A rant about quests

[Dalvyn]

(from a builder's and imm's point of view)

The temptation is strong to consider quests the main goal of the time you spend on the mud and build your playing experience around this idea. After all, quests bring you experience, magical equipment, coins, and power. Does that mean that you should articulate all your in-game (IC and OOC) actions around this goal? I do not think so.

When you start behaving like most smote and say are just a loss of time that push back the time when you complete the quest and get the reward, I think you are missing something.

When you prefer to switch to osay/otell in the middle of a roleplay (with other characters or with mobs) to consider the most efficient way to complete the quest instead of taking the time to participate in the roleplay, I think you are missing something.

When you tell people about what quests they should do now or later, and about how they should go about completing them in order to make their quest completion more "efficient" and thereby rob them of the opportunity to be surprised by how the quest evolves, you are missing something.

When you are ready to ignore the setting of the quest (the why, the where, the who) and feel like letting people read what the mobs tell them is not that important, then you are missing something.

To sum it up, when you consider then the main goal is completing the quest and that everything else (the IC considerations, the roleplay, the needs or desires of other players) is less important than this goal, you are missing out much from the game.

I think you gain much more from this game when you remember that the main goal of a multiplayer game (the best that it can offer, that solo games cannot offer) is the interaction. Take the time to interact and roleplay, give other players time to type in their smote and react to what they see, hear, or feel. Acquiring good loot, becoming powerful, getting experience, you can do all that in single-player games. What you cannot achieve in this kind of game is sharing stories and interacting.

So perhaps make sure that you set your priorities straight when you play on FK?

Note: this rant was inspired by things I saw today, but I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. The things I cite above are behaviours I have seen before, on several characters. This is in no way my intention to single-out any player.

[Nysan]

Hehe, this is not World of Warcraft.

[Selveem]

When you start behaving like most smote and say are just a loss of time that push back the time when you complete the quest and get the reward, I think you are missing something.

As a personal preference, I don't care to smote all the time for every little thing. I've noted it before and probably will never want to smote out every action. It's excessive to me. I would not tell someone else they shouldn't, however. As everyone knows, this is a multi-player game and perhaps the other person gets their kicks out of doing the smotes. Who am I to rob them of that? That being said, is it fair to have someone else to tell me that I am a poor roleplayer because I don't conduct myself that way?

When you prefer to switch to osay/otell in the middle of a roleplay (with other characters or with mobs) to consider the most efficient way to complete the quest instead of taking the time to participate in the roleplay, I think you are missing something.

Sounds like an offense that should lead an Immortal or Council member to take the person aside and talk to them. First, a player conducting themselves in that manner are being fairly rude. Second, it sounds as if the person roleplaying will probably not party with that character (or better: that player) anymore anyhow. I think it should also be up to the player who is rather enjoying the RP aspect to stand up for themselves, as well, and explain they don't appreciate being bullied.

When you tell people about what quests they should do now or later, and about how they should go about completing them in order to make their quest completion more "efficient" and thereby rob them of the opportunity to be surprised by how the quest evolves, you are missing something.

If the player was not badgering the other about the quest and asking them for the information repeatedly, I believe that should lead to a strike. No contest. There are certain things that I believe can/should be shared.. If someone is having such a horrible time with a specific riddle or math problem and have tried very hard, but are doing their characters absolutely no justice due to OOC inability, I think that can be overlooked.

When you are ready to ignore the setting of the quest (the why, the where, the who) and feel like letting people read what the mobs tell them is not that important, then you are missing something.

I completely agree with you here. Ultimately, I think this will lead to a very bored player, though. Those don't seem to stay long anyhow.

To sum it up, when you consider then the main goal is completing the quest and that everything else (the IC considerations, the roleplay, the needs or desires of other players) is less important than this goal, you are missing out much from the game.

Absolutely.

Acquiring good loot, becoming powerful, getting experience, you can do all that in single-player games. What you cannot achieve in this kind of game is sharing stories and interacting.

This is where I diverge in my opinion from yours, slightly. I've honestly given up on what people's opinions are of me anymore. Call me a twinker or whatever, but I do think people are entitled to powerful characters. Sure, I have some very mundane characters, but I also enjoy playing the powerful characters as well. People play this game for many different reasons. Everyone has their own agenda. Because this game is so complex and has so much to offer, not every person is looking towards the same goal. I don't want to be the biggest, baddest gossip queen of the Market Square. Does that make me a poor player? I don't think so. I love quests. I'll repeat: I LOVE quests. I enjoy doing them. I try not to ask for any help to solve them, because to me it's enjoyable. I _really_ love the hard ones. The complex ones that require parties of power AND individual wit (such as Undermountain). If (for example) every quest was removed from the game, I would most definately leave and curse whoever was responsible for taking an enormous amount of my enjoyment away.

I think that the hardest thing for most people to cope with is different roleplaying styles. There are so many different players and even greater amount of characters (obviously). Some of my characters smote more than others, certainly, but I wouldn't say that I smote a _lot_ outside of duels. Is it fair for each player to expect the same attributes from their partners on the MUD? I don't really feel that should be the case.

Edited to include the above (in bold).

[Zilvryn]

Hehe, this is not World of Warcraft.

Thank all that's holy

Dalvyn: I agree entirely. And I can also say i'm one of the people you've witnessed -some- of the above things from *mutters something about the Undermountain*

I've tried to play many graphical MMORPGs, and I always come back to FK primarily for the interaction. I won't lie and say that I like getting the shinies/loot, and can sometimes be blinded into caning threw quests for the aforementioned loot.

Er, I think that my point was that I agree, so er...

yeh