Suggestions on New Quest?

[Fiberwyre_P2P]

Originally Posted by salesman

If you insist on having quests on Era, I'd suggest using them in place of a tutorial to teach new players how to play the game in a "fun" way. The quests could award players with a few essential items (their first gun, a melee weapon, some starting cash, etc). Otherwise, quests are pretty useless because they have no replay value.

That's just a tutorial then, and wouldn't mean anything to the people who already play this game and know everything about it, i.e. the people who are bored, and not preoccupied with learning how the game works.

Originally Posted by salesman

It might be cool to create replayable "quests" as an alternative for earning money or consumable items. For example, a quest to rob a bank that earns players a little bit of cash. The amount of cash would have to be similar to what someone would earn mining or digging shells, so the quest would just be a more exciting alternative to mundane tasks (with a bit of risk involved if you fail). I could still see this getting tiresome, though, because most of today's players would rather sit at unstick me and merchant items.

At that point, why not just give more money for kills in PvP? it would save time and promote "player-player interaction".

quests should give special items, whether they're health potions, guns, etc.
repeatable quests could give tokens that you save up and buy something awesome with after a few weeks.

[salesman]

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

That's just a tutorial then,

Tutorials are lame and generally very straight-forward (i.e. "press A to reload!" *waits for player to press A*). I was suggesting introductory quests to keep new player's occupied (in an entertaining way). Using the "foot-in-the-door" technique to get them hooked.

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

wouldn't mean anything to the people who already play this game and know everything about it, i.e. the people who are bored, and not preoccupied with learning how the game works.

see: the part about quests being otherwise useless. A quest isn't going to solve an old player's boredom...he'll just do it once and then go right back to being bored.

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

At that point, why not just give more money for kills in PvP? it would save time and promote "player-player interaction".

Because one may be more entertaining than the other for different people. I was just throwing out a spur of the moment idea for replayable quests. You could always make the quests party/guild oriented to promote player interaction.

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

quests should give special items, whether they're health potions, guns, etc. repeatable quests could give tokens that you save up and buy something awesome with after a few weeks.

Adding another form of currency is a terrible idea. Rare/unique items are a terrible idea in general if they are tradeable. I've ranted about this countless times, so I won't go into it.

I'd agree with "special items" if they were consumable. In fact, heli-bombs and jet pack fuel for a jetpack were consumable items that were originally intended to be for a replayable quest I was making.

I guess I should have been clearer in my original post: I believe quests are a huge waste of development time because the benefits are rarely long-term. My post was just stating what I think would make quests less useless.

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by salesman

I believe quests are a huge waste of development time because the benefits are rarely long-term. My post was just stating what I think would make quests less useless.

+rep, This is extremely true on many levels.

[Fiberwyre_P2P]

Originally Posted by salesman

Tutorials are lame and generally very straight-forward (i.e. "press A to reload!" *waits for player to press A*). I was suggesting introductory quests to keep new player's occupied (in an entertaining way). Using the "foot-in-the-door" technique to get them hooked.

That may be your idea of a tutorial. Game design has evolved in the last decade as far as tutorials go, in case you don't play games besides Graal. What exactly is the difference between a tutorial and a set of quests that are directed at beginning players? Nothing. That's exactly how MMO's have been starting out players since 2004 or earlier.

Originally Posted by salesman

see: the part about quests being otherwise useless. A quest isn't going to solve an old player's boredom...he'll just do it once and then go right back to being bored.

This is where REPEATABLE quests and/or GROUP quests (which would basically just be an instance/dungeon in any other game) come in. Especially with rewards that stack up over time (i.e. a new currency) to keep players doing it.

Originally Posted by salesman

Because one may be more entertaining than the other for different people. I was just throwing out a spur of the moment idea for replayable quests. You could always make the quests party/guild oriented to promote player interaction.

I was specifically talking about the money reward being at the same level as digging or mining.

Originally Posted by salesman

Adding another form of currency is a terrible idea. Rare/unique items are a terrible idea in general if they are tradeable. I've ranted about this countless times, so I won't go into it.

Read above.

Originally Posted by salesman

I'd agree with "special items" if they were consumable. In fact, heli-bombs and jet pack fuel for a jetpack were consumable items that were originally intended to be for a replayable quest I was making.

That's what shops are for.

Originally Posted by salesman

I guess I should have been clearer in my original post: I believe quests are a huge waste of development time because the benefits are rarely long-term. My post was just stating what I think would make quests less useless.

That's why the focus should be to make the quests repeatable rather than just one-offs that give you extra health like the past quests.

[salesman]

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

That's why the focus should be to make the quests repeatable rather than just one-offs that give you extra health like the past quests.

Even repeatable quests will eventually become tiresome unless they contribute some kind of consumable item that players want (such as money).

I hope we can both agree that, right now, the development team's focus should not be on any type of quest at all.