World Changing quests.

I remember back in the days when I played a certain MUD, there would sometimes be quests which would alter the world in certain ways. It worked well as long as the quest was well thought out, and as long as the consequences were tested in a controlled situation before being turned loose on the world.

Best results in scenarios like this might be achieved by having human involvement in the quest, from inception to completion. This would require having people of "Wizard" ranking who can effect changes in the world on a grand scale, who orchestrate the quest, dicate rewards, and enforce the consequences. If these Wizards are given the right tools at their command, and if they are responsible enough and skillful enough, then some pretty interesting things can be achieved, and proper use of such quests can contribute to an overall sense of history being made as the game progresses.

I don''t play much in the way of MMOs anymore, but that has in the past been my biggest peeve, that nothing I do really matters. I can kill Big Bad John the Tyrannical Fruitloop over and over, and every time a respawn happens, he is back, as big, as bad, and as fruitloopy as ever. If the magnificent Fruitloop is played by one of these Wizards, however, and if he stays dead; if the battle is challenging and rewarding, and if the course of the game''s history is altered by his slaying, then I can feel a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride, when my name shows up in the realm paper or on the bulletin board as having participated in the overthrow of a despot. Such events can build reputations, and enhance a player''s experience.




Josh
vertexnormal AT linuxmail DOT org

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Check out Golem: Lands of Shadow, an isometrically rendered hack-and-slash inspired equally by Nethack and Diablo.

I think XP would be a fitting perk, though. In fact, I would like to see things like that be the primary source of xp, rather than goblin genocide.

The task would have to be inconceivably difficult for it to work, and it might be best if they require more than just following cryptic orders. What''s that nigh-invincible dragon in Everquest? The one that they had to spawn faster because its lifeespan was about forty-seven seconds? You need to avoid that.

Make it so the doors only open at certain times of the day, night, week, month, or year. Have it require that a level 1 character carry the gem, so that the badass warriors have to escort some newbie through the Dungeon of Pain without letting him die or gain any experience along the way. Have heroes that die in the Lair of the Soulless face perma-death. Have the Great Key weigh exactly the item capacity of whoever carries it, so they must be otherwise naked and unarmed. Have the switch open the door for exactly three minutes exactly one week after the switch itself is thrown.

In conclusion, make the challenge so bizarrely difficult that either nobody but the insanely brave will try it (permadeath) or else make it take time to do (week-long switch delay). That way, players will have a sense that something is happening in the world. Either they''ll know about the challenge and groom their character to face it (or not) or they''ll see the portents that indicate that a power is invoked or an artifact destroyed.

From a business standpoint, it''s worthwhile to have the expansion appear as soon as it''s ready, so you don''t want players fighting to unlock a piece of code that''s already written and payed for. Maybe it would be a good idea then to have major expansions immediately available, but have the challenges before it''s released. You get three months to unlock the expansion while it''s being written. If you get through all the challenges, you get huge xp and recognition in the annals of game history, and maybe a few unique items, and when the expansion is released it''s available to everyone. If nobody gets it done, then some NPC is credited with the heroism, and nobody gets anything from it.

Within the worlds, though, is another matter. Remember how the world changed in Zelda: OoT? You beat a dungeon, and the dessicated land is healed. That might be cool. Cities could be won back from evil curses or hordes of zombies, and real estate could be acquired through commerce and conquest. You kill the dragons that live in the gem mine, and then you get income from that mine, or a choice selection of gems. NPCs run the mine, and maybe later the dragons return, or some other problem befalls tham and some other hero gets to help out. But that''s not world-altering.

I think the best way to do that is through a dynamic world with adversarial character alignments. I know few people really like PvP, but look at PlanetSide: Fortresses and continents are won and lost, and there''s always a new battle, a new frontier. If that dynamic could be implemented into an MMORPG, the replay value would be infinite.

And there''s the old pipe dream about dynamic cities, where you can construct or demolish buildings in the course of the game. That would be freaking awesome. A whole city could be lost, and treasure looted from the ruins. Temples could be built and outposts could turn to towns could turn to cities. But it''s a difficult thing to do, and it''s too big to clutter this thread with it. I read many of the other, older threads of this nature, and I hope some new ideas are seen here.

Im not a large fan of PVP...but the idea is for the world changing quests to be:

One time only in the entire game. This is the key...if its a repeatable quest then it definately won''t change anything. (even epics are repeatable...just maybe not by the same person)

The reward IS the expansion (or part of it) I see no need to add in XP.

The quests should be multi tiered, and increadibly long by terms of steps not by wierd artificial things (the example of the one week switch....that would be frustrating)

The idea is to make the quest completeable by the determined, not through sickening the other players away with difficulty (permadeath) or frustrations, but by the shere length of the quest itself.

Also im not fond of monsters with large (week, month, 24 hour) spawn times...I don''t want time to be added by camping

I think things like that might make an MMO worth playing. I wouldn't suggest things as grand as doubleing the size of the world, but finding new islands and things like that could be interesting. It would be awesome to have 'just' exploration be a possible occupation. Maybe the first person to set foot in a place gets to name it? Of course, the names would have to be 'moderated' so you dont get really lame names (like have wizards get notified when something is named, and don't show the name in game until a wiz approves it. If he/she doesnt, he/she can email the player and discuss a more appropriate name at which time the name will be displayed in game along with a notice on the game's history book on the web page).

