[Suggestion] Open-world Questing

We have

• events,
• story missions,
• adventures,
• races.

What GW2 is missing in my opinion is some classic questing (we had a few rudimental quests for Halloween 2013 and 2017, and on other occasions, but nothing permanent). How much fun it would be then to just roam the world (e.g., old core Tyrian maps), run into an Commoner (NPC) in the fields or in a tavern or wherever and hear a story with some hints that will send you on a quest!

There could be about twenty or thirty of those NPCs scattered around the known inhabited world that would give you different quests (with other NPCs involved, of course, in the progress of each quest). There could be a weekly rotation with a handful of quest NPCs per week (or a daily element of randomness), and they would be repeatable (let's say, once per month).

I am aware that this would require an additional "Quest Team" to take care of, but I believe it would be worth it. I really miss that element of "adventuring into the unknown" in GW2. We have had glimpses of this RPG style (last I remember when we were send on the quest to obtain three legendary weapons, which were the skins designed by the design contest winners), but having it as a fully-fledged game elements would be fantastic IMO.

I think that ANet threw the baby out with the bath water when reinventing open world content design for gw2. I think that traditional questing can be a great way to deliver story.

Iirc, there are several types of quests in MMO's: escort; defend; fetch; kill; and deliver (aka FEDEX). In any game I've played, quests can be broken down into one of those types. Those game tasks appear in dynamic events, hearts, and the GW2 story. Thankfully, there are not so many FEDEX tasks in GW2 as I've seen elsewhere.

Ashen's point about story being delivered via quests is well taken. ANet has chosen to deliver story through the Story Instances in episodes and expansions. Occasionally, there are some story elements delivered via things that look a lot like quests, as Ashantara says. What I'm wondering, though, is whether a quest system would just be another version of what's already in the game.

One thing I hope would not happen is what I recently experienced in the FF14 trial. Once the "new game" smell wore off (at about level 21), the old familiar feeling that here was another MMO seeking to waste my time with the usual "time-wasting" quests. While I found some of the story elements to be more engaging than those I found in WoW's quests, there was far too much, "Go here and talk to this guy who needs help killing X." and little sense of actually being in a story.

The original GW presented its story with a combination of story missions and bridging quests. That, so far, has been the best use of quests I've seen in an online game. Sadly, I have not found the story missions in GW2 to be as interesting or engaging. Ommv, of course.

@"Ashen.2907" said:I think that ANet threw the baby out with the bath water when reinventing open world content design for gw2. I think that traditional questing can be a great way to deliver story.

Since we don't get this for the main story, I don't see why my suggestion could not be implemented as additional content, like I suggested. As mentioned, we already have had rudimental "tradional quests" on several occasions. :)

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:Iirc, there are several types of quests in MMO's: escort; defend; fetch; kill; and deliver (aka FEDEX).

You did not read my OP thoroughly. What I suggest is real quests that lead you across the globe (or at least several maps), with NPC involvement that provides you with hints, searches and investigation, adventure. Not boring A-to-B map events. Also, doesn't have anything to do with the main story and will make roaming old maps a lot more fun, because you never know what you might discover.

I think we already have that to some degree ... We have all the current events things, we have the legendary quests if you wish to craft a legendary (or even if you don't and just want to do the quests), we have the sunken treasure quest. There's probably way more I'm missing. We could use more of it though .. and I have no doubt that slowly, Anet will continue to add these things as they have in the past. I think the main concern is the value it brings to players and how it would be regarded as new content. The question is just how much should be added at what interval. I suspect the current rate is the most sustainable.

@"Obtena.7952" said:I think we already have that to some degree ... We have all the current events things, we have the legendary quests if you wish to craft a legendary (or even if you don't and just want to do the quests), we have the sunken treasure quest.

Sorry, but those are not "quests" in the book of any serious fantasy game player. It contains no story on its own, no discoveries "on the fly" when you roam a map, and a lot of it is mostly grinding or killing things. That's not traditional questing. It's sad that all the answers so far are trying to convince me that "we already have that", which we don't.

