Quest Text - Keep it short and entertaining. Spread it out among multiple NPCs.

[Loekii]

While I enjoy the stories of Quests, the often come in the form of a long winded page of story, which tends to just get skimmed or ignored.

Imo, Quest text should be a few short comments, rather than 3 or 4 paragraphs.

I think the information can be better imparted, via other means, rather than having just one npc spout out a monologue of information.

In STO, rather than have a single hail spit out 3 paragraphs about a stranded ship, what its carring, how it got stranded, where it might be, etc, you break it up into smaller bits of information:

The Initial hail
Your Science officer
Your Comm Officer
Your Science Officer again.


Thus, what normally would have been 3 paragraphs of information appearing in the quest window, become 4 smaller bits from different sources as you move towards the destination.

[Varrangian]

Quest text is perhaps the hardest thing to do correctly in an MMO, and I do not believe any MMO has perfected it.

I agree that the text itself should be broken down into short comments, 1-2 sentences at most. The other suggestion I have is that, the Journal feature is a great place to allow for non-essential quest information. That way those who want the deeper details can get them, but those who do not are not faced with the choice of either skipping the quest text or reading all of it. The journal really does allow for a "middle ground".

[USS_Parallax]

What? Who wants less story? I want more text. Though it's always important to give the ability to skip or speed it up greatly.

[Tamgros]

Based on what I saw in the demo, I think the flavor text comes more in this form than in one long wall-o-text.

In fact, it seemed like info was given in such a way that flavor text and necessary mission info were one and the same. You simply had what was going on, and everything was clear. That's part of the beauty of the episodic mission content. You don't have 10 active quests, you have one active mission and all the info about it matters in some way. You also are delivered info through hails and other types of communication that allow you to be on the move when you receive them and respond so reading them doesn't delay you from taking part in the mission, it's something to do in travel time...

Episodic missions are a brilliant idea. I hope they can expand the idea to allow more variability, right now they are pretty directed, but it's still miles beyond most MMOs. It's a great base, hopefully they can throw in some wrinkles to help it compete with the epic amounts of content and story we will see in SWTOR (aka, the game that's trying to be an MMO but is really just a single player RPG with people who happen to be playing on the same server :p)

[Varrangian]

Based on what I saw in the demo, I think the flavor text comes more in this form than in one long wall-o-text.

In fact, it seemed like info was given in such a way that flavor text wasn't really needed, you simply had what was going on, and everything was clear. That's part of the beauty of the episodic mission content. You don't have 10 active quests, you have one active mission.

Episodic missions were a brilliant idea. I hope they can expand the idea to allow more variability, right now they are pretty directed, but it's still miles beyond most MMOs. It's a great base, hopefully they can throw in some wrinkles to help it compete with the epic amounts of content and story we will see in SWTOR (aka, the game that's trying to be an MMO but is really just a single player RPG with people who happen to be playing on the same server :p)

Good to hear that it came off this way in the demo.

And though it is off topic, I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks SWTOR is just a glorified standalone RPG.

[williams.blaine]

That's a good point. I find myself skipping through big long text screens even if I'm really interested in the story. It's just more interesting when the information is broken up among different people. It turns what was orginally a long boring speech into an interesting dialog between you, your BOs, and the NPCs. It's all about immersion. Although, I'm sure the devs at Cryptic already know this....

[Tamgros]

Good to hear that it came off this way in the demo.

And though it is off topic, I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks SWTOR is just a glorified standalone RPG.

I changed my comment a bit to dress it up appropriately and stress things. But yeah SWTOR looks like a game with amazing amounts of content (equivalent to 8 KOTORs), but all that content is single player, the only group aspect is "you can invite your friend to take part in your mission". How lame is that? That's even worse than having your friend come over and coop in halo or L4D. That's right, SWTOR sounds like it has worse group mechanics than FPSs... I'm sure SWTOR will have MMO aspects, especially for end game, but not for the basic content.

That's where I think STO could capitalize (because I doubt STO will have as much content, how could they?). Cryptic, give us an MMO, give use player directed content, give us a universe with other people... :)

[Beladan]

Whilst this is totally a matter of opinion, I'd much rather have a block'o'text in one place than needing to spend time running all over to get the same text, merely chopped up - especially if there is no real substance or reward to be gained by making the journey.

I like the idea posted here that in conversation you might get a summary with a "I'll upload the details to your PADD." approach.

[HittingSmoke]

Quest text is perhaps the hardest thing to do correctly in an MMO, and I do not believe any MMO has perfected it.

I agree that the text itself should be broken down into short comments, 1-2 sentences at most. The other suggestion I have is that, the Journal feature is a great place to allow for non-essential quest information. That way those who want the deeper details can get them, but those who do not are not faced with the choice of either skipping the quest text or reading all of it. The journal really does allow for a "middle ground".

