2017-04-08 10:48:59 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 02:27:21)

Our real life is full of obligations to fulfill, tasks to complete, plans to achieve, goals to accomplish, duties to get done with, or even directions, orders to follow and oblige...
Just think of all those bound real-life obligations, some toward our family and relatives, some toward our friends and neighbourhood, some at our jobs or work, (like Bosses' orders for example), some expected by certain communities, groups we are a member of, (including even the cyber-world of internet), and in general, all the "civil" duties prescribed, defined by this human society we are living in...
All the above mentioned bound, more or less obligatory, determined or expected behavior-norms, in matter fact moral duties, tasks, and obligations, can actually be considered as a form of "real-life quests", which we are either obliged, or strongly recommended to accept and complete in the real world.

Or just take the Television for an other example: It is a typically passive, "one-sided" (one-way limited) media, meaning it only emits things, while on the other side, people watching it are mere receipients, without any chance of any type of active interference or interaction.
We just sit back, passively watch and/or listen what other people do and/or say, being totally unable to actively influence anything, even in movies, the most we can do is to either "root, cheer" for/against a certain character, or try to identify ourselves with some of its protagonists, but with already predefined actions and story-line, which we cannot change, or influence in any way at all.

Now, when we play computer games, including even the most simple ones, we finally get the chance to actively control and decide about our actions, make decisions which most likely influence the gameplay, or even other players in the game, (in case of online games of course), so it's finally on us to pick our actions, and by doing that, most often actively cause our own successes or failures.
So I am asking You people, when You finally get the chance to be in active control, and influence the game-outcome with Your actions and decisions, why don't you use it???
Why do You let Your actions, moves, and decisions be dictated by some automated quests, instead of finally decide about, and make them Yourselves???
Don't You have already enough accepted "real-life quests" to complete, do You have to let Yourselves guided by them even during Your spare-time entertainment, while playing computer-games???

Don't get me wrong, I am not against the idea of quests in general, I even support it in cases when they make the gameplay more diverse and colorful, or merely speed-up our game-progress, I only disapprove and condemn those heavily quest-centric games,where quests either severely limit or dictate player's advance and movement, or even make the gameplay totally linear, instead of letting players picking their own actions, making their own choices and decisions, and play the game the way they like the most, or at least have the option to play it totally "freely", without being limited by obligatory quests in any way.

So optional quests for certain rewards are just fine, as long they don't predefine, dictate, or limit the gameplay in some way, robbing the players of all creative, or intuitive actions, moves, or decisions. (like free exploration and movement over the game map, using certain skills, choosing certain actions, picking certain options, completing certain game-achievements, or severely limiting, sometimes even totally blocking their general game-progress!)


Ok, I know, quests are "in", I keep hearing players whining, shouting in MMO games for "more quests!, we need more quests!", including even us blind gamers, (like in !Survive the wild" for example, which luckily is not one of quest-oriented games...yet), newer games are usually made more-and-more quest-based and centered, but can't You see where that leads???
As 1st, less-and-less game-freedom, meaning creativity, and productivity are remaining, instead of gaining diversity, games are becoming more linear-and-linear every day, untill they will make people playing them just as passive, as if they were completing some of their "real-life quests" listed above, or watching a movie on TV. (case also mentioned above)
As second, they make games shorter-and-shorter, probably in order to be completed by most players by the time the next game-sequel gets released...and I say, real good, entertaining, addictive games can usually be only the truely "infinite" ones, which one can play forever, whenever in the mood for them, and which don't just end or restart after story-line is finished, or all the quests get completed!

So real high-quality games prevail forever, and in order for that, they cannot, MUST NOT be linear, meaning heavily influenced by story-line and quests!!!

Please try to understand, this is no question of "game-taste" anymore, (for I know some of You will try to come out with that "argument"), but an alert, an appeal to preserve our right of making free choices, decisions, taking free actions at will, if not in our real-lives, but at least in computer-games we play in our free-time, for our own entertainment!!!


Regards,
Caccio
from Hungary

2017-04-08 13:21:17 (edited by Dark 2020-03-15 04:45:30)

This is an interesting argument, 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. This 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 on 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 restless 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 sympathy horror, a host of emotions, but they are all vicarious. It is after all frodo and sam who are suffering, who are struggling not me.
In a computer game however I! get the chance to participate, to actually be involved in the struggle directly.
this is especially true if the necessary steps to complete a quest are indeed hard and arduous, or simulate a difficult journey, e.g, 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 there 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, acquaintances, 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 force 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 your character could conceivably do in that situation.

