replayable quests

If there's one aspect of games that rarely has much replay value, it's missions/quests/jobs. At best, some games allow you to choose between dialog options or one of a few scenarios, but those dialog lines and scenarios are strictly scripted and play out basically the same way every time.

Let loose your iron grip, game writers!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: adventure is about the unexpected. Adventures often begin with well-defined goals, but they absolutely always involve unforeseen events and events of chance.

The best path for stories in games is reflection, not determination. Rather than determine exactly what the player will experience, provide a solid setting with many dynamics (including dynamic NPC choices). Then record and present special moments (not entirely scripted moments) for reflection at the end of the game or levels, areas, etc.

Setting and reflection, how events are viewed and fitted together, are the key elements of story in games. Don't feed me the story. Let me live it!

freedom

What makes Mercenaries 2 awesome is that options are always present -- not just before a mission, not just out in the open world, but at any and all times. And what your best options are is always subjective. There are so many ways for an encounter to turn out. Options and dynamics are a powerful combination.

For example:


One common mission in the game is to "Verify" a person, which means to either capture that person or kill him and take a picture of the body. Once, I tried to sneak up and scout a camp with a sniper rifle before entering. But I was spotted! So I immediately rushed in with my assault rifle. If an enemy was close enough, I bashed him with the butt of my rifle.

Someone sounded the alarm, so now all the barracks are alerted and guys are shooting at me through windows with rocket launchers. Someone outside is shooting an RPG as well. I shoot him and rush over to replace my sniper rifle with his RPG (only a couple shots left). I kill some of the men in the barracks, but more show up at the windows. So I throw some C4 on a barracks, run away and hit the detonator. Boom! Now there's rubble of a building to hide behind as I regain a bit of health.

Meanwhile, more enemies are showing up in SUVs with mounted guns. Ouch! Those turrets hurt. Rather than blow them up with my grenades or C4, I strafe and shoot the men on the mounted guns to conserve my explosives. When a man on the turret goes down, the driver gets out, so I immediately rush over to bash him in the head. I exchanged my assault rifle for his LMG (light machine gun) -- shorter range, but tougher.

Someone's called for reinforcements. There was a warning that he was doing so, but I couldn't get to him in time to stop the transmission. Now there's an enemy helicopter shooting at me. I don't have an anti-air missile launcher with me. What I do have is a grappling hook. I duck behind a building and the chopper comes closer to get a better angle on me. Once it's close enough, I rush out from behind the structure, launch my hook, grapple up to the helicopter and pull the driver out. Now I'm flying around the camp. I pick off a couple soldiers with the machine gun, but a series of RPGs bring the chopper crashing to the ground. I survive.

It's time to lay down the hammer! I decided to call in my own support. I have a choice of vehicles, munitions or airstrikes to call in. I call for a tank... one of five tank models available to me, which I purchased with some of my money earlier. It's a light tank, but all I need to finish the job. A helicopter flies in as I shoot the RPG-bearing enemies who try to take it down. The tank drops, I hop in... and everybody dies. :)

I've thinned the resistance, so I make my way to the target. He's holed himself up in a bunker. I run inside and knock him down, then hit the Y button to subdue him (tie his hands behind his back). I still have to carry him to open ground where I can call an ally helicopter to extract him. There are still enemies around shooting at me. And again they call for reinforcements.

I get my man to some flat ground behind the bunker as enemies continue to shoot and call for extraction. A pirate chopper (my allies) land down and I throw the target in. The chopper immediately returns to the air. Normally, I just throw the target inside and fight my way out. This time, I jump in the chopper myself as it's already moving. Guns fire from below. Enemy helicopters patrol nearby. But we escape, and I get paid.


Most battles in Mercenaries 2 aren't this long (more than you'd expect, though). But I wanted to offer a sense of how many options and dynamics are at play at any given moment.

At any point in that battle, I could have called in an airstrike or airdrop -- tanks, helicopters, boats, laser-guided missiles, cluster bombs, anti-chopper or anti-tank fire, RPGs, C4, shotguns, sniper rifles, etc. At any point, I could kill an enemy and tank his weapon or hijack any vehicle. I could hide behind buildings or I could blow them up. I could call for first aid kits or take my chances. I could fight up close or from afar. I could enter in any direction and leave in any direction.

Meanwhile, I was surrounded by variables.

It's not rare for a game to have plenty of options. It is rare for a game to make so many significant options available constantly, including during scripted missions.

The Mercs 2 mission that begins with an oil rig is one of the best missions I've played in any game. Epic, exhilirating and full of freedom.

goal sequencing

I started replaying Saints Row 2 the other day. One feature that stands out is the relation of Missions and Activities to each other. The order in which you tackle these challenges makes a big difference.

Completing Activities (Fight Club, Heli Assault, Drug Trafficking, etc) unlocks performance bonuses and adjusts gameplay. Finishing some makes rival gangs and cops forget about you quicker. Completing others increases melee damage, makes vehicles you drive tougher, or gives you discounts at particular stores.

On top of this, the player chooses the order in which weapons are acquired through purchase. Also, one's collection of vehicles affects how some missions and activities play out. Completing Missions gains one territories that generate money to buy these weapons and vehicle customizations, so tackling Activities before Missions isn't a no-brainer.

