but that it works within that context) - and that I feel summarizing them as such ignores a different paradigm of play, which is surprising coming from the kind of nuanced and thorough opinion typical of this channel!
I'm also genuinely confused to the praise of that Runescape quest vs FFXIV, because FFXIV's quests are, to my recollection preeeeeeetty similar to that exact narrative you laid out: I'm literally on a quest in FFXIV where I have to make a cheese soup to win over a surly bar owner... Everything is given a great deal of context that synergizes with the world design, itself. Is it the progressive protagonist-centered story that's more engaging in the former? I sense there's a difference between the two, but I also suspect it might be a difference in framing - which, itself, might speak to cultural differences (narrative context: doing work on behalf of a community vs stumbling upon a personal adventure).
All that said, i also complained about Mark Brown's Dungeon Key's "Dungeon" paradigm (which was very well-received) being overly specific/reductive as well and I know these kinds of videos are as much creative content as theoretic essay, so it's not like it's a published peer-reviewed paper that needs to create definitive academic arguments. I'd still like to see a future vid about that kind of stuff though! Environment, down-time, aesthetic and ecological qualia! The pensive ludonarrative!
Thank you for this video, though - neat ideas and modes of analysis !
Reminds me of an MMO I used to play years ago, where in a certain area near the starting town (about around the strongest enemies of that beginner area right infront of the first dungeon) a group of people were just hanging out. Some were high level players that also engage in endgame content, some were mainly there for the asthetics and clothing options of the game, other just casually. (And yes, they occasionally buffed and healed the newbies around the place) The faces changed a bit over the years, but there was a constant presence. At times I went there as well.
It was almost more like social media with 3d avatars than playing an MMO.
That shows that people sometimes don't play a game because of the deep lore, the massive worldbuilding, the intricate story or the nuanced characters but just to hang out with friends and strangers.
3 years later and this is still a good representation. FF14's MSQ wasn't designed to be blitzed (especially ARR where they actually had you do a bunch of side quests to continue the main quest from what I've read) You're meant to take your time and enjoy whatever catches your fancy as you go. Personally I feel like they purposefully make those treks across long stretches of map exist solely so you start thinking "hey maybe I can do some side quests along the way to the next MSQ quest" or "I might as well see if there's anything to gather on this trek for crafting"
Under rated channel
“Closest approximation to d&d in video games”
*looks at Baldur’s Gate games*
I need to go
It's all moot guys, now that the people behind Divinity: OS (2) are making a new Baldur's Gate. With any luck, it'll be the best of both worlds.
"Closest approximation to d&d in video games"
"looks at Baldur's Gate games"
Me: LOOKS AT DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS ONLINE (DDO)
is there a "game masters" mode in baldurs gate? :D
Neverwinter
Love the content! But please do remember watchers need time to see your graphics and such. I had to press pause in order to enjoy your humor you put on the screen :)
I quite enjoy the "blink and you'll miss it" quickfire jokes that don't get in the way too much but I'll look into slowing things down!
there's blink and you miss it and there's unnecessary noise
if you put these during pauses or quite segments, that'd be fine, but when the viewer is focused on listening to you and hopefully learning something, they just feel like interruptions
hehehe maybe just a tiny bit slower to not miss them.
But I somehow masochistically like the need to pause and rewind. It help the concept to settle in.
And to help you with you void… I normally watch videos in the secondary screen while I play or work.
But for yours I stop other things and concentrate to follow. Good Videos!
I think this is a solid criticism, too fast gets in the way just as much.
Agree with Agamidae. Don't let the jokes interrupt the actual good stuff!
I mean, the jokes themselves are good stuff... Oh well.
Nice Wizzard hat.
With every MMORPG I played, quests always seemed underwhelming after 20 levels at best - specifically because they follow this formula. It feels that it doesn't leave any room for any meaningful choices and that quests in which deducing things from what NPCs said - or from the lore - is integral for success. Instead, you just follow the quest marker and either click your objective or kill some enemies. The story can still be great (and I's argue that it actually is in most MMORPGs), but it eventually feels as if the actual gameplay is just an inconvenient price you have to pay for it. This is why your example of runesquest really surprised me.
Man i'm constantly waiting for new content from this guy. Cheers mate!
