How do we prevent quests from being boring and redundant?

Ok. So you play through the game. All 5 episodes or whatever...Dev's are done making quests. So after that, we are stuck with going through the same quests over and over again until a whole new game is made... Kinda like diablo 2. That game gave me a good 12 years of fun even though it was the same quests over and over. Id start a guy, level him up, then get bored, and then one day I go "i want to play diablo 2 again!" and repeat the process, then diablo 3 comes out and im done cuz diablo 2 is now out of date. They released a few secret easter egg additions later in diablo 2, and they changed up the stats and skill effectiveness and the effectiveness a few times thru the 12 year run. They added the quests for these special torches and stuff that add a ton to your stats and are REALLY hard to get. But overall even with these few additions it pretty much remained the same game. Never ceased to be entertaining, just got bored of it sometimes, always came back though till it became outdated. Makes me feel old now! =(
But anyway, is SotA going to end up following the same path? After their done with expansions we basically just level up, find good gear, get bored, quit, then get the urge to play again and do the same exact quests over and over again? Are we going to end up doing a quest that gives certain "drops" then repeat the quest again and again to get a bunch of "uber drops" to make our characters godly? Like diablo 2 had all these "runz" for drops or for more exp.
These runz kept me busy for hours and hours(makes me wonder if I could have put my efforts into something more useful in the real world, maybe I coulda been someone, won a nobel prize or something, meh whatever....) so they arent "boring" but y'know.... you often look at yourself and think, "im doing the same thing over and over again.... hmmmm couldnt this be more interesting if... well... the developers would through in some twists and turns every few months or so without changing the entire game?". Its tough. It sucks to see MMO's change things over and over till the game you first purchased at the store is no longer the game you fell in love with in the beginning, but... sometimes when you play the same game over and over, you just wish that you could somehow keep this same exact game, but get something new out of it.
Am I sparking any ideas in anyone? Anyone on the same page or have pondered this as well?

 

If the Devs have stopped generating new content, the game is effectively dead. Repeatable quests can only keep you interested for so long. Even the best dynamically generated quest system will pale in comparison to handcrafted quests from great storytellers and quest designers.

In lieu of that, if the sandbox has enough tools for players to create UGC, including quests, then the players can keep the game alive. Player run events / stories can create the fondest memories. And of course for the offline game, mod tools. That alone can extend the life of a game for many years.

 

I'm want this game to have AI and dynamic events and without these features I think this game won't compete well with games like Everquest Next. Although, in SotA we can play virtual dolls and pretend to talk to NPCs. I may decide to not buy this game.

 

--take a look at the thread "I wish to teach rare skills"
--Shroud, unlike SWG, WOW, and SWTOR will not just be a "Grind your level, group with four strangers and blast through a run-and-gun instance" game. If Lord British holds true to the UO vision, there will be much more social interaction and player generated.
--In old UO our guild could field a group of 20 (or more) to go to a dangerous part of the world and take on some uber monster. We could take members of all "levels" with us. We decorated our guild castle with trophies of our conquests and reminisced about our victories! We had in game checkers tournaments! (and I hope Shroud will have in game mini games like UO did).
--In almost two decades of gaming I have learned that it is player interaction that keeps my interest; not graphics, not game mechanics, not even quest storylines. I have high hopes that Shroud will return to some of the things in this area that made UO great.

 

only way would be to keep adding more stuff. Could quest content be fan made, reviewed and placed in the game

 

I'm want this game to have AI and dynamic events and without these features

"I too am a hoper for AI"

I don't particularly care about whether or not the NPCs have quests loaded up in them, but I would be more interested in them if they could hold some interesting changing conversations "about anything". because if there was a lull in the games ability to have ever changing "new quests", then they could surprise me about it during one of these NPC conversations.
There is just so many times you can say "place mizb in a mirror for the answer and have the word wisp interesting". So I don't know how the creators can keep up for deeper or more interesting or less repetitive quest input. More power to them if they can!