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 knowledge 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 with 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"

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-08 22:17:54 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 01:09:02)

But Dark, please tell me, why do you prefer to be only "a participant" of an already prearranged "story", instead of actively CREATING YOUR OWN ONE FOR YOURSELF, by freely choosing your options, actions, movement, and decisions???

In the 1st case, you are only one of the many guided actors, "participating" (as you said) in a predefined scenario planned/created by others, while in the 2nd one, you are both the creator/producer of that scenario, and its main protagonist in one person!!!

Do you really feel totally satisfied with such a sub-ordinated role, even during your spare-time entertainment???


EDIT:
Let's imagine a simple, Mahjong-type game for example, where instead of the player selecting/choosing the pairs to match, they are automatically prescribed by the computer-AI in each single turn, so that all what the player has to do is, to merely match the already predefined and shown tiles, from the very start of the game, all the way to its very end...
I am asking you guys, what is the actual role, the purpose of human players in such, or similar games, except blindly following the instructions of some dumb NPC or AI
Where is the fun in that, please try to explain it to me??? (for I seem to be too "old-fashioned" to grasp it by myself)

2017-04-09 01:08:02 (edited by Dark 2020-03-15 05:20:17)

hmmm, caccio I'm afraid I am not sure what you mean by "a subordinated roll" or exactly what your mahjong example is supposed to show.

yes, such a game of mahjong would be boring, but it would be boring because I had no participation in how it panned out and needed no skill to effect the outcome, not to mention the fact the actual details of what I was doing, e.g, take tile, take tile, make pair would make a pretty crappy story.

My point is that quests and participation in a story give a matter of significance to the player and direct effects based upon that story or that exploration.

I don't really  understand what exactly your "subordinate roll" comment here is supposed to mean, or what exactly your expecting of a game, maybe we just have different expectations I don't know, but I know for myself if I want to write my own story I'll sit down and write one, and if I want to be the hero and explore another story I'll play a game.

Besides even if you could! have a computer world complex enough to allow everyone to do exactly what he/she liked and create a story, how would every player in that world gain any significance at all?

After all it takes the skill of a human gm to play all the npcs and run a story around even a few players, and when you have players in the hundreds or thousands how is anyone to be significant or have much of a plot, indeed unfortunately  when online worlds attempt! to organise rp events or run around the player, more often than not they run these events only around a few players, leaving everyone else to either get lost in the games mechanics, be fodder for higher level players if pvp is available, or simply to just be a background character out of the loop, ---- and why would you need to play a game to get that! feeling (real life is far better at it).

Maybe we just expect different things I don't know, but personally give me the story I can participate in and be the hero of and have npcs and challenges and my own world every time, if I want to play games with others nothing beats tabletop and the flexibility of a human Game master.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-09 02:07:01 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 02:37:35)

You just answered your own questions in your own reply.

In a quest-centric, but especially in quest-limited games, we accept and complete quests in order to progress.
Those are not actions we can freely choose to take by ourselves, but actually a MUST, requested/expected by the game, (its developers that is), as prerequisits of our further advance.
Let's see, which options we have, what are actually our alternatives in such games:
There are only 2 of them:
Since we have to accept and complete certain quests to "move on", we are in fact forced to accept them, wether they suit our choice, wish, plans, mood, style, expectations,etc, or not.
Then, we can either successfully complete them and make a progress in the game, or we can fail, and retry, start them over, and keep trying until we succeed, for we have no other allowed options or alternatives left in the game.

This means we are obliged to follow an already prescribed, predefined route during our gameplay, instead of being allowed to choose our own prefered path of progressing in the game.

In my Mahjong-example, AI-prescribed, predefined pairs of tiles present such obligatory quests, completing which is a must, meaning they are obligatory prerequisits  for any further game-advance.

There...I hope this explanation is clear enough now!

2017-04-09 02:38:04

Pretty much all gamers nowadays want quests. If you aren't doing quests in a main storyline, you're doing side content. We don't have any games like that, at least not yet, not until A Heroes Call.
I personally think STW is pretty boring without any kind of questing. I've been playing Cosmic Rage lately again... I say again because doing mundane activities that don't engage me in a story is, well, just that. Boring, I play it off and on. This week I was on it constantly, next week I'm not sure. Who knows what my mindset will be in two weeks.

But, when A Heroes Call comes out, I'll play it, beat it, while also doing side content, and be satisfied that there's some kind of purpose to my actions.  This is why lots of people don't play MMOs. Ultimately, going on raids and PVP and everything that makes an MMO last forever doesn't satisify me very much.
Take a game like the upcoming TauStation, which is all about the narrative, in a persistent MMO. If stories/missions are constantly coming out, I'd be more interested in playing than if they made you roleplay everything like a MUD does.
Fallen London is pretty long as well, but limits actions so you can't claim the game is too short.