So... is the player in the World of Warcraft segment someone else or are you Notafurry?
I just didn't want anyone getting any funny ideas just because I played the anthropomorphic wolf race
not that there was any doubt to begin with
stop looking at me like that.
*stare*
Adam Millard - The Architect of Games The lady doth protest to much methinks
I remember RuneScape from before their graphics are what they are today. Also before the Pay To Win aspects were a thing. It was fun.
MiningwithPudding you can still play that version. Its called old school runescape or runescape 07
It just got a mobile release. You can play a full mmo on phone with pc players.
I just maxed in osrs, took 5 years on and off.
RuneScape is pay to win now? Damn
Come back to RS07
Its calling you
Been binging your content, solid stuff, thanks for giving me something to not be bored
Your RPG videos are actually really useful for writing DnD campaigns man, it's great
Have you ever tried Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO)? I was quite fond of it awhile ago, and it had a very unique questing system. Each quest is its own instanced event, telling a unique story. The downside is that most of them require a team of multiple people, which can usually be found pretty easily with looking for group, but not always.
They tried to replicate the standard DnD experience of a party going into a dungeon/other area, exploring and fighting, and I think they were pretty successful with it, though DDO is a very railroady GM ;)
It really does replicate the feeling of exploring a dungeon or figuring out a situation though. For example, one of the ones I still remember is that you broke into a hobgoblin-sponsored gladitorial arena, and had to fight in a series of gladiatorial competitions to escape. As part of doing so, you could support one of several factions, each with their own vendors. And that was one quest, if memory serves.
I absolutely love your work Adam. You've very quickly become one of my favorite content producers. You've earned a new sub, which I don't give out very often. You'll be in good company!
i feel its important for it to be based on the source like grandma should at most be "could you grab my medicine from the shops" and a shopkeeper should be more advanced stuff like "clear out all the mobs in my basement" or "investigate what happened to my supplies they haven't arrived yet" if lil timmy wants an ultra rare item or a letter mailed across the entire world that cuts a bit of the immersion
Hey, a newish subscriber here, I really wanted to thank you for making these videos they are usually my weekly youtube highlight, and a very fun investment of my time. Thank You!
My favorite quests were always the ones that didn't have any reward at all. Like, finding a secret location, in that case your reward is simply having found it and seeing some lore or whatever.
Also, I had a lot of fun in Wow just trying to clip the geometry and climb on top of buildings.
I haven’t play RuneScape since ~2005 and I still remember some of the quests. The one you described in the video was definitely one of the best ones. It was so fun to figure out what you needed to do next at each step of the way.
I just want to say that i love that you mentioned 4 monks 1 china shop and sir bearinton, actually two of the best dnd stories I've ever read; those and the tale of the accidental full party of barbarians (and its sequel, skipping across the wheel of planes). There are so many fantastic dnd stories, I love it
Oook! A Discworld Reference at 0:43 ! Nice one!
Runescape quests have always been my favorite.
your videos are getting better and better :D
Really like your channel/content! Keep it up man
"Divinity: Original Sin 2, which is probably the closest approximation of D&D we're likely to get in video game form."
Listening in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 world, this gave me whiplash.
This video earned my sub. Well done
I'd say that it's only really FF XIV's vanilla story content that suffers from the problems listed. The vanilla story content does get better once the player first learns about the Ultima Weapon, because then you suddenly have a clear objective layed out, and the story progresses sort of smoothly from there, but the storytelling gems are everything that comes after that. The quests between the end of the vanilla story and the beginning of the first expansion have a lot of smaller four act structures within them, but the whole set of quests itself also presents one, which ends with such a fantastic finale that does exactly what it's designed to, giving the player a reason to go into the first expansion's content that feels both valid and important. The first expansion itself is, by far, one of my favorite expansions to any MMO, and its entire story fits into a four act structure, with the fourth act taking a turn into the first act of an even stronger four act structure. Like the content leading up to it, it's also filled with smaller four act structures that all culminate in satisfying finales, but the expansion itself has such an explosive and visceral finale that I was actually struck by the exact raw emotions that my character was in that instance, which is the first and only time that's happened to me in an MMO. The second expansion does many of the same things right that the first one does, and it's a good expansion, but it's not quite as strong as the first one was.
