Will or should question marks above heads of NPCs make it into the game?

There is a broader discussion on Reddit, here, about quest markers. It raises some interesting points, in particular about how a lack of quest markers can cause unnecessary frustration if not handled carefully.

 

There's a difference between being able to fInd ones own way through a properly designed quest and NEEDING quest marker's and arrows for badly designed ones.

 

I agree that a good design doesn't require question marks.. A good portion of the Owl's Head quests, if not all of them, are broadcast by NPCs in and around Owl's Head. Going to the town's tavern bad speaking to the bat keep is another standard way of getting quests for the area. If handled correctly there are even ways to lead people to certain areas without needing guiding arrows and trails. From what've seen in the previous and this release the designers here are looking at ways to ensure that the frustrations of getting and finishing quests are covered in ways that don't require question marks and trails.

 

Just nonsense written by people who never played games when there wasn't a wiki or walkthrough easily available.

We never needed them in the past, and we don't need them now. It's way more fun to have a player tell you about secrets in the game anyhow.

 

This sentences from the Reddit about the neccessity of quest markers and how they impact immersion gives me the creeps: "Of course it breaks immersion, but in a game like Final Fantasy, which is an MMO, immersion simply isn't the priority. Immersion is already broken by so many other things, but it's kind of necessary in such a game. But in a game like witcher this would not be ok."

This confirms that many if not most MMORPG players don't play out of fun or exploring a world/living in a virtual world but to be as effectiv as possible. It's about competition, becoming the best player as fast as possible, gaining every set item as fast as possible, being the one with the highest ranking in PvP...
This leads to the game being designed in a way to work as effective as possible. Immersion doesn't count anymore, story is not important, NPCs are not that important...
If you play the browsergame Shakes & Fidget this is what most MMORPGs boil down to, it's the basics stripped of everthing that is "unimportant" in an MMO and this terrifies me and makes me extemely sad.

 

Hi Darkmoon, that is one of my concerns too - I like the multiplayer aspect of SOTA but it MUST NOT compromise the single player quests / storyline. For me it's very important the story and quests are as good as Ultima 7 (in fact they should be better since this type of story telling has had time to evolve).

 

I have mixed feelings about this.

Back in the days of Ultima Underworld, I thought it was epic that you they didn't label the bones of Garamon. If you look at it, it just says "You see a pile of bones", like any other bone.
You have to remember the hints that Garamon gave you in one of those vivid dreams, "... somewhere to the south east...". Then some inhabitants will say that a great wizard or sorceror died somewhere.
When you visit a certain place, you will see lots of magical items like wands and stuff, and also, a pile of bones in the middle.... hmmm .... I wonder...
Those bones are the bones of Garamon that you need to place at Garamon's tomb to summon him.

So back in the day, wow, you really had to pay attention and read everything carefully. It felt epic, like you were faced with a challenge, and once you completed it, you felt a great accomplishment.

But that was over 20 years ago. Times have changed, and for worse, we are now an instant gratification generation. No longer can we go back to the days of trying to find Mankirk's wife without any markers. We are too used to this quality of life features in the form of markers.

We are also in the internet generation where we can just look up solutions, unlike in the past.

I also don't know whether I can go back to finding the bones of Garamon again without markers.

I think a compromise can be met. You know how in the Batman Arkham series, Batman has various gadgets that allows him to track criminals through their blood, handprints, etc.
Ultima Online I think had some form of detective skill as well.
Batman could also beat up informants to find out Riddler secrets.

So instead of giving us bread crumbs or indicators outright, how about if a compromise is met, by making us work for the breadcrumbs?

The Avatar could beat up a member of the thieves guild and force him to reveal where objects or people or interest are.
There could be a detective skill that lets the Avatar discover secrets.

 

It could be some kind of spell, a revelation spell. Those who would like to use it spend skillpoints on it and they can activiate it whenever they want to and it shows them breadcrumbs, marks quest-givers and highlights objects. Those wo do not want those things just ignore the spell.

