Re: Quests, quests, quests...
This is an interesting arguement, however myself my perspective on quests is completely different since for me, I see quests as part of a story, and a story with significance.
In our real life we very rarely have much to do of much significance. We don't get to have a large affect on the world around us. yes you can go to your boring office job and the office manager says to you "finish this report!" you must do it, however this report has little significance either to you, or even hell to the people you work for. morning I have to do the washing up if my wife and I are going to have dinner tonight, a task that needs doing but ultimately not of much significance to anyone beyond myself and Mrs. Dark.
one reason my brother likes his job as a lawyer is that he actually does! have an affect on others in a real way, but most of us aren't so lucky, heck sometimes I rather wonder how much significance the work I do for this site has.
Quests o
n the other hand however give us a chance to be part of a story and do! something significant in that story, in fact as the story's hero.
if I fail at a quest, the world is doomed, or a lost child doesn't come back to it's parents, or a wrestless soul cannot sleep etc etc.
obviously the more involved and engaging the story I am participating in, the more engaging the quest, especially if there are multiple things to work out, multiple clues or changes or significances involved.
You equate quests with passivity, the passivity of a person watching a tv program. However the key difference is if I'm watching a tv program or even reading a book it is some other character not my! character who is having the effect who is doing things.
If I read about Frodo struggling to reach mordor and throw the ring into the cracks of doom, I might feel sympathyy horror, a host of emotions, but they are all vacarious. It is after all frodo and sam who are su
ffering, who are struggling not me.
In a computer game however I! get the chance to participate, to actually be involved in the struggle.
this is especially true if the necessary steps to complete a quest are indeed hard and arduous, or simulate a difficult journey, eg, if I need to go through many hard battles in an rpg dungeon or gather resources for a long journey or go through a tough action test. Look at Manamon as a good example.
I can't speak for survive the wild personally, but this matter of significance and struggle is also a problem in multiplayer games, since the problem with multiplayer games is you have a huge community of players all of whom want that significance, that participation in a story, that chance to struggle through and be the hero.
this is where automated quests come in, quests that essentially make a multiplayer game for their duration a single player game by placing the quester at the center of the action.
of course t here are roleplay events and the like, but it's very difficult to balance a mmorpg to let most players feel that they have a significant effect on the world, especially if (as happens rather unfortunately), events are setup by admins who have certain players they favour as the central figures of their world and story while everyone else is pretty much a bystander.
This btw is why y only do automated quests and single player games and leave my actual free form roleplaying for tabletop games, where the gm can put in all the necessary npc minians, acquainttences, bit players and spear carriers any good drama needs, not to mention wrap the world and story around the players and their actions in a much more personal way than is possible in a mmorpg.
Lastly another good reason for quests is a much more simple one. Computer programs are stupid!
I remember one fight we had in our tabletop rp game where we were fighting enemies who could create a huge domed for
ce field.
My character (who had a battle suit with flying jets rather like iron man), decided to fly up into the air, crash into the ground and so come up under the forcefield.
In another game we were playing an evil sorceress had bought to life several creatures from the filmd jurassic park to menace the audience. My character decided to bring to life a similar simulacra of Dr. Grant from the film to round up the dynosaurs.
these are things that you just couldn't! program a game to do.
Unless you are simply going to play a mush or forum based text rp system with no rules, you will never get a completely free experience that will let you do anything.
Computer games are systems, and as such treating them as! systems, and trying to make them the best systems they can be is imho a far better approach than attempting to make them something they aren't.
After all which is easier to play an interactive fiction game where you have to type in full sentence commands and get messages like "I don't know how to put" when trying to put a cup on a table, or a game that gives you a set choice of actions gamebook style.
Of course it is necessary that quests adhere to the rules of good story telling and good systemitization, and that I think is possibly part of the problem your highlighting, since a quest with only one solution, or a quest where you need such specific knolidge to complete isn't half as interesting as one that promotes exploring of a game's world and adds details to it's history, ---- after all there is a big difference to being told "a goblin stole my legendary golden sword, find it in the dungeon by going two east, one south and three west then slay the goblin and use get all corpse"
and being told "I was guarding a merchant's caravan last month. We were attacked by goblins and though we fought them off, while I was busy shooting them down w ith my bow a small goblin imp crept into my tent and stole my golden sword. It is a legendary heirloom I recieved from my father and though no use as a weapon (since it's edge is so dull), I would very much like to have it returned. I think the goblin is one of those in the colony you can find in the dungeons of this castle, but I have no idea where it is, or even if the same goblin still has the sword. Please find it for me"
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