I would say don't add EXTRA experience or the like, but if the quest involves overthrowing a tyrant, make sure appropriate experience is given for his/her defeat. Also, don't skimp on the treasure such a tyrant would have, but make sure he/she actually uses the best items he/she has in any fight. The guards etc should be very well armed as well, so that it takes a high level party to do it. I don't think the average level 1 john doe should be able to complete important quests like that, but it would give people a goal to work toward just like in p&p rpgs - you don't go camp the ork spawn, you go out an adventure to some end.

Also, you should try to make as many one time quests as you can, like make a script for what happens when a good king is overthrown and apply that to ALL good kings (with modifications/randomness where appropriate to avoid the 'all kings are exactly the same'). It would make a much more realistic world where players have a visible impact.

[edited by - extrarius on October 19, 2003 11:44:49 PM]

How about world changing events or actions, as well as quests? An ecological balance between lizardmen and werewolves, such that if xp farmers reduce the lizardman population, the werewolves flourish, eventually threatening towns and travelers, and interfering with trade routes.

Or minor events, like a rogue dragon wndering into a dragon-free area and running amok could prompt the local authorities to put out a reward for killing it. Not a big deal, but the slayer would be remembered in that town, and maybe get a reputation boost.

Extrarius''s recommendation about deposition of rulers makes me wonder what happens after a ruler is deposed. You march into a city, beat the guards, storm the castle, and slay the dictator. Then what? You gather the loot and take off? What about the city? Wouldn''t his son just take over for him? To conquer a nation, you have to work very hard for a long time. I can think of a certain current event that could inform this dynamic, but I''d hate to have to code it.

I stand by my idea of enforcing time delays. No matter how many steps you build into a quest, there''s gonna be that kid who beat Final Fantasy 3 in one sitting who will play non-stop for fifty hours to get the job done. I know that kid. Heck, I used to BE that kid, and he doesn''t need sleep, or food, or a paycheck, or good grades. All he needs is the PUSD.

And if world altering adventures aren''t a source of experience, then what is? It''s certainly easier to relegate all level-raising to goblin-slaying, but that system is more and more antiquated every year. The idea that a guy who''s never left the Forest of Imps has more "experience" than a guy who''s got continents named after him is patently absurd. He might have a better chop, but why would his intelligence be augmented by mindless butchery? Of course, this is an issue that has been discussed often and at length around here, and I have no desire to resurrect it.

As to monster spawn times, I don''t think that unique monsters should respawn at all. I think that various generic beasties of varying degrees of difficulty should be present in the world, but those ancient Balrogs and Djinn should stay dead once you whack them. New "boss" monsters could be released, summoned, created, bred, or discovered, just as new tyrants can arise, but a named, significant beast should only get one shot at it. And there should be no real way of knowing when and where they''ll be. No camping, just hunting.

Iron Chef,

There are a couple of things that I would like to point out. First that same kid who finishes the thing in 55 hours of non stop game play is the exact same person who Would come back in exactly a week. It really doesn''t make much difference. There are ways of extending times in these quests without them seeming to be artificial. Most of it depends on how much your game can do. Certain things that can be done to add in delays (that do not seem to be artificial) are:
Time of day (only comes out at night)
Phases of the Moon (Moon Runes can only be read under the same phase of the moon in which they were written)
Dates (spells that only work on summer/winter solstice, all hallows eve etc.)

Also keep in mind that even though the quest might have 55 hours of game play attached to it, that would ONLY be if you knew exactly what to do. As it is though since this quest can only be completed once, by anybody, whoever goes through the quest won''t be able to write a guide on the internet since once its completed, the quest is no more...

Parts of the quest will also be somewhat vuage and will require some research on the part of the player to complete, not just an entire series of go fetch this, kill that, take it to this person over and over again....It should take someone quite a bit of time to do.

One thing came to mind when I read the first post, that is that some people might not even know about the quest or have a chance to try it before the quest was completed and the world had changed..

Like other have said you may have it that 1 group or 1 type of player would be doing all the quests, 1 thing I know you need to avoid is having it so that a player be playing 1 day and then during the night someone plays the quest and everything is totally changed.. the player that miss the change might walk right into trouble if he doesn''t know what the quest had done to the world.

However I''m not really against the Idea I think the world needs to change.. thats the big thing about a MMORPG that there is an ever changing world that is somewhat created by the players in the game..

The change just needs to be balanced so that everyone can enjoy it..

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In a game like Everquest you have many parallel worlds to play on. Actions that alter a major aspect of the game would cause differences between the worlds, which would add a lot to their interest.

It would be cool if a major world-altering quest had parts that could only be unlocked by certain class/race combinations. No one player alone could complete the quest. The results of the quest would find themselves in various tomes in cities. So someday your character would find a book that has the story with his name in it.

As for dynamic cities... I wonder if MMORPGs should have a secure sim-city like interface for gamemasters. Give them a bird''s eye view and the ability to summon denizens into ruins, or intelligent citizens building new cities. Design the new cities much like sim-city. Click on certain mobs and give them backgrounds or chain them with quests, etc. I think these people should be employed by the game company. Would be a cool job, eh?

I have other quest ideas in mind. You hit on one, I like to call it the group quest.

I''d also like to see

multi-tier random quests
Multi-party quests (think of Star wars EP6 for this sort of thing)
Different types of quests besides, go kill, go fetch, go tell etc.