Dear Mr. Garriott: the questing experience...

Anyone who thinks that "Release" means "as bug free as possible" has not apparently read the now classic IRC chatlog from Lum's experience giving us the immortal line: I WILL TAXI TO VICTORY!

 

I think the best thing they have going for them right now is definitely the sand-box feel of the game. It is fun to play in the game's progression of gaining experience -> training skills -> find bigger enemies loop as you do see some fairly immediate gratification until mid-late game (so 5+ skull). In that respect I think they have things dialed in pretty well.

Another positive about the release is that the pain/suffering that was enchanting/MW has finally seen an uplift. Finally, after probably a literal book's worth of forum pages (I really wish this was an exaggeration) one of the solutions to crafting we the beta testers proposed was adopted. Honestly it's the only reason I came back after my break.

I personally didn't and don't expect a bug free questing system for another year. I already enjoy the lore of the world and can only expect good things to come as the questing system is better fleshed out both in substance and delivery.

 

Well it all depends on the devs of any given game. There are those who will absolutely push out their best code as their release candidate in order to give people the best out-of-the-box experience from day one.

That's what it's all about, at the end of the day, isn't it? A great first experience, and hook people in from the start. Others won't care as much, or might have other reasons to drop a sub-optimal release candidate.

And in saying all of that, it's not mutually exclusive to being able to update a game over time. Of course you can do that. But MMOs still - generally - try and release as well as they can before loads of updates appear.

 

Here’s how I look at it. Compare this product to, let’s say Ultima III. The difference is that when I bought U3 it was on a floppy 5 1/4. There was no updating. No patches. It was released as a product with the best storyline and code as possible. Critical acclaim.

Using patches and updates is a crutch due to ambition. I applaud the team for what they have done, but in comparison the big picture was lost.

I think a paradigm shift could solve many issues. Focus on the current product. Polish it. Then Move forward.

Act as if you don’t get a second chance to repair it, like it is a product that comes out of a box. Change to that way of thinking and you get a completely different result and product.

 

I think it's not really helpful to discuss opinions, and which game did it better. Let's talk about facts.

There are a few disturbing things preventing to enjoy the storyline and quests as they would deserve it!

As I said over four years of games testing:
I like the story, it is interesting. But different things need to be polished.

All this has been told and Gix took time to write important Feedback as Lord British asked to do so!

It's important to understand what we are talking about: Not to give 'negative' Feedback, but serious positive Feedback. And everything what helps to improve the game feeling is positive

Let's Focus on this content, please

 

I want to say a big "thank you" to those who DID stick around. They provided massive amounts of data, suggestions, and bug reports that led to the experience you are enjoying today.

Some who may not have been around long-term may not know the context; so here is some.

The story/questing was established as a primary objective - the first mentioned in the KS:

Our primary objectives are to tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII, ...

followed by the very first two explanatory points...

• Shroud of the Avatar is infused with rich storylines, deeply integrated into game play...
• Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.

How well these could be executed in an MMO has been a question ever since the game drifted in that direction over the years.

Also from the beginning, comments about story/questing were dismissed by many members of the community with a simple but erroneous dismissal... something like, they need to work on base systems first, story/questing will come later.

Over four years later in the Summer of 2017 - the main quest lines were called "complete" according to Port's own words. The comments were later walked back to mean that you could get through the main quest to the end (consider how buggy they are today and imagine what it was like then). By that point, with the drift toward MMO and the long wait for information about story/questing, many who were originally attracted by the stated primary objective seemed to have drifted away. The ones who remain provide quite important feedback.

From the comments LB has made in the past, he has encouraged feedback on the story/quests and has acknowledged the frustration.

Context and continuity are important, and I hope providing some helps people understand posts like the OP. It is entirely justified AND encouraged.

 

I agree that questing is a major headache for all the reasons listed. Personally that doesn't bother me that much as long as they are still optional. I'm not that big a fan of quests in sandbox games in general, as I am more of a 'create my own adventure' kind of player.


Fix what you currently have before adding new content. <<<< THIS!!!

 

Hello everyone, first of all, sorry for my bad english but it should bring my point across, somehow.

To me the OP critiques are very much on point. I have started the game about 3 weeks ago and as a "fresh player" (I havent played this game before neither I informed myself about the current status) my experience are very rough.
Whats even worse, the language isn't even fully translated. I have done quests by now, which are in half english and half my language.

Let me tell you about some of my experiences with the quests.

The game started with that Avatar thiny where i could choose my role and the Virtues. There was the first confusing thing i came across. I dont remember it all closly. You are able to choose your role, like archer, fighter or mage. I clicked on the dialog thing which lets me go as Archer or something. But i decided that i want to go for the mage thing. Here is the thing that confused me: the journal showed me, that I picked the archer thing and what ever I did, it didnt change.
Sure, later on I learned that it didnt mattered that much but at first it was very confusing.
During that very first quest, I learned to follow the blue marker to my destination but a few hours in, I learned that it didnt always do. There are some quests which tell me to get something but the marker stays on the npc and if I happen to get stuck on quest which are very much buggy and unable to proceed from, I just forget about them and probably dont get the "world lore" at all.

Im clearly not at the endgame but the early game was very rough and mostly wasn't fun quest wise sofar.

