Quests: Tasks vs Text
 

Looking to get a feel for whether people prefer plain text quests vs tasks.

Feel free to respond with a one word preference. (or more)

(Is there a way to setup a poll here without being a mod?).

-Jsr

Tasks offer PC's a log and fancier method of quest handling. When it all breaks down those are the only added benefits I can think of, since everything else (behind the scenes) can be done with text + perl scripting (signals, qglobals, etc.).

Tasks take away from the immersion somewhat (my opinion).

Task only take from immersion when the quests they give end up being:
-kill 27 orcs
or
-collect 12 goblin rings

yes they are very useful for just keeping track of your assignment, like :
-Discover what happen to captain Zeld

which doesn't actually specify what you need to do, and the task can be updated when player achieves a certain point in the story line intended for the quest, without giving away hidden quest objectives and direct hint like "go to that zone to loc x,y and hail bla)

I am interested in reading more responses about this.

IMHO both types work well together. The boring kill x y's should go into the task system and problem solving / story based quests should be hand crafted via perl.

As a developer I prefer tasks because they allow for a clean way to track player progression via what tasks they have completed (opposed to using qglobals).

Also they are far superior for any quest that has multiple steps that need to be completed in a specific order involving multiple NPC's.

I do feel they tend to lessen immersion as well but really as stated above that is dependent on how you write them.

Finally, I think players like having that little task window to as a reminder of what needs to be done and a goal to achieve.

Actually Chaos, it's still my opinion that tasks removes one from the immersion that is involved in text based quests regardless of the task objective. Heh, appreciate the desire to debate my opinion though?

Personally i have always hated the task system. On live i loved reading through the quest text regardless of how mundane the ultimate task would be. I feel like the task system removes players from any investment in their characters and in the world, and they just take the world of warcraft approach where u dont even read the quest, look @ the task and go about doing it. the way i see if people dont want to read the quest text to figure out what they have to do, then they should go back to WoW :P (or any other current gen mmo these days ><)

what i am trying to say - treat task window as a journal that keep track which part of the quest you on - this is every way identical to keeping quest notes on a peace of paper next to your pc - quest journals like that was in games since Bauldurs Gates. It doesn't have to contain spoiling or simplified information - its just the notes your character wrote down.
The quest itself can be as complicated and puzzling as you like.

well the task window doesn't take that away from you. Just because the task window says :
"Discover the origins of Green Book" - doesn't mean you have a clue what needs to be done if were not reading what the hell NPC was talking about.

WoW quest journal is way more straight forward with putting ??? on the map and near detail instruction what to do to complete the quest which I agree is somewhat retarded.

In other words - task manager is a TOOL - what you make out of it is up to you

oh i agree. i think personally i just find dealing with perl script easier and thats why i preference perl over tasks as a dev. tho as a player i still found the task window detracted from eq. yes its a visual game. but so much was conveyed through text. i always liked having the spiral notebooks that i kept my notes in as opposed to the game doing it for me. so i guess thats where my preferences come from.

edit posting from phone @ work: i agree with how u describe the wow quest journal