Quest Design - I: Why Many MMOs Rely on Repetitive Grind Quests - Extra Credits
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Bad quests treat the player as an object to be transported from level to level, using five common quest types to push them through the game without any sense of discovery or exploration.
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This is why I love Dark Souls so much. There's almost no direction in the game. You go around and talk to people, read item descriptions and they give you the story bit by bit through little mentions in the conversations, snippets of lore in the item descriptions etc.
I wish I never read any wiki or guide for it. When DS 2 comes out I'll stay away from it until I feel I've discovered enough by myself.
I know that feels, bro.
Dark Souls is seriously a masterpiece. The game play is enough on its own to draw someone in with its challenge and non-hand-holding combat, but that it also has that kind of atmosphere and depth just makes it incredible.
And u can kill npcs
Not an mmo
I...
I work at FedEx.
Are all my quests FedEx quests?
Have you ever had an Escort Quest?
Fiona McCann I've had to escort people through the warehouse. Does that count?
+PartyTom Sure. Have a jelly donut! 🍙
Fiona McCann yaaaay
Your job should be fun you do quest every day XD
I'm pretty sure I'd sell that ring right after finding it.
This is exactly why I loved Runescape. Not only did completing quests unlock a great variety of things (areas, items, minigames, shortcuts, name it) but they also had compelling stories, characters and puzzles. Each were entirely unique.
Fantastic video - I think it's helped me figure out at least one of the reasons why I don't feel compelled to play theme park MMOs for more than a week.
I think I either need a fun sandbox to play in where I make my own stories or I need to feel like the stories the devs have written need to be discovered.
Fetching water from the creek for an NPC in a main story quest of FFXIV is not really that compelling...
Oh hey it's ZiggyD :D
Play Dark Souls. You will love it. You have to "find" the story.
Wanna Give Eve online a shot? Its very very sandboxy but the quests still fall under these basic tropes. The sandbox comes from player itneraction
Might wanna look into Star Citizen...
TwilightWolf032 Wait, are we talking RO, or Revival? Because Revival is just terrible kill quests, while traditional RO quests are far closer to the EQ example. Although they do run the issue of requiring you to run through zones 20+ levels above you to gain access to a grinding spot at your level...I guess that's where Fly Wings come in.
Earliest example I can think of is the Prontera Culvert quest.
The ring story reminded me of STALKER: Call Of Pripyat where you could get a somewhat rare suit from an extinct faction and when you met a certain trader using that suit, he would mention how he is one of the few surviving members of that faction and that he had made that suit. This didn't result in any quest, but it's a great example how attention to lore makes a game great.
The STALKER series was one of the best open world games I have played. It is a shame that they don't make games like them anymore.
EQ was so under rated. Glad to hear someone speak on it.
I can't believe Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen didn't get the funding goal even with the fact that Brad did a lot of press. Maybe it's because of Vanguard and the fact that EverQuest is, well, kind of niche, and that's why investors aren't willing to invest.
Their goal was to just hope they attract investors with their money anyway, so maybe it'll work out.
It was? I thought EQ was a pretty big thing in its day.
That said, while EQ's quests were much more embedded in the game world than a crowd of !'s standing around waiting for you to get your free XP handouts, that's not to say it was all good. Epic quests, anyone?
"I need you to get me some special ingredients to make this lute for you, so go compete with all the guilds on this server to kill a dragon that takes an entire raid to defeat, will definitely be killed by another guild before you can try again if you fail your first attempt and may or may not actually drop the guts you actually need from it. Then do that 3 more times for the OTHER dragons just like it. Oh, did I mention these dragons also take at least a week to respawn to even give you another chance to be the first guild to get them? Have fun!"
Yeeeeah, no. EQ got at least as much wrong as it got right.
Shjade Oh absolutely, but it was almost the first of its kind. We had to start somewhere.
What made me fall in love with it was the lore, the class abilities, the alternate advancement. They knew how to keep you wanting to level your character, unlike the majority of games out there today.
Really fucked me up, because now all I want is a freaking game that has alternate advancement so I dont have to stop leveling!
Naw, not underrated, just did not age well. Same with FFXI. BEAUTIFUL GAME, the UI is extremely polished for what it is, but the UI is still awful.
aaron park First of its kind for many, many things. It didn't age well because it was made before gaming standards were derived.
Now I'm sad I missed out on Everquest.
You should be both sad and glad at the same time. Both frustrating and glorious in it's own unique way.
It was basically OSRS quests but on ironman mode haha. If you want that hardcore grindy experience you can always try that Runescape config out!
(edit to the necrobump: Anarchy online is probably the last grand old MMO if you wanna check that out too, although it has been made more accessible with less death penalty and a dwindling community/economy, it is very oldschool for its questing experience.)
I've grown up playing everquest since I was 5, going on 12 years now
Same so much
The initial quest line leading into Icecrown in World of Warcraft. (Yep, WoW...) It was a good use of phasing to tie in the players actions to the actual landscape. Of course wow fails more times that it succeeds. I do remember enjoying the runescape stuff back in the day.
Timotheus24 How many WoW devs does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Working as intended.
Timotheus24 I can only speak for myself because I'm only, you know, myself, but a lot of the stuff you just mentioned, and along with the boring quest system used to just move you along is all part of why it's hard for me to get into an MMO. I've played most of the big ones, but I almost never get to max level and usually quit playing within a couple weeks or so. The only exceptions to that being The Secret World (because I just kept playing hoping for more investigation missions), Guild Wars 2 (I liked the main story) and Final Fantasy XIV: ARR (because I love FF and the main story was amazing for an MMO).