One thing, which should be able to get fix fairly easy (I think), is the dialog system. Quest relevant things should get in some way marked, like a different color. Every npc has to say something about their area, some higherup which i should talk to and so on, but this kind of dialogues is getting mixed up with quest relevant dialog.
This is mostly my problem. It is hard to follow the quest (for me) and the journal / questmarker aren't helping much.

To end it on a postive note. Some quests are fun. Like i was exploring and stumbled over a castle ruine which had a tower with levers (different virtues banners above), which I solved with a bit of struggle (1 hour of trying)
and at the end it opened a way to a voult and to a treasure. Later on i found some books which told the right solution. Very fun thing to do if you are exploring.

 

I backed long ago but didn't start playing the game until it "released" last month. As someone coming in with fresh eyes, I have to agree with the OP. Sandbox is great, but questing is important, especially for a new player who wants to learn about what's happening in this world they've joined. It's the first thing you're introduced to when you create a character and log in. Someone needs help and you start to follow the story, getting involved, learning about the people you meet. Getting stopped in your tracks because of the issues the OP mentioned on top of the unfriendly quest log thing is off-putting.

I'm used to starting a new game and not being able to stop playing for hours on end, looking forward to ending my work day so I can play again, etc. I keep trying with this game, but I don't get that feeling. I find I'm not able to get much done when I do log on due to many different issues, some of it with questing. Add to that the other frustrations I have with inventory management (I'm pretty much over-encumbered constantly), housing (not getting into that here but as a new player feeling like housing is pretty much controlled by people who have been here forever), and a host of other things that all add up to make the game as a whole not very enjoyable.

Again, I keep trying. I log in and keep hoping something will click somewhere to make everything seem less frustrating. I did switch to offline single-player to ease my frustration with housing, freeing up desirable lots that I can choose to make my home. Maybe that will help, but questing is still an issue.

 

About choosing our path, I tried a lot of times to inform about the disadvantage when starting with a "wrong" path and the confusing about choosing our path the first time, like here.

Thank you @Landor Gerrano and @Jayde for your feedback. All these things were mentioned earlier.
It is very good that you and other (new) players confirm, what a lot of people told before, like I tried actually here!
That's the facts we need to take care of

The good message is: Darkstarr told, they will focus on Quest Journal in Q2!

 

Wow, I took the truth patch. This made laughing! Always learning new thing. Thank you

 

I think the game needs some daily/weekly kinds of repeatable things that are fun, and don't take long. You could call them quests, I guess, but labels don't matter, really. GTA V style, do these 3 things today, and we'll give you a bonus of some sort. Could be centered around crafting, hunting, whatever. Perhaps there are 3 for crafters, and 3 for adventurers every single day, and the bonus is nothing lame like 1000 XP... More like 20 to 40k XP. If you don't want to do them, fine, then you pay no attention to it, or "hide" it on the HUD or something. For those who like that kind of thing, it could add to replay-ability because we all like to be given goals and tasks that REWARD us. That makes things much more fun, and seems like it'd be pretty easy to implement.

 

That's a good idea for someday, when all bugs from existing quests are fixed ...
If it would be "easy to implement", I assume, all the quests we are still having wouldn't have any bug

After fixing all the existing quests (I think until end of year) Episode 2 will start - and with Episode 2 we will get new quests - every month ...

 

I get what you're saying, and sure it doesn't have to be top priority or anything, but how I see it, they simply tie things you can already do into a randomized list of possible trios. They wouldn't be really adding anything. I see it like something like this:

Possible crafting trio of dailies:
1. Craft 20 leather helms and place them for sale on a vendor
2. Gather 30 pieces of maple wood
3. Smelt 50 Bronze ingots

Possible adventuring trio of dailies:
1. Kill 20 tier 5 bandits
2. Hunt 15 obisidian wolves
3. Kill a cabalist in a siege


You do these things and it simply triggers a banner on your screen that thanks you for taking part, and rewards you with XP appropriate to the tasks. Very very simple, yet I could see this alone drawing people in EVERY SINGLE day.

 

There is a general mistake you ask Richard with questions which should be addressed to DarkStarr or Chris.

 

By the way, I do agree the quests need help.

For example, I did the "Trump" Drumplemouth quest, chose the truth side, and the original people one of them thinks I killed him. Lol.

Even tho I did the Cyannis report quest, the quest never updated and still asks me to find Cyannis or give his report to Godbert.

So yeah, I hear you.

 

Ugh. That is the second worst part about the quests. "I wrote of _______ in my journal" is one of the lamest cop-outs ever. Number three is NPCs saying more than what fits in he window, requiring you to scroll back to follow the conversation. Number one is the lack of line breaks between bits of a dialogue, especially when multiple people are talking.

 

That's a good point, even in the original ultimas, it allowed you to press spacebar to continue the dialog. But it's nowhere NEAR as bad as when the dialog closes after something happens without giving you a chance to even read it.

Which happens when people say something and the dialog is over, or when a note is thrown back in your face...

Hey, at least the text does not ultra slowly print out character by character like in the NES days

 

The blood River outskirts quests are suuuuper bugged. After I poisoned the elves' food supply, I got no further follow ups blue markers stayed on the compass for completed sections and when I logged back in, all the quests for the zone were just wiped.

 

There's some good feedback in this thread for fixing quests. Really hope Portalarium take a peek at this.