I agree. I'd hate for every quest giver to spout out a philosophical lecture of Picard proportions. I can accept that from major story essential quest lines here and there, but every little mission like in WoW it just gets obnoxious. I love story content, but in WoW having a small page of text to read every step in a quest just makes me lose patients and start to skip things.

[Varrangian]

Whilst this is totally a matter of opinion, I'd much rather have a block'o'text in one place than needing to spend time running all over to get the same text, merely chopped up - especially if there is no real substance or reward to be gained by making the journey.

I like the idea posted here that in conversation you might get a summary with a "I'll upload the details to your PADD." approach.

I do not see how you'd have to "make a journey". My understanding is that while in your ship it will be in 3rd person view (unless in a mission portion that requires interiors), and that your bridge crew will popup from time to time in this view to give you details. So there is not running around talking to them.

[knightofhyrule730]

as long as there are no "hey im too lazy to walk 10 feet down the road. give NPC X this box of chocolate for me" fedex quests i will read as much quest paragraphs as cryptic wants.

[Commander_Nate]

Personally I like reading a backstory to a quest or mission. I think it adds to immersion.

If you don't want to though, you shouldn't have to.

[knightofhyrule730]

Personally I like reading a backstory to a quest or mission. I think it adds to immersion.

If you don't want to though, you shouldn't have to.

agreed. the way that WoW now does it is correct.

Originally they forced you to read the entire quest (or at least watch the words scroll onto the screen) before you could hit accept. Sometimes this sucked because you were in the middle of combat, or were running against a clock :3

There was a mod, however, that broke WoW's quest system and just displayed all the text as soon as the quest box opened, allowing you to hit accept instantly. Eventually Blizzard adapted this into their game, and allowed for a toggle so that you could either have it all display instantly or just sit there and read it all. im pretty sure most people use the instant.

however, even if you choose instant, its not like you cant go back and read the quest while youre traveling.

back to topic:

if they do have long paragraphs of text, they should at least do what wow does and give you the basics "go here and do X" above the quest so you know exactly what you are doing instantly, without having to read through the NPC chatter.

[Loekii]

Personally I like reading a backstory to a quest or mission. I think it adds to immersion.

If you don't want to though, you shouldn't have to.


My point is not that they should shorten the immersion of the story, but rather that it can be presenting in better ways than big W'oText Picard Monologues.

An example is simply looking at the Series. Most of the time, the story is being told from multiple sources, rather than one person standing there describing everything. Usually it comes in the form of one character says something, then another adds to it, then another adds to you. I mean even in the 'summary captains log' vo's after commercial break, it is just a quick few comments, and then immediately back into the story itself.


In CO they provide a 'SUMMARY', which basically tells you 'Go here and Do X'.

What I am suggesting is to find ways to shorten up the Quest text:

so you do not Need that summary
Spread out the Back Story among mulitple sources/characters (for example your BOs adding in parts as you travel).


Imo, it creates better immersion, because fewer people are skimming over the text --- like HittingSmoke, liquidblaino and myself.

[JacobFlowers]

And here is my reason why: for most MMO's it is kill xxx rats, fetch xxx amount of cheese balls, or escort winnie the poo to his honey jar. So essentially everything is blah blah blah, especially wow.

I propose a SIMPLE CHANGE that would make STO more immersive and actually make the quest text MATTER regardless of length:

MAKE EPISODIC CONTENT INTERACTIVE!!!

If I am stopped by a Gorn cruiser for this reason and that, it would be IDEAL if I have multiple ways that I can respond which will effect the outcome. That to me would be amazing. This makes reading the quest text almost a necessity ( in order to decide how to react/respond.)

Is development like this even possible on a large scale I wonder?

[Varrangian]

And here is my reason why: for most MMO's it is kill xxx rats, fetch xxx amount of cheese balls, or escort winnie the poo to his honey jar. So essentially everything is blah blah blah, especially wow.

I propose a SIMPLE CHANGE that would make STO more immersive and actually make the quest text MATTER regardless of length:

MAKE EPISODIC CONTENT INTERACTIVE!!!

If I am stopped by a Gorn cruiser for this reason and that, it would be IDEAL if I have multiple ways that I can respond which will effect the outcome. That to me would be amazing. This makes reading the quest text almost a necessity ( in order to decide how to react/respond.)

Is development like this even possible on a large scale I wonder?

SWTOR would like you to believe so, but if you look at the reality of that game it is not a true MMO. It is a single player RPG with some MMO content.

At this point I do not believe that dialog having an implication for the outcome of a mission is viable, in every mission. There is no reason why some missions can't have something like this, but to make a situation where it would be viable in every encounter would be more than I think is possible currently.

Sadly I agree that the quest writing for MMO's is horrendous. Then again, I think the writing for NWN2 one of my favorite single player RPG's was pretty terrible, but the game play was still great. Even Mass Effect dialog could be painful at times.