Guild Wars 2

Not traditional MMO “collect 10 rats” questing but short story-arcs of interconnected quests with their own little backstory and progression.

I love the dynamic events and I agree completely with Anet that it makes no sense at all to be told a town is under attack and then find that everyone is standing around waiting for you to say you’re ready before anything actually happens. But the trouble is that’s the only kind of situation they work with.

You can’t have a dynamic event for helpling a scholar investigate an old scroll and gradually chasing down the artifacts it mentions all over the world, asking people to study them and finding out the story behind it. GW1 had some fantastic quest chains like that which I at least found genuinely interesting (and no, I never minded having to read the text). You could probably do this with heart quests, but so far they all seem to stick to the “kill A, collect B or interact with C” format with the number replaced with a bar counter.

The good thing is they could be completely, 100% optional and invisible if you don’t want to do them. Just like in GW1 they wouldn’t count towards any form of completion checklist and the rewards wouldn’t be significant enough to make them essential, maybe about the same as you get from DE’s in the same area. You also wouldn’t need to have NPCs standing around with giant green exclaimation marks over their heads because I think the people this would appeal to would have no problem talking to named NPCs and actually reading the text to see if they need help. The quest could come up during the dialogue tree where they mention they need help with something and you have an option to offer/accept. (Unlike the current situation where many of them do want help but they decide part way through the conversation not to ask you.)

It could also work with the dynamic style of gameplay. You could start quests by over-hearing a conversation and stepping in to offer your help. Or if someone says you need to find/deliver something now you literally have to go do it or the person will stop waiting. Plus of course all the options with monsters showing up unexpectedly or whatever.

I realise this would be a lot of work so it’s probably not an option now, but maybe for a future expansion?

I agree that it’s hard to figure out what the story is because of the way the dynamic events work. It doesn’t really explain why those spiders were attacking there or what’s going on very well. How it all plays into the bigger story of the zone or world.

I think though if you spend a lot of time in a zone and see all the interconnecting dynamic events going on at different times you can sort of understand what’s going on and then relate that to other zones in the same way. Of course reading the heart event stories and paying attention to what NPC’s are saying will help a lot as well.

I suppose that’s what the personal storyline is for though to give you that more in-depth story telling where you can make choices that change your path. Where as the zones are just meant to be for fun and exploration more than story.

There actually are a number of dynamic events like “helping a scholar investigate an old scroll” that you have to specifically talk to NPCs and activate—but I get your point.

Unfortunately, it’s really rather difficult to draw the line between filler and plot in this kind of situation. What makes something filler? A goal of killing 10 rats? Not really… As it is, they drew the line right outside of the “main quest” which is certainly a valid choice, and since the amount of content they can produce is a fixed value (barring things that change the quest density of areas)… I’m okay with simply getting a variety of “main quests” as they produce more content.

As someone who doesn’t have a lot of MMO experience, I’ve been struggling with this since I started playing. I have 35% of the map complete and I honestly couldn’t tell you more than five events / quest if you asked….other than, “Defend X from Centaurs.”

The problem is that almost all the quests can be blasted through and completed without ever knowing the context. You can basically run through any area of the game and be working on some kind of quest.

When my girlfriend and I first started the game we blasted through the starter worlds by accident. We didn’t have the discipline to slow down and try to figure out the stories. We now find ourselves having to actively force ourselves to get the context, and I’ll tell you, it can be hard.

The other issue I have is that every quest is tied up in these neat little packages. The NPC is conveniently standing right next to the area, the item to collect is in abundance twenty paces in every direction, and the boss is always standing exactly where it should be.

In Skyrim I very much enjoyed the way they handled events / quests. First, you had no idea who offered quests, or what they would be. This forced you to become immersed in the story and the world. Almost every character has something to offer even if its not a quest.

Secondly, quests were spread across the world. You could choose to pursue a single quest, or multiple at a time. Often you had to travel great distances and pay attention to the story.

Here is an example of a similar quests, and how they differ in execution.

Skyrim

Quest – Collect 5 gems so NPC can create something.
Solution – Explore cave systems all over the world. Talk to other NPC’s to get leads. Find out that cave X contains a stockpile, fight / sneak in and recover.

Guild Wars 2

Quest – Collect 5 gears so NPC can create something
Solution – Walk 100 paces, kill creature, loot, return, rinse, repeat.

It’s like the game hands every quest to you on a silver platter. It doesn’t require thought, or skill, or reasoning, just walk, kill, walk, kill.

I understand why this is, but I also think it is why this game feels repetitive at times. It’s very much about killing / collecting as much as possible without care or thought. Mats are a dime a dozen and have no value. Animals are plastered across the environment in predictable patterns, quests are neat little packages that can be solved with button mashing, and dynamic quests encourage zerging, not storytelling.

It’s no wonder why there are so many bots in this game. It has to say something when a computer can play the game with simple programming. To me, that says that the game is, in many ways, nothing more than the illusion of playing.

Anyway, I’m ranting. I think one of the main issues with MMOs today is that they don’t give enough credit to the player. They assume everyone’s goal is to just level up as fast as they can, and they want to not be bothered with anything but kill, kill, kill.