Please, No Collect and Deliver Quests

I don't think the problem is so much the collect and return elements of the quest, but the fact that they use it to create an artificial grind to keep you wasting time trying to level. A lot of the disdain comes from the fact that most games don't make the quest interesting--so you run out there kill 50 somethings and run back.

You can spice this up quite a bit with basic game elements that many games tend to omit. What if traveling to that location required that I get past an army full of enemy faction members that would kill me on sight? Perhaps I need to sneak, maybe I can teleport, or what if I use an illusion to disguise myself? When I get there I find that there are a set of trials that I have to complete first. The trials may not be obvious, so it could require that I really analyze the scene..enjoy the artwork and read the cave walls to figure the solution to the trials.

Maybe i'm sent to defend a town, but after defending that town the quest actually wants me to outfit the citizens and teach them the basics of combat? How I get the bows, swords, and armor is up to me. What about finding a healer? Perhaps one of them give me a clue saying that a healer is in a nearby temple within a swamp.

I don't think its as much the fact that I have to gather or kill but that I must do nothing but gather and kill so often without enjoying the game. It decays into the same 1,2, 1 spell/attack rotation while I am killing them. If you replace that rotation with story elements and puzzles that pull the players attention to the game--not the grind-- then it becomes more interesting and tolerable.

 

Pretty much like a variety of questing. I don't mind "fetch" quests IF go gather 10 wolf pelts because the village needs to make blankets, IF EVERY wolf drops a pelt! Nothing worse than collecting 10 eyes or hooves and not all the animals drop them.

But variety in questing is best. Long chains that take days to complete, tree off, delivery, escort, solve the mystery/puzzle, etc., all have there place, just not a steady diet of any one!

 

This comic just discribes what the quest NOT should be: http://www.shakesandfidget.com/comics/rote-staffel/questing/
There must be an reason why i have to do something, the apple pie quest from the old lady is a great example.

Just embed the quest in to the daily routine of the village NPCs, and the available ressources:
If all people eating apple pie, they will be sold out in a short time, so someone has to go and get the stuff for it:

1.) Go to the haunted canyon to get apples
- - > Kill some Monsters
- - > Other quests: Why is it Hounted..

The flour for the pie is empty so go the the miller and look why no one came with the new flour:
2.) Go and find the Miller
2.1.) the miller is ill ->
- - > buy medicine
- - > brew a potion for him
2.2.) the wheel of his cart broke
- - > if you are a carpenter repair or produce a new one
- - > Go and get a new one from a player or ask to help you, go to the village and escort the carpenter to the miller...
2.3.) The assistent of the miller vanised
- - > traces lead to the haunted canyon
- - - - > you discover that an old lady (witch) lives there..

At the end of the quest serien you know the "secrets" of the hounted valley.
When they need new apples (after 1 week or so) than you can go there and:
- - > kill the random monster and harvest them,
- - > or just trade them with the old lady (witch), that didnt get attacked by the monster, against some daily good from the village.


Just integrate them in the world like they coud be real. (With the Region/Scene instancing system no one has to wait when other players made this quest a few minutes before him.)

 

Actually, I wouldn't mind collect and deliver quests if there was a real reason for collecting and delivering stuff other than just earning XP and some random piece of loot...

If a town is set up mechanically so that it can run low on food to feed its people, which leads to starvation, which leads to disease, which leads to a town potentially dying off (rebuildable, of course), then a quest to go out and hunt for food would make sense, and it would make sense that multiple parties are out doing it. In most MMOs, I can totally ignore the "kill deer and bring back the meat" sort of quests because not doing them has no consequences. But if there were consequences like I just suggested, then players can take an active and meaningful role in helping a town to survive and thrive... The reverse could also be true if there were mechanisms in place to give those of a more malevelant mindset to have a role in destroying a town. With mechanisms in place that allow players to either help or hurt the environments, it leads to something else:

Competitive PvE... Something that those who are not into PvP can participate in that can have tangible results.

If good-minded people can put foodstuff into a town storehouse, evil-minded people can take it out.

This thread points out another beef I have with the MMO industry. We've been fed a constant diet of MMOs that have no meaningful consequences for our actions or inactions, for good or ill. I would like to see that change. And it would seem that Collect and Deliver quests have a place in helping make such a change.

 

I take it no pun intended!! har har.

I totally agree. I am also (fed har har) up with the stale go get me that have zero impact on the world. They are completely ignorable except to chase the XP level carrot.

Would love to see more dependencies within these online virtual worlds

 

That sounds good. I like the idea of using traps to catch prey to preserve the pelts. But it also brings the problem of cost. Does this mean the wolf coat you want, or the wolf pelts you want will be at a higher cost since you will have to pay for the cost of the hunters time and resources to collect the pelt to sell or turn them into something more? It just seems like having to buy the traps and having to wait to see if you catch a wolf will cause the price to inflate to make up for the time and money put into getting the wolf pelt.

