Thursday, July 10, 2008

5 Things I Hate, Part 1: Mason Edition - Delivery Quests

Of all the things I imagine in my wildest high fantasy and science fiction dreams, delivering a letter to General Chamberlain probably ranks in my top 5. For whatever reason, every digital persona I have taken since I took my first hit of crack (see: MMOs) has been 1 part DHL delivery guy and 1 part hero. Better yet, some developers are pretentious enough to call these miserable missions content.

I, for one, would be happy if I never again had to backtrack 2 zones to tell some town politician about my progress so I can advance a chain. I can send billions of dollars, phat loots, and advertisements for gold farmers through the mail, but god forbid sending word of my exploits and receiving further direction via post; much less in a game world in which you fly spaceships.

Delivery quests are just such lazy development it hurts. Please for all that is good in this world, STOP MAKING DELIVERY QUESTS!

2 comments:

jeffe said...

The only time delivery makes sense is when it's really a quest to introduce you to a new contact...connecting you to the next zone or tier of content. Maybe there's a more interesting way? There was one game where quest updates came via radio...Tabula Rasa maybe? Resulting in less downtime running back and forth.

Rowl said...

Anarchy Online also had some decent delivery quests, but in the chain you generally didn't have to go back to the originator to report or pick up loot, and the point of delivery person would tend to give you the next leg too. Some of those were the absolute best and most interesting quests I've ever played.

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