AI in RP
I would personally enjoy NPC reactions and comments to mimic some form of RP to create a more immersable (<--<<is that a word?) atmosphere rather than be adjusted for a single quest that will be there inside them forever.
For example: "Hail there Time Lord", "Hail there NPC Mick, how's the weather today?", "Waht's that Time Lord, you can't look up into the sky and see it you blithering idiot?", "No, it's night time you Mick, you moron", "Then you'd better get off the streets Time Lord because it's not safe walking the streets so late at night when your obviously so drunk", "Good night you moron", "Good night you blithering idiot"... (of course this is just an example)

But for changing status in the NPC response and behavior, or even quest inquiry, these could be set to the timers in the sky, Sun, Moon/s or just their own internal timers.

AI is only AI when it appears to have an " I ".
What are all your thoughts?
~Time Lord~

 

I dont know if you have played The Secret World, but in that game there are 3 types of quests there:

- Typical boring quests we've come to hate,
- Stealth quests in which you had to avoid be seen by mobs
- Adventure-style quests which involve puzzles and ARGs.

I hope that the devs consider involving adventure-style quests that are not solely based on combat, but do demand to pay attention to your discussion with the quest giver as well as the quest progress and in addition involve challenging and intriguing puzzles that require solving using the player's mind.

 

It's less about quests and more about triggered mechanics. GW2 had the most obvious examples there their dynamic events looked like a complex state diagram. If some mob spawn is unchecked, they slowly seize control over an area, then push the next one, etc. Any of these could play out over days.

Any player stuff is obvious. Some territory changes control. Quests to push them back or to push forward. Any of these could have nothing to do with direct combat (e.g. craft xyz for the guards).

If you think of any sandboxy builder like Civ or Sim City...it's not about quests per se. There's just mechanics which are always there to tip out of balance and this generates lots of stuff to do. In this case you can either stick you your role (when bad stuff happens I bake bread, when good stuff happens I bake cookies) or switch off and be willing to PvP (or whatever) depending one what's needed most.

 

i would implement strong randomization and loooots of choices with different consequences, also in the main history!

example: no need to visit all the towns and places in the main storyline, if the world is big enough the main story could bring you to some places depending on the choices you make... you like criminal style? you are brought to crimnal cities...get missions to kill other, loot and stuff... you could finish the game being a villian!
so you could finish the game and STILL have other places and cities to visit and discover (maybe doing sub-quests...following guilds etc...)

 

a quest creator. or story teller feature, being added in somewhere down the road, could work, imo those were always fun.

 

I think the devs will have a handle on this one and am leaving that ball entirely in their court. LB is known for creating games with quests that are anything but boring, and with him, Tracy and this team I would be surprised to see that happen. To me, the definition of boring RPG quests is the repetitive "We need to retrieve this item. Big bad guy has it! Go kill him and retrieve item!" then rinse, and repeat. Kingdom's of Amalur was a good example of that over used model for virtually every quest.

 

In 2013 I KS'd a few different games, SotA being an obvious one. Another was Shadowrun Returns. Now, I haven't gotten to play it yet (I've been pretty busy with work....and other work), but I got 2 Steam keys to give out, so I gave to my best friend and my GM from my old Shadowrun game group. Both played and finished the game. They said the game ran about 10-12 hours. Now, that sounds like a very short game, especially for an RPG, but there is another city area update the devs are working on for the game, but also, the game comes with a dev kit for making your own missions, and even your own campaigns. You make the mission/campaign, and then you can post it online. So while it seems like the devs have left most of the game to be "made" by the players, this is very much in line with Shadowrun (and indeed, all pen-and-paper RPGs), where you are given a world, but you make your own quests/missions/campaigns. Sure, they had books of quests/missions/campaigns to play, but it was mostly expected of the DM/GM/whatever its called for that particular system to make the game that would be played. Maybe SotA might do something similar?

One of the neat things that WoW does is the "holiday" quests, which only happen at certain times of the year. Since we don't know a huge amount about the world and lore of SotA, there might be something world-related annual quests in the game.

As PrimeRib mentioned, in GW2, there are the generated mobs that if not taken care of, overtake areas and then move onto other areas to cause problems. Something similar could happen in SotA, like say a group of orcs unite under a leader, terrorize the countryside, then move onto attacking towns (assuming something like that could happen). Other dynamic, player-influenced events could also happen.