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:I think we already have that to some degree ... We have all the current events things, we have the legendary quests if you wish to craft a legendary (or even if you don't and just want to do the quests), we have the sunken treasure quest.

Well, you do have to recognize that Anet does seem to go out of their way to provide a non-tradtional approach to the game and it is one of the attractions it has to people who are tired of that traditional approach. I would argue that the things I pointed out ... some actually DO have a story on their own and if you don't read Dulfy, you DO discover them on your own when you roam a map. They just do quests 'GW2-style', not 'insert-traditional MMO-style'.

Not trying to convince you of anything to be fair; just pointing out that we do have 'quests'. They just aren't the way you imagine them being implemented. I do think it would be nice to have more things like you are saying, but to say GW2 doesn't do things like that isn't accurate.

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:Iirc, there are several types of quests in MMO's: escort; defend; fetch; kill; and deliver (aka FEDEX).

OK, but at some point in any MMO quest, player characters need to interact with the game. They have to do things that the game can monitor so that they can be credited with completing a stage of the quest. How would what you want differ from what MMO's traditionally offer as quests? At the base level (center of the onion), interacting with the game boils down to a few very simple things.

A scavenger hunt (which your explanation, above, suggests, presumably as one option) is a fetch quest with some skull work required to figure out where to go. A quest to find who is doing bad thing X, and resolve the problem would be a kill quest (complete with a boss), with some more skull work needed.

It sounds like what you'd like is standard quests (nuts and bolts behind-the-scenes wise) that are more involved than usual, with (hopefully) more thought required than usual -- laced with some interesting side stories. I'd be very much in favor of that. I'd especially be in favor of GW2 challenging my mind a lot more than it does.

Funny thing about that, though. The Secret World tried something like that. They even built a web browser into the game so players could research clues online. After not that far into the game, if you typed in a string that was central to the quest you were researching, the first several entries were walk-throughs of that Secret World Quest. Despite that, I thought their quests and story were top-notch. ANet could have learned quite a bit from them. Pity they did not. Pity also that so many gamers seem mostly interested in: the reward chase; decompressing from RL with some button-mashing; and/or getting through things as quickly as possible.

OK, you have my support for your request. Much good that that will do us.

/cynicism off

quests add story, purpose to a large portion of the map and let you discover things you would otherwise miss.GW2 only has ether the painfully boring hearts which go dead the moment you did it, events that are basically shared timed tasks which can get seriously hamper an experience and achievements which is basically a quest but without any story or purpose.

ESO does questing really well, leading you to areas of the map you would simply walk past, where the story is quite an in-depth experience and NPC's are placed differently to continue the story.if GW2 has something similar it would fill tyria with the much needed lore and story GW2 lacks greatly.

at any time a game depends on sites like dulfy or wiki it fails to deliver, GW2 does exactly that and it needs to change.

Events = Questing.All the elements you've asked for are there in game already. It's just delivered somewhat differently, perhaps so the seemingly 90% of the gaming-population that like to steamroll through tedious questing can. But you can still find the story/dialogue and the interaction, you just have to want to. It's not spoon fed to you.

@Reverielle.3972 said:Events = Questing.All the elements you've asked for are there in game already. It's just delivered somewhat differently, perhaps so the seemingly 90% of the gaming-population that like to steamroll through tedious questing can. But you can still find the story/dialogue and the interaction, you just have to want to. It's not spoon fed to you.

ok, so where can i find side stories that leads to something i would never go to?after more than 6 years i have yet to find even one single thing that does that so i will be waiting for this.