Joshua Smith "Soon"
Runescape is a very Nice MMO Game, i have there a cahr lvl 81 i think.. but i dont play Runescape anymore, because it changed alot! I miss the old Runescape.. :'/
Timotheus24 is that a joke?
I really hope you guys drop a mention to Runescape. For all of its quirks, for all of its oddities, the one thing that has always brought me back to the game are the quests. There are actual stories, the actions of the quests have meaning to the overall narrative of the gameworld. It can be really engaging at times.
Hey now, what about Runescape? It had the same amount of crazy quests every now and then, and none of those grind quests! Give it a bit more love yall!
The sense of exploration... That's all you need to make your RPG better than a novel or movie. As the developers get their hands on more flashy graphic engines and better computer tech nowadays, they tend to forget about that.
Why make your ideas into games if you can't give people an experience more engaging than reading a book? :/
pINKprotege agreed,
also there's action in player's control which is basicly the diffrence between any game and a book/movie
Gotta start putting "has watched all episodes of Extra Credits multiple times" on my CV.
I really like the idea of making quest triggered by key words.
Runescape quests, particularly the end game quests were awesome
Only reason Runescape quests aren't really a grind is because there aren't many of them and the whole game of runescape is a grind anyway. Gotta have something fun in there.
Dargonhuman
Go play a real MMORPG and you will find that you can do 200 quests in your first 2 or 3 hours.
200 isn't jack.
Dargonhuman
That's my point.
Runescape doesn't have many quests because each quest has (or usually does) a lot of content in it.
MMOs like WoW and FF XIV have them as well and have far far more than runescape but they still have tons and tons of filler.
Runescape doesn't have crap for quests.
Izzy Games And most importantly(as an avid runescape player) the quests in runescape are one of the most rewarding things in the game. Many many of the top tier, best-in-slot items in runescape are gotten through quests(Barrows gloves comes to mind instantly) which can only be gotten through questing and nothing else. whereas most other quests in MMOs seem to just give xp, gold, and possibly some weak item rewards.
Ne2o
Ya but the rest of runescape is tedious grind which is why it is this way. It's kind of a trade off.
That ring story sounds really sweet. The gameplay style hasn't changed much ... fetch quest, delivery quest ... but the story adds so much more.
THIS. This is the answer I have been searching for for years now; the reason why I haven't been enjoying online rpgs. I've tried so many, just to leave them mere hours later feeling dissatisfied. I had to know the reason why World of Warcraft, the single most popular game in the world, couldn't hold my interest for longer than 30 minutes - and now, I finally understand. Thank you, noble sir.
If you get up to around level 20, you can start running Instances. That is where the game starts to pick up pace, where challenge and strategy (used to) come in to play. If you didn't play long enough to reach Wailing Caverns or Deadmines, then you didn't play long enough to form a fair opinion on the game.
Lordsilverhand The days of the great immersive experiences that games like EQ or FFXI in particular were, are long gone. Now pretty much all we have left are these quest and instance grinders since WoW popularized this. I wish there was a new option for those not so casual players that just can't deal with this "standard" WoW model we have nowadays and want more out of their games.
I've been hoping to find a game that catches me the way FFXI did, and lasts me as long or longer (that game kept me interested for almost 7 years). I had high hopes for FFXIV, but then it shut down when it was getting good and A Realm Reborn came out... :/
Well to be honest, the reason why you don't like any MMOs now is because they are MMOs instead of MMORPGs. You might like the channel of Corpsealot as he often talks about subjects like that. Full channel name is Corpsealot the Harbinger of Games.
herogamer555 Thanks for the info - I'll have to check him out here later.
Lordsilverhand Asheron's Call if you haven't given it a shot. Dated graphics... granddaddy of them all. Free to play once you play like 10 bucks.
This is exactly the type of episode I've been looking for. I've been trying to design quests for a D&D campaign I'm attempting to create, but I keep coming back to those basic designs. I'm very much looking to Part II and thank you for all of the lessons you've done so far. They have been nothing short of stellar.
The worst part is when these "standard" quests translate over into other games that aren't mmos...
*Cough* Xenoblade Chronicles *Cough*
I thought of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch almost instantly when he said something about putting too many quests at the same time.
Problem is, in that game, they give you like a hundred quests at one point, and HOLY SHIT are the quests boring and tedious. It's to the point where I'm surprised some people even came CLOSE to 100%ing it, considering that I don't ever see myself getting more than 30% quest completion because most of them are finding a guy who is like, ' AHH I HAVE EMOTIONS ', and then giving those emotions to a guy who is like, ' AHH I HAVE NO EMOTIONS '. Which sounds like a normal Fed-Ex quest except when you realize that there are like TEN GUYS WHO NEED AND HAVE THE SAME EMOTION, BUT YOU CAN ONLY CARRY ONE OF THAT EMOTION AT A TIME.
Exactly and it's a toxic that trend that seems plaguing a lot of games nowadays.
Came out right on schedule. Perfect between my classes.
the way you explain things is just amazing , i hope you´re a real life teacher.
James writes the episodes, and he lectures sometimes.
If I remember correctly he does sometimes give lectures, along with James, but mostly they work in game development. I think ; 3
great to know that , this knowledge should not be wasted.
James is.
baklazan777 James runs a consultation company, Dan works at Pixar as an animator.
