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Quests
Aeonite writes "Quests have always been a part of fantasy gaming; from the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons to World of Warcraft's myriad quest lines, quests have given players purpose beyond button-pressing and mindless grinding. Jeff Howard's Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narrative is an exploration of such quests in both literary and gaming contexts, comparing and contrasting their appearances in each medium and striving to bring the two worlds closer together by imbuing game quests with more meaning." Read below for the rest of Michael's review
Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives
author
Jeff Howard
pages
248
publisher
A.K. Peters Ltd
rating
8
reviewer
Michael Fiegel
ISBN
978-1-56881-347-9
summary
A comparison of quests in both literature and gaming
In his preface, Howard first attempts to define quests, both in his own terms and with respect to the likes of Campbell and Frye. In short, a narrative quest is a "journey to attain a meaningful goal," such as one might find in The Odyssey, The Faerie Queene, or The Quest for the Holy Grail. Such quests are romantic, archetypal, and laden with meaning and purpose. On the contrary, a game quest is in Howard's words "an activity in which players must overcome challenges to reach a goal." The disparity in the language used here is clear, especially when Howard goes on to clarify game quests as being "about action that is meaningful to a player on the level of ideas..." Narrative quests are about meaningful goals; game quests are about meaningful action. Howard quotes Auden as saying that "the search for a lost button is not a quest," but is this not exactly the sort of quest we find in MMOs like WOW? Time-filling quests to give the player some sort of activity, to provide "meaningful play" in the absence of meaningful goals.
This inherent problem with quests in games is further touched upon in the introduction to the book, which explains that its own goal is to prove quests out as a bridge between games and narratives. "[I]nteractivity is a prerequisite of enactment but is not sufficient to produce it...," says Howard. "[E]nactment requires active, goal-directed effort, often in the form of balancing long-term and short-term goals." Campbell, Frye, Auden and Propp are all consulted and cited here, exploring their own takes on quests in terms of their place in the heroic monomyth, medieval romance, subjective personal experience, and a "sequence of defined transformations," respectively. However, the most enlightening point comes after an exploration of the history of quest games (from D&D through WOW) where, quoting Tronstad, the author explains that "the paradox of questing is that as soon as meaning is reached, the quest stops functioning as quest." The profusion of more-or-less meaningless quests in MMORPGs "causes the 'main quest' to disappear" according to Howard, who cites the "bleak scenario" of WOW as not being conducive to meaningful gameplay.
Given that challenge, the main portion of the book serves as a sort of lesson plan towards the creation of better, more meaningful quests in modern games. In Chapter 1, "Introduction to Quest Design," Howard asserts that designing meaningful action is key, and ample examples of symbolism and spiritual analogy tied to the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are offered. The following chapters each cover a different element of quest design, more or less aligned along the same breakdowns as one might find in a MUD codebase: w(or)ld, mob(ile), obj(ect) and the like. Each one is broken up into two sections: theory, and practice, the former covering Howard's thoughts on the topic, and the latter delving into practical examples of how to create that quest element using the Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset.
Chapter 2 covers the "Spaces of the Quest," providing a sort of primer on level design and world design, from dungeons and labyrinths to dreamlike allegorical spaces. Chapter 3 then focuses on "Characters," both NPC and PC alike, including a discussion of encounters, dialog trees, archetypes and some minor venom spat Fable-wards due to the presence in that game of characters literally named Mentor and Hero; perhaps worth mentioning in Fable's defense is that both Hero (of Hero and Leander fame) and Mentor (Odysseus' sagacious friend) are both legitimate names derived from Greek myth. But I digress.