2017-04-09 04:37:03 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 06:39:57)

Ehhh, I shall still bring up some further, this time positive game-examples, to demonstrate my point even more obviously, to all those, who may still have problems interpreting it:

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Skyrim.
Yes, those games did also have quests, many of them even, both story-line and side-quests, but none of them was limiting the gameplay in any way.
So accepting and completing those quests was not an obligatory must, one could just wander around at will or just randomly, following his/her own plans, strategy, mood, or intuitions, one could visit towns, along with all their buildings and facilities, venture into the forest, swamp, wasteland, plaims, desert, mountains, make sea-travels, search for, and clean dungeons, caves, ruins, camps, so freely explore all the map-locations, meaning going/traveling anywhere over the huge game-map at will, without being restricted or limited by completion of certain quests in any way!

A perfect online example of such an open, non-quest-centric game is GTA 5 Online, where, similar to Elder Scrolls games, despite all the optional quests, heists, missions, races, etc, players can still just wander around the huge game-map totally at will, visit all the locations by their own choice or mood, freely perform a wide variety of actions, fight PvP-combats, (including even the possibility to just turn PvP off if bothered by it), apply many types of strategies and styles, etc, and yes, they are allowed to do all that without being restricted, or limited by any type of quests in any way!

In both of those examples, we can totally ignore the so called "story-line, and will still be able to enjoy all the offered game-possibilities.

Now please compare those games to the ones which go like:
"Go into the nearby forest, kill 5 wolves, then return to me for your reward!", then "go to the tavern and talk to the old bagger, after buying him a drink!",then "sneak into the bandit-camp find, and free the captive maiden inside it!", etc, but NO, you cannot visit and explore any other place, town, land, site, so no other map-location, not even some other district, you may only move inside the extremely narrow, limited area of your current obligatory quest!!!"

I do hope you people have noticed the enormous difference between the above mentioned 2 game-types, primarily applied to their level of creativity regarding possible actions, but to their general gameplay-freedom as well!!!

2017-04-09 05:04:11 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 06:24:27)

Orin wrote:

Pretty much all gamers nowadays want quests. If you aren't doing quests in a main storyline, you're doing side content. We don't have any games like that, at least not yet, not until A Heroes Call.
I personally think STW is pretty boring without any kind of questing. I've been playing Cosmic Rage lately again... I say again because doing mundane activities that don't engage me in a story is, well, just that. Boring, I play it off and on. This week I was on it constantly, next week I'm not sure. Who knows what my mindset will be in two weeks.

But, when A Heroes Call comes out, I'll play it, beat it, while also doing side content, and be satisfied that there's some kind of purpose to my actions.  This is why lots of people don't play MMOs. Ultimately, going on raids and PVP and everything that makes an MMO last forever doesn't satisify me very much.
Take a game like the upcoming TauStation, which is all about the narrative, in a persistent MMO. If stories/missions are constantly coming out, I'd be more interested in playing than if they made you roleplay everything like a MUD does.
Fallen London is pretty long as well, but limits actions so you can't claim the game is too short.

Dear Orin!

You are the typical type of those gamers, who made me start this forum-topic at the 1st place!
It's modern player's attitude similar to yours, why I felt the urge to engage into this discussion, so thank you very much for your contribution, now I at least know for sure, that my effort is worth a try!

Edit:
Btw, it seems you guys are still interpreting my point the wrong way!
I repeat, I am generally not against quests in games at all, I even support the idea of them, for they can significantly improve the game-diversity, so let there be hundreds, thousands of quests in a game, it will still be a good, high-quality, everlasting one, as longnone of those quests severely limit, or restrict player's game-progress, choice and number of available actions, possibilities, or badly ruins the game-creativity, degrading it to a totally linear storyline, where all we can do is accept, and complete obligatory quests in a constant, unchangable order, (since that is the only allowed, possible way of progressing), all the way until we finish the game itself!

