Instanced Quests

[emeraldfool]

Well, I've been thinking about how to make more involving, 'epic'-style quests, but I just can't seem to come up with any that doesn't involve things changing (NPCs dying, portals opening, gods' avatars appearing, villages burning, etc.). The problem with that is, only the people who have taken the quest would be able to see the changes, which would be just weird.

So, the only way I can really see it working was if some of the more important, 'epic' quests took you to an instanced location (i.e.  each person or group gets a version of their own zone). That way the quest can facilitate things like NPCs (that you meet in the instanced zone, and nowhere else) dying, or other changes that wouldn't effect the outside, non-instanced world (you could even have cutscenes this way).

Anybody think this would be possible?


(Note this is different from the topic of instanced dungeons, which is really just to avoid kill-stealing...)

[Idoru]

I always thought that when people mentioned instanced dungeons they were talking about quests and such aswell as big battles against mobs. The only thing I can compare it to in my experience is WoW. In that game, for those who havent tried it, dungeons are instanced and contain both the mobs and the soloutions to quests. its entirely plausible for someone to go into one of these dungeons without the quests and purely grind these mobs for EXP and loot.

Anybody think this would be possible?

Not much harder to do than making instanced mob rooms, which actualy have something interesting to do in them ;o)

[lordraleigh]

Such quests could give another reason for making groups besides ulber-hunting and OOC chatting.

Bands of heroes could be formed for doing such type of adventures.

[Narure]

Another idea could be that the epic quest is only give to one person, then all the effects villages burning etc but to complete the quest the one player would need the help of many other players and be forced to make a group. Prehaps many people could take the quest and the first group to complete it gets the reward.

[bilbous]

I think part of the problem with this idea is that it might multiply the memory usage for the server keeping track of all the instanced areas. Anarchy online has the same kind of deal and it gets a little boring but that could just be their implementation and the free game lack of bells and whistles.

[Zan]

I'd leave the creation of epic events up to the GM team. Their events have included grand things like Ojaveda's sacking (twice) and Trasok's abduction.

[emeraldfool]

I'd leave the creation of epic events up to the GM team. Their events have included grand things like Ojaveda's sacking (twice) and Trasok's abduction.

I'm not saying get rid of GM events, I'm just saying there's no reason people who tend to miss GM events can't enjoy awesome quests too. (I hate time zones...)


And Anarchy Online's randomly generated mission thing was just boring. I usually didn't even read the mission description because it's always the same. I must've killed like 3,000 so-called Rebel Leaders, and recovered 5,000 sensitive documents I was thinking bigger than that... but same basic idea. Just more quest, less grind. And not random or infinite.

[Zan]

Most events being held in one time-zone is a bit of a problem yeah but I think that this can be fixed over time with the growth of the GM / Event team and more events happen for all timezones. Or even events that are happening for an extended period of time.

Either way GM created events will always be more interactive and more unique than any standard programmed quest.

[emeraldfool]

Most events being held in one time-zone is a bit of a problem yeah but I think that this can be fixed over time with the growth of the GM / Event team and more events happen for all timezones. Or even events that are happening for an extended period of time.

Either way GM created events will always be more interactive and more unique than any standard programmed quest.

That's irrelevant. Quests and GM events are two very different things. The main thing being, quests are (or at least should be) more reliable than GMs, with people actually able to make groups, and plan around them. Not to mention every twist and turn can be plotted out months in advance, instead of relying on other people's RPing.

The point is, I think the quests are 2-dimensional because the settings team doesn't have enough to work with. You can't make things interesting if all you can do is talk and make people fetch items.