Offering so many choices and making the sequence of those choices really matter helps greatly to personalize gameplay, offering one player experiences which are different from another player's experiences. It's the combination of unique experiences and common references, resulting in something new but understandable, that makes people inclined to share their stories with others. The sequence of events can be a powerful dynamic.

keep mood and tone dynamic

A friend suggested that Fallout 3 is "too soulless for its own good". I have to agree. It's a great game, certainly. But the relentless dreariness works against it.

Dynamics in mood and tone are vital for any RPG, and games in general. This is particularly true for visual presentation.

Fallout 3's environmental design is really impressive, particularly due to the scope and level of detail. But it's bleak, almost without exception. That certainly fits the story and the overall tone of the game. However, too much consecutive bleakness ultimately has the same effect it would have in true life -- it drains enthusiasm and motivation.

With a game so big, there are undoubtedly factors at play which differ from player to player. If you initially focus on wandering and sidequests, as I did, then it can be a very long time before you enter Tenpenny Tower or the wooded sanctuary. For perspective, I've spent dozens of hours in the game and explored much of the world, but am hardly beyond Tenpenny in the main questline.

In any case, it's good in any RPG to offer a variety of environments with different color palettes and tones, as well as missions/quests and encounters with a variety of moods. Dynamics provide freshness, which is necessary to maintain momentum and excitement. This is one of the reasons I think color palettes and elegant designs like World of Warcraft uses are the best visual design option for the majority of games.

I still enjoy Fallout 3 (though I haven't played in a while), but the different areas and experiences of the gameworld started to blend together after a while.

WAR is everywhere

This new cinematic trailer for WAR is quite simply the coolest video I have ever seen! Wow.

Why the hell don't people make feature films like this?! I mean it. Sure, it's an insane amount of work, but it'd be insanely popular with scenes like this and a solid story.

Of course, no Marauder would ever go down so easily. ;) Yes, I'm in beta, and my main is a ruthless Marauder:



Oh, and by the way.. that huge Chaos monster at the end? I saw that in-game last night!

After completing a quest in the troll mountains, reclaiming a mighty scepter and unleashing its power on an altar, Tchar'zanek himself stepped from the giant portal behind me and spoke to me! He basically congratulated me and said I was worthy servant of Chaos.



Again, wow. I stayed up waaaay too late last night (and have been paying for it, believe me), but that was the perfect ending to a long adventure.

If WAR has anything at all going for it, it's a kickass setting and quests that feel alive. Great job, Mythic.

making room for the little guy

From IGN's preview of Warhammer Online:

"At this point, a large hydra steps off the Ark, accompanied by his Dark Elf beastmaster. Players have twenty minutes to defeat these bosses before the whole quest resets and starts over again at the beginning. This massive, multi-headed baddie was far too powerful for our little fifth-level Swordsman, so we had to be content with darting in to get a few quick hits in while some higher-level players distracted him."

The emphasis is mine. This is one of those things that should occur in all MMOs, but sadly doesn't: weak characters helping powerful characters to conquer a shared encounter.

Let's face it... Frodo was a child playing a man's game. He was tiny. He was weak. He was inexperienced. And yet, he participated in combat with trained badasses like Aragorn and Legolas; and yet, he was a hero.

A player doesn't have to be capable of single-handedly slapping a dragon silly or stuffing a kraken in a goldfish bowl to feel heroic. A player doesn't even have to be capable of killing his enemy to feel heroic. The player just has to feel as if he's contributing to something of great importance, and in a way that reveals individual merit.

I, like so many other gamers, am more than willing to play characters like Frodo and Samwise. I'm more than content to act as just a small character in a drama that stretches far beyond my own involvement.

I, like so many other gamers, am more than willing to play characters like Aragorn and Legolas. I''ll take weaker friends along on my journey, knowing that their contributions will be worthy of remembrance, too, if they are only made capable of individuality. Don't you think those veterans would have been impressed by and laughing about Sam's masterful use of a frying pan against his goblin foes in Moria? After the battle, were they talking about the elf's crazy arrow work or the lowly hobbit's surprising possession of a mithril chainmail vest?

Enable true individuality (in skills, possessions, experiences, etc), create common causes to fight for (ala Warhammer or SWG), and the grouping of the powerful with the weak will be commonplace and fun.

Good vs Evil: races

Tobold points out that MMOs which divide races into good and evil nonsensically give both sides the same quests and goals. He goes on to say he would probably enjoy a game more if races were morally neutral and it was left up to the player to define his or her moral alignment.

While I agree that such a setup could be fun, it could also be fun to keep races divided into good and evil but make their alignments show up in differences of goals and tasks.

Originally, I was going to cover how I might separate good-race gameplay from evil-race gameplay in more meaningful ways, but just covering why racial stereotyping in games can have value turned into a full article. So I'll go into the differentiating the gameplay in some later blog.


RACIAL STEREOTYPING IN GAMES
First off, what benefits could possibly come from dividing races by moral alignments, ala LOTR?

Simple loyalties and goals
Well, one benefit is that most people like having clear enemies and, consequently, clear goals. Just look at the best-selling films and novels throughout history. Sure, there have been some complex and twisted stories that have received large audiences, but the largest audiences have always been achieved by stories with the classic Good-vs-Evil dichotomy.