It's also probably worth noting that all the class quests also follow a pretty solid four act structure, though the quality of the stories involved does vary somewhat.
Love the RuneScape music.
Listening to this video like a podcast was such a strange experience because I did it while grinding Mining in RuneScape. I had to keep pausing to check that my game music was off, because the BGM is a lot of RS tracks! That was just a really, really neat detail that I appreciated so much.
I noticed the same thing about Guild Wars 2 Renown Hearts because I happen to be playing WoW at the same time. The game felt much less boring because I didn't need to open a quest menu and read a conversation with an NPC, then look at a marker on my map and go there to kill monsters. It was so much more dynamic and any NPC text that is there is short and readable. It made the gameflow of GW2 much more enjoyable for me overall, even if I don't like GW2 as much as WoW.
Quite late to the party here, but big props for using Runescape music for this video. Great choice!
While the game might be wonky in many ways, one of it's best aspects are it's quests. Honestly my favourite quests of any MMO I've played.
Man, Runescape has changed a lot since I last saw it
that's kind of how a good game design should be also, starting with the introduction of a new mechanic, letting you experience it and getting use to it until they finally test your learning ( with a boss or so).
Good video :) !
I’m glad to find another person who’s weird like me and likes quests. I’m a WoW player and almost everyone I’ve ever spoken to hates levelling but I love it because of the travelling around the different areas questing. I’m excited about them opening up the new system where you can choose anywhere to level because it will mean I can follow a whole storyline through one area rather than having to drop quest lines and go somewhere else when I out level an area.
Final Fantasy XIV is a bit different from most mmos because it is more directly story driven unlike other mmos, much like most other Final Fantasy games they'd rather focus story telling first
This is a great Video, with some interesting insights I hadn't thought about before! But I missed Witcher 3 as an example. The Quest Designers over at, CD Project make a point that fetch-quests are boring and that a Game Designer needs to wrap them in narrative and context. There is a great talk by Pawel Sasko (Lead Quest Designer at CD) called “Life, Love and Quest Design“, which he held at the Digital Conference. Could you maybe do a follow up video dissecting one of the Witcher Quests? :)
Fetch quests
Kill quests
Find quests
Rescue quests (fetch a fellow).
Which game series am I talking about? Answer bellow.
Wizard 101
@@halfpintrr finaly someone... thank you sir
Assassins Creed
Watch dogs
Shadow of Mordor
Felipe Carvalho Those too tbh
And many many others
The 4 things you mention are basically the Aristotelian Narrative Theory: exposition, development, climax, denouement, but then applied to a narrative that is part of an interactive experience. As the name implies, it's a narrative structure that is ancient, or rather, it has been recognised as being a basic feature of storytelling a long, long time ago. Even if nobody who wrote video game quests had ever picked up a book, seen a play or a movie or heard a piece of music, you would find that their storytelling would use this structure.
- The exposition is an introduction to the situation and the characters. This is equivalent to the "explore" or "introduction" phase where you get a quest and are told what you need to do.
- The development amounts to the challenges said character faces, learning to overcome them by trial and error. It is equivalent to expansion and progression, one feeding into the other as you learn from your mistakes or maximize your ability to kill creatures to satisfy a quest's objective.
- The climax is the point at which you know what has to be done, at which conflict is resolved. This would be the "ultimate exploitation", the finale, where you put all the tricks you've learned into practice, and it usually comes down to a big boss fight or extermination.
- Denouement doesn't have a true equivalent because the development and climax phase cover three parts in between them; "aha", you say, "so they aren't equivalent", but they are, because of interactivity. In a story, the development is already set, but in a game, the player has to learn/win/cheat to get at the climax, and this can mean running through several development or progression phases.
The denouement is very much a part of quests and quest structure though, even if it seems to be the least important one: handing in the quest, getting a reward, finding out whether your actions were correct. Considering how straight-forward most quests in games are, the denouement is entirely inconsequential, because it simply amounts to a "you did X, now take Y reward which I promised you earlier". That's also why it doesn't get its own "X" or "phase". Luckily there are a lot of narrative-driven games out there that do try to implement denouement. These would be games that encourage solving a problem in multiple ways or having multiple endings to a quest chain, or games where your actions have consequences that are shown by the character's changing position on a morality meter.
