what drives me crazy about MMO are the repeatable quests you MUST do to get new gear. I would rather have a system mixing 3 things:

Crafting
Missions
Rewards

Let me explain. If i m somekind of armorsmith, making armors, suits etc for fighters, i would love to create my own mission, post it on a public board, asking a gamer to go kill some npc's (because i need somekind of specific loot from them ) for an hour.

During this hour, the items i m looking for (items i previously selected when setting up the mission ) that the gamer is finding will automaticly goes to me; when on the other hand at the end of the mission i will give a reward to him such as an armor ( depending on the difficulty of the mission, reward should be bigger or smaller )

it comes down to do somekind of trades, but with a mission point of view, where people using this system would get a bit more experiences because they contribute to helping each other in game.

This concept would create a new type of system, the gamers will organize the missions themself...

Mercenaries defending player controlled bases could do that with money and experience rewards. RP potential in this too, due to the backstabbing, infiltration and deception etc drama that could be tactics in order to successfully wage war on a rival guild.

So... Instead of an NPC telling us to go kill 30 tundra orangatang, we'll have to deal with players doing that too?

But, seriously, i'm all for player created content. But, when it comes to missions, either the method of creating the missions would probably be too complex and/or time consuming to make it worth thier while. If that's not the case, then you are essentially looking at always recieving the same generic missions, just from a different source.

Aye, some people in this world are closely connected or affiliated with Slavers, NCR, Enclave, Brotherhood of Steel or that cannibal Doc.Morbid (put some meat on them bones for the Doc man).

I agree though the playability is important. Because people get too bored too fast. If they are not hooked right away then the lifespan of the game will decrease due to person to person rumours.

I think posting requests for other players to see isn't a bad idea. Getting experience for fulfilling the quest could work too. But the player that accepts the request should be able to fulfill it anyway they want. If they already have enough of the item you were seeking when you place the request, they should be able to accept it and just turn in their stash. You shouldn't automatically get the items as they collect them.

Players should be able to breach the contract and the player who posted the request should have some means to collect damages. That could mean that a bounty is put on the offending player, or he is arrested if he goes near the town where the contract was created.

question is how would one decide the exp reward for player missions? give a friend a mission kill 10 rats and the reward: enough exp to get new perks, traits, whatever.

Perhaps some sort of list where you choose your mission, and fill in the blanks, that states how much exp that mission, in that area with certain creatures...., is worth?

I definitely want custom content like bounties and missions.

Concerning XP, I want XP to be something that is hard/rare/surprise to get. Keep the focus on the experience of unique content, and not the accumulation of XP.

Maybe a bump in rep with a faction/guild would be better than xp for custom missions. You can avoid the potential too of guildies helping each other fast level.

I think you are all discounting the power of money.

In other MMO's I did stuff like this all the time. I found a low level player and entered a beneficial agreement for them to sell tradeskill goods exclusively to me. Hired a group of people to take on an enemy faction.

An exp reward isn't too important when the players are getting appropriate exp doing the action that I want them too perform. The money and the way I phrase the mission is what makes it exciting and worth while.

I am a long time RPer and I also have alot of experience in Live Theater and DMing and people really respond to attention and a plot where they can make a difference. Unfortunately my experience with MMO's has always shown that any missions created by the game developers gets passed right over because no-one reads it, or because the developers did spend time on it but everyone is playing the mission for the second or third time so the story is old and un-genuine. No matter how involved devs make missions, they cannot equal a good ol fashion tale and interactions from other players handing out a chance to have some fun and get into character.

I love the idea of player made missions, and I will do them wither or not the Devs implement something for it.

That, of course is the reason why I play MMO's btw, Because alot of times it doesn't matter the Dev's do, I can make up stuff to do all the time. Other people and interacting with them is the fun part and I don't need the Devs to implement things for me to make it interesting.

Don't discount what you can do as a player. It isn't the Devs that make the game fun, It's the community. Another drunk conquistador conquering the governor's ball...

This is an amazing idea!

I agree with this, remove the experience gained for killing mobs and only reward or penalize with karma gain or drop.

Reward experience for completing quests, fabricate equippments or DMing ingame events etc.

I really like the idea the OP has, and feel like people should be able to make their own quests. Something like a flow chart to complete a quest would be awesome. As well as Roland's post, even in games like Black Ops it feels like your just farming experience trying to get to the next level and all the way to the end, rather then experience the game. Perhaps if experience is something hard to come by and random, where its more like finding five dollars rather then saving up hundreds of dollars and unimportant when compared with completing a task or helping somebody?
|Lockon!|