Quests - What's wrong with people?

Sorry but I am bit angry right now.

I was just reading on the steam forums that obviously some people are not able to get the key for the Highvale gate at the beginning of the courage questline....
I mean you just have to ask for the key!
The quest has been simplified before because people were not able to find the key the guard had. Although we got a clue that it was the guard at the well and there was only one dead guard lying there. This obvioulsy was too complicated for some. So the quest was simplified so that we just have to ask the bard for the key - and this also is too much for some?
What's wrong with those people? They obvioulsy are the reason we get the most simple quests in the game. Don't those people play other RPGs? Are they just reading the quest summaries in WoW or are just used to the "quests" of UO?

This is disappointing as this way complex and deep quests obviously are not possible in SotA, as people can't even ask for a key.
Maybe this is the reason why we just have fedex quests in the game?

 

Well, to be fair, most MMOs don't actually make you "ask" for anything. I used to get annoyed at friends who skipped out of quest text, but then kept asking questions about the stuff IN THE QUEST TEXT!

Even in current RPGs (Dragon Age, for example), you don't have text parsers to actually phrase your questions, it's usually a point/click thing for your response. I do think they should do colored highlights similar to the Ultima 6 system, where when the guy talks about the "KEY", you should, maybe, ya know, ask him for the KEY

 

But you can use the keywords-system, too and just click on them in the dialogue-text. So they could use this way to "ask for the key"...

 

Here is my prediction of what will happen. Just as history repeats itself, something starts out not so obvious. You complain, a finger points at it.. I complain that the finger confuses me, now we just dumb it down to the point of it not even being there.. What I'm saying is don't take something that 10 people figure out how to do, and 30 do not. And make it simple so the 30 can figure it out.. Lets keep some challenge here...

 

I think that is also why hugely successful "RPG" games like Fallout 4 have NPCs who can only spit a couple of short sentences, and players can choose from three or four answers which are exactly "Yes / Another kind of Yes / Maybe (Yes) / Sarcastic No (Yes)".

 

Having tested this personally in R25 and R26, I understand their frustration.
If you follow, strictly, what the two NPC's tell you, from the entrance to the gate, there was no indication of any key, nor any task that would get you the key. (at least, in R25)

In other words, unless you know to ask for the key, you would never know to ask for the key. You have to have that information "somehow" so that you know what to do, and nothing in the scene tells you that, up to that point.
In R26, I just ran to the Bard, said 'key' and moved on, because I knew it was likely buggy/broken.

Yes, you could run around the scene talking to everyone behind the walls, none of which give you the information, but honestly? It's just an exercise in frustration, and does not retain new players.
And, IF it has been changed since, that's great, but when I did it in R25 for certain, there was no clickable text, at all, of any kind, related to any 'key', the gate, nor anything remotely related, subject-wise.

Full disclosure: I haven't read the steam forums.
I agree that challenge is important, but frustrating the player is different than challenge.
Yes, it could have been a temporary bug with unfortunate timing. Yes, it could have been fixed by now, but at that moment in time, the opportunity to retain a customer was lost.
The general public does not have the patience, flexibility, history, or context that many on these forums have.
They see the game, they try it, if they're not impressed in the first 15 minutes, they're out, and they're not coming back.

 

Then the beginning of the game should definitely be redone and made much more interesting.
And I agree that instructions should be clear. But I really fear that the quests in the game will be dumbed down further to a point where they are too simplified and people who play lots of other RPGs will get neither challenging nor interesting and complex quests.

 

I have said it before and will say it again; "If you HAVE to have the hints turned on, there is something wrong"

Agra has said it again. These quests and how they are worded and worked are VERY convoluted and really do not set you on any path nor give any direction as to how you should proceed unless you have hints turned on.

All the quests need to be reworked, sorry they are ATM just plain BAD (and do not say turn on hints, I have clearly said why not).