What I'd really like to see is the world change according to player actions, similar to how things changed in the Ultima games. Conquering dungeons changing the landscape and monsters both in and around, and if its not maintained, the world reverts back to what it was. One of the things I'm going to do with my first character is be a pilgrim/preacher/crusader of the Virtues (assuming they aren't really different in this world, we'll see), and seeing how my interactions with NPCs and my teaching of the Virtues changes the world....probably wont happen, but its a nice thought.

 

Quest...pffft. The only good quest is no quest.

 

The way to keep being bored by quests is to not obsessively collect quests and ride the rails from quest to quest to quest. I recently played Skyrim through, and did it by roaming the land, and killing things that attacked me. I'd pick up items I couldn't sell, and eventually pick up a quest that required that item, and I'd immediately turn it in to complete the quest.

Quit waiting for the game to tell you what to do next. You won't get bored so quickly.

 

PK's!

 

With SotA's dialogue system, more social quests than before will be possible. For instance, some guy is considering jumping off a cliff. You have to convince him not to. How? You talk to him. Choose your words wisely and you may save him. No dialogue tree - it's all up to you to you. Remind him of the people who depend on him. Or his deceased love who would not want this for him. Congrats, he lives and your virtue increases. Confirm his belief that the world is a cruel place, and the result is not so good. Your virtue decreases, and you'll have loot at the foot of the cliff...

 

By not having quests, especially in MMO-mode.
Let players make their own quests. Give them the tools.

...was it that hard to understand that you had to create a whole thread?

 

"Everything connected for the player to affect his reality" <---<<< seems to be a general idea that's been gathering strength ...
We may be foretelling some future that is already planned. But...

Yet if it's not, I think it's a good idea to shout it as loud as we can and if it is, then I hope we provide some good rhetoric for a better conjecture in their thinking.

" PK! " <---<<< that was a good idea and one that may have been hinted at by LB in one of his many videos of some impending convoy that will trigger an automatic message for those that wish to ambush or protect it. These could be set off by a towns bucket of un-used goods that had been sold to the NPC market. Thus, "bucket is full, is convoyed to the next town as goods and returning as gold". If ambushed on the way there, less protected due to desire not to have to re-sell, if ambushed on the way back, more protected becoming more desired.

The rest of the connectivity of the type of product sold to the NPC market, could set off a spawn of things needing to be killed in the city before they are lumped together for shipment. Though this type of spawn may not happen every time a shipment is readied, as that spawn may take many more counting of goods to have made it desirable enough for the brigands to attack the city.... err..umm.. I hope the gist of these ideas gains ground in our Developers aye?

I think we still need to imagine more of what scenarios may fit into such a game mechanic in this style of automatic questing generating function...
Because I like what I'm hearing, do you?
~Time Lord~

 

Player generated quests run into a lot of issues. Mainly, people exploiting the system to give them and their friends the easiest/fastest way to earn gold/items/exp. Now if player quests don't give any sort of reward, you do them simply for something to do, then that is fine. Then the only issue you run into with a world like this is where players make goofy, mean, or out of this game setting quests.

I don't think there are any good options for player generated quests that aren't sanctioned/tested/approved by Portalarium to follow proper guidelines.

The other issue is, building the tools to build these quests. Good quests that are memorable break from standard combat and gameplay forms. How do you manage that with tools? They'd have to build all sorts of potential systems for various gameplay events someone might want to use in their quests, people will want custom items for their quests. quests usually involve various NPCs and monsters, and again, the best of those are customized. So how do you then put all that into the existing world the way this game is designed?
Okay, one way is if someone builds all that custom stuff, gets it submitted, gets it approved then portalarium just needs to decide which hex to put it in.

So outside of the storyline do we have a bunch of placeholder NPCs just waiting for players to generated quests? Or do we get our world overpopulated with tons of NPCs. In the early days of the game wont there be a severe lack of quests to do? I'll likely finish the storyline in the first week, now what?


There are a lot of issues and considerations to make, and is the development time to make player generated quests, test them for quality and exploits, then put them in game worth it, vs having existing team members design and implement them before the game is released, and adding more in as time goes on with patches/updates?

 

They don't. Didn't read the rest of the post.
Also, I'm mainly talking about the Multiplayer part of the game. I don't care if the Single player is stuffed with crap like "kill 10 boars and bring me their asses, avatar".