Runescape (I'm talking about oldschool cause I haven't played the modern version) is definitely a grindy sort of game, however the quests are incredibly varied and interesting, usually involving some actual thinking and puzzle solving and a fun or entertaining story of some sort.
one of the reasons why i like Runescape despite the changes that has happene, is that there are no or at least for the most part repeatable quests. And there are no quest described here in that game(with the exception of One Small Favour) They are the only reason why I still play Runescape.
I have to agree on Runescape quests being tied into the more of the world. For those who prefer the other type RS also has somet hung called the Challenge System. If you prefer to kill X quantity of monster Y this is where you will find that.
+Adrienne Gormley I actually don't at all mind Kill X type of quests but I don't think they should be called Quests, rather Tasks and RS does exactly just that with Slayer which I love. My favorite skill.
+Flynn MacDonald Runescape is the first thing I thought of when I was trying to think of different quest models. Runescape quests are more like adventure games, where dialogue and exploration drive stories instead of objectives. Too bad it never really matured with its audience.
+Adrienne Gormley Slayer is actually properly the "grind quest" thing, challenges are just mini-goals.
That closing music. So much nostalgia.
Now I want to play Everquest.
My favorite quest line? DEFINITELY the Silverpine Forest quests in post-Cataclysm which are freaking brilliant. You spearhead a full takeover of Silverpine Forest and charge with reckless and violent abandon into the heart of a seriously f**king depressing Gilneas while all your friends die.
It's just something you need to experience.
THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THIS! Is exactly the reason why The Secret World is literally the only MMORPG I ever liked. The "Inverstigation" Quests are one of the most awesome experiences I have had in my gamerlife.
I'm freaking stoked for this series! Can't wait for the next part.
How about upload it now?
Thank you for so succinctly summarizing just how much damage Word of Warcraft has done do the state of gaming.
Great topic! I wish the videos were longer so we could let these rambles go longer. :)
I would not mind if they extended the videos by even 3 minutes, just to go a little more in depth.
although they definitely do a great job at getting to the point, and explaining said point.
Indeed. Most of the videos I watch tend to be 7-ish minutes anyway, so it'd be nice if they weren't afraid of going a little longer. I still love everything EC is able to discuss though. :D
Steve Peters I think that would be perfectly reasonable, there are youtubers that talk for longer than 8 minutes, and they have much less to say in that time. Really popular ones too! I'd like if these guys would make videos much longer - maybe even as long as 20 minutes - but I guess that would quickly become a pain to animate.
Thanks, EC, I've recently been switched from class and character descriptions to side quest writing in my up and coming project and I've been stuck for the past couple of weeks. This really helped and I can't wait for part two of this miniseries.
Sees a ring --> "There is gonna be a LotR reference"
3:03 --> "Here it is"
This episode pertains to what i think is one of the best ideas that they've covered.
"Objects weren't just about stat gain."
Nice job showing an inventory full of TF2 hats... hats which don't affect the player's stats at all :P
Thank you for talking about this! This is definitely a huge problem I see in big budget games nowadays.
The best quest I've ever experienced was in Fallout: New Vegas. It started as a simple fetch quest: go to Vault 11 and grab a filter. When you get there. you see an abandoned Vault, some dead bodies (where in FO that doesn't have some) and a mysterious recording. The game then tell you there's a quest to know WTF was going on, but really it's not necessary. So you journey deeper into the Vault to find the answer (and that filter too).
If you are the type that just rush on to finish the quest, you'll miss the tons of details are they put into the Vault and the story behind it. You can pick up the filter and leave; or you can journey even deeper to finally realize the fuck up things that happened there.
That's my favourite way to story telling in videogames: showing without telling and especially not holding you down and barf cut scenes into your face until you drown.
That everquest quest idea is really neat. It makes this seem a lot more organic.
Also, the Star Wars MMO was the best "Prologue" I have EVER played- the landscape was breath taking (having to travel on foot to your destination, taking it all in), having snarky dialogue if you wanted to, co-op dialogue, interesting story lines SEPARATE FOR EACH CLASS. I think it took me 20+ hours. FOR A PROLOGUE. It was that enjoyable. After that, it didn't have much else to WOW me with. But that Prologue, man...sucks you right in.
Maybe things changed since the beta I tried but wtf are you saying... Breathtaking? I haven't been immerse in a Star Wars environment since republic commando. The prologue was just one humongous splattering of crap that had little cohesion.
Chairman Wang
I've never had much of a passing glance at Star Wars, so I was willing to give it a chance when I heard it was out AND free (forgot when that was) so I tried it out.
I played as a Scoundrel, made him look like me, grinning at how close I got. I started his campaign. He gets his ship jacked, and has got to get it back, starting from practically nothing. Made me laugh at my character's bad luck.
You slowly unlock skills, and can spec them depending how you want your character to work. I eventually built it to a point of long-range-snipe, extra-damage-shot, blind grenade, close up groin kick to stun, back up and wait for flash grenade to recharge a second later.
Walking out from my starting area, the battle-torn little outpost was well rendered (sith Jedi has you walking on the floor of a ENORMOUS dried out valley ala Grand Canyon) and really gave you a sense of scale (it was kinda relaxing, like putting down the controller during long trips on the ocean in Windwaker).
All the little things the Scoundrel had to do to locate the punk who steals your ship (which looked like a nod to the Millennium Falcon) which include dialogue choices which were pretty well written; my guy was so snarky at times. The story was pretty good consider how most tutorials aren't exactly groundbreaking in terms of story.