 

given the nature of the conversation system they've demo'd and the lack of any formal quest system or quest journal, I don't think you'll ever see anything in SotA which requires you to collect X items, kill Y monsters, etc. I don't think specific counts will be attached to quests since there's nothing to tell you that and it wouldn't sound natural for someone to request killing of exactly 15 rats.

I think it'll be more of a, I'd like some apples and you go get any number of them and bring them back.

 

I agree. The lack of a quest journal and compass will do much to dispel the ills of MMO questing. That said, I'm sure there will be quite an extensive SotA wiki. I'm not saying that's a good thing, just the nature of the beast.

 

Collect and Deliver quests are VALID quests, as long as it is for materials that are needed to produce goods....I can see Player issued quests to gather mats for payment.

 

As long as they can wrap those collect and deliver quests in a compelling story that provides good motivation for doing them, I'm all for it. Typically though those stories are simplistic and aren't compelling enough. I mean, not all of them have to be AAA-quality stories with emotional depth that also affects gameplay but as it stands 99% of them either have none or barely any. Make my time worth it and I will fetch those 10 things for you.

 

I'd prefer the collect and deliver quests be something like what has been mentioned in here so far.

Quests that are not story related, completely optional, and typical yield a reward made specifically from whatever you gather. Those seem reasonable. If the quest is fetch-fest-9000 and it's necessary to proceed with the adventure, I will be pretty annoyed.

I have no problem gathering like 16 dead wolf eyeballs to have some old lady make me potions that grant invisibility or something. It's not like she's going to go out and get those eyeballs herself.


and then you can expect to see players selling either the gathering ingredients, or the resultant reward items, for people who really don't want to do it at all.

 

Actually, if done right, aspiring alchemists could learn a lot from an NPC alchemist sending them out to get reagents... The basic form of each common potion (sold only by NPC vendors) should be a depleatable stock, needing replacements. The NPC alchemist will make these, but cannot run the shop and keep supplies stocked in the volumes that are needed. So they recruit players to go out and get the reagents. "Here's a list of things I may have use for. Collect it and I'll pay you for the ones I need."

If the NPC has a surplus of potions, obviously he won't need the reagents to make more. So he'll say something about being fully stocked up at the moment, but that the player should check back later.

Now a "town needs" simulation running in the background would automatically deduct potions from the NPC Alchemist's stock at regular intervals. People get sick, after all, and an alchemist in a town exists to service that town. If the alchemist runs out of cure disease potions, then the town should start showing signs of a disease spreading through the populace. Player Alchemists could see an inflicted townsperson, and use a cure diseas potion on them, but until the town alchemist can produce enough potions to bring the disease under control, it would just be a temporary fix.

Helping towns thrive would be good for one's pursuit of virtues. It's still playing "go fetch," but it isn't just a time sink or for just chasing XP or whatnot. It has a purpose.

 

The main flaw in 99% of kill-and-collect quests is that they are insular activities done for their own sake. Basically, they exist only to be done.
Much of that can be done simply through connection, as the more that lies beneath the surface, the more upon which the writer can expound (and create more quests).

Quest: Hunting frogs and bringing back their legs Implication: The Baron's butler is due to get fired
Quest: Killing goblins and bringing back their heads Implication: People need a token of assurance
Quest: Killing wolves and bringing back spatulas Implication: Mr. Mxyzptlk

 

I would assume that questing is all optional in this game simply because it is not an XP based game...and the act of fighting/exploring raises your skills...

I do like quests myself for monitary/item rewards...I do not like waste of time quests where you have to kill 10 things or more to get 1...How many wolves didn't have fur or teeth... so stupid...

There could be valid quests that actually teach your character things...like crafting quests which give you the opportunity to learn new ways to craft and/or gain new skill either by completion of the quest or during the act of doing the quest. Like in Vanguard, there were series of quests to get actual crafting attire/tools which improved your crafting... These kinds of things are also much more fun than just mindless collection/killing quests.

Some people do like direction in their game tho, and quests give that...so some mindless/pointless quests should be there...but I would say for the most part to add quests that add knowledge and meaning to your character and the game.

 

No quest needs to be mindless/pointless. All that has to happen is to attach the fetch-it quests to a town-centric quota system. If enough of the item in question is gathered and turned in, the town thrives. If not enough of it is turned in, it starts to suffer. How it suffers would depend on what it is short of. NOTHING we do in an MMO should return void. There should always be a consequence, negative or positive. And the freedom we are given to influence the consequence should be there as well. If I want to be an evil person in the game, then evil actis I commit in the game should mean something. The same thing goes for committing good acts.