2017-04-09 05:40:29

This topic is interesting...
From my point of view, as a casual writer who pays attention to stories and ideas more than anything, I think why most people want quests is to satisfy their actions. They sure can create stuff on their own if they want too, but sometimes, for some games, in some circumstances, doing it over and over and over without seeing or coming up with idea makes the play go dull. That's why roleplay exists. It never runs out of quests, it can shift and turn, and it can change anytime with or without someone to run a "quest".
I admit I'm that type of gamer who looks for action too. Like Orin. Sure doesn't have to be quest-centered or anything, just something worth an action. I can understand the point of not wanting quests as strictly required progression though (and can see some muds like Frandum or 4d not your type too, lol). Then again, it doesn't have to be that way. Most of those things have something for you to do. You enjoy doing or not, that's the other thing. But in some games when actions aren't heavily influenced by quest, now that's more like it.
Quest does make it very interesting to stick, but doesn't have to be everything. As well as if you want quests, you might not want rp. And rp isn't for just anyone either.
Quests in game are just like picking something you can't do in real life and try to progress it, see it go, be happy and all that. It's the taste that matters. I love self rp more than strictly forced quests, but that's just me. And that explains why I can't be on Alter Aeon all day like some people do.
And what matters is people nowadays seem to pay more attention to stories or details, and that's why quests become rather important in some games. Those who don't want to come up with stories on their own prefer made quests to just follow and see how it goes. Not everyone's full of ideas.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2017-04-09 07:33:36 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 10:40:29)

mata wrote:

This topic is interesting...
From my point of view, as a casual writer who pays attention to stories and ideas more than anything, I think why most people want quests is to satisfy their actions. They sure can create stuff on their own if they want too, but sometimes, for some games, in some circumstances, doing it over and over and over without seeing or coming up with idea makes the play go dull. That's why roleplay exists. It never runs out of quests, it can shift and turn, and it can change anytime with or without someone to run a "quest".
I admit I'm that type of gamer who looks for action too. Like Orin. Sure doesn't have to be quest-centered or anything, just something worth an action. I can understand the point of not wanting quests as strictly required progression though (and can see some muds like Frandum or 4d not your type too, lol). Then again, it doesn't have to be that way. Most of those things have something for you to do. You enjoy doing or not, that's the other thing. But in some games when actions aren't heavily influenced by quest, now that's more like it.
Quest does make it very interesting to stick, but doesn't have to be everything. As well as if you want quests, you might not want rp. And rp isn't for just anyone either.
Quests in game are just like picking something you can't do in real life and try to progress it, see it go, be happy and all that. It's the taste that matters. I love self rp more than strictly forced quests, but that's just me. And that explains why I can't be on Alter Aeon all day like some people do.
And what matters is people nowadays seem to pay more attention to stories or details, and that's why quests become rather important in some games. Those who don't want to come up with stories on their own prefer made quests to just follow and see how it goes. Not everyone's full of ideas.

But sure you guys all want actions, the very most of game-players do, including myself!
My point is not about the quantity, so not about more-or less actions, but about their quality, meaning their active, or passive type.

It is about the difference between passively, blindly, (without any creative, independent,  individual planning), following instructions of others, )mostly game-developers, usually talking to us players through quest-giving NPCs), or actively deciding about, and choosing our actions ourselves.

What I am wondering about is, why does the vast majority of people still prefer to be told, actually prescribed, or sometimes even ordered what to do, instead of picking their actions freely and independently, totally uninfluenced by others, so based only on their own current wishes, desires, plans, and mood? (to be their oen Boss or Master, at least in computer games for a change)

2017-04-09 09:07:11 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 09:26:50)

Ok, just out of curiosity, let me ask you people a specific question:

Let's say You are playing a captain of an explorer ship, in a futuristic, space-based simulation game.
Which one of the following 2 situations would You prefer, and why would you find it more interesting, than the other one?

1. You are ordered by Your (NPC) fleet or starbase commander, which star-systems and planets you have to, meaning are obliged to explore, all in an already predefined order.
You are allowed, actually restricted to explore only those certain, ordered, predefined systems and planets, without being able to reach, or even approach all the rest, other existing ones.
Plus, You can only do the exploration in a certain, already prearranged order, decided by that NPC commander of yours.


2. You are a private, totally independent explorer/captain, in full command of your actions, without any higher autority prescribing/ordering You where to fly, so You can totally freely decide and choose which star systems and planets you wish or plan to explore, and which ones will You rather just skip or ignore.
Normally You are also the one, who decides about the order ofthose selected systems and planets, and even that order You are allowed to change at any time, depending on your plans, mood, or just due being influenced by some randomly appearing events, on Your initially planned route..

I am keen to hear your quest-centric guy's choice this time, so "bring it on"!!!

2017-04-09 10:50:31

Call me crazy, but I'll probably take the first one, because in this way, the developer is then able to create a much more interesting Story that can not crumble into nonlogical pieces by doing it in the wrong order. Skyrim, for example, is much criticized for the lack of things to do in such a huge world.

We are pleased, that you made it through the final challenge, where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lay on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Assume the party submission position or you will miss the party.

