Telling a story without quest text
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 9th 2009 at 1:00PM
But I can see Tyl's friend's point: games are much less about telling these days and more about showing. You might understand how, if you've never played an MMO before, reading the quest text can take you right out of the game, rather than running off with an NPC or having the game show you rather than just tell you what to do. And Blizzard is getting there: later in the thread Slorkuz points out the recent Afrasiabi interview, and talks about how Alex mentions new ways of doing quests. For example, the quest team is trying to do a quest with no text, or direct players' attention without actually telling them, "look here." Text is the easiest and most basic way to help players accomplish goals, but as the game moves on, even the developers realize it's not the most elegant or immersive way to do it.
Filed under: Odds and ends, Quests, Lore, NPCs
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Jason Oct 9th 2009 1:07PM
I don't understand. Is this an announcement of moving away from text quests, just an observation, or...?
kabshiel Oct 9th 2009 2:33PM
It's a warning: lazy, illiterates play this game too.
Olicon Oct 9th 2009 5:11PM
It's an editorial, an opnion, and nothing else.
With that said, I don't see what's wrong with quest text. Short of full voice over, text is just another form of storytelling. People just need to get some more patience and enjoy good writing. If you don't like texts, then RPGs might be a bad genre for you.
Also, do you really want a 5 minutes in game cinematic for "we have too many wolves around here, go kill 15 of them"?
jbodar Oct 9th 2009 6:32PM
@Olicon
C'mon, wouldn't it be awesome if every quest started with the same level of intro as ToC (pre-patch)?
/sarcasm
devilsei Oct 10th 2009 12:09PM
I gotta agree, keep the quest text in please, just imagine this...
NPC: Across the expanse of the Northshire abbey, near and inside of the Echo Ridge mines, kobolds have taken root and are stripping away all they can get their hands on. though they have not attacked us as of yet, there is nothing stopping them from doing it tomorrow, or the next day. We are pinned between them and the wolves to the north, and defias to the east. Quick young one, go and clean out these vermin that threaten our safety!
Now, you're thinking you are gonna get some epicly sweet loot cause that was SPOKEN! Not read. You run out, slaughter the poor peaceful guys (except for the defias of course), and return, and get handed a bunch of no-stat whites... all that hyped up spoken dialogue for just that? People will be disappointed. You add in an introductionary scene for these guys when you accept the quest ala Aion, and its reaaaaaally going to raise expectations (and exponentially thus, increase disappointment).
Nick Oct 9th 2009 1:08PM
I don't know, Jason. Just be quiet and everything will be okay.
Hitek Oct 9th 2009 1:09PM
I hope they can figure out a new way to relay information. I've never had anything against the Lore and the story, but I DREAD reading quest text and as a matter of fact with the invention of Quest Helper and Carbonite Quest... I don't think I've really read any quest text unless I was completely stuck and even then I'd usually head over to wow-head.com or something.
Maybe I'm weird but I don't play games to read paragraphs
Lagavulin Oct 9th 2009 1:16PM
Yeah, screw reading. Math too. I don't like freaking numbers on my items. At least now when I want to know if something's an upgrade, I can just see if all that gibberish is mostly green or mostly red.
I wish they would get rid of all the words and all the numbers so we could just mindless kill stuff. It's only, like, 99 percent mindless and that last bit really brings me down, ya know?
Adamanthis Oct 9th 2009 1:56PM
@Lagavulin: It doesn't have to be about whether reading is good or bad. I like reading novels, and do take time to read quest dialogues, but that doesn't mean that they are the most engaging form of interactive fiction I have ever encountered. A good novel can feel far more immersive than even a great video game, so this isn't about any dislike of text on my part.
I remember being blown away by the first levels of Warcraft III, running around with Arthas fighting orcs as schoolteachers asked us to find lost kids. It felt very immersive. For the medium of an MMORPG is a dialogue of quest text is the best way to convey a story? I don't think it is - active, voice-acted NPCs and an interactive environment do more for me than quest dialogues, which often feel arbitrarily compartmentalized and disconnected to the actual action of the game.
That isn't to say that a detailed text quest description doesn't have its place, as the two are in no way mutually exclusive.