A difference engine should be running in the background to manage what we do and how it might impact the game world, and by extension of that, each other. Things like hunting an area dry should be possible. Set spawn points for animals to have a certain number. Say 10,000. That means that particular animal spawnpoint would go inactive after its ten-thousandth spawn. Now build into that a population ratio simulator for the region, where X% of the bear population is female and Y% is male. The simulator would run on a game-monthly basis adjusting the spawn numbers accordingly. A species could be hunted to extinction without some measure of responsibility. For example, encountering a female animal in spring, it would be wise to let it live as it may be pregnant. These factors would be run behind the scenes, and only at predefined times, so they are not always processing. But how much of something we collectively hunt, would factor into the simulations. NPCs could start talking about how the population of certain animals seems to be dying off, and if hunting in the region isn't scaled back, they could disappear.

Some would say, "So what? I'm a crafter and I need the hide." Well, if the population density drops to zero, there will BE no hide to be gotten in the region. This could shift a town from being a producer to a consumer.

It's a numbers game in which the numbers are unknown by anyone other than the devs and the system itself.

The king could declare a law limiting hunting to a certain amount, players can decide whether to obey or break that law, and the good or bad consequences would happen.

 

I don't know if someone mentioned this yet ... I agree about game-given quests like this but I think that if a player needs some ingredients for a certain item they make and they don't want to grind that player could advertise for other players to go retrieve those items for them for a reward. I've always loved the idea of being flexible in how you play MMOs. Being a crafter is appealing but sometimes you don't want to go get everything yourself. I am holding out hope for a game that eventually has a fully responsive world, where players become the story tellers, and NPCs aren't really that neccesary. But until the game community figures out how to deal with griefers and trolls that will be awhile.

 

I don't mind collecting ingredients and whatnot, but not stuff like "kill 10 rats and bring them to the innkeeper" are a bit too meh for my taste.


I'd personally like to see quests along the lines of:

A sickly old wizard wants you to collect a book or artifact from a vault in city or town that is quite a distance away.
The road is very dangerous and there could be some interesting encounters along the way.

Now there are multiple ways to get the job done:

1. Go on foot and deal with any dangers along the way
2. Get a fast horse and try to get there as fast as you can while trying to outrun any dangers
3. Be stealthy and investigate, you might find bandit hideouts and get a shot at raiding their stockpiles
4. Be stealthy and cautious, you can sneak past any dangers undetected

The adventure you have during a quest should be the focus here, we are here to have fun.

 

I want to do that quest! ^_^b I can picture it now.

Crusader knocks onto a random door with funny sounds coming from inside.

From inside he hears an old man's voice. "Come in!" Crusader walks in to see an old man with his head down staring into a pancake. "Sorry to bother you, but I was told you needed help."

The old man looks up from his pancake and looks at Crusader wearing binoculars. "Hmm?...Oh! An adventurer! Yes, yes. I do have a quest for you. I was attacked by a pack a wolves and I lost my spatulas. Can you recover some spatulas for me?"

Crusader looked at the old man puzzled. "You...want me to...get your spatulas from some wolves?"

The old man nodded. "Yes, yes, get my spatulas."

Crusader left the town and entered thick woods searching for a pack of wolves. "Their den should be over here." He wandered near a dark musty cave. "Is this it?" He heard growls coming from the cave. "Yep. I seem to have found them." A wolf exited the cave with a spatula in its mouth. "Huh. It has something in its mouth." Crusader knocked an arrow, "Because I don't want to damage the spatula.", and fired at the wolf killing it. He walked up to the body and pulled a gnawed, drool covered spatula from the wolves mouth. "Well, color me impressed. There really are wolves carrying spatulas."

Ten wolves and ten drool covered gnawed spatulas later, Crusder knocked on the door of the old man's house. "I'm back with the spatulas!" He chimed amused at the whole ordeal.
Without looking up the old man shouted from his stool. "Come in, come in. It took you long enough." Crusader walked into the house and placed the spatulas next to the old man. Happy at his accomplishment and intrigued at what the old man would do next.

The old man look at Crusader baffled. "What are these?"

Crusader looked at the old man confused. "These are the spatulas you requested."

The old man looked at Crusader. "What's wrong with them? The looked like they came from a wolves den. They are gnawed upon and covered in drool. You couldn't have gotten anything better?"

Crusader was shocked. "These are the spatulas you requested. You asked me to recover the spatulas from the wolves that attacked you."

The old man laughed. "Dear boy. I was simply stating I was attacked by wolves and I lost my spatulas. What I needed was for you to fetch me some more spatulas." The old man tossed the spatulas into the trash can. "No, no, no. These won't do at all. These are fithy and unsanitary." He looked up at Crusader. "Now, if you would be so kind, please go next door and pick up some more spatulas."

"Wait, that was all I had to do?" Crusader was flabbergasted.

Edit: Lord British! Make it happen! ^_^b

 

Another post I wish I could hit 'like' more than once on! Brilliant.

 

Thank you very much. ^_^b