So finally meeting him, getting my ship back, leaving his sorry self on a planet, racing off with some extra "souvenirs" that he had collected in my wake made me feel greedy and pleased...like every Scoundrel should.
Then the story fell flat. Nothing much else could motivate me; I mean, I had my ship back, extra stuff, so why would I want to "return" it?
The game kept offering cash for little packages, but I didn't really need any of it. So I stopped, content with the best, longest prologue I've ever played. It was full of character, personality, and made you feel like a tiny pawn in a large world.
MindOfGenius I'd say you made the right call. You've convinced me to give it a whirl, even if it's just for a brief foray.
In many ways, the "problem" with the star wars MMO wasn't that what it did was bad.
The story was amazing, it effectively really was the next KOTOR.
But thats its downfall, because most of the players weren't looking for a new KOTOR, they wanted a WoW in star wars form.
And it lacked both the content and the end-game to back that expectation.
Well crap, that works for me. I disliked WoW but have been waxing nostalgic for KOTOR this last 12 months
this episode has the best pictures out of any other episode!! I especially love the pictures for when your describing the different types of quests!! They are hilarious!
This is why I love the crazy writing in EVE Online....
***** ;) look for them.
***** EVE has quests?
***** Oh people do them, you'd be surprised. And they all have very clever flavor text.
That's one of the things I loved about UO, how un-directed you were, and how you had to make your own quests basically. Great episode.
You do the Secret World for quest design, but you don't do Runescape? Come on man, they've got awesome quests!
If there's one thing RuneScape has always done right, its quests.
It's true. The rest of the game may be grindy as hell and have atrocious sound quality but those quests.
All the quests are unique.
Hey, that's kinda true. I don't like Runescape really, but when I played it in highschool I don't remember there ever being a grindy quest. They all had stories and were engaging, very little hand-holding ever being involved.
That's true... It's been forever since I played, but then Runescape was never a "combat-focused" MMO to begin with. I think the fact that the game can get away with giving you a list of all of the quests available in the game immediately upon starting says something.
I know I'm a tad late, but...
The very fact that RuneScape exists makes it so much harder for me to take those whining about wanting better MMO quests seriously.
People keep on getting excited for such and such new or upcoming MMO because they heard the quests were "finally done right". GOD DAMNIT, RuneScape's been out for over 12 years. RUNESCAPE HAS THE KINDS OF QUESTS THEY'RE ALL LOOKING FOR BUT NOBODY WANTS TO GIVE IT A CHANCE.
Even watching this video, with you talking about that quest and the short story you gave, I completely forgot that was supposed to be an example of a better quest.
Think this can be applied to any game that has quests. For example; Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns forces you to do quests in order to make Lightning stronger (increases base stats, give new schemata with higher stats, gives items to boost stats of schemata, etc.) instead of just fighting enemies to get stronger. But the quests aren't the least bit engaging and fall under many basic MMO quests you outlined.
It is called level grinding. Lots of JRPG's do this sort of thing to make it last longer. While most western RPG's give a lot of XP boost for completing quests.
The difference is that you can just grind by killing monsters to gain levels while in Lightning Returns there are no levels. You don't level up in the traditional sense in that you beat monsters so you can get stronger and you get more exp. for doing quests. In this game, you don't level up during fights or by completing quests, you literally just get stat boosts and you only get stat boosts by completing quests. This forces players to do the quests instead of just grinding, but the quests don't make sense, aren't engaging (from a story point), and are just down right boring (simple fetch quests, kill all the monsters, etc.). This is worse than just mindlessly beating the same enemies.
Scourge626 The thing about Lightning Returns: FFXIII, though, is due to how the ability combining/equipping system works, there is a limited grind effect in the game, though. When you combine even white abilities beyond a certain point, they will turn green and begin to confer a stat boost.
Many of them are boring fetchquests, but I disagree that *all* of them are. The quest where you have to dodge cats lest they steal your secret elixir was pretty awesome. Also, FFXIII-3 is a little bit better in that most of the "kill x monsters" quests are things you generally do automatically while completing the main storyline. You very rarely have to go seek out packs of mobs to grind.
Also, it should be said that the battle system in FFXIII-3 is FAR more engaging than in any MMO, meaning that even the "kill x monsters" quests are generally more entertaining than they would be in WoW or FFXIV.
The point I'm making is that for any game that makes you do quests, they should follow what this video is saying. The quests in Lightning Returns aren't engaging (in the story related sense) so the only reason you do them is to get stronger, not because you actually care about the people (some people may, but I'd say a majority of the people who play this game found most of the missions boring and only completed them so they could beat the game). And because you didn't level up by fighting enemies, you had no choice but to do quests. If you are going to force people to do quests like that then they better be fun and the stories attached to them better be engaging.
The "EverQuest ramble" was the best part of this video! I had no idea something like this ever existed! Thank you for that and more ;).
Honestly I think Guild Wars 2 got their quest systems way right. All throughout the world you have tasks that you don't even have to talk to people to do, and you have possible events that spawn randomly. In addition you have a personal quest-line that you can take whenever you want. Their quest-system forces you to move to different areas to get quests and search for events, and exploring entire regions and completing all quests in the area gives you a BIG chest.
In addition to rewarding exploration, the events affected the world depending on if they were successful. Not helping an allied group take over an enemy camp will lead to the enemy taking more and more land, leading to different events to complete, and helping them will require events that defend the areas they've taken. All the quests let l\you live into the world and the lore. Very solid stuff.