Game designers often come from an artsy crowd which loathes traditional aesthetic models, but the smart developer acknowledges that those traditional models are still today the basis of best-selling entertainment. That's not to say that most people can't appreciate complicated and unpredictable stories. It just means that the classic model of absolute/personified Good-vs-Evil still resonates with most people and remains highly profitable.

Cultural allegory
But why represent Good-vs-Evil through races, like Tolkien's elves-vs-orcs, rather than sticking to individual heroes and villains? Well, there are probably multiple reasons this could make sense, but the one most obvious to me is that it allows the storyteller to address cultural morality, rather than just individual morality. It's an allegorical way of addressing issues which are more social than psychological.

The importance of allegory
So why speak through allegory? Why not address real issues in a completely real setting? The beauty of allegory, of reducing complex realities to simple symbols, is two-fold.

First, symbolism is an act of qualification. If a child is asked to draw a house and does so by drawing a triangle over a square, then that child is revealing which elements of the house's design he or she considers most essential... which elements most define a house in his or her perception. In this case, the child is highlighting the overall shape, the frame of house, as its most important element. If, instead, color was the most important feature in the child's perception, he or she would have started drawing the house by filling in the middle of the drawing with colors. If the child adds a front lawn before adding windows or a door, then playing out in the yard or admiring the plants each time coming home is probably important to the child.

We all learn through symbolism as children, but I assure you that adults think in symbols just as commonly. We just don't speak in symbols as often, partially because modern culture holds facts as more important than storytelling and disvalues intuition (thinking with a floodlight, rather than a direct beam).

Second, symbolism is an act of organization. A connection can be drawn between particular elements of reality by how they are associated in the simplified picture (the symbol). In Tolkien's mythology, every elf is good and every orc is evil. In his LOTR, elves live in harmony with the forests. The homeland of the orcs, on the other hand, is full of fire and industry. All trees have been cut down to fuel "the machines of war", as was done around Isengard in The Two Towers. In this way, Tolkien associates brazen disregard for the natural world with evil. Harmony with nature and respect for its beauty are associated with goodness.

In short, the orientation of elements in relation to each other suggests to the audience a particular way of perceiving them. Such associations are sometimes intended to be absolutely accurate (i.e., "cutting down trees is evil"), but they are often intended only as guides for deeper contemplation (i.e., "Under what circumstances is killing trees evil?").

Allegory doesn't exclude real complexity
Think back to the beginning of the first LOTR movie. At Bilbo's birthday party, not every hobbit is a pleasant fellow. There's that one fat-cheeked guy who scowls at Gandalf and is still ohnery and scowling at the birthday party ("Proudfeet!"). In the book, Bilbo's relatives greedily quarrel over who will inherit his home. At the end of The Hobbit, which precedes the LOTR story, Bilbo returns from a long adventure to find that those relatives have already tried to declare him dead and take the home.

But hobbits, as a people and culture, clearly represent goodness. Note that they love gardening, which means, like the elves, they are associated with natural harmony. Between their love for nature and their love for food, ale and pipe-smoking, they're clearly associated with life.

Tolkien combines symbolism with realism. The petty greed of Bilbo's relatives and uninviting personality of that one hobbit in the film doesn't compare to the malice of the orcs, so he is able to maintain the hobbits' basic goodness while simultaneously including the small failures that help make characters interesting. If a hobbit had murdered another during the story, that race would no longer be a symbol of goodness (Golum was "like" a hobbit once, but he's separated enough to not tarnish the symbol).


Dividing races into Good and Evil doesn't prevent depthful portrayals of individuals. And it actually enables depthful exploration of cultural and individual character in many unique ways. If I was designing an RPG, I would probably use the familiar setting of Good-vs-Evil, but I'd try to ensure that "good" and "evil" are felt and seen... that they're not just shallow labels.

Quest Design in MMORPGs: Part Three

This last part of the series is just going to be a collection of miscellaneous other stuff that relates to "quest" design.


REWARDS
Experience points don't have to be a reward for every player action. Seriously. I'll explain toward the end how I'm not just being idealistic.

You can offer tasks for faction, jobs for money, quests for treasure and fame, and duties for the possibility of the player keeping his head on his shoulders. The possibilities are endless, really.

The introduction of player-impact into MMOGs offers a new reward type: player-impact. Allow the player to shape the gameworld in some meaningful way. Providing and enhancing ways in which players can celebrate and proclaim these impacts (such as titles, ceremonies, newspapers, tavern talk, minstrels, etc) will go a long way in making them an acceptable substitution for other rewards.


REWARD POOLS
Most would probably agree that the Diablo 2 loot system is too random for your typical MMORPG, but the basic concept of loot tables is a good one; a roll of the dice determines which of a collection of possible items is dropped (with some items having better odds than others). Note that this system can be manipulated to be as random or as limited as the designer desires (there might 50 possible items or there might be only 3 ). In that game, this reward system was applied to mob corpses only, while the mission system had specific rewards. But that doesn't always need to be the case. Sometimes the player should know exactly what the stakes are, but certainly not always.

