Guild Wars 2

Was just wondering, does anyone else think it would be a good idea if anet added in some traditional quests like in gw1. I love the dynamic event system but after awhile of playing I feel having both dynamic events and some traditional quest would make the game much much better. So what do you guys think ? Also do you think they would ever put them in?

Isn’t Heart quest the “traditional” quest you are looking for (do once and done with it)

Heart tasks could have some more thought put into them.

@ yramrag -No not really it doesnt branch out to another quest or have any real depth to it or story or something you learn about the person or place like a real quest would have.

I really hope not. The traditional questing system is so outdated and stale. Plus it goes against the whole “grind to level” philosophy.

With a traditional questing system, you get quest after quest telling you to constantly go kill 10 boars, go kill 10 wolves, go kill 10 orcs, etc etc. You pick up a quest, run out to the area, stand there and kill 10 of each, then run back to the NPC for your reward and get the next quest that makes you do the same thing again. It’s a back and forth grind that is outdated and stale.

This new system is perfect. No more running back and forth, no more grinding so many mobs over and over, and more choices on how you want to level up. And it is all actually happening as well. There is no, “Oh no! We are being attacked! Kill 10 pigs!” and all the pigs are sitting in a field doing nothing but grazing. Now instead we got mobs actually attacking instead of doing nothing in events.

It would be a downgrade to bring in an outdated quest system with what we have now.

@spyder-Yeah I see what your saying but idk It just feels like each zone is nothing more than a check list to me now there is no real interesting story or anything like that you would get from doing a quest line in the zone like you would in other games. But im not for getting rid of the current system I would just add to it.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

I really hope not. The traditional questing system is so outdated and stale. Plus it goes against the whole “grind to level” philosophy.

With a traditional questing system, you get quest after quest telling you to constantly go kill 10 boars, go kill 10 wolves, go kill 10 orcs, etc etc. You pick up a quest, run out to the area, stand there and kill 10 of each, then run back to the NPC for your reward and get the next quest that makes you do the same thing again. It’s a back and forth grind that is outdated and stale.

This new system is perfect. No more running back and forth, no more grinding so many mobs over and over, and more choices on how you want to level up. And it is all actually happening as well. There is no, “Oh no! We are being attacked! Kill 10 pigs!” and all the pigs are sitting in a field doing nothing but grazing. Now instead we got mobs actually attacking instead of doing nothing in events.

It would be a downgrade to bring in an outdated quest system with what we have now.

Do they have cake in that little fantasy world of yours?

Anet didn’t do anything intuitive with their new “event” systems. All they did was remove the quest NPCs. You’re still killing X of Y, you just don’t have to talk to any NPCs along the way.

Quarktastic.1027:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

I really hope not. The traditional questing system is so outdated and stale. Plus it goes against the whole “grind to level” philosophy.

With a traditional questing system, you get quest after quest telling you to constantly go kill 10 boars, go kill 10 wolves, go kill 10 orcs, etc etc. You pick up a quest, run out to the area, stand there and kill 10 of each, then run back to the NPC for your reward and get the next quest that makes you do the same thing again. It’s a back and forth grind that is outdated and stale.

This new system is perfect. No more running back and forth, no more grinding so many mobs over and over, and more choices on how you want to level up. And it is all actually happening as well. There is no, “Oh no! We are being attacked! Kill 10 pigs!” and all the pigs are sitting in a field doing nothing but grazing. Now instead we got mobs actually attacking instead of doing nothing in events.

It would be a downgrade to bring in an outdated quest system with what we have now.

Do they have cake in that little fantasy world of yours?

Anet didn’t do anything intuitive with their new “event” systems. All they did was remove the quest NPCs. You’re still killing X of Y, you just don’t have to talk to any NPCs along the way.

What fantasy world would it be without cake?

While it is slightly true that you still kill “10 rats”, it is a choice now. Take for instance, the event in Gendarran Fields. You can put out fires or kill bandits. Same in Queensdale when you have to protect the farm. Put out fires or kill the bandits. There is many events that don’t require killing things.

And I think the event system is still a better system than a quest system. Cause as you said, there is no NPCs to deal with. No running back and forth to get rewarded. It is a fluid motion. And the events are actually happening in real time, not some static mob that you have to kill in a field doing nothing.

