Re: Quests, quests, quests...
Hmmm Gemini you do bring up an interesting point, since I have noticed on occasion games which are literally sooooo! open they make any play progress impossible simply due to lack of information.
This indeed kept happening in dimensions mud where I'd try something and then find I needed something or someone else that was miles away or literally impossible to find. For example one problem had which I detailed in the 4dimensions topic was where an npc told me to bring them a bundle of skins, and it actually turned out that "bundle" in this case didn't just mean a number of skins bundled together, but an actual skin container needed to hold skins, a container which you needed to get from an entirely different zone of the game.
I'm quite happy with exploring, but simply wandering around a map is about ten thousand rooms in size even I! can get a little disheartened if there isn't an idea of where to find something I need for some proces s, ---- eg, I do remember in wayfare1444 once spending literally days running over the planet map looking for a place where I could gather sand!yes sand! (sadly the ascii map available to others wasn't accessible and this was before the gm had let us search for different eterrain types in the game).
then there is the problem of simply not knowing which actions in a given place are needed to find something, eg, I recently had trouble in lament because I wanted to start weaving but couldn't find any plants with fibres to weave and no where was I informed in the help files that I just needed to gather flax pretty much on any wilderness tyle.
Of course, this is also more of a problem in games such as muds which work on text descriptions and inputting commands, since if you are talking about an audiogame, or a graphical game where you can explore around and simpy find flax lying on the floor it's less of an issue though even there.
Generally speak ing I'd say it's a difference between activities based on searching and quests based on a distinct story.
"activities" wheather that be shooting zombies, gathering craftable materials or finding asteroids in your spaceship to mine can be absolutely fine with little to no direction so long as you know you might! find commands/processes to start them up the game isn't so complex that your lyable to simply do the wrong thing, eg, scan for planetoids rather than asteroids or not know where to gather sand.
Quests on the other hand with ongoing story will get frustrating if there isn't enough direction, since it's one thing to be told "go seak the sage of courage to learn your destiny" if you have no dam idea where to find! the sage of courage .
Of course the better written quests will also be able to direct you without directing you through the design of the game. Eg, you will be told to seak the sage of courage, then just outside your village you might encounter a fisherman who offers you his boat if you'll do some fishing for him on the river. When you go to the river do the fishing you then run into the sage of courage etc.
Indeed that sort of quest sequence can actually be satisfying since it can give you the impression that making choices even when on a specific path, or even let you explore fairly extensively but never be short on where you need to go to continue the story.
It's ironic how much difference I once experienced in two different tabletop games between one gm who said "You ride into the village and such and such happens", and another who said "okay, your outside the village what do you want to do?"
Of course as I said above, unfortunately you only can! have that sort of true creativity with a human gm who is as creativ e as her/his players and can form a story around them, ---- eg if the gm has a plot involving a mad woodcutter the players might encounter him in the village if they enter, or outside in the forest if they don't, but clever writing and game construction can give this impression if a quest is well written enough.
of course this is assuming that one likes narrative quests in the first place.
Myself I like a mix dependent upon the game, though even in a heavy activity based game where I am say crafting or mining or hell just exploring around and finding things to fight, I to feal that I'm actively moving purposefully rather than flailing around.
Iindeed this might be simply the distinction, people like purposive action as opposed to purposeless, pointless action (we have enough of that in everyday life).
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