The toxicity of questing in MMORPGs today

[Sigmar_Heldenhammer]

Lol, "Toxicity of questing."
I'm so tired of hearing that word thrown around for anything someone doesn't like.

[Gemina]

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Annwyn/1...-mmorpgs-today

The thing is, FFXIV addresses many of these issues and does so successfully.

1. Everyone is the hero: This is simply not true. YOU are the hero. The MSQ doesn't praise the badass tank, DPS, or healer that you were grouped with even if they single-handedly save the entire run. It praises you. YOU might see that the game is filled with warriors of light, but the game ONLY sees you. If you want to live up to the name, then be the one that saves an entire instance from fail.

2. What's wrong with grinding? Every role-playing game I have ever participated in has a grind. Whether it's leveling, getting your ultimate weapon, or inflating your inventory with useful items: The grind has always been a part of RPG's. Don't like it, don't play. Without the grind, everyone and their brother AND their sister will have all the same crap. Nope!

3. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. FFXIV in particular keeps content locked from those who have no business in said content. In short, area A, is a whole different animal from area B. Prepare for more of this with 4.0. It's not going to change.

4. From one perspective: Why on Earth is the warrior of light running errands for some lowbie who needs to deliver cookies asap when he/she eats primals for breakfast? From another perspective: The warrior of light helps everyone regardless if it is delivering cookies or handing a primal their own ass. Being the WoL entails that you work in the people of Eorzea's best interest; not your own. It's why Ramuh considers you ligit.

5. New players gives veterans all the reason they need to revisit old areas. In fact, I'd say that is the reason why most of them do it. It is also not out of the ordinary for anyone to repeat instances for the enjoyment and don't care at all about the rewards. Especially when running content with friends. An enjoyable instance, regardless of how many times it has been ran before, is rewarding in itself.

tl;dr. Questing is a good thing. The entire game is optional. No one is forcing you to play it.

[KitriaLuon]

I kinda stopped reading when the article start to arrogantly imply or state how I feel. Holier than thou is so trite these days.

[Annwyn]

Hey guys, I'm the original person who wrote the blog on the toxicity of questing.

My biggest issue with questing in MMOs is that they basically took the formula from single-player RPGs, added it into MMORPGs with little to no adaptation and multiplied the amount by 1000. There are so many quests and in most MMOs they offer so very little in terms of meaning, they're just fillers to get you to the next level/area, and I can only do so much of those until I run out of patience. Basically if I'm playing a video game, I'm looking to have fun, not do chores for 80 levels until I finally get to jump into the fun part, so that's where I'm coming from with this. I do believe that questing has its place in MMORPGs however, but I'm very much against the current format and the way its forced on players.

Got to give credit where credit is due though, FFXIV does have a really awesome main story and some interesting side quests as well.

Hope this clears things up a little.

See ya!

[TaleraRistain]

I think questing in MMORPGs is great. Despite the fact I played a game called EverQuest, it was anything but. It was Ever-Grab-Friends-and-Pull-to-the-Same-Spot-Over-and-Over-to-Level.

I will take actual quests over zone camping any day.

[Chocolys]

I disagree, I like questing in MMORPG as long as there is an enough good story to follow.

Also from the link the guy said:

, developers would have to create a game that will use video game controllers, meaning that the combat would be more action-oriented, and this opens the door for content where a player's skills, as a person rather than as a character, will be put to the test.

He's not talking about MMORPG anymore, he just wants an action MMO, MMOFPS, or whatever you want to call it, which makes his rant kind of a moot point. You can be in a wheelchair in real-life and roleplay a jumping Dragoon. The more your make real life player's attributes/skills important into a game, the more limited the roleplay can be.

[Felis]

as a result of this what other players do does factor into it. clearing xelphatol for example in the latest patch doesn't make you feel particularly heroic because its something within the game that virtually everyone has done. and the point of being a hero is doing things others could not...
.

Back in the time, nobody complained about that they were not the only one who defeated Sephiroth in FF VII, but millions of players around the world did the same.

Within the story the other players are irrelevant. They are just adventurers who help you.
Those who complain about it have not mastered the "see the world through the eyes of the character and ignore what you know as a player" thing.

[Faeon]

That writer just wants games to be like the SOA anime / manga, where you live in the world and your actions are your own skill.

[Annwyn]

...

The RPG genre is not limited by the kind of combat chosen by its developers. An Elder Scrolls game is as much an RPG as a game like Final Fantasy. MMORPGs are no exception despite the lack of "innovation" over the last decade (and longer) in the way they are played. The choice of combat type has no bearing on a player's ability to RP.

The particular part you quoted however referred to the future, VR MMORPGs, and how the VR genre will undoubtedly force developers to bring about some changes in how they conceive MMOs if they intend on bringing the MMO world to the VR world. My point was that I don't see the current formula changing until the very last moment where the medium (VR) will force them to seek alternatives to the traditional formula, because the old formulas are not as feasible for VR. Using a keyboard is difficult while wearing a VR headset hence the need for an alternative: a controller.

[Renik]

I don't think questing have changed much since the first MMOs besides quest marks on NPCs and map markers, what makes a quest good or bad is the writing and its gameplay.

This questing system will be here as long as there's enough people who enjoy it. But this does not conflict with what the writer of the blog wants. The perfect system would be one that uses a traditional questing system to tell a story, that will be equal for everyone, and a different system for sidequests. Here's where we face the problem...

Someone said the writer just wanted MMOs to be like SAO anime/novels , that's provably true, but not wrong, in SAO, or in the ALO saga to be exact, the hero plays a game ruled by an AI capable of creating unique quests and altering the world based on said quest.

This AI system should and must be the dream and goal of every MMO developer, and it's the only solution to give players unique experiences. The first title who tried to achieve something like this was Everquest Next, they failed, but not only because of the difficulty of the task, they failed, because daybreak who was in charge of the development, was not prepared to face the difficulty of creating this new system, but this is a discussion for a whole different topic.

Regarding the future of MMORPGs, yes VR is the future, and gamepad will provably gain popularity, but 14 years ago we could play lineage II and FFXI with a gamepad, so action is not the only compatible system with VR, may be action will end being the default system once we can control videogames with our minds, but that's still far.