Also, something I loved in EQ2 was that some quests offered a choice of rewards to the player. Upon quest completion, a reward window would pop up with 3 or 4 items and the player would choose the one he or she wanted. So if your character prefers 2-handed skullcrushers (like mine did), then you can choose one of those instead of some girly rapier. =P


NATURAL TIMING
Timed missions are usually more compelling when the timing feels natural and not like someone's waiting on you with a stop-watch.

For example: In EQ2, there was one quest in which an NPC told me to come back that night. She would talk to me, but would not advance the mission until nightfall. Imagine yourself racing against the coming dawn (if you're a vampire) or against the setting sun (because the nastiest creatures hunt at night). In those cases, enormous tension can build by the player's awareness of a timer infinitely more imposing and compelling than a ticking clock. Other times, players might have to do something "before [Name] gets back" or before that NPC leaves for a journey, etc.

Timing can also be used to provide opportunities for non-combat PvP. Two or more players could race to get something done before the others, or possibly even race their mounts. Contests, in other words.

Sometimes, when missions or challenges must be timed by something more similar to a stop-watch scenario, then it may be beneficial to make the timer's presence in the UI more interesting. The timer could be like a sundial icon with shadow measurement, or a candle slowly burning down to nothing, or a moon changing from a new moon to a full moon.


PLAYER-CONTROLLED DIFFICULTY
The basic idea is that often, while accepting a mission, the player has the option of making the quest more or less difficult, depending on what the player is in the mood for at the time (though the minimum difficulty must be significant to prevent players from spoiling their own fun).

I never played Fable, but a video I watched once suggested that the game accomplishes player control over mission difficulty through a boasting system. Here's the example provided in the video:

The player discusses taking on a mission to escort some traders safely to their destination. That's the basic mission and cannot be altered. But the player can boast that they can accomplish a number of things. Boasts for this particular mission include fighting bare-handed, fighting without armor, or taking no damage. If you succeed in your boast (wager), then you receive a little extra money. If you fail, I think you just don't get that extra money, but your reputation might suffer as well.

Here are two modifications I would make to that boast system:

Honor: Make it so that a person who fails to meet their boast will be laughed at by the mission-NPC (or perhaps sympathized with by kinder NPCs).

Hazy level requirements: Allow players to receive a some reward from a mission below his or her level by succeeding in a difficult boast. For example: While a level 5 player would receive 50 gold for killing a level 5 mission mob, a level 8 player might receive 75 gold for killing that same level 5 mission mob bare-handed.....or a level 9 player might receive 90 gold for killing the mission mob without armor. Of course, the level 5 player could try to kill the mob without armor for the same 90 gold, but he would likely fail.

This system has 2 big benefits:
1) It increases the level range of players who can perform that quest, have fun doing so and be rewarded sufficiently for their actions. (more bang for your buck)
2) It gives players more control over the difficulty of their own playing experience (sandbox). Players who live for a challenge can take advantage of this system the whole way through the game. And gamers who prefer an easy, relaxed game experience can just perform the quests the simplest way.

There can be complications, of course. Obviously, a character of a class that specializes in boxing shouldn't receive a better reward for fighting bare-handed or without armor, since he usually fights that way anyway. So boasts (extra mission options) should probably be limited to ones which all classes can perform.

Groups could be able to boast as well, which would require all members of the group to adhere to what was boasted.

Possible boasts:
Timed: Perform quest within a time limit.
Examples: Kill the mob in under 1 minute, starting upon the 1st attack. Spy on the mayor and report back with the needed intel in 20 minutes. Deliver message in under 15 minutes (by not getting entangled in the mobs in your way).
Limited Actions: Perform quest with [x] number of actions.
Examples: Kill the mob in 10 moves or less.
Limited Resources: Perform the quest with limited resources.
Examples: Kill the mob without using any skills over level 5. Craft a Grand Dagger with no more than 7lbs of ore (whereas the 5lb Grand Dagger usually requires 10lbs of ore, so the smith must be more precise when hammering impurities out of the metal).


COMPLICATIONS
There is potential for fun in missions that go terribly awry or leave out important info, and get the player into trouble. One thing that's lacking in most missions these days is surprise.

Non-malign Misinformation: An NPC knows he won't get any help unless he fudges the facts a little bit (leaves out that a troll is guarding the heirloom the NPC "forgot after a picnic"). Or an NPC might send you to a dangerous area under the pretense that you are to collect something, but you find out afterward that it was a scouting mission..."Sorry about that, mate! I needed to know how many there were, and you might not have gone had I told you."

Ignorance: The player is sent to another NPC to retrieve a borrowed item, but that NPC says he lent it to another NPC...and that NPC lent it to another NPC, and so on. What seemed like a simple chore turns out to be a headache (but with plenty of humor and a better material or xp reward than originally anticipated).

Malign Manipulation: There's also the possibility of NPCs using you. You might unwittingly be aiding in a crime. The item you are sent for might actually belong to another NPC, and you're stealing what you thought you were just returning to the original owner (tricked into hurting your faction a bit?).


