Quote Originally Posted by Sephrick View Post
What more can quests in a video game be? Kill things or craft things.

And what's the alternative to quest-based progression? Instead of having an NPC tell you to "go kill X for Y reason" you go stand in a spot and kill hundreds of X for no reason other than it's what currently doles out the best exp per hour.
In XI, I could advertise hats, protect a warrior without getting his attention, and climb a dangerous mountain to deliver flowers to a grave.

If games these days are so limited that the highest amount of creativity comes to quickly and cheaply sending you off to go kill a few enemies, or go talk to the next bum in charge to get your 100 XP and shorts of to be replaced next quest, then I'm not sure we can call it 'progress'.