And nothing is going to happen if you don’t do that quest in a traditional MMO. They aren’t going to burn down the village or kidnap anyone. Nothing different will occur if you don’t do a quest. Unlike GW2 where your actions will actually matter. If you ignore that event, the bandits will burn down that town and they will kidnap the townsfolk. Then you get a whole new event to put out those fires and save them.

Sorry but that is way better than a text quest that tells me to kill random mobs in a field with no consequences if I do it or not.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Unlike GW2 where your actions will actually matter. If you ignore that event, the bandits will burn down that town and they will kidnap the townsfolk. Then you get a whole new event to put out those fires and save them.

None of this happens. Bandits may attack a farm. If you fail the event to repel them, guess what they do. They stand around doing nothing until someone comes along and clears them out. Then the whole thing repeats 30 minutes later.

It’s a step in the right direction, but nothing you do has any impact on the game whatsoever.

Quarktastic.1027:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Unlike GW2 where your actions will actually matter. If you ignore that event, the bandits will burn down that town and they will kidnap the townsfolk. Then you get a whole new event to put out those fires and save them.

None of this happens. Bandits may attack a farm. If you fail the event to repel them, guess what they do. They stand around doing nothing until someone comes along and clears them out. Then the whole thing repeats 30 minutes later.

It’s a step in the right direction, but nothing you do has any impact on the game whatsoever.

That is exactly what I said though. They take over the camp, or burn it down, or kidnap the townsfolk. Which starts a whole new chain of events. It resets when someone completes the chain and starts it again. The bandits don’t magically disappear. Someone has to come along and clear it out.

But still, in the end, it is still way better than an outdated traditional system where nothing at all happens.

The quest is still in this game.. its called “personal story mode”

VidGhost.3215:

The quest is still in this game.. its called “personal story mode”

See this is a perfect springboard for what I was going to say.

This is essentially correct in that this is how traditional questing is handled in this game as opposed to others. Even then it’s not the typical collect x magi-leaves or kill x feral scoodily-poopers.

It’s an actual quest. A task you have to complete through many different steps. This is what any type of questing should be like in this game. Since they seem to like instancing stuff, they could make instances for these. They’d be much smaller in scope than the story but they’d all be different tasks that don’t require an actual number grind save for maybe activating some Asuran device and it needs so many salvaged somethings – things in proper context instead of just mindless culling or some such bunk.

How’s that idea strike people?

JJL.2719:

@spyder-Yeah I see what your saying but idk It just feels like each zone is nothing more than a check list to me now there is no real interesting story or anything like that you would get from doing a quest line in the zone like you would in other games. But im not for getting rid of the current system I would just add to it.

Nothing is more of a checklist than traditional quest logs. So nope, not supporting this motion. Guild Wars 2 is fine as it is. Quest logs is as good as a list of chores.

I remember playing Cabal Online and taking a quest which says Giant Spiders are disturbing townsfolk but as obvious as it is, the town is as peaceful as always and I have to kill 30 Giant Spiders. When I went out there, the Giant Spiders were just idling around in their spawn location. Boring!

SpyderArachnid.5619:

*With a traditional questing system, you get quest after quest telling you to constantly go kill 10 boars, go kill 10 wolves, go kill 10 orcs, etc etc. You pick up a quest, run out to the area, stand there and kill 10 of each, then run back to the NPC for your reward and get the next quest that makes you do the same thing again. It’s a back and forth grind that is outdated and stale.

This the type of Traditional Quest that game designers use to stretch out the grind.

What I think the OP wanted was will written tasks within the heart system. That provide interesting story driven activates like a Traditional Quest but with out the grind. They would be like small puzzle like DE’s.

I’d rather they just add more personal storyline. Maybe more storyline that takes you back to your race’s City?

I mean, you spend like 20 levels of the storyline helping your city, then you’re just like… ‘Right, Ima go help all the Order’s take on the big dragon, good luck against those Centaur/Nightmare/Sons of Svanir/Etc, kthxbai!’

And then you never really get a good reason to go back to your city. Which makes me sad.

Heart quests are the perfect traditional quests. Dating back to the PnP games.

Your average heart quest:
*clean this
*Kill enemies around heart
*train fighters

Also why is there hearts to begin with? How about tasks from different NPC’s that create small story driven DE’s.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Your average heart quest:
*clean this
*Kill enemies around heart
*train fighters

Also why is there hearts to begin with? How about tasks from different NPC’s that create small story driven DE’s.

Because you are helping an area, not a person. Which is way better for the sole reason hearts are made for. There are event for single NPCs

IMO hearts are more grindy than traditional quests.

