“Totally not an !” or Quest Markers must go

I must say, I often have much difficulty finding the Town Crier. It would be helpful if they popped up on the compass as a default.

 

Thanks for digging up this quote, and I think it is exactly the kind of thing that we could stand to hear more of. It is important to understand how these problems look from an implementation and development standpoint because that can help us to better understand which types of solutions are more tenable, and which- despite being a good idea- just aren't practical to implement.

The way I see it- we are all in the same boat. If LB and the dev team didn't foresee how difficult it would be to deliver on this promise, then it's no wonder that so many backers also didn't see why keeping the game "old school" in this fashion would prove more difficult than anticipated. What I read here in this quote from LB is that it isn't so much "pandering to newer players and hand-holding" but that the team realized that there were some fundamental problems with playability resulting from keeping the player engaged in the main plot.

If LB says that even he and the dev team- knowing the plot themselves- was having too much difficulty figuring out what to do next, then I take him at his word. I believe it as I have experienced the same difficulties myself, and I am an experienced player of LB games.

Where I see the solution process breaking down in this case is that the dev team has already committed time and energy to a potential solution that is proving to be a PITA to implement correctly (i.e. client-side "overrides") meanwhile the countdown to launch continues. I wonder if more time and effort would have been saved by posing this development conundrum to the players waaaaaaaaaaaayyyy back to solicit more potential solutions, rather than to decide on one internally and then make the "announcement" long after the dev team has committed to a certain path. (If that is indeed what happened- it seems that way to me.)

In addition to some ideas I floated earlier, I have seen other decent solutions proposed in this thread. And I can think of a few more off the top of my head as well.

It's too bad that some of these ideas didn't get considered before going down the path of glowing and waving NPCs. Or maybe they did and were discarded for some other reason. It seems we may never know...

 

I actually don't have a problem with "Waving NPC" as long as it makes sense for them to be doing so. I do have a problem with the blue glow. The difference between the two is that one is reasonable writing, the other is a cop-out.

That said, I'm totally okay with Lord British's response. They know it's not elegant, they plan on addressing it better. That's okay.

 

I'd put it this way... there are times where options make sense. But, a lot times, options are a sign of bad design.

As an example; in the backpack, we have an option to "Hide equipped tools." The only reason this exists in the first place is because the game mechanics have us carry around all of our tools (16 items) in our backpack from the start, even while they're unusable there. But even though our equipped tools appear in our backpack, our equipped weapons and armor don't. There's an inconsistency there that I'm sure confuses new players... which is before they'd ever figure out that they either have to equip by going to the Skills window (which also horribly doubles as our training interface), or manage everything through tiny right-click menus. So, the only reason the option exists is in the first place is because the UI isn't very elegant. And there are at least a few options in SotA that are there for the same reason... covering up problems in the UI.

In the same way, the fact that following through the quests confuses some people is also evidence of problems in the game, that the glow will just cover up, but not fix. I'm glad to hear LB views it as a temporary solution.

Much of the other options exist because of a lack of a commitment by the devs on what they want the game to be -- trying to please too many players -- and this doesn't help quality of the game in the long run. So, even the whole issue that existed of logging into Shardfalls in SPO/FPO was emblematic of this, and eventually the devs decided to take away an option from players for what they believed was the good of the game.

And speaking from personal experience as someone who does design work, if a lot of users came and asked for more and more options I would start wondering whether or not everything needs to be redesigned from scratch.

 

*sighs* I don't think it really matters one way or the other at this point. Glowing npcs, waving npcs, jumping npcs...whatever, it still does not change the fact that it is difficult to find any meaningful connection to the story of this world. I don't feel like an avatar, and that is because I am not. I am an errand girl completely lost by a lack of cohesive story. Completely lost by a lack of direction and sadly just lost at what I thought was to be a "spiritual successor" to the Ultima games I love so very much.

I am not trying to take away from anyone else's enjoyment and love of this game. I am happy for those that are still excited by Shroud and are enjoying it. I just have come to a point where I think I am finished here. I understand it is still in alpha, but the gaps in the story and lack of meaningful quests really just kills it for me. It would take at least another year to implement properly and that's just not likely.

 

I understand how you feel. The quests as we have them now are not what I expected from a spiritual successor to Ultima and not what I expected from a story-driven game with a single-player narrative.
Hopefully with the "phasing" the devs can spice up the quests quite a bit. Otherwise I don't think many will play SotA for the quests or the story

 

What would really get my attention if the NPC did the moonwalk instead of a wave. A wave is just an normal thing in the game and not attention "out of the placenta get my attention" type of movement.

 

Sadly Agree, Very well said

 

Perhaps a solution to the issue would be unique-looking quest NPCs in order to distinguish them from the other NPCs (yeah, yeah I know... a lot of work)? Keep the blue highlight option as a placeholder as long as it is a placeholder while the NPC models are being revamped. Another option along the same vein would be to make only main quest NPCs look unique.

 

Hm, long ago in Ultima 7 most NPCs looked similar. Until you talked to them. All NPCs had distinct portraits, varying faces. No need for glowing or waving. Because a good developed story with good designed quests do not need such stuff. All glowing or waving are just tampering with symptoms. If you (the community) understand a little German (unfortunately my English is far too bad to write my notes in this language) or just are curious, here is a link to my Dropbox Ultima 7 folder with my travel notes -> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7897maic7ozhyzx/AAB9Krh3nWBInqDG5BDxzhTqa?dl=0 The travel notes cover only around 15% of the game, I am still busy with playing and writing. However, maybe you get an idea what the benefit of a good told story is

 

If you mean that they shouldn't all be clones, yes... but this should really apply to all NPCs some time in the future. We shouldn't have towns full of clones that all look alike. They could pay more attention to the details of important NPCs, but all really need to be customized to some extent.