The major issue with traditional questing is thata) As IndigoSundown.5419 said quests in MMORPGs boil down to FEDEX quests and those are done in a much superior way through dynamic events. I honestly don't want to do another fetch, escort, defend, eliminate or deliver quest in an MMORPG ever again, been spoiled by the superior system. Even if these quests you are asking for have "story", all will result to the above types in the end in terms of gameplay. Just like in other MMORPGs were they do the same thing with only difference being a giant wall of text that provide "context", that nobody reads, and simply click the accept button. Then go and finish the FEDEX quest of their choice following quest markers.

b) The second major problem is that "quests" aren't multiplayer-friendly unless they are instanced like the personal story, or introduce heavy phasing that causes all sorts of different problems, like your friends fighting mobs that are invisible/invulnerable to you or worse having to pull levers to open doors on your own, even though you are in a group and someone else already did it. So unless they make these "quests" work like the personal story, parts of the story journal with "side quests" then I don't see it working in a game that is about playing together, instead of how other MMORPGs do it, a game where you play a single player experience with some random people around you.

@"sorudo.9054" said:ok, so where can i find side stories that leads to something i would never go to?

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but lots of event chains lead you to places you wouldn't normally go, with a big difference compared to "quests" that the npcs move with you and other players don't have to wait for the quest to finish in order to restart it, instead they can join in at any point and get rewarded. For example, there is this fisherman in Queensdale that will lead you to a cave to gather grubs to make fish bait, something you wouldn't normally do unless you follow her in the cave.

Almost the entire Heart of Thorns is built that way too. Following the events around camps in Verdant Brink, outposts in Aurin Basin and camps in Tangled Depths, will lead you to places you would rarely go to, or go only for map completion otherwise. If you pay attention to the NPCs talking they provide context you don't need walls of text to provide it. But maybe that's me being sick of walls of text and endless boring dialogues that in the end lead to the exact same type of gameplay.

@"maddoctor.2738" said:The major issue with traditional questing is thata) As IndigoSundown.5419 said quests in MMORPGs boil down to FEDEX quests and those are done in a much superior way through dynamic events. I honestly don't want to do another fetch, escort, defend, eliminate or deliver quest in an MMORPG ever again, been spoiled by the superior system. Even if these quests you are asking for have "story", all will result to the above types in the end in terms of gameplay. Just like in other MMORPGs were they do the same thing with only difference being a giant wall of text that provide "context", that nobody reads, and simply click the accept button. Then go and finish the FEDEX quest of their choice following quest markers.

that's all subjective, i find the events inferior in every way.they are constantly in the way, can't be controlled, have a neck on popping up when really no one wants to and adds nothing much to the world.better yet, events get predictable and repeat way to fast to be enjoyable, they don't make you feel like you achieved anything, more like you run around for no reason at all.help someone defend a farm and 30 minutes later the same exact thing happens, a quests at least keeps the farm save making you feel great about doing that.

@"sorudo.9054" said:help someone defend a farm and 30 minutes later the same exact thing happens, a quests at least keeps the farm save making you feel great about doing that.

No it doesn't keep the farm safe, that only happens in single player games. When the next player goes there the farm will be attacked again but the farmer will not ask for your help again because you already finished that part. At least with the dynamic event you can join in and help the farm at any point, without having to talk to an NPC first. I'll take a dynamic world with events that repeat over a single player experience that nothing really change around you, even though it tries to maintain an illusion that it does. And let's not get started when you want to play with your friends, you must make sure you are on the same quest part, otherwise it won't work. See that person escorting an NPC? You can't join in and help with the escort, you must wait for the escort to finish, then wait for the NPC to respawn at the starting point, talk to them to start the quest, with your "story" wall of text dialogue exposition, rinse repeat.

Quests work in single player games, but not in MMORPGs, they make the world look boring and stale. Hey look you finished all the quests in the city, now apparently for the rest of time, nothing bad will ever happen in that city. This is why all those MMORPGs have quest hubs that you move from one to the next one and then forget the old hub even exists. This isn't a game that you forget the old world, instead it's a game were playing in old zones is rewarded. With a quest system, old zones simply have zero replay value, you've already done the quests there.

I get that you don't like the repeating nature of events, but that's what keeps the world alive and relevant and not a one-time experience.

