The toxicity of questing in MMORPGs today

[Mugiawara]

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

I just don't understand why you used the word "Toxic".
I feel like you used an extreme word for something that's not all that bad at all.
Oh well, I came from League and people there are TOXIC as all hell
and that is where I first heard it being used, so I don't see the comparison.

[SessionZero]

Playing an MMO in VR would bring with it a whole slew of new problems far beyond simply altering the control scheme or questing structure. Can you imagine trying to dance around the AOE parties of most of FFXIV's high-end content without the spatial awareness granted by a third-person camera? Hell, just trying to accomplish jumping puzzles in first-person mode where you can't see your feet can prove to be frustrating in some games.

MMOs in VR, if the MMO genre even persists that long, will bear absolutely zero resemblance to MMOs as we know them today. Even without huge leaps in hardware, MMOs of today rarely resemble the EverQuests and Ultima Onlines of yore. Will we ever see a game that truly resembles Sword Art Online as it's presented in the show? Doubtful, but I guess there's always the possibility. With regards to a game that is 100% well and truly procedurally generated via an AI that spawns unique quests, bosses, and the like and alters the game according to the actions of the players, that seems like a more feasible goal, if still quite a few years/decades off.

In summary, what we're given is perfectly functional for the present paradigm of MMOs in general. Don't like tab-target combat? Play TERA, or B&S, or BDO. Don't like having progression bound by questing or levels? Play The Secret World. Prefer a more open, expansive, living and breathing world? There's any number of sandbox MMOs out there.

[Leogun]

Nothing ever will set you apart from everyone else unless the entire game was made entirely only for you.

I agree with everything else you mentioned about not being concerned about how other players are questing and such. As a player, without seeking outside assistance from the internet, what other players accomplish is only a 3rd person perspective other their adventures. Just like the real world, other people exist, they live their lives and tell their tales. Knowing that other people did the exact same thing as you in the same manner is knowledge you shouldn't know thus immersion with quests must be voluntarily given up to obtain that perspective. So yeah, I agree with you there.

But I don't think it's wholly impossible to set you apart from everyone else. I believe, if you have a variety in your perspective of play, as well as enough customization in your characters' growth and choice, you can, at the very least, give the illusion of individuality if not out right provide a large helping of individuality.

I tend to praise City of Heroes a lot however I'm aware, on the subject of questing, CoX was extremely repetitive with its mission system, but one thing that it did pretty well was making your characters' progress feel unique to a degree. You could play as a hero or a villain or someone inbetween and that drastically changed the activities you'd participate in. Not only that but at any point in your characters' career, you could go through the redemption/fall process to change factions and this would give you a different flavor of quests you could undertake (a villain-turned-hero might be more easily able to interact with darker elements vs a true-blue-hero, for example). Then there wasn't a particular story path but instead story webs that would have to engaging with different groups (think of it like if the beast tribe quests were actually the main story and you'd choose one or more to follow which would lead to different interactions with other beast tribes). So you could *make* your characters' paths feel unique in a way. Ultimately though, you're still going into instances and beating stuff up, which is what the writer of the article was complaining about.

To me, I feel the better method to solve MMO questing in the here and now is to just abandon the whole "grandiose main story plot" (keep the main plot as the anchor, though) and instead create webs of stories that all link or touch on different aspects and views of what's going on in the world. This forces you to make choices and choose paths and to the players that like story and lore, you can either create alternate characters to experience all the different story branches or just listen to friends tell the story to you and have that story be "their" story while your story is different from theirs.

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!

One criticism, but likely not only, I'd have for FFXIV and its questing is how limiting it makes things. It's cool to unlock things through questing but it's annoying to need to unlock things to get to your desired goal. Consider needing to unlock the advanced jobs, you *MUST* complete the main story scenario up to a given point or if you want to glamor gear, you *MUST* get to a certain level and then do a quest. Or certain dungeon modes and roulettes. Everything under the sun must be unlocked and the only way to know what unlocks it is to click every quest and see what it provides. But why does everything have to be quest locked in the 1st place?

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.

I'd disagree. Using a keyboard isn't difficult, it's just different. If you were to take away my keyboard and hand me a controller and tell me to play an MMORPG, that would be difficult for me until I learned how. I doubt I could ever play Guild Wars 2 with a controller at this point. If players feel like they must be a pianist to use a keyboard, it's likely the game's fault for having too many hotkeys available at once.

