Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Kill ten kobolds...in a row

Here's a thought experiment - what if you took the 'kill ten kobolds' quests and made it's count reset if you 'die' before compleating it?

Arguably one could say you might die and die and die on a single kobold, thus that's about skill. But on observation your chance of death come from multiple encounters in a row, so really if you can beat one you will eventually get the whole ten.

But NOT if your quest count resets on death. Maybe your not good enough to do ten in a row?

Or atleast there's more tension there as you get to the end, rather than the usual feeling of 'Almost done with this crap'. Or atleast that's what I feel.

And here's an interesting side thought - what if A: if you get the ten and die before turning it in, your count doesn't reset Vs B: If you get the ten and die before turning it in, your count does reset.

I think they both say very different things about play. With A you've just got to beat the ten. Turning it in is just paper work, so to speak. While with B getting back to the quest giver is vital - though with the traditional mmorpg model, it's typically an anti climax as there is very little conflict on the way back. It'd be like beating a big bad ogre...but then you have to step on a half dead gobo to get the treasure - and stepping on him takes several minutes.

Anyway, I think a reset would add more tension to play. It'd probably also alienate people who want mmorpg 'play' to be like work, boring and predictable reward to look forward to. But I don't like to encourage that anyway.

2 comments:

  1. I'd not want that for every quest... but it would indeed be a nice option for some, or a way to earn better rewards. I like the idea of rewarding skill.

    That said, rewarding skill in a game where you can outlevel challenge is kind of a pointless notion.

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  2. It'd depend if you short circuited it and let gear entirely determine the event. I wouldn't call that pointless, I'd call that a design stuff up?

    Also, do you remember way at the start/noob area of wow, there was this timed quest you had to do. Upon first encountering it I thought 'Ahhh, latter on they'll up the pressure with time requirements!'

    And they never used timed quests ever again...

    It's like looking at a remnant of a design direction they abandoned entirely.

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