User made quests, for me, look just like a warped auction house. You supply demand, state your price, get the goods. And yeah, it is slow and vulnerable to exploits, as new players might not be aware of a certain economy, and players will easilly be able to resell goods to unsuspecting honest players.
The best type of quests I can think of are purelly RPG quests -- Gorgon is ruining the nearby city. You have to travel deep south to meet a monk who will show you the Monkey Hand technique. Knowing that, you have to sneak up on Gorgon when he sleeps during the day and serve justice.
Hmm. I have this idea of actually having the quest giver get a reward from the player in the form of some reputation points or so. The player will "appreciate" the quest, if it is well written. That would of course require the game easy access to making such quests, even a text based one would be a lot of hassle -- but still, it would be a nice creative toy. And implementing asynchronous, multiplayer coop wouldn't be much of an issue methinks. Will deffinetlly explore this idea at some point.
This reminds me of an issue I had when I was thinking about AR LARP games. One of the issues I had was that I was looking for more player-driven game-play.
It occured to me that for a player to give out a ques and have it not be item-farming or ant, they need to have some sort of stake in the result. Using the example of the Gorgon attacking a city, perhaps the player has guild-mates or friends in that city, but can't do anything about the situation personally. Then it makes sense for them to offer a reward or bounty to someone else who might deal with the situation.
You have to set up an environment where there's value in paying someone else to do something, because in most traditional rpgs, you as a player are able to do most stuff by yourself or as part of a party, and it's just simpler not to involve another independent character.
A possible abstract reward is a reputation mechanic. You complete a "quest" that helps out a lot of other players, and they have the option of giving you rep points, like a lot of message boards have. It's a way to help players keep track of what kind of character you're being, and it means that in a multi-player scenario, your actions have true far-reaching effects on the game.