Hi Extra Credits! I've been a viewer for years now, but often I just passively watch your videos, nod my head and understand pretty much everything you cover. I don't know what's in store for your next part on your critique of MMOs, but I'd like to throw in my two cents.
I've only _just now_ started playing MMOs, barring Runescape while I was in middleschool. However, I'd like to add that it certainly can bore a player when they realize their entire MMO quest experience are the same 5 formulas, *unless* the game designers put enough effort into crafting together intriguing dialogue and more meaning into your questions. If the quest is written and presented in an excited, humorous or even ironic manner, it can suspend cynicism for a while, or even make the player feel motivated to put priority over a new quest over other ones.
But this is coming from a total amateur who hasn't seen everything in an MMO yet.
RuneScape has the best quest ever hands down
AaronsGame Yeah, just the entire rest of the game is the grindfest :P
AaronsGame
Runescape quests (at least modern ones) are bascially missions of a single player game slotted into an mmo. While they are undoubtedly amazing, and imo the best example of storytelling i have seen in an mmo, they take a massive amount of recources to produce a piece of content players will only play once. There's a very good reason why it's been 10 years since launch and many questlines still stand uncompleted.
AaronsGame i was about to mention it, it is truly great about quest design. It was my first mmo and so doing quests in WOW felt boring, because in runescape although the quests had start places you could see, but always became interesting and deep, and questlines were truly epic in scale. What would start so simple would end with the fate of kingdoms in the balance
I never really appreciated the quests in RS until just now watching this video, and seeing the comments. I guess it's because I don't play a lot of MMOs, my only one ever being RS, and I usually compare it to single-player games.
That whole ring quest set-up actually sounds really awesome. And even though it may not be the best, RuneScape had some quests that were really awesome and amazingly fun.
*APPLAUSE*! Thank you for doing this! For me, WoW was the most fun and immersive gaming (or entertainment) experience of my life. I truly loved that game! But eventually the 'lather, rinse, repeat' repetitiousness of the quests pulled me out of it. Mists of Pandaria is the perfect example: they focused on creating as *many* new quests and things to do as possible, rather than better quality quests which may have lasted longer and meant more.
I will always remember the questline for the title "Isson's apologist" in Aion Tower of Eternity (of all places).
One of the few times I was actually moved by a narrative in an mmo.
Your videos are incredibly helpful. Thank you!
This is why I love Fallout and the Elder Scrolls games so much! There's so much content you can't get to without randomly talking to people.
You know having you explain how EQ1 worked... now I wish EQ2 worked that way. I remember trying one as a kid (aged 12 I think) and I was insanely lost on what to do. Now I wish all MMOs followed this...
These 5 minutes went by faster than I expected. Good episode though. I'm just surprised that for some reason, this episode felt really short. I guess time flies when you're having fun.
I see now why I quickly get bored when playing MMO games, the quests are too repetitive, like Aura Kingdom, for my example, it's simply the game with 99% of the quests being these 5 categories of common quests to grind levels quickly.
There has to be more creativity in the lore of the game world in order to make me interested in it. The example you provided here is interesting and could make more curiosity out of the game!
Anyway, I'm taking a fair amounts of interest in the incoming game: Tree of Savior.
There's a plethora of things you can do there than just questing. I'd like to see where that goes ^^
Awesome video! I love the idea of an online game being more than grinding. I remember playing "Fiesta" I think it was, and around level 37 where I couldn't do anything but beg other players to help me kill the same type of enemy over and over, I thought, "am I actually having fun anymore?" So it's cool to think that MMOs can be just as immersive as other games with the right tweaking. :D
Oh man, all that EverQuest talk brought back a lot of fond memories from when I was a kid. I miss my Dwarf Cleric and Iskar Monk...
I learned something new about Everquest today. Never knew it as that deep. Guess I should've given it more time. I just didn't because I didn't like the visuals, which weren't really pretty even when it was brand new.
Perfect example of not judging if a game will be fun or not, based on how it looks or its resolution. :}
Back when this game was first released, I was into Ultima Online, which looked a lot better due to its over head 2d visuals. You are right though, I should've looked past the visuals. Hopefully it's not too late to get into it. My biggest fear is not finding any people to adventure with.
Joseph Grutt They recently released or are about to release a new version of everquest. Its not as big as it used to be, but still has a good sizable community to play with.
that everquest thing was so interesting. I had no clue a game had you interact with NPCs in that way
4 paragraphs on my dream mmorpg:
this is what i usually think about when i try to imagine a "perfect" mmorpg that will fix what i dont like about them. i usually come up with a really complex skill system, with learnable skills ranging from cooking and summoning to pushing, lifting and detecting. i imagine skills being your main tools for interacting with the world, and there never being one single solution.
say a group of players are exploring a dungeon when a boulder traps them inside. players will then go through their skills and attempt them on the boulder, such as pushing it, blowing it up with magic, or taming a nearby rock-eating monster to deal with it.
there would need to be random elements to a certain degree, so that the players never know for sure what they will encounter. a swamp that posed no problem one day may be flooded the next day, and an npc might be in a different mood from before, or on vacation. a lot of these unpredictable situations will be influenced by a hunger or fatigue meter, and all skills, passive or active, will be influenced by the players stats.
