In all but the most staunch sandbox-style MMOs, the Quest has become the cornerstone of directed player content. Gone are the days when they'd just give us a graveyard full of skeletons, and experience bar and tell us get on with it, and the modern MMO, such as World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, is very much a task-driven experience. Very little occurs without an accompanying quest journal entry these days, and thanks to generous cash, experience and item rewards, working through the quest chains can often be the most efficient way to make progress and headway in the average MMO.
The quest can also provide a little narrative to the otherwise formless adventuring of the typical MMO character; a set task and sometimes even a reason for the ensuing mayhem. That many of us simply skip the text is hardly the games fault. In any case, even without caring what the specifics or backstory to the job actually are, the mechanics of gameplay can be greatly improved by taking an endless and unbroken monster killing spree starting at level one and ending at level fifty, and breaking it into a large number of smaller distinct tasks, suitable for planning a gaming session around.
There is very little not to like about the currently widespread quest system; while individual implementations may vary and have their own quirks and peculiarities, the general principle of having something specific to be doing in a gaming session is a good one, and if it isn't, well, they are generally optional anyway and the graveyard of skeletons is always out there. But ask anyone with more than thirty completed journal entries to their name about questing in general, and two specific gripes are likely to come to light very quickly, the 'Kill Ten Rats' quest, and the 'Fed Ex' quest, two types of task that seem to resurface over and over, from back to EverQuest and beyond, in almost any MMO where there are quests at all.
What else can we be given to do, or are these two templates doomed to underlie everything we do in all our MMOs?
These two culprits follow a very basic pattern, despite a variety of different disguises. In the first, affectionately known as 'Kill Ten Rats', our indolent NPC will require a certain number of nearby monsters exterminating, in exchange for cash. Perhaps they threaten civilisation, perhaps he simply hates them. Simple enough, and the majority of MMO gameplay is based in combat anyway. Off the player goes, and a helpful on-screen tally will appear, chalking up kills until the quota is met. Satisfied, the NPC then hands over some cash, and the player goes on his merry way. The NPC then waits for the next adventurer to come along, and carry out the same methodical extermination. Perhaps the NPC may live to see his dream realised, a complete extinction!
Sometimes, the player's word is not good enough for our NPC, and proof is required. The structure changes somewhat, and now an intestine, or claw, or wing is needed. Only not every monster has the expected number of body parts when looted, and in this manner, the wily quest designer can stretch the task out a bit; since not every monster has an intestine, significantly more monsters will need to be butchered, until the correct number of intestines are obtained.
"In extreme cases, this message is to be delivered to someone within shouting distance" |
To really mix things up, both types can be used at once; NPC A needs ten rat appendectomies carrying out, and then the giblets taking to NPC B, some distance away! Now and then, the entire exercise is even timed!
These simplistic and repetitive quests often attract disgruntled contempt in discussions of MMO gameplay, primarily due to their overuse and poor attempts at disguise, but what alternatives exist? There are other ways to provide interesting activities during gameplay, but the variety of options available will depend a great deal on the flexibility of the game engine itself; in what different ways can a player interact with the world around them?
MMOs are principally about combat, but many of the other gameplay mechanics and modes can be fertile ground for a different kind of quest.
Crafting quests are one example; while the quest may be familiar, obtaining ten of an item for an NPC, having to source resources and then make the items in question can provide variety. Similarly, a more mercantile kind of quest requiring cunning use of an auction house or market might also work to subtly alter the nature of the challenge.
Exploration is another avenue for something a bit different; a quest requiring simply that the player go to some specific places to tag a landmark or waypoint, an excellent way to encourage players to seek out the far places and see things they might otherwise have missed. A different slant on the Fed Ex, but also a good way to usher players from one hunting ground to the next.
Both of these variations can be found in many MMOs to various extents and are often appreciated as a change of pace from the usual sort of thing. For more exotic questing, perhaps the answer lies in the more unconventional titles.
A Tale In The Desert is an interesting case; an MMO in which there is no combat at all must by necessity think outside the box for its questing, and the various Tests presented to the player in their journey toward citizenship and beyond, cover a surprising breath of gameplay styles. Much of it is crafting based, but a great many of them are intensely social in basic nature; the 'Principles of Leadership' test requires the player to obtain 21 petition signatures from other players. Ideally, each of these twenty-one will give serious consideration as to whether the petitioner is a suitable candidate to be allowed to continue up a series of similarly inter-personal Leadership Tests which may ultimately grant that person the power of banning other players from the game. Elsewhere, Tests of Art require the player to use simple world-building tools to create free-form sculptures which other players must vote their appreciation of. Such systems can be gamed, of course, but demonstrate interesting alternative mechanics none the less, many of which use the other players as content, rather than wandering rats and boars.
Puzzle Pirates presents a different kind of MMO experience entirely. Based extensively in the mini-game puzzles of the title, those puzzles themselves open up alternatives in quest requirements; simply to win at the mini-game becomes something new and unexpected. When the fundamentals of gameplay themselves are different, the quests are too. Win three rounds of this game, score 10,000 points in that game; both a far cry from amateur animal surgery with a big axe in a field somewhere. Recent newcomer Free Realms also adopts this kind of approach; by offering so many different gameplay styles within the one game, the associated quests also increase in variety, and with more distinct types of gameplay to choose from, combining objectives of different types can greatly increase the overall diversity of available questing.
"An MMO entirely based in riddles and trivia is likely to be an unrealistic proposition" |
When complaining of yet another Kill Ten Rats or Fed Ex quest, it can pay to give some thought to what else there could be, and if that is what is really wanted at all. As the majority of most mainstream MMOs revolves around real-time hot-key based combat, to deviate too far from that as a quest objective, is to deviate away from the fundamental gameplay that makes that title what it is, so perhaps a yearning for radically different kinds of quest belies a deeper yearning for more radically different games altogether?
Or put another way, when you're bored of rat spleens, are you bored of life in MMOs?