Will always bring up Knight of the Thorn. Will want the Current Events team to becoming big enough to add something similar between each Living World release.

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:Will always bring up Knight of the Thorn.

That was short, but sweet indeed. Exactly what I am thinking of, only a bit more elaborate and expansive, perhaps with more investigative labor in the player's side. :)

Will want the Current Events team to becoming big enough to add something similar between each Living World release.

:+1:

@Reverielle.3972 said:Events = Questing.

Nope. :-1:

@sorudo.9054 said:that's all subjective, i find the events inferior in every way.they are constantly in the way, can't be controlled, have a neck on popping up when really no one wants to and adds nothing much to the world.better yet, events get predictable and repeat way to fast to be enjoyable, they don't make you feel like you achieved anything, more like you run around for no reason at all.help someone defend a farm and 30 minutes later the same exact thing happens, a quests at least keeps the farm save making you feel great about doing that.

So much this! <3

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:help someone defend a farm and 30 minutes later the same exact thing happens, a quests at least keeps the farm save making you feel great about doing that.

@"sorudo.9054" said:at any time a game depends on sites like dulfy or wiki it fails to deliver, GW2 does exactly that and it needs to change.You only need Dulfy or the wiki if you don't want to discover the story for yourself, and you miss a huge part of the story if you rely on those sites. Not that it's much different in other games, you can google any of the major (and probably the minor, too) games out there and find solutions to get through quests without even reading what's going on most of the time.

I've played every major quest chain in ESO, many of them several times (as you miss out on much needed character progression if you don't do them all on each character), and I still can't tell you half of the stories going on in that game. In GW2 on the other hand where I can discover the story on my own terms, I have so many stories, big and small, to share. Ask any of my friends and guildies, whenever we play together, there's always places and npcs, no matter if story mission, open world, dungeon, or whatever, that sets me off on a monologue recounting all the story attached to it and the different parts of the game connected to it.

GW2 story is a huge jigsaw puzzle. It's not on rails like most similar games that deliver story mostly through static quests. Rather, there's bits and pieces all over the place that you can discover and piece together on your own. All of the open world maps have stories that tie their areas and npcs together, some big, some small. The whole world lives, and keeps living whether you help to hurry it along or not. It's not like ESO where you do a quest and then the npc keeps static, congratulating you each time you come by for saving them ages ago, but they go along their way and keep living their lives (which in the case of events means that tomorrow you might stumble upon those traders and their pack dolyak again and have to defend them from trolls again ... or not, depending on whether the event is on when you come along next time ;) ).

Have you ever found an energy crystal in Metrica Province and used it to open and explore Oola's laboratory and discover all of her notes on her work?

Have you ever helped the Charr of Scalecatch Village to gather devourer eggs , helped Sentinel Scalebrusher train and escort the hatched devours, in turn motivating Sentinel Whiptail to tame a siege devour and ultimately use it to kill the branded devourer queen ?

The more recent maps, starting with the Heart of Maguuma, are even more densely packed with stories great and small, culminating in maps like Dragon's Stand, which is one big story that ties in with that part of the Heart of Thorns personal story. If you want story, it is there in this game in abundance. You just have to go and look for it yourself, instead of relying on sites like Dulfy and the wiki to technically let you "win" the game while missing the majority of the story within.

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:help someone defend a farm and 30 minutes later the same exact thing happens, a quests at least keeps the farm save making you feel great about doing that.

with a new character that farm was never saved, you just got there.

I've played every major quest chain in ESO, many of them several times (as you miss out on much needed character progression if you don't do them all on each character), and I still can't tell you half of the stories going on in that game. In GW2 on the other hand where I can discover the story on my own terms, I have so many stories, big and small, to share. Ask any of my friends and guildies, whenever we play together, there's always places and npcs, no matter if story mission, open world, dungeon, or whatever, that sets me off on a monologue recounting all the story attached to it and the different parts of the game connected to it.

i never got attached to any of the stories, they are so lose that they can just as much not be in the world.when i play a game i like to experience the story and even while LW stories do exactly that, it's the exact opposite of what an MMO stands for.

