MMO Quest Types

Escort quests and quests inside dungeons are probably two of the least liked kinds of quests.

Well, let's make a list of what type of quests there are before worrying about which are better than others.

* Where the term NPC is used, this can also refer to an interactive inanimate object such as a monster-dropped quest starting item, a readable object such as a wanted posted or rune-carved obelisk, a target location to stand on or finish line to cross, a lever which can be pulled, or a machine which can be broken or repaired.

1. "Go get it" quest - NPC A tells you to go get something and come back for a reward.
- A. Basic kill quest - kill X monsters of type Y
- B. Boss kill quest - kill Y named monster. Alternatively you may be given a bounty hunt to kill Y player character.
- C. Basic drop/gathering quest - bring the NPC X objects of type Y, obtained however the player wants, including purchased from other players.
- D. Special drop quest - kill monsters of type Y until you have dropped X of a special non-tradable drop which the monsters do not drop for people who don't have the quest.
- E. Special gathering quest - gather X plant or other environmental object which is only active for people who have the quest.
- F. Special purchase quest - buy X of object Y from NPC B.
- G. Crafting quest - player must craft X of object Y

2. "Go talk to" quest - NPC A tells you to go talk to NPC B. This type of quest may end at NPC B or go on to NPC C, or send you back to NPC A like a "go get it" quest.
- A. Basic detective quest - you are investigating a mystery and NPC A tells you NPC B may have another clue.
- Basic messenger quest - NPC A tells you to deliver a warning, letter, bill, package, or other message to NPC B. Another possibility is that you will acquire an NPC follower or pet which will follow you until you deliver them to NPC B.

3. Minigame quest - NPC A will reward the player if they manage to accomplish some objective or score within a minigame.
- A. Jumping
- B. Racing
- C. Rock-Paper-Scissors or other game of random chance (roulette, slots...)
- D. Board game vs. NPC (dice, cards, checkers, reversi, mancala, chess, etc.)
- E. Solitaire game (mahjongg, cards, etc.)
- F. Speed puzzle game (tetris, colums, zuma, etc.)
- G. Sim/Lemmings/micromanagement
- H. FPS/SHMUP
- I. RTS or turn-based tactical
- J. Arcade, beat-em-up, or platformer
- K. Steering (skateboarding, snowboarding, parasailing...)
- L. There's probably a dozen more categories of minigame

4. Puzzle quest - A door is locked or an NPC will not cooperate until a puzzle is solved. For MMO use these should have a randomized start state or victory condition to thwart walkthrough-makers.
- A. Dialogue puzzle - make the correct choices in conversation with the NPC
- B. Press buttons in the right order or set switches to the right positions
- C. Slide and/or rotate blocks/tiles to the right positions
- D. Other physics/logic puzzle
- E. Math problem
- F. Trivia question
- G. Maze (personally I much prefer the kind where you slide a token through a maze you are viewing from the top to the kind where you are walking through it. And mazes which violate the laws of physics with strange warps are just annoying.)
- H. Disguise - you must wear all the pieces of a disguise to enter a restricted area or fool an NPC.


Eh, there's the start of a list, anyone can feel free to add to it.

Thanks thats a pretty good list of Quest Types. When I play MMOs personally I tend not to do Quests very much so I really wasn't sure what types there were. That gives me a good head start on working on the Quest System. My Server uses Lua scripts to create the Quests.

Here is a example script for a Timed Quest:


testQuest = TimedQuest()
testQuest:setName('Test Quest')
testQuest:setDescription('This is a test quest to see if Lua is going to work!')
testQuest:setObjectives('kill 10 wolves and bring me back their hide!')
testQuest:finishLoading('Quest Plugin')
addQuest(testQuest)

Thats just very basic at this point but the Quest System is still very early in it's development.

You will probably want [wolf] to be a clickable link which should take the player to the location of the monsters.

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow You will probably want [wolf] to be a clickable link which should take the player to the location of the monsters.

I am not sure yet. Maybe if demand is great enough then maybe but I want as little hand holding as possible. It's no fun if all you have to do is click on a link and have the players know exactly where to go.

1) Gather / Exterminate - Go to the indicated location. Kill the designated enemies. Gather the designated loot. Return to base.

These quests have full information. It is just up to the player to grind for the drops or kills.
* Kill all the in the .
* Gather 10 off the .
* Goto the and locate the .
* got lost in the forest. I bet the took him.

2) Find - Learn the location or purpose of the quest. Go there and complete the quest.

These quests usually involve either some luck, or a lot of running around. The item might not be marked like most quest items. The player may have to run around and talk to several people before he learns what the item looks like. The player may have to talk to people to figure out where to go.
* Find the . Maybe the other might know more about it's location.
* Find the . and might know more.
* got lost in the forest.

3) Travel - The entire purpose is to get the player to go somewhere else.