Chapter 4 explores "Objects," specifically those quest items that players seek out and gather on their quests. "[T]he drive to acquire objects in Everquest challenges literary understandings of games because players do not seek to interpret these objects," Wesp is quoted as saying here. The assumption seems to be that quests should strive to contain objects laden with meaning and symbolism, whether they be "rods of eight parts" that one must piece together or symbolic tattoos such as those found in Planescape: Torment. Certainly, many MMOs could learn a few lessons from this chapter, being as so many have players running around collecting feces, offal and skins. Indeed, the quests that send them off to do such things are explored in Chapter 5, "Challenges." Here Howard covers fetch/collect quests, kill quests, escort quests and the like, providing a somewhat awkward apology for kill quest proliferation by trying to compare kill grinding in games like WOW with the intense violence practiced by Odysseus. Of course, Odysseus was never sent on a quest to kill 12 Cyclopes to collect their eyes for a healing potion; once again, the difference between meaningful action and meaningful goals rears its ugly head. Indeed, Howard provides a somewhat telling example of an attempt to rectify this disparity in his scripting example, wherein he has King Arthur bestowing Gawain several keys to use on various chests so Gawain can open them in sequence to find objects hidden inside each which will help him on his quest. Surely there are examples of this sort of rote quest sequencing to be found in folklore and mythology; Russian mythology in particular is full of things done in threes. Yet one cannot help but feel that it makes the whole thing somewhat less epic in the retelling when a knight of the Round Table is reduced to playing puzzle games.
Chapter 6 of the book closes out the lesson plan with "Quests and Pedagogy," an example of how Howard used The Crying of Lot 49 with his own students to explore the nature of quests in a video game setting. This rather short chapter is followed by a Conclusion, summarizing what's come before, and then several lengthy Appendices: a guide to the Aurora Toolset; an excerpt from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and an excerpt from The Faerie Queene. An excellent Works Cited page (nearly as long as Chapter 6) and an adequate index close out the book. In total, the book weighs in at 248 pages, although 46 pages of that is introduction (15 more if you count Chapter 1) and over 80 pages is composed of conclusion, appendices and endmatter. Thus, about half of the book is either introduction or conclusion, frontmatter or endmatter, and this makes the book feel somewhat imbalanced, taking a long time to introduce and then back up the topic while spending not enough time (in my opinion) actually working through it. Howard's writing style is excellent and the subject matter worthy; I wish he had spent more time in his book's Act 2; perhaps he would have been able to extend his ideas even further than he does, striving not only to infuse quests with meaningful activity but with meaningful goals as well. Too much of game quest design is derived from the Latin origin of the word quest (which Howard tells us comes from questare, which means " to seek,") and not enough on the purpose of the quest, which is to have a heroic journey with a "Happily Ever After" at the end. Yet MMOs almost by definition require that many millions of players walk the exact same heroic path; would the epic tale of King Arthur be so epic if his round table had 10 million chairs, with ten million knights forever searching for their own copy of the Grail?
"Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest," says King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail."
"Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he will be very keen," replies a French soldier. "Uh, he's already got one, you see."
Therein lies the problem: he's already got one, and so does everyone else. Because everyone has done the quest, and furthermore everyone wants to keep grinding for the +2 grail, which will no doubt be available in the next expansion, or perhaps in the Player's Handbook IV, or as an exclusive Dragon Magazine feature, available to subscribers of D&D Insider. Many (if not most) fantasy games can never have meaningful, magical quests where you get the vorpal sword and slay the Jabberwock and save the world, because their Sisyphean stories can never truly end; the Horde will always be at war with the Alliance, and the ring will never, ever make it to that volcano, and there will always be another supplement or sequel, another dungeon to raid, another hamlet of Hommlet to rescue. One telling Neverwinter Nights module is called Infinite Dungeons; the solitary hero has turned into the solitaire hero, ever grinding away. Sure, Odysseus had his wandering Odyssey as he searched for home, and Galahad took years to quest for the Holy Grail, but in each case they eventually found what they were looking for. Unfortunately, right now much of the game industry seems to generally be following the example of King Pellinore, endlessly pursuing his Questing Beast.