Those damnable spoiler sites would be a problem, of course. Even if you didn't ever look at them, all it would take is to tell your group "Well, I'm headed to finish my Dougan's Ale quest" and someone might pipe up (thinking that they're being helpful) and tell you "Don't even bother with that quest. The NPC is lying...you don't get any decent loot." I can remember players asking people to quit shouting spoilers on public channels, but it didn't stop them.


LEVELS AND LATERAL GAMEPLAY
Ok, so why not offer experience points for every player action? If levelling up is the only path to fun in your game, then you've got a problem. A "grind" is what happens when the player is so obsessed with reaching a goal that they are unable to appreciate the journey; or wandering about, even. There are several ways to help avoid this problem.

Reward tables take player focus off leveling, to some degree. In Diablo 2, the player is often not focused on leveling because he's trying to complete his set of armor (set items were a stroke of genius) or hoping to stumble onto a "named" item. More interesting is when the player has found a truly badass weapon and actually doesn't want to level right away so that he can enjoy the weapon's awesome power before that power is relatively diminished by moving onto stronger foes.

Faction can also take focus off leveling entirely. In Star Wars: Galaxies, I often ignored my character's skill progression for extended periods while I stomped out infestations of Rebel scum. That game had the significant advantage of the Star Wars movie saga, but enthusiasm for faction conflicts and service can be encouraged to a similar degree without a famous IP.

One of my main cricitisms of that game is that players were only really encouraged to become enthusiastic about the two main factions, to the exclusion of many secondary factions. That's a very limited range of causes for player characters (and those causes were the primary interest of a significant portion of SWG's playerbase). Provide players with minor factions to align themselves with, and that content development will be sufficiently rewarded. Small faction causes are often more personal.

Factions encourage community identification. Player-created factions (guilds) also do this, but NPC-bound factions are more stable than player-created factions. Guilds change, fall apart, and often involve more melodrama than drama.

Fame (social appreciation) is an excellent avenue of reward that can distract completely from leveling. City of Heroes dabbled in this, but left it very peripheral. Fame can be developed for every level of gameplay, using tavern talk, monuments, newspapers and libraries (in-game event records) and impressions upon the gameworld (like an NPC who was once depressed is happy and productive again...for more than just a few minutes), among others.

Fame can also be developed as an ultimate goal (like it often is in reality). For example, let's look at dragons. In your typical game, players will band together to slay the mighty beast for awesome loot; only a handful of the group gets something, so they return to kill the same beast hours or days later to spread the wealth around. But what if player "armies" were amassed for reasons more similar to reality? The more participants who are involved in a conflict, the less the explicit goal is about individuals. What if players slayed the titanic monster, knowing they would receive no loot or xp whatsoever, in order to free an NPC or player town from danger and oppression? The effect could be visible and lasting, but also recounted in NPCs memory/memorials for the duration of the game's lifespan.

I mentioned "The Sleeper" of Everquest once before. I wasn't playing EQ when that beast was around, but its tale is told years after it was killed (a singular spawn)...one of the more attractive tales for non-EQ players considering the EQ game experience. When EQ players talk about it, they don't even mention loot or xp rewards. They talk about the challenge and the fame of creature and its slayers. While the optimal degree of focus on singular spawns like that is debatable, that basic type of experience should not be as exceptional as it is. Regular expectation of such events by players would be a huge boon to player attraction and retention.

I'm sure there are other possibilities for lateral gameplay, but this blog has gotten long, so I'm going to stop.

Quest Design in MMORPGs: Part Two

Alright, so I've covered why MMORPG developers need a new nomenclature and suggested a replacement possibility (which was meant as a starting point, by the way, and not as a complete list). Now, let's look at a different way to categorize them. And keep the previous blog in mind, because a common nomenclature for these would help us ultimately in the design process as well.


QUEST STRUCTURES
The categories in Part One are primarily about why the player might be attracted to particular story-related opportunities. I'll now try to categorize how a player might realize those opportunities. Some of these categorizations are admittedly arbitrary.

I'll briefly critique a few structures for their viability (fun factor) at the end.


STRUCTURE EXAMPLES
1) Delivery. Deliver/retrieve [x].

2) Seek and destroy. Kill [x] number of [y].

3) Boss. Kill boss mob [x]. This mob might be accompanied by other mobs.

4) Tiered combat progression. Kill [x] to get to [y], kill [y] to get to [z], etc. This is slightly different than simply compounding #2 onto itself and saying kill so many [x], then kill so many [y]; the difference is the escalating difficulty within the same mission.

5) Spy. Scout/spy [x] and report.

6) Forced Acquisition. Steal/acquire [x]. The player might or might not kill something, but this differs from a Delivery mission in that opposition is involved. The player might face opposition while transporting an object or information as well. It can work both ways.

7) Demolition. Destroy non-living target.

8) Puzzle. An intellectual challenge. Get [x] working again, help NPCs figure something out, etc.

9) Research. Research [x] and return with the answer. In real life, people make careers as researchers, largely because it's an art. In a game, this could take any number of forms, from questioning NPCs for viewpoints, to reading books in a virtual library, to deciphering runes and hieroglyphs. There really is a significant number of players who enjoy this sort of thing for its own sake, and they'd enjoy it even more if they could achieve in-game fame or recognition for their research or affect gameworld events.

10) Resources. Survey/harvest [x].