2017-04-09 14:56:43 (edited by Dark 2020-03-15 05:25:48)

Hmmm Caccio your definition of quests here is pretty narrow and based only on one model of game progression, that of the single player hero narrative in a game like manamon, ---- though it's worth remembering that a good single player narrative game will still give the player choice about what they do and how they do it even if it's actual story progression is based on a certain narrative.

Okay, you don't like that style that is fair enough (though I would as I said above beg to differ) but to condemn the hole mechanic based on assuming all quests in games are of that type is probably incorrect.

Take a game like core exiles.
There you are! the captain of a ship (or at least you start out as the captain of a ship but can do more later). You can take different sorts of contracts e.g bounty missions, cargo missions, mining missions etc and use the cash and rewards from those to expand your activities, trade with others etc.
In addition to this however as you go to planets you will find npcs who will give you jobs to do such as getting them a given quantity of something, killing a number of ships, or speaking to other npcs.
These mission chains then unlock further abilities and mission chains etc, but can be done as and when a person wants to do them or has the required resources.

There is no single narrative, just a bunch of different things you can do to progress in the game when you want to do them, yet some contribute stories, some are simply activities carried out for your own advancement.

Generally speaking I personally find the narrative quests more satisfying because they give more of a sense of story and progression and the idea that I'm actually having an affect on the people who live in that world, even if some of the advancement activities such as managing a factory or settlement are fun in themselves.

for me it's all about the story and my participation in that story, whether that is a single over arching narrative story, or a number of little stories I participate in in an online world.

then again I confess as I said roleplay isn't something that interests me since I've never found an online game that is able to cater to the need of myself as a player to have significance in the world, thus I tend to treat most online rpgs as single player stories anyway, albeit ones with a few interesting activities thrown in along the way.

This is I imagine what people want from survive the wild, namely a narrative significance, a for their characters to be the heroes of a story aside from the bare mechanics of the game's activities such as building, survival, hunting etc.

maybe you don't care for that sort of narrative yourself, or maybe you are happy accepting in character conversations in a huge mmorpg as your way to influence the world, which is fine, but as I said I don't think others have the same experience or priorities.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-09 18:28:07 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 20:23:33)

Ok, since it seems this discussion is leading nowhere, I shall try to approach the matter from a different angle.

I shall try to reveal, and make you people grasp the true reason of starting this forum-topic at the 1st place.

In this modern life and world, us common people are becoming more-and-more a kind of robots, mindless machines, which are constructed with the sole purpose of obeying orders, by completing certain predefined tasks or missions.
Normally this inevidently results in total loss of our capability of independent, creative thinking and planning, unfortunately not only at our jobs or duties, which we mostly perform as an obligation or a must, but even during our freely chosen spare-time entertainment, which is initially supposed to grant us the chance, or at least the possibility to preserve that mentioned capability.

I started this forum-discussion with the primary aim, to make a desperate appeal to you fellow gamers, to try to save, and preserve that ability of independent, creative thinking and planning, if not in real-life anymore, (for it's far too late for that, it is permanently lost llong time ago), but at least in computer-games, which we play for the sake of our own spare-time entertainment, meaning playing them is no obligatory must, but our own optional free choice and decision.
After all, that possibility of active, free handling and interaction is supposed to be the main aspect, the element which distinguishes computer games from movies and books...

I have to admit, it makes me quite depressed to realize by reading Your replies here, how the need, the urge to preserve, or at least to care, worry about that mentioned human capability, which I consider for so important for our homo-sapiens race, keeps dying out at such a rapid rate...and that the very most of us rather choose to follow a bound, already predefined scenario even in games, instead of trying to make efforts to succeed by our own, bypicking a clever approach and strategy, selecting and making the best decisions, or carefully planning our actions and moves. (for example)

But yes, true, "why should we bother with planning our actions, making the most convenient decisions, finding out the best solution, the easiest and fastest way to success, when that so called "win-button" is already there for us, all we have to do to reach it is to turn to mindless robots, and start mechanically, blindly following predefined, issued orders, which are in our case those obligatory quests given by NPCs in games". (for that's obviously what seems to be, or what we consider for the "most comfortable option")

2017-04-09 19:00:13 (edited by Dark 2020-03-15 05:28:26)

I'd agree with you about life and the encouragement of drone hood generally, but I don't see following a story in quests as a symptom of that at all, quite the opposite in fact.
Games have had stories to follow ever since atari days.

