Guild Wars 2

Please ANet, do some Quests like they’re described in the youtube videos
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(Channel of “Extra Credits” about good quest design)

You’re on the right way with the living world and the events instead of old killX-, fetchY-quests. But why not going this one step beyond, and do some world-quests with hidden hints and hard to find stories. These have to be found by really looking close to the world, talking to people, combining information, finding artifacts by chance and so on.

You once said, that you don’t want the player to find himself in a treadmill with kill10rats quests. Instead now the player is continously rushing through events and POIs without even looking at what he is doing. That cannot be the right way to play this beautiful game. Give players another reason (besides the beautiful artwork) to have a closer look at what you created here.

I love your idea of events and the living world. And as far as I can see, there hasn’t to be done much at the game mechanics for these worldwide quests. Just some storywriting, and some graphics change… voila, there you have a new way to keep players having fun.

They do though there no trun in the “quest” in GW2 make you want to explore to the next hart. The harts are only there because when the game was in beta ppl did not know where to go so they added these in to move ppl. There was been quest like the one they talk about in GW2 the mad kings quest from the first Halloween. The person story is a lot like these too they make you want to go all over the world as more of a means to get you to explore then just to kill mobs. Now if you explored every thing before doing the PS then the quest may seem less but the ideal of the PS was for ppl who are starting the game to teach you how to play and to teach you about the world your playing in.

I would love to see more quest like the first mad king one and more then likely they will add such things.

Wyvern.8416:

Instead now the player is continously rushing through events and POIs without even looking at what he is doing. That cannot be the right way to play this beautiful game. Give players another reason (besides the beautiful artwork) to have a closer look at what you created here.

The reason for that behavior isn’t how events are designed, but that many players still play for rewards rather than for the experience of playing. Which is pretty natural given the reward models the game offers.
Making more intricate, hidden quests doesn’t really help that. Either they don’t have worthwhile rewards, then hardly anyone will do them, or they do have worthwhile rewards, and don’t stay hidden for long.

The ideas in those videos are nice dreams, but they don’t scale up nicely with the actual player base of an MMO like GW2. That’s a core problem with this quest model in MMOs. They always seem cool for one player, but once you consider they need to facilitate millions of people, they just don’t make a lot of sense anymore.

Well, you are right. Once the quest series is solved for the first time, there will be a guide with a how-to-solve solution in the web. But that is fact for all riddles, jumping puzzles, boss mechanic and so on.
And there will always be those who do not want to solve it for themselves. Either because of the lack of time, or skill.

But thats not the reason why there shouldn’t be such quests in the game. Far from it! I have never seen a MMO with math-related-riddles or other things where you have to use your brain before I played GW.
Having riddles in the game like the described in the YT videos would only add to the feeling and the flavour. The living world is a step in this direction but with the yellow stars you always know where to go instead of finding out for yourself.