 

I found it easier to find a key than to ask for one when I did not know the bard might have it. Yes, I figured it out, but I easily see the frustration.
Case in point:

Spoiler: Ultima IV

Playing through right now after 28 years with no cluebook.
Sacrifice was the hardest to get elevated, not because of the clues, but because I never needed to visit the healer, so I never knew the healer offered the service to give blood. It was a perfect clue and hint if I had ever visited the healer before... but I was doing excellently and always healed myself (or by LB), so I never thought to visit that service.

 

Spoiler

I'm a secret

Code:

[spoiler]I'm a secret[/spoiler]

Quote me...

 

It's the same reason people add TL: DR to posts.

TL: DR + HD cutscenes = best RPG ever...

 

It works easier on computer than phone I discovered. Thank you, but I did find it. Maybe some highlighted buttons or a bard should tell me where the spoiler box is located.

 

Thats a kind of irony I feel... As Lord Darkmoon says people these days are getting more and more stupid and if they're not impressed in the first 15 mins poof they're out and still don't know anything about their destiny or destination. The irony is that these people are also very easy to impress, they're just a heart to hold.

They want to see that someone has put more love and soul than them in building the game (read : EASY). Yes I've been saying it for years now I know... the opening scene and quests is the most important part of the success of this game. I cannot stress it enough. It should be full of dynamism and in-engine animation and things to run from and things to find. The scene should showcase all the systems of the game in a fun and simple way.

I want to care much more, but I'm feeling less and less... that chaotic way of "agile developpement" is NOT for niche games.

This is one even if we'd like to think it isn't.

I have more than 30 friends who are absolute Ultima fans, I would tell them this weekend we're doing ultima 5 again and they'd be like YEAH, BIG SCREEN, REMIX COMPILATION, POPCORN AND BEER !

But I show them this game and they think I'm joking ? My best friend didn't even activate the GIFT account I gave him more than a year ago, he's been looking a few times and he still thinks its bad, it does break my heart more deeply than anyone can imagine...

This isn't about my ego, this isn't about the team not having the skills, its about who decides whats a priority.

 

It took me 6 tries to word exactly how that merchant chick wants to hear how I killed her brother in the Clink... fix these quests!

 

I think that it is clear that we won't get cutscenes or inengine scenes due to budgetary reasons and this is ok. It is understandable that the quests won't be presented the way they are in The Witcher 3.
But the quests should be MUCH more diverse, varied and interesting than the simple fedex-quests we have now.
I don't know if they are placeholders but if they are not then this is definitely not what I expect from this game.
Doing the same things over and over all of the time is not what quests should be about. Especially not the first quests we experience in a game. The beginning of a game should make me interested in playing all of it. Especially the first quests should be intriguing, interesting, complex, full of twists and surprises with varied things we have to do.

 

It's important to give the details

 

Welcome to the club, my friend. Are you new? Here, grab this brochure about the wonderful world of mainstream gamers.

...And you want a game without GUI? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Read my lips: those guys are the main cash flow for *any* game.

Welcome to the 2010s.

-- Signed: someone who passes too much time on Steam forums and now hates humanity.

 

Btw, these are the original string from Gawain, as present in my localization database:

I didn't test which one of these is used in R26, but this is what Gawain (the dying guard) says to you UPON ARRIVAL. As you can easily see, in both versions there IS reference to the key and the bard by the gate.

But, if the player has the short term memory of a snail...

 

hehe... well Milord Darkmoon we sure agree on the premise. But I think in engine scripted npc "behavior" aka small scenes isn't that much to ask.

If I worked for portalarium and was paid to do this dream job, you can bet I would log on unity at night and add fun things to do to those opening scenes, especially because they are small you can fit a bunch of things in there that let a person who spend his first 15 minutes have NO DOWN TIME in his exploration of what makes this game different.

 

Poor Katrina, you can tell at least that you aren't in a relationship with these "humans"