Caccio72 wrote:

trying to make efforts to succeed by our own, bypicking a clever approach and strategy

 

This is exactly what I've been doing in manamon just now, picking my party, the moves, which manamon too focus on etc. The fact that I'm following a narrative story doesn't' take away from the necessary judgements on my part, indeed they enhance it since for me, just presenting with battle after battle, interesting though the battle mechanics might be would paul rather quickly as they have no significance or relevance to the game's world beyond themselves, after all, which is more interesting, slaying a dragon because it is a tough fight and gets you lots of experience, or slaying a dragon  because it has been summoned by an evil wizard who was thrown out of the town 17 years before and now wants revenge.

It is your target here caccio which I believe is the incorrect one, you pick on significance and story narrative, a form of significance which as I said above we don't have in our everyday lives and get through computer games rather than the real culprit of lack of creativity, game design that encourages lack of thought or engagement with the story.

E.g, you might have the same narrative to go and retrieve the sword from the dungeon as I said above, but if one  simply presents you with a set of standard battles in which you just hit attack over and over again you don't achieve anything, while if another has a complex system you must understand and think around  use your judgement on that is quite another matter.

I agree with your over all point about the generally depressing lack of creativity in life, but targeting narrative quests and calling people who want that sort of significance "uncreative, is like calling a lover of immersive books unimaginative.

I also don't really see what you are proposing as a substitute.

Personally I find games who's activities simply exist in and of themselves like survive the wild, while interesting so long as the activities remain interesting and there is something new to discover quickly grow stale after a while (one reason why games like cosmic rage and clok have so many activities).
While games which try to focus purely on player interaction tend to either A, turn in to pvp fests, B, just revolve around the gm's favourite players, or C, devolve into fairly exclusive cleaques.


If you have a system which could allow all players to feel that they are contributing significantly to the world and! retain interesting activities which don't eventually grow stale, then I'd be interested to know about it.

Maybe as I said this is ultimately down to a simple matter of preference.
I myself have always preferred participating in stories and exploring to chatting to other players or fighting with them, maybe your preferences are simply different, ---- which is fair enough.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-09 20:55:50

I suppose this is a bit off topic but I'm curious.

Caccio wrote:

In this modern life and world, us common people are becoming more-and-more a kind of robots, mindless machines, which are constructed with the sole purpose of obeying orders, by completing certain predefined tasks or missions.

Why do you say this is the case? I'm curious why you think people today are losing creativity. What about people in creative occupations?

2017-04-09 21:08:21 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-09 22:03:06)

But of course I have exact ideas about games, which could be "proposed as alternatives"!
Just find me a willing game-developer, and I shall suggest literarily dozens of those to him/her!
And I do mean games, which would satisfy the expectations of almost all types of gamers, starting with role-players, explorers, builders, crafters, quest, or story-centric ones, all the way to hardcore PvP-fans!

Just reminding you on GTA 5 Online, which is one of the ever-best games created, primarily due its game-diversity, cumulating all the expectations of different gamer-types. (or at least the very most of them)

As for the Survive The Wild game, I do like its idea of totally freedom in handling and actions, along with its solution of the PvP possibility,)I support the idea to feature it, but keep it optional, like in GTA5O), and I don't think any quests should be added to such a mere survival-centric, free-exploration-based, creative type of game at all!
There is supposed to be only one "story-line", only one main, obligatory quest in such a game: Try to survive, for as long as possible, and the way how you will accomplish that, is meant to be totally up to you!
The only reason why I am playing STW quite rarely, is its heavily crafting-oriented nature, namely I am not exactly a "crafting-fan" type of player, I prefer games where crafting plays a less important role, is much more simplified, or is entirely missing even.

2017-04-09 21:33:46 (edited by Dark 2020-03-15 05:31:01)

@Zac, I'm afraid I do agree with caccio on the modern predilection of companies, industries and organisations to simply turn people into cogs in their production machine, it's part of the mass market world we live in.

Consider the difference between a shopkeeper who owns and manages their own small shop, and a person who just works on the counter at a supermarket.

The shop keeper has to keep their own books, manage their own stock, has time to chat to the customers, decides what they buy and sell, where in the shop to display products  etc. Indeed 100 years ago or even 70 being a shop keeper was quite a skilful job with a large amount of required knowledge, from manual weighing of ingredients to book keeping.

Now however a person in a supermarket just stands behind a counter and scans the goods by barcode then puts the change in the register as quickly as possible, does nothing to set prices, and even when stocking shelves does so according to a plan designed by others.

