I had an interesting dream today. I was living inside an MMO, but it was a more realistic cyber world sort of thing, and when I acted within it the way I have learned to act in current MMOs, people thought I was a psychopath. o.O In modern MMOs and to some extent single player RPGs, I've been trained to basically do whatever the NPCs tell me to do. "Never reject a quest (unless you are sure there is a superabundant supply of them)." "You can't really reject a quest - it just waits around undone forever." "My avatar is me and the story I am living is that of infinitely getting more powerful through patience and repetitious work, with the addition of possibly using cleverness to get rich." People often talk about why it might be a good thing to add permadeath to games; I'm opposed to adding that to any sort of a standard MMO but I haven't been able to clearly articulate why before. But in the wake of my dream I figured it out - permadeath is philosophically incompatible with the MMO 'story' of getting bigger and better. In order to make sense permadeath requires 'non-permalife', in other words you can't give an _avatar_ a failure condition without actually giving it a victory condition. A 'good ending' to aim for instead of just attempting to avoid the bad ending; a 'mission' structure of story rather than a 'growth' structure. The character expiring due to a time limit (or old age) _doesn't_ work for this purpose. It's too much of a setback to go from fully-empowered and developed avatar to a new one, and both unbalancing and boring if you allow money or other advantages to be transferred to the new character but then require the new character to go through the same quests and other gameplay. On the other hand, if you make the victory condition be surviving 10 levels of MMO play, then the same char or a new char gets to play the next 10 levels, that's no different from going back to restore points, since the 10-level mark functions as one. So where does refusing quests come in? Well I personally see interactive story content as the only way to meaningfully differentiate one MMO avatar's life from another's. And I was reflecting that what a person refuses to do is a huge part of defining their personality. So this is a general design challenge: how can we make refusing some quests have potentially positive effects/rewards without totally breaking the motivation for taking quests?

The whole perma-death thing was discussed at length in another thread, I won't be re-hashing that. Suffice to say that I find your statement true in the most simplistic way, but seriously flawed.

Rejecting quests is interesting to me, but I don't think I will see it happen. Not to be negative, but I will start with the main flaw - World of Warcraft has 7650 quests and two-million words of text even without the whole refusing quests aspect. They have two factions, but they share maybe a quarter of the quests. To make it so you had twice as many optional quests, you are looking at maybe 18,000 quests and about 3 million lines of text. (not all of that text is taken from quests)

This is not insurmountable though...

As to the possibilities; the idea of choosing quests carefully sounds like factions. If you have a selection of factions, maybe grouped into antagonistic pairs, then choosing to help one factions (perhaps the mafia) will lead to a drop in faction with another group (police) and will not affect your relationship with certain others (Hermetic Order / Knights Templar) who hate each other but take no part in this rivalry.
Another approach might be that early quests build your popularity with everyone, but as the levels (or number of quests completed) build, you start having to choose between rival groups within the factions.

The less-than-violent quest idea also appeals. Many games include these quests; courier quests, escort quests and 'use your special talents here' quests (such as 'use your heal spell on the ranger' or 'hack the security system to find out which cell holds the prisoner') fit the pattern. The trick would be to shift the focus onto this style. Even a mafia faction will not exclusively require assassinations, sometimes they will want you to break into a building and steal a file. The thing is that the danger can still be there; you may have to sneak / fight / talk your way past an obstacle or an opposing faction. Escort and courier missions will usually involve an ambush or two, but the fact that you are reacting to the attack rather than starting it makes all the difference between mild sociopathy (for instance, joining an organised crime syndicate) and complete psychopathy (killing a room full of people because you were offered $10 and a cookie).

@ sunandshadow

Interesting ideas you have.

[Edited by - -It-will-be-Grand- on October 5, 2009 8:05:18 AM]

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Original post by sunandshadow permadeath is philosophically incompatible with the MMO 'story' of getting bigger and better. In order to make sense permadeath requires 'non-permalife', in other words you can't give an _avatar_ a failure condition without actually giving it a victory condition. A 'good ending' to aim for instead of just attempting to avoid the bad ending; a 'mission' structure of story rather than a 'growth' structure. The character expiring due to a time limit (or old age) _doesn't_ work for this purpose. It's too much of a setback to go from fully-empowered and developed avatar to a new one, and both unbalancing and boring if you allow money or other advantages to be transferred to the new character but then require the new character to go through the same quests and other gameplay. On the other hand, if you make the victory condition be surviving 10 levels of MMO play, then the same char or a new char gets to play the next 10 levels, that's no different from going back to restore points, since the 10-level mark functions as one.

