What would entice you to do quests in a custom OT?

[Eiffel]

I've finished designing the idea and systems I will put into place for my project, but I was wondering about something that very few servers do well, let alone at all.

Quests.

Yes. Quests seem terribly neglected or uninspired and it saddens me as my fondest memories of Tibia were the mythos and legends made by the community surrounding players and quests.

No other game that I have played has done quests the way Tibia did. Some were vague as hell, some were straightforward, some were unintuitive and just happened by chance, and others were intricate and complex. It really gave the world a feeling of mystery, knowing stuff had remained unsolved and could yield unique rewards.

When I was putting together my project ideas, Quests probably took the longest. I was stuck between making them hard to figure out but extremely rewarding and limited, to simple to follow but hard to execute (either due to level requirements, gear requirements, population requirements, or time requirements).

I decided to stick with the old and make my project have quests that aren't forced but require a bit of nuance and problem solving to achieve. Not only that, but I was also skirting with the idea of the items being spawned only once, meaning there would be some incentive to completing it.

With that said, do you enjoy the way Tibia designed quests? Do you want Quests in OT servers? What about quests do you hate or enjoy? Do the rewards need to be significant enough for them to entice you? What kind of rewards interest you when it comes to completing a quest? Items? Stats? Rarity? Power?

 

[Keal Atis]

Do you mean some item, which is required to quests, spawn only once at server and when someone complete this quest item will be spawned again? Cool idea! Also do some security - for example player who is about 3 day offline loses that item.

Quests I like:
- team quests with short, but interesting story
- quests with few endings - when in the half of the quest I have to choose one option and it's determine futher missions and quest ending - rewards in this case should be balanced (no bad option)
- rewards that "change your world" for example without quest completed some NPC don't like you, if you do quest then they act in different way. Also unlocking new locations is good reward

Quests I hate:
- long and pointless - doing same thing milion times and when NPC say "just do it" without why

 

[Eiffel]

Do you mean some item, which is required to quests, spawn only once at server and when someone complete this quest item will be spawned again? Cool idea! Also do some security - for example player who is about 3 day offline loses that item.

Quests I like:
- team quests with short, but interesting story
- quests with few endings - when in the half of the quest I have to choose one option and it's determine futher missions and quest ending - rewards in this case should be balanced (no bad option)
- rewards that "change your world" for example without quest completed some NPC don't like you, if you do quest then they act in different way. Also unlocking new locations is good reward

Quests I hate:
- long and pointless - doing same thing milion times and when NPC say "just do it" without why

I actually forgot about quests that change the "world" as you said. I haven't seen a quest that required to be done to access an area for a LONG time. Definitely was one of my favorite concepts. I always considered the ghost ship from Venore to Darashia as something like this. Or something like Postman quest.

Oh and yes, I meant that there would only be that 1 type of reward. There would still be some quests that available to everyone, but I also like to create history and entice people to try and have something nobody else has. As you said, I'd have a protection on them with certain requirements after being attained, such as bank account requirement or login requirements.

 

[macedoon]

Questing at tibia sucks, in particular due to tibiawiki. Everything I need is on that site. Therefor I never have quested properly on tibia and as such, I do not know what makes a good and fun quest. What I do know is this: I hate grinding. I would love the idea of open worlds like Skyrim for example. Having one main quest and then a lot of different side-quests, that you have to look for. I would personally like to see this in tibia as well. Following the story quest and upon completion, it's up to you, to find and explore. To look for every nook and cranny in order to find other "secret" quests. Or simple call them quests that are hard to find. With this being said, quests should give you a significant amount of experience. And certain monsters stop giving experience altogether after you reach a certain level. With this, I believe, if done properly, which I do not know how to, I just love my commas <3 With this you can control player levels and keep the difficulty for you designed quest, for the designed level. Thus quest H in the main story line is as difficult for everyone else.

The problem: How to balance it for both solo players and players who play in a team.

