08-19-2018, 02:22 PM
So quests. Leaving aside writing the darn things you need to get players to actually and frequently do them or it's a waste of time. So first consider player motives for carrying out quests:
1. Rewards
2. Making interesting things happen.
3. Participating in an interesting story.
You also need to consider why players might not be interested.
a) Too repetitive.
b) Too difficult.
1. Rewards: The problem with rewards is getting the balance right, especially if there are already other ways of getting stuff. (Vote rewards, shops, jobs, etc.) Nobody is going to fetch 20 wolf pelts for a gold ingot if they can just mine a few minutes instead. But if you hand out a gold block for every rabbit pelt you're just going to stuff up the economy.
2. Making stuff happen: This is more technically challenging, but also more interesting. To throw an idea out, you could have local economies tied to NPC or PC villages. Local shops with a limited range of goods would have better, or worse, deals depending on the state of the local economy: Depressed < Stagnant < Average < Good < Thriving
Or you could have new NPC businesses open up at a location if a quest line is successfully completed. Like maybe a blacksmith could repair tools for a small cost but needs to be supplied with sufficient materials to open shop.
3. Interesting story: This is both the hardest to implement, and the biggest risk of failing. It's also hard to be both interesting, and be able to have multiple players take part possibly multiple
a. Repetitive: This is hard to gauge. Obviously less repetitive is good, but some players will happily grind basic stuff for weeks and find it relaxing while many others will refuse to do anything more than once. Fetch quests, hunt quests and delivery quests are probably the most infamous repetitive quests. The first level of alleviating this is to make sure that multiple NPCs have multiple needs at a bunch of places. And change them around frequently (maybe once a week). Depending on how the plugin works it should be possible to implement external variables in a database you can just re-generate randomly. Part of the interest would then be on tracking down where things are happening and working out your best strategies each time they change.
b. Difficult: If you have long quest chains some sort of journal system would be useful so people remember not just what they're doing but why. External hints and / or a wiki might be helpful, but if you spoil too much then it just makes things boring again.
Final thoughts
Probably the most effective way to implement quests is from the start as the central part of a new server. However you do it, it's going to take a great deal of effort to get something worthwhile.
1. Rewards
2. Making interesting things happen.
3. Participating in an interesting story.
You also need to consider why players might not be interested.
a) Too repetitive.
b) Too difficult.
1. Rewards: The problem with rewards is getting the balance right, especially if there are already other ways of getting stuff. (Vote rewards, shops, jobs, etc.) Nobody is going to fetch 20 wolf pelts for a gold ingot if they can just mine a few minutes instead. But if you hand out a gold block for every rabbit pelt you're just going to stuff up the economy.
2. Making stuff happen: This is more technically challenging, but also more interesting. To throw an idea out, you could have local economies tied to NPC or PC villages. Local shops with a limited range of goods would have better, or worse, deals depending on the state of the local economy: Depressed < Stagnant < Average < Good < Thriving
Or you could have new NPC businesses open up at a location if a quest line is successfully completed. Like maybe a blacksmith could repair tools for a small cost but needs to be supplied with sufficient materials to open shop.
3. Interesting story: This is both the hardest to implement, and the biggest risk of failing. It's also hard to be both interesting, and be able to have multiple players take part possibly multiple
a. Repetitive: This is hard to gauge. Obviously less repetitive is good, but some players will happily grind basic stuff for weeks and find it relaxing while many others will refuse to do anything more than once. Fetch quests, hunt quests and delivery quests are probably the most infamous repetitive quests. The first level of alleviating this is to make sure that multiple NPCs have multiple needs at a bunch of places. And change them around frequently (maybe once a week). Depending on how the plugin works it should be possible to implement external variables in a database you can just re-generate randomly. Part of the interest would then be on tracking down where things are happening and working out your best strategies each time they change.
b. Difficult: If you have long quest chains some sort of journal system would be useful so people remember not just what they're doing but why. External hints and / or a wiki might be helpful, but if you spoil too much then it just makes things boring again.
Final thoughts
Probably the most effective way to implement quests is from the start as the central part of a new server. However you do it, it's going to take a great deal of effort to get something worthwhile.