I'm not certain I'm following you but maybe I am: You start your first character and the level cap for that character is level 10, correct? You can die all you like with whatever penalties are appropriate but once you reach level 10 you either opt to play a new level 10 character or your old character can play levels 10 through 20.

If I'm understanding this right then I don't exactly see what advantage this has over the traditional way leveling is done. I can imagine that you'd add color to the idea-- for instance, maybe a new character is the default every 10 levels and players have to do something special to keep their existing character "immortal" or whatever. But this alone doesn't seem to capture the story of growth that you're seeking.

The only way that I could see this working would be if there was some fundamental shift in each leveling "generation." A character that's great at assassination missions, to use your quest refusal idea, gets replaced with one who has primary skills in ranged combat. So the level 1-9 character naturally refuses ranged combat or magic or whatever because they don't suit his skillset, and in doing so the narrative takes them in a different direction than the level 10-19 character, who excels at ranged combat. Or something.

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So this is a general design challenge: how can we make refusing some quests have potentially positive effects/rewards without totally breaking the motivation for taking quests?

I think there has to be flavors of a commonly desirable resource, each of which allows for different gameplay and narrative outcomes. The Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Empire light side / dark path dichotomy, though hackneyed, is a good example. If the player identifies strongly enough with a particular side then they'll be incited to take some quests but skip others because the narrative outcomes will be more or less palatable based on what they choose.

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Original post by Prince of Cats Rejecting quests is interesting to me, but I don't think I will see it happen. Not to be negative, but I will start with the main flaw - World of Warcraft has 7650 quests and two-million words of text even without the whole refusing quests aspect. They have two factions, but they share maybe a quarter of the quests. To make it so you had twice as many optional quests, you are looking at maybe 18,000 quests and about 3 million lines of text. (not all of that text is taken from quests)

I'm no MMO player but I'm curious why player created quests, integrated into the game and controlled by some sort of quest design interface, haven't become more popular. Is it because all of those lines of flavor text can't come from players? What if you had a rating system which allowed player mission givers to gain in or out of game prestige / popularity or some other incentive?

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Original post by Wavinator I'm no MMO player but I'm curious why player created quests, integrated into the game and controlled by some sort of quest design interface, haven't become more popular. Is it because all of those lines of flavor text can't come from players? What if you had a rating system which allowed player mission givers to gain in or out of game prestige / popularity or some other incentive?

I'm also not an MMO player, but I bought Spore: Galactic Adventures to see what an integrated player quest system would be like. However I have heard that City of Heroes/Villains has a player made quest add-on, if you want to check it out.

The main problem appears to be quality control. I haven't played Spore: Galactic Adventures too much, but out of the half dozen player made quests I was randomly given most were broken, pointless or experimental demos that the system still accepted. The only one quest that was remotely decent was in French, so I had only a limited idea of what was going on.

I've heard there's a similar problem with City of Heroes. While it has a voting system for the missions, people have different opinions on what constitutes "good". Some players prefer well-crafted missions in tune with the tone of the rest of the game, some people prefer "humorous" subversions (LOLZ!), while others prefer dead easy missions that dish out fifty bajillion XP and the Sword of Win-The-Game. It's hard to cater for all those different types within the same persistent world without making someone unhappy.

@ Wavinator and Trapper Zoid

I haven't seen any successfull systems that implement player created missions but I hope to design something or see someone else implement a system that lets players create the simple quests e.g. Fetch X x10, Escort X to Y, Kill X x20 so that designers can use the games tools to focus more on just story relative and fun quests while still having the world full of the other "quests" aka Time sinks.

sunandshadow, I posted similar thoughts on permadeath in the other thread:

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Original post by Bravepower The issue with permadeath in an MMO setting is that these types of games are designed to be more like online casinos - you can lose, but you will always come back for more. The repetitive gameplay with eternal growth and little punishment is the perfect basis for an online community, since the gameplay is more of a time-spending device to supplement the game's community aspect. People sit around healing and the gameplay provides them with a common ground for discussion.

