Tobold's Blog
Thursday, December 05, 2019
 
Questing

The difference between a toy and a game is that with a toy you decide yourself how you are going to play with it, while a game has things like rules and win conditions. However, in computer games there exists an in-between thing, often called a sandbox, which still has a bit more rules than a toy, but less than a game. And because some players feel a bit lost without the directing framework of a game, there is the concept of quests; they allow you to play more like a game by following the quests and getting the rewards, or you can ignore the quests and play more like a sandbox.

I have to say that I like quests in general, if they are well made. So it was a disappointment to me when Wizards of the Coast recently removed daily quests from Magic Duels, and abandoned all support for it. I still don’t like its successor, Magic Arena, because it has far too limited PvE. So, although I already had all the cards, I was still doing Magic Duels quests, even if I couldn’t actually use the gold those earned. I just found it more interesting to play towards a more specific goals, rather than playing whatever.

In World of Tanks I also tend to do missions, rather than playing whatever tank I feel like. While this month there is no Top of the Tree event, which I tended to do every month this year, there are lots of other holiday events. I finished my Renegade “half a challenge” early and am now doing the tank rewards missions every day, although these are particularly easy. Now Wizards of the Coast gave every player all the cards of Magic Duels before removing the daily quests. And I was thinking that if Wargaming gave me every tank in World of Tanks and removed all missions, I would probably stop playing. Without these little goals these games are simply less fun to me. How about you?

Comments:
Those grinding quest are both not fun, and pushing me to play more. Two exemple :
- World of tanks : At some point, I remark I strongly prefer low level tank, than higher level tank match ( = better player, more codified role and longer time to unlock the true potention of a tank). This realisation made the game far more fun for me, and I enjoyed it far more - while I was finding the game more and more boring until this realisation. But I also stopped playing 1 month later after 9 months of play - I still dabble in sometimes.
- a F2P tactical shooter : I played this game for 4 months - starting during closed beta, loving it - but I found the grinding to unlock better weapon tiring. I bought 2 end-game weapon loved the new gameplay it open, and stop playing after 1 month.
 
I'm saddened to hear Magic Duels is finished. Thankfully, the game seems to still be downloadable on Steam. I always preferred to play "Multiplayer" with the paper game and play against the AI for something more relaxing. I loved that gamified version of the game's economy, where you could just play to win cards instead of sinking hundreds into the game every quarter.

I hope they release a limited app or something; a version of the game that's less intense about the treadmill and more about just playing cards.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home
Newer›  ‹Older

  Powered by Blogger   Free Page Rank Tool