Global Quests

Today I shall talk about something called "Global Quests". It's a mish-mash of ideas based off my experience in gaming.

I think every MMO should have something called Global Quests, where the current server population is given a quest like "Collect 100X flowers " where X is the number of people online at the current moment.

Some qualities of a Global Quest

- Only one is active at a time

- Randomly chosen from a giant pool of quests so players cannot game the system


- Quests should be tied in the stuff that players do regularly like "Do X dungeons", "Do X Henry
Quests (Forsaken World)" "Win X PVP matches (Neverwinter)" for example.

- Quest objective is proportional to the current server population size

- It is completely optional to do, but,

- It has a server wide buff that should be worth doing (like 2x EXP for 1 hour, 10% more dmg for 1 hour etc), regardless of participation


- A new one begins once the current quest is completed, thus encouraging players to keep completing them to maintain several beneficial buffs.

- It has a leaderboard to show who's achieved the most for this Global Quest, and top ranked players will be rewarded (preferably with non-power items, or powerful consumables?)

- Players who participate and fulfill y% of the quest requirements will qualify for some form of reward (maybe a cache of random stuff, like in Neverwinter)

- Players who participate will receive Karma/Fame/Reputation/Influence/Community points (probably proportional to the % of quest requirements this player has achieved) . These points indicate how helpful a player is to the community. High points = player participates frequently and intensely in GQs, which benefit the community. Low points = you are either new, or a leech. Guilds can easily make good recruitment decisions based on this attribute, and judge player activity.

- Players may need to attain certain level of points to acquire cool stuff. Like need Z points to buy a cool unique mount, fashion, dye, consumable. Non-power stuff.

Why Global Quests?

- Bands the server together to achieve a common goal (like Uber Diablo in Diablo 2).
- Top players can compete for Karma points, rewards and bragging rights.

- New players/Alternates can leech on beneficial buffs that help them level up quicker.
- Gives players a reason to re-play certain content.
- Can design GQ to be a item/gold sink as well (Craft X items)
- Can design GQ such that lowbies have an edge for certain GQs, like donate X mats from a lowbie area. Lowbies will have a ready stockpile of lowbie mats ready for donating.
- Players generally like big buffs. 2x EXP, 2x gold, 2x drop rate. And rewards
- Keeps players playing to receive the buffs
- Leechers and helpful players can be better identified and recognised by the community.

Neverwinter has similar small events that occur in each zone, but they are additional quests on top of what needs to be done, which I think adds to the tedium of the game. And judging by the rewards and the rate of participation, people generally do not bother these events.

But let's say if I log in, and I only have time for either PVP, dungeon, or daily quests. If there is a global quest that says complete X dungeons, it may jolly well steer me towards dungeons for today, for a shot at the participation reward. Because the reward is random, it may turn out to be some good stuff. If I find a good party, then I might run dungeons all night to get onto the leaderboard for this GQ to win some cool stuff.

If I log in and have no idea what to do today because I'm completely maxxed and awesome, then GQ can nudge me one direction and maybe I will choose to be nice today and top the leaderboards and get some bragging rights. Like maybe the game system will announce "Thank you Chang for doing 50% of the work to trigger this 2x EXP for the whole server". How awesome is that for a maxed player?

Just some ideas. Anyone knows if there's any MMO that has a system like this?