Quest The New Quests & My Thoughts

Just gonna say this right now, I don't mean to hate on any of the GMs, or anyone who put work into these quests... I realize they work very hard, and we, as a community, should do our best to support them as much as we can.

TL;DR at bottom

So... As all of you should know, the Corkus update just came out recently, and it's pretty amazing. The island / non-province is quite beautiful, and it's clear a lot of time went into it, as well as the new dungeon, many new mobs, boss altars, Uth Runes, etc. With this update came a total of five new quests, as well as three that were redone. I'd like to comment on them.

If I am correct, all quests made since the level thirty-three holiday quest have been created with a new system, which features moving NPCs, name detection, and most likely much more. Now, these features are quite great, and I'm sure that they could be implemented into quests quite well in order to make them more fun and interactive. But, I feel like they also may cause a few problems. With these new quests, I feel like they make it so that the quest creators don't need to be as creative. Before, players were the quest takers and NPCs were the quest givers, and weren't involved in quests. This has changed now, and in my opinion, the new quests we received this update are, well... Lacking.

First let's take a look at the quests that were redone. If my memory serves well, they were Creeper Infiltration, Dwelling Walls, and Out of my mind. I'm going to go through each of these and my thoughts on them.

Creeper Infiltration:
Better, Worse, or as good as before: Better
Why: No quest item required, there is now an animation for the creeper that we get to see, and there is a new and much better looking creeper cave.
Rating Before: 6/10
Rating now: 8/10

Dwelling Walls
Better, Worse, or as good as before: Better
Why: More interactive and fun to go through the house, it also now foreshadows about Corkus, which the player gets to experience at level 83, and has a bit more interesting dialogue... Not just someone who got lost in a house, but someone who was tricked into buying it by a Corkian Architect, yada yada yada.
Rating Before: 7/10
Rating Now: 8.5/10

Out Of My Mind... (oh boy)
Better, Worse, or as good as before: Worse
Why: Well, first of all, I'd like to say that the entire quest just seems to be showing off the new features. Literally all you do is talk to some kids, then find a "hidden" lab, which is very easy to find, follow a mad scientist around for like two minutes, and then you do a puzzle, which often glitches if you have more than one player in it, but I won't account this for the quest since it isn't intended. The previous version of the quest had so much more going on, and the story was more interesting, and even funny!
Rating Before: 8.5/10
Rating Now: 5/10

So, the first two quests, which barely seemed to use any of the newer features of the new system (the evident ones, that is) are great! I love them, and think more quests should be like these. The third quest on the other hand. It just seems to be a display of the features. Honestly, it seems kind of forced. What I am worried about is that more of this will happen. The new system makes it so that less creativity needs to be put into quests. Before a way had to be found the guide the player, making it interesting and up to them to lead their path, but now, the NPCs do it. I suppose I just worry that more of this will happen, and we will get quests that are less creative and just seem a little clunky, if not forced. I think this is also the case with the part in the new holiday quest where Nick is walking down the path to see you and ask if you've made any progress. It seems really forced at times and if not implemented properly, it truly makes me cringe.

The fiver newer quests are the same way I feel... They really just feel like a display of the newer features, and yes, they do have interesting plots, especially the one in Corkus surrounding the idea of the patriots and we get a tiny glimpse of some deep lore, referring to the realms war and the corruption. This doesn't make up for the lack of creativity, and overall while doing some of them I was honestly confused or bored. I'm not going to rate these new quests like the other ones because I don't want to criticize more than I already have in this thread.

Now by no means, and I a Game Master, and I doubt I will ever be one, and as said earlier, I am not trying to hate on anyone who worked on these quests. But, I look forward to the future of Wynncraft, and want to see it grow in a positive direction. Quests are one of the largest features of Wynncraft, I feel, and it's important that they are engaging to the player and relatively easy to follow. If more quests come out that seem to be little more than displays of the new features, which have, to me, are appearing forced and a little clunky (especially with Maxie in The Envoy Part I), then I think something has to change.

Who knows though, maybe I'm just a babbling idiot who doesn't understand what he is talking about. You tell me, I suppose... Thanks for reading.

TL;DR - NEW QUESTS AREN'T AS GOOD

 

yay




Also...

Wat?

 

I still don't get why so many people think the old out of my mind was better tbh. It was literally just walking back and fourth like 5 times and killing a boss that seemed really forced if I remember correctly. The new one has cool features, a cool puzzle, and better builds. I only think that people are mad because they changed the story into something else, not because it was a bad quest. This is just my opinion. On another note, I do agree with a lot of the other points you made.

 

Imo the way that npcs can participate in quests is more,well, realistic. I remember in the old Mansion delivery the guys after quest text was "I would leave if my legs worked!"

 

Yes, it makes it more realistic, this thread is saying that it shouldn't be an excuse to be less creative.

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The 7/10 is just to show the contrast in how the new version is better. The old one was pretty good as well, but didn't really have much that was interesting about it.

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The story and such is what makes quest fun, for me at least, and I'd assume for others. I don't really care how much running or killing I have to do, as long as the story is interesting and there's a purpose for what you're doing.

 

I feel like people are afraid of offending GMs when they are doing these types of threads.

If it's done the way you did it, by putting forward some really constructive criticizm, it is actually helping those same GMs.

I hope I speak for every GM when I say this; getting criticizm doesn't hurt us. It makes us stronger and better. When we get it presented in such a clear and polite way, as you did, we are actually happy to get some criticizm. We know that you can't live in a world where everyone loves the things you do.

 

I don't really understand your reasoning for giving Mansion Delivery a 7/10. It was a pretty boring quest. You went in a house, and went through a secret passage. That's not fun, compared to Dwelling Walls. Dwelling Walls is fun with an interesting mechanic.

 

Thank you for this. It means a lot to know that maybe I'll be able to help you guys in some way.

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I liked having to find the way to Garas's friend, but that's just me. Either way, it was an improvement.

 

I wouldn't really say that the quests are "less creative" for showing off the new features. The Envoy questline was about us putting the new features to the test to see if we could make a more interactive and engaging questline with the new system. It brought a bunch of new ideas to the table. If anything, that part is MORE creative.

What I would argue is "less creative" is having two quests with large walking sequences. And that is something to definitely keep in mind. While the sequence at the beginning of The Envoy was long, it was meant to be a bit of a flashy introduction to Corkus. I figured we wouldn't be doing too much of it so it would be fine. I hadn't realized how much it was being put to use in other quests, which lead to our current predicament.

But I think it isn't just that we used it too much, or that it's too long, but that there also isn't much fun stuff to do while you travel. Heck, that was an issue we even tried to tackle all the way back in Canyon Guides with the avalanches but we kind of forgot along the way with this update.

So while I don't think the best way to describe the problem here is "lack of creativity", there definitely are some issues that we need to tackle here if we want to do more NPC following in the future. Thank you for your feedback!

 

But story doesn't last as long as other stoofe

 

*shrugs* I put down what I put down, the new version is better regardless.

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You're welcome, and yeah, you got my meaning basically down to a tee. I'm not good at explaining things.

 

So you prefer the new version of OOMM?

 

• Yea

 

I do too, its just contrary to what they previously said

 

I'm not fond of the new version, no. I mean the quest "Dwelling Walls" is better.

 

I think its better, but it doesn't matter

 

The quality of the quest matters, we're allowed to have differing opinions though. ;)