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The Game -> RE: MQ's Low Popularity (5/22/2010 2:05:44)
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Since I seem to have found a bit of time on my hands at the moment, here are more thoughts on the fundamental structure of MQ. The more I think about it, the more I teeter towards the inclination that MQ is not as newbie-friendly as I feel it needs to be to not only attract but maintain an interested community. This brings me to the point of ranking quests, which are decently evident throughout MQ. As a new player, I want MQ to be able to grab my attention and keep me interested for a nice period of time. I want to be able to finish a quest and feel a sense of accomplishment and of progression. I want to feel that the end justifies the means and that the time I spent on a given release advances my cause towards whatever the goal of that quests is. In the cold plane that is reality, however, I am stuck with these ranking quests to unlock, most of the time, shops. This would be perfectly fine if it were not for my finding most of the items in MQ to contain minimal value. This is something I focused on in my earlier post, so I shall not go into detail here, but for the sake of a quick recap of the point I tried to get across, items just seem to be released for the sake of releasing items as opposed to fulfill a need or fill a niche.
How frustrating it then must feel to know that I spent hours upon hours on that ranking quest just to unlock a shop of items that are certainly good, but have minimal value in MQ because I can defeat 99.99% of the monsters anyways. An item is only as good as the monster it is being used on, and in MQ's situation, the monster base consists of mostly punching bags other than the occasional boss. As the new player, I am frustrated but move on to another quest. This time, I take the Energy Blade training class and my frustration is compounded due to monotony and low rewards. Since I am new, I am not yet a Star Captain so my frustration is further illuminated due to the restrictions on energy blades.
The point I am trying to get at is that ranking quests are indeed time consuming and need some restructuring. If the concept of ranking quests continue to be introduced, I would prefer some worthwhile incentive. AQ's Assassin class was one of the most frustrating quests roll-wise, but my interest was maintained due to the excellent storyline as well as the amazing Whispering Raiment armor, which filled a niche. It is just something nice to keep the player's interest while grinding out the quest and to provide an object of focus onto which they direct their attention. It gives them a legitimate reason to perform the quest, a tangible goal to extend their reach towards because, for those new players who happen to stumble upon a ranking quest, they may not be players for too long if they feel MQ does not make a good first impression when they get off the dropship.
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