I love the quests in Secret World Legends. They all participate in the construction of the zone/world. IMO, the sidequests were better when they weren't marked on the map, instead you stumbled upon them by exploring. The investigation quests are also interesting, because most of the quests don"t guide you by the hand, you have to work out hints to know where to go, and that's add to the mystery/conspiracy feel of the game. Great video as always.
2:53 Poor crock, you can't help but feel for the guy
5:18
YOU PLAY ENDLESS SPACE 2 AS WELL. I'm so happy I found someone that has this hidden gem in their library!
a new Architect video :D
I can't say I agree with you about XIV. I can't put it into words, but XIV feels more alive to me than any MMO I've played. I think part of it has to do with the class system. Unlike games like WoW where you just get your skills there's certain skills in XIV classes that you get through class quests. That felt rewarding to me. Not to mention having the class quests divorced from the main story yet being important unto themselves. It made the world feel alive and while you're an adventurer it feels like the various classes have a function in the world that made sense.
However I also understand differing tastes so I don't begrudge you for disliking it. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there about why I like FF XIV
As a longtime ff14 player I have to agree, there is something about the ff14 world that is so immersive and captivating compared to lots of other games. Though I must say the earlier experience suffers from way too much filler in places which very much damages the overall flow of the story. A lot of the side-quests I also feel like you genuinely have to really care about the world and its lore to get the most out of them, something that a newer player might not be inclined to do so, which is entirely fair. But for the most part the story of ff14 is unparalleled in the MMO world, especially the further on it gets.
Wow, I really can't disagree more. I'm guessing the class system comment applies more to modern wow, because in Classic EVERY skill has to be taught to you, and as a warlock, I had far more meaningful experiences with class quests than in FFXIV.
As for why they were more meaningful, for me, I think this mainly has to do with the integration of difficult combat. Killing and enslaving dozens of legitimately dangerous demons and other monsters made me feel like I actually earned my right to summon powerful demons. Meanwhile, the running around and "kill 3" filler quests were so quick and boring, they made FFXIV feel like a joke.
The only time I felt like I earned anything in FFXIV quests was when I had out-leveled story dungeons and trials to the point that they were soloable. There was never a good reason for 3-7 hyper powerful adventurers to materialize, molly whop the baddies, and bounce immediately after, so finally being able to go in solo was majorly cathartic. I felt like I was able to flex my character's muscles, and live up to my god status as the warrior of light.
I think FFXIV has many strengths in the lore and the writing. Unfortunately I couldn't appreciate them as an MMO player that needs to feel both challenged and connected to their character.
The job quests are also notoriously awesome and add to the world building. They're worth doing for the story alone. The characters in job quests also appear in big MSQ moments.
I wish to speak in defense of FFXIV - I feel some of the dissonance in quest design you are experiencing is perhaps due to the parallel you made at the start of the video - to D&D. While WoW and Divinity are relatively directly inspired by D&D, as well as the original Final Fantasy in many ways, I feel Final Fantasy, and jRPGs in general have diverged into their own genre, with it's own conventions, and it's from here that FFXIV draws most strongly. To me at least, the Main Story Quest (MSQ) feels like it's designed more similarly to a jRPG, talk to people and be directed around, slowly learning of the larger plot at work - they're not intended to be emergent like GW2, or have the four stages, they're to guide the player along the themepark experience of the story the devs want to have, from plot event to plot event. While they can be viewed as individual segments, and zone stories, I believe they're designed from a perspective of them being plot beats of the larger overarching story the game is telling as a FF title. And as to the "random" boss fights, while the first few primals seem to have no rhyme or reason to their summoning, it's eventually revealed to be a deeper plot from forces moving in the shadows. Additionally, I actually kind of enjoyed the fact that at the beginning you don't have much background - in-game you're just some no-name adventurer after all at the start, I didn't expect to be told the intricate details, and in a meta sense I was glad to have simple directives, without tons of explanation, as I was still getting used to the basic systems of the game (as FFXIV was the first tab-target MMO I've played). But as you level up, and gain renown, you become more involved in the events of the game, and more central to the plot - drawing you into the game's world (I will admit the 2.x quests from the end of A Realm Reborn to the start of Heavansward are complete shit, though).
