I was wondering what kind of questing mechanic you guys were thinking us using.
I remember in Everquest 1 you would hail an NPC and get a txt blurb back with certain [words] that you needed to use in your written responses. This was cool in the way in which it hade a feel that you where talking to a real person not an NPC but crazy frustrating when you didn't say exactly what they needed to hear.
Also are their plans to include a quest journal that helps you keep track of quests that you've found, a text record of what was said and a general area you found the NPC? or will I need to keep a paper logbook next to my computer to attempt to keep track of that stuff.. :(
I believe they are doing a mix of chatting with the NPCs and their very own perception system
I do enjoy a nice detailed journal to keep the quest notes and lore information in. But the OP sparked my memory of the hail. It was interesting to see the chat pop up like you were interacting with the NPCs and the world around you. most would ignore you, and some you didnt even know would have information for quest. Not the big blinking icon above their head saying come talk to me. I would hope to see this, but mixed with the perception system, like if you are not high enough, you will NOT see the word in brackets. You could talk, and miss the quest all together. I think this would make the conversations a bit deeper and more meaningful if your charater noticed certain words, or places that were spoken about.
The journal will be nice to keep track of what quest I am working on, but I really hope they bring the quest giver up to a more modern 'turn in' function than EQ. Quest givers should not be taking all quest items or destroying them if I turn in the incorrect items or in the incorrect order like EQ did. At least have the quest giver return your items with some smartass remark like "Come back when you actually want to quest and stop bringing me your garbage!"
Return the hard earned quest items if they are incorrect for a quest or do not allow them to be turned in at all.
BTW, the 'hail' system would be nice to see returned as well. It did make the world feel more alive having to type out bracketed words to dig deeper into a conversation to discover a hidden location in a particular zone.
I enjoy the /hail system, too, but I'd take it a step further. Instead of bracketing "trigger" words, leave out the brackets. Create response text for several words but only one or two of them lead toward quest progression. The others will need further response text of their own but most would be short and lead to dead ends like "I don't want to talk about my dead wife.". Others, even dead-enders, could go on for a while, perhaps exposing more lore or possibly pointless.
Quests, real quests, should require days if not weeks or months to complete. They should involve many NPCs, possibly involve killing a variety of things and/or exploring multiple places. They can and often should involve things that need a group or raid to complete. They should have meaningful rewards, not as a gift for completing the quest but rather as the goal of the quest or consequence of completing it.
UPS and kill/collect "quests" are just tasks. There is a place for them in a game of this type but they're not quests.
I'd love to see quests turn into something that actually require interacting with the world instead of "Hey, there's a giant question mark", two clicks and off we go to collect 19 rodent arses (gotta have 'em to give 'em).
Akilae said:I enjoy the /hail system, too, but I'd take it a step further. Instead of bracketing "trigger" words, leave out the brackets. Create response text for several words but only one or two of them lead toward quest progression. The others will need further response text of their own but most would be short and lead to dead ends like "I don't want to talk about my dead wife.". Others, even dead-enders, could go on for a while, perhaps exposing more lore or possibly pointless.
Quests, real quests, should require days if not weeks or months to complete. They should involve many NPCs, possibly involve killing a variety of things and/or exploring multiple places. They can and often should involve things that need a group or raid to complete. They should have meaningful rewards, not as a gift for completing the quest but rather as the goal of the quest or consequence of completing it.
UPS and kill/collect "quests" are just tasks. There is a place for them in a game of this type but they're not quests.
I'd love to see quests turn into something that actually require interacting with the world instead of "Hey, there's a giant question mark", two clicks and off we go to collect 19 rodent arses (gotta have 'em to give 'em).
Agreed, I think quest text brackets are just a subtle form of question marks or bouncing balls. People should explore the conversations with NPCs, delve into various lines of inquiry based on intution, context and learned association (ie a trigger topic/word/phrase which is learned somewhere else and then applied to the NPC in question), not simply thrown out with arrows pointing >>>Click this<<< or [Click this]. Those aren't quests, they are directions. A quest should be invloved, take thought, consideration, etc... to solve through exploration, trial/error and the like. Also, by not pointing out the specific trigger topics/phrases, it gives mystery and a sense of depth to what might be possible in quest exploration. You won't simply walk up to an NPC, hail them rush through bracketed trigger words and then think (nothing here). This would allow VR to create NPCs with quests that won't be found easily and with new content added, they can apply new topics/conversation triggers to older NPCs allowing for even more depth to the system and world. With such an approach, even cheat sites wouldn't be a guarantee to finding everything.
You might want to read this thread: Perception system: what we know so far. Breaks down how Perception works, but also explains how they will be using Traditional Questing like EQ where you hail and respond with the correct text. There is even video links that show you things in action.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:You might want to read this thread: Perception system: what we know so far. Breaks down how Perception works, but also explains how they will be using Traditional Questing like EQ where you hail and respond with the correct text. There is even video links that show you things in action.
Thanks for link.
The perception system looks interesting, but I don't like the traditional questing mechanic they have as the highlighted text is nothing more than a bouncing ball people will click through. No text should be highlighted, rather the player should have to establish the context by reading and trying different responses, not simply looking for various triggers with the mouse. Also, quest should go beyond simple declarations, they should require the player to delve into different questioning, approaches, etc... That is, rather than the NPC simply starting out with a hand me out distress quest as such, the player should have to pry out of the NPC the various issue rather than simply airing their dirty laundry to any passing stranger.