Traditional quests can be “do X thing Y times”, but hearts are always “do X thing Y times”.

The system would be much better with Dynamic Events + the best kind of traditional quests. The immersive kind that makes you feel like you’re actually on a grand quest.

That, or the usual Dynamic Events PLUS events that actually have long-running chains.

Personal story tries to do this, but it’s not in the open world and doesn’t immerse me at all. My favorite quest chains of all time were back in vanilla WoW for the Shaman and the Druid… those were amazing.

Making Dynamic Events like these or adding traditional quests >>>>>> renown hearts. Renown hearts are not fun and are grindy as hell. To say they are fun while saying that traditional quests aren’t is essentially doublethink. This is the formula for renown hearts:

heart = (traditional quest * 3) – quest giver + karma vendor

Each heart is essentially 2-4 traditional “do X thing Y times” with a karma vendor instead of a quest giver.

Gestankfaust.4216:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Your average heart quest:
*clean this
*Kill enemies around heart
*train fighters

Also why is there hearts to begin with? How about tasks from different NPC’s that create small story driven DE’s.

Because you are helping an area, not a person. Which is way better for the sole reason hearts are made for. There are event for single NPCs

So players should be the maids for those areas? People help people not areas!

Alarox.4590:

Traditional quests can be “do X thing Y times”, but hearts are always “do X thing Y times”.

What you said equates to the same exact thing. Hearts “can be” anything same as traditional.

I’m sure you didn’t read what I said…but hearts aren’t supposed to be traditional quests. They are renown hearts…that’s what they are called. You gain status in the area doing them.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Gestankfaust.4216:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Your average heart quest:
*clean this
*Kill enemies around heart
*train fighters

Also why is there hearts to begin with? How about tasks from different NPC’s that create small story driven DE’s.

Huh?

No…heroes do things to make their name known. Maids? wtf?

Because you are helping an area, not a person. Which is way better for the sole reason hearts are made for. There are event for single NPCs

So players should be the maids for those areas? People help people not areas!

Wha?

Heroes help anyone. They make a name for themselves doing so. A maid does chores for a single person…srsly…huh?

Gestankfaust.4216:

Alarox.4590:

Traditional quests can be “do X thing Y times”, but hearts are always “do X thing Y times”.

What you said equates to the same exact thing. Hearts “can be” anything same as traditional.

I’m sure you didn’t read what I said…but hearts aren’t supposed to be traditional quests. They are renown hearts…that’s what they are called. You gain status in the area doing them.

1.) Traditional quests can be long running chains that take you on an adventure. Renown hearts are always “do X thing Y times”. Renown hearts can never be anything but that.

2.) You don’t gain status in the area. There is no such thing as factions with actual renown.

3.) Renown hearts don’t make the game more fun. Renown hearts don’t make me more immersed (on the contrary they reduce it). Renown hearts are simply there because in alpha/closed-beta testing new players were confused on where to go because dynamic events being the main PvE content was never tried before. They were also added because (as is obvious) there aren’t enough Dynamic Events to fill up each map and keep people busy.

4.) Renown hearts are an improvement over the usual “do X thing Y times” in other MMOs. However, the game would be better off without them and instead more dynamic events (preferably long-running chains).

Gestankfaust.4216:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Gestankfaust.4216:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Your average heart quest:
*clean this
*Kill enemies around heart
*train fighters

Also why is there hearts to begin with? How about tasks from different NPC’s that create small story driven DE’s.

Huh?

No…heroes do things to make their name known. Maids? wtf?

Because you are helping an area, not a person. Which is way better for the sole reason hearts are made for. There are event for single NPCs

So players should be the maids for those areas? People help people not areas!

Wha?

Heroes help anyone. They make a name for themselves doing so. A maid does chores for a single person…srsly…huh?

Who told Anet I wanted to be a hero. My character is more of a mercenary.

Hero…or zero

jussayin

Alarox.4590:

Gestankfaust.4216:

Alarox.4590:

Traditional quests can be “do X thing Y times”, but hearts are always “do X thing Y times”.

What you said equates to the same exact thing. Hearts “can be” anything same as traditional.

I’m sure you didn’t read what I said…but hearts aren’t supposed to be traditional quests. They are renown hearts…that’s what they are called. You gain status in the area doing them.

1.) Traditional quests can be long running chains that take you on an adventure. Renown hearts are always “do X thing Y times”. Renown hearts can never be anything but that.