Playing WoW, I've always felt a dissonance with some story quests, in that during truly plot-defining events, I felt like an accessory, utterly replaceable, to the actions of major lore characters, I felt like an extra, and it made it hard to get invested. In FFXIV, I enjoy how the story structures you as a major character in your own right, and your character is directly involved in the plot in a starring role. It seems I have digressed however, into story structure, rather than strictly speaking of quest design.
I agree. Often times in WoW despite reading the quest text I often feel like what I am doing has no effect or is only barely connected to the story as a whole. Not to mention each zone felt like a self contained short story and it was not till Legion that they really had a thread linking them together. You solved the zone's issues so that you can find the Pillar's of Creation to use to seal the primary entry point for the big bads. While in FFXIV I felt like everything I did was interconnected and I got to be part of the story itself.
Looking on everything in retrospect and the video made I think I see the inherent problem:
All of the games with the 4x style questing that he liked are Western RPGs. Which focus more on the open world aspect and side content that eventually leads to the end game content. Which is built for wanderers. It is the story of the moment. WRPGs however also tend to have very short main stories that can be completed in a few hours that you then are left with exploring the world and getting into it.
Which is why there is a lot of complaints about WoW leveling. Leveling has no point of meaning in that game, as only the current expansion and its end game matters. Everything else is just there. Big Bad of the week (expansion) to take down and then move on.
JRPGs however focus on a main story, and every zone and the things you do in them are interconnected into that main story. There may be main arcs and sub arcs but everything is a component to the overall main story. Context which may not make sense at the moment is ultimately revealed later as a component of the main story.
Which is why there is that disconnect in GW2 that he mentioned. It is trying to do both. The main story is trying to be like a JRPG, while the rest of the content is like that of a WRPG.
One Unknown Even still getting through the MSQ is a pain in the ass. I’ve been playing for three months and I’m still in Heavensward cause the MSQ is painful to run through. The story has picked up but I’d rather do so many other things even though I want to run stuff like Ridoranna.
The MSQ is an hassle because it is so damn long. But that's what you get when they add content so often. That's not the point I want to talk about though. He mentions a tedious part of the main quest around early 30, and I agree, BUT, early 30 is when you unlock jobs, and so you have to dedicate time to level other classes to unlock said jobs. Meaning, at this point of the story, you have to make a break and go back to previous areas to do sub-quests, leves or FATEs to level in zones you know and have already explored. So my point is, the game is designed to activly deter you from rushing the story at mid-30. It's on purpose.
DIERSTEIN Julien That's actually not true anymore; you don't need to level other classes to unlock your job, so the progression during that part of the game is a bit out of whack.
People always bash MSQ between 2.0 and 3.0 but those quests are what made 3.0's story so fulfilling.
In my opinion, that's when the writing got good.
I used to play the Classic Runescape back in the days and even then I have enjoyed the questing very much!
If you're ever looking to try FFXIV again they are reworking the 1-50 Main Story Quests because it's been a long-standing acknowledgment of theirs that it was weakly put together in the rush to make 2.0. Everything from 50 and on is fantastic.
That Prometheus bit was absolutely beautiful.
This is an interesting mechanical way to look at stories from a system point of view rather than a narrative arc point of view. This is a useful tool for sure.
I genuinely love the story in ffxiv... But getting through it is such a chore when 80% of the quests are just "run here, talk to someone" and then do it again
Could say that is a staple of RPGs in general and asian MMOs in specific. Overabundance of fetch quests of three types 1. kill stuff, 2. loot stuff, 3. go somewhere. Sometimes even all together. Like having to kill 20 wolves, loot their pelts, and then bring them to a different NPC at the other side of the map.
Best runescape quest was the Great Tree one with that stupid puzzle i couldnt figure out lol. Its awesome that there are random events that whisk you away while doing other stuff. Its exciting, random, and rewarding.
Honestly love the runescape footage 😂😂 as an Rs3 player, I love that it shows up every once in a while in your videos
Runescape. Ohh Runescape. The game I played when it first came out as a wee lad. That every 2 years or so I go back into.
