This is an issue I am very passionate about. I blogged about it a few weeks ago, and then worked my post (and some feedback) into a detailed article I published yesterday: New Grind, Just like the Old Grind: Quest Heavy Advancement My basic premise is this: quest heavy advancement is no better, and in many ways worse, than the "mob grind" system it was designed to replace. MMO designers would do well to re-examine this design concept, and scale back on it so quests can once again become interesting story elements rather than boring, workaday, mindless to-do lists. I realize this is a very extreme and unpopular stance, but I think I make some good arguments. I'm very interested to hear what you all think.

Very nicely done. I agree with you. If quest heavy advancement simply causes people to be calloused to the quests / story, what can be done to counteract that? What are the alternatives?

What types of quests are good and what types are bad?

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boring, workaday, mindless to-do lists.

That's the definition of "quest" in modern RPGs. But but, they have well-written flavor text, so it's ok.

It's worth looking back at the adventure genre, particularly the adventure/RPG hybrid Quest for Glory series. You don't have quests or even puzzles per se, just places to explore and stuff to do.

Streamlining quests into an easy-access system complete with a compass pointer and map markers (I'm looking at you, Oblivion and nearly every MMORPG) was a terrible, game-killing idea. It encourages you to be a mindless quest-grinding robot, cripples quest design possibilities, and makes any story elements extraneous and sometimes even frustrating. It's all about the goal, not enjoying the process of getting there. Morrowind and other RPGs have worked fine with just a journal or similar brief reminders.

I can't fit this into a MMO context, because the archetypal WoW-ish grind-to-level-50 MMORPG makes so many insanely stupid design assumptions as to be fundamentally broken. I'm sure you can polish that further, but it's still crap.

I completely disagree that a quest is a "boring, workaday, mindless to-do list." If that is what quests are viewed as these days, then it is due to the poor quality of today's quests, not an inherent property of the ideal quest. Boring chores are called chores or perhaps tasks, errands or small jobs. A quest is a trial, enduring tribulation, epic adventure or important duty. Very different things.

Language is very important to discussion, because it is the foundation of our communication. It shapes the way we think and present our ideas to others. You may be saying to me, "boring, mundane task," but I am hearing "heroic, epic adventure."

If quests really are being seen as the new mob grind, then we need to re-emphasize the heroic nature of quests. Either that, or we coin a new term to indicate the truly epic, heroic undertakings indicative of quests of old. I think this is truly the crux of the issue being argued in the article. There needs to be a greater distinction between mundane tasks that serve as design tools to incentivize players and the truly epic quests that are worthy of the time to read, comprehend and absorb.

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Original post by kru I completely disagree that a quest is a "boring, workaday, mindless to-do list." If that is what quests are viewed as these days, then it is due to the poor quality of today's quests, not an inherent property of the ideal quest. Boring chores are called chores or perhaps tasks, errands or small jobs. A quest is a trial, enduring tribulation, epic adventure or important duty. Very different things. Language is very important to discussion, because it is the foundation of our communication. It shapes the way we think and present our ideas to others. You may be saying to me, "boring, mundane task," but I am hearing "heroic, epic adventure." If quests really are being seen as the new mob grind, then we need to re-emphasize the heroic nature of quests. Either that, or we coin a new term to indicate the truly epic, heroic undertakings indicative of quests of old. I think this is truly the crux of the issue being argued in the article. There needs to be a greater distinction between mundane tasks that serve as design tools to incentivize players and the truly epic quests that are worthy of the time to read, comprehend and absorb.

I think the problem is, it is difficult to sell something as heroic if all around you 1000s of people are doing the same...

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Original post by kru I completely disagree that a quest is a "boring, workaday, mindless to-do list." If that is what quests are viewed as these days, then it is due to the poor quality of today's quests, not an inherent property of the ideal quest. Boring chores are called chores or perhaps tasks, errands or small jobs. A quest is a trial, enduring tribulation, epic adventure or important duty.

