I think the answer is obvious, do all of them! You said doing the "kill X amount of creatures" gets repetitive, so does every quest that asks for the same thing. Mix in each quest you said, make chains of quests so one leads to another, having mini stories keeps a game fun, NPC's telling you to kill creatures for no reason is juts pointless, even that needs a story like "__ is eating all our crops, kill X amount of them!". Be creative, focus on keeping them fun, and have fun with it. I'd even suggest playing a little bit of World of Warcraft because you can get a good idea how they set up their quests, but of course don't do exactly what they do, do your own thing.
So the final answer to the title, yes, without planning out and without mini stories, what's the point of someone just saying "go kill these things" for no reason...
[Edited by - Tenac on July 9, 2008 9:23:37 PM]
Are quests worth planning? (for a MMORPG)
As a pen and paper RPG game master, when designing quests, I don't hang the quest as being totally dependent on a specific even (NPC in certain circumstance). I will set it up that way, but I will adapt it depending on what the players do.
For example, if I set up the quest so that it would be given to the players By Bob the Barkeeper in The Wayford Inn, but instead of going there, the players go off to The Gutrot tavern, the I simply adjust the NPC to one in the Gutrot Tavern.
It all works on "Hooks".
The Quest Giver is one such Hook. You can allow your Quests to change Hooks as needed.
All you need to do is to create a list of attributes that a hook needs (maybe they know another NPC or they know of/have an Item). Then all you need to do is a query on a list that contains the Hook type (NPC, Item, etc) to find any matches. You could then use some further queries or sorting criteria (like its an NPC that the players have visited recently or interact with often). After this, you can then randomly select one of the candidates as the Hook receiver.
This would allow you to develop templates for quests and then at run time fill in the details by attaching the Hooks. It also allow for "random" (well not entirely random, more like procedural) quest creation during play. This means that no "solution" can be posted as each player has unique quests.
Also, as the details can be easily stored (essentially you store the hook attachments), you can even allow players to share their quests with party members.
For example, if I set up the quest so that it would be given to the players By Bob the Barkeeper in The Wayford Inn, but instead of going there, the players go off to The Gutrot tavern, the I simply adjust the NPC to one in the Gutrot Tavern.
It all works on "Hooks".
The Quest Giver is one such Hook. You can allow your Quests to change Hooks as needed.
All you need to do is to create a list of attributes that a hook needs (maybe they know another NPC or they know of/have an Item). Then all you need to do is a query on a list that contains the Hook type (NPC, Item, etc) to find any matches. You could then use some further queries or sorting criteria (like its an NPC that the players have visited recently or interact with often). After this, you can then randomly select one of the candidates as the Hook receiver.
This would allow you to develop templates for quests and then at run time fill in the details by attaching the Hooks. It also allow for "random" (well not entirely random, more like procedural) quest creation during play. This means that no "solution" can be posted as each player has unique quests.
Also, as the details can be easily stored (essentially you store the hook attachments), you can even allow players to share their quests with party members.
Quote:Original post by ShadowBit
Let's say we are making a MMORPG, where players get experience both from PvE and from quests, and we want to create quests;
I'm thinking of a few types of quests:
1) NPC_1 asks the player to kill X of this or that ceature
2a) NPC_2 asks the player to get a potion from NPC_3, who will ask to find some ingredients, which require.... etc...
2b) NPC_4 asks you to rescue someone, but that someone tells you something about NPC_4 that makes you doubt of his story, etc...
Now, the first type looks easier to me concerning implementation, and if we change the NPC giving the quest, the creature requested and the X number, we'll make lots of quest quickly (but very similar).
The second type requires more planning, more npc interaction, exploration, a background mini-story, etc...
The problem is: soon after the quests are ingame, the players will put solutions online, totally removing the challenge from the second quest, so is it worth spending time to create them?
Someone could say that who likes the quests, will solve them without solutions, but unless the quests give no reward at all, some people will be getting an advantage (reward) without actually putting any effort in it, and I'm a follower of the "no free lunch" principle :)
So... would you spend time in making such quests? Would you accept that players use solutions, or will try to take measures against that? (like.... mmmm??? suggestions are welcome).
Even though they might know the solution they will still have to kill the guardians or run the distance, etc...
These days it is becoming possible to on-the-fly create parts of scenarios (like changing the location in a large enough area so that the online cheat turns into just a hint). Numersou factors could be changes (combinatorics is your friend...) and even sections of terrain can be made different each time.
Instancing can allow recreating environments entirely as well as keeping out ringers and other ways of nullifying a quests difficulty.
NPCs (monsters) can likewise be scrambled (amazing how much more complex a situation gets to solve when the monsters roam around in (more)unpredictable ways and vary in abilities, etc..
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