2.) You don’t gain status in the area. There is no such thing as factions with actual renown.

3.) Renown hearts don’t make the game more fun. Renown hearts don’t make me more immersed (on the contrary they reduce it). Renown hearts are simply there because in alpha/closed-beta testing new players were confused on where to go because dynamic events being the main PvE content was never tried before. They were also added because (as is obvious) there aren’t enough Dynamic Events to fill up each map and keep people busy.

Point is…that you missed…is that there’s both. Hearts handle your rep in an area, events from NPCs handle the rest.

Sorry you want every game to be the same. This seems quite ok with me.

Gestankfaust.4216:

Point is…that you missed…is that there’s both. Hearts handle your rep in an area, events from NPCs handle the rest.

Sorry you want every game to be the same. This seems quite ok with me.

Holy. kitten.

I’ve been a hardcore fan of this game pre-beta… I hate games with nothing but “do X thing Y times” as an excuse for PvE content. I don’t want that in Guild Wars 2. What I do want is immersive PvE content that isn’t a large chunk of cleverly hidden “do X thing Y times”.

Where do you get that I want all games to be similar? Because I’d prefer long-running chains of Dynamic Events instead of renown hearts? Because I think renown hearts are such a poor mechanic that I would take the good kind of tradition quest over them?

Let me reiterate this so you can’t misinterpret me. There are a few options for an MMO:

1.) Pure traditional quests. This sucks minus a few great quest lines. World of Warcraft.

2.) Mostly traditional quests, some “dynamic event” type questing. The right direction, but Warhammer online showed that it’s mostly a gimmick.

3.) Equal mix of dynamic events and traditional quests. Further in the right direction; Rift showed this can be a lot of fun, but grindy quests are still a hinderance.

4.) Mostly Dynamic Events and regional “do X thing Y times” regional quests. Definitely in the right direction. Only two problems. One, you still have grindy quests which aren’t needed if you can put enough events into the game. Two, you completely eliminate traditional quests (which isn’t innately bad) but you also get rid of the FEW GOOD traditional quests that were fun. This is Guild Wars 2.

5.) The ideal. Entirely dynamic events with some long running chains that can travel across a zone, giving an equal mix of spontaneity and the feeling of heroic quests. Or, in a lesser version, 90% Dynamic Events with a few quest givers that can start said heroic quests that span a zone (although 100% dynamic events would be better).

Now do you understand the point I’m trying to make?

Traditional quests add world detail, which is very important to immersion. Hearts make and attempt at doing that, but more often than not the details can be skipped and altogether. It’s especially tempting to do this when the reward is nice juicy exp or when you’re simply trying to get through the map in a brisk pace.

I think ANet should quests into the game just for the sake of immersion. I’m not talking about those gather wolf ears quest. Something as simple as delivering an item or talking to a certain NPC would help greatly. The extrinsic rewards wouldn’t need to be that great. If its on a to do list, chances are most people will do it. It wouldn’t take much programming either, just a lot of writing.

Gestankfaust.4216:

Alarox.4590:

Gestankfaust.4216:

Alarox.4590:

Traditional quests can be “do X thing Y times”, but hearts are always “do X thing Y times”.

What you said equates to the same exact thing. Hearts “can be” anything same as traditional.

I’m sure you didn’t read what I said…but hearts aren’t supposed to be traditional quests. They are renown hearts…that’s what they are called. You gain status in the area doing them.

1.) Traditional quests can be long running chains that take you on an adventure. Renown hearts are always “do X thing Y times”. Renown hearts can never be anything but that.

2.) You don’t gain status in the area. There is no such thing as factions with actual renown.

3.) Renown hearts don’t make the game more fun. Renown hearts don’t make me more immersed (on the contrary they reduce it). Renown hearts are simply there because in alpha/closed-beta testing new players were confused on where to go because dynamic events being the main PvE content was never tried before. They were also added because (as is obvious) there aren’t enough Dynamic Events to fill up each map and keep people busy.

Point is…that you missed…is that there’s both. Hearts handle your rep in an area, events from NPCs handle the rest.

Sorry you want every game to be the same. This seems quite ok with me.

Why can’t I make a bad reputation for my self?

TwoBit.5903:

Traditional quests add world detail, which is very important to immersion. Hearts make and attempt at doing that, but more often than not the details can be skipped and altogether. It’s especially tempting to do this when the reward is nice juicy exp or when you’re simply trying to get through the map in a brisk pace.

