dorotea said:
Take a very minor quest - what some would call a task. Get 10 pig hooves. I see no reason why pigs shouldn't have hooves with or without the quest - if you have sold them all for 5 copper pieces each - well there are plenty of pigs.
Take a quest to kill a dungeon boss and get her panties to prove it (high enough charisma and maybe you can get the panties without even fighting anything). I still see no reason to have her go without underwear unless her murderers have the quest. If a player gets something unusual like this it is wise to ask around if it has a purpose before trashing it. Especially from a boss that was hard to get to and seduce or murder.
Take an item that starts a quest. Obviously you *need* to get it when you don't already have the quest - that is the whole point.
So I don't really see a need to check a player's quest inventory before determining drops.
I guess the issues is what is meant by 'active' quest. EQ had no quest journal or 'active' quests but ran off of turn ins. Now in EQ2 for example you had to 'get' a quest first for the quest journal started to update and ghost drops would update the journal. I am referring to how EQ worked and really just about old or special quests that get turned on like on holidays or get replaced due to some development decision. I was referring to quests that have been turned off for whatever reason but the related items still drop and are usless, can't even sell it. Now this means that tie quests item for that particular quest only and not just chosen by the quest developer as a short cut to using already dropping items.
Having to pick up the quest first before the item drops just means everyone spends a bit of time before going to the dungeon wiking all the quests they need to pickup before heading out. Really sucks to get to a dungeon and realized you missed a quest pickup so now you have to run back and get it or just wait for another night and hope you haven't out leveled the groups there.
I much prefer items just dropping and then having the mystery of finding out what it's for or just wiking it after the fact.
While I agree that seasonal quest items should not be dropping outside of the active time period, pretty much everything else should be dropping even if you do not have the quest or even know the quest exists in my opinion. I loved the community efforts to do the epic quests and researching what items mattered and what was unrelated. The slowly growing list of new items found in the world and the slow filtering down to know x item was for y quest. The mystery of quest items, quest prompts, and other surprises really helped the community aspects of the game world.
No doubt you eventually reach the point where guides are created and the people completing it later don't have to do anything more than wait for spawn timers or other randomness but knowing that the players ahead of them contributed to solving these quests. I loved seeing the credits from the various quest guides indicating the players who were so key to solving this and building the legend of key players in the community.
Janthu said:While I agree that seasonal quest items should not be dropping outside of the active time period, pretty much everything else should be dropping even if you do not have the quest or even know the quest exists in my opinion.
Yes this was my point, seasonal or even stuff justs just been nerfed or removed. Don't leave things in the game that lead nowhere.
If you want to leave a quest item dropping at all times as a clue to the existence of a quest, that's one thing and I think that can be a fun idea.
Having all quest items always drop quickly becomes a tedious burden where I am spending more time sorting out what I do and don't need to loot than I am spending time playing the game. As well, once drops for quests are known, it trivializes content to be able to run around and collect items for a quest you don't have access to now and then just do all the turn-ins at once later to essentially skip the content.
Playing Everquest today is an interesting study in things like this because of the age of the game and systems changing over time but still coexisting. There are areas where there are literally hundreds of quest drops that are entirely useless if you aren't doing the quest, and it is a real chore to sort through them. There are quests where the drops only appear if you have the quest active and it just makes things easier in several ways. A specific benefit to the latter system is knowing pretty quickly whether or not you are in the right place to complete the quest. Some details can be ambiguous, and there's nothing less fun than spending a couple hours killing the blue snakes only to realize the reason you haven't made any progress is because the drops only come from the black snakes on the other side of the zone -- this is especially a problem in a game known for having a lot of really rare drops, so you can never be sure if you're doing it wrong or just having bad luck.
Aich said:Janthu said:While I agree that seasonal quest items should not be dropping outside of the active time period, pretty much everything else should be dropping even if you do not have the quest or even know the quest exists in my opinion.
Yes this was my point, seasonal or even stuff justs just been nerfed or removed. Don't leave things in the game that lead nowhere.
Oh I don't know. I'm sort of entertained by wondering wtf this stupid rusty widget that the merchants wont even buy is for. :) As evidenced by the massive clutter in my bank. I'm even more entertained by the threads on fan forums of people in heated arguments about said widget, and I imagine some sick drinking game the devs manufactured where they have to pop another shot every time a new theory is posted about one of the red herrings they put in the game.