I agree with the first part of this, but the last sentence should be: A quest creates the social fabric of the gameworld; a quest should be a 'job adventure' which challenges the player's learning and strategic adaptability, or an opportunity for the player to express their character's personality by choosing between alternative goals or methods, or an opportunity for a player to build a relationship with an individual NPC and possibly also a faction. A quest should definitely NOT be a tribulation. A trial might be okay if that's in the sense of a test of merit or morality, which the player is intended to pass and be praised for.

I think that the definition kru gave is more or less correct. A quest is a task the player chooses to do to make something better. It cannot be a task necessary to maintain a character or the only way for the character to advance. By this very definition, when a quest is coupled to advancement, a quest ceases to be a quest.

A quest also ceases to be a quest when its effect is superficial. It is part of the definition of a quest that its effect is important. When the state is reset for each player in a persistent world, the effect is reduced. A solution is as follows:

The origin of the quest could be a player character's pet. The pet wants something, so the player, as its master, assigns himself a quest to provide for the pet. When the quest is completed the pet gets certain thing. Since each player could have their own pets, this important change is not reset. Thus the player could feel that it is a quest. As kru said, a quest cannot be a chore. He did not define what a chore is, but a chore is the set of actions that maintains the normal-state of something. So in general, feeding your pet is a chore if your pet would die if it is not fed. But finding the original owner of your pet is a quest, because your pet would probably not die and forget about its original owner.

A quest could be a trial but it is not a trial, simply because I want these two words to mean different things. A trial is a task one conducts to prove a quality about oneself.

A quest could involve repetitive work. In the finding the pet owner example, the quest might involve asking each house in the neighborhood door by door. But if the player finds that the work is bearable, and optional, the player will feel very strongly that he is doing a quest. "Yes it is tedious, but I WANT TO do it for little [insert name of pet]." A quest is characterized by a task that is worth doing. Not that it is fun to do. The sense of worth/the value of the work must be accepted by the player to feel that the quest is a quest. This type of quest is not forced upon the player.


[Edited by - Wai on March 19, 2009 8:16:01 PM]

I've played WOW off an on for the last two-and-a-half years, and I'll agree that quest-based character progression has gone quite a bit further than it needed too. Sometime prior to that, I spent a significant amount of time with Diablo and Diablo II. Those games involved a ridiculous amount of grinding.

Neither system is a complete solution, as everything becomes tiresome when it's in abundance. The best system is a well-balanced one. The grinding fills the gap between quests, and the quests feel significant (or provide a means for a significant upgrade, skill, relationship, area).

There are alternatives, such as awarding players for exploration in larger game worlds. Awarding players for building relationships with factions... These sorts of things already exist in systems where your character develops based on your actions instead of following a strictly defined leveling system.

I agree with the topic starter.
Quest also known as mission or journal, which mean it not like what it's is right now. It simple a note write down what player meet on their adventure, just that. But it must more fun.
The "quest" now a day so boring, player questing like a machine while quest meaning must bring more things than that, ie: knowledge, edu, ...

MMO games in the WoW paradigm are not going to be able to get away from the fundamental problem. Levelling your character is the most obvious and significant achievement in the game, and players want to achieve and out-achieve one another. Thus, it becomes very frustrating either to have to grind for ages (Maple Story's Pig Beach is a recurring nightmare I have) or to have to wander aimlessly through quests with vague instructions, getting your butt kicked while you hunt for the one tree that has fruit on it, or the tent in the camp that has the boots you need.

Someone will always know the best way to level, and everyone who doesn't will be levelling slowly. Guided, short-term, mundane quests are an easy way to direct players toward a high-yield, "productive" play style while providing a steady stream of victories for them to achieve.

You'd have to seriously restructure the levelling idea in order to make a non-grinding system viable. The grind is like building a brick wall: Sure, it's a monotonous, repetitive task, but every time you step back, it's a little higher, a little better. That's enough to keep people playing, and paying for MMO subscriptions.

For offline, single-player games, we need to fight the drive to have "80 hours of gameplay in a sprawling imaginary world" printed on the box. A game can be a lot of fun without having to grind to level up. In fact, you could probably make an entire fun video game out of some WoW quests that take ten minutes to complete. What's that? Kill nine Crimson Legion Captains? Heck, Altair spent the entire Assassin's Creed game killing nine dudes.