Why do I need to quest to do anything?

[Zoomzoom]

I first played this game many years ago, and have watched it progress over a very long time. I've been starting to notice a re-occurring issue, "We've added x to the game! You must complete a new quest to use it."

Why? Why do I need to do some long quest in order to use something all players should have access to? If you keep this up the game will be too restrictive, in fact it already is, and will deter new players. The point of an RPG is you can develop your character to be anything you want from the start, it should be open and free, but this route is going in the opposite direction. If you don't want players to become too powerful too fast, then just add a cap to how many skills you can learn at once and get rid of these quests. I and other players don't want to go through them. No other game does this for a reason.

Anyone else feel the same way? It's practically the reason I have stopped playing.

EDIT: The thread "Winch access... The Never Ending Frustration" is a good example of others who dislike having to quest. It should be optional.

[Illysia]

I agree that it is irritating, but I think a better solution would be to have a mundane version that you can just buy and a special version the item that you can quest for. As for the effect on the game play. I'll skip that commentary for now since the forum is already full of my opinion on that elsewhere.

[LigH]

It's practically the reason I have stopped playing.

It was the reason why I stopped caring for any kind of crafting skills and just roleplaying with friends... but I must confess, now that the skills get implemented which I based my main character on, about 7 years ago, I start learning them to actually exercize the profession I used to pretend.

When I started playing PlaneShift as my first MMORPG ever, with only a little single-player RPG experience, I found NPC quests being a kind of introduction to roleplaying with player-controlled characters. So I don't see NPC quests as "condemnable" regarding the development of my character.

[Illysia]

EDIT: The thread "Winch access... The Never Ending Frustration" is a good example of others who dislike having to quest. It should be optional.

This one I would let slide as everyone is told up front it's not for every citizen. It's actually only for merchants, so any of us getting in there is pretty good. But having merchants sell stuff that can only be gotten in the winch is and things like the mount quest are harsh. There should be places to get them outside of them. Not everyone even has an RP reason to go to or be in the winch.

[Zoomzoom]

EDIT: The thread "Winch access... The Never Ending Frustration" is a good example of others who dislike having to quest. It should be optional.

This one I would let slide as everyone is told up front it's not for every citizen. It's actually only for merchants, so any of us getting in there is pretty good. But having merchants sell stuff that can only be gotten in the winch is and things like the mount quest are harsh. There should be places to get them outside of them. Not everyone even has an RP reason to go to or be in the winch.

They could make it so you have to bribe the guard each time to enter.

[Illysia]

Well, not to give spoilers but, it's a similar line of thought behind one quest to get in.

[bilbous]

they should fill up the winch with npc killables to give it some flavor -- veteran thieves, neutral faction guards etc

[tman]

As for the "We implemented this, do this quest to gain access" I find this really helpful.  As far as I know there are no skills that require a long boring quest chain to start.  Gem enchanting may be the exception, but that's only intended for skilled mages anyway, so it makes sense.  In every other case, the intro quest explains to the player how to do the related skill.  And most of the time the person who gives the quest is the trainer anyway, so it's not like it requires a bunch of extra travel.  I like having the game explain to me what I can do before suffering through it on my own (or worse, googling it.  sombody call the spoilers police!!!)

[Pakarro]

Pakerl loves quests!