What would make quests in MMORPGs better?

Question

You have fetch quests, delivery quests, kill x monster quests...

What would make these better? What would make a better quest?

Answer 1

A most excellent question!! My favorite quests are those which have multiple parts spanning several different types of quest. For instance...first you need to go to this person and give them this letter. They will give you a pattern to return to the first NPC. The first NPC will give you a list of the materials you need to retrieve and where to find them/how to obtain them. Once you obtain the items you would need to craft them into the pattern. Then the first NPC would give you another letter to take to someone else in exchange for some reagent. This third NPC would send you on another quest to obtain his favor and then would give you the reagent. Taking the reagent back to the first NPC, he would have you take both the item and reagent to some druid out in this area who would consecrate it. Once consecrated it would need to be placed on an altar and some certain spell cast upon it, which will destroy the item but bring into existance a portal that you must go through. Going through the portal you find yourself in a maze and hear that there are three artifacts needed in order to exit the maze. You need to journey through the maze, filled with traps and creatures, and find all three items. Reaching the middle of the maze you would need to set them up in a certain order to make a statue or something. Touching the statue and meditating on it for a couple moments it would begin to glow, you would be ported out of the maze and into a treasure room of sorts...or reward room, where you'd be able to choose 2-3 rewards from among a collection of 12-20 items.

Or one of my biggest pet peeves is when I walk into the wizard's tower and he tells me that he has been having nightmares of his archrival and he wants me to kill his archrival and bring me the staff. So I go, kill the guy, grab the staff, and return it to him. Just as I'm leaving someone else comes in and he tells them he is having nightmares and wants them to kill the guy and bring the staff. I have to turn around and say..."uhhhh, you've got the staff right there. I just gave it to you. You told me that now you can sleep in peace..." So unique quests with unique people should only be able to be performed once...the grand warlord that you killed should remain dead unless he has an entourage of clerics raising him...in which case "looting his head" should not work.

I guess my main point is that quests in RPGs should involve roleplay...as that is what the games are SUPPOSED to be all about. They need to fit. If one faction raids the capital of another faction and kills the king...I would think the country would go into mourning and a new king would need to arise. The people of the faction wouldn't just say "oh well, he'll respawn in a few"