Lagavulin Oct 9th 2009 2:10PM
@Adamanthis: I think the real issue here is not whether listening to voice-acting or reading quest text is more immersive. You're right--both can be immersive. I think the real problem is the content of the quests. That's where Blizzard needs to step it up. People wouldn't feel like skipping reading them if they weren't (with a few exceptions) so mediocre.
Adamanthis Oct 9th 2009 2:27PM
I think a lot of the quality is hindered by the medium. There's just not that much you can do with that little text box to convey all that needs to be conveyed. The flow of is a straightjacket compared to what they have started doing to tell stories in this game.
Imagine a redesigned Westfall, where instead of reading about how the farmers got driven out and being asked to kill 10 harvest shredders, you report to Moonbrook only to be besieged by Van Cleef, who drives the townfolk into retreat and unleashes the harvesters across the countryside. Over the course of the zone, you help farmers reclaim their farms and finally defeat Van Cleef in the Deadmines.
There are a lot of different methods that could be used in concert to tell that story - including - voice acting, phasing, scripted NPC events, quest objectives, and quest text. It's essentially the same story, but by using all the tools at their disposal, it can be told in a much more engaging way.
Eyhk Oct 9th 2009 3:38PM
Gotta agree with you Adamanthis, but the technical challenges in actually implementing that kind of story advancement is just massive.
In Classic the basic strategy was that everything is status quo, the only thing that verifies you are advancing in storyline is the grats text, loot, and the following quest sending you somewhere else, which is also what pretty much everybody else did before. In Sunwell, the daily quest advancement was an attempt at implementing advancement but honestly it was a bit far from immersement. With phasing, they can actually change the environment to advance the storyline, but now there is a gap between before and after characters that can't easily be connected. And of course, simply putting everybody on the same page and forcing the advancement will dislocate your new characters since they don't get to experience the previous content.
I think the logic behind Cataclysm and using an expansion in a way to force advancement on the old world is a great way overall to advance the storyline, as long as they are able to keep the story fluid for new players. Complete immersion imo, will only be possible in a single-player RPG.
tim Oct 9th 2009 3:41PM
I totally agree with the OP. I don't play this game to read paragraphs. I play it to be immersed in a world different than my own. And if reading paragraphs enhances that immersion, than I'll just have to read para... OH S-
Cyanea Oct 9th 2009 3:57PM
Because reading is bad, right? Mayb if blizz rote quest txts lyke this, u'll all read.
I would HATE voice-read quest text because I can read much much faster than you can talk. When I come across a new quest, reading the text takes all of two seconds. Hardly immersion breaking.
Big Shoe Oct 10th 2009 7:08AM
I agree with Cyanea completely. I usually read the text in five seconds, then spend another thirty twiddling my thumbs through a ponderously slow voice over. Another point that should be made here is that in your mind's eye, the voice and inflection are always perfectly matched to the character, whereas most video game voice acting ranges from mediocre to downright awful. There are exceptions, like BioWare games and the voice work of Jennifer Hale, Mark Hamill, Keith David, Ron Perlman and others, but they are few and far between. Good voice acting adds to the immersion, but bad voice acting breaks it entirely. Voice is a great option for those who want it, but I generally prefer text.
RogueJedi86 Oct 9th 2009 1:13PM
Well at least we can all move to Star Wars: The Old Republic, where all your quests are fully voiced. :)
Megamoo Oct 9th 2009 1:34PM
Yuck at least I can skim instant quest text, voiced info I'd have to listen to fully
LostOne Oct 9th 2009 1:53PM
I agree. It could be great to see SWTOR. Rather than it being "quest text" it's more like a conversation or storytelling. Should help the player feel more immersed in the world and their character. Plus from the demo videos I've seen, you can actually respond to things in the "quest" and change the outcome of the story for that event. So you might turn in a quest and depending on how you answer, you might gain rep with that faction and they reward you, or you may piss them off and have a fight and kill them.
jfofla Oct 9th 2009 1:56PM
If you think we are "ALL" moving to Star Wars, I think you are in for a surprise as yet another WOW Killer fails to dent this game.
Graham Oct 9th 2009 4:29PM
If any game could kill WoW, it's this. And I have never ever said that before. This game is a big deal.
Maybe.
But still...fully-voiced quest conversations with dialogue trees (a la Mass Effect/ KOTOR) is going to be awesome. :)