11) Crafting. Craft [x].

12) Entertainer. Entertain [x]. Like entertainer performances in SW:G, only it could be designed so all players could be silly and make fools of themselves for fun.

13) Unit Support. The player is asked to support an NPC combat unit (one or more NPCs) in performing a scripted action, like evicting someone or ridding the East castle corridor of a rodent infestation. Any number of bonus/penalty systems could be designed for these missions (ex: the player's reward increases if all NPCs in the unit survive).

14) Apprenticeship. The player assists an NPC master of their class in performing a class-specific duty. A high priest might be swamped with plague victims and would like the newb cleric to take care of the lesser ills in the hospital tent, for example. This could probably be applied beyond classes (especially in a class-less game).

15) Michief/Misinformation. The player spreads misinformation or otherwise causes disruption.

16) Labyrinth. A puzzle that requires feats of action, in addition to feats of intellect.


Those are just examples of basic structures. They can all be complicated, combined and applied to many different scenarios. Here are some examples of that:

STRUCTURE GENRES
1) Direct Path. There is only one way to complete the mission. This represents the vast majority of missions in MMORPGs thus far.

2) Multi-Path.
For example, the player is ordered to acquire something. He can acquire it by sneaking in the shadows, by killing everyone, by distraction, by limited kills, by bribery, by deception, etc.

3) Redirect. Mid-mission, the situation changes and the player must decide whether to complete his orders, blatantly abandon his orders, only pretend to complete the orders, etc. Think Deus Ex, where the player doesn't know who is on his side and must choose between NPC factions.

4) Competition. Someone beats the player to the objective. The player must now adapt to complete the quest. For example, say you are asked to acquire something. While you are waiting for the NPCs to let down their guard, you see a thief (NPC?) take it. You must now follow the thief and take it from that character instead. Oblivion's Thieves Guild initiation quest was like this.

5) Success by Degree. For example: An NPC tells you his son was stolen. He spits and curses the kidnapper as he asks you to retrieve his son. You find his son in a cage and set him free. But the kidnapper is in the room next door. If you kill the kidnapper, maybe your employer will pay you extra for bringing the man to justice. Both positive and negative sanctions are possible.

6) Group Venture. The player meets other players with identical orders at a rally point. When x amount of players have reached the rally point, the group (only players with that mission) fulfills the orders. Players could be grouped in many other (and probably better) ways. This category could be further subdivided into:
a) All players in the group share a similiar purpose.
b) Players choose or are assigned to different roles (ex: the tank handles the mobs while the thief picks the lock and grabs what they came for).

7) Instanced Offer. Ex: The player or group is approached by a mysterious stranger, who offers player(s) a very difficult, but very lucrative job. If they refuse, the stranger sneaks away and disappears. If they take the mission and complete it (a one shot opportunity in [x] amount of time), the stranger rewards them and disappears. These quests are sporadic, not easy to find and offer very nice loot/monetary rewards. Players would rarely encounter these and always through luck (semi-random spawn locations at odd times). The timer would be long and exists so players don't accept the quest, never complete it, and a mysterious NPC who seems to ignore everybody isn't standing there forever. The NPC might simply wait there, ignoring all but the participating party until the timer is up or the mission is done. Or the NPC might only appear in that spot when participating party is within eyesight. This quest category would be more of a bonus than a regular mission type.

Sometimes, the most interesting things in a game are the things you only have a shot at seeing; or things you saw once and will likely never see again.


PAST AND FUTURE STRUCTURAL USE

Scouting opportunities have traditionally been directed toward specific targets. It is possible, however, to allow open and on-the-fly spying. On-the-fly scouting is when the player happens to be in the right place at the right time (what Part One called an "impulse" opportunity). These needn't be related to heavily scripted events. For example: if the player is connected to a policing faction, he might run across the location of a pirate or smuggler hideout and report that finding for a reward. Open scouting is when the player has a concrete objective but must find his own clues to reach that objective. The player might be told that so-and-so is looking for [x], and the player can either rely on luck (treat the mission as peripheral) or investigate, by asking around (both players and NPCs) or following non-dialogue clues (like the symbols in the movie End of Days).

Also in regards to scouting, it's very easy to make these quests not fun. Oblivion's mission in which you have to follow different Skingrad citizens to satisfy the paranoid looney is a good example. The story was interesting, but the actual spying was tedious and uneventful. EQ2 had a similar mission at the Crossroads in the Commonlands (the cat-lady who heard ghosts). It was one of the most memorable missions I've encountered, but following that single NPC for even that relatively short distance was tedious. In that particular case, I think the main problem was that the NPC moved at a slower pace than the player, leaving the player waiting on the NPC to hurry up. Any mission involving following an NPC must have tension or something else to keep the player's attention off the mechanics and onto the gameworld.

Diablo 2 was onto something with their semi-random mob hero spawns. I particularly loved how the little imps seemed to be spouting off nonsense ("Rakanishu!") until I met that nonsense and he kicked my arse. Mob heroes are a good example of how the concept of boss mobs can be mixed up and applied to non-linear gameplay.


I may edit this later and add other reflections on how these structures can be applied and how they're poorly applied. Feel free to comment with your own thoughts though.

