I think this has been said before, but I\'d like to say it again, seeing as the quest system hasn\'t changed since MB, that I think the quest system is fundamentally flawed. On the surface, it would seem like a great idea, just talking to npcs to get quests, but in practice it is a nightmare. 99% of the time spent on most quests, even simple ones, is spent figuring out the exact phrase the npc is expecting you to say to continue the quest. I think the challenge of these quests should only be in doing the quest itself, and not figuring out what to say.
You might think that increasing the number of acceptable phrases might aleviate the problem somewhat, but it does not eliminate the fundamental problem. In order to make quests more natural and easier, quest writers need to enumerate through a lot of alternate responces that the npc should accept, and that\'s for each responce expected in a quest. This leads to unnecessary extra work for them, since there might be 5-10 acceptable sentances for each responce, and 2,4, or more responces for each quest. That\'s a lot of writing for just one quest, and the end result is still not the best. There are literally hundreds of ways of saying certain things, so the player will always be playing the guessing game, no matter how many alternate responces you accept.
I would like the developers to seriously consider scrapping the entire quest system as it stands now and replace it with one that does not require random guessing of phrases. There are many alternatives in other games from which to model and expand on. Personally, I would like something similar to the style that Morrowind used, where you\'re provided with general questions to ask a person, and then those choices open up others that you can ask about further. I\'ll give you an example of how it might work for one of Planeshift\'s quests, the script quest between the priest in the temple of laanx and jayose. Starting with the priest, a box comes up with the choices in a box at the bottom and the priest\'s responces in a text box above. You would be able to say \"hello\" \"how are you\" \"tell me about this temple\" \"I would like some work.\" The last choice would lead you to the start of the quest. He\'ll tell you about the scripts and the two choices available would be \"yes\" or \"no\" and if you accept, the quest would be added to your list. Now, when you talk to Jayose, a new option will appear in his list, \"I\'m here to pick up the priest\'s scripts\", at which time he will tell you the price is doubled, and then a new option will appear in the priest\'s list, \"Jayose wants double for the scripts\" etc.. You get the idea. This kind of quest system would make it much much easier to write new quests, and not incredibly fustrating for players.
Anyway, that\'s my opinion. Please post here if you agree with me.
