[MMORPG] A new method of presenting the player a new kind of quest.

Tyler Zumbrun · 2013-01-05T01:46:26

I was recently inspired by Guild Wars 2 to rethink how to implement common ideas of the mmo genre in new ways. So what I started was to analyze the genre, strip it down to the basics and then design based of taking the basics to a more polished and eventual game level. So to begin, I'll lay down the framework with what I have decided to be the two driving actions a player can do in an mmo. Category one is combat. An mmorpg's core gameplay could arguably be about putting yourself in a situation where you (and possibly others) need to attack other things (monsters, or people) in various categories and settings. This is the typical grind, and this is also the "end-game" raiding. Also, this includes player vs player content. Needless to say, most players will spend a good portion of their time doing something about combat. The other category of actions a player can do is simply non-combat. The reason why I grouped everything else in here is because in practical applications, every goal of a non-combat driven action is to feed the combat experience. Trading, crafting, selling, buying all provide extra levels, skills, or items for players to bash other things. Also questing and traveling are used to find new areas and new things to fight. There are very few opportunities in the mmo-genre, in my experience, that offers non-combat actions that are entirely peaceful (ideas like gambling, mini-games and that sort of thing). Now the game has to be able to guide the player to combat and non-combat opportunities, otherwise the game becomes a very expensive chat room. This has historically been done with quests. You talk to a person, most of the time its the one with a " ! " above their head, or a similar kind of marking, He then lays out a simple mix of combat and non-combat goals and tells you where to do them. Afterward you get a reward and you're off on your merry way. Now, with the advent of Guild Wars 2, there is a gradual curiosity building where people are starting to disregard the historical way of questing and try something new. In Guild Wars 2's case, the NPC is eliminated, and you just show up to an area and when you do, a brick comes hurling at your face with a list of objectives that can be done in that area. You do the objectives, fill the bar, grab your reward and leave. From what I can tell, both of these presents the same core problems I feel are the cause for a lot of the complaints about the mmo-genre. Problem 1. It's too transparent. You know what you have to do, how to do it, and where to do it at. This kills all kind of creative thinking, quest text reading, socializing and exploration. All of these are arguably what makes the genre so immersive and social. Problem 2. It's predictable. After your first hub of WoW, you already know the pace of the rest of the leveling experience. Talk to everyone with an " ! ", leave the immediate area to the surrounding map, kill things and collect things until the bar is filled and return for rewards. In Guild Wars 2, it's also pretty predictable, even more so. What I do like though, is that it offers more incentive for exploration, since you have to find your hearts and events instead of being guided to them. So now lets talk about my opinion on some solutions. First off, remove all signs of an NPC wanting to give you a quest. No NPC should have a " ! ", because the ones that don't are generally ignored and then the town starts to feel like a ghosttown after all the quests are done. In order to figure out if an NPC wants help with something, it should be obvious (or not so much) by reading his actual Dialog. For example, talking to a farmer could say "Boy, I wish I had a better tool to do this job with." Should be inclination enough that if you give him a tool, he could reward you. I also want to note here, that a quest journal should NOT be updated after talking to him. If a quest journal were to exist, it would be filled out by the player. For example, if the player finishes talking to a merchant and she heralds about a shiny gem she heard about near the west coast of New Terra, the player may choose to manually input in a journal (Kind of like a sticky note) "Merchant wants a gem, west coast New Terra" or something, so s/he can remember the details without having to talk to the NPC again. Also since the NPC is generally not an omniscient, omnipresent being, their descriptions can be a little more vague than actually needed. So you may find a few gems, and trading them to the merchant she could say "oh it wasn't like this, it was more xxx" That way a player has to make the decision "well you think it could be like this? Do you think 15 would be enough?" Secondly, make the distances to complete a quest varied. This would encourage exploration. You don't know whether or not a quest would take you near or far, or if you should keep talking to more townsfolk to find more things to do. This would also encourage socialization. "Hey, I came this far to try and find X for so and so, or to kill Y for Z. I figured out he's too hard solo, can anyone help out?" Or by asking players "Hey is there anything I can do around here?" Then when you're out exploring or killing things, anywhere can have something of value and any drop *could* be a quest item to someone, so in my mind, that encourages players to try looking for new things, go off the roads between cities, talk to NPCs and other players. It would facilitate adding in Story lines, arcs and more "epic" feeling quests, where the player ends up traveling more, looking for more rare and harder to find things, forging alliances with players and reading NPC text which would promote an overall bond towards certain NPCs (which is dependent on how well the writers are and story depth is, but it facilitates it nonetheless). I believe it would make a more "livable" world, where the NPCs are more colorful and humorous, the players are more engaging, and the story and lore are more built-in and the quests actually feel like quests and not intermittent rewards. The only major problem I'd have with this system, I think, is that it is hard to implement with character levels, and the like. However, if I look for alternative ways of character advancement and derail myself from a level system, I could see this being a method of story telling and quest giving in a sandbox styled game where skills and alliances matter more than equipment and levels. Thoughts? Agree/Disagree with any of my processes? Questions? Suggestions? Anything in *your* mind on how you would design a system?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Zummy December 23, 2012 10:12 AM

15 comments, last by powerneg 11 years, 3 months ago

KorangarDev

355

December 31, 2012 06:25 PM

The point of questing was to make "which mmonsters are good at which level" change.
One quest says "crabs are the best at this level", the next says "flamingos" and so on.