Feyshtey said:Aich said:Janthu said:While I agree that seasonal quest items should not be dropping outside of the active time period, pretty much everything else should be dropping even if you do not have the quest or even know the quest exists in my opinion.
Yes this was my point, seasonal or even stuff justs just been nerfed or removed. Don't leave things in the game that lead nowhere.
Oh I don't know. I'm sort of entertained by wondering wtf this stupid rusty widget that the merchants wont even buy is for. :) As evidenced by the massive clutter in my bank. I'm even more entertained by the threads on fan forums of people in heated arguments about said widget, and I imagine some sick drinking game the devs manufactured where they have to pop another shot every time a new theory is posted about one of the red herrings they put in the game.
As above, I think you can have fun with this in specific and limited circumstances, but if you do it too often you lose credibility and good will with your players.
The vast majority of items used for quests should drop all the time.
Chanus said:Having all quest items always drop quickly becomes a tedious burden where I am spending more time sorting out what I do and don't need to loot than I am spending time playing the game. As well, once drops for quests are known, it trivializes content to be able to run around and collect items for a quest you don't have access to now and then just do all the turn-ins at once later to essentially skip the content.
Playing Everquest today is an interesting study in things like this because of the age of the game and systems changing over time but still coexisting. There are areas where there are literally hundreds of quest drops that are entirely useless if you aren't doing the quest, and it is a real chore to sort through them. There are quests where the drops only appear if you have the quest active and it just makes things easier in several ways. A specific benefit to the latter system is knowing pretty quickly whether or not you are in the right place to complete the quest. Some details can be ambiguous, and there's nothing less fun than spending a couple hours killing the blue snakes only to realize the reason you haven't made any progress is because the drops only come from the black snakes on the other side of the zone -- this is especially a problem in a game known for having a lot of really rare drops, so you can never be sure if you're doing it wrong or just having bad luck.
Not really much of a tedious burden, players will already be sorting out what to loot or not based on drop values and inventory weight limits. It isn't really an extra effort with quest items always on drop tables, especially if they have any vendor value. It also doesn't trivialize content to be able to run around and collect items to turn in later vs picking up the quests first, it's the exact same amount of effort.
Iksar said:The vast majority of items used for quests should drop all the time.
Chanus said:Having all quest items always drop quickly becomes a tedious burden where I am spending more time sorting out what I do and don't need to loot than I am spending time playing the game. As well, once drops for quests are known, it trivializes content to be able to run around and collect items for a quest you don't have access to now and then just do all the turn-ins at once later to essentially skip the content.
Playing Everquest today is an interesting study in things like this because of the age of the game and systems changing over time but still coexisting. There are areas where there are literally hundreds of quest drops that are entirely useless if you aren't doing the quest, and it is a real chore to sort through them. There are quests where the drops only appear if you have the quest active and it just makes things easier in several ways. A specific benefit to the latter system is knowing pretty quickly whether or not you are in the right place to complete the quest. Some details can be ambiguous, and there's nothing less fun than spending a couple hours killing the blue snakes only to realize the reason you haven't made any progress is because the drops only come from the black snakes on the other side of the zone -- this is especially a problem in a game known for having a lot of really rare drops, so you can never be sure if you're doing it wrong or just having bad luck.
Not really much of a tedious burden, players will already be sorting out what to loot or not based on drop values and inventory weight limits. It isn't really an extra effort with quest items always on drop tables, especially if they have any vendor value. It also doesn't trivialize content to be able to run around and collect items to turn in later vs picking up the quests first, it's the exact same amount of effort.
If they don't drop in the first place when I don't have the quest, I don't have to sort through them.
It's one thing to decide some vendor loot drops aren't worth keeping, it's another to wade through a bunch of otherwise completely useless quest loot determining what I can ignore, what I need now, what I should save for later.
It takes me completely out of playing the game and turns it into a spreadsheet.
And it's not at all the same amount of effort. Sending you back through content on a new quest is one tool in the box for stretching out content (which is a reality of online gaming whether we want to think so or not). If I can kill the goblin once and receive the loot for all four quests for that area, regardless of whether I have the quests active, I cut the time required by 75%.