I think ANet should quests into the game just for the sake of immersion. I’m not talking about those gather wolf ears quest. Something as simple as delivering an item or talking to a certain NPC would help greatly. The extrinsic rewards wouldn’t need to be that great. If its on a to do list, chances are most people will do it. It wouldn’t take much programming either, just a lot of writing.

This guy gets it. +1

(hides from moderators)

JJL.2719:

@ yramrag -No not really it doesnt branch out to another quest or have any real depth to it or story or something you learn about the person or place like a real quest would have.

So the personal story?

Jski.6180:

JJL.2719:

@ yramrag -No not really it doesnt branch out to another quest or have any real depth to it or story or something you learn about the person or place like a real quest would have.

So the personal story?

Basically, although Personal Story doesn’t add to world immersion, which is what a number of traditional quests did. It would be fine if dynamic event chains would cover this kind of thing, but I can only name a handful that do.

Ishiga.6053:

VidGhost.3215:

The quest is still in this game.. its called “personal story mode”

See this is a perfect springboard for what I was going to say.

This is essentially correct in that this is how traditional questing is handled in this game as opposed to others. Even then it’s not the typical collect x magi-leaves or kill x feral scoodily-poopers.

It’s an actual quest. A task you have to complete through many different steps. This is what any type of questing should be like in this game. Since they seem to like instancing stuff, they could make instances for these. They’d be much smaller in scope than the story but they’d all be different tasks that don’t require an actual number grind save for maybe activating some Asuran device and it needs so many salvaged somethings – things in proper context instead of just mindless culling or some such bunk.

How’s that idea strike people?

Now that is something I could get behind. Like Mini-Personal Stories. Have them for each area, or even a few for certain parts of an area, to help present the story and give you a feel of the background of things in the surrounding area.

Heck, even have them in capital cities to add some life to cities as well. Like uncover a plot, disrupt a secret base, deliver items, work the bar, etc. Just small things to add immersion and help tell a story.

Nice idea.

Alarox.4590:

Jski.6180:

JJL.2719:

@ yramrag -No not really it doesnt branch out to another quest or have any real depth to it or story or something you learn about the person or place like a real quest would have.

So the personal story?

Basically, although Personal Story doesn’t add to world immersion, which is what a number of traditional quests did. It would be fine if dynamic event chains would cover this kind of thing, but I can only name a handful that do.

Well it dose explain what going on in GW2 and why things are happening the way they are and the ppl who are trying to help and harm. I am not sure how much more “world immersion” you could want.
There are also the non reward dynamic events that happen in the city the pure talking events. The thing that a lot of ppl miss is that the cites the ppl live in are for the most part safe your not going to have fighting in them that often. We could see parts of the cites destroyed but then we will lose the ppl because no one in there right mind will live some where that is not safe unless they have no chose (something a lot of rpgs leave out). “So your city is under attked? WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL HERE?”

Ive been asking this for so long. GW2 NEEDS the traditional quests GW1 has. Anet needs to realize this, because its one area where PVE is really lacking. Dynamic events are great Anet, really, they bring the world to life in a way I dont see other mmo’s do. Its spontaneous, interactive, but also, SHORT LIVED. Heart tasks are also very superficial, they offer a small amount of activity and thats it. Traditional quests are great because they are for the big pve lore nerds! They are for the hardcore players, who want more immersive pve, and quests bring that. I want to go to a zone and actually learn more about it, its history. A long quests chain does that justice, dynamic events dont, heart tasks dont. Please Anet consider this!!! GW1 quests were great, if you had both Traditional Quests AND Dynamic Events, this game would be absolutely amazing.

There is room for a traditional quest system, especially in areas not designed for hearts. Take cities for example. Implementation of traditional quest lines in each city to expand upon lore and exploration of the city would be a great way to make players more immersed in the world. They could introduce this as personal story, but it would be much easier to just institute some basic quest lines involving important places and people in each area.

We already have seen some traditional questing implemented, one of the easiest examples to give is the scavenger hunt from Halloween, even more from the living story which is almost entirely traditional questing. Traditional quests are great storytelling devices.

Quarktastic.1027:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Unlike GW2 where your actions will actually matter. If you ignore that event, the bandits will burn down that town and they will kidnap the townsfolk. Then you get a whole new event to put out those fires and save them.