the player would decide what the goal of the game is. this could be completely up to the player, but im imagining that each new character will get to pick "life goals" from a list, with tasks mainly about self-fulfillment, such as becoming strong enough to face a certain boss, or learning a certain recipe for a crafting profession. these would be updated periodically, for example if the developers see that many players successfully raid the castle of an evil overlord, they may update it in the next patch so that he is killed off and the castle is in ruins, and giving credits to the players that successfully killed him before. this way, an available life goal for a new character might be "bring peace to kingdom x" while in the next patch this may have already happened.
players can then pick the goals they feel would be the most fun to pursue, and along the way they will encounter unpredictable problems, such as the town of their mentor npc on their quest of knowledge being infested with zombies when they return. the player may then choose to train physically and pummel through, learn dark magic to befriend the zombies, granting safe passage, or abandoning the goal altogether and pursuing a different goal, such as mastering a profession or exploring a continent. kind of like some of the bigger achievement in wow, but made into the main goal of the game, and with slight RNG and continuous tiny updates from the developers giving the player the need to master a wide variety of skills and using them in new ways, OR working with people who have the in-game skills or problem solving skills they lack.
+Cupriferous Catalyst Play the first two Star Ocean. Almost fits in what are you saying.
+Enmanuel Tejada Asencio What part of description ?
+filip gvozdiak *of the description
I'm surprised Runescape doesn't even get a mention. As far as quest design goes, it's always had some very good ones. They are treated as the main vehicle for lore and are almost never the simple quest types listed in this video.
This is was something I was thinking about a lot after playing Lightning Returns, since that game is near completely comprised of fetch quests. Interesting episode
This video reminded me so much of Morrowind.
it looks like drawing James was fun with week, from the dog-like "fetch James" to when he was underwater with his hair saying "screw physics"
I just got so excited when they mentioned the secret world!! I've never played an mmo that has managed to actually immerse me in the world of the game like secret world has. Also investigation and stealth missions, so much fun!
Runescape! Greatest quests of all time!
+GoldKitsuneBrony Interestingly, I've noticed Runescape's missions seem to play out like small, self-contained point-and-click adventure games. They present more of a puzzle to solve and an intriguing story rather than the aforementioned 5 basic missions design mentioned in the video. My best guess why is because of the mechanics; Runescape would be disgustingly boring if all your missions were "go kill X goblins" or "go collect some wood."
Jagex did a brilliant job, and I feel a lot of other MMO designers should go check the game out, and take notes on how they did it.
Joseph Young
Interesting you should say that. When designing the game the Gowler brothers were heavily inspired by the point and click adventure games they grew up with. Runescape was originally envisioned as the next gen point and click adventure.
It's so true with those 5 types of quests making up so many MMOs today! Fantastic video! Can't wait for the next one!
i wonder if it would be a good thing to let players write their own quest log? like, give every player a personal journal of some sorts...
I find this topic extra exciting and feel like thinking about it for the most part of the next 7 days, thank you EC!
Seriously, look at Runescape quests. They're the BEST goddamn thing in the game, and are the best quests in all MMOdom.
People say the story is good. Is it just that? What do they usually ask you? Could you tell me plz?
***** That is an extremely complicated question.
That Everquest ring quest reminds me of Belluile's Silver Bowl in Morrowind, except that gave you a journal entry to show that "Hey. This thing's important!" And once you give it to the person in question, that's it.
I must say, although the main quest in Guild Wars 2 was a little disruptive of the game play I really loved the way they handled "questing", you ran into an area and saw that things needed to be done, then you did stuff and was rewarded. Basically it did away with the "Talk to exclamation mark, don't read quest text, accept quest, look at to do list, get reward" which is how I think a lot of people end up playing MMOs.
Final Fantasy 14 a Realm Reborn also had some good quests, even though the mechanics were your standard big 5 they told a story which you rarely see in MMOs.
Also!
+1 for the Soria Moria picture! As a kid Theodor Kittelsens artwork spun my imagination! His troll designs are probably the defacto troll to any Norwegian, ask us what a troll looks like and we will describe his art.
This is what I'm hoping for in ESO.
ESO will make or break the MMO industry for the time being.
I've heard that being said about every popular_before_it's_out video game ever.
Previews don't seem too promising. Just more generic quest grinding.
Played the beta, it's pretty much a boring grind. It's like they're trying to avoid being compared to WoW by just taking what worked about WoW, and what worked about Skyrim, and throwing all of that out the window.
Dagda Mor The had to, because what worked in Skyrim won't work with a hundred people playing it at once.
Oh gosh, James and Everquest--the legends that would surely unfold ...
I really, really hope that EQN will continue those types of quests. They sound amazing.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts about too many quests! i noticed this too in skyrim! if i take on too many i get overwhelmed with my quest log! i get frustrated and end up thinking of quests as work like "GREAT look at all this WORK i have to do!"
Nice to hear some love for _The Secret World_. That world was fabulous.
Thank you. Makes me think of fable 3, which is 20% story, 80% fetch/meaningless quest.
You guys should have a new look at FireFall and its latest iteration. They have literally shot themselves in the foot.
And the story quest you described was very much Everquest. That game brings back a lot of memories. Loved just sitting and watching the sunrise in Overthere.
I like the idea of a game where the quests aren't so explicit. Players explore, kill each other, and then discover the value of items gained later in stores without any previous knowledge of what they are for. They go out seeking 'items' and come back with useful stuff that they didn't know immediately when they got it how it was useful. Also, 0 leveling. A plethora of builds to choose from, each countering the next, but only basic items. Players could gain items in game by PVP combat (which is of course fair since all players had access to the same builds), exploring, PvE, co-op VS AI, all in an open world with zones differentiating whether PVP is allowed, and what % of normal points would be earned from killing a player in that zone (ranging from 0% exploration areas to 1000% super-arenas). Ideas?
