As a long term LOTRO player I do not at all have the same reaction. The quests and the lore are the best parts of the game and long and elaborate quests are some of the absolute best. The game emphatically does not need more "kill 10 rats" quests and fewer longer and fleshed out quests.
I would make a good bet that Grimseethe, like many of us, tried to solo the howling pit quest. That was a group quest that actually requires a group. More, it requires a special type of gear that otherwise is used only in one area - by the time players get to howling pit they often have upgraded and no longer have much or any of that gear.
These factors made the quest impossible for me and for many others to solo but that doesn't make it a bad quest. It means we were trying to do a group quest requiring special gear solo and without enough of that gear. Furthermore the quest is a one-off. It gives no special reward and is not needed to unlock any other content. I can be, usually should be, and almost always is ignored by most players. But with a real group properly geared it is a lot faster and doesn't seem so endless.
I, too, was a LOTRO player once upon a time - and I remember that quest. Dorotea is right.
Honestly - when it comes to quests and the like, players define tedium differently. Many people really seem to dislike quests that ask you to travel around and talk to different NPCs - even if the quest is doing that to *try* and tell you a story. Personally, I don't mind that at all, but I've seen lots of players in lots of games get ridiculously angry about it.
Sure, I have some pet peeves about quests. For example, when a quest asks me to kill things but doesn't ask me to bring back proof, that seems wrong. Is the NPC spying on me somehow? How does he know I did as he asked? And so on. I also don't like quests that feel tacked-on or don't really have a good explanation. In my mind, Quests are meant to be narratives - stories - and so there should be something to them.
As far as LOTRO goes, the biggest lesson we can learn from that game, I think, is not to implement a mechanic, require it for content and then abandon it later in an expansion without going back and changing the content. That's exactly what led to the issue with the Howling Pit quest, and they've made that same mistake a few times now if memory serves. Of course, other games have made that mistake as well.
I played LOTRO for about 30 minutes so I have no comment on that :)
The quests in WoW (most of them) are WAY to short and easy. To me those are more like "tasks." I have nothing against tasks but a quest is something that should take a long time to complete. Some quests should even take 10 levels to complete. I have no problem with having a quest in my quest log for 6 months while I try to find out how/where/what the next step is. In the meantime I can do shorter quests or even tasks. Just my preference :)
Side note: The M&M series had a decent quest system. You'd get a quest at level 10 that was impossible to complete until you were level 25, but to me it held the story together. I knew a long term goal that I was trying to accomplish while I worked on other short term goals.
Ranarius said:I played LOTRO for about 30 minutes so I have no comment on that :)
The quests in WoW (most of them) are WAY to short and easy. To me those are more like "tasks." I have nothing against tasks but a quest is something that should take a long time to complete. Some quests should even take 10 levels to complete. I have no problem with having a quest in my quest log for 6 months while I try to find out how/where/what the next step is. In the meantime I can do shorter quests or even tasks. Just my preference :)
Side note: The M&M series had a decent quest system. You'd get a quest at level 10 that was impossible to complete until you were level 25, but to me it held the story together. I knew a long term goal that I was trying to accomplish while I worked on other short term goals.
I'd agree that wow quests (or FFXIV) are chores and not quests. It's an incentitive to move from farming mobs to farming other, but also not to kill mobs before having quests are no quest item can drop or appear until that. I'd say it's just a soft way to give the impression that it's not a grind and close micro pleasure cycles for a drop of dopamine.
dorotea said:As a long term LOTRO player I do not at all have the same reaction. The quests and the lore are the best parts of the game and long and elaborate quests are some of the absolute best. The game emphatically does not need more "kill 10 rats" quests and fewer longer and fleshed out quests.
That.
Lotro ranks as N°1 on my "best MMO ever" tied with EQ.
And the reason is that Lotro is (or rather had been) a lore driven game if there ever was one. Moria is simply a jewel in that respect. Quests and instance mechanics belong certainly to its strengths. I do not expect Pantheon to achieve such a high level in these compartements because it looks more like EQ which had other strengths but quests or lore weren't it.
As for the Howling Pit mentionned by the OP, the fail was simply due to ignoring basic requirements. First this is a group instance so trying to do it solo or duo is not a good idea. Second it is (almost) easy with Light of Earendil gear what the players should find obvious after first few minutes of fight.
lutorin said:EQ which had other strengths but quests or lore weren't it.
That I do not agree. Eq had a wonderful yet hidden lore, that's the storytelling that wasn't advanced but honestly I don't like "storytelling driven games" because it doesn't promote curiosity and all lore is served on a plate.
lutorin said:dorotea said:As a long term LOTRO player I do not at all have the same reaction. The quests and the lore are the best parts of the game and long and elaborate quests are some of the absolute best. The game emphatically does not need more "kill 10 rats" quests and fewer longer and fleshed out quests.
That.
Lotro ranks as N°1 on my "best MMO ever" tied with EQ.
And the reason is that Lotro is (or rather had been) a lore driven game if there ever was one. Moria is simply a jewel in that respect. Quests and instance mechanics belong certainly to its strengths. I do not expect Pantheon to achieve such a high level in these compartements because it looks more like EQ which had other strengths but quests or lore weren't it.
As for the Howling Pit mentionned by the OP, the fail was simply due to ignoring basic requirements. First this is a group instance so trying to do it solo or duo is not a good idea. Second it is (almost) easy with Light of Earendil gear what the players should find obvious after first few minutes of fight.
Need to clear things up guys i didnt try to solo howling pit.
I'm not saying in any way i hate long quests or quests that need mechanics or things to unlock or whatever.
It's much more basic, the howling pit for example, the waves of enemis keep coming until all the fun is gone, same with epic battles, fun for about 5 minutes then more enemy waves appear, until youd rather leave than keep going.
My only point is for devs to realise when the fun stops, does this wave of enemies quest, need 20 waves of enemies or maybe just 8 waves of harder nemies.
Been playing mmos for 23 years please never tell me how to play them.
It's much more basic, the howling pit for example, the waves of enemis keep coming until all the fun is gone, same with epic battles, fun for about 5 minutes then more enemy waves appear, until youd rather leave than keep going.
My only point is for devs to realise when the fun stops, does this wave of enemies quest, need 20 waves of enemies or maybe just 8 waves of harder nemies.
That is just a really really hard thing to determine. Everyone has different opinions of how long is too long. Maybe 8 is perfect for you but too quick for someone else. Maybe 20 is too long for you, but perfect for someoen else. Finding a happy medium would be great, but maybe impossible. Having a variety of different types of quests might solve the problem...unless you're like me and you have a need to complete every quest you start, haha.