None of this happens. Bandits may attack a farm. If you fail the event to repel them, guess what they do. They stand around doing nothing until someone comes along and clears them out. Then the whole thing repeats 30 minutes later.

It’s a step in the right direction, but nothing you do has any impact on the game whatsoever.

Yeah basically these back and forth chains need an extra couple of failure states, ending in total destruction of said town, so that an event needs to send builders out from the capital to rebuild.

Basically I want orr everywhere.

Renown hearts are things you do while waiting for a dynamic event to come through, which do have stories behind them, can involve long quest chains, and can suck just like traditional quests.

JJL.2719:

Was just wondering, does anyone else think it would be a good idea if anet added in some traditional quests like in gw1. I love the dynamic event system but after awhile of playing I feel having both dynamic events and some traditional quest would make the game much much better. So what do you guys think ? Also do you think they would ever put them in?

Honestly no, if they added more DE’s to all of the 30-80 zones and added a series of new metas over the course of the next 3 months every month consistantly, they’d have a more well rounded game. Temporary content only puts a bandaid on the problem, doesn’t actually fix anything.

emikochan.8504:

Quarktastic.1027:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Unlike GW2 where your actions will actually matter. If you ignore that event, the bandits will burn down that town and they will kidnap the townsfolk. Then you get a whole new event to put out those fires and save them.

None of this happens. Bandits may attack a farm. If you fail the event to repel them, guess what they do. They stand around doing nothing until someone comes along and clears them out. Then the whole thing repeats 30 minutes later.

It’s a step in the right direction, but nothing you do has any impact on the game whatsoever.

Yeah basically these back and forth chains need an extra couple of failure states, ending in total destruction of said town, so that an event needs to send builders out from the capital to rebuild.

Basically I want orr everywhere.

I’d say they need a fair bit more than that, honestly.

I know I was probably far too hopeful going into things, but my initial take on the game was that the ‘chains’ we currently have would be more akin to stages of a single event and that the actual chains would be far more in-depth and more intricate with ‘meta-events’ being a series of events that take place across multiple zones and could potentially take days to reach their conclusion.

I saw events being far more interconnected and branching as well, such that while an event might not be part of chain X or Y, the results of those 2 could dictate the direction it begins in, allowing things to carry on even further.

Basically, I had expected the events to have a lot of depth and a much longer duration, in addition to feeling like part of a consistent world. Not just the quick, simple, and repetitive insular affairs we have now. :-(

As for wanting “Orr everywhere”, don’t get me started on what I wanted/expected for Orr… >_>

Hearts are Quest givers just renamed different, the only thing different is you don’t have to run up to them anymore…everything else is the same.

I never had an issue with Quest givers honestly.

I want…The Epic Quest (ala EQ1 class epic weapon quests)

wait! put down the torches and pitchforks and let me explain!

The quests were hard, I wont deny it. Most players didnt have the dedication to complete them due to their extremely hardcore (at the time) nature. The legendary weapons are cool but imagine something like this….

You happen to be wandering through some area…we’ll say Caledon Forest… with you BA level 80 self. Suddenly an event pops up. “huh, thats funny…dont remember seeing that one before.” Event says to protect “Lord Dudendude” from the scary stuff (paraphrasing, I’m just letting my brain run free here…) for 5 minutes. So, your fighting off all kinds of random enemies that are just suddenly appearing…demons, ghosts, jungle worms, your neighbors angry yorkie, etc. Slowly, his health is going down, but its gonna be allright…he’s gonna live, and you’ll get yer xp/karma and move on. “Cool event. Lots of crazy stuff going on here, I havent actually had to sweat over an event in a while.” You happen to look down, and notice in this little patch of area, your at your full might, not downleveled to 5. Double weird…

So, FINALLY, those five minutes are up. you get your xp, your karma…the guy is all thanking you and stuff…and then big giant scary demon/dragon/boogie man comes up and shanks him. He drops, boogie man laughs and disappears. Bam, dude turns into a renown heart. But all the heart says is speak with Lord Dudendude to learn more. So you talk to him, and a minor cinematic plays. Lord Dudendude was wounded most gravely, and will be dying soon. Even though you do the (cliched) obvious and tell him to save his strength, he needs you to do something of vital importance.

