There has to be a happy medium between XP camps and quest hubs. Going from EverQuest to Tera involved some serious culture shock and I'm not sure it's 100% necessary for that to be the case. I'm not a professional game designer or lore writer, so I'm not pretending I can do the job better than the pros, but I have a few ideas that I believe would improve on the quest hub system.
I've never heard anyone say they prefer quest hubs and turn ins to going out and killing mobs, but then again, it could be the circles I run in. I am just getting real tired of having to spend half my time in game riding around from NPC to NPC vs actually using my abilities.
I'd prefer to explore for the perfect camp for my level, kill a bunch of stuff with friends and then stop when the xp dwindles. In games like EverQuest that could be weeks. Then again, the XP came way more slowly in older games and zones would have very wide level ranges.
The alternative that has been presented in recent games is Quest Hubs. These are groups of NPCs that offer quests that give you gear, gold, and XP. These lead you from hub to hub and eventually from zone to zone while rewarding you for completing tasks. This is the way you are expected to level in Tera from 0 to 20.
So, why isn't there a hybrid of the two?
The most basic change that could be put in place would be to have the quest come AFTER you find the drop. This would be like picking up gnoll fangs and seeing they are NODROP LORE items and googling where they get turned in... only take out the googling part and have a quest pop when you pick up an item/kill a specific mob/go someplace special/etc. I'd even go so far as to give you a "quest bag" that quest items would go into and a skill similar to identify that would give you an idea of what to do with it. Identify "a gnoll fang" and it says "You've heard rumors that Captain Tillian rewards young adventurers well for trophies such as these. Go see him in Qeynos above the arena once you have collected enough to catch his attention. 1/4 fangs. Trivial at level 10" At 4 fangs, "I bet Captain Tillian will be quite pleased with this haul." At 5, your quest would update to 5/4. At 8 it would say 8/4, etc. You could stay in the cave killing gnolls as long as you wanted to and get all the rewards at the end. At least that way you'd be exploring for just the right place to kill mobs and when you found it there'd be rewards for you to clean up once you were tired of grinding mobs to death. It would also add incentive to killing random stuff you find in your travels. "I wonder what that named mob drops? Think he might start a cool quest?" As it stands in Tera, if I see a mob in a new zone that isn't marked as being part of a quest I avoid it because I know killing it will be a part of a quest later.
Another thing that could be done would be to condense the quests down to a minimal amount. Instead of having 2 quests where one tells you to kill rats in the sewers and another that tells you to kill ghosts in the sewers... have one quest that's kill rats and ghosts in the sewers. There's no value added by clicking on 10 NPCs instead of 1 NPC. You could add more text to one conversation if the lore is the issue. I feel like making rats and ghosts their own quests is just stretching the time required instead of making it a great experience. A single NPC with kill quests for a zone could work on its own. Picture this being something like a hunt master in a forest telling you all the types of hides that he'd like help gathering and giving you a massive list of all the mobs in the forest. Then you could actually get some exploration in and get to know the area a little bit instead of spending half your time on a horse running from dot to dot.
I would even be okay with there being category linked NPCs in every major city that would give out "quests" similar to bounty boards. See the sheriff for information on wanted criminals. See the hunt master for animal targets. See the necromancer for undead... etc etc etc. That way you could get to know the people in town and then forget about town all together until you're ready to go back because you're done for the night, you're ready to move on, etc.
This could be tied more closely to the lore and positioned in a way that made more sense than just a random mob class quest hub. Picture a town that has a bandit problem and they are at the point of full blown war. General Whatever says, "The bandits have become bold. They have begun setting up camps in the open in plain view of the city walls! They need to be taught a lesson. If you are right for the job, then start driving them back!" Then that quest giver would be interested in anything you could do to push back bandits. You'd have a quest like "The Bandit War" and it would have goals like burn encampments, kill bandits, take out bandit officers, etc. This sounds like common sense, but with how many times you typically have to go back and forth between target and quest hub in modern MMOs it's easy to forget what the hell you're even trying to do lore wise. It would be much easier to follow if the entire war was a quest and you just worked your way through with lore messages popping after quest stages are completed.
Now, both of these ideas are centered on how you gain XP in game right? WRONG! These ideas are ways to prevent the situation we're in now where you press "share quest" and it says "lol no." There are simply too many quests and too many quest hubs with too little memorable lore or locations to be able to even communicate exactly what you're working on to anyone else. I've been on Skype with Palmer as we both walked into the same quest hub at the same time and we still can't sync up quests. We've been trying to share quests for 20 levels and can't figure out the best way to do it. There's absolutely no way that a random dude in zone and I would ever be in a position to quest together. That's a shame. The idea of "Massively Multiplayer" to me is that there is a pool of people out there that you will encounter in your travels and share adventures with. It's so hard to "share adventures" because everyone is so out of sync with how many tiny little steps there are to every single zone.
What I'm proposing here is that we make quests longer, more involved, and way lower in number with wider level ranges and progressive rewards. Let's picture that Bandit War again. So, I'm out and about putting bandit encampments to the torch right outside town because it's one of the first parts of the quest and appropriate risk/reward for my level and gear. I'm a Priest so I would be a valuable member of a group or duo with my heals and buffs. A slayer who's 5 levels higher than I am sees me and says "Hey, Baromen. Are you working on the Bandit War?" "Yes, I am." "Would you like to help me kill officers at their headquarters? I could really use a healer." "Yes, I would." We group up. Even though he's 5 levels higher than I am and working on a much later part of the quest I'm able to join him and be of use while getting rewards of my own done. The quest section that we are working on gives a reward of 100,000 XP and a new weapon for level 40 characters the first time you finish it. After that you get a gold and xp reward for turning in additional "completions." We are having a great time and are very successful killing these officers at the HQ so we decide we'll finish it more than once. As we're doing this a Lancer (tank) asks to join. He's also working on the quest but could use help with the sentries at the entrance. We agree and go back and help him. I complete another part of the quest and now the 3 of us adventure together.
As we're killing officers I pick up an officer's sword. That sword goes into my "lore bag" or whatever it's called and I get a prompt that I probably should take a closer look at it. This is the start of a new quest! I can share that quest with my group easily and now I have to collect 3 officer swords to gain gold from the blacksmith who'd like to study how they are forged. Great!
If you're concerned about exploiting or boosting via this method there should be a way a professional writer could write their way out of that problem. Try to turn in a level 20 quest at level 1 and the NPC could laugh at you. "This gnoll fang must be a fake or you a thief because those gnolls would tear a rookie like you apart! Don't waste my time with your trickery." The completion and reward would stay in your quest log until you hit a level where the NPC would "believe" you. Then you could turn them in for the xp/reward. Maybe not the perfect solution, but it at least proves you could throw up barriers to exploitation without taking the fun out of grouping.
There's no reason why we can't have quests that last a whole zone and don't require so much travel between NPCs. That would mean that someone you see in zone could be added to your party and regardless of what you're working on the two of you could work together to achieve the same goal. It's time to take the best of what's out there and make a game that feels like an MMO to the old timers without alienating the new consumers. Are there any games that even seem to care about the social aspect of quest hubs? Nope. Here's to hoping that there are devs out there who see this problem like I do.
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