What Howard attempts to do with Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives is truly worthwhile, and I look forward to the dialog his book will inspire. He would have us re-examine the game quest in terms of the narrative quest, and apply those lessons to gaming. The book is well worth a read, both as a lesson plan for making the activity of questing more meaningful, as well as a first step towards giving games that rely heavily on quests — especially MMOS — more meaningful goals. If the game industry can pull that off, it will be an impressive feat, worthy of Sir Galahad himself. If not... well, there's always another 12 wolf pelts to collect.
You can purchase Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
This inherent problem with quests in games is further touched upon in the introduction to the book, which explains that its own goal is to prove quests out as a bridge between games and narratives. "[I]nteractivity is a prerequisite of enactment but is not sufficient to produce it...," says Howard. "[E]nactment requires active, goal-directed effort, often in the form of balancing long-term and short-term goals." Campbell, Frye, Auden and Propp are all consulted and cited here, exploring their own takes on quests in terms of their place in the heroic monomyth, medieval romance, subjective personal experience, and a "sequence of defined transformations," respectively. However, the most enlightening point comes after an exploration of the history of quest games (from D&D through WOW) where, quoting Tronstad, the author explains that "the paradox of questing is that as soon as meaning is reached, the quest stops functioning as quest." The profusion of more-or-less meaningless quests in MMORPGs "causes the 'main quest' to disappear" according to Howard, who cites the "bleak scenario" of WOW as not being conducive to meaningful gameplay.
Given that challenge, the main portion of the book serves as a sort of lesson plan towards the creation of better, more meaningful quests in modern games. In Chapter 1, "Introduction to Quest Design," Howard asserts that designing meaningful action is key, and ample examples of symbolism and spiritual analogy tied to the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are offered. The following chapters each cover a different element of quest design, more or less aligned along the same breakdowns as one might find in a MUD codebase: w(or)ld, mob(ile), obj(ect) and the like. Each one is broken up into two sections: theory, and practice, the former covering Howard's thoughts on the topic, and the latter delving into practical examples of how to create that quest element using the Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset.
Chapter 2 covers the "Spaces of the Quest," providing a sort of primer on level design and world design, from dungeons and labyrinths to dreamlike allegorical spaces. Chapter 3 then focuses on "Characters," both NPC and PC alike, including a discussion of encounters, dialog trees, archetypes and some minor venom spat Fable-wards due to the presence in that game of characters literally named Mentor and Hero; perhaps worth mentioning in Fable's defense is that both Hero (of Hero and Leander fame) and Mentor (Odysseus' sagacious friend) are both legitimate names derived from Greek myth. But I digress.
Chapter 4 explores "Objects," specifically those quest items that players seek out and gather on their quests. "[T]he drive to acquire objects in Everquest challenges literary understandings of games because players do not seek to interpret these objects," Wesp is quoted as saying here. The assumption seems to be that quests should strive to contain objects laden with meaning and symbolism, whether they be "rods of eight parts" that one must piece together or symbolic tattoos such as those found in Planescape: Torment. Certainly, many MMOs could learn a few lessons from this chapter, being as so many have players running around collecting feces, offal and skins. Indeed, the quests that send them off to do such things are explored in Chapter 5, "Challenges." Here Howard covers fetch/collect quests, kill quests, escort quests and the like, providing a somewhat awkward apology for kill quest proliferation by trying to compare kill grinding in games like WOW with the intense violence practiced by Odysseus. Of course, Odysseus was never sent on a quest to kill 12 Cyclopes to collect their eyes for a healing potion; once again, the difference between meaningful action and meaningful goals rears its ugly head. Indeed, Howard provides a somewhat telling example of an attempt to rectify this disparity in his scripting example, wherein he has King Arthur bestowing Gawain several keys to use on various chests so Gawain can open them in sequence to find objects hidden inside each which will help him on his quest. Surely there are examples of this sort of rote quest sequencing to be found in folklore and mythology; Russian mythology in particular is full of things done in threes. Yet one cannot help but feel that it makes the whole thing somewhat less epic in the retelling when a knight of the Round Table is reduced to playing puzzle games.