These quests are used to either tie up the player, direct them to another location, or give them "free" experience.
* Your training here is done. Talk to my associate north in .
* Please take this to my sick father.
* Take these flowers to my mother's grave. Careful, the graveyard is infested with zombies. I hope my mother is resting in peace.

4) Escort - The entire purpose of this quest is to protect some token NPC while the quest procedes.

* Protect me while i travel to the shrines in an attempt to cleanse the evil.
* Please, help me get out of this cave.



One consideration in these quests is that usually the designers will tie several quests together in an attempt to get the most out of an area. You'll have a quest to clear the graveyard of zombies. Quest to take a flower to someone's grave. You'll then find some injured gravedigger who needs to be escorted out of the crypt where you placed the flower.


There are several complains about quests that make them really hard to manage.
1) Single Player
* Quests are repetitive. You have to do a LOT of quests, and as a single player they quickly start to repeat.
* Quests are too hard/easy. As a single player it is easy to have quests that are super easy for your class. It is also quite possible to screw yourself and make the quest super hard.
* All I ever do is run around! As a single player, you have less resources. Loot stacks up on one person fast. Supplies run out during extended questing. There is nothing to do while you run around.

2) Small Group
* Not enough group quests. Appealing to the single player leaves a lot of single player quests. Groups who are questing will have to do stupid things to complete quests. You will have to re-run escort quests once per group member. You will have to kill a mini-boss once per group member. If everyone needs 10 wolf pelts, and pelts drop with 50% rate, then you still need to kill 20 wolves PER group member. Groups want quests that you can complete as a group. The quest is harder, but once you kill the boss, everyone can collect an item off him.
* Quests too easy/hard. Groups are either well balanced or trash. An all mage group is only going to get so far. While a warrior, priest, warlock and mage group will breeze through the same event. I suspect this is part of why in WoW, every single class is the same. It keeps you from being screwed when mages can tank, and warriors can heal (maybe exaggerating there).
* Crap, we wiped. The process of getting back on a roll after wiping can be painful. Repops get in your way. All your items are on your corpse, so you are fighting without equipment. You didn't get rezed, so you lost experience. You have to run back from a graveyard that usually isn't close. Your body is on the other side of a locked door, and you either have to pick the lock or kill the key mob again. And whatever creature you were fighting probably insta regenerated his health.

3) Large group
* Can't find people for this quest. Everyone completed it already. The quest only benefits your class so why do they care? Some other quest takes priority.
* This quest takes too long. "-50 DKP!". Mobs only drop so much loot a day, and everyone is fighting for that loot. It can take forever to get everyone all the items they need or want.

Quote:

testQuest = TimedQuest() testQuest:setName('Test Quest') testQuest:setDescription('This is a test quest to see if Lua is going to work!') testQuest:setObjectives('kill 10 wolves and bring me back their hide!') testQuest:finishLoading('Quest Plugin') addQuest(testQuest)

Well... that really isn't going to work. First off, as sunandshadow stated, the text needs to have hotlinks. The text might need images. It might need to present choices (pick one of these 3 items for the reward). It might need to indicate images. The text needs to be translated to many languages. Remember the quests will need to be linked to specific items and instances in the game.

-- eidt

Quote:

I am not sure yet. Maybe if demand is great enough then maybe but I want as little hand holding as possible. It's no fun if all you have to do is click on a link and have the players know exactly where to go.

Things should still be clickable, even if they don't link to "look here for hides". You'll have text like "reward ", and the player will want to be able to click and see what it is. This is expecially true when you offer one of two rewards.

Also note that "no hand holding" be a huge complaint as well. There is some merit to a few mystery quests. But people don't like being lost. That is why there are so many WoW sites to show you how to beat every quest, and where every item drop is.

Just thought of a quest variant you rarely see in MMOs, but I'd like to see more of: kill all monsters in area Z. This could be an instance, or it could be done with "selective vision". Once the quest is complete the area is permanently clear (unless it's an instance that is exited and re-entered).

What I'd like to see more of is the quests in Warhammer online.
It had a really cool public quest system. You'd walk into an area and start killing guys. Once so many had been killed, the location moved onto stage two. Different things would spawn, and the mission area would be harder. You'd finish the objective or time would run out. If time ran out, the area reverted back to stage 1. If you won, the area moved to stage 3. Stage 3 (sometimes 4) was the "boss" stage. The area would be extremely hard to beat.
The quest was public though, so everyone who participated in the quest got some reward at the end. So, as the area progressed, people would start gathering up and helping each other to beat the area. It was a very simple system to garner group effort. It was fun. and it worked.

Warhammer online also had a really cool questing system where in each zone had 3 or 5 locations that were either "ally" or "enemy". Some quests were only completable if it was "enemy" and some only if it was "ally". Defeating bosses/champions in the area would change it from "enemy" to "ally". The other team had similar quests, and so there was conflict over areas to control the alignment of it for questing purposes. Holding all the areas got you points towards something for your whole race in the zone.