The idea is to get away from hand holding, forcing the player to truly interact with the environment and NPCs. I know the perception system does this some, but the traditional questing system should as well, considering we are only talking about placing conversation triggers in a less obvious fashion to require players to do better investigating.
Tanix said:Agreed, I think quest text brackets are just a subtle form of question marks or bouncing balls. People should explore the conversations with NPCs, delve into various lines of inquiry based on intution, context and learned association (ie a trigger topic/word/phrase which is learned somewhere else and then applied to the NPC in question), not simply thrown out with arrows pointing >>>Click this<<< or [Click this]. Those aren't quests, they are directions. A quest should be invloved, take thought, consideration, etc... to solve through exploration, trial/error and the like. Also, by not pointing out the specific trigger topics/phrases, it gives mystery and a sense of depth to what might be possible in quest exploration. You won't simply walk up to an NPC, hail them rush through bracketed trigger words and then think (nothing here). This would allow VR to create NPCs with quests that won't be found easily and with new content added, they can apply new topics/conversation triggers to older NPCs allowing for even more depth to the system and world. With such an approach, even cheat sites wouldn't be a guarantee to finding everything.
While I like that approach in general, IMO it should always be clear how to proceed the dialogue. Having to try dozens of phrases is NOT fun (to me). Having to leave the game to look up the required phrase on the internet is even worse and immersion breaking.
Sarim said:Tanix said:Agreed, I think quest text brackets are just a subtle form of question marks or bouncing balls. People should explore the conversations with NPCs, delve into various lines of inquiry based on intution, context and learned association (ie a trigger topic/word/phrase which is learned somewhere else and then applied to the NPC in question), not simply thrown out with arrows pointing >>>Click this<<< or [Click this]. Those aren't quests, they are directions. A quest should be invloved, take thought, consideration, etc... to solve through exploration, trial/error and the like. Also, by not pointing out the specific trigger topics/phrases, it gives mystery and a sense of depth to what might be possible in quest exploration. You won't simply walk up to an NPC, hail them rush through bracketed trigger words and then think (nothing here). This would allow VR to create NPCs with quests that won't be found easily and with new content added, they can apply new topics/conversation triggers to older NPCs allowing for even more depth to the system and world. With such an approach, even cheat sites wouldn't be a guarantee to finding everything.
While I like that approach in general, IMO it should always be clear how to proceed the dialogue. Having to try dozens of phrases is NOT fun (to me). Having to leave the game to look up the required phrase on the internet is even worse and immersion breaking.
I don't mean tying up the issue with "exact" phrase issues (as in the common problem with early text based game engines, there are much better ways to implement text systems these days), rather I mean not pointing out what might be a relevant point in a topic. This is a game after all, the player should have to deduce things, discuss with the NPC, ask about various things that are relevant to the issue that they may be having. I assume everyone wants to get away from the hand held bouncing ball game play of modern games where quests are thoughtless slot machine interaction with the player running up, fast clicking through the highlighted text, then rushing off to the objective?
What I am suggesting is the player actually take part in the game, be responsible for discussing with the NPC to find out things, using critical reading to identify what the issue is and what is relevant. Immersion is rather a subjective word anyway, but logically, would not immersion actually be to interact with the NPC, not simply being given the answers to an issue? How is simply fast clicking through a bunch of highlighted text "immersive", would not actually reading the NPCs comments, their story, their issues and truly interacting with them be immersive?
LoTRO on release had quests where the player was forced to read and then figure out what the quest was asking. They had to do more than simply follow directions, they had to understand things about the world, find out what a given place referenced was, or deduce where a particular person may be based on the subtle clues in the NPC's dialog. This is what I am talking about, actually... questing, not simply clicking through the world.
If the worry is that people will have to think, to put effort in and that will ruin the game, well... is that not more of a modern MMO ideal? That the player must be entertained at all times, that there should not be anything that disrupts that entertainment? Does this not conflict with the basic principals to which Pantheon is trying to achieve? That the game world means something, that it is not just a theme park where people just ride along?
Is pantheon trying to be a game? Or simply entertainment? Because they have two different design goals.
macgregoroi said: Eq didn’t have the text clicky for many years originality. But I remember it being a total nightmare then trying to respond to them because you wherent able to fraze your response to get the next step in the script they just did nothing. Plus I don’t have wonderful spelling, so 1 miss spelled word would train wreck everything and give me progression block.... No braces I don’t think would fly. I know it would make we want to smash thing irl
That was a problem of the times though. Today, you can attach dictionaries, thesauruses, spell checking, etc... to the text engine, reducing the issues with basic problems as such. Also the biggest problem with EQ was quest items being eaten because of these problems. That is easily solved knowing this can be an issue.
Frustration because of a poorly implanted system, I agree not good for the game, but frustration that comes from trying and failing to figure something out? That is a part of gaming, an important one in my opinion. People go on about how important it is to have long term development, difficult encounters, etc... but then think the questing system should be a clicking spree? They might as well go back to question marks over heads, a highlighted system is the same, it just requires the person to run around clicking on NPCs first.
Quambu said:I believe they are doing a mix of chatting with the NPCs and their very own perception system
I don't know who did the voice over in the perception system video, but I hope to see more videos like that. Was really neat.
bigdogchris said:I don't know who did the voice over in the perception system video, but I hope to see more videos like that. Was really neat.
It sounds exactly like @TheHiveLeader to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiK5tsQlC9s