Quest Design in MMORPGs: Part One

This blog is primarily a transfer of my thoughts from a few Vanguard threads. In it, I plan to do two things: 1) critique the general state of quest design in MMOGs up to this point, and 2) propose my own tentative models and concepts.


YOU CALL THIS A QUEST?
The labelling of many things as "quests" in modern MMORPGs is inappropriate. Though some games might use the term merely to create a sense of familiarity, I think it is typically a marketing ploy to make the simple and redundant sound grandiose and compelling. In a game that truly wants its players to RP in a virtual world, the word should be treated with the proper sublimation.

However, I disagree with the common perception that true quests are defined merely by their complexity. Here's Merriam-Webster's definition (undoubtedly just one of many possibilities):

"a chivalrous enterprise in medieval romance usually involving an adventurous journey"

The key words in that definition are "chivalrous" and "adventurous". In order to be chivalrous, an act must be both atypical and noble. In order to be an adventurous, an act (or series of actions) must be atypical and difficult (dangerous?).

So a quest is defined by at least these 3 attributes:
1) atypical
2) difficult
3) noble

An epic quest would be grander in all respects.

By atypical, I don't mean that quests in an MMORPG need to be rare. But they do need to be abnormal or they will otherwise lose their adventurous nature. If everyone and their mother was a rock climber, rock climibing wouldn't seem like much of an adventure to me anymore. Games aren't immune to that phenomenon. Epics, being an exagerration of a quest in all ways, do need to be rare. Those should be the stories that circulate in player tales for months, or even years (like The Sleeper of Everquest).

Abnormal and rare mean more than simply that a particular player will oddly or rarely experience that quest. The player's experience must not be an exact replica of every other player of that race, class, skillset, etc. The reason for this has been made clear in previous games. How heroic does climbing the mountain, slaying the dragon and looting the Grand Sword of Uberness feel if you know that someone will do the same thing you did and receive the same "grand" sword 5 minutes later....and then another player, and another, and so on? [and yes, I use the word "uberness" with maximum disdain] How cool is it meeting a famous NPC when, as Lee Sheldon put it bluntly at the AGC, that NPC is basically a PEZ-dispenser and you're standing in line for his quest.

The hard truth is that the community in these games, the "MM" in "MMORPG", is a double-edged sword. You can't play up the importance of the community and expect players not to care if their characters are not unique and valuable among that community.

Though adventure is hard to define in its modern context, I was once told that it came from the Medieval French "aventure", which literally meant "what comes to you". Adventure, in the Romantic sense, is something the adventurer did not plan on or foresee fully. Likewise, a quest should involve surprise and searching (to which end spoiler sites are an obvious stumbling block).

I also mentioned nobility, but I'll save that one until a later blog. It deserves its own discussion.


A NEW NOMENCLATURE
So if "quests" are to be something other than every opportunity offered by an NPC to a player, let's separate out other types of opportunities. Be sure to continue on for the explanation of why these divisions are absolutely necessary if MMORPGs are to improve this aspect of gameplay.

A task is an act which a person has been assigned or commanded to perform. The word originated from the Latin word for "tax", hence the typically negative connotation. Gamewise, this is something the player must do to save his/her own skin or to serve a superior, perhaps for only a faction reward. The player usually knows generally what they're getting into.

An assignment is a task subdivision, defined as one of a series of actions to complete a greater objective. This might involve multiple players acting in differing roles in one experience; like if the wizard maintained an enchantment and the warrior distracted the guards while the thief opened a chest and stole its contents. Or it might involve the actions of players being related only in their outcome and not in their means. The players receive and perform tasks separately, without the ability to know who's doing something related to them, and receive their reward (or the best reward) only if all other players involved succeed in their tasks. Want to strengthen the community aspect of your game? There you go. To curb griefing, of course, an NPC would only accept failure from a particular player so many times (the griefer would have to be an exceptionally selfish arse anyway...cause he wouldn't know who he was griefing, but such bastards do exist).

A duty is an obligation to a superior and usually not limited to a single act. Unlike a task, a duty is something that is regularly expected and not in accordance with an impulsive command/request. So while bribing a new competing gang might be a thief's guild task, making sure a bribe gets to a particular NPC once a week would be a duty. To prevent redudancy, a duty could be as general as "kill a criminal", "steal 50 gold (from anyone)" or "bring back 5 furs" per time period...thus allowing the player to choose the specific nature of the action. Some developers cringe at the idea of forcing a player to do anything; but I'm a firm believer that players often spoil their own fun, so players need to be strongly encouraged to mix up their gameplay to some degree.

A job, like a task, is something which bears little mystery (the player has a general idea of what they will encounter) and is an action performed with a reward clearly in mind. The player should usually know generally what the reward will be before he/she accepts the job.

A favor, like a job, is performed with a reward clearly in mind (though the precise nature of that reward might be unknown), but the reward is a service, rather than material. Service rewards include offering a job or quest, puting in a good word with someone (faction), and allowing access to new territory or NPCs, among others.