Chapter 6 of the book closes out the lesson plan with "Quests and Pedagogy," an example of how Howard used The Crying of Lot 49 with his own students to explore the nature of quests in a video game setting. This rather short chapter is followed by a Conclusion, summarizing what's come before, and then several lengthy Appendices: a guide to the Aurora Toolset; an excerpt from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and an excerpt from The Faerie Queene. An excellent Works Cited page (nearly as long as Chapter 6) and an adequate index close out the book. In total, the book weighs in at 248 pages, although 46 pages of that is introduction (15 more if you count Chapter 1) and over 80 pages is composed of conclusion, appendices and endmatter. Thus, about half of the book is either introduction or conclusion, frontmatter or endmatter, and this makes the book feel somewhat imbalanced, taking a long time to introduce and then back up the topic while spending not enough time (in my opinion) actually working through it. Howard's writing style is excellent and the subject matter worthy; I wish he had spent more time in his book's Act 2; perhaps he would have been able to extend his ideas even further than he does, striving not only to infuse quests with meaningful activity but with meaningful goals as well. Too much of game quest design is derived from the Latin origin of the word quest (which Howard tells us comes from questare, which means " to seek,") and not enough on the purpose of the quest, which is to have a heroic journey with a "Happily Ever After" at the end. Yet MMOs almost by definition require that many millions of players walk the exact same heroic path; would the epic tale of King Arthur be so epic if his round table had 10 million chairs, with ten million knights forever searching for their own copy of the Grail?
"Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest," says King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail."
"Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he will be very keen," replies a French soldier. "Uh, he's already got one, you see."
Therein lies the problem: he's already got one, and so does everyone else. Because everyone has done the quest, and furthermore everyone wants to keep grinding for the +2 grail, which will no doubt be available in the next expansion, or perhaps in the Player's Handbook IV, or as an exclusive Dragon Magazine feature, available to subscribers of D&D Insider. Many (if not most) fantasy games can never have meaningful, magical quests where you get the vorpal sword and slay the Jabberwock and save the world, because their Sisyphean stories can never truly end; the Horde will always be at war with the Alliance, and the ring will never, ever make it to that volcano, and there will always be another supplement or sequel, another dungeon to raid, another hamlet of Hommlet to rescue. One telling Neverwinter Nights module is called Infinite Dungeons; the solitary hero has turned into the solitaire hero, ever grinding away. Sure, Odysseus had his wandering Odyssey as he searched for home, and Galahad took years to quest for the Holy Grail, but in each case they eventually found what they were looking for. Unfortunately, right now much of the game industry seems to generally be following the example of King Pellinore, endlessly pursuing his Questing Beast.
What Howard attempts to do with Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives is truly worthwhile, and I look forward to the dialog his book will inspire. He would have us re-examine the game quest in terms of the narrative quest, and apply those lessons to gaming. The book is well worth a read, both as a lesson plan for making the activity of questing more meaningful, as well as a first step towards giving games that rely heavily on quests — especially MMOS — more meaningful goals. If the game industry can pull that off, it will be an impressive feat, worthy of Sir Galahad himself. If not... well, there's always another 12 wolf pelts to collect.
You can purchase Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I contend that MMOs wont get to this level of questing again until we go back to unique items. Eg the holy grail gaining a faction special privileges like +2 to all skills and only one can be in a realm/server at a time. Then the players can quest over it and battle and gain things that way. As the grail goes from faction to faction they can either guard it themselves or they can use resources to put it in an adequately difficult location. Have enough items like this and you get quests defined by players rather than the grind of doing it over and over again. As a guild gets more and more of the unique items it would get more powerful as a whole. You would get small uprisings with people trying to take over the guild and people moving around rouge style stealing items. It would be fantastic game play. Princesses giving special trade privileges, Relics gaining stats, deities granting favor.
ahh but I am back daydreaming again. People love gear grinding too much. Thus the reason I quit Wow.
