“Totally not an !” or Quest Markers must go

I can only listen to this in my head when i read that on R39



Please remove this, not even as an option. @Lord British please explain this
Who asked for this? Why wasn't this decision asked to the community or Dev+ first?

B E T R A Y A L

 

We are a dying breed...we need new younger fresher blood...even if that blood hasn't as much imagination as ours, its needed.....i support the decision personally especially as it is optional

 

Gypsy Question: Do you pick up and hold onto the Blade of the Avatar to know a true nature of those around you, or do you drop it in horror like an Obsidian General?

 

I admit I am a little annoyed by this move myself. It's the same kind of hand holding Richard rails against. There's no difference to me between a giant ! and making someone glow. BUT.. the key here is it's OPTIONAL. If someone wants their hand held they can leave it on.. what I do *I* care? *I* won't see it. It won't affect my game.

 

As long as I can turn that crap off, it's fine with me.

 

I also dont really like this. I understand, but I dont like it. Not having "hand-holding" quests was one of the things that made me love this game even more.

I would say that at the very least, this option is OFF by default and players that WANT this option will have to enable it in the game settings. This will give the notion that the glowing quest npc feature is not the default way to play, I think that is the most important factor here.

 

Not having Quest markers, not having a proper map system, not having, not having, not having......made me not quest, made me lost, made me not have fun, made me quit.

 

lol well here we go again. One thing we are seeing in this game is that some things will change and we will just need to get used to them. In trying to please everyone sometimes things have to change for the multiplayer experience of the game, otherwise the team might go crazy.

I am not so upset about it and especially since I spent like 4 hours with a backer who had come back and tried to play the game. He ended up screaming and ranting at the difficulty just to get out of the starting area, which is all he wanted to do, was place his house, he did not care about or want to even play a game that is not fully developed.

So as much as some may want the online game to resemble an offline game (I am one who feels that way and wants this in many things), we will have to make concessions. Hopefully for the offline game it will be standard difficulty to figure it all out, which does not have to cater to the impatience of the MMO world.

 

not having a proper map system, not having, not having, not having... didn't stop me from enjoying the quest... the only thing that stopped me was the broken quest lines... which I will continue when SotA is officialy release...

 

Well... the glow might get them attention so they get bugged and play tested. Right now I don't quest (also just my personality).

 

Ill probably keep it on and turn up camera bloom so they really pop. I need a rake in the grass to grab my attention sometimes I should build a questing outfit once we get more deck slots.

 

You are quite wrong. It will affect your game, because once quest markers are in, then quest writers think it is not necessary to waste time writing directions so you can even find the quests without using a wiki. The lowest common denominator then does not become OPTIONAL. Skyrim is evidence of this, someone even had to mod all the quest text with directions so that those using the quest arrow off could still play the game. The devs having a fully voiced game realized it was too much work for every voice to provide directions to every quest, like things was back in Morrowind where everyone spoke with the same words.

 

Here's my problem.

For over three years now, "no quest markers" was a guiding tenet of the entire philosophy of SotA. It was shoved down our throats with abandon, time and time again. "This won't be like other RPGs! We won't hold your hand!!"

As recently as five months ago, this was still what was being trumpeted:

A lot of these auto mapping, auto conversations, and quest logs: those were made to fix problems that existed in the early days. But I actually think in aggregate they’re the wrong solution. They’ve actually made games mindless. What we’ve tried to do is start where we were in the past and fix those problems, but fix them in a way that leaves you with something that is relevant. For example, there're no exclamation points, there’s no quest log, there're no arrows on the map. When you walk through a town, if somebody wants to tell you something, they point at you and go “Hey, come here! I’ve got something for you!” They’re actively soliciting you rather than just standing there waiting for you.

Now, its nudge nudge, wink wink, we lovingly call this "not an !".

I would add this to the growing list of rolled back/changed/whatever you want to call it promises which also includes...

Crowdsourcing
Limited Housing
18 month dev cycle
nickel-and-diming microtransactions, including pay-for-power
selling gold


EDIT:
Do NPCs in SotA actively solicit you? They didn't last time I played.

 

I guess I need to add more.

Here's the main reason I have the above problem:

The quests in SotA are not strong and clear enough on their own at the moment to support NOT having these markers. So now, instead of improving what they said they were going to deliver, this feels for sure like the lazy way out. Are they going to still make the effort to make these quests stronger so people don't HAVE to use these horrible glowing markers?

I hope so, but I lack confidence.

And trumpeting the fact that you can "turn it off" only serves to help justify the hack in the first place. Turning it off isn't good enough, the quests need to be stronger so this is actually a viable option.

 

The icky feeling that the quest discovery glow is giving me is the fact that having it 'on' is clearly better from a competitive standpoint. Will players feel compelled turn it on just to keep up?

 

Yea. I'm not going to argue too much about this, because I don't think it'll make a difference to do that. I just think its a really bad decision, and the reasons why are way too obvious. If the game presentation, storytelling, the information given to the player, and UI were clear enough, you wouldn't even need an NPC glow. The fact that the devs have decided to put it in shows that the game has major deficits, and the glow is just going to be a crutch for that.

Yes, its optional. So, I'll turn it off. Its also optional for us to support the game. Don't get the wrong idea... I'm not going to rage-quit and sell my account... But I have to be honest, and a lot of the recent direction by the devs has affected my enthusiasm. Its not only that they're decisions I thought were bad, but I have doubts about whether Portalarium knows what they're doing anymore or whether they really have a strong vision for the game. There isn't much to do in the game except grinding, and the fact that the glow is going in gives me a lot of doubts about how fun the story will play out. So, I'm holding off putting any large amount of money in the game, am not excited about ponying up much for Episode 2, and have not been recommending it to friends. This didn't start now, but I feel now is a good a time as any to say it out loud.

And the bigger problem is that its not just me...

So, yea, I'll turn it off. Its still a bad decision.

 

The release instructions say nothing about improving the writing of quests to improve the ability to find characters. The blow glue is clearly the fix for that problem...

 

What is the difference between following Google or the glowing NPCs in order to complete your quests?

In the early days of computers I loved the command line. Typing in cryptic and logical syntax to make the computer do what I wanted. I resisted the GUI until the Amiga computer was released.

Now I struggle with Linux and curse Linus for his evil creation every time I'm stuck using a command line.

I recommend Glowing NPCs with a Flashing "*" above their head.

 

next they should add my favorite feature in modern MMORPGs and that is Auto-Pathing, where you simply click a quest objective and the avatar automatically runs to it... that would be awesome and will make everything simpler...

 

So, as @Bow Vale said the idea is to attract (or better, not scare) the new blood, but this is the wrong way to do it and it's completely against building a "spiritual successor" to the Ultima games. If you break the sense of exploration you're breaking this, optional or not. This is not what we were supposed to be doing here.

It's also worrying the direction devs seem to be following lately as @redfish or @Bubonic explained so well.

Anyway here are some suggestions:

• Quest markers are Off by default but can be turned On, you get less XP if you do this
• No matter you turn ON markers there will always be hidden quests not visible with this option.
• Blue glow only active for quests in progress so you can remember but never active for new ones to discover.
  
• Create some lore as you did with the Oracle/PVP and require to do something in the world (finish a quest, get a magical item, whatever...) that active this functionality on
• Finally mark those Avatars using this with a Glow of Shame so i can block them ingame. Also my vendor would sell items to them 100% more expensive (ok this one is funny but not completely a joke)

There you get some positive and constructive feedback, right?
But please tell me this is just to test our reaction and this is not final at all. This is important. Let the community decide on this as it was supposed to be since the beginning... please.