Though the way I see it, every NPC in the game is potentially a quest NPC. There are some that don't have much importance now... because they're fillers, or player created from pledge level... but as time goes on, the devs can always add them into quests.

In the end, there are no characters in Novia with the job title "quest giver" who get paid to give outlanders quests. NPCs are blacksmiths, innkeepers, barkeeps, guards. There are no particular NPCs that are quest NPCs. They should be all dressed in their profession's garb... and any which are not should have clothing designed for them. The town crier should have a special appearance for instance; he should have a hat and bell and scroll maybe. The guard captain should maybe look more important than the rest of the guards. But any of these would potentially be able to give out quests or give players information. And its enough that we're able to find the person we're looking for. "Go talk to the blacksmith in Aerie, he'll tell you how to make this sword." You go to the building with the sign "blacksmith" and find a person dressed like a blacksmith: you've found him. You don't need him to glow or have an exclamation point over his head. "Go talk to the blacksmith's daughter," you go ask the blacksmith about his daughter and find where she is. Same thing.

Then there are some that the devs might want to initiate storylines, get the player to come talk to them. This is what I think LB had in mind with the "waves." Though, when we talk to Edvard, this should be the beginning of the game experience as far as the story is concerned... and the key is also to get players to pay attention and learn how to play through that interaction, rather than just ignoring every he says to exit the scene.

 

I think everyone is focussing on the wrong half of the problem.

I don't mind that it's hard to figure out who has the quests, I don't mind wandering around talking to random NPCs to see what they have to say, some of them are very funny IMO. The problem is that if you try to play the game this way, talking to NPCs as you come across them, that essentially randomizes your journal entries with no way for the player to effect an alternative organisation.

I've "completed" the love questline, in that I've been to the final scene and had the final conversation (didn't get the XP though ) but I'd be hard pushed to describe what the actual plot was by reading through my journal because it's just mixed in randomly with everything else I did, including mail delivery quests.

For some of us he was literally invisible for a few releases.

If /blueglow (or perhaps /signalavailablequest) was added as an emote then people who create their own quests could pay people to stand there and do it, and those of a more deceptive nature could get their kicks tricking people to step into their PvP basement for "a quest".

 

Some people said to make the NPC whistle and wave you over when you walk by. I like the idea. Seems intuitive to me.

 

For me the whole quest mechanics would need a significant overhaul.
It is simply not exciting and motivating to run from NPC A to NPC B, but that is exactly what most of the quests are in this game. It is just talking to NPCs and maybe reading a note sometimes.
Quests need to be multi-layerd. What I want to see is not only talkig to NPCs but also having to explore an abandoned house, having to fight there with an enemy, then finding an item and afterwards escorting an NPC, solving some puzzle, having to insert an item somewhere, searching through some graves, maybe digging them up, exposing the NPC as a traitor, having to fight him and then getting my reward for solving such a complex quest. This is a single-player narrative. Not talking to an NPC, reading a note, talking to another NPC, end of quest. This is a very big problem SotA has right now. Players interested in a single-player narrative, a story and good quests won't be satisfied.

 

Hire this guy to write quests please!

 

Lol

 

I second that. He has great ideas for quests. Where is @Lum the Mad

 

oblivion added optional fast travel via clicking on the map, except it wasn't optional because they removed the other forms of travel.

oblivion added optional compass quest markers, except they weren't optional because they removed directions from the conversations and journal entries.

 

This surely sounds ideal for quest lovers, at least on paper. However, the idea of SotA implementing this scares me to death for one reason. ESO tried it this way, and the resulting quest phasing borked the entire quest system so completely that it became nigh unplayable for some of us. I could only rarely, very rarely, quest with my friends and guild mates because we were always getting "out of phase".

We couldn't see the same world, or the same NPCs, or each other, unless we took the same exact steps, in the same order, at the exact same time, from the beginning to the end of the quest. That's very hard to coordinate in the real world, when people can't always start at the same time, and people want to join their friends on a quest in progress but can't.

We couldn't make our own individual choices. We couldn't talk to NPCs in a different order. We could barely do anything for fear of trigger a different quest path than the rest of the group and being hurtled into a different phase.

It also was literally impossible to help a friend through a quest that you had already done. Not only would you be seeing a different world, but you couldn't even see each other. You couldn't, for instance, say "Come stand over here and you'll find the book" or "Talk to the NPC I'm standing in front of".

All quests became solo. Even when we took the extreme care to do every single thing in sync, that took all the fun out of it.

Please tell me it wouldn't be the SNAFU that ESO's quest system is.

 

I totally agree that it is not easy doing exciting quests in an MMORPG.
Yet SotA wants to also offer some kind of single-player experience. The story is advertised as a single-player narrative and a single-narrative works differently than the common quests of a MMORPG.
Can you imagine a single-player RPG with quests like in WoW or most of the other MMOs out there? Simple fetch- or kill-quests or just talking to an NPC? No choices and consequences? I doubt that this would work.
This is a dilemma for SotA. And I think the "single-player narrative" is one if the selling points of the game. But where is it right now?

I totally understand that not everyone likes the phasing of ESO yet it does a very good job in supporting a great, exciting story with diverse and multi-layered quests as well as choices with consequences. It does come with a price, yes. Yet obviously many players are willing to pay this price in order to experience an exciting story. They do have 8.5 million players!

I don't know what technology and features the devs of SotA can use. But announcing a single-player narrative and choices with consequences but then offering standard MMO-quests without any consequences doesn't work, don't you agree? People will want to play SotA because of the quests and the story but they will also leave the game because of them if they are not satisfying.