This book though seems to point in the right direction though. I love questing, rather than the goal being button finding or getting to lvl 70, an emotional satisfaction is attached to completing a lengthy storyline. In WoW there is absolutely no attachment to any NPC in that game unless you went through Warcraft 1,2,and 3. But it is good to see that there is enough interest in the Quest problem to generate a book about it.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Recently a non-profit group, after 8 years in the making, finally released a remake of the old Sierra game Quest For Glory II - with a point-and-click interface. I was a big fan in the days, so in case anyone interested - http://agdinteractive.com/
So what does he have to say about King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, et al?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
... I need to kill a hundred more boars for livers.
Two reviews in a row? Way to kill your audience.
"Of course, Odysseus was never sent on a quest to kill 12 Cyclopes to collect their eyes for a healing potion." To compare it to WoW, it should read, "Odysseus was never sent on a quest to collect 12 Cyclops, of which only 6% of Cyclops ever had, and thus he would kill about 150 Cyclopes."
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
I'm pretty sure I'm getting both connotation and denotation wrong on these, but I had always considered a geas as a goal or task imposed on a person while a quest was a goal that the person has set for himself. For example, in the film Saving Private Ryan, the geas was the order to, well, save Pvt. Ryan. The quest, however, was revealed by Tom Hanks at the mutiny scene, when he declared he was going to reclaim some of his humanity (and the other characters subsequently adopted the quest, implicitly when they ended the mutiny).
The actual definition of geas I think is a prohibition or obligation imposed upon a person, usually as a curse.
Didn't RTFA.
More music, fewer hits
I steal your soul and cast Get-a-life Lvl. 1,000,000.
...when do you put on your robe and wizard hat?
Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 nerd.
(see title)
In MMO's you can't change the world in the sense that if you do a quest, say slay Hogger, and it prevents another person from doing the same quest, then the world would need sort of an infinite number of quests. It would be difficult to program. Otherwise it's first come, first kill, first to get the gear, first to advance and prevent others from advancing.
The best resource for MMO's is the playerbase. Anyone who can harness that creative energy to create content, beta test new content, grade potential new content and vote to put it into the game world will open a new frontier.
If you put in puzzle quests, someone will post the answer on a spoiler site, and many players will just read the site since they are just interested in advancing.
How many people actually read the quest text in WoW in detail? Versus how many just skip to the "go here, do this" part? I bet it is at least 10 to one.
So your design options are limited. Use a renewable resource.
In single player games, some of the same difficulties exist, but at least your actions can change the world in more meaningful ways: you kill Hogger, he stays dead. Maybe a new farm crops up at his old stomping grounds. Maybe new people come in and have new quests.
But in an MMO, what if I have the Hogger quest, and now he's gone?
To be honest, I would not try to overcome that problem. I would try to work on the most pressing MMO problem, repetitive content. Maybe we have to accept the logical inconsistencies of the shared world (we kill Hogger, yet he is still there, we clear out all the Blackborrow Gnolls but they magically reappear).
But maybe we could have deep instanced content? Then the problem arises, what if I need a group? What if they are not all at the same place I am?
In conclusion, I think the MMO and single player experiences are so different it would be difficult to say something meaningful to both at once.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
The closest thing that I've seen to real 'quests' in games are one-time, large-scale events like the Hopeslayer running rampant in Asheron's Call, or opening the gates of An'Quiraj in WoW. An argument could be made for large-group events like raids, wherein everyone is basically acting to a script against the AI's own script, with success culminating in a reenactment of the developer's plan for the encounter.
In some old MMOs (Avatar, for instance) quests were integral.
I like running Ninjas (ok, so I like beaters, so sue me), who get insanely difficult quests, and more of them. The best quests were for impossible items that only studs had and weren't going to give up. Waiting for someone to take pity on you, or perhaps find one and offer it to you before offering it to the studs was a terrible way to waste the Summer of '88. I waited for Wyvern Skin for 6 weeks. And then I paid an outrageous price (gladly) to someone who was genuinely willing to sell it to the highest bidder, execept that when school is out there aren't so many big boys online to grace you with 3B gold.
