Quest menu

[coarse holly]

A quest menu with a list of all available quests, which you can click on, that will show you the reward / location to start it.
My issue with most MMO's questing is that there is an obfuscation of the quests benefits, and where to even start one. For example, if you are playing FF14 and want to unlock a specific weapon mog, you need to google in order to find it.

I think a system similar to what Runescape has is a great solution, seeing all of the quests, and being able to click on them, seeing where to start them, and the rewards for completing it will help a ton.

[orchid quarry]

I'm torn. This is definitely a big QoL benefit, but part of why I'm so fond of RO and other classic MMOs was out of the joy of discovery.

That said, I fully recognize this bias is in large part due to nostalgia-vision, as well as the simple fact that wikis and YouTube weren't as prevalent back then.

[glacial gull]

I feel you! 😂 And I share the same opinion. I guess it's a very difficult question to answer and in the end it depends on how Phil wants the game to be.
A quest menu could be indeed very convenient - in my opinion too convenient, though. I personally hate this in newer games, that every single target or quest NPC is marked on the map (sometimes even showing the way) and you just have to stupidly follow some lines on the screen without the need of exploring and enjoying your surroundings. I personally always enjoyed running around, looking for certain NPCs or well hidden spots on the maps!
Or you just read it on some fan page or database! 😄

I started playing games when things like paper player's guides still existed and when everybody tried to learn online databases by heart lol
But it somehow slowed down the whole thing a bit (in a positive way) compared to that hyper pace I see in many games nowadays.
However, I think it doesn't really have priority at the moment and I'm going to play it anyway, regardless of whether there will be a quest menu in the future or not! xD

[pastel lintel]

Same. I'm a big discovery and exploration kind of gamer as well. I think this is what defines a good questing experience from a great questing experience. The sense of achievement gets bogged down if you just give someone everything and it just becomes another slideshow, go here and talk to this guy quest sequence.

I recently play tested on another old-school inspired MMO called Apogea around a month ago and they had a great questing system in place. Quests in Apogea are prompt-based. So NPC's would trigger a quest or unlock a certain feature if you physically typed and spoke certain keywords to them.

ex 1. Typing the word "task" or "quest" would give you a quest.

ex. 2. Typing the word "doll" to an NPC that was roaming around a house looking for her toy.

The more you spoke to the NPCs and learned about their needs and quests, the more the quest book updated, which gave the player more accuracy in clue finding.

Same reason as to why OSRS and other old-school games exist to this day is because they don't suffer from over documentation and keep things fresh with mystery.

Also a great boost in social interaction. You could be soloing and all of a sudden, you see a bunch of people trying to figure out a puzzle together. This is what makes the old design so much more immersive and special.

[coarse holly]

I understand what you are all saying, but I think you are conflating two things together, I’m not asking for in game quest guides, I’m just asking for a menu which holds the name of all the quests and their starting location / rewards;

And as you also pointed out migs, RuneScape is known for their quests, and they have this feature.

Being able to quickly look up “oh I really enjoyed this quest X, I wonder if there is a follow up quest” is a really nice thing to have, rather than being dependent on googling this information would be a big benefactor to quests in general.

Ff14 has a myriad of side quests, but the difference between ff14 and rs when it comes to questing, in my opinion, is that ff14’s quests feel pointless, they are difficult to find and start (some of pre-requisites which are difficult to find) and most of the time the rewards are absolutely terrible. Being able to quickly reference the quest you are interested in doing, seeing the requirements and rewards I think will help with that

I enjoy exploration, but I don’t think having a menu holding the quest names / start locations will hurt the exploration of the game. The quests them selves can incite the player to explore.

[pastel lintel]

Ok I see what you mean now. Thanks for shedding some more light on this! I agree with you on this as well. Being able to have a better front-facing indicator that a quest is worthwhile should be baked into the design. Doing a whole questline only to find out that it's pretty much just for a small amount of EXP would be poopy.

[coarse holly]

Oh yeah, and it kinda discourages you from doing more quests, at least for me, once you do like 5 quests that all give you basically nothing, you kinda get jaded to them , at least I did

[pastel lintel]

I have an idea that I'll illustrate in a little while. Could be an interesting way to spice things up 🤔

[coarse holly]

I’ll look forward to it

[pastel lintel]

Thoughts on something like this. First part of a quest without context could give you something like this.

and then maybe if you found some more contextual quest related things, the dialogue could update based on your characters acquired knowledge of the world

[pastel lintel]

Could even add the number of (Knowledge) clues for clarity 🤔, so you're not chasing after rumors.

[coarse holly]

I’m on vacation but when I get home I’ll throw some ideas in as well, but it’s definitely not bad. I like the concept

[pastel lintel]

It's got some legs but will ultimately be all on ✨️ The Will of Phil ✨️

[pastel lintel]

Refining the experience a little more. Some context stuff like locations could also be added. It kind of creates a character's memory journal as you learn more about the inhabitants of the world.