RadgarEleding What I had in mind was actually more like stick figures in 2D. Hybrid of fighting and platforming. NPCs would typically be weak (but in PvP zones), with a few bosses (though PvP would be off).
RainAngel111 I believe that EC said on one of his videos that you have problems on both ends of the spectrum (though I think that was his video on MarioKart). If a player is doing so well that it takes no skill to defeat anyone, it is boring. If a player is [in this case, so low level] that there is pretty much nothing such a player can do successfully, it becomes demoralizing.
I came up with this idea when thinking about how a game could solve just that problem. Items of course give you a certain edge to look for, but at the same time the better your gear, the greater the excitement of trying to keep it, as well as the temptation of other players to take it from them, so it balances. Players with better gear are more likely to get ganged up on, so they have to be careful about balancing using power VS being conspicuous. This should keep it fun on both ends.
Sounds kinda like EVE. There's no leveling (in the sense that you're speaking of) and it's most definitely possible for a clever rookie to kill an experienced pilot. Everyone has access to the same equipment. Of course you have to have the skills for it, but those can be trained, and everyone has access to the same skills. Also, PvE and PvP are blended; that is, someone who is running a mission (vs AI ships) can be scanned down and shot at by another player. And non-consensual PvP is a big part of EVE. Also, there's little soul-selling... Unless you're trying to join Goonswarm. :P
Captain Havoc See, but that kindof violates the spirit of what I was talking about. What I am referring to is that *any* equipment *could be* accessed from the very beginning, but in selecting base stats not all will be available. You can choose which portion of all of the equipment you want access to first. No equipment is ever off-bounds when the character is being created.
RainAngel111 Interesting.
This is the reason I have poured dozens upon dozens of hours into Fallout:NV.
Helping get junkies off the street. Deciding what clans live and die. Convincing a tribe to stray away from Caesar. Getting a suave Mexican man into prostitution.
I have written countless pages of quest design theory based on NV alone.
OMG THANK YOU FOR RELEASING A NEW EPISODE! ... I missed you guys Q_Q
Dark Souls is a prime example of using quests to explore the lore and the world.
I feel that another game that did something similar (albeit, on a much smaller scale) was Majora's Mask. Sure there were items and masks to collect, but people don't remember Anju and Kafei for the Couple's Mask; they remember the characters. I'm excited to hear about more games that take this approach to quest design.
Grew up playing EverQuest, I got so excited when you guys mentioned it.
Bah, no mention of RuneScape? That game had excellent quests.
***** uh no.. its definitely a Role-playing game, just because it doesn't have a more so free movement system doesn't suddenly make it a point and click even though some of the quests I think we're sort of rub item A onto object B.
I used to play a lot fo runescape. I will admit I remember the quests being quite fun, mainly because they were all story based and weren't very grindy at all. But then again maybe that's just my nostalgia talking.
***** well I wouldn't know.. I haven't played it for years now but at least 5+ years ago, it was really good even if the combat sucked. (which is one of the reasons I never got back into it either, didn't quite understand the changes and didn't want to learn how to use it.)
Welp, I was excited for them to talk about RS quests, and now I'm sad.
***** Runescape is great, there are literally 3 fetch quests in runescape out of almost 200 and all three are jokes at how bad a standard fetch quest is. there is also a fedex quest done right where every spot you take the follower to gives you some dialogue. then there are quite a lot of get this and that item quests but those are almost always logical items that are one way or another quest related.
This was the first of your videos I've ever watched... must say, it seems more insightful than the standard RUclips fare, so I am subscribing... looking forward to seeing more and looking back to your past videos. Thanks for doing what you do! :)
This episode might have the best art so far!
Well said. That sounded lovely. First time I've heard more extensively about Everquest, must've been awesome.
delusionnnnn Hm, there's bad with the good. :D That reminds me of players getting banned in WoW for kiting Lord Kazzak to Stormwind, eventhough it was Blizzard's fault not leashing him correctly.
delusionnnnn Sounds like someone who played on a Blue server with a mediocre guild. EQ was made before instances and it was at it's best way before they introduced it. EQ never handed anything to you and that's why it was so good.
I lost it at 3:16 how about you guys?
Lee Lee is just my absolute favourite.
I thank you guys for making me understand why I don't like most MMOs, I just can't seem to get involved with the whole principle of propulsion through the game.
Also oh my god the cliff bit.
I love the artwork during the commentary. It's hilarious. XD
why did you put a picture of tf2 hats for object where not just about stat gain no tf2 hat gives any stat gain
Because HATS
TF2 item sets (which needed hats) used to give bonus stats.
There were a lot of little fun things that were done with the EQ dialogue system as well. Like the Halfling guards had ridiculous hats and hamburglar masks and if you complimented them on their attire they'd thank you for it. Had no purpose whatsoever. But having an NPC respond to my "Nice hat!" made me laugh. I also remember the guy in Freeport who asked you What House Are You From? And would accept "The International House of Pancakes" as a response.
the imagery was the best the artist have done to date!!! keep it up!
Guildwars2
I recently got the newest copy of rpg maker. It has been only a few days but i'm crating maps left and right along with towns. I haven't gotten to the quest making part of coding or anything but thanks for these vids. They are really helping me get a grasp of how to go about designing my own game.