The cinematic ends, and a timer starts. Lord Dudendude needs you to gather the life forces from as much of the local fauna as possible. Dont worry about it too much….you just kill things, he’ll use his remaining strength to collect the energy and crystalize it for you. So you run around frantically killing anything that moves, and fill up the heart meter 15 seconds before the timer ends. whew I did it! now lets see what he sells…

“Bag of Crystallized Life forces: XX (where thats the exact amount of karma you got for saving him + doing the heart in time)” it doesnt do anything…in fact all it says is “event item” what the heck, I’ll buy one anyways. Some dude walking buy happens to see him, and talks to him. You hear Lord DudenDude’s VO say “what do you want? cant you see I’m dying here?” so 30 seconds or so after buying the thing (now referred to officially as the Mcguffin!) it starts another little cinematic with his appropriately epic and overly dramatic dying words, where he sends you to his brother, Dude mcdudenstein. You get a symbol like the living story instance and personal story locator, except this one is red (according to my wife, red is the best color).

To make an allready long story short, you get sent all around the world, carrying varying upgraded versions of the mcguffin, meeting new people, interacting with old favorites (and trahearne too!), hitting up different dungeons which causes special events to spawn at key times due to the presence of the mcguffin, and causing certain bosses/types of mobs/etc to have a chance to drop mcguffinates that are required for upgrading your mcguffin further. Basically, combine all the current questing types together, plus have timed events/hearts, and then make it where the important npcs cant just magically magic the long drawn out important rituals into a single scenematic. Based on how effective/efficient/lucky you were with collecting various mcguffin pieces, dude mcdudenstein might only need 15 minutes to ritualize the mcguffin, or he might need 7 days of intense ritual therapy.

And finally…when your done, when the mcguffin is in its ulitmate form, you do SOMETHING and the mcguffin turns into insanely awesome weapon/armor/dohickey that gives unique particle effects, as well as potent (but not neccessarily MUST HAVE) effects. Then you use the mcguffin to beat some kind of (not elder dragon) nasty bad guy, getting to keep the mcguffin afterwards (screw you Trahearn! My Elementalist went and took Caladbolg back, its MINE!) That, and it gives some kind of announcement (either server wide, or fanfare in the cities, or SOMETHING!) that strokes the players kitten and makes players from all over send him congratulatory tells, as well as the occaisonal “I hate you so much.” hate mail.

Anyways..thats what I want. Multi part multi design element that incorporates every part of the game into cohesive long running Epic Level quests that cant be completed in one sitting, and while rewarding, are not required to be “competitive” at end game and in various forms of pvp.

Dante.1508:

Hearts are Quest givers just renamed different, the only thing different is you don’t have to run up to them anymore…everything else is the same.

I never had an issue with Quest givers honestly.

Thats not true at all. Those are very short lived quests. Barely quests at all. More like a mini event, since you never accept the quest. Questing is different, and you have to understand by playing games like gw1 or others that do traditional quests. They have their own storyline, and it develops very well. Its very personal, while dynamic events are, as wooden potatoes put it, “hollow”, and short-lived. Having traditional questing with long chains along wiht dynamic events would be a perfect match. Anet needs to do this!! They would compliment each other very well, because there is nothing unique about dynamic events. They arnt quests as much as they are a type of ambience to the zone. Look at the types of quests for example, i.e. “save the asura facility from the attack krait”. This is a type of event that makes sense to happen over and over and over again. Meta events make sense for areas that have ongoing struggles. Like in diessa plateau, the struggle between the charr mine and dredge. Its back and forth. DE’s are great for that.

HOWEVER! Certain areas of the game cannot be satisfied by DE’s. I’ll make somehting up. Say there is a quest line, maybe 8 quests long, takes an hour to complete. The plot is about reuniting a certain person, perhaps a refugee, with someone he lost during the attacks, maybe his wife. We go through a series of investigations in different zones, maybe interrogate some molten alliance, and then finally get to his wife, and they reunite. At the end we get some type of unique prize, maybe the refugee has ties to hoelbrak and he hooks us up!! That makes sense for a traditional quests, not a DE. DE’s are repetetive and meant to be. Can you imagine how stupid that would be if we keep saving this guys wife over and over again. That makes no sense!!! Thats why we need traditional quests, or missoins if thats what u wanna call them.

JJL.2719:

@ yramrag -No not really it doesnt branch out to another quest or have any real depth to it or story or something you learn about the person or place like a real quest would have.

There are several quests that lead into other quest/events. Not talking about just boss pre events.

Either way its somethin that needs to be brought attention to from anet. Even if we have to call them “missions” because the word “traditional quest” isnt part of anets gw2 philosophy lol.