It's supposed to increase the viability of each entity by allowing the player to take turns fighting each one in bulk.
Think about it. You fight one creature enough to fully understand it, then you move on to the next one.
It's an alternative to fighting only one creature for several levels, and it works really well at that end.
It also guides you to your destination, a quality both praised and criticized, but only available to those who know what they are doing.

What we need to do is divorce questing from questing.
Automate grabbing the "kill ten rats" quest for me. I don't need an excuse. Just call it like it is.
Then give me a few real quests. Ones I'll read and enjoy.

But we've been seeing that, haven't we? What with dailies or whatever.

VaultNews

194

January 01, 2013 11:18 AM

Blind Radish, fighting creatures in groups and "understanding" them feels to me like grinding, which I hate doing. I'd rather go with Theis_Bane idea with rewarding the character with anything but experience for finishing a quest. :)

??? Legen... wait for it... dary Game Art for your every needs! ???

KorangarDev

355

January 02, 2013 12:06 AM

I see what you're saying, and while I agree with your statement I think you missed my point.

Compared to killing the same monster long after you've mastered... because it's the path of least resistance... now that is grinding.

Yes being forced to level up by doing the same task, yes that is grinding.
But I think WoW hid that pretty well. I mean, at least the same task isn't exactly the same.

Especially since a lot of the quests are non kill quests. Makes it feel even more diverse.
However there are only so many types of quests.

Dasha

145

January 02, 2013 12:19 PM

If the quests are a means to an end, if they are only for the purpose of leveling up so you can get to end game content then I see this being annoying to players because you're now drawing out the process. But if it's part of the world, something special that will make players WANT to talk to each NPC instead of being forced to. There could be things to discover(even just special lore), special items to earn, allies to make(whom you can call on when in the area), etc

But it also shouldn't be a chore for a player to find someone specific. If you are going to remove the !, then give them something else to lead them where they have to go. If they are in a quest chain, have the person they are looking for be described visually by the previous person. Let them be able to ask other NPC's about the whereabouts of items or characters in case there are no players around to ask, or no players know where the NPC is.

I also agree with not rewarding all quests with experience. The reward could be something that the NPC who gave the quest would have, and the player finds valuable enough for their time.

My current game: MMORPGRTSFPSRLG. Read: Some sort of mmorpg with a special something that will make everyone want to play but I wont tell you what it is.

Status: Pre-Production, Game Design

Team Openings: None

For serious though, my goal is to create a MMO. What kind? Not sure yet. MMO games are my passion and it's a goal of mine to change the industry for the better. Do I know it's an unrealistic goal? Yes. Do I care? Heck no.

If you ever need someone to bounce ideas off of, feel free to contact me.

--------------------------Hail New^Internet

VaultNews

194

January 02, 2013 01:33 PM

Let them be able to ask other NPC's about the whereabouts of items or characters in case there are no players around to ask, or no players know where the NPC is.

That's actually an awesome idea, Dasha! I imagine this as extra lines in NPC's dialogue window. Instead of having arrows on the MiniMap for example, that point toward a quest item, why not ask the NPCs and use your brain a little? Really great idea! :)

??? Legen... wait for it... dary Game Art for your every needs! ???

KorangarDev

355

January 04, 2013 07:55 PM

See, your views is that questing should be an end, the trend has been to double reward the content to draw people in to their own fun, and then later the secondary reward overtook the primary end and the end became the means to an end - the reward.

if that's worded terribly my bad.

I'm just saying, it's form vs function, and both have their merits, as per the nature of from vs function. there doesn't seem to be much in the way of reconciling these except maybe replacing the end game raiding with end game questing, and that will be extremely hit or miss.

powerneg

2,010

January 05, 2013 01:46 AM

usually an MMO has a more interactive behaviour then a single-player(or coöp) game, therefor, a lot of background-talk on a normal quest should be more interactive too,
for example:

story-driven:
you re in a village, a guy asks you to clear the bats infesting a nearby sewer, that sewer is the only entrance to the sewer-works because the makers of the game have put a boss in there that they want you to fight (long) after you have killed the bats

interactive:
you're in a village, you ve just cleared a few bats infesting a sewer, the developers have given some insights into the inner workings of the game and you know that NPC's that have flagged the bat-infestation as a problem that they wish to see solved will still remember the problem for fifteen minutes and i reach such an NPC and still get a reward for the mission, though i do not get the one health-potion he would 've given as an incentive to accept the mission if i had reached him before clearing the bats.

In both the cases the NPC gives some background-story about his work in the sewers, in the first case this back-ground story seems more a forstalling of the actual story, in the second case you might learn at what times the sewer workers usually inspect the sewers and thus flag a problem, information you might be able to find usefull a next time that you 're in a comparable situation.

now i agree both examples exist (and can be fun) on both multiplayer and singleplayer, but usually a MMO-gamer will say "if you can't give me the interactive missions just give me the "kill 10"-missions" before a singleplayer-gamer will say that

[MMORPG] A new method of presenting the player a new kind of quest.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

[MMORPG] A new method of presenting the player a new kind of quest.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Reticulating splines