Ever since Cataclysm, WoW has actually been putting much more interesting quests outside of the five categories mentioned (don't ask me about Pandaria, I stopped playing during Cata). Although I think the main problem with WoW's quests is that they are so text heavy and the lore is so easily skippable that they're just there for players to grind levels. Which is a shame, because some of them are genuinely interesting, thought provoking and sometimes damn hilarious.
It's also important to mention that the game world WoW has to offer is huge, and if quests like the hypothetical one mentioned in the video were present, it would mean magnitudes more work for the developers and overall cost a LOT of money.
Though... it's not like Blizz doesn't have enough money and that would make the game sososo much better...
Just having a discussion with myself. Ignore me.
I will not ignore you! I agree that the majority of quests in WoW have improved, or at least become more cinematic, where NPCs are more engaging. The text boxes are still overlooked, but I think the bigger picture to take away from this Extra Credits is how EQ managed their quests.
The ring scenario (which isn't hypothetical in EQ) could be possible in WoW, but the issue is that the ring would have a big obvious exclamation point over it. Then you'd be given the quest and told exactly where to send it.
In order to replicate the feeling that EQ gave with the quest, I think they'd first have to remove the exclamation point and just allow you to stumble upon the ring with the typical gear icon. After that, you could go to a typical quest hub and a bonus Fed-Ex quest could pop up just because you're holding onto the item.
I think the main point to take away from quests like the ones from EQ is that when there's a lot of hand-holding, players see quests as a checklist. If you remove the major elements of the quest (notably exclamation points), there's an added level of discovery and wonder about the environment, which makes the quests and NPCs feel more organic. Not to mention this quest is totally feasible without adding much work to the developers.
I believe that if the quest indicators weren't as obvious, more players would be interested in reading the text and understanding the world they're exploring.
MyGoodFriendJon
What is with the idea that unguided quests are superior to guided quests??? Going by extra credits differentiation of genres, they'd be classed as an entirely different genre! They aren't an effective use of delivering content, and are just as easily bypassed by out of game guides as guided quests are with in-game direction. Guided quests offer an effective delivery method, and allow for players to spend less time searching for content, and more time doing content. So then, why do you claim they are better?
mathig nihilcek
Players will spend more time and money in a game if they feel immersed and invested in said game. Give them a shopping list of quests , have their hands held etc and this is far less likely to happen. Also it will highlight more the grind and powercreep. Both bad things from a MMO view. 5 good quests vs 50 bad ones the 5 win every time and will keep your players in the game for longer. Rushing to the level cap and having nothing to do end game is what is slowly throttling MMO's and it's down to bad design, made further worse by extra grind been added rather than giving the player a reason to stay in the world and not rush in the first place.
mathig nihilcek
Fair point. I guess I should have brought up that nowadays, we can't have exclusively unguided quests. We still need guided quests to act as filler for the majority of the game. Without guided quests, the game has too steep of a learning curve and can become too boring, too quickly. If anything, because unguided quests are harder to find and complete, the feeling of accomplishment should be more impactful.
The only problem I see with the majority of guided quests is that it feels less like an adventure and more like the checklist it becomes. For example, there could be a quest that involves collecting troll ears. I could talk to the NPC and understand more about why I need to kill these trolls, but when all I need to do is click the exclamation point, then read the "Troll ears 0/10" prompt, the experience feels empty.
This makes sense when the general audience just wants to rush to the end game content, but EverQuest really made you slow down and smell the roses. Heck, you couldn't really solo the game effectively after level 20. You were required to engage with the community and be helpful in order to find groups that were also willing to help you.
Unguided quests were the unexpected bonus of going out of your way to uncover secrets about the world. They were the added reward for exploring the world without being so obvious. The problem I see with complete guidance is the sense of obligation to finish all quests for the sake of filling a quota to an achievement.
NorfolkTears
Actually, I believe that a shopping list of quests and guided quests is why players will spend more time and money in a game. The larger audience wants a larger quantity of quests to have that sense of "look at all the things I can still do to help me level up". No one wants a grind, so breaking any given level into a handful of quests feels appropriate to keeping the player engaged.
EverQuest didn't have nearly as many quests as a modern MMO, so when you discovered a quest, it really felt special. The issue lies in leveling, though, because EQ was an NPC-killing grind. There weren't nearly as many "kill 10 monsters" quests, but that meant you needed to kill at least 200 to gain a level.
Where EQ shined was the fact that you needed to form groups after level 20 (or sooner) in order to go killing monsters. Sure, leveling took longer and was more monotonous, but that's where the community made the experience. Everyone knew they needed each other to progress, and players behaved as such. The game became more about the journey with fellow heroes than it did about making it to the end-game content.
If we continue to play games that will allow you to solo your way to the top, we need guided quests to take us the majority of the way to break the monotonous NPC-killing grind. However, from my experience, the best quests are always the unexpected secrets that lead to adventures, like the aforementioned ring quest.
That was particularly interesting. I have never played Everquest, my MMO experience began with WoW, which I did very much enjoy for a time.
I have no desire to knock the game, many do still enjoy it, but after years of playing I realised that WoW had become a job, a grindy job that I did more to please people in game than any sense of enjoyment. The enjoyment I got was in SPITE of the quests and the nature fo the game instead of because of it.
So I found what you said about Everquest quite interesting and am really looking forward to seeing what you have to say about The Secret World.
Also, as an aspiring designer I'm really interested in different ways of delivering an enjoyable quest experience.
Thanks for the video, this seems like it will be really interesting!