Comments on: Quests: Now With More Grind

By: Psychochild’s Blog » Examining the Grind

Psychochild’s Blog » Examining the Grind — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:06:16 +0000

[...] take a look at questing and “grinding” from my own point of view. The topic was originally a post on Michael’s blog. Wolfshead also linked to a discussion he had last year, which he later [...]

By: Serith78

Serith78 — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:33:09 +0000

WOW style questing actually makes the grind several times worse by forcing you to spend large chunks of your gaming time running back to turn the quests in. Time you could have spent just killing mobs or doing something you wanted to do ingame.

I think the best questing blend is a combination of open ended repeatable quests such as towns putting bounties on monsters, and the ocassional deeper story arc you need to find. The open ended bounties, caravan guarding missions ect encourage grouping and since rewards could just be dumped into your bank logically they don’t involve a ton of unecessary travel.

As for quests with actual storylines, 10 well written engaging ones are better then 1000 attempts to write a story about why you need 200 bear hides. But like raiding the biggest problem lies in companies wanting to appeal to players who DON”T want a mindless game experience.

By: JediOfTheShire

JediOfTheShire — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:00:58 +0000

I just wrote on this a bit at Wolfshead’s (http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=1479&cpage=1#comment-7670) but I think that Kaplan meant guided design as in: developing the story of the town (quest hub) away from the to-do list it is now, not throwing you into a trench.

As I also wrote at Wolfshead’s, I get the distinct impression that WoW is supposed to be a story-driven single-player RPG that you just happen to be able to play with other people. It’s just an MMO, not the Virtual World that a lot of us would like MMOs to be.

I can’t remember where I wrote it, but somewhere (perhaps on Muckbeast’s old blog) I wrote about the difference between an MMOGame and an MMORPG (Virtual World). If I’m confusing anyone please just ask and I’ll explain- or just write up a post for my own blog and link you.

By: Longasc

Longasc — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:26:16 +0000

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1096

Jeff Kaplan has spoken. About “quest christmas trees” lighting up (quest hubs) and how it is better to deliver the content slowly and in small doses for a guided experience.

Wah. You know, he basically meant after doing Quest A, you are given Quest B, then Quest C… and not A,B,C at the same time.

Almost worth a new topic, but it is already covered in the article: Muckbeast’s wife did not do Quest A,B,C and thus cannot start the D,E,F quest sequence yet.

I wonder if Kaplan goes away from Quest guided content delivery in the ominous nextgen MMO. But most probably I fear he will rather reduce READING. He has a point when he says every medium delivers a story differently, even must deliver it differently.

But his conclusion is wrong. People do not like reading the quest text because the writers have to make up crappy texts for Kaplan’s tons of awesome shitpile-collection quests… yes, he loves players to collect poo in every form. No kidding. :>

By: Tesh

Tesh — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:58:51 +0000

“Why make the customer happier if they’re going to pay your sub fee regardless”
I’ve argued this for a while now. It’s part of why I see subs as encouraging bad (or at least lazy) design. It makes sense from an ROI beancounter standpoint, but it’s very short term, and effectively withdraws goodwill equity from the brand name to milk more money.

Happy customers give you money. Customers who feel milked don’t put up with it for long.

By: JediOfTheShire

JediOfTheShire — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:25:06 +0000

It’s hard to say what will happen, but WoW has set a business standard that may not even be attainable for a game focused on creating a virtual world. WoW is more or less a part of popular culture, and so any MMO that cannot accrue a similar number of subscribers will be viewed as a failure. Why make the customer happier if they’re going to pay your sub fee regardless. As sad as it may be, games are generally a business first, and entertainment second.

By: Longasc

Longasc — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:15:48 +0000

Is it not interesting to see that Wolfshead came to similar conclusions in late 2008? Maybe it is time to apply the lessons to a new MMO. I voiced some concerns on his page that future MMOs either have to be similar to the guided bus tour experience of WoW or will have to live with by default lower subscriber numbers. Maybe better for the players and the games, but not for those interested in MMOs as $$$ cows.

By: Challenging the Sacred Cash Cow of Quest Based MMOs | Wolfshead Online

Challenging the Sacred Cash Cow of Quest Based MMOs | Wolfshead Online — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:33:34 +0000

[...] In August of 2008 I wrote an article that challenged the quest centric paradigm of current MMO design as popularized by Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Recently Muckbeast at Bright Hub’s MMO channel and commenters on his personal blog have picked up the torch and have dared to challenge this sacred cow with some superb insight. [...]

By: I Love Blocky Terrain, Simple Spell Animations, and Cube-Headed Character Models « Holocron in a Hobbit Hole

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:17:14 +0000

[...] had some reason earlier to link to Muckbeast’s Blog, I think it had to do with the whole Virtual World topic. Check it [...]

By: BryanM

BryanM — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:32:16 +0000

The old line “there might not even be a level cap at all!” that every developer always says but never means is pretty good for a laugh. It translates to “50 or 60″ almost without fail.

A flatter power curve is something I’ve mostly viewed as a good thing. Climax’s version of Warhammer was going to have everyone usable in theory – getting hit by a sword was getting hit by a sword, whether it’s a Slayer or Ratcatcher swinging it.