Lately their quests have been going down-hill. But I couldn't agree with you more. Those quests you showed are so memorable. I did 'The Knights Sword' in 2001. I still remember it. It stuck with me. Another example of quests that stuck with me are 'A Brush With Death' - Oblivion, 'Wild At Heart' - Witcher 3, 'Oasis' - Fallout 3, 'Dragon Slayer' - OSRS.
Oh wow, wasn't expecting to see The Silverwastes content in any of these videos
Thanks for commenting your videos. You do a great job of explaining elements of good game design and I like to take notes for my own designs, the comments make this much easier!
9:49 Oof! The feels..
10:08 "Ripples in the water catch your eye..."
[GIANT FROG APPEARS]
i fucking love this channel every thing i see about games today is everyone talking about whats wrong with the industry and why games suck and all that but this channel actually discusses why we all love games and play them
i feel like everquest 2 was another great mmo that really did questing right because most of the quests were linked to the intricate lore of the world or in many cases simply werent based around just killing mobs for the sake of it, especially with the collection quests and the armour quests which in one quest line saw you finding lost items from an npc's estranged family in return to pieces of armor, and it was all optional too
at 5:40 and love the mark brown reference haha. subbed for self awareness =]
Quests are fun when they fit with the game world. Then there's random quests which just remind us we're playing a pretty algorithm. Preston Garvey says there's some mutants terrorising a settlement and we need to go and sort it out. After we've done that, some raiders will attack some traders and we'll need to help. Oh, and we have to focus on taking the castle back.
Good quests are like good map design
You put two points on a map and then you make a horseshoe.
You came knowing exactly where you wanted to go but you had to go the long way around and discover everything else. That was interesting to get what you really want but now you have more.
TLDR: you though it was A to B, but what you want is actually E
Instantly thinking about Gaia Rock/The Serpent in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It's a working and well-feeling quest, despite its premise being literally "A dragon wants to eat our princess! Heroes, please! Kill the dragon!".
i like the pie example: a major part of an early mission can be making a pie, you then know how to make a pie and they buff you so you can use them for the rest of the game. but the kicker is you could have just found the pie making part of that quest on your own, in which case that mission later becomes far easier. you can even have the pie in a few other quests, which ever is the first will be the one that directs them to the pie making quest (which again is a stand alone that they can just find on their own) and all subsequent quests are made easier because you dont have to learn this time, just make again. it would give you a feeling of progression without an arbitrary number attached because you would go from needing to learn all these things to complete quests to those things just being small parts of your quests. This could even be a good way to do tutorials with a clean transition to the game (if done right) and i think it would work in more than just MMOs.
This 4 quest step guide is also known as the "Ki Sho Ten Ketsu," which is a Japanese/Asian narrative structure (like the 3 act structure in the west), that derrives from poetry, and is commonly used today in Manga and Anime writing/storytelling.
"Divinity: Original Sin 2, which is the closest we're likely to ever get to D&D in video game form..."
Ah, I see. This was made before BG3
wow questing is so god that even without reading the quests you somehow get what is happening just by doing it .
I was absolutely blown away by the questline of "Bloody Baron" in Witcher 3. It comes pretty early in the game, right after you familiarize yourself with the controls and the basic setting.
At first the Baron seems like a typical 2D baddie, who you have to do chores for in order to persuade him to help you, and I was like "uggh, here we go, give me those boring fetch quests and some pointless cave raid so that I can move on in the actual story" when I first met him. But the more Geralt discovers about the Baron and his issues, the more their interactions change and the dialog between them just wonderfully reveals his true nature. The pacing at which you get the information is spot on, and half way through the questline I realized the Baron has transformed from a generic quest giver into a real character, someone I was looking forward to talking to, and by the end of the questline I felt very emotional to see his character arc brilliantly end.
I think the writers absolutely nailed the difficult task of writing a believable character within a videogame, where you have very little space for exposition, and hell the Baron is relevant for just the first couple hours into the game. Yet it was these quests that convinced me the Witcher 3 has a lot of thought behind it, and made me excited for all the other characters and their stories.
That's why The Secret World is still my favourite MMO to this day.
Solo questing is SOOOOOOOO satisfying in this game !
The Investigation quests in particular are probably my favourite thing ever in all the MMOs I've played.