To discuss your topics, the question must be raised whether it is important to meaningfully differentiate avatars' "lives". Yes, visual distinctions are important because many of us are playing "dress-up" with our virtual alter-egos and they provide a way to distinguish each other in an intuitive manner. But in a game where value is placed in time and dedication, and meaning is gained from interacting and competing with your peers (the ultimate status is being the number one on the server), would anyone pay attention to minor story points like your character's life progression?

This is, of course, assuming that the game is exactly the same as the current MMORPG stereotype (a la WoW). In a system like Prince of Cats suggested where the quests you choose affect your standing with different groups, this would have a lot more effect on your gaming experience (and would thus not just be minor story points). Then again, this would not be actively denying quests, but choosing one quest over another.

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Original post by Wavinator I'm not certain I'm following you but maybe I am: You start your first character and the level cap for that character is level 10, correct? You can die all you like with whatever penalties are appropriate but once you reach level 10 you either opt to play a new level 10 character or your old character can play levels 10 through 20. If I'm understanding this right then I don't exactly see what advantage this has over the traditional way leveling is done. I can imagine that you'd add color to the idea-- for instance, maybe a new character is the default every 10 levels and players have to do something special to keep their existing character "immortal" or whatever. But this alone doesn't seem to capture the story of growth that you're seeking. The only way that I could see this working would be if there was some fundamental shift in each leveling "generation." A character that's great at assassination missions, to use your quest refusal idea, gets replaced with one who has primary skills in ranged combat. So the level 1-9 character naturally refuses ranged combat or magic or whatever because they don't suit his skillset, and in doing so the narrative takes them in a different direction than the level 10-19 character, who excels at ranged combat. Or something.

Well, I was using the 10 level idea as an example of what would be a bad way to implement permadeath. But I also didn't mean you can die all you like in the 10 levels, I meant just the opposite - if you die in the first 10 levels it's permanent and you have to start again with a new level 1 character. but if you make it to level 10, then die, when you start over you can make a level 10 character. But it's an equally bad idea either way, lol.

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Original post by Prince of Cats As to the possibilities; the idea of choosing quests carefully sounds like factions. If you have a selection of factions, maybe grouped into antagonistic pairs, then choosing to help one factions (perhaps the mafia) will lead to a drop in faction with another group (police) and will not affect your relationship with certain others (Hermetic Order / Knights Templar) who hate each other but take no part in this rivalry. Another approach might be that early quests build your popularity with everyone, but as the levels (or number of quests completed) build, you start having to choose between rival groups within the factions. The less-than-violent quest idea also appeals. Many games include these quests; courier quests, escort quests and 'use your special talents here' quests (such as 'use your heal spell on the ranger' or 'hack the security system to find out which cell holds the prisoner') fit the pattern. The trick would be to shift the focus onto this style. Even a mafia faction will not exclusively require assassinations, sometimes they will want you to break into a building and steal a file. The thing is that the danger can still be there; you may have to sneak / fight / talk your way past an obstacle or an opposing faction. Escort and courier missions will usually involve an ambush or two, but the fact that you are reacting to the attack rather than starting it makes all the difference between mild sociopathy (for instance, joining an organised crime syndicate) and complete psychopathy (killing a room full of people because you were offered $10 and a cookie).

Yes this is the kind of thing I was thinking of: quest choice affects faction reputation, possibly also the avatar's morality score ala Fable, and/or rather than picking a class at the beginning one has to earn one's way into a class; carrying out a psychopath/evil quest could prevent you from ever becoming a paladin/priest/whatever, while other classes might require levels of crafting mastery, or convincing a group of mages to do some sort of permanent magical transformation on your avatar, or making a pact with a demon and passing the demon's tests, etc.

The reason I think being able to reject quests is important is that in real life refusing to do something 'immoral' despite pressure to do it or advantageousness of doing it is one of the most basic measures of personal integrity/philosophy/honor, whatever you want to call it.

Also I think it could add depth to an mmo to add punishments for not doing quests as well as rewards for doing them (and vice versa, punishments for doing them and rewards for not doing them). This fits in really well with the idea that leveling in an mmo is really about time investment - whatever the player chooses to do in the game should be rewarded more or less equally, as long as they are doing something. Then to create the interactive story experience, the game has to recognize which activities the player chooses to do and chooses not to do. Refusing quests could be a great way for a player to tell the game "I am NOT that kind of person." in a way the game can easily understand and react to.

@Bravepower - whether a player gives a crap about becoming #1 on a server (I don't personally) should also be something the game recognizes and responds to as part of the avatar's identity/personal story.