 

Noooooo seems an appropriate choice.

 

I absolutely do not want ! or ? floating in the air. I love the immersion of needing to chat with an NPC to gather clues, ask for work, etc. You ask a question, they tell you to go talk to so-and-so. You have no idea where this guy is so you start asking that. The farther away you are the less the NPCs seem to know. Just like if I were in a real village, I would be asking around to find what I need. There is no shortcut straight to the ! or ? with a quest guide that puts the game on rails. Everything in the real world is going faster and faster. Games have been doing the same. I found no ! or ? to be a very relaxing experience. We need a virtual world back rather than a race to end-game.

As far as highlights go, I understand the immersion breaking comments, but personally it does not bother me. Before I get the highlight I have to find the object first. The highlight just lets me know I am on the correct object since I can't actually use my hands to reach down and grab it.

 

so instant gratification is ok when it's something you find helpful or annoying, but not so much when you want interaction. That is an interesting self argument.

why is it ok that you don't have to just select stiff and move it, interactive, even if it's not the right object sans highlighting

it is not ok that I prefer some indication, like I would get from a DM at a table top run RPG, but must fully resort to what context clues I can pull from a block of dialog?

there's is one huge difference for me with quests in a box, and quests across a table that just don't translate to games in a box. You can ask questions and get answers better than. .. im sorry I don't know what that means.

until a level of conversation can exist like that, I'd rather not spend MY time playing ask the same question to twenty npcs game.

It doesn't have to be blatant, I think we can all agree that direct GO HERE pointers are stupid. But area overlays or general direction indicators, why is that wrong?

if an old man tells us the crazy hermit lives somewhere overt there and points, why can't the computer game, the device invented to make things easier, give me a general direction arrow or overlay some area on my map that the NPC said was the area to seek?

Why would you make it more difficult than an actual RPG, or even a real world experience where you have all those tools?

again, why is your convenience for highlights ok, but pointers to quest areas or overlays are bad?

all I have heard for excuses are how some generation of spaz monkeys, or some people have no will power, can cope by not using options.

that sounds like the same last common denominator answer that is also applied to having ? over NPC heads i.e. non starter.

 

To me the two are different animals. At the end of the day, you are right, this is a video game. The difference is that I want it to be as much of a virtual world as possible, but of course this comes with limits. Me clicking on something and having a tooltip pop up or the cursor change icons is simply a notifier to the player. Highlighting is the same thing. It is just a different method of arriving at the same place, information to the player. In a true virtual existence these notifiers would be null because you would physically stick your arm out and touch whatever you are trying to interact with. This game is on a screen with a keyboard and mouse, therefore a notifier must exist in some fashion. Some are more sensitive to the level of said notifier. I was simply conveying that it is a necessary evil, so to speak, and therefore I personally don't mind it be a tool tip, mouseover icon, or highlight. So long as I can tell the software what I am trying to accomplish and be successful.

The questing is a completely different beast. That is a core fundamental on how you play the game. For me, the ! and ? along with directional arrows and such are like getting on the freeway. It's all about speed and convenience. Sometimes, I want to take the backroads and just worry about looking at the scenery. We have had game after game come out and the freeway keeps getting faster and faster. I like the fact a game is on the horizon where it has a much more relaxed approach. I'm sure you can still speed through it, but it doesn't seem like it is designed to be like that. It forces you to pay attention and gather clues, which help the immersion too. The ! and ? approach results in no real need to read quest text other than to get your objective. Granted I haven't seen too much of SotA yet, so I don't know how in-depth the NPC interaction is, but so far I like it. Of course I would love to see a fully fleshed out questing experience where NPC's have actual conversations with you but that also may be a bit much to ask at this point.