Increasing now most jobs are like this, indeed even in most of the so called "creative" professions, it is about satisfying a committee of executives who have already used demographic graphs to decide what sells and simply satisfying those demographics in as increasingly sanitary way as possible, look at the less than creative trend in films, the endless sequels, manufactured music etc.

it's unfortunately been the case that computers in industry and the production line concept, rather than freeing the majority of humans from mental drudgery, have simply allowed corporations to enforce the production model onto their customers and employees.

This is why significance in games, being a hero, being important, doing something that matters yes in an individual strategic way is such a draw for a lot of people.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-09 22:25:08 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-10 01:03:42)

Dark wrote:

@Zac, I'm afraid I do agree with caccio on the modern of companies, industries and organizations to simply turn people into cogs in their production machine, it's part of the mass market world we live in.

Consider the difference between a shopkeeper who owns and manages their own small shop, and a person who just works on the counter at a supermarket.

The shop keeper has to keep their own books, manage their own stock, has time to chat to the customers, decides what they buy and sell, where in the shop to display products  etc. Indeed 100 years ago or even 70 being a shop keeper was quite a skillful job with a large amount of required knolidge, from manual weighing of ingredients to book keeping.

Now however a person in a supermarket just stands behind a counter and scans the goods by barcode then puts the change in the register as quickly as possible, does nothing to set prices, and even wheen stocking shelves does so according to a plan deisnged by others.

Increasing now most jobs are like this, indeed even in most of the so called "creative" professions, it is about satisfying a committee of executives who have already used demographic graphs to decide what sells and simply satisfying those demographics in as increasingly sanitary way as possible, loook at the in films, the endless sequels, manufactured music etc.

it's unfortunately been the case that computers in industry and the production line concept, rather than freeing the majority of humans from mental drudgery, have simply allowed coorporations to increase the production model onto their customers and employees.

This is why significance in games, being a hero, being important, doing something that matters yes in an individual strategic way is such a draw for a lot of people.

Very good, well said!
So now when You have admitted this, it takes only a small step further to notice and realize, that this very same process, which You described so accurately, happens not only in real-life, but unfortunately started happening in the world of computer-games as well, very likely due those very same reasons!
(just re-read the 2nd part of my starting forum-post please)

Edit:
After all just think of it, which "foolish", modern game-developer would come up with a truely creative, endless game nowadays, a game without an actual need of further sequels, it would rob that "poor" developer of all his/her so precious, future income and profit...

2017-04-09 22:26:06 (edited by Mayana 2017-04-09 22:30:07)

I think your definition of quests is not the same as mine. Sure, there are those games where quests need to be finished before you can proceed, you get no choice about it. But even those quests can be interesting, as long as they are done well and still give you at least some choice in how you handle things inside the quest itself. The example would be manamon, where (except for the ring quest) you have to do things mostly in one order. It still gives you freedom to choose which manamon you'll use and you can choose your strategy. Because of that, it still has replay value and is a good game.
And then there are the quests that most games have. While you'll usually be better off if you complete them, you don't need to. You can choose which to complete and which to leave. Even STW has quests, and they work like that.
No, I don't like games where you are told exactly what and how to do it, with no variations whatsoever. But I do like it when I have at least some things I can do, to have an impact on the world. Exploring for yourself is fun for a while, but sometimes it's nice to read the story, too.
Nice examples are choose your stories. Not everything is left up to you, you don't get to decide all of the aspects of your character, yet you are provided with enough choices so that it is still interesting. COG does allow you to choose some things about your character, but even it has limits. And personally I think that sometimes it's best to just play as someone else, in someone else's story. It might not always be how you want it to be, but it's usually more fleshed out and realistic.

Yes, I definitely left the forum. Mhm. Why would you have any doubt?
Code 7 tips: https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/4010 … or-code-7/
Don't forget to be awesome!

2017-04-10 00:20:28

Ok, then I shall use 2 examples of games I am currently playing, in order to demonstrate my point even more evidently:
)both are browser-based MMOs btw)

The 1st one is Core Exiles, a futuristic, space-based MMO.
All I wish and desire to do in that game is to freely explore so far unexplored planets, while being accompanied by my faithful pet, and eventually engage into some "pew-pew action" on my way, depending on my current plans and mood.
The game makes all those 3features possible, however, I MUST accept, and complete a bunch of quests, in order to reach to the point, when I will be allowed to perform the above mentioned, so much desired actions!
Meaning, I have to do a llong row of quests in order to get a pet, then another long row for getting ready for space-combat, (ship-outfit, equipment, skills), and a 3rd, longest row of required quests, to make myself, (the pilot-captain),ready for planet-exploration.
Now excuse me please, but I do find that pretty embarressing!

