Kilsin said:Community Debate - How many quests in an MMORPG are too many, in your opinion? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
Once again. I guess I don't understand the question.
Are these required quests? If not, why would anyone care?
For those that don't want quests, they don't have to do them.
For those that like quests, the more the merrier.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - How many quests in an MMORPG are too many, in your opinion? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
No such thing as too many. If a person doesn't want to do a quest then don't do it.
Questing should be a valid method of gaining experience, along with mob grinding.
Dalmarus said:I'm not so concerned about the number of quests as I am the purpose.
For me, there are only 3 real reasons for a quest: world storyline, class storyline, carrot to suggest other zones/areas of the appropriate level.
^ I agree with this. A direction where I can start from and get lost or distracted by other sanboxxy things but come back to if I get too lost.
On the flip side I like having quest optoins available if I dont know what to do, or teaser hints from NPC's. Even as vague as "you have not proven yourself to our kind, I will not share the secrets of Uber summonerness....."
"... that will take forever and make everyone that sees you envy you at the end and wonder how you got such a thing- while at the same time giving you "accidental" completions just from your happening to kill something when in another area or having picked up that odd lore thing when you were level 1 and did not know what it was for- untill now- 20 levels later!!"
MyNegation said:
and the answers is as few as possible, because quests make the MMO world into an online version of "the amazing race" when you or your party run from hub to hub trying to complete tasks as fast as possible and reach the end line to win the prize.
but the most important aspect is that quests should not grant XP at all.
quests should grant currency and reputation, skills, special gear, crafting materials and any other reward except XP.
Completely agree with this.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - How many quests in an MMORPG are too many, in your opinion? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
As this is a quantitative question and I take it seriously , I will make an attempt at how to quantify that .
A quest is an activity that rewards with money , items , faction , XP or any combination of that . A way to quantifying that is to consider the time spent on this activity versus any other activity which is not questing like exploring , chatting , RPing , crafting or grinding on some camp . I would say that about 50 % of gaming time spent by an average player (average player being defined like the player who plays an average number of hours / week) on questing is a reasonable maximum . If it was much more then for most players there would not be enough time for other non questing activities if they do them all (or they would do only a small fraction of the available content) and if it was much less then the world would feel empty and without purpose .
Then it immediately appears that this is tied to the level of the quest because the time spent in a level is extremely different - perhaps 10 minutes for level 1 and 1 month for level 50 . So it is useless to develop intricate quests taking much time for low levels because the reward would be vastly outlevelled by the time the quest is finished . I could imagine the following structure :
Level 1 to 10 : mostly simple repeatable tasks (get me 5 Orc ears) rewarded with money and XP which are meant to make the player faimiliar with the zone . Quite a few faction quests because people will need to grind class/race faction . No or very few special item quests . No or few crafting quests, only to make familiar with the tradeskill . The time spent in these levels is low so 20-30 such tasks/quests per starting city should be enough .
Level 10 - 30 : Towards the upper end the quests for items will start to prevail . The time spent in these levels is counted in weeks so quests may demand travelling and contain several steps . Typically we could have here "newbie" and "mid level" class armour/weapon/spell quests because the armour won't be outlevelled by the time the quest is finished . Also crafting quests for recipes or rare materials . Here the zone is no more the relevant parameter . For the whole level range there could be 2 - 3 specific racial lore quests / race , 5 specific class quests/ class and 5 specific craft quests / craft . This would give a maximum of about 100 - 150 quests for the whole level range overall or 15-20 quests / PC. Besides items there would always be faction but no or little money/XP rewards .
Level 30 - 50 : Here is the kingdom of Epic quests . Both for epic armor/weapons and for epic craft . An average player will spend months in these levels so there is no limit for imagination . As for a given time spent on questing players generally prefer a long quest with a good storyline rather than 10 simple 1-2 step quests , most quests should be of the former type . The notion of a maximum is here irrelevant because what will be limiting is the manpower available to design such quests . Perhaps as the danger here is to have too little rather than too much , throw in the mix a few simpler faction / craft quests .
Kilsin said:Community Debate - How many quests in an MMORPG are too many, in your opinion? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
No such thing as too many if they are meaningful to the character you are playing. Fetching 20 rat hides isn't meaningful. Learning about the planet you are living on, the diety you follow, the history of your race; that is meaningful. Class quests can be meaningful as well if they are designed so that you are at a disadvantage by not doing them.
I was over 2k before I quit EQ2, and I will be perfectly honest, I do not mind "fetch this" or "kill these" quests. Sure nothing but epic level quests (or just interesting ones) would be fantastic, but I spent many an hour working on them as something to do. Much like I did with AAs in EQ.
I know I'm late to the conversation, but...
This is a really difficult question. Without giving numbers, I would say something like this (with each line being additive - and the list perhaps not being compl
- Enough quests to introduce you to a zone / region of the game... and no more.
- Enough quests to tell lore that needs to be told... and no more.
- Class / epic quests.
- Key quests.
I don't think quests should be "Tasks" (go pick 10 apples from that tree) - and I don't think experience should be a reward. That is, if the reason the game has you doing quests is in any way related to chasing exp (realizing, of course, that you will get exp as you do things involved within quests)... then it shouldn't be in the game.
Unlimited quests, if they come with lore. But no quests just to have quests, such as a guy standing outside of the armory paying me 10 silver to walk into the shop and get his armor for him.
Quests are fantastic ways to introduce lore or to encourage exploration of unique places.