That being said, if they are going to innovate MMO controls to the point that keyboard is obsolete, some things would have to come with it:

-Some kind of voice synth technology so you can change your voice to sound like your character, thus removing the need to ever need text. Would also be cheaper to voice everything without needing to hire a but load of voice actors for everything.
-No-hands control. You'd have to do something quite drastic, such as mental inputs, to replace not utilizing a 3rd person camera for VR. I'd like to play more VR myself, but not faux-VR like we have now...

[Renik]

Playing an MMO in VR would bring with it a whole slew of new problems far beyond simply altering the control scheme or questing structure. Can you imagine trying to dance around the AOE parties of most of FFXIV's high-end content without the spatial awareness granted by a third-person camera? Hell, just trying to accomplish jumping puzzles in first-person mode where you can't see your feet can prove to be frustrating in some games.

You can play VR in 3rd-person camera, 3rd person VR games seem to be very popular in HTC and Oculus. Most people don't realize such games exist, but the basis are the same, and we are used to experiencing situations in 3rd-person already so it's not as unnatural as you could think.

[Annwyn]

Someone said the writer just wanted MMOs to be like SAO anime/novels...

I actually had the .Hack// series in mind as the "ultimate goal" of developers when I wrote my blog post, but SAO or even Log Horizon are not bad comparisons either.

I just don't understand why you used the word "Toxic".

I like the definition of 'toxicity' on Wikipedia : "Toxicity is the degree to which a substance can damage an organism." From my perspective, quests are so overused that they begin to harm the player experience. Rather than appearing as a mean for the developers to tell a story, it comes across as a mean for the developers to lengthen or control the time it takes for you to progress through the game. It makes sense considering that's how they make money, keeping players active in the game, but by overusing it I find that the quality of the quests themselves suffers greatly, and so does my enjoyment of the game.

[cammi]

-Some kind of voice synth technology so you can change your voice to sound like your character, thus removing the need to ever need text. Would also be cheaper to voice everything without needing to hire a but load of voice actors for everything.
-No-hands control. You'd have to do something quite drastic, such as mental inputs, to replace not utilizing a 3rd person camera for VR. I'd like to play more VR myself, but not faux-VR like we have now...

Why would they need a voice thing to make you sound like your character? I'm not being mean or demeaning either when I ask that. I generally want to know as I find that part of your text interesting.

[Jpec07]

Idk, I really enjoy questing. It's fun and it gives a tangible sense of progression. That, and I really enjoy the story that SE is telling in FFXIV.

EDIT: also, .hack// was a game trying to imitate an MMO that managed to capture all of the bad parts of MMO gameplay and none of the good. I'd hardly consider it a goal.

[Annwyn]

If you were to take away my keyboard and hand me a controller and tell me to play an MMORPG, that would be difficult for me until I learned how.

Just like you learned to play MMOs using a keyboard before, it's perfectly normal. You should try playing FFXIV with a PS4 controller, I actually thought SE nailed the controls pretty wellin FFXIV, although I also prefer using a mouse and keyboard in this case. The bigger issue between keyboard and VR is that unless you've got perfect keyboard controls when typing and playing, you'd waste time trying to find the right keys or regaining your finger positions with the headset covering your eyes. Controllers have the advantage of always keeping your fingers over the relevant buttons, making it far easier to play "blind" and they also allow greater mobility since you'll want to turn your head/body at times. And yes, VR MMOs will face other problems they'll need to solve like player communication.

[SessionZero]

You can play VR in 3rd-person camera, 3rd person VR games seem to be very popular in HTC and Oculus. Most people don't realize such games exist, but the basis are the same, and we are used to experiencing situations in 3rd-person already so it's not as unnatural as you could think.

If you're going to be playing in third person anyway, what's the point of wearing a VR headset? At that point it's just a gimmick. I'd rather just keep playing the way I do now.

[Leogun]

Why would they need a voice thing to make you sound like your character? I'm not being mean or demeaning either when I ask that. I generally want to know as I find that part of your text interesting.

Variety of reasons:

-Playing the the same players/friends, would feel awkward hearing the same or familiar voices coming from different characters can break immersion.
-Playing as a character that doesn't match your characteristics (old man, young adult, woman, bright bubbly, gruff and rugged, etc) may not be desired by the player.
-Some people just have crappy annoying voices.
-Anonymity.

I'm sure there are more but if you're pretty much replacing standard text input, something needs to change.