Lose the focus of leveling but also lose the way of how tibia levels up their skill levels. Instead, with each level you should be given points that you can spent on your skills. Again, balancing this shit is difficult

Personally, I love those solo-rpg games. Because fuck MMORPG's and fuck the kids that have more than 8 hours a day they can spent while I can only spent 4 a week. The balance in power is simply non-existent. I understand that you want reward players who spent hours upon hours on your server, but fuck that. Try something new. Be consistent in creating content. Start small, expand. Not by means of islands. Example would be, you start in a closed of area. Update. Villagers have mined through the mountain, hence, new area is opened. There's a really old/ancient bridge that is in ruins. Update. Villagers, or even fucking players, fixed the bridge, hence, new area is opened. Each new area could have his own story or history that you can discover by means of questing. After you've done the main quest, you start exploring like a mother fucker again because your world is full of secrets and you find a fucking grave which has the same last name as one of the npc's so you mention that name of the grave. There you go! You just found yourself a new quest, someones story.

Did I also mention that I like the idea of level caps and with new update/area the level cap rises?
I loved old school tibia, and I loved the fact that dying was as harsh as breaking a finger or two. That shit hurts like a mother fucker, I reckon, never broke a finger. But find a milder punishment. Don't ask me what that would be. Losing your whole back pack? Fuck you, I quit, I don't have time for this shit.

Then again, I don't know what kind of people play tibia. Hardcore gamers or casual gamers.

I kind of lost my train of thoughts. Hope this was helpfull, somewhat x)

 

[Eiffel]

Questing at tibia sucks, in particular due to tibiawiki. Everything I need is on that site. Therefor I never have quested properly on tibia and as such, I do not know what makes a good and fun quest. What I do know is this: I hate grinding. I would love the idea of open worlds like Skyrim for example. Having one main quest and then a lot of different side-quests, that you have to look for. I would personally like to see this in tibia as well. Following the story quest and upon completion, it's up to you, to find and explore. To look for every nook and cranny in order to find other "secret" quests. Or simple call them quests that are hard to find. With this being said, quests should give you a significant amount of experience. And certain monsters stop giving experience altogether after you reach a certain level. With this, I believe, if done properly, which I do not know how to, I just love my commas <3 With this you can control player levels and keep the difficulty for you designed quest, for the designed level. Thus quest H in the main story line is as difficult for everyone else.

The problem: How to balance it for both solo players and players who play in a team.

Lose the focus of leveling but also lose the way of how tibia levels up their skill levels. Instead, with each level you should be given points that you can spent on your skills. Again, balancing this shit is difficult

Personally, I love those solo-rpg games. Because fuck MMORPG's and fuck the kids that have more than 8 hours a day they can spent while I can only spent 4 a week. The balance in power is simply non-existent. I understand that you want reward players who spent hours upon hours on your server, but fuck that. Try something new. Be consistent in creating content. Start small, expand. Not by means of islands. Example would be, you start in a closed of area. Update. Villagers have mined through the mountain, hence, new area is opened. There's a really old/ancient bridge that is in ruins. Update. Villagers, or even fucking players, fixed the bridge, hence, new area is opened. Each new area could have his own story or history that you can discover by means of questing. After you've done the main quest, you start exploring like a mother fucker again because your world is full of secrets and you find a fucking grave which has the same last name as one of the npc's so you mention that name of the grave. There you go! You just found yourself a new quest, someones story.

Did I also mention that I like the idea of level caps and with new update/area the level cap rises?
I loved old school tibia, and I loved the fact that dying was as harsh as breaking a finger or two. That shit hurts like a mother fucker, I reckon, never broke a finger. But find a milder punishment. Don't ask me what that would be. Losing your whole back pack? Fuck you, I quit, I don't have time for this shit.

Then again, I don't know what kind of people play tibia. Hardcore gamers or casual gamers.

I kind of lost my train of thoughts. Hope this was helpfull, somewhat x)

It's basically impossible to having meaningful quests that impact the game without watering their experience down since everyone will HAVE to experience it. It's kinda like "How can everyone be the chosen one when everyone does the exact same thing."

