As magnificent as I expect this game to be, doesn't this kind of outlook scare anybody? Nextgen systems like the PS2 have enormous untapped amounts of power, and nobody's using it to do anything really, honestly *different.* I just bought Star Wars: Starfighter. Isn't it just a simpler, better-looking Colony Wars? And isn't *that* just a slight remake on the classic Wing Commander formula, found on the PC a decade and half ago?

It's just how like every fantasy novel ever is directly based of the stuff found in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. I want to see true innovation, and I'm not finding it. And it frightens me.

-Eightball, encouraging everyone to think outside the box!

Now, there are several things that game creators have added to games in order to help that enjoyment be realized. Graphics, plot, character development, story, game mechanics, music, even controller lay-out are all devices used to attempt to help the gamer complete the game's task(s) with a relative sense of having experienced fun. The difference between Street Fighter II and Final Fantasy II are just a varying of the above attributes and it is the varying usage of such attributes which creates and defines genres.

What are you really concerned with in regards to these "fetch-quests" in games?

Lots of gamers argue over these things saying things such as: "Medieval games are boring." "The graphics (or sound) sucked." "Character X had no reason to want to go save that town." "The menus were hard to navigate."

The thing is, from what you have written it sounds like you don't really have a problem with any of these on the whole. Rather you are complaining about having to undertake the task(s) at all and not so much about the what, when, why, etc. However, the game is the task(s). People have begun to think of games all wrong. The quests or tasks aren't just stuck in to drive the story along as you seemed to say. Story is there to facilitate the tasks the game requires you to undertake. You aren't going to have much fun with all the other stuff if there is nothing to do with it in the first place. Keeping with the same example, story is a big part of RPGs so a RPG with a story that does not properly accompany the tasks the game presents is not done as well as it could have been.

So anyway, if it is indeed the task itself you don't like; instead of just telling us you don't like the task, regardless of all the other attributes and accoutriments designed to put fun into them; describe what it is about the task in particular that was distasteful. Is it the idea of having to collect something; having to save someone; having to deliver something; having to kill a certain monster? I think you will find your dislike has less to do with the actual task or quest objective but rather a change that has occured, for whatever reason, in your preference of the degrees to which the afore mentioned various attributes are applied to a given task.

In the end though, you call ZOE an "amazing" game and then seem to refer to it's tasks as something just short of being the bane of your existence. "Are we forever doomed...," as you put it. If you really find it so amazing, just enjoy the game and move on!

Well, that was long winded. If you print it I'll try to give you a cookie.

AL

Fetch quests...I doubt we'll ever be rid of them. I mean, they're a purely natural cause and effect thing sometimes, and then there's the times when they're obnoxious and have no connection to themselves. A natural fetch quest, for example, is that you have to fetch the keys to your car before you can drive it. An unnatural fetch quest is one where, oh, you need to find a piece of cheese to feed an old man to get a key to unlock a chest to get a book to find the right page with the magic words that move the boulder out of the path. Those unnatural ones are the ones that piss off RPG gamers, and they don't put nearly as much into the subtle natural quests.

So, well, both quests are there to stay, because the natural ones happen...naturally, and the unnatural ones add a frustration difficulty and/or extend game length. So, therefore, unless they can pack a game with logical fetch quests and still have 40+ hours, then there will always be those annoying chain fetch quests that everyone dislikes.

--Opty

First, about yesterday's topic and how you said Xenosaga shouldn't be made (whatever, I don't have your response in front of me): I've been reading the Shadow trilogy lately (about to finish Shadow of the Hegemon). For those of you who don't know, Orson Scott Card wrote Ender's Game and the continued to write the rest of the Ender saga. Then he wrote Ender's Shadow and started the Shadow trilogy which discusses the events that happened during Ender's Game and a bit afterwords.

In many ways, Shadow of the Hegemon is to the last three books in Ender's saga as Xenosaga looks to be to Xenogears. However, even though I've read all Ender games before and I know what happens ultimately, I don't know how things happened the way they did. OSC was able to tell a story that stands alone, dependant of the Ender saga with a message of its own, even though everyone knows Peter became Hegemon and united the world in the end. People also see the Ten Commandments but they usually already know the story. Same with every other famous piece. You already know what happens but there are always new ways to tell the same story.

The story of Xenosaga, which will begin more than 10,000 years before Xenogears, will be that of the people of Earth, the discovery of the Zohar Modifier and the creation of the Eldrige. You can read about all that in Perfect Works, it tells it all. There are even websites online for those who don't speak Japanese. However, I would still gladly play the game. That's it, I guess. I think that the analogy to George Lucas is justified, after all it's the same team. What you mentioned in your column is the legal issues that will have to be dealt with, that's all. The story is legitimate, even if having it created not by Square isn't.

Second (remember that first up there?), you should switch your server to support GetRight. It's really annoying trying to d/load the 13MB FFX trailer and not being able to because you get disconnected. Give all of us with a 56K (or even less...) modem!

Zohar Gilboa

I could stand fetch quests...if they didn't make them so damn obvious. People complain all the time about "deus ex machina" in terms of endings or plot points, but what about in fetch quests? Example:

"Oh, the bridge just happened to fall apart while you walked into town. Unfortunately, that was the ONLY way to Town B, and the bridge-maker's son is lost in the caves to the south..."

Sometimes, I wonder if the script writers take their jobs seriously, or if the actual script was only two pages long and they needed to waste space. I wonder this because normal writers (of novels) wonderfully incorporate "fetch quests" into the actual plot their novels:

"The police raided Charlie's house, but he was already gone. Frank knew they had been close to ending this horrible goose chase, a recently lit cigarette was testament to that. On the table was a letter from Charlie which mockingly dared Frank to follow him to the abandoned warehouse across town..."

What I'm trying to say is that it IS possible to incorporate (or at the very least, disguise) fetch quests into actual character or story development; we just haven't seen it yet. All we can hope is that these writers are getting better after each game, and not that they're following some arbitrary set of guidelines for games.

-Red Raven

This is a great topic that my mind kept wandering to throughout my classes today. Of course, I should have been focused on the class but you know...Anyway what I kept thinking was even if some average Joe had an incredible idea for a game, how is it possible to pursue it? If you have an idea for a movie, somewhat adequate directing skills, friends, and a camera, you can make your own movie and show it off at a indie film festival. By the same token if you are in a local band, it is not terribly difficult to record a demo and, there are tons of indie record labels. The point I am trying to make is that one of the reasons that there are so many cliche's in video games might be that it is not the easiest field to get into as compared to some of the other arts. You at least need some programming skills and graphic design capibilities. Then, you need a development kit which costs more than it would to make a indie movie.

Plus, today's higher-powered video games don't lend itself to a singular artistic vision that a musicians or indie movie directors have. It takes a ton of people today to make a game than compared to the NES days.

Anyway, I have a British Lit test to study for. Chris, I don't know if this makes as much sense as it did in class, but what do you think?

Dwayne T.

Recently, I was offered a job at my university. It would entail getting the source code to one of EA's hockey games and modifying it to add some information about concussions. Basically, when someone would get hit, the announcer would cut in and say something like "he's going to be out for six months and he might even need a CAT scan!" Then they would get kids to play the game and see if they played real hockey more safely. For various reasons, I turned the job down. But it brings up an interesting issue.

A lot of us here would go to great lengths to get in the game industry. But what if that involved working on a really dumb project, or even worse, on edutainment? Are we not morally obligated to eradicate the world of such evils? Would YOU make edutainment? What if your brother was making edutainment? Would you stop him?

These are serious issues with profound consequences, my friends. You would do well to heed them.