An impulse is an act which did not originate with a command or request from an NPC. These are opportunities for rewards or service, but no reward is guaranteed (the reward might be only that you did what was right...or wrong ). An example would be if you happened to notice an NPC being robbed and stepped in to affect the situation. Though you have had no previous interaction with either the victim or the robber, stepping into the situation might alter the outcome and possibly merit a reward. The reward might be a ring if, you helped the victim, or an opportunity to aid in future crime, if you helped the robber.

A reconcilation is when a player must do something to escape danger, debt, banishment or disfavor. If a guild member (NPC guild/faction) failed to perform his weekly duty, he might have to perform a task to be restored to his guild membership or guild position. If a player has to earn faction to enter a castle, doesn't it make sense that he should be barred from entering if he angers that faction enough? (players hate contradictions, I assure you) This would help him get back into the castle. For debt, perhaps certain merchants would refuse service (because they know the guy you owe and won't pay) or a bounty will be placed on your head until you pay up. A player might also have to reconcile himself just for being a member of a race, class or faction, if that group angered or wronged an NPC long ago. Feuds are fun.


I HATE COMPLICATIONS! WHY NOT JUST CALL THEM ALL "QUESTS"?
Words and names are not always cosmetic. Why do we call one car a Viper and another a Chevelle? We would know what each car is without naming them, right? Are we merely adding "fluff" to make a compelling illusion? No. We are naming them so that we may recognize and discuss them without having them in front of us to point to.

All of the terms I suggested are subsets of what have been called "quests" in past MMOGs, yes. But the scarcity of further descriptive terms in most MMOGs is evidence of how little effort typically goes into quest design (I realize tech limitations have come into play as well).

A fundamental lesson in linguistics is that a language adapts to the culture's (or industry/company's) needs and values. When we refer to a Chevelle or Viper with the generic term "cars", it's because the details that distinguish those vehicles from one another are not situationally necessary. But "Chevelle" and "Viper" are not words that are only useful to the auto-mechanics and manufacturers. Buyers and users find the details implied in those words useful to know as well.

Likewise, to refer to all missions merely as "quests" is to assign minimal value to those details. If developers believe those details merit discussion and manipulation, then they will naturally assign names to the variants. And if those variants were significantly distinguishable from one another, then those names would prove useful to players as well...because players would seek out and discuss the variants they prefer, just as the car buyers seek out and discuss the cars they prefer.

I highlight "significantly", because that is the subtlety that I believe many overlook in their consideration of previous MMORPGs. In EQ, there were quests, class quests and epic quests. Note that there is no distinction between search-and-destroy quests and delivery quests. That is because the essences of the two were so similar that the details ultimately did not matter (or such was the presumption of the game's design). In SWG, there was a distinction made between seek-and-destroy missions and delivery missions; and another distinction between faction missions and money-reward missions.

It is notable that MMORPG veterans, when discussing these games in general (rather than a specific game), rarely use terms more descriptive than the simple "quests". This should set off alarm bells!


Let's look at it another way. Is there really a need to label different kinds of "quests"?

Well, is there a need to label the guns in Halo? Names can help define how players understand and approach content. If a game labels all mission types as "quests", players will tend to approach all types with similar expectations.

There are certainly times when the developer would want the player to not realize what he or she is getting into, to let the player's excitement and anticipation build slowly as they learn the true nature of their situation. But there are also times when the devs want the player to be brimming with excitement from the get-go, perhaps by the NPC asking you specifically to accept a "quest".

If there's any sort of quest journal, wouldn't it make sense to categorize missions based on scenario, difficulty and rewards? If I've got a "duty" to bribe an NPC by tomorrow or I'll lose faction with my NPC guild, wouldn't it help to have a reminder of the mission's importance, rather than to have the duty mixed in with every other mission (those without a time limit)?

There are times for names to be prevalent and times for them to be "metagame information". To keep the terminology completely on the developer side would be an adverse limitation on gameplay. I agree that the terminology should not usually be staring players in the face, like a big red arrow above an NPC's head, as if to scream "QUEST HERE!!!". That would certainly detract from the game's flavor (assuming it's trying to be an RPG, and not arcade-style). When EQ2 added big red arrows like that to denote a player's current target (toggleable, I'm sure), I wanted to strangle somebody. But there are ways in which player exposure to terminology adds flavor.

All of this must be considered in relation to what could be in MMORPGs, instead of how it's been done before. What's unimmersive about an NPC saying "I have a job for you"? It might tell you that there is a material reward (possibly merchant faction too) and, perhaps, no experience reward. If some stuff gave only xp, some gave only loot, some gave only faction, then would it be watering down gameplay to make that information available to the player before he or she accepts that mission? No. By nature, a true "quest" does involve mystery, but a job or duty does not. What if an NPC directed you to another NPC because "he might have a job for you"? Does it not help to know that it is a job and not a quest?

Lastly, there's no need to hold onto mystery 100% of the time, of course, but mystery can be useful. Games that leave room for the player's imagination to roam can entertain long after the content has been explored and passed. It's like a virtual world (the player's imagination) inside a virtual world (the game). A kid could dream of bionic warriors without having anything in his hands, but a set of Transformers goes a long way in feeding that dream.


"Wait a minute... 'Part One'? You mean to tell me I read all this crap and you're STILL not done?!"

There's quite a bit more actually. I'll try to get Part Two posted sometime tomorrow.