I do think quests that reward a group effort are wonderful to have, but it becomes a problem to balance since it either requires a ton of effort by a group and the outcome is rewarding, or the effort is meaningless and the reward feels meaningless. If you make it too hard, a group will quit. Too easy and the need for a group becomes obsolete.

I do agree with the secret quests though, and it's why I want there to be unique items that aren't found anywhere else and reward the people putting the effort to find and complete them. But as you said, you don't have time to invest a ton of hours into a game, and it's probably why the majority of extremely custom OTs with storylines only pull around 20 people. I think you need to ease people into your world and then let them know that there is a bunch of shit that is unsolved. Once 1 person finds something cool and unique, the hunt begins so to speak.

 

[Sepekus]

Tibia questing is the best out of any other MMO, and god damn i've played every AAA title that's come out over the last years. What entices people to do custom quests is exploration. Literally doesn't matter what the reward is, if the area is something fun and new to explore, people will do it just to figure out the reward. All quests are good. If it's a teleport OT then i do the quests for useful/custom items. demon helmet e.t.c will go ignored in a teleport ot by me and friends. If it's an rpg boat around OT, than i will explore any cave and quest to see the reward myself. Unique rewards are always the best. Useful rewards are nice. Bad rewards (here's a 1 attack more weapon after 45 minutes of questing!) are lame.

 

[Xikini]

Tibia questing is the best out of any other MMO, and god damn i've played every AAA title that's come out over the last years. What entices people to do custom quests is exploration. Literally doesn't matter what the reward is, if the area is something fun and new to explore, people will do it just to figure out the reward. All quests are good. If it's a teleport OT then i do the quests for useful/custom items. demon helmet e.t.c will go ignored in a teleport ot by me and friends. If it's an rpg boat around OT, than i will explore any cave and quest to see the reward myself. Unique rewards are always the best. Useful rewards are nice. Bad rewards (here's a 1 attack more weapon after 45 minutes of questing!) are lame.

I can agree with this.
Exploration is my #1 reason for doing anything.

Exploration itself is usually reward enough itself, but any goal to spur you onwards to explore even more is a good trick.

A simple chest next to a hole in the ground.
You finally find your way around the winding pathways and up and downs of a semi-maze, and you find your access blocked by a locked door of a small room.
Looking around the room, you find a letter stating that someone found a precious gem while out mining, and was going to give it to his wife for their wedding gift.
You find another letter stating that the minotaur raids have become more frequent, and that this room is actually a small mining outpost. The outpost is to be abandoned.
(Now you find out that the path you took to get here is a one-way path. As you search for the way out, you find bodies on the floor somewhere, and one of them contain a key.)
You go back with the key in tow, open the locked door and go up to find the chest. (at this point the chest either opens easily, or is 'rusty' and you need to open it another way.)
Anyways, open the chest and inside is a letter and 3 diamonds. The letter asks for the finder of these gems to search their wife out and give her some/all of the diamonds.
Now the player has a choice. Do they keep the diamonds, or do they persue looking for this dude's wife, which can be a whole quest system itself?
As a developer, you can now give the player multiple choices.
Can the player lie to the wife and give her a different gem?
Can the wife simply take the diamonds?
Can the wife be a piece of work who asks if that is all her husband was good for? A few diamonds?
After this, you find out the entire family hates the wife, and now your on a revenge quest?
Is the wife dead, and the old maid who worked for the family asks you to give it to a daughter?
has the daughter moved? gone missing?
Does the wife give you a reward for the information, or ask for you to do something for her?

Dunno a bunch of stuff you could try.

 

[SpookieGamer]

What normally makes me do quests is knowing that the reward will make me stronger than what I currently am. For example, if I'm playing a high exp server and I see poi/annih and all those rl tibia quests I just dont do it because they make little to no difference to my damage output and stuff.