The Importance of Non-Combat

[Laraden]

Questname: The Lazy Man's Marathon Challenge!
Quest objective: Walk 10 steps
Quest reward: 999999999999999 xp

[Nybling]

^ Pretty much what is bound to happen unless there are strict parameters involved.

[Linkamus]

(08-02-2010 04:54 PM)Nybling Wrote:  Linkamus,

I wouldn't say that. Oblivion and Dragon Age... even Neverwinter Nights has had great player-created mods. What you could do is set up a toolset for Player Created quests, but make them approved by a person or two. That way players can contribute to the game, but you prevent crazy people from submitting random content to PL themselves.

Well, to me single player RPG's like you mentioned are a completely different ballpark. In single player RPG's it's a secluded experience, and the player has much more control over it, (and should). Sadly a lot of mods make a game better in ways the devs could not! And I definitely agree that there many players out there that could contribute great content for MMO's, but in my mind that would just take away a lot of the "ooo's and awe's", the mysterious atmospheres, and most of all the grittiness. Grittiness is my new favorite word, because I really think that is what has been lacking video games for the last 8-10 years.

I'm having a hard time explaining my thoughts... It makes so much sense in my head as to why I think player made content would kill the experience for me, I just can't put it into words!

Now player ACTIONS effecting the world is awesome. Sleeper anyone? Let's expand on stuff like that!

[agra]

(08-02-2010 05:28 PM)Nybling Wrote:  ^ Pretty much what is bound to happen unless there are strict parameters involved.

Yeh, I'd go so far to say that the maximum XP you could permit from any player quest would be exactly 1 (one) xp. And none of them should be repeatable.

[Narria]

I've been wanting to reply to this thread for a while and am finally getting caught up

Quote:Last month I posted that it would be awesome if you could pay NPC's to beat up / mug / attempt to assassinate / definitely assassinate anyone in the game, for enough money. I think paying NPC's to do other "jobs" would be a great step forward. Even hiring them to run your quest is a good example. How about hiring them to tear down and replace a monument? Give the monument three choices of deity, and you don't like that one, so you pay, and 3 days later, it's a new deity, for at least three days, then another player can pay to have it re-faced, etc.

My initial thought to this was "Man gold farmers/sellers are going to have a field day taking advantage of this!" I could see possibly doing it for something funny/fun like the assassination attempt (I had flashbacks of being at GenCon and people paying to have their friends thrown in the Klingon jail!) But not for anything where the player get xp (questing or even tradeskilling). Sadly I just think it would be taken advantage of by the wrong people.

I do love the idea of player created quests. More specifically when the game goes to MMO allowing guilds to create things like this (events and quests) is a grand idea. A lot of them do it anyways, why not create in game mechanics to make this easier and more fun for them. I would limit the rewards for these to things that only have significance withing the guild, like titles or achievements or some such.

I am really looking forward to WoW's guild achievements coming with Cata. It'll be interesting to see what they do with that. In my opinion anything that furthers community in an MMO is a win.

[Glipkerio]

I don't think there is any place in player generated quests/events for experience rewards. The point of the quests/events should be to entertain your fellow players.

That said, my friend that ran a scavenger hunt event in Vanguard gave out very expensive items as rewards, so I know that there are people out there that would provide exciting rewards for the completion of difficult quests (not that that's the point).

The more I think about it the more I think limiting the creation of player generated quests/events to guilds is a good idea. Perhaps you want to create an NPC that sits in your guild hall (will there be guild halls?) that gives a quest that players need to complete before they can apply as members of your guild. Maybe you list 5 achievements they must complete with the reward being access to the common areas of your guildhall or maybe it sends a secure in game email to the guild leader (or puts you on a list of applicants the recruiters for the guild can see).

Maybe you are a crafter and you'd like to place an NPC that offers a quest for players to collect rare crafting materials for you with the reward being gold/crafted things you can make

Maybe completing guild created quests/events reward faction with that guild (Congratulations you have earned 50 '38 Watch' faction!" and that faction gives you better prices at that guild's vendor. If your guild is capable of getting rare recipes/drops/mats that aren't generally available that's the start of a nice cycle where you can get players working for you to get access to those items, instead of just selling them for straight cash.

[Wild]

I love the idea of guilds being able to offer quests. I agree that the quests should only give the rewards the guild can make/offer -- exp is something earned from the game, it isn't ours to offer, e.g., we can't control it other than to earn it for ourselves.

I was in a guild that offered a quest and we gained a lot of respect on the server, not only from the participants, but also from other guilds. It was disappointing that the game company touted player support for community events but never did help in any way, even though it was contacted well in advance of the event and on more than one occasion. We had to place guildies in different zones and Shout the upcoming event. A server calendar that guild officers could add quest/scavenger hunt events that everyone could access would be Great!

I also love the idea of setting up a vendor to not only sell, but also to buy itemry (kinda like the "Help Wanted" and "Jobs Wanted" sections of the newspaper).

Good thoughts here, too, on how it could be abused/tweaked to deter abuse!

[agra]

(08-03-2010 11:13 AM)Narria Wrote:  ... Sadly I just think it would be taken advantage of by the wrong people. ...

The first pass for balance in the theorycrafting effort was that a person could only be a victim of these NPC's once per week per "crime".

So a person could be mugged, beaten, stabbed and killed, but only one of each, per real-life week.

And yes, I never thought I'd ever type that statement.