Seriously, anyone interested in MMO quest design and environmental storytelling should play The Secret World, it's a masterclass in those aspects.
I just remind you that additional quest depth can be obtained by simply using the real life knowledge, like the quest from 'The sercret world" where you needed to actually google the model of retranslator to learn its characteristic and after catching the signal decrypt the message that was sent with Morze code. Only played the game for a couple of hours, but this quest is a true gem, never met anything like this in MMOs before.
Play Old School RuneScape if you liked that questing. Old School doesn't have the pay to win stuff, it is still grindy but they've added more of a payoff for that stuff, and it has all the same great questing.
6:24 Worgen attacks are part and parcel of living in the capitol of Gilneas
Yooo. Gonna put this into practice the next time I make a D&D campaign
Nice info
Haha, the guy who did Sir Bearington was one of my best men at my wedding. He dressed in armor and I knighted him. Awesome dude.
I see that Rincewind reference AoG...
I'm glad D&D got brought up because that's exactly why I clicked on this video- my next campaign starts next week
I agree with your background for this entire thing, except I can't find any praise for the way GW2's event system works, and can't stop praising FFXIV's system. Having a single great plot line that evolves and lets you meet characters all over is really good.
The bad side of it of course is that it is extremely exhausting to new players, especially once they hit 50 and realise they can't level up for another 60 main story quests.
Literally the only reason I play runescape still is for the quests, I pretty much just come back everytime they do a quest update, play it, and then go on a break until they come out with another quest.
TL;DR
-Traveling or talky quests introduce you to the world (Explore)
-Quests that involve collecting items or simple clicking on objectives teach you the mechanics and themes of the zone (Expand)
-Quests that involve interacting with the world by using items, crafting things or utilizing unique mechanics turn knowledge into understanding (Exploit)
-Fighting quests are the test of everything you've learned and a satisfying conclusion (Exterminate)
Those four steps sound a lot like the four quarters of a two-hour movie in most popular versions of the three act structure.
guild wars 2!, underrated i think, I've enjoyed that game so much
5:30 I love how everyone who does video game analyses references Mark Brown as doing it better :D
World of Warcraft Quest: Go gather 10 piles of hyena poop.
Me: EXCITING ADVENTURE!
I think one basic question any game designer should be asking is, "Is this quest/objective designed to enhance the player experience, or is it designed to waste their time to make the game seem longer?"
Sometimes the quest itself, the experience, is worth it. Other times the reward makes it worth it.
*Examples of good and bad:*
Good: Striving through an epic and memorable quest that ends giving you a reward that both reminds you of it and feels like a valuable/worthy reward (whether by stats, by community rep, or meaningful style or moral expression)
Bad: Borderlands 2 (I like borderlands, so hear me out) hands out new guns every second. WHEN EVERYTHING IS IN CAPSLOCKS, NOTHING IS HIGHLIGHTED. (now imagine my entire post was in capslocks)
So, almost no weapon feels special for longer than a quick novelty moment.
And on top of that, quests with a weapon reward often give a weapon that is inferior to what you already have, so it's kinda like saving the president's life and having him thank you by emptying his pocket and giving you a piece of pocket lint.
Instead of feeling great, you're left with a feeling of letdown.
That's assuming the letdown isn't intentional, such a some runescape quests where the intent is to have the player experience the indignation of getting swindled! (good)
Especially if the player had reasonable indications, but not hand held, that the expected outcome seems like a bit of a stretch but chose to ignore/override them because of greed or other selfish reasons.
Example of how this would look in real life:
A beggar on the street jogs up to you and offers you a Ferrari for $200, and oh, you just need to do a few things for them... Would you take them at their word and go off to do those things?
Do they actually have a Ferrari to sell you? If they do have a car, is it real Ferrari or a counterfeit? If it is real, how could they afford it and afford to sell it for that price? Who did they steal it from?...Are they setting you up to take the blame for something else?
See how much potential that has for a video game? You start helping someone, but realize mid-quest that something isn't on the level. Now what are you going to do? Will someone get hurt? Who's affected? Should you start running as fast as you can right now?! But videogames often ignore reasoning like that.
So a game that bucks the trend and rewards players for thinking and paying attention is a delightful treat few and far between.