But I'm not bitter.
Quests make a MMO 'realer-er'. Just running through the maze killing things and hoarding stuff does in fact get old. My brother, deep into WoW, disagrees, but he is tiring of just building things so others can save time. Only the real money keeps him in it.
There is no real money in Avatar. Not to this day. You do it for love. Quests are the pain.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I have a door here I need unlocked. The key I need might be behind a different locked door.
I've extrapolated the key/lock concept in my head and applied it to many RPGs; this is why I've moved to FPS and challenge puzzle (eg: "Boom Blox") genres.
My current favorite quest for any game / any genre is the "haunted hotel" quest in Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Talk about a spooky-ass quest. They used the Half-life 2 engine to it's fullest potential on that one, shame the game changes from an RPG to an FPS at the end.
There is a war going on for your mind.
The book touches on Planescape: Torment, but doesn't really do that game justice. That game was all about finding out who you were/are, and who your companions were/are. There are few games that go outside the standard fetch/carry/kill RPG quests, and that was one of them. There was enough narrative in that game to fill a book. Sometimes I found myself wanting there to be less combat so I could get back to the story.
--
make install -not war
Me likey grindy. OK, here's the deal. I want a game with a large world. Based on reality, as in cityscape, buildings with elevators and stairs, parks, sewer systems, etc. I want a buttload of zombies all over the place. Some slow, some fast, some as players. I want simple tasks: for example, when you start the game or login to a networked server, you get an address book from which you must determine who was your family. Then you must find those houses to determine if they're still human and savable or zombie fodder. The environment lends itself to being realistic with street signs, phone books, etc. There is a limited amount of ammo but the usual suspects: sports stores (meaning a mall or two), pawn shops, surplus stores etc. All there with what you'd expect but no interacting with merchants or whatever. It's melee time, baby! Anyway, it'd always be interesting because your contacts would change but it's the interactive environment that'd be the grabber. It's throwaway gaming that is nevertheless challenging and not always exactly the same. Throw in some ability to communicate with other players so there could be team ups or sabotage or backstabbing and I'd sign up.
Michael Katz is that you, after all these years!?
Bought this with great anticipation a couple of weeks ago. It's boring as hell, a great disappointment.
In epic quest stories, the quest is about what the journey makes the person on it.
In a game it's about phat loot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Of course, with the deed and trait system LOTRO falls back to the worst possible grind- yes, you really do have to kill 200 trolls in Sarnur to get your +1 valour bonus. Now go kill 300 worms in Angmar for the next +1.
But it is doable
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
is that they are gay , pointless wastes of time designed to give the player some sort of means to think they have a purpose in life when in fact they have none. Keep 'em dumb, keep 'em distracted while you destroy the real world around 'em.
Or people can still play Rogue on a PDP 11/80.
Really enjoying this book. Wish there was a Kindle edition.
I also wish the author had done the meta work of making the book feel a bit like a quest, since that's what he advocates for games. (It does have exercises and appendices, which makes the book a somewhat more active experience.)
And speaking of Kindle, when is that platform going to act like the computer that it is, so that real quest books can come about?
79 comments and not one single mention of shrubberies and/or herrings? What the hell is wrong with you people?
A quick back-story, if you will indulge me (if not, skip this paragraph): Many years ago my life was consumed with gaming. I'd say my primary routine was: wake up, check messages, go to school, game in class, go home, game all night. Most of the daytime was spent on MUDs and the night was spent on various RPGs and puzzle games on Nintendo. Eventually the RPG craze died down and was replaced with FPS and the like which I'm not too interested in. Meanwhile, the MUDs I played died off as everyone moved to EQ and WoW. Long story short, I found myself without many games and a lot of free time. I put that opportunity to "productive" use for a little while in working on a career, etc but I found I missed the gaming culture. Eventually another idea popped into my head.
