Suggestions on New Quest?

[dude2020]

Any sign of dominance, stating facts, and/or siding against is provoking the alpha male known as bloodytampon. You should know that by now

[Fiberwyre_P2P]

Also, here is another idea for a quest (probably would be a group quest).

There is a research facility that has been infested with zombies. You and the rest of your group are tasked with clearing out the facility, room-by-room, floor-by-floor, killing waves of zombies until you get to the roof, where there is a giant zombie boss that you have to kill before the helicopter can extract you.
When you kill the boss, he drops a random piece of loot for each person in the group.
You get in the helicopter and fly away.
The end.

[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.

[Andre2006]

My reason for not PKing is that I don't have the weapon that I want. Ever since they took away the Black Holster I haven't killed anyone!

[punkrules]

[bloodykiller]

Originally Posted by BlueMelon

Sales made some of the best systems era has O-o

i can assure u that era was fine even when sales wasn't playing or when he was called sales lucifer and was an annoying runner but definitely not a staff member

[Pelikano]

So can anyone supply a "replayable quest" idea for Era? I'd love to hear an example

[Fiberwyre_P2P]

Originally Posted by Pelikano

So can anyone supply a "replayable quest" idea for Era? I'd love to hear an example

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

Bank Robbery
-
I would like to see safe cracking, cop killing, hostage taking, etc. in it.
-
I would like to be able to steal lots of money and make an awesome getaway.

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

Also, here is another idea for a quest (probably would be a group quest).

There is a research facility that has been infested with zombies. You and the rest of your group are tasked with clearing out the facility, room-by-room, floor-by-floor, killing waves of zombies until you get to the roof, where there is a giant zombie boss that you have to kill before the helicopter can extract you.
When you kill the boss, he drops a random piece of loot for each person in the group.
You get in the helicopter and fly away.
The end.

Both of my ideas could be repeatable quests.

The thing about repeatable quests is: you can make any quest repeatable. The important part is the reward for the repeatable quests has to stack up over time to offer you some sort of reward for repeating the quest. It could be money, ECs, some other sort of currency, but as long as it pushes you toward a bigger reward down the line, people will keep doing it.

[Pelikano]

killing zombies and NPCs just doesn't work on Era... it has been tried over and over again with very poor and not fun to play results

[natchez416]

The thing about repeatable quests is: you can make any quest repeatable.

I agree, every NPC quest is, in theory, repeatable.

The important part is the reward for the repeatable quests has to stack up over time to offer you some sort of reward for repeating the quest.

I disagree with this. The most important part of repeatable quests, or any server content for that matter, is not the reward it offers for completion. It is instead that the quest, or any other content, is able to remain fun and fresh each time you play it (a task that I believe is very hard, if not impossible to accomplish on era).

It could be money, ECs, some other sort of currency, but as long as it pushes you toward a bigger reward down the line, people will keep doing it.

Yes, it is possible to encourage players to suffer through a repetitive NPC based quest 100 times over, but in no way does this mean that this experience will be fun for the players, or in any way add anything positive to the game play of the server.

-e.g. Mining provides a reward that "stacks up over time," and yes, a few players still see this reward as justifiable ends for fulfilling the boring, monotonous means of drilling thousands of rocks.

In conclusion: "The thing about repeatable quests is: you can make any quest repeatable," but is this really, "the most important" thing to consider when developing new content?

The problem you have to solve in order to make quests organically repeatable is instead how to make an NPC based quest that manages to provide enough variables that it constantly changes and remains fresh and fun each time you play it. This would involve a lot of work in artificial intelligence, something that is still pretty limited in top of the line games. In my opinion it would be a much more efficient strategy to forget the NPCs and instead create player player interactive content.

e.g. In many ways gang raiding is very similar to a quest, except that you are interacting with players, not NPCs. Raiding has always been one of the most popular activities on era because, to a certain extent, it has remained fresh and exciting, because the variables are practically infinite since you are interacting with human beings. Imagine how fun raiding could become if it incorporated a sense of purpose, and these incrementally increasing rewards that you mentioned. (Note: This is not gospel, it is only one simple example).

-Players not NPCs : )

[Seeya]

I think it'd be nice to see a quest like some of the old ones but not for HP, do it for a quest gun that's original like the flak cannon

[Pelikano]

Yeah nice it's not like guns like flak cannons are the ones breaking the game ATM, let's pour some more to the community.

I don't see a point really in quests on Era, I really think that you can't simulate any battles vs NPC in a fun and good way ATM, people's imagination is sadly too far away from the reality