The perfect scenario is having a DM like you mentioned...but as that is also not likely reality, I feel I can settle for what SotA offers and have fun. MMORPG's used to be heavily influenced by table top games. Somewhere in the themepark rush we lost that and SotA, while maybe not perfect, feels like the closest to getting back to a tabletop-esque MMORPG, or even just RPG.

TL;DR: One is merely a tool, the other is a core mechanic.

 

please god no.

 

You have just made my argument for me.

Sometimes I want the highway, sometimes I want the back roads.

Those are OPTIONS I have to pick from.

Make it an option, and you can play how you want, and I can play how I want.

The argument about "technical" resources is moot, as has been pointed out, the limit on that can be as large or small in scope depending on design, and a lot of those sub-systems already provide all of that information (you don't limit yourself inside the game code, even if you don't present all that data to the user).

So it is simply a matter of presentation (tool layer) of the data that is already happening (core mechanic).

Cheers

 

Hmm... I am certainly in favor of this comment.

However, I'm not sure whether it is because of the question mark, or the blue faced devil below it.

I'll just go with both, just to be safe.

 

As long as the game attracts as big an audience as possible through an overall excellent game system, and does it's best to be kind to non english language natives and dyslectics I am all for not having ! and ? in the game.
If ! and ? will help quite a few people because the game system in not kind enough to them then I am all for having ! and ? in the game.

(Sorry if I have written what I mean in a poor fashion, I'm not english language native, but I think the readers of this post will understand)

 

Gone are the days where MMO's need to fill every possible playstyle. If you are dying for ! and ? type questing, there are dozens of choices out there. The allure of this game is that it is different. It is a return of the type of game some of us miss playing. Humans are like electricity. They will almost always go the path of least resistance. You could force the multiplayer community to be asking for directions, helping each other, chatting it up, or you could have another senseless ! and ? game where no one says a word other than to flame each other and then just go point A to point B with no organic feeling to it. To me there is nothing interesting about ! and ? questing anymore. Those are just time boundaries keeping you from end-game content. Do you remember when games weren't strictly end-game driven? It is my hope that SotA feels like other games' "end-game" the entire time. If it is just a race to the end then we all lose. Take the country road and get there when you get there. Hopefully it will be as interesting as the ride there without any real difference.

About resources, I just meant it would be incredibly time consuming and would take a massive team to write up thousands of chat dialogue possibilities in order for you to have an actual conversation with an NPC. Right now, however, the market no longer has any of this, so I welcome what SotA does bring to the table, even if it is just a couple of lines and then "I'm sorry I don't know what that means." When we play table top you ask questions and get answers. There are no ! or ? guiding you on your way causing you to not have to think.

 

Coming off playing Neverwinter for the last month or so, I will agree with that statement whole-heartedly.

Neverwinter follows the "! and ?" logic to a tee. Doesn't make it a bad game (quite the contrary, it was quite entertaining), just different.

And with that, I expect a different form of entertainment from "Shroud of the Avatar".

 

Says who exactly? And who is asking for every possible playstyle? Did I ask for hotbar buttons? Did I ask for one-click trades or an E-Shop in game? I see no requests for ingame and out of game currencies so I can free trade, or an auction house.

Because one thing may or may not be true, does not equate the entire argument to being false (or true). That is what we call a Fallacy of Composition.

I proposed alternatives for question marks, because I dislike them as well, yet you seem to just keep hammering away on the single point.

The only point of which I can draw on experience to use as any leverage in my argument is the implementation of such an "OPTION" since I am a software engineer of twenty five years.

As for the "every possible playstyle", you just missed the hyperbole train, it left 20 minutes ago.

 

And just to clarify, you seem to be making this point over and over about Multiplayer.

This is:

A) Selective Multiplayer, not an MMO
B) Has an entire mode for SINGLE PLAYER

Maybe both these "concerns" can just be optionized in the SINGLE PLAYER part of the game, to have, or not have, directional context clues rather than dialog as the only source of location information.

cheers.