In the 2nd game I play, the situation is quite similar.
It is a fantasy-based MMO called Gothador, and I have those same quest-related issues with changing my race, class, sub-class, profession, learning certain skills, like summoning a pet-creature to fight for me in battles, or using sense skill to be able to read NPC-creature's strength and stats, quests for the swift-movement ability, quests for learning magic-spells, more quests to acquire more advanced weapons and gear, etc.
While in matter fact all what I wish for, all what I desire is to freely wander over the vast game-map, explore numerous different map-regions and locations, and occasionally fight some NPC-monsters for loot...eventually some hostile players too, if we run into each-other on our way.
That is all what I expect from that game, and still...I am so far from achieving it, due being separated even from this simple goal, by a bunch of requested, or required quests...

Please tell me, wouldn't you guys feel annoyed , or maybe even frustrated by such limitations, which keep preventing You from playing an, otherwise very interesting game, the way You like or prefer, merely due its exaggeratedly quest-centric orientation???

2017-04-10 01:34:24

Sometimes, creativity is in the quest itself, as long as you don't just sit there and mash your attack button over and over. What's in it mechanical wise? I could go out and do whatever I want independantly right now in real life, but what you're talking about is something that is programmed. Even those game you call "gives free choices" are still programmed. And it's actually not only because of creativity that some games grow stail after a while. It's also because there's nothing else to discover. Some people view quests as ways to dirscover things, or even if not quests, the game content itself drives it through.
I'll give an example of survive the wild again (which you seem to love so much). You do this, you get the quest blah blah blah, and it's done. Now what? You are free to do whatever on your own. You make this make that, come up with stories on your own for a while, but then it ends because either you get killed, you play alone or with not so many people in your field of ideas... Not everyone have the same taste, and not that people who follow quests can't be creative. Someone mentioned Manamon earlier, that is a good example. You follow storylines, yet you're still able to think and act in order to progress that story Imagine a game without storyline? Go for rp enforced games.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2017-04-10 05:02:48

@mayana One thing I admire about manamon is just this.
while what new areas you go to is dictated by the plot, albeit an interesting, atmospheric  and well written plot how you must accomplish the challenges your set is entirely up to you, which manamon you focus on, how you train your party etc, this was the point I was trying to get across earlier.

@Caccio, again here it strikes me your failing to take into account two factors.

Firstly the narative function of quests as I said and the fact that there is! more of a reason to do a quest than just because "your boss says so", and secondly the way you go about accomplishing the quest.

In core exiles quests firstly exist to find out more about the world, and secondly to give you something to work for while carrying out activities. The entire game rewards your efforts of working at mining or combat etc with new activities to do, indeed I would recommend the best way to play ce is to get involved with as many different activities at a time so you don't become board of one, quests included, indeed ce is one game where you have to work damnably hard but get rewarded for that work (believe me exploring is worth the effort).

Gothador on the other hand frankly is a little unfair in that you must firstly work to acquire bog standard skills to explore the world and even be able to use your starter items, and secondly in that since you have absolutely no direction but a dramatically limited amount of action points to explore with, you basically are tied to looking at guides constantly or wandering around waiting for your ap to refresh before doing more exploring, though this is not a problem in the quests system as such, it's a problem in Gothador's design being in terms of it's abilities, not letting you freely explore the world.

Lastly I will note that your idea of games created by committee and demographic study to maximize prophet isn't half so true of accessible and independent games, developers of indi games on average to be much more decent people who make games because they want to and while they accept cash to keep the games running have by way of artistic integrity and idea about what they want to create than just to pump out the latest best selling graphics action fest and move on the way most mainstream companies do these days, ---- indeed I know from personal experience that Coops, the chief coder of ce is a very decent person, ---- I dealt with coops a lot during quite a bit of accessibility discussions changes to the game.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-10 08:09:23

can try return of the king

2017-04-10 08:43:01 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-10 09:18:54)

Please try to understand, I don't mind quests in general at all, and yes, I agree with You, they indeed can often be interesting, useful, educative, or even creative.
Problems start with those, mostly main story-line referred, obligatory ones, which severely limit, or restrict players available, possible actions, and I mean their free movement over the game-map at the 1st place.
For a primarily exploration-oriented player like myself, who mostly likes just wandering around inside huge game-worlds, such movement-restricting quests usually totally spoil, ruin the fun of playing, an an otherwise very interesting game, so it is no wonder I deeply regret, and try to appeal against such a waste, especially since I consider it for totally unnecessary and pointless.
Namely, game-developers could make such "movement-restricting" quests fully optional, and by doing so, the game would still preserve its so called "open-world nature", so that playing it will still remain fully enjoyable to us, free-exploration-oriented players as well!