I've spent the last few years trying to apply the things I loved most about gaming to my real life and it's been a very fun game. I regularly come up with quests and try to see them through. Many are puzzles in their own right and a few have taken me around the world questing. My next quest takes me to Africa, which should be a fun level. Has anyone else had a similar world view/experience?
How about a quest that resets itself, but remembers it was reset, eg.: ;)
The king apologizing to the player "... yes, I'm sorry, you see, I don't know... she's got this thing for dragons you know... Stockholm syndrome perhaps... we tried everything... Last week EvenGladar58 saved her, and we *told* her to not do it again, didn't we honey? I know I did. But NOOOO. Little miss "they-can't-all-be-bad" had to go out again and get herself kidnapped... *again*. I mean, where do they get these dragons from anyway????"
(and of course, the twist in the end is that you're not supposed to slay the dragon, so the princess can be with her beloved dragon again.)
In MMO's there are TWO types of quests - those that you are given, and those you make for yourself.
The problem with the missions you get given however, is that they are generally in their own separate little world and have no bearing on anything else, which gets linked with the dynamic content side of things.
The other type are the missions you do yourself - for instance if you get a group of people together and just decide to go on a raid or something...
'Stupidity is an often fatal disease' - R. A. Heinlein
It seems to me that the biggest challenge to having meaningful quests in an MMO is the problem of not having enough resources to craft unique, meaningful quests for every player of the game.
So, why not have players be the quest givers? Each player can give other players a quest and determine the reward for success. More powerful players would be able to give better rewards, and therefore give more demanding tasks.
This could dovetail nicely with a deep crafting game. In a complex world, each player has a limited amount they can do themselves, and if they want to craft powerful items, many difficult to acquire ingredients will be required.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Quests, in their current incarnation in mainstream MMORPGs, seem to be useful mainly for disguising grinding. WoW especially has mastered this art. Sure, a few of them are interesting and novel, but for the most part they're fedex or kill x # of mobs, and on your way to doing that, you'll need to kill some stuff that will daze/dismount you if you don't. Once you're done, you received some XP from the killing, some XP from the quest, some loot, some gold, and maybe an item. Rinse and repeat.
I just started the seven day trial for AoC yesterday, and it's pretty much the same thing as WoW. Some of the lore/stories are interesting, some aren't. The graphics are nice. Personally, I could do without the quests, but with the games I play they seem to be the most efficient for leveling.
Perhaps I'm not the average gamer, but I'd like to see a lot of the work that goes into quests go instead into gameplay/crafting/areas. I guess maybe I'm more of a sandbox player (played UO for a long time, SWG pre-NGE). I'm just about done with WoW, don't think I'll be sticking around in AoC, will be keeping an eye on Warhammer, Aion, and Darkfall. Or hell, maybe I'll just pick up a 360 and go back to fragging.
I quit playing WoW once I realized that under the shiny veneer was nothing special.
Killing thousands of boar-men to get a pile of questy items to turn in so I could kill another thousand creatures for something else and finally get some doo-dad was lame.
Grinding dungeons over and over again for loot was lame.
But I have to wonder if that's what people want? It's rare people will want to sit down and experience a good story together. That's why big, loud dumb movies always pack the theatres (not that there's anything wrong with that.)
But I, too, would love to see an online game that lets players interact in a good story, not just grind and kill. I believe there was an online version of Myst that was going to attempt that, don't know how that turned out (poorly, I guess, since I never heard anything about it ever again.)
A Tale in the Desert:
http://www.atitd.com/
is one good example of a game designed around cooperative and meaningful action. Players design whole villages and environments on their own based on an open world with a complicated ecosystem and meaningful quests.
The players can achieve high and unique status in a complex political and questing system - all generated by player action within a loose and changable framework. You work your way "up" both by slogging through menial tasks and interacting creatively and socially with other players.
The only "problem" is that the game is not action/conflict oriented. This sort of game is not of primary interest to the online gaming market that is more geared toward completely escaping reality into violent fantasy rather than semi-realistic cooperative fantasy.