GW2 story is a huge jigsaw puzzle. It's not on rails like most similar games that deliver story mostly through static quests. Rather, there's bits and pieces all over the place that you can discover and piece together on your own. All of the open world maps have stories that tie their areas and npcs together, some big, some small. The whole world lives, and keeps living whether you help to hurry it along or not. It's not like ESO where you do a quest and then the npc keeps static, congratulating you each time you come by for saving them ages ago, but they go along their way and keep living their lives (which in the case of events means that tomorrow you might stumble upon those traders and their pack dolyak again and have to defend them from trolls again ... or not, depending on whether the event is on when you come along next time ;) ).

that's not called a jigsaw, that's called inconsistency.a story is told like a book where you have a start, a middle and an end.not a story where you might ever see something happen and have to gather more pieces of the story to understand the whole, ending up being a story where you already started somewhere at the end and gathered pieces already spoiled. (like watching a DVD but the scenes are on shuffle)

i like watching movies and reading a good book, Anet devs need to do the same to learn how stories are done properly.

@sorudo.9054 said:i like watching movies and reading a good book, Anet devs need to do the same to learn how stories are done properly.

This is not a movie or a book this is an online game and telling stories in online games is different than telling them in other forms of media. It's the other way around, the other developers need to learn from GW2 on how to present a story in an MMORPG.

I'm not surprised by some of the comments here. As 90% of the population just seam-roll through events, and don't take the time to understand what they're about, their backstory, their relevance to the goings on in that zone/group-of-zones etc etc. A classic example of this is when players dash off when one event is completed, when it's perfectly clear to everyone that it's part of a chain and there are more events to follow, one just has to listen to what the NPCs are saying and doing. Another example are players saying 'where do we go now' or 'what do we do now' when the NPC just finished saying exactly where to go and what to do, or players saying 'any events?' when an NPC is standing right next to them trying to get their attention.

After 8,000 hours of in-game time these facts never cease to amaze me. Of course everyone is free to play how they want, but why some seem to overlook content in the game only to come to the forums and complain that that content is lacking? Oh well. For me this game is full of great stories and story-arcs, however you do have to put the smallest of effort in to find them, the way they are delivered is just a little different, but don't let that put you off, or think that they don't exist.

@Reverielle.3972 said:I'm not surprised by some of the comments here. As 90% of the population just seam-roll through events, and don't take the time to understand what they're about, their backstory, their relevance to the goings on in that zone/group-of-zones etc etc. A classic example of this is when players dash off when one event is completed, when it's perfectly clear to everyone that it's part of a chain and there are more events to follow, one just has to listen to what the NPCs are saying and doing. Another example are players saying 'where do we go now' or 'what do we do now' when the NPC just finished saying exactly where to go and what to do, or players saying 'any events?' when an NPC is standing right next to them trying to get their attention.

After 8,000 hours of in-game time these facts never cease to amaze me. Of course everyone is free to play how they want, but why some seem to overlook content in the game only to come to the forums and complain that that content is lacking? Oh well. For me this game is full of great stories and story-arcs, however you do have to put the smallest of effort in to find them, the way they are delivered is just a little different, but don't let that put you off, or think that they don't exist.

Only thing i wish this game did was add something to find out about the lore of some of the places that didnt exist in GW1 but dont have really anything to do at them.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:i like watching movies and reading a good book, Anet devs need to do the same to learn how stories are done properly.

@sorudo.9054 said:i like watching movies and reading a good book, Anet devs need to do the same to learn how stories are done properly.

hah, nice jokes there buddy, love the sarcasm....wait...you're serious?oh boy....

There are actually some things I'd count as side quests. Specificly some hidden / unusual achievement lines. The Druid Stone and then that side thing in Sirens Landing where you find parts of the diary of that one sylvari. There's also side stories. Wouldnt these count as quests?