I got the idea from a comment by drowner in the Persistent goals in a persistent world? thread. Different players have many different reasons for playing a MMO but the quests tend to be delivary or killing entities quests. But why not have npcs give quests that target players that can appeal to social players? For example : "I've head that {insert player name} is skilled blacksmith I'll trade you {insert exciting prize} for a {insert random item that the player can craft} by them. or "I'm having a big sale on magic potions today. I'll give 100 gold for every different customer you convince to come to my shop." Those are just some random examples but I'm sure there could be all manor of quests available to social players.

I'm not sure if this has been done before, but it is a very interesting idea.

Perhaps there could be a quest (or a skill or profession) that gives a player (or more realistically, a guild-centric NPC) the opportunity to become a 'quest-giver' (quest-giving player; or QGP for short).

The QGP would earn "quest tokens" (or some similar item) that are binded to the player. Different tokens have different pre-defined quests, rewards, conditions, e tc. High-value tokens of course require a lot of hard work.

The idea is that the QGP would use these tokens to have other players do his bidding; helping the QGP, or perhaps his guild, in some meaningful way.

Quest-tokens could be generated to suit each individual player. For example; a QGP of the 'Blacksmith' profession might only receive quest-tokens that relate to his profession, perhaps helping him mass-harvest the resources needed to advance his profession rating.

I could go on an on, but I won't.
Great idea. I hope to see it in a game some day.

First question: what is a 'social player'? One who dislikes violence? One who won't play solo? One who talks with other players significantly more than the average?

Let's say we use the Bartle 'Socialiser' definition: "Players use the game's communicative facilities, and apply the role-playing that these engender, as a context in which to converse (and otherwise interact) with their fellow players." Emphasis is on communication and roleplaying. (Roleplaying in this context can be taken as meaning anything from putting on the Ye Olde voice, to performing activities that stand aside from the typical combat/experience grind.)

So what activities are these? Crafting, perhaps. Create objects, sell or trade them. That can be a fairly solitary activity however. Telling stories over a campfire? Fits the description, but hard to schedule as a 'quest', or to reward appropriately.

The biggest example I can think of that isn't simply a normal quest for pacifists is the political system. By giving players political positions within clans, guilds, families, shops, temples, governments, feudal systems, and so on, they get to influence and be influenced by other people. Asheron's Call had/has a nice vassal system, which gives extra experience to those who lead others. The text-based game Achaea features several player-run city states and various cultures, each featuring complex political interactions. So this aspect certainly works in practice.

A Tale In The Desert features no combat, and hence is another good source of inspiration for those who are trying to think of alternative quest ideas. It has numerous activities that it calls tests. eg. the 'Path of the Pilgrim' test involves you forming a group of people to perform a pilgrimage. The Initiation into Art requires that you build a sculpture and have other people vote on it, obviously requiring communication, and perhaps some persuasion! These tests are made to fit the game world, but generally require explicit game support - in other words, you can't wedge them into a traditional RPG style game. But they're probably worth the effort.

Well I wouldn't say there is any reason a social player is nessarily a pacifist. The description you gave sounds right to me. A Social player is one who is interested in the social dynamic of the game and who one of key features in MMO is the massivily multi-player aspect.

They are the kind of people who would take part in "quests" that would require them to find a player they've never met and convince them to craft an item. OR if there was in game vote based on gathering the most players in different town squares, would go out and persuade people to come out and support their town.

In essence what I'm suggesting really is providing gameplay based on social interaction.

Take the idea mention by swordfish of Quest Givers. There are people out there that would jump at the chance to play an intermidary between clients and mercanaries. Have a job needing done? Talk to Bob he'll draw up contract for you and arrange for some players to take care of it. Like wise if you are looking for some work talk to bob and he'll let you know when something comes up.

A couple of friends of mine did basically this in WoW. They wanted to level up cooking but didn't want to grind the low level mobs. So they set up camp in the starter areas and issued their own quest through chat: "Bring me X stacks of Y and I'll give you [crafted green item] or Z cash". It was wildly popular with the lowbies.

It would be cool to see something like that added in MMOs as an integral part of the game. I'm not sure about quests to go to specific players because that's just an easy recipe for griefing. however, quests to either offer quests to others or to collect items from people could be interesting.

-me

Or you could have an mmo with politics/business as well as the fighting aspect. So you could make a character thats sits around in the forum all day discussing the empire's problems or a soldier off fighting the wars, etc. This would allow both types of players to play the same game.

The problem there is that one player's success in the quest is dependant upon another player's availability and participation. That can be problematic.

It's strange that in a game featuring hundreds of simultaneous players, that requiring other people is "problematic". ;)

Seriously though, much upper and high-level content in MMOs already requires large groups anyway. I don't think there's anything wrong in having some features that require more than one person, and let's face it, we're talking about social quests, not solo grinding activities.

Exactly much of this already exists informally anyway. After all the game design for most MMO already require players to gather into large groups to tackle the higher level dungeons and bosses, so why not and a formal layer to design to facilitate this type of game play? Of course then its only matter of time before tour guides start appearing in MMO.

"Quick sign up now! For a mere 1000 Gold you can join one of our daily expeditions to the Lair of the Red Dragon. Only 10 spots available on each expedition so sign up early to guarantee yourself a place and a chance at some of the best loot in the game!!"

Well sell goods in a store when you can sell "experinces"?

Quote:

"Quick sign up now! For a mere 1000 Gold you can join one of our daily expeditions to the Lair of the Red Dragon. Only 10 spots available on each expedition so sign up early to guarantee yourself a place and a chance at some of the best loot in the game!!" Well sell goods in a store when you can sell "experinces"?

In World of Warcraft this is allready reallity, but it has something to do with the older dungeons.

In the beginning you needed 40 Players and much Teamplay to beat the encounter. Later with better gear you were able to run threw the dungeon with 40 Players without teamplay.

And some month later you needed just 10-15 very well geared people and 25-30 people to do some minor damage/healing.

So the high end guilds needed money for the highend dungeons and sold "Player-Slots" to those semi-highend Instances. Many people were not able to visit these semi-highend instances with their small or not so well geared guild and so they saved up their money to get into the instances with the higher guilds.

The bad thing in this is, that nearly no new guilds were able to raid these dungeons too, because it is easier to buy a slot for 1k Ingame gold (farmed in 1-3 Weeks of solo gaming) then to build up a new team and raid 3 weeks just to see the first boss falling down. Which means 2-3 Items for 40 People.



I have the feeling that just about 5% of the playing people in WoW make groups to play with other people together. The other 95% of people just make groups to get better items.
If they are able to get these items without grouping in any way then they wont group.


In my eyes a MMoRPG needs a very nice solo-system to attract the most customers.