More on game critics and quest presentation. [ 6D ]

Link: Siha has a post over at crewskills.net commenting on comments on reviews prompted by TOR's recently-dropped press embargo.

What never fails to amaze me is just how easily fooled by abstractions gamers apparently are. People criticise MMORPG quests for being “kill x, fetch y” all the while apparently blithely ignoring the fact that the quests in every RPG are exactly identical. As I’ve probably mentioned before, literally the only difference between a WoW quest and (say) a DA2 quest is the presentation; text that says “kill ten templars” versus four cutscenes of “break into the Chantry and rescue my ex boyfriend and I’ll give you those maps you wanted”.

TOR blends both; it does the cinematics of a single player but it keeps the quest log “honesty” of an MMO. Yet it still gets critics griping that its questing isn’t “innovative” enough.

Guys, seriously. Just turn off your quest objective HUD and… there. Single player RPG questing a go-go.

2 Comments on "More on game critics and quest presentation."

Siha

164 days ago

1 comment

Exactly so. And it’s shortsighted to think an RPG could be any other way, really. I remember the pre-WoW days of minimal questing, where the vast majority of your levelling was just done by grouping up and killing your way through hordes of monsters. Now that was a grindfest.

And you’re absolutely right; every quest-based game is fundamentally the same, because there are only so many quest stories you can tell, after all. What sets a game apart is how well it engages you with those quests; how much of a reason beyond “it’s worth X money and Y XP” you have to want to do it. I, personally, think SWTOR succeeds in that regard as well as the best single-player RPGs I’ve ever played.

Dee

161 days ago

168 comments

I remember the pre-WoW days of minimal questing

Oh gods yes, lol.

My first MMO was Ragnarok Online. I never quite got to max level but IIRC my main was in the 70-80s or thereabouts. I think I saw like three zones in that entire damn game because it was almost impossible to solo anything more than four “screens” away from town. At level 80 I was still grinding the mobs I was killing at level 10.

So. Boring.

I think people forget just how amazing WoW’s questing really was; not just the quests themselves but the way they handled “zone flow”. Yeah, it’s dated now, but I honestly can’t think of a single MMO convention that’s revolutionised the genre more than it did (at least, not from that generation of games).

because there are only so many quest stories you can tell, after all

I think it’s more that there are only so many game mechanics you can use. This is TotalBiscuit’s 5 Ds (Plus Some Others): Deliver, Destroy, Defend, Drop, Discover. (Plus Bombing, Vehicle, Magic Wand… though you could probably make a good argument those are all functionally the same mechanic, just in different hats.) And the 5 Ds are just as prevalent in single player RPGs as they are in MMOs.

Blizzard does mechanics very well but, IMO, they’re terrible at story. It sort of occurred to me over the weekend that the main reason WoW makes me “eh” nowadays is because I have no feeling of… importance? I guess. Purpose? Weight? Like, all the expansions have been about these big, epic takedowns of major lore characters, except… Well, firstly I don’t raid, so I never see that, and secondly all the major game story is driven by Blizzard’s signature characters (e.g. Thrall, Malfurion, King Whiner, various other Square-Jawed Manly Men) and the problem is I just don’t think anyone is really as in love with WoW’s characters as the WoW writers are. And yeah, I’m vain so mostly I’m all like, “Yeah, cool story bro… but what about me?”

That’s the main thing that really appeals to me about TOR; it’s about me for once. BioWare does “You: The Hero” very well, particularly when they’re giving you a basic “thumbnail” character (Hawke, Shepard) and getting you to fill in the details.

I spend about 40 hours with Hawke and co. per run, and it’s amazing every time. Thinking about the equivalent of that going on for years practically gives me goosebumps. :O

… long rambly comment is long. >_>